A Very Bad Idea

By Lisabet Sarai

What was I thinking?

Having sex with G. was a terrible idea . He was my housemate, for heaven's sake. He had a girlfriend. Meanwhile my steady lover of three years shared the same house. Alarm bells should been ringing, but I couldn't hear them. I was temporarily insane.

I can offer a million excuses. G. was tall, blond and buff, from a rich Connecticut family and studying to be a doctor. He'd been flirting with me for weeks, ever since we danced together at one of our house parties. (He was a fabulous dancer; while I was in his arms, I was in some kind of blissful trance.) My own boyfriend, J., was away at a conference, so of course I was lonely and horny. While J. was gone, it seemed that G.'s teasing only increased in intensity.

I might also place some of the blame on J., who was responsible in the first place for the fact that I shared the ramshackle three-story row house with five men. I would have preferred an apartment for just the two of us, but he didn't feel comfortable officially "living with me". A group house was less threatening, less of a statement. Yes, it was all J.'s fault, because he wasn't ready to "make a commitment".

Despite the above facts, I can't deny that I was the one who knocked on G.'s door, after a long night of TV and double entendres. He didn't come after me. Sure, he let me into his bed - what red-blooded twenty five year old guy would have turned me away? I wanted him so badly! I couldn't sleep; my fantasies kept me awake. G. broadcast a level of sexual knowledge that I found irresistible. Curiosity aligned with lust to drive me crazy.

We had a brief encounter that mostly cured me of my infatuation and left me moody and morose. The next day G.'s girlfriend came to visit. I fled to the movies and sobbed my way through Saturday Night Fever. (I still can't listen to some of those Bee Gees songs without wanting to cry.) When J. returned, I tearfully confessed my transgression. Within a month I had moved out of the house. Within two months my relationship with J. had painfully disintegrated and I was on my own. Within six months I began the BDSM affair that has so influenced my sexuality and my writing.

I'm usually a fairly rational person. Looking back on that incident, which in some sense may have changed the direction of my life, I'm reminded of the power of desire. My obsession with my sexy roommate overwhelmed my intelligence and my morality. Giving in to the selfish, arrogant man that G. turned out to be - risking a love that had sustained and nurtured me for so long - choosing a course of action that would deeply hurt the man I cared about - clearly this was an act of lunacy. I've labeled it a bad idea, but in fact it wasn't an idea at all, as much as a compulsion.

I've written about this incident before, when our topic here at the Grip was "Regrets". I can't honestly say that I regret the way my life has turned out. Would I have been happier if J. and I had stayed together? That's in some sense a meaningless question.

The point is, lust can be dangerous to your sanity. It can lead you to do things completely alien to your normal behavior. While you're under the influence, you won't even realize that you're acting crazy.

Of course, this provides a rich source of inspiration for creating erotica. But in real life? Consider yourself warned.