Love and Lust

I allow Mark to dictate the terms of our affair. I’ve always shied away from asserting myself. Mark and I have been seeing each other whenever his wife was on business trips. He’s always raved about how he would have married me had he not been with her.  I’ve never wanted to get married. I’ve never believed in commitment. My mom had a boyfriend once when I was growing up. He gave my sister and me money to spend on whatever we’d like. And he was committed to the cause. However not to his girlfriend. Mark is indecisive and cold. His only form of intimacy involves missionary sex and rolling over to sleep. My insomnia kicks in, and I head to the kitchen to enjoy one of his bottles of Pinotage. It’s cold out. Colder next to a man that belongs to another woman. He wakes up to an empty bed and texts that he had hoped he would wake up next to me. I dismissively laugh it off and text Jeffery. We always talk for hours. Our conversations are exploratory, engaging our deep thoughts over wine and shrooms. Jeffery believes in marriage. It makes me sick. But Jeffery gets me, why marriage is nothing but a broken union. Broken by promises. But promises are just words. And it’s more of their meaning and our beliefs in them, that makes them worth keeping. In another life, I would marry Jeffery. But only if my stepfather didn’t cheat, and I didn’t lust over men that don’t belong to me.

~ Shantey Moabelo, 25