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CEDRIC
It had been a few weeks since that night in the car with Allison. Business trips and deadlines at work had kept me busy and unable to visit her during the weekdays at the diner.
Not one hour of any day went by when I didn’t think of her. The feel of her soft skin in my hand replayed in my head over and over as I held onto the memory of the only actual physical connection we had.
I considered emailing or calling her, but never got up the nerve to deal with the repercussions, at least until things calmed down.
Then, came the weekend when I realized that I couldn’t hold out any longer.
***
We had spent Thanksgiving weekend with Karyn’s parents in New York City. They had rented three rooms at the Ritz Carlton. Karyn and I stayed in one room, her parents in another and her sister in the third.
Friday afternoon started off innocently enough with break
fast at the hotel and then a long day of walking through Central Park and shopping on Fifth Avenue.
We somehow ended up right in front of Tiffany’s. Karyn and her sister, Krystina stopped in the window, which displayed a handful of diamond engagement rings, and Krystina started blatantly asking what kind of ring she liked, right in front of me. I immediately stepped away from them and faced toward the street, but my ears were still in tune to them.
“Princess cut, two carats,” I heard Karyn say, loud enough for me to hear.
I got the impression the conversation was some kind of set up to let me know what type of ring she wanted when that time came.
Princess cut, two carats.
This was my first realization that Karyn and I were on two totally separate tracks, because I knew that time would never be coming…with Karyn.
Then it all really came to a head later that night. During dinner in the hotel dining room, the pianist played a rendition of Billy Joel’s Always A Woman. It was beautiful, but haunting and melancholy at the same time.
As I sat listening to this song in the candlelit room, I drowned my sorrows in scotch and realized how lonely I had been the entire weekend, just going through the motions robotically. A volcano of emotions seemed to fly out of me with every chord of the song, pouring out the things I had been harboring for the past month.
I missed the sight of Allison so much.
I didn’t deserve her.
I could never have her.
I hated myself.
I didn’t love Karyn.
Why was I here?
Princess cut, two carats…Princess cut, two carats…
I was losing my mind. Karyn was oblivious, chatting with her sister about our plans to visit the Guggenheim the next day.
I stayed in my own little world, until Karyn abruptly suggested we go back to our room for an early nightcap. I was half-drunk and numbly followed her out of the restaurant, neglecting to say goodbye to her family.
In the elevator, I remember her nibbling on my ear, undoing my tie and grabbing my crotch as I stared numbly at the numbers at the top of the elevator door.
When we got to the room, she immediately went to the bathroom and put on a green and black lace and satin lingerie set she had bought with her sister at Barneys earlier that day.
When she came out, she pushed me down on the bed and started to unzip my pants. She grabbed a condom from the nightstand and started to pull down my boxer briefs, when I began having what felt like a panic attack.
My vision blurred, my heart pounded and my breathing became rapid. We hadn’t had sex in weeks, so you would think I would have wanted it badly. Instead, I felt nothing except guilt, as if I was being unfaithful because my heart was somewhere else entirely.
My heart was with a woman who didn’t even know she had it.
