We always started out talking about computers. Wayne would ask if I’d copied the hard drive yet I’d report on my various failed attempts. Jason’s schedule was highly unreliable, I’d explain. He would arrive home anytime after eleven P.M., and first I had to put Ree to bed and then grade papers, and by the time that was all done, I was already nervous Jason would return home at any second. I tried, I aborted. I had a hard time concentrating….

“It’s all very nerve-wracking,” I’d say.

Wayne would squeeze my hand in support and I’d feel the contact of his fingers as a tingle all the way up my arm.

We didn’t hold hands. We didn’t find dark corners. We didn’t retreat to the back seat of his car and neck like teenagers. I was too aware that we were still in my place of work, where there were eyes and ears everywhere. And I was even more aware of my young daughter, never far away, who might need me at a moment’s notice.

So we walked the halls. We talked—innocently really. And the more Wayne didn’t touch me, the more his hands didn’t graze across my breasts and his lips didn’t brush along my collarbone, the more I wanted him. Crazily, insanely, until every time I looked at him I thought my body might spontaneously combust

He wanted me, too. I could tell by the way his palm lingered on the small of my back as he helped me climb onto the bleachers. Or the way he paused at the end of an empty hallway, never saying a word, but his eyes burning into mine, before finally, reluctantly, we both turned around and headed back to more populated areas.

“Do you love him?” he asked me one night. No reason to define “him.”

“He’s my daughter’s father,” I said.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I think it does.”

I didn’t tell him about my sex life, or the lack thereof. That felt too much like a violation of the family code. I could flirt with a stranger. I could tell him I suspected my husband was engaged in unlawful Internet activities. But I could not tell him my husband had never physically touched me. That would cross the line.

And I didn’t want to hurt Jason. I just … I wanted Wayne. I wanted to feel the way I felt when I was around him. Young. Pretty. Desirable.

Powerful.

Wayne wanted me, and yet, he couldn’t have me, and that made him want me more.

By the end of January, the e-mails were replaced by text messages. Only during school hours; Wayne was not stupid. He would send me a smiley face. Maybe a picture of a flower he’d taken with his cell phone at the grocery store. Then the questions began.