The Seducer (22 page)

“Watch out!” Ana screamed when the car swerved.

But that only made Michael laugh. He was thrilled that his girlfriend had been receptive to his overture. It meant that she might be ready for his next move. “Supposing that Rob found out about us...” he began.

“Let's not spoil this beautiful day by talking about that again,” Ana interrupted him.

“Hold on. I wasn't going to say anything negative,” Michael countered. “I was just going to tell you that even in the worst case scenario, if we got caught, if I moved to your subdivision the kids could just walk back and forth from our house to Rob's. That would be so much easier for them than our current arrangement, with me living thirty minutes away.”

Ana considered his statement. Although the subject still made her queasy, she saw his point. “Well, I suppose it would be less of a disaster if we lived in the same neighborhood,” she conceded.

Her remark had been cautious, but Michael saw it as a local triumph in the battle to make Ana his wife. “I'd love to land a job here this spring,” he repeated as he parked the car in the Visitor's Parking lot of Cranbrook Academy. Even from the glimpse they had had, the campus looked breathtakingly beautiful. Its manicured lawns, ivy covered buildings and big stretches of woods called to mind Emerson's vision of transcendental idealism. “After school, I'd come home around four o'clock, to spend time with your kids. That would give you one or even two more hours to paint in peace before dinner,” Michael said, sweeping with a dreamy gaze the beauty of the natural surroundings. He then got out of the car and opened the door for Ana with an air of gentlemanly courtesy that she found both quaint and romantic. “And during the nights when Rob has the kids,” he continued, “maybe we could take ballroom dancing classes together. You know, salsa and meringue, since you told me you love Latin music. But of course, for now, that's only a dream.”

At the mention of ballroom dancing, Ana couldn't help but imagine herself swept up in her lover's arms to the melodious flow of the sensual music she enjoyed: so tastefully abandoned, so elegantly seductive, the very rhythm of desire.

“Either that or we could go out clubbing every night!” Michael punctured her fantasy bubble.

“No thanks!” Ana said as they walked hand in hand down a path leading to a gorgeous contemporary building with long columns marked “Art Museum.” They climbed up its majestic set of steps, which were adorned by beautiful nude sculptures.

“These people have great taste in art,” Michael commented about the female statues in particular.

“And wealth,” Ana remarked, equally impressed.

“They probably pay teachers about 50,000 bucks a year, beginning salary,” Michael made a highly educated guess, since he had researched the matter a week earlier. “Enough to feed a family of four quite comfortably,” he turned to Ana. Her expression struck him as tense. “If they don't blow it on expensive jewelry and clothes,” he took this opportunity to tug at her sleeve and pull her towards him.

As they kissed, Ana felt like she was being energized by her lover's hopes, floating upon his dreams. She could hardly believe that such a romantic, passionate, attractive and intelligent man was so madly in love with her. “It's just not fair,” she said afterwards.

“What's not fair?”

“That I get the perfect lover while other women have to settle,” Ana replied with a smile.

“Yeah well, other women aren't as wonderful as you are,” Michael returned the compliment. But within seconds, a dark cloud seemed to pass over his luminous features. “Sometimes I feel like our love's so perfect, it's almost unreal. I'm afraid we'll do something, or that something will happen, and we'll blow our chances to really taste passion in life.”

Ana searched his face for more clues. “What are you afraid of! If we truly love each other, then we should be able to handle anything life throws our way.”

“I know, Baby. But what we have feels so right that I sometimes fear we'll screw it up somehow.”

“Me too,” Ana admitted. Whenever people back in Romania used to praise someone's children, the parents would spit three times into the air, so as not to jinx them. She had caught herself doing that several times when she thought of their affair. It was perfect yet fragile, like a pleasant dream from which she never wanted to wake up. “I hope you'll get a job here,” she wished out loud, to show him that she too wanted to keep their dream alive.

Michael crouched down. He took a little twig from the grass and began sketching something in a patch of dirt.

“What are you drawing, little boy?”

“Lookie here,” he said as Ana sat down on the grass next to him.

