Unfiltered Adultery

Randy and I went out tonight. Before he picked me up I decided that I was definitely going to tell him what happened with Sean but that was a lot more difficult to actually do.

“Hey, you look amazing.” He said when I opened the door, “I got us reservations at this fancy wine bar, I think you’ll really like it.”

I didn’t feel like the beginning of our date was the best time since he made reservations and everything. Dinner was delicious and the wine was excellent but I tried to make sure I didn’t overindulge so I could be clear-headed when we talked later.

We went for a walk in a nearby park because the weather has been unusually warm this year. I was telling Randy about my upcoming house guest.

“Yeah, he’s supposed to show up on Friday. His girlfriend doesn’t know where I live which is why he asked to stay with me for awhile.”

“And you guys work together?”

“Yeah, he’s a journalist and also a part-time newscaster for the television station our paper is connected to.”

“I think that’s really nice of you, Faith, opening your home like that. You’re such a generous person.”

“Thanks.” I said half-heartedly.

I couldn’t bring myself to ruin Randy’s night so I pushed back telling him until we said goodbye for the night.

I was standing at his door and steeled myself up. Randy gave me a kiss before opening the door to his apartment.

“Randy…wait…I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Is everything okay? You look upset?”

“Remember when I told you about my ex-boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“His name is Sean and he wasn’t just my ex-boyfriend. We were engaged.”

“Oh, uh, wow.” Randy looked confused.

“The reason I’m telling you this because I-”

Just then Teddy ran around the door and hugged Randy’s waist.

“Daddy! Daddy! Stacy let me watch a movie and we got pizza!”

“Oh, is that so? I’m glad you had fun, buddy.”

“Hi, Faith! You want to come in and play Legos?”

“Hi Teddy, I’m sorry but I can’t tonight, maybe some other time alright?” I said messing up Teddy’s hair.

“Okay. Dad! I want to show you what I built with my Legos! Come on Daddy!”

Teddy started pulling Randy’s hand to make him go and Randy looked at me searchingly.

“Go.” I said, “It wasn’t important.”

Randy waved goodbye and I walked up to my apartment feeling terribly alone.

“Hey.”

“Why are you here?” I asked Sean.

He was leaning against my door.

“Why do I usually come here?”

“Go away.” I said pulling out my keys.

“You look nice, Faith.”

“Yeah, well, I like to look nice when I go out with my boyfriend.”

“Oh. Did you tell him?”

“Have you told Karen yet?”

“Touché.” He said shrugging.

I unlocked my door and let him go in before me.

“Sean I don’t want to keep doing this. I feel terrible about it and I don’t want to lie to Randy anymore. He has a kid. I won’t just be hurting Randy when I tell him.”

“Then why bother telling him? Just break up with him.”

I turned to look at Sean.

“You know…I really thought you were a completely different person. Have you really changed that much since we first met? The person I knew valued honesty and commitment. Who are you?”

“You’ve changed, too, Faith. Things were different a year ago.”

“A year ago, the cracks in our relationship started forming.”

“Things are different now.” He said, “It’s okay if we’ve both grown up since then.”

“But you’re not a better person…the person I was in love with is not who you are anymore. The sooner we both realize that, the better.”

“I think we’ve both realized that we aren’t the same people. But let’s be real, here, Faith, doing this is making it easier for us to move on.”

“Do you really believe that Sean? Doing this is making me miserable, just like our relationship did.”

“Then why did you let me inside just now?” He said eyeing the door.

I didn’t have an answer for him. I looked down and felt my eyes start to burn with hot tears.

“Don’t cry, Faith.” He said hugging me.

He wiped my tears away, lifted my chin up, and pulled my lips to his. I hate myself for enjoying it; for missing his touch; for missing him. Sean actually ended up spending the night. I was getting ready to leave for work when he walked out of my bedroom completely naked. He came up to me and pushed a strand of hair back and kissed my forehead.

“Karen is going to wonder where you are.” I said pouring coffee into my travel mug as an excuse to turn away from him.

“She’s out of town right now.”

“Oh.” I said tightly, “There’s food in the fridge and I made coffee, so feel free to have some before you leave. I have to go to work. Bye.”

I left him in the kitchen. Sean seems so much happier about what we are doing than I am. Maybe he just hides it better than me.

Guilty as Charged

Stormy walked into my office while I was deep in thought about my current situation with Sean and Randy and my face must have shown how tortured I feel about it because he looked concerned when he knocked to get my attention.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Uh, no, come in.” I said clearing my head, “What’s up?”

