The Married Woman Trying to Keep Up a COVID-Free Love Affair

This week, a stay-at-home-mom sexting the man she’s having an affair with and trying to find a way to see: 43, married, Brooklyn.

DAY ONE

5:30 a.m. Wake up with my 2-year-old son. My husband gets up too, out of solidarity and also because he likes to start his work day pretty early. He works in animation and mostly with production companies. He’s pretty stressed all day … Who isn’t?

7:30 a.m. I’m now on my own with three kids until dinner time. It is a fresh hell that only moms in the age of COVID can appreciate. Juggling zooms and diapers and other kid disasters pretty much the entire day from this point on.

2 p.m. Take a little break to call John. John is the man I was having an affair with before COVID. We’ve been seeing each other on and off since before I had kids. I have three kids now, so it’s been a while. We worked together at a fashion label before I quit to be a stay at home mom. He was married too, but now he’s divorced, and he has no kids. The affair has been going on so long that it’s just a normal part of my life now. My husband thinks John is gay. They never met so I always just referred to him as my gay BFF from work, so he doesn’t blink if John calls or texts. Anyway, John and I can’t fuck around during COVID because I can’t put my family at risk so we’re just really missing each other right now, and talking all the time. Today I call him just to tell him I love him and to escape my life for four minutes.

9 p.m. I am way too tired to have sex with my husband tonight. I still fuck him once a week or once every two weeks, mostly out of obligation.

DAY TWO

9:45 a.m. It’s John’s 46th birthday today so I am very carefully venturing into the city to drop something at his door. I go with beautiful flowers from my local florist and a fun little cake with rainbow sprinkles all over it. I have to pile my kids in the car to get to the city, and on top of that, two of my kids have to do Zoom school from the backseat. I don’t lie to my husband: I say, “It’s John’s birthday and I’m dropping something at his apartment.” Not a lie!

10:30 a.m. I want to see his face but I also don’t want my kids to see whatever chemistry we have, so I drop the present with his doorman and run back into my car and get the kids back home. I love John very much and I love my husband very much and I’m willing to go my entire life like this, if I can.

5 p.m. I have a long phone call with my sister, who works and has a nanny, and I feel very envious of her life. I could have kept my place in the work world and been extremely successful by now, but I chose family life instead. Right now, I wonder about that decision. These have been the hardest few months I ever could have imagined.

8:30 p.m. My husband and I watch some TV. I lay on his chest and he strokes my hair. I know he wants sex so I just give him a blow job instead. I like my husband’s penis and I think he’s a wonderful partner. And yet, I fall asleep wondering if John had a happy birthday. We didn’t get to talk much today.

DAY THREE

10 a.m. I love seeing my friend, Callie, from the neighborhood at the park and talking about love and sex. She knows all about John. A bunch of my friends do. It’s kind of just a detail about my life like the fact I dye my gray hairs, or I don’t eat red meat. Callie and her wife are ethically non-monogamous and I’m always trying to figure out if that’s what I am, or I guess could be. I know my husband is monogamous; he’s pretty traditional like that.

5 p.m. Drinking at five on the dot because kids. Also very excited to get a “pouf” off Facebook Marketplace from a random neighbor down the street. My husband takes over for an hour while I walk there.

5:15 p.m. Call John on the way and tell him I miss his cock. He and I are much dirtier with each other than I am with my husband. He loves to eat pussy and talk about eating my pussy and I love all of it. I am pretty sure he has some new COVID Bae, as the kids say, but we have kind of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” about the women he sees. I know about the bae because he’s slightly less available than he should be considering the pandemic. I don’t want to know because it will upset me. And yet I’m the one who would never leave my husband for him. He knows never to tell me he’s with someone else, and furthermore that he can never love anyone more than he loves me. Those are my only rules, haha.

5:30 p.m. Pick up the pouf and the dude is an actor I recognize from an HBO show. So that’s fun.

DAY FOUR

5 a.m. So early to be woken up by my littlest muffin. And I slept like shit, so I’m already dying.

10:30 a.m. I have a babysitter come for a few hours today so that I can go do mountains of groceries and other errands for the kids’ first days back at school. This is the closest thing I have to “free time.” Call John from Trader Joe’s. We have to see each other soon. Besides missing sex with him, I’m missing my best friend. We decide to both get tested and then get together at his place. Enough already. This also translates to me that his COVID Bae bullshit is probably fading away.

1 p.m. With 18 bags of groceries, I walk into a pediatrician’s office that I heard tests adults for COVID; they tell me I have to come back tomorrow. Ugh! And then I’ll have to wait four to six days for results. John apparently gets tested pretty easily in Manhattan but we’ll have to wait a few days for his results too.

9 p.m. I have to fuck my husband tonight. It’s been over a week and we both involuntarily keep track of these things. I tell him to crawl into bed with me and we have nice but fast missionary sex. Everyone goes to bed happy.

DAY FIVE

3 p.m. John got his test back and it’s negative, which doesn’t surprise me but it’s all kind of a moot point anyway because I haven’t even gone back to get my test done yet. There’s no time.

9:45 p.m. I’m in bed alone and I masturbate while I imagine a threesome with John and another woman. Fall asleep with a smile on my face.

DAY SIX

11 a.m. It’s one of my kids’ birthdays today and I try to throw him a socially distanced bagel party, with masks, at the park. It’s a total fail. The kids are all around age 5 and some are vigilant with masks and some are totally not, and the parents vary in rules and strictness, and there’s just so much tension it makes me regret the entire thing. What was I thinking?

3 p.m. I tell my husband I’m “off” until tomorrow. He’s usually good when I need to check out like that. I try to lay in my bed with earphones on, watching TV, but my kids keep coming in and defying the whole point. So I decide to pack a bag and go to a local hotel. I do not even try getting an online deal. I just march my tired ass there with my little bag of pajamas and mom jeans and socks, and a book. I don’t even say good-bye to my family. That my husband doesn’t blink an eye at this makes me love him more than I have in a while.

4 p.m. Soon I’m in the room. It’s silent. I do not call John. I do not watch a show. I lay there, in silence, and sleep.

7:30 p.m. I’m awake and I’m starving. I order from Shake Shack — portobello burger and a chocolate shake and fries. How decadent is that?

8 p.m. I’m energized from my monster nap. As I wait for my food, I send a million nude selfies to John. Full frontal, etc. It’s fun. He sends me silly dick pics, pretending he’s some kind of porn star. We’re mostly acting ridiculous and laughing at ourselves but it’s good to feel so light-hearted, with time on my hands, and without any responsibilities, for once. I almost never, ever, ever get to feel like that.

10:30 p.m. I’m on my sixth episode of Below Deck Mediterranean and don’t feel tired and don’t even care. I can sleep late tomorrow. Nothing is hotter than that.

DAY SEVEN

10:00 a.m. My body naturally wakes up as the sun rises, but I lounge around in bed, dozing in and out of sleep. I check in with my family — they’re doing fine without me. I think about asking for another night away, but then I kind of miss them.

4:30 p.m. I get home to the family. My house is torn apart. Truly, every inch of it is covered in crap. I have three hours of dishes and laundry waiting for me. My husband reminds me he’s leaving town for a work trip to L.A. tomorrow (he gets tested before and after each trip). And I’m back to my life, which I cherish, and hate, and thank my lucky stars for.

5 p.m. I text John that I’ll be alone all week and maybe we can pull something off. But I don’t know what yet.

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