Our desperate hold, lasted mere seconds.  When his head fell beside mine, and his lips began to softly graze their way up the side of my neck, and stopped by my ear, where I could hear his panting breaths, that was all it took.  My hands, used only moments before to strike him and unsuccessfully keep him at bay, jumped to his chest, pressing into him, gripping him to steady myself.  His arms, already wrapped behind my back, slowly made their way up to my shoulders, pausing briefly before gliding softly up the sides of my neck, coming to rest on the sides of my face.  Pulling away just enough that our eyes were able to meet, I held his stare, with him studying my face, trying to fully gauge my willingness.  He did not have to study long.

            In a flash, he lunged at me, our lips colliding roughly, his hands pulling my face into him, his fingers pressed into my hair.  The force of the kiss pushed my back into the door behind me, pinning my into it, my hands dropped below his waist, digging into his hips, drawing him into me.  His kiss was aggressive.  It was passionate.  It was hot.

            Within seconds of the initial embrace, we began pawing at each other’s bodies, hands darting wherever they could, hoping to grasp whatever they could find.  Unsatisfied with the discoveries, we began clawing at each other's shirts.  His was the first to go, with him taking it upon himself to peel it off in one swift motion before flinging it to the floor.  My heart skipped, and my breath caught in my throat as he pushed back into me, my hands excitedly roaming the freshly exposed skin, my fingers dancing over his deliciously defined muscles.

            With me, he took his time, making his way under the back of my shirt, indulging in every inch of my back, and he paused only an instant to give me the naughtiest little smile, before he relieved me of that clothing.  The embrace that followed was even more desperate than before, our mouths joined so harshly that at times, it would provide an odd sense of pleasurable pain.  We stumbled around, locked together, with uncoordinated steps, until we tumbled together to the floor.  The weight of his body over mine brought a stimulating jolt, the sensation of our skin pressed tightly together, well, it wasn't exactly lacking on the stimulation front either.

            "Ellie?"

            He raised to his knees, hovering above me, his eyes sharp and determined, and began to unbuckle his belt.

            "Ellie?"

            His fingers moved purposely to the button on his jeans, easily undoing them.  I took in a sharp breath, my body rigid with an eagerness that was quickly becoming an obsession, and held it deep in my lungs as he slowly lowered the zipper to reveal -

            "ELLIE!"

            The sound of Marissa Glover's voice stabs into my brain and I am suddenly yanked from under the lustful promise of Patrick's body, and into the glaring sun of the soccer field where I sit in my umbrella chair on the sidelines of Abby's soccer camp.  The transportation is jarring and causes me to jump not only out of my skin, but also backwards enough that I lose balance and topple over, chair in tow.

            "Oh my God, Ellie, are you alright!" Claire Evans screams beside me, and drops to the ground to help me up.

            I look around, and see all the mother's I have come to know from our numerous mornings together staring at me, whispering among themselves, "Oh my, did she pass out?" inquires one, "Should we call an ambulance?" from another.  Across the field, Patrick, who is running drills with the girls, sees my ground dwelling and starts to jog across the field toward me. 

            I sit up, prying myself off the ground, and blink from the bright midday sun.  Well, this is embarrassing.  It's not the first time I have dazed out while fantasizing about what happened between Patrick and I on Saturday, but it is the first time I have done so in such a public manner, and also the first time I have ended up on my ass from it.

            "I think we should call 911," Claire insists reaching into her purse for her phone.

            "No, I'm fine!" I say, giving my hair a shake, "Really, I'm okay."  I try to stand up but Claire puts her hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

            "I think you should stay sitting down, Elle," she warns, "Your face is bright red!  Maybe you have heat stroke!"

            I stand up, and start brushing the grass off my pants, "I'm good, I promise, I just dozed off I think."

            "You were just sitting there, and then your face started to turn all red, and you looked so tensed up!" Marissa chimes in, "Then you wouldn't answer when we called your name.  I really think we should call someone!"

            Patrick makes his way over, edging his way through the gaggle of women, "What happened?" he asks, "Ellie, are you okay?"   He moves in front of me and takes my hands in his before the flash of realization that we are in fact standing in front of other people hits him, and he quickly drops them back again.

