When I casually spoke the short sentence, it felt true to me. But even though it was “merely” a lie of omission, I still sensed that I was walking on a very fine tightrope. Before this, I’d always felt certain of my unassailable honesty.
“He slept in that bed”, I replied, pointing to the twin futon in my large studio apartment. My response was to my current lover’s query as to where my overnight guest had lain his head the previous evening and night.
While it was wholly true that he had slept in that bed, almost immediately prior to that, he and I had had sex on this bed: mine. The fact that he was my most-enduring friend, my first lover, and someone whom I’d only slept with a dozen times over seven years didn’t matter at all to my current beau. Nor did it matter to him that his obvious judgment of me was steeped in unconscious hypocrisy: after all, he was sleeping with someone else as well. Yet somehow to him, I became the betrayer.
Sex with my ex had been a clear display of my own immaturity and insecurity. The sex had also been far less mind-blowing than that which I already shared with my current lover. But earlier the previous evening, when I had called my beau, his other lover answered the phone. So I took that as a sign that my twice-yearly reunion with my ex should definitely take a sexual turn. Spite-fucking is rarely pleasurable, but sometimes it feels more satisfying than doing nothing at all.
At last, I felt the scales had been balanced, and all was right in my universe. I disagree with the adage ” revenge is a dish best served cold.” I think that sometimes, justice is a dish best served erotically sweltering. I knew that my beau loved me, as I loved him, but until that point, my entreaties for him to be monogamous with me had fallen on deaf ears. Unsurprisingly, not long after my conjugal visit with my ex, my current lover told his girlfriend about me, and they separated soon after. My actions weren’t deliberately devious, but they clearly served a purpose in the grand scheme.
“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…” – Fleetwood Mac
