This story was written and published elsewhere in April 2011. I thought I'd finally test the waters here at SOL. Thanks again to Rehnquist for his feedback on my initial drafts; as he not only told me, but proved with his suggestions, "there's no such thing as good writing, just good editing!"

Nicole sat alone in a small conference room, several floors up in an edge-of-downtown office building. Spread out on the table in front of her were the divorce papers her husband, Tom, was asking her to sign. After much negotiation through their lawyers, he'd agreed to meet with her, here. She waited for him to arrive, rehearsing once more the speech she hoped would cause him to reconsider.

Her heart, already pounding, nearly thundered when Tom entered the room. She had not been this physically close to him for some time. Even when exchanging the kids for visitations, Tom had kept his distance.

Nervously, she smiled and started to rise; but Tom put his hand out, gesturing for her to stay seated. He took a chair opposite to her and slowly sank into it. He looked at her, sighed, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Tom," she said, "thanks for meeting with me. I have a lot to say. I ... I wrote it down, to be sure that I..."

She reached into her purse and drew out an envelope. She'd handwritten his name on it, in flowing script. With shaking hands, she began to open it.

"Nicole ... stop."

She looked up. Tom was reaching for an unmarked envelope on the table. Her hopes rose, as if borne on a sudden gust of warm wind. Was her fantasy going to come true?

He wrote his own letter. He's going to forgive me. He's going to tear up all these other papers and take me home.

Then the wind died, and Nicole's hopes fell back to earth. It was too much to expect, she realized, that Tom would have something so wonderful to say to her; besides, even if he did, it wouldn't be right that he go first. Hands still shaking, she resumed the surprisingly difficult task of extricating her letter from the envelope.

"Nicole, please ... stop."

This time, Nicole felt a different sort of gust. A cold chill. Something in Tom's voice...

And what's in that envelope he's holding?

"Nicole," he said slowly, "I agree to meet you here. So I have. Now I'm going to leave."

No ... NO! What...

While Nicole struggled to formulate some kind of protest, Tom put his envelope on the table and pushed it towards her.

"Whatever you wanted to say to me ... well, read this first."

Nicole stared at it, afraid to touch it. Meanwhile, Tom rose from his chair.

"It's ... well, you'll see," he said, before turning towards the door.

Tentatively, she reached for the envelope. As she did, Tom left the room. Once again, Nicole was alone.

She unsealed the envelope and looked inside. It seemed to contain a single sheet of paper. Hands shaking even worse now, she removed the document with great difficulty, unfolded it, and studied it.

Printed on the page, on the left-hand side, were five statements, each numbered. In columns, to the right of the first four statements, were the words "TRUE" and "FALSE." It was a quiz. A "true or false" quiz.

She wondered if there was any meaning in that.

Is this my chance—my last chance—to prove myself true, and win him back?

Nicole picked up the pen and considered the first statement.

"1. I never forgot your birthday or our wedding anniversary."

The statement puzzled her. She'd never accused Tom of forgetting those dates. What was his point?

She read the statement again. Still puzzled, she put the quiz down on the table. Something began to tug at her mind; something familiar.

Table ... I was sitting at a table ... important dates, missed...

Then she remembered.

She was sitting at a table with her neighbor, Sheila. They were having coffee in Sheila's kitchen. Eventually, the conversation turned to family matters.

"Bob is driving me crazy," Sheila said. "Did I tell you, he forgot about our wedding anniversary again? He does that almost every year. He's not much better with Valentine's Day, or my birthday ... always remembers Mothers' Day, though! Never misses taking his mother out to brunch, makes reservations weeks in advance..."

Nicole chuckled.

"Easy for you to laugh, Nicole. You've got it all there in Tom. If only Bob were more like him."

"Well, it's not all..." Nicole stopped herself and took a large sip from her cup.

"Not all what?"

"I guess..." Nicole stopped herself again and looked out the window, towards her house.

Sheila leaned towards her, eyebrows raised. "C'mon, don't let me be the only sad, whiny bitch here!"

Nicole could see that she needed some cheering up-or at least, some assurance that she wasn't as alone as she felt.