“I’m planning on breaking up with Rose on Friday. I just wanted to give you a heads up. I’m doing it right after work so I’ll probably be at your place after that.”

“Okay.” I said, “That’ll be fine. You can sleep on my couch.”

“Faith, are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You seem kind of…distracted…not yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

“Do you want me to try and find a hotel or something?”

“No, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Thanks again, Faith.”

“Sure.” I said, “I’ll bring you a key to my apartment tomorrow, okay?”

“Thanks.” He said before walking out the door.

I’m going to have to tell Randy about what I’ve been doing; the guilt is going to make me go crazy if I don’t. I haven’t been able to think about anything else.

Candid

Apparently, I’m making sleeping with Sean a habit. Yes, it happened again (actually a few times since I last posted). Yes, I hate myself for it. No, I don’t know why I’m letting this happen. No, I haven’t told anyone about it.

He called me to see if he could come get the sweater he’d left behind back and I said okay. What I should have done was left it at the front office and had him pick it up there but I didn’t. He came over, we had coffee, he started talking about the tour and Karen and the baby and being a dad, and then it just happened. He’s been coming over off and on for what are essentially booty calls. We aren’t back together again; we’re just both sleeping with each other.

Last night we were laying next to each other and staring at the ceiling. I was overwhelmed with guilt and wasn’t really in the mood to listen to Sean wax nostalgic about our relationship like he usually does afterward.

“I’ve missed you, Faith. I’ve missed THIS.”

“What cheating on your girlfriend?” I said unapologetically.

Sean was quiet for minute; like he was deciding whether to take the fight or not.

“Oh, so I’m cheating on Karen but you’re not cheating on Russell?”

“Randy.”

“Whatever. You don’t get to judge me anymore for cheating on you, Faith, not when you’re doing the same thing.”

“It’s NOT the same.” I said shaking my head and continuing to stare at the ceiling.

“No, you’re right. It’s worse than what I did to you because you keep doing it. I only slept with Karen the one time.”

“Oh, and I can be sure of that? You practically lived with her on a tour bus. How am I supposed to know you weren’t sleeping with her on the side?”

“I’m not getting into this.”

“Fine, are we going to talk about all the other things you never wanted to talk about when we were together? Like Paul?”

“Faith, don’t.”

“You should probably go. Karen will be suspicious. What have you been telling her, anyway, to get time away from her to come over here?”

“Band practice.”

“She probably knows, you know.”

Sean didn’t say anything for awhile.

“You’re right, I should go.”

“Bye.”

He got up, got dressed, and left without another word. As soon as I heard my front door close, I got a text from Randy:

“Are we still on for tomorrow night? The babysitter is going to stay the night ; )”

I replied, “yes” and immediately felt guilty. I know I should tell Randy. I know that I’m cheating on him and it sucks because I know how bad that feels but I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve tried a few times but I can’t bring myself to say the words. Randy seems so happy and content in our relationship right now and I don’t want to be the one that ruins it even though I already have.

Thanksgiving at Zoey’s was fun. She cooked some awesome food, Molly helped, and we had it at Wesley’s new place. I’m pretty sure Zoey and Wesley will end up moving in together pretty soon and it feels bittersweet. I’m happy for Zoey. She deserves to have a great guy but I’m also jealous. Sean and I were going to live together and be happy and it didn’t work out and instead I’m sleeping with my cheating ex-fiancé while I’m dating a great guy. I’m really messed up, guys. And I can’t talk to any of my friends about it because they hate Sean and they don’t think I should be dating Randy, either.

Crazy Storm

I’ve decided not to tell Randy what happened. I feel terrible about it but I think it’s the best thing for right now.

Things at work are going pretty slow. The digital paper is up and running and subscribers are now starting to trickle in. I don’t think we’re getting as much interest as the investors would like to see, but I’m hoping it will pick up as things go on especially once Tanya and Todd get the phone app up and running in about a week.

Stormy sent me an e-mail asking me to grab lunch away from our normal group. I wasn’t all that attached to my tuna salad sandwich I brought so I agreed. We went to a pub down the street from our building and settled in a booth.
Two cheeseburgers, two baskets of fries, and two sodas ordered later, Stormy and I sat and waited.

“So, why did you ask me here?” I asked sipping my soda.

“Things are going really poorly with Rose, Faith. Like, REALLY bad.” Stormy kept looking around to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“She has gone NUTS. She thinks I’m cheating on her-”

“Are you?” I asked nonchalantly.