            "Seriously, everyone," I announce, "I am totally fine, I just fell asleep!  Really!"  Our daughters are making their way over, Abby with a very concerned look on her face.  "Come on, I don't want to freak out the kids, please stop worrying!"

            Concern hangs in Patrick's eyes, but he turns and runs to the girls, redirecting them back to the field, and I see him put an arm around Abby's shoulders, assuring her that all is well with her crazy mom, and I am left to face the stares of my fellow women.  I continue to straighten myself out, internally smacking myself for being so stupid as to let myself get that carried away, and as I bend down to pick up my chair, I fear that I may actually be suffering from heat stroke because I start hallucinating that Natalie Brimawich is walking our way from the parking lot.  I snap up and roughly rub my hands over my face, concentrating on rubbing the horrible image out of my eyes. 

            And yet, she is still coming.  Fuck.

            "Well," she purrs, "Looks like we have some excitement over here!"

            "Oh yeah!" Marissa offers, "Ellie passed out!"

            Oh man.  My face is turning red again.

            "Well, Ellie!" Natalie smiles, "You always keep things entertaining, don't you?"

            "It's a gift." I mutter, and slide back into my chair.

            Natalie gives me a condescending smirk, and turns to chat with her pal Marissa.  I wonder if we could somehow manage to kick Isabelle off the team so that Marissa wouldn't have to come anymore.  Not that I hate her or anything, but now that she has become the thing that brings Natalie into my Field of Solitude, she must be stopped. 

            Patrick is refereeing a practice game between the girls, but keeps glancing my way with worried eyes.  I give him a quick smile, hoping to calm his concern.  That was a bad little situation with him grabbing my hands.  Got to make sure there isn't another one of those occurrences, that could spell some serious trouble.  I can't tell what is making my heart race more.  The telling hand grab, the public shame, or the memory of our Saturday interlude?

            I have ran the moments of our tryst over and over in my head for two days now, and each time it has been enough to have my body fill with electricity, followed quickly by guilt.  However, since this is the first time I have seen him since, it seems that it gave the memory a nice burst of extra intensity.  Apparently enough to make me fall out of my chair.

            We never did get as far as I was just imagining.  There was no shirt removal, no dropping to the floor, and most disappointingly, no unzipping.  No, instead we remained in each other’s arms for what seemed like hours, and he did start to lightly kiss my neck, working his way up towards my face.  However, at the most crucial of moments, just before our lips met, we were shaken by the explosive alarm that was my cell phone ringing.  It had been Derek, calling to see when I was to be home, and if I wanted to pick up dinner.  Nothing kills a moment of passion like remembering that, oh yeah, you actually have a family, husband included, elsewhere than the arms of the man before you, who by the by, is not so much your husband.

            When that infernal phone rang, we jumped away from each other like two teenagers caught kissing in one of their parent’s basement.  I stared at my bag on the floor, full of the ringing equivalent of a bucket of cold water, for a good five rings before I snapped out of it and answered the damn thing.  My voice was high and strangled as I bounced through the conversation with Derek, planning to pick up some Chinese food per Oliver's request, as Patrick stood like a statue in front of me, his hands evidently glued into his hair.  When it got to the end of the call, and I returned Derek's "I love you!" I almost choked on my own infidelity.

            I started frantically pacing around, babbling something along the lines of what a horrible person I was, and how a spot in hell surely awaited me, followed closely by what the hell were we doing?  I was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe and was on the verge of a full blown panic attack, or possible a pulmonary embolism as I gathered up my bag again, saying it was so very much time to go, when Patrick walked up to me, put his hands on both sides of my face, telling me to calm down and take a deep breath. 

            "Just relax," he said, "Everything is going to be just fine." His voice was assuring enough that I regained control over my lungs.  Or maybe it was those green eyes of his.  Those things have super powers, I swear.

            He pulled me close to him, and gave me a painfully lingering kiss on the forehead, that successfully riled me up again.  Took a hell of a lot of self control to pull away from that. 