"You know, maybe from the outside everything looks great over there," Nicole said slowly, nodding towards the window, "but if you ... well, what's it they say? 'Appearances can be deceiving?'"

Intrigued, Sheila refilled Nicole's cup and stared expectantly at her.

"It's like ... well, last weekend, Tom was home, I asked him to change some light bulbs. Night rolls around, I turn on the lights ... nothing. He'd forgotten. Glued to the couch, watching sports all day. I know he gets tired from work, I didn't say anything, but I just felt like..."

"Honey, I know," Sheila said, putting her hand on Nicole's. "And don't get me started on dishes."

"Dishes!" Nicole exclaimed. "If Tom would just wipe his plate off and put it in the sink, instead of piling the cruddy things up on the countertop..."

"Yeah," Sheila replied, "and get this. After I've washed the dishes, put the kids to sleep, I crawl into bed, just wanting to read for a few minutes before I conk out-and Bob jumps in, smirking, wants to ... you know, get friendly."

Nicole huffed in sympathy. "Been there, done that. The old 'grab my boob' thing. Like that's supposed to instantly get me wet—"

Embarrassed at her sauciness, Nicole covered her mouth and looked down at her cup. Sheila, not offended, just laughed. Then Nicole cracked up, too.

The gripe-fest continued. For a while, Nicole thought of her contributions as just a show of camaraderie and a bit of harmless fun. But as the gripes—including hers—got more and more serious, there was no more laughter.

Later, when Tom came home and did something that rubbed Nicole the wrong way, she pouted about it more than she might have done before.

As the scene faded back into Nicole's memory, she looked again at the first statement on the quiz.

"I never forgot your birthday or our wedding anniversary."

Tom couldn't have known about the conversation with Sheila. That couldn't have been his point. So why had that memory come to her, just now?

Because that was the beginning of all this, wasn't it? Not exactly, I guess ... the things I said to Sheila, the things I huffed about later, they'd been going on for some time already. It was just the first time I admitted to someone else—hmm, before I even admitted to myself—that I was unhappy in any way. After that, I indulged that unhappy feeling every time I thought I had a reason, didn't I?

In the counseling that Nicole had started recently, she'd talked a lot with her therapist, Dr. Silver, about stress. Stress from juggling the two kids, a part-time job, her ailing parents, and her husband. Dr. Silver had asked her how she'd managed it.

Not well. I would stew over things about Tom, not realizing how hot and pressurized the magma was getting. When I finally would say something to him, it was never constructive; just an eruption.

Tom wasn't participating in the counseling. No, he didn't want anything to do with Nicole these days. But before things got—well, to where they were now—he admitted that he hadn't been the perfect husband. If she was trying to give him a wake-up call, he said, he'd gotten the message.

But it wasn't a wake-up call. It was a good-night call. Good-night to our marriage. I told him it was too late. That I didn't love him anymore.

Tom had been good about remembering important dates, though. For a moment, the statement on the quiz again seemed trivial. Yet, given Nicole's situation, there had to be more to it, right?

Like her, Tom had been forced to juggle. He had the same kids, of course. He too had a spouse-a spouse who, with increasingly frequency, was blowing up at him. He didn't have ailing parents, but he had a full-time job. It made ceaseless demands upon his attention and energy.

Bringing the pen to the level of the first statement on the quiz, Nicole traced to the right and circled the word "true."

"2. You turned down Italy."

Wow, Nicole thought. The Italy thing. What did that have to do with their present situation? It had been, what, five years ago? No, four maybe?

Or three? Two? Damn, I really have no idea. Is my life, before all ... this ... started to happen, really that blurry?

Though it had nothing to do with the "Italy thing," Nicole found herself thinking about another time she'd been sitting in an office, feeling blurry—blurry-eyed, to be specific.

It was a late night at work, and a quiet one. The office was empty except for Nicole and Jake, an outside consultant brought in to assist with the project. The deadline was six weeks away, but there was still so much to do.

"Rough working these odd hours, hey?" Jake said, furiously typing away.

"Yeah," Nicole replied, "every week my schedule gets reshuffled. But it's ... well, nice to be trusted with a significant part of the project, even though I'm just a part-timer."

