Unwifeable(60)

His eyes twinkle.

“Why?” he says. “Just because your height makes you a mutant, is that what you mean?”

I laugh. I am amazed, horrified, delighted. I like dickhead funny when it is actually funny.

“Yeah, I just try to look like a model,” I say. “That’s what I can only hope a guy will fetishize, you know. Being pretty and skinny.”

He glares at me. A glimmer of a smile.

“But you’re not,” he says. “Pretty or skinny.”

“Man,” I say, laughing louder than I have in a while, “I love what a cocksucker you are. That’s hilarious. It’s fun to be eviscerated in such a clean, asshole-y way.”

That night he requests me on Facebook, and we keep in touch.

When I write a satirical piece in the Post giving advice to men on how to have an affair—based on the shit show of a tabloid story that is ESPN talking head Steve Phillips’s cheating scandal—not too long after, with perfect irony, I get a message from the Married Man.

“Excellent article,” he writes. “You certainly know your infidelity.”

I lie to myself and think: Wow, this guy thinks I’m really funny and what a great ally he’ll be to me in the entertainment industry. Instead of the truth of the situation: This is chum. He wants to have an affair.

This guy doesn’t like my talent. He likes my insecurity—and my fear that I have none.

Soon after, the text comes. “Want to get together tonight? My wife is out of town.”

“Wait,” I text back. “You’re married.”

“Yes, I am,” he replies. “Want to come over?”

So now the moral question is laid out in front of me with perfect transparency.

I can’t decide to do something like this on my own. I need some kind of magical realism outside person to blame for what I do or don’t do. So I duck outside of the Post and call an old married friend of mine who is the perfect husband, thinking he can talk me out of it.

“I don’t know,” my friend says. “I don’t necessarily think it’s such a bad thing.”

“Wait,” I balk. “Do you cheat on your wife?”

I can hear his hesitation on the phone, and because I’m a human bullshit detector, I know.

“Well, clearly you do,” I say. “Let me just give you some advice. If your wife ever asks, don’t pause—not even for a second.”

I end the call, stare at my phone, and write the Married Man back asking what time I should come over.

I’ve just been given the “everything is shit anyway” mental justification I was looking for in talking to my friend. When in reality, I’m the one who is actively making things shit myself.

When I was married to James and found out about my ex-husband’s affairs, I recoiled, emailing these women years later at 2 a.m. from my work computer at the Post with the one-line message “Just wanted to say you’re a cunt.”

Oh, how wrong I was. I am the cunt. The Married Man is the cunt. We are all the cunt. Anyone who has ever cheated (and the statistics are utterly depressing) is a huge fucking cunt.

That night, the affair begins. When I arrive at the Married Man’s apartment in central Manhattan, his eyes are already ablaze from several bong hits. He leads me into his study, overflowing with Emmys. One of the globes has come off, and he rolls it around in his hands.

“That’s the problem with these things—they break,” he says.

Then he tosses it to me to catch.

“Nice move,” I say.

Then he hands me his bong.

I haven’t been drinking or drugging for a few months now, but I know I’m about to do something wrong—really wrong. I need some plausible deniability as to why I did it, right? Alcohol and drugs are so great for that. Without a moment’s hesitation, I lift the bong to my lips—and inhale deeply, feeling the wash of simpleton fluidity. Such a relief not to think.

Just like that, my weak-ass attempt at sobriety is blown. I cough, and he hands me a beer to wash it down.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” he says.

I nod through my coughing fit. Yes. It’s good.

He keeps checking. “Are you high yet?” he asks. “Want some more?”

“Yes,” I finally say. “I’m high.”

He comes over to the couch where I am sitting, looks at me with sickness and excitement in his eyes, and kisses me.

“I was afraid that might happen,” he says. He starts taking off my clothes and says, “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

He is so hungry, so out of control. He presses his face into mine, asking, “Did you think about me all day? Did you feel it the instant we met? I want to fuck you all the time. Say it. Say you’ll fuck me all the time.”

That’s when it hits me: Oh my God. This is an ego fuck. I am fucking his ego.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

Afterward, we smoke cigarettes on his balcony.

“Holy shit,” he says. “Now I’m thinking about what I’ve done. I just did a horrible thing. You are a temptress.”

Not really. Just a fellow self-sabotaging depressive, but whatever.

The next time I see the Married Man I meet him at a Thai place near the Post for dinner, and he dryly brings up the newest cheating scandal dominating the headlines.