            He assured me that we would talk everything through later, but agreed that I should go.  I am glad he jumped on the sensible train, because had he brought those lips anywhere near me again in that moment, I would have most certainly derailed.

            I drove away from his apartment so fast that my tires actually squealed, and as soon as I hit the parking lot of the nearest Chinese place, I let out a fairly epic scream to release some of the tension.  That did nothing for the sexual tension, but at least it helped a bit with the good old fashioned kind. 

            I walked around that night at home, a mess of tension, expressed with an over use of enthusiasm.  Even Ollie asked if I was okay, saying that I was really "chipper". 

            I felt like I was walking around with the stink of adultery wafting off of me, and without the buffer of the children after they had gone to bed, I felt like I was being stalked by my own version of the Tell Tale Heart, but in reality it was my own thumping loudly with a beat that sounded an awful lot like cheater, cheater, cheater instead of its usual bump, bump, bump.  It didn't help that Derek himself was acting as bizarrely as I was.  I figured he was playing off my own little crazy dance, leading us both to speak to each other as though we were the happiest, grinning-est married couple in the whole world.  We both were zipping about in fast forward, to outsiders, people who partook in far too much caffeine, and after an awkward kiss on the cheek from him while I was standing rinsing off dishes before dropping them in the dishwasher, we sort of retreated into our separate corners, him on his laptop in front of the television in the living room, me pretending to read a magazine at the kitchen table.

            My brain was racing, rushing through pleasure (remembering the way Patrick's lips felt on my neck) to terror (thinking how my family would crumble were the lips to neck scenario to be brought public) when I was once again scared straight out of my senses by yet another blaring cell phone ring.  I felt my heart explode thinking that it was Patrick calling to "talk later" as he had promised, and was more relieved than any human has ever been when I discovered that it was Derek's phone that was chiming.  I offered to deliver it to him in the living room, perhaps to try and stave off what tiny bits of guilt I could, and I kept trying, unsuccessfully to not giggle from my nervous embarrassment.  I wish that had could have kept going, but instead I was treated to a giant wrecking ball to the cranium when I looked down at the phone just as I was about to hand it off, and saw that the call was from his contact list under the name of "VEIGH".

            I jerked to a stop, the phone inches from his outstretched hand and brought the cell closer to my face, blinking hard hoping that maybe I was imagining the hideousness, but there it was, on the little glowing screen, "VEIGH".  My face must have conveyed my mood clearly enough because Derek started asking what was wrong.  I could feel the disbelief on my brow, and even though all I really wanted to do was yell, I instead silently handed him the phone and turned to walk upstairs.  Within seconds Derek was calling after me, running behind me.  I was far beyond any mood that wanted to listen to him until I pictured the name "PATRICK" popping up on my own cell phone one day.  The image shut me up right quick, and forced me to hear Derek out.

            Turns out that Little Miss Hairy Mole Slut had been calling my husband practically every day for the last two weeks.  She informed him she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him.  He insists that he always ignored her calls, not wanting to make things worse, but he eventually confessed that ever since I had banned him from the bedroom, he was feeling desperate and finally gave in to answering when the evil wench called.

            "Do you have feelings for this woman?" I had asked, absolutely certain that I never wanted to know the answer to that question.

            "Of course not!" he had proclaimed.

            "Derek." Why on Earth was I pushing this, what could possibly be gained from knowing? "Do you have feelings for her?"

            He stood in silence before me, his eyes saucer-like, and glassing over with tears, until he finally nodded, and was unable to suppress the word "Yes."

            So let's sum this up by saying that things are not exactly comfortable in our house right now.  Luckily it is the summer time and the children are being booked rather solidly with play-dates and other day time excursions that are helping to keep them away from The House That Marriage Vows Forgot. 