"I don't get that. You seem like the glue that holds this place together. I'll bet you'll get a full-time position out of this, when it's over."

"Maybe, assuming we pull it off."

"Yeah. Guess I better type faster!"

Jake started hitting the keys so quickly that he couldn't possibly be entering anything correctly. Nicole laughed.

Being around Jake made the long, odd hours tolerable, even fun. He was a cut-up, and easy on the eyes, especially for a consultant. Unlike her regular co-workers, he made her feel intelligent, witty, and best of all, attractive. Though he'd never been forward, she'd caught him looking her over more than once.

Tonight, however, he seemed distracted, almost somber.

"So," she asked him, "what are you going to get out this, when it's over?"

"Probably just another..." He waved at the papers spread about. "And not with someone like you. It'll be some asshole, and I'll want to quit and ... well, let's just say this line of work isn't what I thought it would be, but I don't see a better option right now."

She asked him to explain. At first, he was dismissive, reluctant to talk about himself. But when she pressed him, something gave way. He stopped typing. When he finally spoke, out spilled a story of frustrations, regrets, and unrealized dreams.

Nicole listened attentively. His past was interesting. His hopes for the future were interesting too. What struck Nicole most, however, was the very idea that the future could be interesting. When, in recent years, had the future seemed to her anything more than an interminable repetition of her present?

Their talk that night led to many more—and increasingly personal—discussions. Not all were in the office. There were lunch breaks on those days when they were working regular hours, and dinner breaks during those increasingly frequent late nights as the deadline approached.

The more she watched him talk, the more she became obsessed with his lips.

With how it might feel to kiss them.

Recoiling at the illicitness of that last thought, Nicole ended her trip down memory lane and focused again on the quiz.

What had been those doubts, those issues? The basis for the reluctance?

It wasn't because of Jake. Hadn't met him yet. Wasn't because of the project at all; that came a long time after.

Was it work in general? The kids? The expense? Having to pack, and then live out of a suitcase? The long flights, the jet lag? Not speaking the language?

It could have been any and all of those things, but honestly, I don't remember.

As Nicole searched her thoughts and feelings for more clarity, she felt something unsettling begin to bubble up. Her first instinct was to ignore it, to suppress it, until she looked at the quiz again.

True or false. This is a test.

She let the bubbles rise.

It probably was all those things, and a thousand other little things, but at the core ... I just didn't want to go with Tom. What would I do with him? I guess I just wasn't interested. Or, if I was interested, for some reason I fought it. Fought it off, instead of fighting for it...

The rising bubbles became a geyser.

But it wasn't just about him, was it? No, I was down on myself then, too. I didn't believe I could keep him happy for ten days. What would we do? What would we talk about? We knew everything about each other that we'd ever want to know; what was left to share?

And as for the future ... well, that wasn't any more exciting, it had seemed. Talk about what the kids had ahead of them, the cost of college, if they could even get into good ones? Blah. Talk about what the future held at work? Blah. Talk about...

Nicole's attention returned to the quiz.

"You turned down Italy."

Yes, she'd turned Tom down on Italy. What else had she turned him down on, over the years?

How many other romantic plans did I ruin? How many times did I swat him away, like a fly, when he would come on to me, pathetically perhaps, but spontaneously, hoping to ignite some passion? And when he was down, exhausted, distracted, unable to be the spark in our relationship ... when did I ever pick up the slack?

Nicole circled "true" after the second statement and looked fearfully to the next one.

3. "Since we were married, you've been my only lover."

Nicole read the statement several times, lingering particularly on one word.

Lover.

She mouthed the word, silently, over and over. Such an uncommon word in ordinary conversation. When had she last heard someone use it? What did it mean?

Someone you have sex with?

Again, Nicole's thoughts drifted back in time, but not to a scene in her office, Sheila's kitchen, or some other familiar place. Instead, she remembered a hotel room.

There was no slow seduction. No necking, no petting, no tender, romantic, tentative kissing. Not like at the bar, two weeks ago, when they were celebrating the completion of the project. No, they'd been come to this hotel room for something more.

Hurriedly, they began to undress. By the time Nicole was down to her bra and panties, she was trembling, almost violently. She was nervous, but was it from excitement or guilt? Maybe both?

