Chapter 26, Tiff, Tat, Lovers Spats

Chapter 37, Tiff, Tat, Lovers Spats

Enrico, being married, could only see me on the sly, which suited me.

As an independent contractor, he worked all over Silicon Valley at tech companies with an equipment problem. He told me who was hiring and paying more. I left Nortec and flipped companies with raises based on his information.

To meet we tried communication via CB radio, my handle Cobra and his Supini but our conversations could be heard by all in our broadcast zone. A CB set up to meet at a coffee shop resulted in two other men showing up besides Enrico. A crowd at the Holiday Inn would have occurred if we’d used a CB to meet there.

He phoned me at noon, and I used his work number to contact him. Paranoid, we used code. The need to fix alignment machine number 314, the day and time of its scheduled inspection, meant a meeting at the Holiday Inn’s room 314.

There were no evening formal dates like with Edward. Our relationship devolved into Tuesday and Thursday nooners and occasional after swing shift trysts, not all that different than "F and F". Enrico even suggested sex in his car. My reply was.

"No hotel, no honey."

After a few sexual encounters, Enrico wanted it, sans condom.

“Why aren’t you on the pill like other women? My wife is on the pill. What makes you special? I don’t like rubbers.”

"Let's screw without. I 'm sure your wife will be pleased you’re going to have another bambino."

"Why don't you just take the pill?"

"Why don't you just get fixed? You need to be snipped. Perhaps I should suggest it to your wife so she doesn’t need to take the pill."

Thereafter, he complained but rolled it on.

We went to the Holiday Inn in separate cars. To enhance daytime trysts above “F and F” I typically brought food to eat after sex. A couple of times we went for lunch at a Lyons restaurant after his milking. His nervousness of exposure made it unpleasant. In public, he lost his alpha veneer. My suspicion he’d been caught before was verified when I asked him.

He didn’t drift randomly into my mind and his image, or our imaginary conversation never floated up when peering into my microscope and aligning wafers. I did tell my husband an engineer was flirting with me to generate jealousy attention. I also told him the engineer was reported to have an eight-inch penis. When he asked how I knew, I told him the girls at work told me and had nicked named him "Super 8". If we passed a Super 8 Motel I would say.

"Look another Super 8!"

I figured the best camouflage was making it an open joke. More importantly, I wanted him to evidence jealousy, proof he wanted and loved me.

His pestering questions about Enrico was evidence he hadn’t forgotten the confessed two words I regretted saying. It also slated my need to ensure I was not just a potential grope toy for his swinging.

I told him he was Italian, true, his name was, Enrico Supini, true in a way and he lacked polish, also true. He checked every phone book in Silicon Valley looking for a "Mr. Supini", even pestering me about its spelling. I told him I didn’t know the spelling and he was married with kids, to ease his suspicions.

Enrico was smug with wife and three kids safely tucked away on his home turf while he raided another’s. He took his wife as guaranteed safe from invasion and was the type who would fall apart if a male invaded his domestic domain.

I never talked about family with him. He, in contrast, bragged about his, especially the kids. From what he said his wife was a good mother but a messy housekeeper and a lousy cook who thought the grocery food aisles were frozen, canned, dairy and cereal. She never cooked from scratch. His requests for Italian food were met with microwaved, frozen ravioli and boiled spaghetti with canned sauce.

His expensive clothes weren’t poorly ironed, they weren’t ironed and he looked scruffy unless he had them dry cleaned. She was, however, blond, attractive and thin from the picture in his wallet I stole a glance at while he showered. What was most important, she worshipped him.

The banter from which our affair began eventually turned into acrimonious spats. Enrico was a cheapskate, never left a tip for the hotel maid, bought his wife nothing, tipped the minimum at restaurants and grumbled about how much our affair cost.

After our third hotel encounter, I upped the maid tip to two dollars. He thought to leave a tip for the maid was inane. I never told him about my mother. He snickered about a maid's fate when I opened the unused ones for the maid to take home.

While loving the food I prepared and complaining about his wife's cooking, food was a source of conflict between us. I love cooking, which provided the strongest bond with my father. In thirty minutes, I can make Asian dishes others marvel at. In Mountain View, a childless, elderly, Italian woman across the street from our house adopted me when I was an eighteen-year-old, pregnant bride. She taught me Italian cooking. The Mexican women next door grew corn, ground it and made tortillas. From her, I learned to cook the "real enchilada". I befriended older women and learned their recipes.

Food and drink influence happiness, health and appearance. Unfortunately, many in America have surrendered their palate to "heat and serve", "shake and bake" or microwave. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," is trite but true. A rendezvous while centered on sex preferably includes food and drink either at a restaurant or a meal I prepare.

Enrico never took me to an upscale restaurant, gulped down food I prepared and failed to see food and drink as art in life. While educated with a degree in engineering, his deportment suggested a lack of “proper” education, a geek knowing one thing and nothing else. Once I brought lasagna to room 314 with a small bottle of ice wine and a bottle of his favorite, cheap beer. Deflated after our quickie, he got up naked, piled the lasagna, still warm from my oven, on a plate and was back in bed gobbling it down with his beer chaser instead of waiting for me while I re-dressed.

I had the little table set up with plates, glasses, and napkins for eating with a loaf of ciabatta bread. As I was bent over strapping my shoes on, he said with his mouth full.

"This is great! You'd make a good wife."

I'd never be the doormat his wife was. I wouldn't put up with his put-down slurs. Staring at him sitting in bed, irate fire in my almond dark eyes. I said.

"I’m a good wife! Better than what you have got!"

I grabbed my purse, walked out, left everything and was out of the parking lot before he could dress and chase after me, if he did. The next noon I didn't answer the repeatedly ringing phone.

A day later I did but was still smarting over his attempt to put me down like he did his wife. He kept wooing and apologizing. His ego couldn’t take the jab of being walked out on. If the relationship was going to end it had to be by him. After sweet-talking me, I agreed to meet him, if he stopped acting derogatory toward me. Once in the hotel room, I let him assuage my anger with sweet words and courteous deportment, great efforts for him.

When the romp was over, he exclaimed.

"I am so happy you are no longer angry with me."

I acted indifferent. When pressed if I was happy, I replied.

"You think too highly of yourself. You’re just a misanthropic man who cheats on his wife. What else is there to say?"

I wanted my guppy to chase me, not I, him. I knew Enrico would put me in his safe category next to his wife if I was enraptured with his ego and Mr. Supini. He would then make another conquest to replace me.

In the parking lot, he took the dishes out of his trunk I’d left from in my walkout, relieved he no longer had to hide them. He had left the bottle of wine in the room. I told him to replace it the next time we met and drove off.

Instead of the penchant worship by me of him he expected, I destabilized his ego. I stopped his swearing in my presence and improved his deportment. Despite my efforts, he remained a cheap, uncouth nerd.

I got him to drink his beer out of a glass but had to show him how to pour it down the side of the glass to keep down the foam. I made sure he always wore fresh clothes when meeting me and even once took him shopping to upgrade his style. Still, I nagged and belittled him as the relationship faded. I asked him if he was going to get a hair transplant. To keep him off guard I would occasionally get upset and leave before sex. I never told him what was wrong and acted like he was an idiot if he didn't get it.

In public, with me, he was a Beta. Alone together in the motel room he was an Alpha. Towards the end of our relationship, he was a Beta in the motel room too.

It was as if we were married which, of course, we were but not to each other. It was time for an adultery divorce.

Author Notes: An illicit relationship becomes too familiar with heat turning cold.

Recommend Write a ReviewReport