Grażyna Plebanek - Illegal Liaisons

He glanced aside checking that nobody had caught him in his rapture. But other parents were gazing at their children with similar bliss. Jonathan smiled to himself – they were shameless! There was a time when he hadn’t been able to understand it, but now, along with other parents, he allowed himself to be carried on the wave of indescribable happiness that moments such as these brought.

Megi kept saying that the instant she first saw Antosia, and then Tomaszek, when the tiny babies lay on her belly in the delivery room, was the very essence of life for her. She said that never before or since had she experienced anything so strong.

He believed her; he’d been there with her, seen her reaction. He’d experienced it differently. What he most remembered of the births was his own helplessness, the fact that he couldn’t help his woman, had nothing to do, nothing concrete, nothing he was good at. When he took the three-kilogram bundle into his arms, he wept with fear – the newborn was so fragile.

Later, he changed the diapers with Megi, got up in the night, fed the babies, and taught them how to walk, but in truth it had taken him longer to be ready for fatherhood than it had taken her for motherhood. Now, he watched Antosia and Tomaszek through the glass and thought that moments such as these were the sun of life, fragments from a limited series, treasures.

“It’s a shame adults don’t enjoy themselves,” he thought, observing the children. “Adults plan and execute.”

Andrea appeared in front of his eyes. From the moment he saw how humane she was and realized that, in spite herself, she was trying to break it off with him because she did not want to take him away from his family, he loved her even more. She was a beautiful woman and a wonderful human being. The thought of her brought on an erection and tears welled in his eyes. When he’d taken her – that time after finding out that she and Megi had bumped into each other – she’d written to him saying he ought to leave her. “How can I leave you,” he wrote back. “You’re in me deeper than ever. Can’t you see what you’re doing to me? I want to fuck you and kneel before you. I can’t believe that you, you , are with me.”

He looked at the children again. Such strong emotions had sprung up within him lately. How he’d matured as a father, as the man of a beloved woman. Once he’d thought that fresh experiences washed away the color of previous ones; now he knew they deepened them.

Megi runs doubled over beneath her umbrella as hail pounds the fabric and the rain spits even beneath it; but when she stops outside the shop the sun is already shining to the accompaniment of birdsong. A mannequin stands in the display window in front of which she and Andrea had parted a few days ago. Today it is dressed in a silk vest. Not only Jonathan but she, too, associates silk – especially imitation silk – with old age .

Megi pushes the door and walks alongside the row of hangers. Something sexy but not kitschy. In no way must Jonathan laugh at her. She wanders around, restless as a bee, until she grabs a bra and pair of panties and dives into a changing room. The black triangles of underwear contrast sharply with her pale skin. Megi joins her hands and unconsciously rubs one against the other .

“Is the size right?” the saleswoman asks from behind the curtain .

“Yes, yes.” She rubs her hands harder .

A memory comes back: they used to rub their hands like that at the summer camps then shove them under each other’s noses saying, “Look! That’s how corpses smell.” Megi smiles; the mirror registers the change. She bends over and pulls her phone out of her bag. She’d told her mother of her suspicions about Jonathan and Andrea – she’s close to her mother – and they both decided that Megi should phone Andrea to sense whether the panic in the latter’s eyes had only been an illusion .

She dials Andrea’s number, which she obtained from the trainee, and cringes. What’s she going to talk about? The smell of corpses? What’s Swedish for “corpse”? Or Czech? She knows nothing about this partner of Simon’s .

“Hello? It’s me, Megi.”

“I’m sorry but is it urgent?” replies Andrea’s official voice. “I’m just recording.”

Megi hangs up .

“Is that your size or shall I bring another one?” the shop assistant enquires from behind the curtain .

Megi doesn’t reply. She stands in front of the mirror; the black lingerie is draped over a hanger, next to it her own clothes. She gazes at the triangle of pubic hair. Should she shave? That’s what they’d done to her when preparing her for the operation. The smell of disinfectant and a bald pussy. She hated them for reducing her, a woman, to a little girl .

And now she’s cold. She quickly pulls on her clothes and leaves the shop, buying nothing .

Jonathan’s thoughts returned to the previous evening. They’d watched a couple of episodes of Sex and the City; Megi had borrowed them from Monika, who loved the film.

At first, Megi had watched the series as she would a spider behind glass.

“A woman’s sexuality can’t be based on a coarse reversal of roles, especially in the Casanova myth!” she’d fumed. “There’s a rhythm in the way a woman matures. There’s a time for everything – on a monthly, yearly, and ten-year scale. I can see that men might want us to be available nonstop but it can’t be like that! And something like this” – she’d pointed to the screen – “is made to sell things to the ever-ready female, crotchless panties and other shit. There’s no truth, only business.”

“Celibacy was introduced for similar reasons.” Jonathan smiled. “So as not to pass church property on to children. That’s business, too.”

He’d thought she’d laugh but she got to her feet and angrily switched off the television. It suddenly hit him that she hadn’t laughed for a long time. He couldn’t make her laugh any more. Was it like that ever since Andrea had arrived on the scene; was it then that the thread of understanding between him and his wife had started to grow weaker?

Watching her, he was again haunted by beginnings. As if there was such a thing as a beginning! Yes, he’d met Andrea, accidentally kissed her, but they must have been waiting for each other. There must have been a vacuum in him somewhere for the moment to have shaken him so much. Because when had Megi last shown herself to him in a bra and panties? She used to show him her new clothes, ask his advice about whether they suited her or not, to which he used to reply, “Yes, wonderful,” “No, take them back,” “Not bad but a bit too sensible.” They’d acquired the habit in their first years together when Jonathan, asked for his opinion, had pulled the new garb off, had her, and only then expressed his opinion.

The good old days! They’d enjoyed each other, laughed together. She’d thought Jonathan’s fascination with the female metaphor of taking off the armor of the office day so funny. He’d latched on to the phrase. Megi, home from work, would say, “I’ve got to remove my bra,” and he, returning tired, would throw himself on the sofa and, glancing at her, murmur, “I’ve not even got the strength to remove my bra.” They’d joked that they were moving with the times because taking off a bra was on a par in their home with loosening a tie. And then daily life had teemed with chores to be done immediately so that, one day, when she’d appeared in front of him in her underwear – he couldn’t remember exactly when – he’d merely nodded his approval and returned to the computer. Poor Megi had stood in the doorway for a moment then turned, embarrassed; Jonathan had leapt from his chair, put his arms around her, and given her some good cunnilingus. She’d stimulated him until she squeezed a few drops from his cock, like an icicle melting in the spring sun.