When Julia finally came out of the city hall, she looked up to the sky and saw that the day was still warm and sunny. A smile brightened her face and, instead of heading towards the subway station, she decided to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. For once she wasn't in a hurry and she had always loved the view you could get from the bridge. It really seemed like the perfect opportunity.
But when she was finally on it her heart sank. She could swear that Michael was walking just in front of her. She had watched him so much during rehearsals that she could describe every one of his features with her eyes closed, and it was definitely his back, and the back of his neck and his hair. Suddenly she couldn't breathe. But it was stupid, she was stupid.
She shook her head in order to clear her mind. She shouldn't have been thinking about him in that way. She was happily married to the perfect husband. Frank was sweet, caring, smart and an excellent father. But he wasn't making her feel the way Michael was making her feel anymore. She knew she shouldn't be comparing. It was a dangerous thing to do because she was afraid her heart would choose Michael.
Before she knew it she wasn't walking behind him anymore but next to him. She felt his eyes on her and welcomed his warm greeting. They laughed about something but a few seconds later she couldn't even remember what it was. She was acting like a teenager around him and she was so ashamed of it that she hadn't even told Tom what was going on. He probably would have known what to do, or at least he would have stopped to always ask Michael to join them for drinks after rehearsal.
Her heart leaped. She had no idea how but they had linked their fingers and a jolt of electricity was running from her finger towards the rest of her body. Butterflies were flying in her stomach and this was just too much for her. He couldn't touch her, this wasn't fair game. Her mind was even blanker than it was before and she knew that soon her heart would take the commands. She should have let go of his finger but she couldn't bring herself to do that.
And when suddenly he stopped and pushed her against the handrail she couldn't bring herself to stop him either. Her heart was now holding the commands and it wanted this to happen badly, or maybe it wasn't just her heart but her whole body as well because right now her whole body was feeling weak, not just her heart.
He crushed his lips against hers and it was just too much to handle. She had thought about this for so long and how she should react if it was to happen. She had decided that she should push him away but right now she couldn't even consider doing that. Her mind was filled with fireworks and the butterflies were becoming crazier and crazier. So she did what she had always told herself she would never do, she responded to his kiss with all the passion she could give him.
When their lips finally parted from each other she couldn't help the big smile that made its way to her lips. It had been a very long time since she hadn't felt this happy and there was no point in hiding it. She wasn't even sure she could have hidden it if she had wanted to. Michael was also smiling at her. Apparently he had been dreaming about this for a long time too.
Here they were, pressed against each other, looking into each other's eyes with wide smiles on their faces, not even noticing the wonderful view in front and behind them. All they could see was each other and time didn't even matter anymore. They had finally done it. They had taken that first step which they had been dying to take for quite some time now, even if they knew that it was wrong. And right now they weren't even able to tell why it was wrong anymore. Frank and Leo were as far from their minds as they could be.
Their hands met and they intertwined their fingers, bringing them to rest between their chests. They wanted more. Their hearts, their bodies, and even their minds now, they were all asking for more. They had waited for too long. They had piled too much repressed passion and it was begging to come out.
Michael leaned closer and whispered to her ear. "Please, come to my place."
She didn't respond right away. Could she really do that ?
Now he was even closer to her ear, she could feel his breath on her skin and she was shivering. "I'm begging you. I need you."
This was too much, she couldn't say no to that. She turned her head and once again their lips met. It was tender than the kiss before, but the reaction in her body was just as strong.
When they broke apart he took her hand and they started to walk towards the other end of the bridge. His flat wasn't that far away but neither one of them could wait that long. Their pace started to get quicker and quicker and eventually they were almost running, making their way through a crowd of tourists.
He was still holding her hand and the contact was stopping her from thinking about what she was about to do, about what a mistake it was, about how wrong it was to do that to Frank and Leo.
When they finally entered his apartment they didn't even bother to go to the bedroom. They just leaned against the door, not even minding about their surroundings. She found the hem of his shirt and he found the zipper of his dress. A few seconds later they had managed to take off all of their clothes and with that all of the doubts they were still having.
