My first marriage was a disaster, no matter how you slice it. We were ill-matched, hormone-addled, and hell-bent on messing up our lives. Or so it seems, retrospect being what it is.

I'll not unearth details of something best left buried. Suffice to say, two years and no kids after the wedding, we were divorced.

If there's one good thing that came out of my marriage, it was maturity. I recognized I took unrealistic expectations into my marriage, and I was too young and stupid. What did Shaw say? "Youth is wasted on the young." Amen to that.

Well, after my first wife vanished from my life, I settled into a solitary existence. I harbored vague notions of finding someone else someday; but I made a few friends-with-benefits along the way, and I was perfectly content with that level of relationship.

I was nearing thirty when all that came to a halt.

I was a programmer for a state agency, a mainframer in a department which steadfastly resisted the migration to client-server technology. I was involved with a very large project, one which required some extra bodies.

The contract firms supplied us with some candidates. We interviewed a couple dozen, eventually settling on the six best.

One of those was a young woman named Amy. I guesstimated her age at twenty-seven (right on the money, it turned out). She was assigned to work with my group.

If you've heard civil servants do exactly enough to get by, you have for the most part been properly informed. There were seven people on my team, and four of them (including me) were regular state employees. I was the only one who actually considered work to be a worthwhile activity. The other three did precisely what was required: in by 8:30, out by 5:00. Overtime? Fool!

Two of the three contractors were better, though not that much.

Amy, on the other hand ... ah, what a pleasure to work with her. We shared a passion about owning our work, letting it reflect well on us, giving the hard-working taxpayers what they deserved.

As a result, we worked together very closely.

As the project wore on, we began to know more about one another, personal background information as well as personality components: hopes, dreams, like that. We began a small flirtation that blossomed into something akin to romance. We saw each other evenings and weekends.

Always, we were aware of the potential for disaster if anyone in our working circles suspected we were involved. Charges of favoritism, even if completely unfounded, were the kiss of death for her employment and my position.

One evening, though, it all came together. We were sitting on my couch, canoodling and kissing, and it was getting hot and heavy; and that's when one of my hands found one of her breasts.

I tried to take it back, but she was having none of it. Before I knew it, we were naked and devouring one another.

I'll leave the rest to the imagination of the reader.

Within three weeks, she had moved in with me. We still kept things very quiet, easy to do when you're sufficiently dedicated to your work to focus on work at the office, and on play at home.

Eventually the project ended, some six months later. She was reassigned to another agency within the state complex still struggling with mainframes. She and I were finally able to take our relationship public.

Things leveled out and stayed very satisfying for two years. Then, one evening, after making love, I made what might have seemed a blunder.

We were enjoying post-coital cuddling, when I said, "Amy?"

"Mmm?" she murmured.

"I love you," I said, meaning it.

She stiffened for a fraction; or was it my imagination? She then lifted her face to mine and we kissed deeply. At length, she said, "Tell me what that means."

After a moment's thought, I replied, "Well, it means I'm thinking about settling down, I guess. You know about my first marriage." She nodded. "I think you've cured me of my deep cynicism about marriage." It wasn't a proposal; just an indication I was thinking on those lines.

She really didn't say much. After a while, I heard her breathing slow, and I knew she was asleep. I joined her in that sweet slumber.

It was the last time for a while.

She didn't come home the next evening, and I got worried. It wasn't like her. She finally stumbled in around midnight, reeking of beer and smoke. "Where have you been?" I asked, rather more sharply than I had intended.

"Out with friends," she replied, and went into the bathroom. She emerged twenty minutes later, showered, and slipped into bed without so much as a word.

The next morning was a little tense. She left before I was ready to say goodbye; and that evening was a replay of the last.

I decided discretion was the better part of valor, so I allowed things to play themselves out for a week.

Nothing improved, though, and in fact the situation got worse. She was staying out late every evening, ignoring me, and generally acting like what we had had was a sham.

So it was that on Saturday morning, ten mornings after the first evening of her aberrant behavior, I confronted her. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Nothing," she replied sullenly.

I had prepared for that. "Then you have no place to stay. Pack your shit and leave. And don't argue with me. My name is on the lease. You have no legal standing to be here."

She glared at me. "Okay," she said after a moment, "I've found someone else. I've been fucking him every night. You haven't been getting any, didja notice?" She spat that last shot.

I kept my composure as I regarded her. "I'll be back in six hours. Have lover-boy help you evacuate your shit. Don't be here when I return."

"Jeff, wait," she started, "I'm sorry..."

I ignored her, walked out the door, got into my car, and drove for three hours. I pulled into an interstate rest stop, sat and wept for a while. I still loved her, Heaven help me, but I couldn't deal with that kind of abuse. At length, I began the long drive home.

When I walked in, I saw, to my relief, she had not trashed the place; but there was nothing there to remind me of her. She had obeyed me to the letter, I noted with a painful mix of relief and longing.

I was starting my life over, yet again.

Five years passed. During that time, I drowned my sorrows, first in booze, then in work; I avoided women, and generally became a recluse outside of the office. I did manage to buy a house, a cozy three-bedroom bungalow. 'Twasn't much, but it was mine. (Literally, mine: I paid it off with an inheritance from my grandmother.)

I pulled myself out of my slump, and life was pretty much good, again. I was thirty-five, living rent-free, essentially no debts, making a good salary, and well on the way to early retirement (well, twenty years, but hey). I still had a couple of friends-with-benefits, and I was content to live as I was.