The following years were no easier. I tried counseling myself to appreciate the second-rate imitations that my parents scrimped to deliver, but the constant covetousness gnawed at my soul. Worse than having nothing was having knock-offs that suggested our lives were cheap and fake. Sometimes my frustrated desires exploded into teary store tirades where I would stomp, “But I want it!”
Mom would silence me with her right eyebrow, a move she inherited from Grandma Rose. Sullen in the backseat on the ride home, I’d tell myself I would be happy someday when I had the power to buy everything I wanted. I couldn’t have guessed that decades of this unmet hunger would eventually land me in moral bankruptcy—and nearly one hundred thousand dollars in debt.
***
Long before Tony pulled me inside his hotel room, I daydreamed of running away with him to the Big Island of Hawaii on a business trip. He would dress in a crisp shirt and trousers, a leather belt, and polished Ferragamo loafers. I’d wear sky-high snakeskin Manolos and a tastefully seductive navy Lanvin wrap dress—one I had flagged in Vogue. We would emerge, presentation boards in hand, from a paneled board room and wink at each other in the elevator. In the parking lot, he’d be so juiced about the $500 million campus project we just landed that he’d push me against the car in a frenzied embrace.
Afterwards, we would return to our suite at the Four Seasons, with its private lanai and pool. We would strip each other slowly and drift, hand-in-hand, into the warm blue water, his skin brushing mine. White sea birds would cry from above as they drafted on air currents. He would stroke me everywhere—the pink swells of my aching breasts, the snowy crests of my hips—before lifting me up on the edge of the deck where he had laid out a thick terrycloth towel. We’d make love for hours as the sun set on our naked bodies. Each time after we came, we would start again, in rhythm with the waves crashing on shore.
With Tony, I would never have to worry nor want for anything—money, passion, comfort, career. With him, I would finally have it all.
***
Before that trip to Portland, Tony and I sexted for months on our Blackberries. The tension between us began building in flirtatious messages sent nightly after work. I tried to follow my mother’s long-standing advice—to not want things I couldn’t have, like my wealthy hotshot boss—then my phone would vibrate, and I couldn’t resist from sending a raunchy note to keep his attention. One of the most respected officers in the company thought that I was hot, smart and sexy; how could I resist? The fact is, I was young, married and dissatisfied. I had attended college and worked a series of administrative jobs in an attempt to scrub myself clean of my family’s legacy of coal mines and car repair shops. After clawing my way into the white-collar world, I began to believe I had earned a successful, strong man like Tony instead of the helpless boy I ended up marrying.
After decades of being bookish and shy, I threw myself into the role of Hot Young Piece of Ass. I was thirty-two, slim and wiry, clocking in at a mere 118 pounds of smooth skin and lean muscle tone. Who knew depression could get you to your ideal weight? When I wasn’t dreading weekends with my sweet but underachieving husband, Alan, I was obsessing, both asleep and awake about Tony and the future of my career. I felt like shit inside, but at least I looked stunning on the outside.
I ignored the fact I was already more than $20,000 in debt between several credit cards; I distracted myself by buying outfits to showcase my newly found svelteness. I also owed $24,000 on my car, a $10,000 line of credit and more than $40,000 in student loans, which I had maxed out earning two degrees, one at a for-profit arts college. I really needed this job to make my minimum payments, especially since I had started to spend as much of my paycheck on personal grooming as I did on monthly minimums. It was the only way to keep up with my well-manicured colleagues. The difference between my teens and thirties, it seemed, was lines of credit.
Debt aside, I felt I had achieved what my family had wanted for and from me: I held a professional position with a multi-national corporation, I was married, and I owned my own car and home. I never imagined, as my career took off, my marriage would flounder the way it had. My husband, a mild-mannered, unmotivated and very nice guy who I met at The University of Arizona, wasn’t driven like I was. He was happy carrying on as we did in college: drinking beer and watching football, going to concerts, hanging out.
At work, I was learning international trade and business strategy; I realized I was surpassing him in acumen and drive. Still, marital dissatisfaction and incompatibility was something everyone was stuck with, I figured, even people like Tony. Why else would a married man who seemed to have it all send me texts like: The other day when u sat across from me i kept thinking of eating u out… The more he egged me on, the more determined I was to coax him into making good on his scandalous suggestions in Portland while we were away from our respective spouses.