I remember one time when he was fucking me from behind and I caught sight of my earring falling out and landing on the couch beside me. The earring wasn't the problem—it was a large chandelier, glamorous, well within my sight line. But the tiny silver back was another issue. Did she even wear earrings? What would it be like to discover an earring back in your couch cushions when you hadn't worn them in years? Or were allergic to metal posts? Or had other suspicions? My hand slid slowly across the cushion, searching. He continued to pound me, still in my heels, leaning me over the edge, and pushing me closer despite the fear in my mind. I felt my hand catch on the missing metal and felt my body relax. As it dug into my skin I released my body onto him, felt him grow deeper and deeper inside me until the waves washed over me and he quickly joined. He pulled me closer and lingered for a moment afterward, breathing in the back of my neck, hands tight around me, taking it all in. My hand stayed closed around the earring back, a tiny victory.
"You fucked my earring out again," I joked when we came up for air. He chuckled and pulled me in for a deep kiss. I coyly put it back in and flounced my hair for him (he always loved my sex hair). That same earring would make an appearance on my Facebook later, a private nod, something to tell him I was thinking of him.
Another time, after a fiery morning, I was fixing my makeup in his kids' bathroom. Reapplying gloss, dabbing powder, repairing the mascara that had run under my eyes from the sweat and tears. We were doing our awkward post-sex chatting, about daycare, home values, and mutual acquaintances. This was when he usually talked about Her. He would mention something she'd done that upset him, how she didn't seem interested in parenting, how alone he felt, how they never had sex. He told me once that he loved Her, but electricity didn't exist, it never had. I always listened quietly and chose my responses carefully. Today it was something about soccer practice, and while listening I spilled the entire contents of my makeup bag on the sink. I looked down at my lipsticks and palettes splayed out next to the Elmo toothbrush and the pink hand soap. A stranger in this house. I scooped everything back up, still listening, still murmuring affirmations.
My day went on, like it always did, but that night in bed I had the horrific feeling that I had left something behind. A perfume, an eyeliner, something that had rolled to the floor unnoticed. I imagined Her bringing the kids upstairs for a bath and discovering the foreign beauty product in her home. What would go through her mind? Would she explode immediately or tuck it away for later? Another piece of evidence supporting her suspicions? Would a missed lip balm be the entire undoing? The end of the affair?
So there were no mementos. No letters or trinkets to be kept in a box and locked away, brought out to savor in private moments of nostalgia. Everything was meticulously accounted for and covered over.
But I had my dresses. When the air warmed and the birds started to chirp, I loved the ceremony of packing away the sweaters and coats and bringing out the florals and pastels. I laid each dress out to prepare it for its place in my closet and basked in the memories. The blue floral, first time at his house. The green flutter sleeves, up against the wall. The black three-quarter sleeves, his favorite. Each one a token of our connection, a private reminder that was so public. He would post selfies in places he knew I liked to visit. I would post pictures in a dress he had ripped off of me in a moment of passion. Both of us fearless in this bold statement only we understood. Once I went straight to a work event after we had met up, my thighs still sticky as I walked into the hotel. Several photos were posted of me just hours after we'd fucked, in the same red dress he had hoisted over my head and tossed in a pile on the carpet. This was our game, the way we said we were thinking of each other while we went about our mundane lives.
Despite these rituals, every time I was with him I told myself it was the last time. I forced myself to mourn the loss of something I never really had. Then the next time, in his office at work, he leaned me over the desk and whispered in my ear, "I only want you." My body responded with an intense need to draw closer to him. (Or was it a shudder?)
-Megan Maciel
Megan Maciel is a poet and essayist in Kansas City. She writes about the feminine experience, especially the gap between the lives we lead and the lives we imagine. "Dresses" is drawn from her novel in progress.