Later that night she had reluctantly left his bed, moving the arm that was encircling her, not even bothering to tell him that she had to go back to her family. He already knew and she could swear she had seen a shadow crossed his face when he had realized that. She wasn't his. She had a loving family, a husband who was crazy about her and whom she loved, and a young son who was the cutest thing he had ever seen. She silently picked her clothes off the floor, not even hiding her naked body from him, which was making it even more difficult for him to watch her go.
But he had to let her go so he watched her getting dressed and heading for the door. Suddenly she froze and went back to plant one sweet kiss on his lips. She wanted to finish that night on a good note. She had allowed herself to slip for one night and she had promised herself it would only be that one night, but she would have wanted for it to be so much more and that kiss was telling him all of that, or at least she hoped it was.
Then she finally got out of his apartment and didn't look back. If she had she could have seen a little tear in the corner of Michael's eye. But she didn't even had to look to know it was there, it was in her eye as well. And it was so much more that one tear. Soon a whole bunch of tears were running down her cheeks as she was walking home. Maybe surrendering for one night hadn't been such a good idea. Now she knew what she had been avoiding all along and how great it was. It would just make it even harder to avoid it in the future.
It was already late when she finally slid under the covers next to the sleeping figure of her husband. He turned to her with a sleepy face. "Where were you ?" It wasn't an accusatory tone, just an innocent question.
She looked at the ceiling, trying to hide the guilt she was experiencing. If she didn't know before what real guilt looked like now she was sure she knew exactly what it felt like. And it wasn't comfortable. "Tom and I were working on a song. We didn't see how fast the time was going."
"You never do." He smiled and went to plant a kiss on her forehead before turning back to face the wall, as he always did when sleeping. A few seconds later his eyes were closed and his breathing was slower. But Julia's eyes were still wide opened and fixed on the ceiling. She couldn't believe what she had done just a few hours before.
She didn't get much sleep that night but she was able to conceal it with a little make-up. She went to sit at her usual spot next to Tom but Michael got in her way before she was able to do so. He was smiling widely at her and her heart couldn't help but clench. How come he had such a huge impact on her ? He was acting as if nothing had happened, being his usual self. "I found the recording of Rent with the cast that you love. Do you wanna come over and watch it tonight ?"
She was surprised by his offer. She should have said no. She should have told him that she couldn't spend another evening alone with him. That it would only lead to what they had done last night and, no matter how much she had enjoyed it, it didn't make it any less wrong. She should have told him that she was going to spend the night at home with her family. She should have told him that last night would never happen again, that the us that they had been yesterday didn't exist and could never exist. But it wasn't at all what escaped her lips. "Sure." It was all her mind had been able to come up with. All she wanted. And she knew that tonight wouldn't just be about watching the recording of Rent, she wasn't even sure there would be any watching of the recording at all.
He gently touched her hand, without attracting too much attention to them, and walked towards the rest of the cast. She watched him go, still feeling his fingers on her hand, and went to sit where she had intended to sit a few minutes ago, next to Tom.
Her best friend immediately saw that something was going on, but she couldn't tell him what. The whole situation was still surreal to her and she was afraid of how he would react. So she just told him that she had had trouble sleeping that night and he left it to that. Like Frank he wasn't the suspecting kind. It was probably because she had never given them any reason to doubt her, at least up until now, but they would never know.
"Do you wanna come and have some drinks with me tonight ?"
"No, I have plans with Frank." She was ashamed of how easily the lies were coming to her. But she probably wouldn't have bothered with all the problems this affair would cause if she hadn't thought it was worth it. Because yes, it was an affair. No matter how horrible this made it sound, it was what she was doing. She was having an affair with Michael and when she was with him nothing else mattered.
"I guess I'll be on my own then, Michael also told me he couldn't make it." She felt she was about to blush and buried her face in her bag, pretending to look for something. Yes, this was going to be hard. Why would she want to do something like that ? But she didn't even have to search for the answer. She knew the answer. Every time she would look at Michael she was reminded of why she wanted to do that.