A bookseller, a married regular customer, a year and a half of Wednesday afternoons. A long story about how much desire can fit into an affair without destroying it. 18+.
He came for the first time on a Wednesday afternoon in November, asked for a book that wasn’t in stock, and said he could stop by again next Wednesday. I said I’d order it by then. He thanked me. He left. But in the moment he turned around, I saw the tight fit of his jeans around his thighs and felt a wet shiver between my legs. I knew immediately: This was no ordinary customer.
His name was Andreas. He was an architect, according to the business card he gave me for the order form. He was in his mid-forties. He wore a ring. I had stopped paying attention to rings ten years ago—I was divorced, I was done with relationships that started in constellations where someone was already in another one. This time it wasn’t my constellation. This time I was just the bookseller. But my cunt twitched when he looked at me, and I couldn’t deny that.
In the second Wednesday encounter, the book was there. We talked for ten minutes about Eugen Ruge, whose latest novel he liked and I didn’t. In the third, we talked for twenty minutes about Mariana Leky, whose books he didn’t know and read after our conversation. In the fourth, he brought me a coffee from the café on the corner because he noticed that I always seemed briefly exhausted around half past four. When he handed me the cup, he touched my hand. A tiny moment, but the heat shot from my finger across my entire body and landed straight in my cunt. I turned bright red and had to look away so he wouldn’t see my hard nipples pressing through my bra.
We had been a Wednesday ritual for three weeks when I understood that what we were doing was no longer a bookstore visit. We were making each other into a person who waited for the other on Wednesdays. I masturbated every night before falling asleep to thoughts of him. I spread my legs, slid my hand into my panties, and rubbed my wet slit while imagining him pressing me onto the counter and tearing up my skirt.
In the sixth Wednesday encounter, in December, he said after our conversation about Pavese: “Linda.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to mess this up.”
“What?”
“That I’ve been coming to you on Wednesdays for six weeks is more than someone who no longer needs to shop in your store but could order the book online would normally do.”
“I know.”
“What do we do with that?”
I thought about it. I thought for a long moment. But in truth, I had already decided. My cunt had decided. It was soaking wet just because he was standing here looking at me.
“You’re married.”
“I’m married.”
“Happy?”
“Stable.”
“Stable isn’t happy.”
“I know.”
We sat in silence. In the background, the radio played, the station I always had on during the day—a Bavarian classical channel I was used to from Munich. But I heard nothing except the rushing of my own blood.
“Andreas.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been divorced for five years. In those five years, I haven’t met anyone I would have had a coffee with on Wednesdays. With you, it’s like that.”
“I know.”
“I want to tell you something that isn’t pleasant.”
“Tell me.”
“I won’t start an affair with a married man. But I don’t want to stop seeing you. What do we do with that?”
He looked at the floor for a long time. I saw the outline of his erection in his pants, and my mouth went dry. I wanted to feel him down there, wanted his hard cock between my lips, wanted him so deep inside me that I forgot my own name.
“I understand.”
“Do you understand?”
“I understand that you don’t want what I’m offering. I also understand that you don’t want us to stop seeing each other. I’ll take that home. I’ll think about it.”
He came the next Wednesday. He came the Wednesday after that. We talked differently. We still talked about books, but we also talked about him—about his marriage, which he spoke of openly without badmouthing it. His wife’s name was Mira, she was a child psychologist, they had been together for fifteen years, they had a son, twelve, and they no longer loved each other in the sense that involves sex, but in the sense that involves a home.
“Andreas.”
“Yes.”
“Would an open constellation be possible?”
“Mira would say no. Mira would feel hurt if I suggested it.”
“Even if you haven’t slept together in three years?”
“Maybe precisely because of that.”
I nodded. I understood that. Mira was the person least likely to agree to it because she knew that the relationship with Andreas was the one thing she still hadn’t negotiated. But while I nodded, I was only thinking about his cock. I could almost taste it.
“What do we do?” he asked.
I thought about it. I thought longer than I had when I met Andreas. I thought about what I had promised myself five years ago—never again an affair, never again a married man, never again that waiting and hoping and hiding. But then I saw his eyes, and I felt my labia pressing against the fabric of my panties, and I knew I was lost.
“We’ll close up next Wednesday at six thirty. You come after closing time.”
He stared at me. His mouth opened slightly.
“Are you sure?”
“No. But still.”
He nodded slowly. “Then see you next Wednesday.”
The next week was hell. I couldn’t focus on anything. Every book I opened only showed me his face. Every customer who entered the store made me flinch. I opened the store at eleven in the morning, but at ten at night I lay in bed with my hand between my legs, imagining dropping to my knees before him, him tearing open my blouse, him taking me from behind while I bent over the counter. I came three, four times every night, but it was never enough.
On Wednesday at six thirty, I locked the door. I turned the sign to “Do Not Disturb.” I was trembling all over. At six forty-five, there was a knock. I opened it. Andreas stood there, a bouquet of roses in his hand, but his eyes were dark with desire.
“Come in.”
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