August 26, 2001

Well my darling, you couldn't have hurt me more if you'd tried.

For the first ten years of our relationship, while Marilyn was alive, I never once dared to dream that you and I could ever be a couple. I loved you and for me having a little bit of you was better than not having any of you at all. I adored being your mistress. I was happy being your mistress. I had no guilt about my status, you repeatedly told me that there were periods in your marriage when Marilyn would decide that it was over and the two of you would talk of separation, and then that she would change her mind. I also was not the one who had originally instigated this, not the one who had actively pursued a sexual relationship. How could I not want a man who described the first time he met me as "I walked into my clients office and came face to face with my fantasy". But as long as you two were together I never thought, never hoped, never wished for an us, I wouldn't allow myself to, I had no right to.

However, after your wife's unfortunate death, it occurred to me that perhaps maybe somewhere down the road there might be a chance for there to be an us. I wasn't looking for a guarantee, wasn't assuming that it would be a sure thing, wasn't hoping for a marriage proposal, didn't even assume that you'd ask me to move in with you, especially while you were still living in her house. I was looking forward to walks in the woods, and starting to play tennis again. I was relishing the possibility of taking long walks hand in hand down the beach in Florida. I was hoping that when friends invited you to dinner that I'd be your choice of companion, I was certainly planning to ask you to come with me when I went over to friends. I wanted to meet your family, to finally see all those grandkids of yours that you've told me so proudly and lovingly about.

I was so looking forward to you birthday in a few days. It would have been the first time that I would have really been able to buy you anything that you could take home. I guess it was trying to make up for lost time, and I'd bought you a laptop, so you would be able to pick up your e-mail while you were down in Florida. We'd talked about that so often. I'd even scanned a few photos of me so that I could put them on the computer as wallpaper for you, I thought you'd like that, considering how many times you told me that you never got tired of looking at me.

You certainly never did anything to disabuse me of the opinion that there might be a maybe. You spoke of me joining you in Florida during the winter. We talked about you joining me and my friends when we went dog sledding in Haliburton in February. We'd talked about taking a trip up the Alaska highway, and I was hoping I'd be able to detour you over to the little town in northern B.C. I was born in. I thought it would be such fun to finally see that place I was born with the man that I loved beside me. I certainly never kept it a secret that I was very much looking forward to spending a few weeks in Florida with you this winter. When you told me you were going into Shouldice to have your hernia fixed I asked if I could come up and see you there, assuming that if you still wanted me to be a total secret, if there was absolutely no chance of an us you'd have said "no, please don't." You told me that you'd like it if I came up to visit, and I did. We walked hand in hand on the grounds that day, and I was happy.

My god, the last time we made love (the Sunday before you went into Shouldice) we were talking about the furniture for you new apartment, and the one thing I said to you was "Get a new bed". I didn't want to ever sleep in your and Marilyn's bed again, not that we'd done it there often when she was alive, but we had made love there and I did not want her ghost between us. I saw your moving into a new place as a fresh start for you.

I knew that an appropriate length of time would have to pass, not just for appearances sake, but also to give your heart a chance to heal. Even though you had been planning to break it off with your wife before she told you she was dying, and stayed instead when she broke the news, I assumed that you were not made of stone and still had feelings of some sort for her, and I knew that watching her die like that was a rather stressful time in your life. I was also full well aware that there has never been a time in your life when you've not been part of a couple. You married young, jumped from the one relationship into the other, and you had never had a chance to just be you. I was hoping that you'd give yourself that chance, so I wasn't pushing to be included in your life. I thought that you needed some time, I had hoped that you would be kind to yourself and give yourself that time.

So when you tell me over lunch, a scant nine days after the last time we made love, that over the past month you'd been asking friends for widows phone numbers, and you'd found one you think you like, and that you'd like to try to be true to her, for a while anyway, and therefore it's over between us, even though you weren't sure that you could make a go of it with her and hadn't yet slept with her, it was nothing short of a body blow. If you'd been trying to totally destroy me and my entire life you could not have done a better job, nor could you have picked a more cruel way to do it. Never occurred to you that you might want to be true to your mistress of 10 ½ years for a while, anymore than it ever occurred to you to be faithful to either of your two wives, but this nice Jewish widow, that you've known for a few short weeks, and who isn't going to impact adversely on your standard of living (as you so tastefully put it), is the one who might get your fidelity. And then you have the gall to tell me that the first time you'd met her you'd seen her walking towards her and you said to yourself, "Oh, God, I hope that's not her," actively conveying the impression that you think she's a real dog in the looks department. I'd been your mistress for more than a decade and you didn't even for one moment consider the possibility that finally after all those years that you and I might have the chance of a life together. It wasn't even as if you'd just happened to meet this woman, that I would have understood, but you were actively seeking a new relationship without any regard to me or how I might feel, and you were cruel enough to actually tell me that. And cruel enough not to break it off with me before you started actively shopping for your third wife, your wanting to do that I might have understood, but you had to keep your mistress around until the last possible moment. I'm quite sure that if you hadn't met some one quite so quickly that you'd have let me join you in Florida this winter, and then dumped me just as cruelly and horribly, when you finally found someone who fit your artificial criteria. And you would never have told me that you were looking, because then I might have decided to move on on my own, and how would you have gotten your rocks off then?

You really are a prick, Kideckel. I still love you, I'll always love you, but you really are a prick.

In between the crying jags and the black moments of utter despair and the fits of screaming rage, I've been thinking, and there is one snippet of our conversation over that last lunch that keeps rattling around in my head, one phrase that just won't go away. I can still hear you saying to me "after the boys kicked me out of the house I realized that I didn't owe anyone anything". Well, since you so graphically proved that after ten and a half years that you never for one moment felt you owed me anything, not even the courtesy of breaking it off before you went shopping for your third wife, I've come to the conclusion that if you didn't owe me anything, then I certainly don't owe you anything, least of all my continued silence.

Anyway this little shikse isn't going to remain your dirty little secret any longer. I'm sure you thought that I'd be the good little mistress, as I always had, and fade quietly away into the shadows, but I've come to the conclusion that the only way I'm ever, ever going to have a chance to heal is to talk about our affair and how you treated me in the end. I wouldn't have been able to hide my utter heartbreak from the world even if I had tried. The world is going to know about this, I have nothing left to lose.

And, every day when I get up I die a little more inside because I still love you, and for as long as I live I don't think that will ever change.

Moyra J. Bligh
mhksmistress@zlatna.com

If anyone out there is wondering if I'd ever take him back, my heart says "Yes, in a New York minute", my head says "You'd be an utter fool". (On reflection the answer is a definate "NO!" 09/12/01)

Thanks to all those who have taken the time to e-mail me - your kind words and support have been much appreciated - MJB 09/08/01