Stormy gave me an indignant look.

“No! Honestly, I’d be too afraid to. She stole my phone so she could look through the contacts and read all of my text messages. She wouldn’t admit to taking it but I couldn’t find it for a few hours and then in mysteriously turned up.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just lose it?”

“Yes! She’s been making references to texts I’ve sent to female friends. She’s made too many references for it to be a coincidence.”

“Were they flirty texts?”

“No. Just, like, work related things. Or errand things.”

Just then our cheese burgers and fries arrived. Stormy went on while I dug in.

“She follows me if I leave our apartment. Last night I went to the laundromat near our apartment and she followed me and watched me do the laundry.”

“Wow.” I said

“Faith…there’s more.” He said. His voice had shifted and my ears perked.

“What?” I asked.

“She thinks I’m cheating on her…”

“Yeah you said that already.” I said absentmindedly waving a fry.

“…With you.”

“WHAT!? WHY!?”

“Because of that night I came over to hang out. She thinks we’ve been seeing each other behind her back ever since. She’s CRAZY Faith!”

“Stormy, I don’t need this right now!”

“I’m sorry, Faith. I just wanted to get away from her for a few hours, I didn’t know she’d jump to such an assumption!”

“Tell her we’re not seeing each other.” I said frantically.

“She doesn’t believe me. I’ve tried.”

“Then I’ll tell her. I’m sure this private lunch you wanted to have is probably not helping ease her suspicions.”

“Faith, she won’t believe you either. I told you she’s CRAZY. She won’t listen to anyone.”

“Why did you want to tell me this?”

“I was worried she’d bring it up at work and you’d be caught off guard.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“No. Not…not exactly.”

Stormy suddenly avoided my eyes.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to sump her…soon…and I…I’m going to need a place to stay. You’re the only person I’m friends with that Rose doesn’t know the address of.”

“Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.

Stormy looked defeated; like he didn’t have anything else to lose.

“How long would you need to stay?” I asked, my voice softening a bit.

“A few weeks. Long enough for me to find a new apartment, get off the lease of Rose’s apartment, and get all of my stuff moved around.”

“When are you planning on doing this?”

“I’m not sure; I’m waiting for a good time, when she’s distracted or something. Soon, though. Really soon. I might go crazy myself, if I don’t get away from her.”

I sighed.

“Okay.” I shrugged wearily, “You can sleep on my couch for awhile. But if I want time alone with my boyfriend you need to go get some coffee or something.” I joked weakly.

Stormy looked a little more at ease than he had been. I think knowing that he had somewhere he could go if he needed to helped lift some weight off of his shoulders.

To tell or not to Tell

I was supposed to go out with Randy tonight but I cancelled on him. To be honest I completely forgot until he showed up at my door to pick me up.

“Hey.” He said, his smile fading from his face when he saw me dressed in my pajama pants and light hoodie.

“Oh my God…I totally forgot about our date tonight.”

“That’s okay, I’ll wait for you to get ready.”

“Actually…can we do a rain check? I’m not feeling all that great right now.”

“Oh, well I’ve heard the flu is starting to make the rounds, did you get a flu shot?”

“No.” I said.

Randy told me to get better and brought me some soup about an hour ago but I’m not feeling sick. I just feel horrendously guilty about what happened with Sean and didn’t feel like trying to hide the overwhelming guilt from Randy. I can’t talk to anyone about this. If I told any of the girls they would freak out and tell me how crazy I am for sleeping with him again.

Not only that, but Sean called me yesterday. I didn’t answer and he didn’t leave a message. I think it would have been a bad decision to answer. I can’t hide forever, though. Right now I’m debating on whether or not I should tell Randy what happened but I’m honestly so embarrassed and ashamed about it. I’m leaning towards not telling him, at least not until I can figure out what I need to do to deal with everything.

I Make Excellent Life Choices, Obviously

In hindsight, having sex with Sean last night was probably really, really stupid.

I was getting ready for bed last night and had just unloaded my dishwasher when someone knocked on my door. I thought it was Randy so I didn’t look through the peephole.

“What the f-” I was shocked to see Sean on the other side of the door and the sentence caught in my throat before I could finish it. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

“Okay, please don’t close the door.” He said almost as soon as I had opened it, “I just wanted to get some of the stuff I left here. I moved into a new apartment and figured I would get it so you don’t have to keep looking at it anymore. It’ll take me, like, five minutes.”

