“Would you do something for me, Robert?” she said, slowly caressing my chin with malicious appeal.

I sluggishly closed my eyes and inhaled her deliciously expensive perfume. A perfect mix of flowery and exotic aromas that never fails to water my mouth with the anticipation of the taste of her illicit lips.

I lazily exhaled the intoxicating fragrance of Julia, my forbidden fruit, and answered her question between burdensome gulps of air, “I would do anything for you, love.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

She merrily grabbed my hand and led me out of my office and in the direction of the lecture hall. I panicked at the thought of someone seeing us a little too close, then a second later I realized it was almost four o’ clock. The only people that were in the school were all the way across the campus at the polo practice. What a relief. We had the whole school for ourselves, me and my sinful red rose.

She shushed me as we entered the lecture hall and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of revolting plan was running within her pretty little head. Julia cautiously guided me to a secluded dark corner from where you could see the whole hall and pointed to two silhouettes moving in an obscene manner in another secret spot only visible from where we, strategically, stood. Big was my surprise when I realized that the shadows belonged to my wife and her own forbidden fruit, the tall and muscular fencer Dominic Petrovski, a senior at this school. The one she was with in the pictures resting on my desk.

My first impulse was to cry. To try and undo the knot that had formed in my throat. To spit away the bitter taste of the squall of feelings inside of me. My second impulse was to go down there and take hold of my wife’s caramel colored hair and yank her all the way to my office. My third impulse was to punch the nearest wall to liberate my anger. In the midst of this mess of feelings and sensations the only thing that I was certain of is that I was angry, now even more than when I learned of her affair.

Then Julia placed her hands under my long sleeved shirt and slowly ran her hands from my chest to my abdomen, then to my belt and to the button of my pants, undoing the last two with the elegance of the most experienced lover. As my thoughts shifted direction along with her caresses I had an epiphany, I realized the feelings towards my wife’s infidelity were based on pride, not love. At least not anymore. I trembled at the realization that my feelings for Julia went beyond mere desire and that the feelings for my wife weren‘t even that.

“I want you to do to me exactly whatever he does to her,” my living sin whispered in my ear and even though in the back of my mind I kept repeating myself that this was a whole new level of perversity, even for Miss Thorne, I succumbed to her request and my love, and willingly did to Julia everything Dominic did to my wife, finally quenching my thirst for her skin.

Perhaps, after all, the best thing about touching is being touched. Just like she was touching me at that moment and every other moment I spent with her. Or maybe it was touching. Feeling her smooth skin, so similar to the delicate petals of a rose. Only one thing is certain, the most tortuous thing about touching is the moment after I touch her. That painful moment where I can’t feel her warmth, and my hands turn cold with misery .