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I lay in my bed at two in the afternoon. The honeycomb blinds on the window were closed, but still letting in the full warmth and brightness of the afternoon sun. I didn't feel its warmth, and buried myself, fully clothed, in the blankets. I stared, at and through the calendar on the wall, trying to think of how many days it had been since I began feeling this way about a man who didn't belong to me, whom I had no right to be thinking about this way at all.

Sometimes it was like this. I couldn't do anything except think about him. I was despondent, not over my unrequited love, but over loving someone I couldn't have. Someone I didn't want to love. Being a firm believer in taking responsibility for my own actions and never attributing an act of passion to fate, I felt as if I was betraying myself. I couldn't possibly defend my thoughts, though I had never acted on them. My thoughts alone were enough to condemn me to that giant scarlet 'A'.

I ached for him. It sounded like a line from a cheesy romance, but it was true. My bosom wasn't heaving and I wasn't flushed with passion, but the bones in my fingers gently hurt and my stomach churned. I couldn't concentrate through my pounding head. I couldn't read or watch T.V.. Where before, love stories had made me sad because I despaired at never knowing that feeling again, now they pierced me with longing for that just reachable goal that I had to muster every ounce of willpower to resist. Once I touched it, I knew I would never be able to stop. One step into the dark side, just to get it out of my system, I knew would only add to the desire. Somewhere in me, I did hope with all of my heart that his lips would be dry and rough, thin and pressing in an un-tender way. I hoped that the bulge in his pants was just a bad fit, and that I would never, ever find out if that was true.

We had gone past spending time together and just enjoying each others' company. He had become indispensable to me. I wanted to see him every day and didn't care how farfetched my reasons might be. I would do anything to be with him even for a moment. Like Buttercup in The Princess Bride, I would say "farmboy, fetch me that pitcher," except that I had already realized that each time he said his equivalent of "as you wish" he was really saying "I love you."

If you can even remotely relate to this and are married, as I was at the time, I have four words for you: DO NOT DO IT. I know it's easier said that done. Oh, God, do I know. And I know that the temptation

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