There was plain old fear, too—it had been a long time since she'd revealed her body to a new man. She'd been so much younger, fitter, and prettier then. How would a man see her now?

Nicole was especially worried about removing her next article of clothing. Her breasts, once proud assets, were not what they used to be. As she prepared to release them, she turned her back to Jake, hoping the room would suddenly go dark.

A shadow fell on her, but it was only from Jake, stepping towards her. He reached for the clasp of her bra and undid it. As her bra started to fall away, she brought her hands up to cover herself. Gently, he pushed her hands down, drew closer, and looked over her shoulder.

He gasped. For a moment, she thought it might be in disappointment, but he quickly dispelled that notion. Reaching around her, he took her breasts in his hands and moaned.

"You're so gorgeous," he whispered in her ear.

She found the sincerity and hunger in his voice as stimulating as the hot breath on her neck and the urgent manner of his caresses. Her nipples were swollen, erect. When his fingers grazed them, her whole body felt electrified.

Closing her eyes, she leaned back into him, her arm reaching for the back of his head. When his lips fell upon her neck, she went weak in the knees. As he steadied her, she felt something hard press against her backside. Subtly, she swayed against it, as if trying to confirm her suspicions.

Jake took notice. He released her breasts, removed his briefs, and turned her around. Taking her hand, he placed it on his cock. It felt so warm, so pulsating ... and so hard! Hard for her!

He wavered, as if transfixed by the pleasure she was delivering by stroking him. Then, after a passionate kiss, he gently removed her hand, sunk to his knees, and placed his hands on her hips. His face was directly in front of her panties.

His fingers slipped under the waistband.

Nicole shivered in expectation. This was it—the point of no return. In a moment, they would both be completely revealed to each other, and lust would run its course.

She placed her hands on Jake's head and ran her fingers through his hair, signaling that she wanted him to continue.

As Jake proceeded to slowly lower her panties down her legs, she realized she was still wearing her high-heel shoes. Being in an unfamiliar place, naked, and about to have sex with a man who was not her husband had charged her up so much already. Yet now, she had a thought that made her pussy tingle even more.

When her panties reached her ankles, Jake made as if to remove her shoes. She tapped his shoulder. When he looked up, she shook her head, "No."

His eyes bulged and his smile curled with amazement and desire. Staring down at that face, she swore she could feel moisture flooding inside her. She stepped out of her panties and seductively kicked them aside.

Jake's eyes again flared at hers, then traveled down the length of her body to her exposed bush, which she'd neatly trimmed just the day before. The anticipation at what Jake would do next-and what else they would do to each other, here in this room-was exquisite. Anticipation had not been part of her sex life for a long, long time.

An hour later, when they were done, Jake left the hotel room first. Just before closing the door behind him, he blew her a kiss. Hastily, she blew one back at him. It felt a bit awkward, but it also made her giggle. She could not remember the last time she had giggled over anything.

Lying in bed, sweaty and disheveled, she felt cum leaking out of her. Not her husband's cum. She had allowed another man to come in her; she had made another man come in her! The thoughts were at once both prideful and shameful, both thrilling and terrifying.

Back in the present, Nicole felt flush, but only slightly so. She wondered how she could have felt so differently about Jake back then. Now, it was Tom who she wished would meet her in some hotel room and fuck her brains out.

She wondered at that too. Even before the affair, sex with her husband had become so inessential to her. Occasionally she'd look forward to it, but more often, it felt obligatory, perfunctory.

But when Jake made me take his ... take him in my hand, that first time, it felt so alive!

Yet Jake's cock was no more alive than her husband's. It was just a different cock, one she was not supposed to be touching. Perhaps that was part of what had made her react to its warmth and pulse in a way she had not reacted to touching Tom in some time?

And yes, Jake's cock had been hard—hard for her—but Tom had never failed to "get it up" for her, either. Why, for so long, hadn't she gotten a thrill from seeing Tom aroused, as she'd been thrilled by Jake's arousal? Because Tom's was a given, something expected? Something she didn't really see anymore?

Now that Nicole desperately desired to have her husband back, her sexual thoughts centered on him, not Jake. But as she recalled her liaisons with Jake, she found that apart from the guilt her memories brought on, they were not unpleasant. Nor were they hazy.

