There weren't many circumstances to consider. Really. The two of them shared a cigarette while cutting school at his best friend's apartment, and he told her he was falling for her. Ever since, he wanted to fuck her. Thirteen years later, he did. "My wife would have loved those water slides," he informed her, pointing at the illuminated towers of the coiled water slides piling up in the distance of the hot Florida air. He was carefully maneuvering their rented Ford past Universal Pictures and toward downtown Orlando. She just picked a spot on the map she found this afternoon in their suite, and told him to drive there. Orlando was as good as any other town, she figured, and the closest to their resort. Their rented Ford was making quivering sounds she assumed some rented Fords make when they carry two friends who see each other once in three months to downtown Orlando, that's all. "All I had to do was to make sure that we didn't run out of champagne." She was sitting next to him in a passenger seat, imagining what catchy phrase she would use in a conversation with a friend to summarize her two-day trip to Florida. He was scanning the radio looking for a tune that wouldn't make them both cringe. He kept pressing the buttons. She wondered if he was trying to find the music he thought she would like. She didn't help him. She didn't think she'd find the music they would both enjoy, and she didnt even want him to know what kind of music she now liked. He has been making comments about his wife all afternoon. She responded to them eagerly, either by nodding, or by asking a question about his wife, or his son. This time, she thought she was too tired to respond so that it was immediately obvious to him that she didn't mind him talking about his wife. This time, to discourage him, she decided to get angry. It was easier. She had not eaten in many hours. When she got angry, she often spoke English, and not her native language. "Considering the circumstances. Would you mind. Limiting the references. To your wife?" she asked him coldly. "Why not avoid cultivating my guilt?" "If you don’t mind," she repeated after a pause. She thought she sounded reasonable. "I'm doing it for myself, to remind myself... Self-deception... Of sorts... An illusion," he explained slowly. "I'll stop... I'm sorry..." Satisfied, she looked at him with tenderness and touched his thick, blonde hair, his forehead, his high cheekbone. He kept his eyes on the road. She thought that her boyfriend would have caught and kissed her hand, or squeezed it, or, at least, he would have smiled and given her a quick glance. This one kept his eyes on the road. Much later that night, in their suite, she did make sure they didn't run out of champagne. She asked him to take a two-minute drive to the nearest store to pick up another bottle. Earlier that day, she was left to eat lunch by herself. He was attending sessions at a conference he came for. The sessions were being held in the building next to theirs', also on the resort's ground. At lunch, she went to the deli downstairs and picked up a tuna sandwich and a bottle of water. Before she paid for her lunch, she looked in the refrigerated section to see if the deli sold any champagne. She found two kinds. One kind was sweet California champagne in a dark green bottle with heavy white flowers on it ($7). The other kind was French ($30). Upon that discovery, she knew she wasn't going to send him to the deli next time they run out of champagne, and she won't resist him if he insists on driving to the nearest store. Their affair didn't justify spending $30 on a bottle of champagne. More than approving the unjustified purchase, she feared he would come back with the sweet California champagne in a dark green bottle with heavy white flowers on it ($7). Having deemed both kinds of champagne unacceptable, she wondered if his wife would have bothered to give him an option of driving to the store to look for the mid-priced kind of champagne ($15?). Would his wife just tell him to go to the deli? She wondered. Would his wife buy a bottle herself? She decided to direct her thoughts away from what his wife would do. Last night, he showed her the two personal items he brought with him besides his clothes and his laptop. One was the book he was reading on a plane heading to the place where he and his wife skied earlier that week. Was he reading that book while his wife was sleeping? Looking out of the window? Resting her head on his shoulder and listening to the music in her walkman? Not on his shoulder, she thought. Five years of marriage. Not that, she corrected herself. His has very bony shoulders. His wife would have been better off resting her head on a flimsy pillow one finds in the overhead compartment. The second personal item was a small photo album filled with color and black-and-white photographs of his son. The Swedish Kid, as a mutual acquaintance called his son. His son with blue eyes and pale, blonde hair. There was one photograph that wasn't just of his son. All three of them were standing in the national park. He and his wife were wearing backpacks and hiking boots. All three were smiling. She had to react to the photograph somehow, just as she had to react to his afternoon comments. She did, by asking him questions about their trip to the national park. She did not buy champagne at the deli because she made a pact with herself to pretend to be his mistress during this trip. In her mind, his mistress, his official mistress, listened patiently to the stories about his wife while thumbing through the family album. His official mistress hid her afternoon headaches, wore backless slips, initiated sex as soon as they were alone (and hinted at sex while they weren't). His official mistress also did not buy champagne. Which was fine with her. She could buy her own damn champagne tomorrow, when she flies back to the stained grey carpet of her chilly apartment in a provincial East Coast town, to the candy wrappers thrown on her porch by the wind, to stacks of unfinished paintings, and philosophy books in her native language that she still has not read, but has kept on her shelves for years. While