Anyways, our relationship could very easily have gone the other direction.
Do you really think it went in the “right” direction? After all, it wasan affair.
It felt right at the time. It was the best I could hope for, considering the circumstances. The alternative would have been to spend another summer like the previous one, hanging out at bars or clubs, trying to seduce a stranger.
You didn’t?
Well . . . that’s another story, but for the most part, no, I didn’t.
For the most part?
Okay, I did on occasion go out drinking with friends.
And?
I sometimes got lucky.
So, you were cheating on the woman you were cheating with. Kind of like picking the pocket of the person you’re robbing a bank with.
It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Oh?
Kei was also seeing another person, that doctor. The affair had started shortly before she got married when . . .
She had suddenly become “terribly attracted” to men.
Yeah . . . Kei had told me about the doctor months before our own little indiscretion began.
Let me get this straight. While she’s holding up the bank, she also picking the pocket of her partner in crime. Later, as she’s sharing the loot with you, you help yourself to the bills in her purse . . .
Something like that. It’s known as an “open relationship”.
Open to all kinds of diseases more like. You would think a nurse of all people would be more careful, wouldn’t you?
Yes, well, anyways . . . as I was saying, Kei and I became very close that summer meeting two or three times a week, taking daytrips.
Where would you go?
Onsen mostly.
Excuse me?
Hot springs. Onsen are hot spring baths.