“A square?” she observed. “That's very impressive. Maybe they should devote a whole wing of the museum to your artwork.”

“You're cute,” he commented, still completely absorbed by his task.

“What do these letters stand for?” Ana asked, noticing that at each comer of the square Michael had sketched a letter: C, S, M, F and H in the middle, at the intersection point of the two diagonals.

“I'm drawing a relationship square,” he explained. “C stands for compatibility. S, for sex. M for money issues. F for fidelity. And the H at the center for health. Those are the most important qualities that make or break any romantic relationship. I put health in the middle since if you don't have that, you can't really enjoy anything else.” Michael traced an oval around the S and the C on top, then another one around the F and the M at the bottom of the square. He pointed to the top oval. “These are the main qualities we have. We're compatible as all hell and have perfect sexual chemistry,” he took this opportunity to seal his comment with a long kiss. He then indicated the lower oval with the twig. “With Karen, we have a healthy relationship to money. We're both frugal, unlike some people,” he looked meaningfully at his girlfriend. “And we have fidelity.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She never cheated on me,” he clarified.

Ana shook her head. Was Michael that clueless or was he just pretending? “Correct me if I'm wrong, but it takes two to have fidelity.”

“That's true. But if I had had the top oval with her, total compatibility and great sex, we'd have mutual fidelity as well,” Michael smoothly worked his way around that obstacle.

As they walked hand in hand on the manicured lawn next to the museum, it suddenly occurred to Ana that her lover had missed the most obvious aspect of any romantic relationship. “What about
love
?”

“What about it?”

“Where's love in your brilliant scheme? I don't think you're quite ready to have your own talk show, Dr. Michael,” she said, amused by this glaring omission.

Her lover smiled knowingly. “Love's everything, Baby. It's not one single part of the square or even all the elements put together. Love's always greater than the sum of its parts. Mysterious yet real. And you know it when you feel it,” he said, looking adoringly into her eyes.

As Ana drove to their usual rendezvous spot, an outdoor parking garage right outside a circular restaurant with a slowly spinning tower, she spotted Michael running towards her car. His step was buoyant and his face radiant. He smiled with glee from ear to ear like a child each and every time he saw her. Ana simultaneously honked the horn and stepped on the breaks, worried that, in her own eagerness and haste, she might run him over.

As soon as she got out of the car, she felt the warmth of her lover's embrace, his lips pressed upon hers. Then Michael's muscular arms lifted her off the ground, gathering momentum as he began twirling her high up in the air. Ana's peals of laughter and half-hearted protestations rang in his ears, exciting him further.

“You look so damn hot in that miniskirt! How much time do we have?” Michael asked with impatience, putting Ana down gently, only to grab her and nestle her into his arms again.

“Only two hours, unfortunately. I told Rob that I'm going to a
brief
meeting with Tracy,” Ana emphasized the word “brief.” “Because, you realize, I can't keep on telling him that I'm seeing clients interested in buying my paintings when there's no additional money to back it up.”

“That's alright. We have enough time for lunch and a little afternoon delight,” Michael focused on the positive.

Given his priorities, the afternoon delight came first, followed by lunch. As they were walking towards the restaurant, Michael deliberately lagged behind, to watch his girlfriend walk in front of him. He was surprised by the sharp contrast between Ana's youthful appearance and her shuffling, uneven gait. “Do I have to teach you how to walk?”

She turned around with a puzzled smile. “What to you mean?”

“You shuffle along like an old lady. Or a geek,” he said, emulating her walk, dragging one foot on the ground more so than the other, with his arms dangling by his side.

“That's because I am a geek!” she cheerfully retorted.

“You may be a geek on the inside, but on the outside you're one hot mama. You need to walk more like this,” Michael swung his hips to demonstrate the confident gait of models on the runway.

“Very sexy. Now let me demonstrate how you walk,” Ana turned the tables on him. She proceeded to mimic Michael's confident swagger, her chin up high, her back arched, moving her upper body with exaggerated turns.

