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The details of it are clear enough. We had a thirty day affair and confused it with love. You always feel love when you’re inside an affair because by their nature they are insulated and outside the bounds of life. Things like work, friends, houses; they can’t touch an affair. That's why the French call it a “coup de coeur” – a taken heart. And why the English call it an affair – a dressy occasion of determined length. I have a flair for them. Something small taken from my Mother. A parting gift. I learned to love what comes outside life, to savour it like oranges in winter, to help the other person believe in it as strongly as I do in the moment. I am convincing. Under the heavy brocade tent of an affair, I am dangerous and dramatic. Coarse burgundy spun with gold. I take hold of people, force my mouth on theirs, push my hands around their body, take no notice of the rain. I order champagne in small wine houses and pretend, even if there’s no reason, we are about to be caught together. The two lovers. I proclaim that I will not care. That I will challenge their lover, their partner, yesterday’s news, who I have replaced and dethroned. I stroke their skin, fiery with conviction, and tell them that I will carry them away with me or die trying. I illustrate my love with “imagine ifs”. I wouldn’t like to think that my affairs are formulaic, but I can admit a certain sameness about them. Like favourite dishes that share a spice, a familiar fragrant undertone, and no matter what the ending I remember them with the same longing for seconds. With you, I will crack the cardamom pod between my teeth and taste the fullness of its aroma, grimace with the bitterness of its full potency. But not yet.
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