I stood there, braless, in my fleece pajama pants with penguins on them and an old, stained t-shirt with my hair thrown up in a messy bun and my feet in fuzzy socks and I suddenly felt self-conscious. It took me moment to say anything.

“No.” I went to close the door in his face before he called out.

“Faith, please!? I at least need to get my spare guitar, okay?” His eyes were pleading with me and when I went to pull the door I caught a smell of his cologne.

“F-fine.” I said stepping aside.

He walked past me with a box in his hand that I hadn’t noticed before and started quickly moving through my apartment collecting things. He grabbed his spare guitar in its case that was in my hall closet, a bathroom bag that was in my linen closet, a handheld video game set that was in the cupboard under my television, and so many other things that I had blocked out had originally belonged to him. He came out of my room carrying an armful of clothes slung over the box and in danger of falling.

“I can get you a bag for those.” I said with my arms crossed, almost as if I was cold.

“Y-you don’t have to.” He said heaving the pile up to get a better grip and panting.

“Sean, I am capable of being an adult, here. Let me get you a bag.”

“Okay.” I went to the kitchen and found a cloth grocery bag. He followed me in there and we stood in silence while we folded some clothes.

The silence got to be too much to stand so I made small talk.

“I heard you were back in town. I’m sorry to hear about the hiatus and your record label problems.” I said folding a pair of pants.

“Yeah, I’ve been here for awhile. Hopefully the hiatus won’t be too long.” He was folding a shirt and was doing a poor job of it so I shooed him away and did it over. He leaned against the counter.

“How is Karen?” I asked almost immediately regretting it and speeding up my folding.

“She’s…fine.”

“Are you guys living together?”

“Faith, we don’t need to do this.”

“It’s fine.” I said shrugging.

“We are.”

“Oh.” I said with my voice tight, “That’s good. Are you excited about being a dad?”

“I’m kind of terrified, actually.”

“My boyfriend has a kid and he makes it look so easy sometimes. I’m sure you’ll be a good dad, Sean.” And I realized that I was truly sincere.

“Oh, you have…you’re seeing someone now?” He said.

“Yeah. You’re not the only one who has moved on.”

“Oh, of course…I didn’t mean to….Faith…I’m sorry how we left things.”
I finished my folding and sighed.

“I am, too, Sean. I wish things had gone differently.” I handed him the bag of folded clothes, “Do you need me to help load this stuff in your car or call you a cab?”

“No, I can do that when I get down stairs.”

“Okay.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Okay, so I should go, then.” He said grabbing his guitar case and the box on the counter.

“Take care, Sean.”

I went in to awkwardly hug him good-bye. He tried to hug me back but with all the stuff in his arms, it was kind of impossible so he just kissed me on my forehead. I looked up with my arms still around his waist and our lips touched. Sean placed the box back on the counter, dropped the bag on the floor and slid the guitar case off his shoulder without breaking contact. I moved my hands up to his shoulders; his hands were in my hair, pressing me to him. We broke apart when things got really heated.

“Uhm.” I said with my fingers on my mouth.

“I…that was….we probably…I should probably…”

“Shut up, Sean.” I said pulling him against me.

We backed into my bedroom as he took my shirt off and I slid off his jacket. He took off his shirt as I unzipped his jeans and took of my ridiculously unsexy socks. In seconds we were on my bed completely naked, his head between my legs. From there everything is a blur. I remember him gripping the head board and I knocked over one of my lamps but we ended up tangled in my sheets panting and laying next to each other at the end of it all.

The realization of what I had just done hit me almost immediately after and with about as much force as a ton of bricks.

“Y-you should go.” I said.

“What? Why? We just had a great time.” He said turning on his side to look at me.

“This can never happen again.” I said pulling the sheets around me tighter and avoiding his eyes.

“I’m still in love with you, Faith.”

“You’re going to be a dad, Sean. You just cheated on the mother of your child. I’m assuming you guys are a couple?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“Meaning she thinks you are but you’re only there because of the thing currently inside of her?”

“Faith, what do you want me to say? I wanted you to be the mother of my children. This….everything…This isn’t what I wanted my life to be like.”

I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest.

“And this is what I wanted for mine? I can’t be with you, Sean. I just spent the past four months trying to move on and I can’t fall back into a relationship with you. This, what we just did, can’t happen again.”

“Faith, we don’t need to tell anyone, this might help us both move on.”

“You should go. Karen is going to wonder where you are, it’s almost midnight.”

