The Half Life of Affairs
Tags: Affairs, Radioactive, Sexuality, Cheating, Sex And Relationships

The Half Life of Affairs

Short. But never forgettable.

Photo by Ilse Orsel on Unsplash

Affairs are like plutonium. What’s the half-life of plutonium?

Oh, only 24,000 years.

That’s it.

A drop in the bucket of humankind.

Affairs may not last long, but their half-lives are infinitely long. You remember them vividly. Every erotic detail seared into your memory.

I remember my Doctor pushing me back against the hotel bed for my first head-hanging-off-the-bed blow job. I had never done that in my marriage.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I was genuinely befuddled. He must have thought I was slow.

“Push your head back like this,” as he positioned me the way he wanted.

“Ah. I get it,” I said, as he prompted me.

“You like this?” I asked.

“YES. You are so hot.”

It’s the visual.

Coming from a deader than dead bedroom, I had no idea what sexual proclivities were out there in affair world. I did what the Doctor wanted with gusto, and I learned a new trick. I wasn't ever going to use it at home, but still might come in handy with future affair partners.

My Italian introduced me to anal.

“You want to try it?” he asked.

“I’m not sure.” I was just getting used to sex. Period. After years of not having any.

“I’ll go slow. We can stop at any time.”

“Not yet, but someday,” I said. Ten months into our affair, I said yes. “I’m ready.”

He was so excited. “You sure?”

“It hurts so much. Stop,” I cried. My lover stopped immediately, and came all over my ass.

The visual, again.

I learned some of the things I didn’t like about my body turned men on. Like my ass — round and white. I didn’t understand it’s appeal.

“You like my ass?” I asked incredulously. “I love your ass, baby.”

My third lover introduced me to his balls.

“Suck my balls, baby,” he asked.

I did what he wanted although I had never done it before. Teabagging. I blushed when I looked up the term.

I’d do anything that man desired.

Oral sex was a pleasure we both shared.

“I want to eat you up,” he said in his Russian accent.

“Yes, please. And I need to taste you next.”

“I can’t get enough of your mouth,” he sighed.

No way would I ever forget that erotic charge.

Yes, affairs were as dangerous as radiation. Some radioactive isotopes eventually decayed or disintegrated into harmless materials. Not Plutonium. Like some affairs never died. The flames of longing flickered eternally.

The dangers of Plutonium were numerous. Look at Chernobyl or Fukushima. The Geiger counters and radiation suits brought thrill-seekers. “Radiation tourists.”

Affairs? They absorbed through your skin and your breath — thrill-seeking on a much more personal hedonistic level.

You may feel you are dying from the roller coaster of longing from cheating.

“I can’t get enough of you.”

“When can we see each other again?”

“I need you now.”

That’s the language of lust.

Plutonium is the most dangerous, radioactive, toxic element in the world. Who would think that affair sex would come in a close second? I wanted to forget the thrills of cheating, but I couldn’t.

“I’ll never forget you,” I said, to my Italian lover.

And I wouldn’t.

The loving and the sex were just part of it. It was the heightened emotions of it all.

“I know this is something special between me and you,” he said.

I would miss him: every baby, every touch of his calloused fingers, every caress. I would miss all of it, even his broken English. He was as magnetic as the sun.

Radioactive elements are dangerous for 10 to 20 times the length of their half-lives, meaning that hazardous Plutonium released into the environment today will stick around for the next half a million years.

I won’t be here.

But, I bet affairs will still be.

What is the half-life of affairs? It could be a few months if you are lucky. Yet the short span of time doesn’t leave room for the rapture.

The memories linger long enough that it feels like a million years.