That Time I Cheated

This has been more than twenty years in the making. I cheated, it was once, but it was big. My boyfriend and I had been dating off and on for years. He asked me to marry him when I was seventeen. I said no. As you can imagine we broke up after that.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay away from each other. We were not toxic together, we were more like ships passing in the night, as far as timing came. Well, and he was a Marine that had a few issues. Commitment was one of them.

During the time we were apart he met another woman and had a baby with her. That was okay, we weren't together, and life goes on. However, we once again got back together. You would think we would learn from our mistakes. But it was love. Deep painful love.

At first, everything was good. We seemed to have gotten past all of our issues. I was older and ready to settle down. Well, I was twenty-one. That's older than seventeen at any rate.

Then came the little things. He would go a few days without calling me. Or break a date we had planned. Once he left a note on my door apologising for ghosting me over the weekend. He said he had been hunting with his brother. He left a turkey feather; I assume as proof.

All this I ignored. It's amazing how far into denial you can live. The kicker was Valentine’s Day. I had made a romantic dinner, bought sexy new lingerie, and did every cheesy romantic thing you could think of before a guaranteed date night that ended with hot messy sex.

He didn't show! I sat, and sat waiting for him, but nothing. This was before the days of mobile phones and texting. To say I was devastated would have been an understatement. I was crushed. It was a pain that couldn't be shared because I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. How could you confide in a friend about something like that? It was awful.

A week later he shows up with a bent card and apologies. He had spent Valentines with his daughter. (And her mother) But evidently, it was all about his little girl. Oh, he told me how he had bought her a dozen roses and took her out to eat. A three-year-old, this was a three-year-old!

I couldn't even argue with him at this stage. It was too much. So, I nodded and let him off. Well, he thought I had anyway. What he didn't know, was that a guy had been coming into my work and asking me out over the last few weeks. I had always shot him down, because, well I had a boyfriend.

As fate would have it, the next day I worked he came in. He was taboo in every sense of the word where I came from. Let me explain, I was a good Baptist white girl from a very conservative southern background. He was a hot black guy that was rocking it in all the right places.

He didn't want a relationship, I knew that. I also knew what he wanted. At that moment I threw twenty-one years of indoctrination out the window and said yes! We arranged for him to meet me back at my work at seven pm that night. It gave me time to get home and shave everything below the neck and get ready for a good time.

I have to say, I felt no regret. I was excited and scared at the same time, but I didn't feel guilty, at all. When I met him, we went and grabbed a burger and then ended up at some random place where his friends tended to hang out. It was a basement room of a local business and was decked out in man cave couture.

Neither one of us cared about learning more about each other, it was more about the very large amount of fun we were about to have! I do have to admit I almost ran away once the clothes started coming off. He was blessed!

Once we parted ways, both of us with a smile on our face I made my way home and tucked that little gem deep into my memories. I still bring it to the surface every now and again, as a reminder of one of my wildest adventures and deepest secrets.

I don't even remember his name now, but I will always remember his ahem smile.