1.
In one drunken kiss on a torn sofa, you become the other woman. It takes two years of watching him, learning him like a language.
2.
The first time you have sex, you promise yourself only once. The second time, you tell yourself you deserve to have fun—you’ve earned this. The third time, you realize he’s quicksand, and you stop making promises to yourself.
3.
Your new lover puts a pass code on his phone so his girlfriend won’t find out about you. You remind yourself she’s his girlfriend, not his wife. You become a special breed of other woman when you find this comforting.
4.
You learn how to touch him without being seen—it’s exciting. Your transformation to other woman is both slow and sudden, a surprise and a scheme. A little secret you carry around your neck. The tender moments begin in a Seattle hotel room. He holds you beneath tables, in dark parking lots, against the wall in the empty hallway outside his office. Most of the time, you’re grateful to be the other woman. You’d rather be the woman he’s fucking than the woman who bores him. You lie to yourself, and say you get the real him, the true him. But it’s a hard lie to swallow.
5.
His girlfriend is a good woman. She uses soap with vanilla and chamomile. She goes to bed before 11 and arrives early to work. She makes delicate paper cranes for her friends. If she were your friend, she’d remember all your favorite songs and help you clean up after a party. She’s on the South Beach diet, already lost 30 pounds. You find her wedding Pinterest board easily, and see her carefully selected engagement rings and wedding cake toppers. You realize you’re the villain in her story.
6.
You like sleeping in the dirty sheets after he leaves to go back to her. You know you’re the worst kind of person. It’s women like you that make women turn on each other. He says he likes being bad with you, and you start to worry that’s all you are—badness. You worry you’re all Las Vegas and she’s all Disneyland. Sometimes you want to be Disneyland, too, but you’re not.
7.
You decide to cook him dinner. You go all out. You wear a flower print apron and make mashed potatoes. You feel cute, sweet—finally something close to good. You remember the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
8.
As you’re cooking, he grabs you, lifting to set you on the counter. You feel like a doll. His hands slide up your dress and he starts fingering you. You’re holding the spatula in one hand and a fistful of his dark hair in the other. And before you know it, he’s fucking you there on the counter. And it’s thrilling, it’s great, but the food gets cold.
9.
You worry that you’ll become a cautionary tale mothers tell their daughters. You remember that old saying why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free and can’t get it out of your head. He leaves around 2am, and you Wiki famous mistresses alone in bed. You feel kind of sexy, kind of powerful, but that doesn’t last. Anne Boleyn gets her head chopped off; Monica Lewinsky has to leave the country and tries to kill herself. Their lovers wanted them so badly until they never wanted them again.
10.
You ignore his texts and feel in control. You’re turning over a new leaf. You’re breaking the cycle, and you don’t have to be the other woman anymore. But then you see a picture of him on Facebook sharing a drink with his girlfriend, all red cheeks and smiles. You try not to get angry; you knew what you were getting into when this whole thing started. No, instead you’re going to find someone who loves you enough.
11.
You fell for him because he’s broken—in one hundred small ways, he’s broken—and you’ve always loved things like that. You felt bad for your broken toys, the browning Christmas tree, chipped plates, a cat smashed into the road. You love him like you loved those things. You wonder how much enough actually is, if it exists. So you respond to his texts and tell him to come over, that you’ve been waiting for him all night.
12.
When you’re out at dinner, he’s sweet. He looks directly into your eyes. He can’t look away. He buys the drinks; you rub your foot against his leg. He only takes you to this small Mexican restaurant with three dollar margaritas, but you can’t be offended anymore. You know the drill. It’s become your place.
13.
He keeps his phone in his pocket and listens to you, nods, laughs, grabs your knee under the table. Reaching across the table to grab his hand, you feel like you’ve won some kind of prize. He’s yours for these little pockets of time. But you’re always moving toward a point when he isn’t yours anymore—always colliding with reality.
14.
You’re more the other woman than anything else now. It’s become your whole self. It’s a gene you didn’t know you had, but it’s made itself known, and now all you can do is try to survive in your new form. You learn the other woman is not only synonymous with whore, but with devil, demon. You tell him this over happy hour margaritas, that you feel like a whore, and he looks down at the chips and doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing he can say, and you feel bad for ruining the moment.
15.
You’ve only been at it for two months, but it starts to feel like your whole life has been spent like this. You can feel your friends getting tired of you, you’re always sad now. They try to cheer you up, telling you to go Fatal Attraction on his ass—you wish you had that kind of power.
16.
Your best friend sets you up on a date, but you cancel last minute. Like a vestigial tail, this whore part marks you. You can’t shed it, can’t hide it. You wonder if maybe everyone is this way, but better at hiding it.
17.
It takes your lover a long time to return your texts, and you know this means he’s with his lady. But he eventually does text back, and says he’ll stop by and see you. You call him your lover because booty call embarrasses you, but lover doesn’t feel right either. You wonder how much actual love is between you.
18.
Then, from his side of your bed, out of the blue he says, “I love you so much.” His eyes are heavy as he runs his fingers across your freckled shoulder. It feels honest, like it’s always been this way and it will always be this way. You feel like the only woman.
19.
When it’s good, you forget you’re on the side of his life. That’s the trick, that’s the curse. You’re curled around him on the couch drinking wine and watching Netflix, and you just forget. You forget there are places you cannot go with him and times you cannot touch him.
20.
You stop being the other woman altogether for one brief and terrible minute when he tears up and says, “I wanted to give it all up for you.” You’re hooked on the word wanted. It’s an omission you didn’t even know you were waiting for. You think maybe you were happier waiting, pretending he might leave her. It feels so genuine—his guilt, his love—but you know it’s not real. You realize you don’t have anything real, nothing you can take home to your family, nothing that lasts after the sun comes up. You only have this murky judgment, eyes that find excuses, legs full of love, his promises beneath you in bed, and the fear that whatever you do, all you’ll ever be is the other woman.
Samantha Kennedy is a word freak from the San Francisco Bay Area, where she’s lived all her life. Her work has appeared in Voicemail Poems and is forthcoming from BOAAT Press. She loves vintage clothes, breakfast, and happy hour margaritas.
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–Art by Menerva Tau
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