As if trying to dispel the images from her mind, Nicole looked around the room, her eyes eventually settling on the quiz.

"Since we were married, you've been my only lover."

Nicole read the statement on the quiz again. She knew the sexual aspect of the affair had been devastating to Tom, but she also knew he wasn't a shallow man. There had to be something more to the statement.

The thought of moving on brought to Nicole's mind an old soul song. A woman singing about a train. A train she was going to take to be with her lover.

Nicole realized that her interludes with Jake, even when they had just involved conversation, had been like intermissions from everything else in her life. Maybe that's what had enhanced the sex, when it did finally happen. When in bed with Tom in recent years, Nicole had always felt the weight of parenting, finances, housekeeping, and so on.

All that stuff was in bed with us.

In bed with Jake, she'd been in a different world. A simple, uncluttered little world consisting of Jake and her. A world where she was young again and light as a feather.

No wonder the orgasms had sent her soaring. Yet it was the pillow talk, after the climaxes, that she'd enjoyed just as much. Even the silent, motionless act of falling asleep with Jake had seemed extraordinary.

We shared own little world. That's what it really means to be lovers, doesn't it? To share a little world, in which nothing else matters. That's the ultimate form of intimacy, isn't it?

The song came to mind again. Gladys Knight, singing about a midnight train to Georgia. A train her lover was taking. A train Gladys also was going to take, in order to be with him.

Nicole looked again at the quiz.

"Since we were married, you've been my only lover."

Tom didn't always do as much as he could to keep our world simple, to keep it safe, to keep it intimate ... he's admitted all that ... but he tried harder than me. And he never left our world, not even as it was diminishing.

Nicole lowered her pen to the third statement and circled "true."

4. "You never would have told me."

Never would have told Tom about ... what?

About the aff—about him. About Jake.

It was another hard punch to the gut. Nicole felt like she was coughing—no, choking—on something. Perhaps it was the irony of her situation.

Here I am in this room, with all these legal papers, praying for an escape ... but I started this. I filed for divorce first. I filed first...

Shaking her head in regret, Nicole recalled how it had happened.

"Just do it," Sheila said. "If you don't just file, if you warn him first and try to explain, he'll say something and you'll chicken out. It happened to me, with Bob."

"I won't chicken out," Nicole replied. "I've made up my mind. It's just a matter of, you know, courtesy maybe? To not, like, blindside him?"

"Oh yeah? You know what happened to Cindy? She mentioned divorce to Harry, thought they could handle it amicably, but he went and filed first, got a real shark for a lawyer. She was on her heels the rest of the way. Don't give Tom the upper hand. Take control."

Control, Nicole thought. Taking control of her life, that was what this was all about, right? Maybe Sheila had a point.

"I guess ... still, don't you think I owe him an explanation?"

"Later, honey, maybe. They'll be time. Besides, what's to explain?"

Now Sheila definitely had a point—more so than she knew, because Sheila did not know about Jake. More importantly, neither did Tom. Nicole wanted to keep it that way, at least for now.

After all, why hurt him? Someday he'd see Jake and her together, and he'd think they had met post-divorce. That might still hurt him, but not as much as knowing she'd been cuckolding him during their marriage.

"Just do it," Sheila said again.

Three weeks later, Tom was served with divorce papers.

Nicole read the fourth statement again.

"You never would have told me."

Never would have? I never did tell him, that much is true.

Recently, Dr. Silver had asked Nicole about the manner of her separation from Tom. The therapist had seemed to doubt Nicole's explanation of why she'd handled it the way she had.

Surprising Tom with the divorce papers, then not admitting to an affair when he confronted me, so as not to hurt him—that was bullshit, wasn't it? Dr. Silver was pretty close to telling me so last week, I think. She knows ... and I know, now ... I didn't want to tell Tom that I'd found someone else because I was ashamed. I didn't want him to know, or the world to know, that I'd been cheating.

After Nicole started the divorce, she rented an apartment and moved. Jake had offered to take her in, but she'd declined. "Let's wait until we can fully commit to each other," she'd said, smiling and playing with her ring finger suggestively.