Allure of the Vixen by C. C. Morian Page A

cigarettes. I didn’t even smoke, but this certainly seemed
like a good reason to start. I just needed to do something with my hands,
otherwise I might have punched something, someone.
    I pushed through the revolving door, bumping into
people, fighting my urges to lash out at a stranger. I walked three blocks
before I realized it was raining. I still had the cigarettes in my hand and
tossed them into a trash bin.
    The cold rain had washed away the usual city smells,
bringing a cleanliness I didn’t feel and didn’t deserve. I was pissed. At
Joanne, for lying to me. And thought it made no sense, I was angry at Peter,
how could a guy let his wife do what she had done?
    Mostly I was angry at myself, at the trap I had let
myself fall into.
    I had never fucked around with a married woman.
Sure, I’d fantasized about a lot of them, just because they were off limits
didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate their beauty. Not married myself, I always
thought that when I did tie the knot, I wouldn’t want any other guy to have my
wife, and it never occurred to me that any woman I would marry would want to
sleep with anyone but me.
    I knew all about swinging, but that was a different
lifestyle, husbands and wives making that decision together. But if it got to
the point where my wife of the future was with another man, that would mean our
marriage was over.
    The closest I had come was a relationship with a
woman who had been separated two full years; she told me she hadn’t seen her
husband in over a year, and I believed her. Their divorce was in progress, it
was just taking a while, the state she lived in required a full year of
separation before marriage, and then they had both moved to other states,
complicating everything. She seemed long over him, the marriage at that point a
technicality. We had a normal relationship, our geographical differences ending
it after six months. I didn’t even think of her as being married.

I had never even hit on a married woman either, and
as a result, I had a lot of women friends who were married, I think they must
have felt I was safe, or they were tired of other men always trying to get them
in bed, even the men who were themselves married. So I had plenty of
opportunities, but had not only never succumbed, I had make it a rule not to go
that route. I just didn’t need the complications.
    Now here I was, well past the point of fantasizing
about a married woman, beyond flirtation, beyond even talking about it. Joanne
and I had jumped right over the barriers which normally served to keep most
marriages intact, we had skipped any discussion of whether we should become
involved, we hadn’t talked about what was right. We had jumped right to
fucking.
    On a corner, the light changed to yellow, and I
waited. Just something like that yellow light, a bit of a warning, might have
avoided all this. I can’t say I know what would have happened if I had known
Joanne was married when she came on to me; I wanted to think I could have
resisted her charms, her beauty. I’d done it before with other women. Joanne
might have been more of a challenge.
    Maybe that would have been worse, if Joanne had
seduced me, breaking down my barriers, going to that place I had vowed never to
go. Not only with a woman at the office, but a married one.
    I’d never know. By not telling me the truth, Joanne
had taken away my chance to stay true to my rule.
    My clothes were soaked, a ruination they didn’t
deserve, much like my ego. I turned for my apartment. I felt miserable enough
without destroying my suit; I wouldn’t need another reminder of what Joanne had
driven me to.
    Two blocks later my phone buzzed in my pocket. I
didn’t look at it. I wouldn’t want to talk to Joanne, begging forgiveness. And
I didn’t want to see what my reaction would be if it wasn’t her calling
me.
    I trudged through the puddles to my apartment
building. I hesitated before going in, it was my place, but it would remind me
of Joanne, of our