A Moral Standard

She did not expect this.

She was having lunch with an old classmate when the classmate's husband called. "Oh, you are close by, why don't you join us for lunch?" her friend said. She thought great, now she had to share lunch with the foreign husband of her classmate. For sure, he would be one of those laowai so full of himself for no good reason at all. Probably old as sin too. And she would need to speak some English, those damn laowai's could be very talkative.

Then he arrived and her heart skipped a beat, once up, then down when he kissed his wife on the cheek. He wasn't that old, not horrible looking, and had a very quiet aura about him. She looked up, smiled in a non committal type of way, and gave him her english name. They didn't shake hands or hug which made her like him a bit more. So many of those damn laowai, especially, americans love to hug.

After lunch was over and she was driving home, she realized she was totally, completely, smitten with this man. Stop it, she told herself, he is married. Married w/kids. But she couldn't help the way she felt, she could just not act on it. At least for a couple of days, when she called her classmate and suggested a night on the town. Invite lots of folks, maybe even her husband and his laowai friends.

She arrived at dinner that night dressed to the nines, showing off her tight gym conditioned body and a hint of cleavage. She noticed he noticed. They didn't talk and sat far from one another at dinner. But as the night wore on, they got closer. First in the same cab to the nightclub. Then walking side by side to post club hours bar. Then sitting across from each other, toasting drinks, making eye contact, being smitten.

The classmate didn't seem to notice or if she did she didn't seem to mind. Maybe they had some kind of "arrangement" she thought. Then the group of party goers split into two. One group to the dance club, another to a sit down and talk bar. The classmate was going dancing but her husband to the bar. She decided to go to the bar, claiming that she's not hip enough for a dance club. Which was probably true.

Then they got into the same cab, just the two of them. In the back seat. "Do you really want to go to that bar?" he asked. "No, not really. You?" came her reply. He took her hand and she told the cab driver to take them to her downtown apartment -- they would have privacy there, since her husband was at their suburb home.

At the apartment they drank apple juice, sat down on the coach and kissed. And started to touch. Then he pulled back, looked at her and said "I can't do this". She nodded, pushed herself away from him and folded her legs under her. They sat and talked about how important their respective marriages were to them, and for him, his kids. They agreed it was a true infatuation, but as mature adults they needed to do the right thing and not be selfish. They agreed not to do anything, that night, or any night.

With their morals restored, they launched into raw, utterly satisfying sex until the night rolled into the morning.

So it is with this story, we understand that stories are devices used to mask ourselves from ourselves.