they fucked, he asked her to keep the light on, and stay on top of him. He kept touching her hair and calling out her name. At first, she responded, "What?" each time he called out, but she stopped after he told her that he just liked saying her name aloud. She knew that the light, the hair, the position, the name were the opposite of his wife's when he fucked his wife. She was glad she could provide variety. She hoped he was maybe fulfilling a fantasy, in his quiet, unspoken, uptight way of the unfaithful husband, the young father, and her oldest friend. She hoped the haunted look in his green eyes would go away for a couple of days. "I always wanted to fuck a bleached blonde," he said after they did it the very first time, when he picked her up at the airport and drove to the resort. "Bleached blondes do differ," she replied. She was distracted by searching for her hair pin under the bed and didn't have time to gawk at the emptiness of her remark. "No," he said firmly, sitting up among the ruffled covers of their bed. "They are all the same." The next morning, she lied to him at breakfast. They took their trays outside of the cafeteria and sat in the shadow at the table facing the pool and the bushes studded with purple flowers. "I don't need to come to be happy," she declared, glancing away from the eggs on her plate. Last night, he asked her if she was upset that he couldn't satisfy her. "And if you want me to come," she continued, "that's not a problem. Next time, I’ll come." She knew that there won't be next time until late summer, when it's her turn to attend a conference in his city. This promise bought her assurance that they will be alone enough to fuck again, and made it easier for her to fly home tonight. He didn't say anything, just smiled. She felt relief—by smiling, he just agreed to their next time. After breakfast, they drove to Daytona Beach, another spot she picked on the map and told him to drive there. "I don't just like fucking you," he told her while they were in their rented Ford. "I also like talking to you. It's amazing that we haven't spoiled our friendship. Considering the circumstances." On the way to the airport, she felt the salt on her skin. Her seat was wet from the bathing suit she was still wearing. She knew that his skin would taste salty, too, and, again, she wanted to touch his high cheekbone, his forehead, the blonde hair on his arm, his beautiful nose. She stroked his arm thinking about licking the salt off his skin. He kept his eyes on the road. She knew that he would panic quietly if she took his hand off the wheel to lick the salt off his skin. "I'm sorry that it didn't work out between us when we were kids," he said after a long pause. They ran out of things to say to each other. "Me, too." She didn't say that, although she expected to hear herself say exactly these words. Instead, they just rolled into a tight ball she didn't have the energy to unroll. "I really like spending time with you," he added, breaking the silence again. "Considering the circumstances." As always, she was pierced by the realization how well they understood each other. As always, she wished that was enough. For the first time during this trip, she also wished she brought her camera. She didn't bring or buy a camera on purpose, to keep up with the image of his mistress who never went to Florida, and didn't sign her real name and room number to get the towel at the pool. She wished she brought her camera because, right then, she could snap this unbearable moment, and later remember the words she couldn't unroll, the blonde hair on his arm. Salty, she was sure. She didn't need him when he dropped her off at her gate, missing her flight by ten minutes because of traffic. She didn't need him when she went to the airline counter to find out when the next plane would take her home. She didn't need him when she saw him again, earlier than they agreed to meet, walking to his gate, after he returned the Ford with a wet stain in the passenger seat left by her bathing suit. She didn't need him when they ate hurriedly at the blue-walled cafe, waiting for their planes, and he bought her a glass of white wine. Or when she helped him choose a t-shirt in a gift store to take home to the house guest of the moment, his wife's relative. Or when he unwrapped and showed her the t-shirt he bought earlier, without her, for his son. He didn't show her what he bought for his wife, but she wondered if it was a t-shirt. She should have left on that plane she was ten minutes late for, and reading this thought in his eyes gave her an aftertaste. She wanted to see him off, but, suddenly, his flight was canceled, and he was going to a hotel to wait till morning. He saw her off instead. At her gate, he kissed her politely on the lips. He was restrained like that in public. She would have preferred the photogenic drama played out for the two businessmen from Atlanta who were watching them from the bench, with passionate kisses and hand-holding. To take the whole mistress business all the way, that's all. "Remember when you were 14, a little girl wearing a school uniform?" he whispered to her. "You cut the hem of your dress shorter than it was allowed. Every time you were called to the board, you raised your hand as high as you could to write on the very top of the board, just to show off your legs in front of the whole class. You are not that little girl anymore. You're a grown woman. A lady, even." Uttering banalities has never been easier, she thought. She did decide to tuck his words away, adding them to the string of all other words they have said to each other during this trip. She would later give them significance, and they would replace the snapshots she decided not to take. Already having given him back to the Swedish Kid, the clutter of his sunny kitchen, the quick, confident gestures of his wife, she didn't turn around to look at him when she entered the gate, as, in her mind, his official mistress would have. Until she sees him again in late summer, not looking at him at all felt right. Considering the circumstances. Words and photo by Tatyana Meshcheryakova, April 2000 stolen kisses