“Fair enough,” he smiled mechanically, not amused. “But I still think that your walk doesn't match your looks,” he insisted, determined to train his girlfriend to be a proper mate for him.

During the last stretch of their walk to the restaurant, Ana practiced the catwalk with him, until the muscles around his mouth began to hurt from so much smiling.

“How come it doesn't bother you to lie to Karen?” she asked her lover, once they were in the restaurant together, enjoying their veggie wraps. “I'm almost jealous of your lack of scruples.”

“What can I say? It's good to be me,” Michael responded, nonplussed. “I mean, what's there to complain about? We just made love. Now we're enjoying a good meal together. Life's good, Baby!”

“Not for Rob and Karen,” Ana pointed out.

“You want me to hook them up on a date?”

“Come on, Michael. This is serious.”

“As long as they don't find out about us, we're fine.”

“And if they do? Then what?”

“Then I'll break up with Karen,” Michael announced calmly.

“What if Rob finds out about our affair first?”

“I don't know. That's up to you,” he threw the ball back into her court.

Ana took a sip of her soda, to give herself a moment to reflect. “If Rob finds out about us, he'll probably want a divorce,” she speculated.

“So he'll divorce,” Michael repeated, not seeing any problem whatsoever with that fact.

“What about the kids?”

Michael reached across the table, taking Ana's hand into his own. “If Rob divorces you, I'll be there for you,” he gazed warmly into her eyes.

“What do you mean?” she asked, in a slight daze.

“I want to marry you,” he said.

Ana shook her head, not willing to absorb the full emotional impact of his marriage proposal. “But I'm already married. My marriage may not be perfect, but I love my husband and he loves me. More importantly, my kids want to be raised by both of their natural parents. They wouldn't be happy if Rob and I divorced. What you don't seem to realize is that this affair's is no longer just about us. In fact, it never was.”

Michael withdrew his hand from hers, stung by her refusal. “So what are you trying to tell me?”

“That we should be more careful.”

”What does that actually mean? You want to cool it for awhile?” he stared at her fixedly.

“I just want us to keep everything in balance. Like in an ellipse,” Ana articulated the model of life that had been crystallizing in her mind during the past few weeks.

“An ellipse?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Ever since we met, our lives have had two focal points. Each other and our families. Or, in your case, your fiancée. We love both sides of the ellipse. We don't want to hurt anybody, right? So let's do our best to keep this delicate balance intact,” Ana pleaded with her eyes as much as with her words.

Michael didn't respond, mulling over the implications of her analogy, which threw him for a spin. For awhile now, he had been contemplating how to tell Karen that he had fallen in love with another woman. But now that Ana was indicating, in no uncertain terms, that cohabitation was out of the question, he realized that he might have to adjust his game plan. “You want to have your cake and eat it too. Unfortunately, that's not possible in real life. Rob wants you for himself. If he knew about us, he wouldn't want to share you. And neither do I.”

“But you already have me.”

Michael shook his head. “I can't imagine spending the rest of our lives seeing each other in secret. Everywhere we go, we look over our shoulders and hide, like a couple of escaped convicts. We can't even spend the night together. Vacations are out of the question. I don't want to live like this indefinitely. I want us to become a real couple.”

“By its very nature, our relationship's illicit,” Ana refused to consider his real point.

“And why exactly do you want to continue it like this?” Michael inquired in an irate tone. But he controlled himself and became tender again: “Baby, you know as well as I do that we're meant for one another. I've never felt so happy with a woman before. Besides, what you want is impossible. Passion is by nature exclusive,” he declared, relying upon a formulation that any woman in love would easily comprehend. “I'm in love with you. That's why I want you all to myself.”

Ana was on the brink of tears. Never before did she perceive the conflict between her two kinds of love—the one for her family filled with affection and a sense of duty, the other for her lover, filled with pleasure and excitement—so poignantly, so painfully. “If only we had met before I married Rob ... Or at least before we had Michelle and Allen, it would have been another story. But we don't have the right to destroy the lives of those who love and depend upon us. That would be terribly selfish of us.”