Sean tried to touch my shoulder but I got up and left my bedroom and went straight to the bathroom to take a shower. When I came out, he was gone, along with all of his things except a sweater that I found under my comforter which had been thrown on the floor. I slept on the couch since it was too late for me to do laundry and I didn’t want to sleep in a bed that still smelled like him.

I don’t really know what to do.

For Starters

My birthday was uneventful this year, which was good considering what happened a year ago around my birthday. My parents sent me a birthday card and the girls took me out to dinner to celebrate. It was a nice low-key get-together and exactly what I wanted. I went out to dinner with Randy tonight to celebrate a belated birthday with him and we had “the talk.”

“So, I’ve stopped seeing other people.” I said trying to sound nonchalant over our bruschetta appetizer.

“You have?” He said keeping his voice calm, “So, are you trying to tell me we’re exclusive now?”

“Yeah.” I said lightly touching his arm, “Except, I think we should take things slow. I like Teddy a lot but I don’t want him to be…” I couldn’t think of the best way to say what I wanted but Randy chimed in.

“You don’t want him to be hurt if things don’t work out.”

“Yeah.” I said exhaling with relief, “I mean, he is adorable and a great kid but…”

“No you’re right. We should be realistic about this. Sometimes relationships don’t work out and it’s better to just acknowledge that sometimes there can be repercussions, especially when kids are involved. I get it. We’ll go slow and introduce Teddy to what we have when we both feel okay about it.”

“Thanks for understanding, Randy. How late is the babysitter staying?” I asked with a seductive not to my voice.

Unfortunately Randy couldn’t stay the night but we did have time to do some fooling around in my apartment before he had to go relieve the babysitter. I wish Randy was a little more adventurous with the sex stuff. It’s not…bad or anything it’s just very vanilla. It makes me feel like we’re one of those married couples that only have sex with the lights off, straight-missionary, and nothing else. Sometimes I get the vibe that he feels guilty when he’s with me, like he feels like he’s cheating on his dead wife or something. Now that I can officially call him my boyfriend, I figure we should have a talk about this the next time he stays the night.

Author's Note

Modern Day Faith will be returning on Monday to its regular schedule (a post every M, W, F). I apologize for not posting as much as I wanted to, but finals were pretty difficult this semester and I really needed to focus on them.

I'm healing okay from my wisdom teeth surgery from Friday and have started catching up on Faith! I think you'll all really love what I have planned! (Or you'll love to hate it!)

-del

Say My Name

Chris came over last night and I think it’s safe to say we broke up. He ended up storming out of my apartment, told me not to call him again, and slammed the door as he left. It was my fault, too.

Chris came over for dinner, I ordered Chinese, and things started heading toward the bedroom. When we got there he whispered in my ear.

“You know that thing we talked about?”

“No.”

“You know, about going down on you?”

“Oh, that…yeah, what about it?”

“I think I should try it.”

“Oh….OH.” I said as he started trailing kisses down my neck.

Within a few seconds his head was between my legs and I was laying on the edge of my bed with my hands in his hair. For someone who doesn’t do this kind of thing, Chris was really good. So good that I called him Sean by mistake in the heat of the moment.

He immediately stopped and looked up.

“What did you say?”

I had frozen as soon as the name had escaped my lips.

“Uh…n-nothing. I said don’t stop.” I tried to cover feebly.

“No you didn’t you called me some other dude’s name. You called me Sean!”

“It was just a slip.” I said sitting up and trying to fix the damage.

“Who is he?” Chris was getting even angrier.

“We don’t have to do this….we can just go back to-”

“Who is he!?”

“Uhm,” I blew my hair out of my eyes, “My ex-”

“Your ex!?”

“-Fiancé.”

“WHAT!? Oh I am SO out of here.” He pushed himself off the floor and hurriedly started walking to the door while tucking his shirt in.

“Chris, listen, we broke up months ago! It was just a slip, okay?”

“NO! It is NOT okay. I don’t want you to call me again; I don’t want to hear from you. I’m done. Bye, Faith.”

And with that he was gone. I wish I could say I felt bad (I mean…I do feel bad about calling him Sean but not about our break-up) but I just wasn’t all that attached to Chris. He was fun. But that’s about it. He kind of lacked substance and honestly he was pretty wrong for me. So I guess Randy and I are exclusive now. It’s a shame, really. Chris was getting to be pretty good in bed; Randy is still sort of boring. I’m working on that, though.