            While at the time I couldn't figure out why it mattered to me enough to ask if he was enamored with this Hairy Moled Bitch, it eventually hit me that when he admitted to it, it seemed to siphon guilt off my own indiscretion.  It almost felt like it had given me a free pass of sorts, a permission slip to have my own emotional entanglement outside of our little realm of Wedlocked Hell.  We played it oddly calm with each other for the rest of the weekend, even maintaining the same bed sleeping status we had recently reacquired. While the raging wife in me wanted to rip into him and scream banshee style, the cheating spouse part of me decided that unless I was in the mood to allow Derek to delve into my own foolishness, that civility was the more sensible route.

            Patrick had called on Sunday, hoping to meet up to talk as we had discussed.  I am assuming that talking meant at some point following through with the floor writhing, nakedness that I had so many times envisioned, but I wasn't about to become the world’s most horrible mother on top of things by abandoning my children and reneging on a promised trip to the zoo, so that I could run off and shag the soccer coach.  No, no.  My immorality will have some decency to it by damn.  So we agreed that at some point during the week, we would find time to gather, just the two of us, to sort this mess out.

            This all brings me to my Monday morning on the soccer field.  When Patrick arrived to coach, I had to literally fight myself to keep from bouncing over and humping him up against the side of the shiny SUV of his.  Probably wouldn't have been prudent.

            It is very hard to look at him, and to be so close to him without being able to talk to him about what has been slam dancing through my brain for the last forty-eight hours.  Instead, we have to settle for looks that alternate between painfully longing, to picturing each other naked.

            Feeling like quite the little harlot, I am.

            As practice winds to a close, and I try my best to sink into my chair to avoid any sort of eye contact with Natalie, whose presence is I am certain a fanciful punishment from God for all my naughty day dreams.  The girls wind things up and scatter to their appropriate mommies, and I feel myself blushing as Patrick walks my way.  He manages to get a few feet away from me when all of a sudden, Natalie, who apparently has been hovering around behind me, prances over to him before he can reach me.

            "Well hi there!" she trills.  "I have been looking forward to meeting you for some time!"

             "Um, hi!"  He squints in the sun, "I'm Coach Dixon.  And you are?" he asks as he extends his hand.

            "My name is Natalie!" God she is so annoyingly, fakely, chipper. "I am from the school's district board, and I wanted to discuss the annual End of Summer Banquet with you!"

            She goes on to describe some ritual party that all the schools, pre-K through middle school, throw for the persons involved with any of the offered extracurricular activities.  The long and short of it is, it seems to me that it is a big, fancy party that gets thrown with all our hard spent tuition money in which people like Natalie get to put on designer frocks, and flaunt their fabulousness while dining of shrimp served by an annoyed catering staff.

            Patrick's involvement in this little fiesta is that he is required show up and receive some sort of plaque or whatever, for all of his amazing contributions to the world of five year old soccer.  Thrilling.

            "So you and your coaching staff are to attend, and I promise you will have just the most wonderful time!"  Sweet lord, she is even more obnoxious when she is trying to play nice than when she is in full on bitch mode. "So, I'll mark you all down?"

            "It's mandatory?" he asks.  She nods.  "Well, then I guess we will be there won't we?"

            "Wonderful!" she purrs, "So if you could give me the names of the rest of your staff, I will jot them down so they have reserved seat!"

            "Um, well, really," he motions towards me, "It's just Ellie and I."

            When Natalie turns to me, her face is first one of mild disgust, morphing quickly into amusement.  I may punch her.

            "Well," she smiles, "That is just wonderful!  I'll be sure to make that note."

            I walk silently over standing beside Patrick as she passes the two of us a small packet with all the information we need, such as date and time, dress code.  Formal of course.  Man, I bet this means I will have to shave my legs. 

            "Ellie, I am sure you will find something," she pauses to look me up and down, "Lovely to wear."  I meet her smirk with a glare. "And you Coach Dixon!" she coos, back to her fakery, "Why, you are just as handsome as everyone says!"  When she daintily reaches over and touches his arm, and adds a coquettish laugh, it hits me that she is actually flirting with him.  I am blown away by the fire that erupts in my stomach, shocked by my sudden onset of jealousy.  Is it that I am jealous that another woman would flirt with the man I am in the midst of forming a completely inappropriate relationship with, or is it the fact that it is her doing the flirting?

            Yep.  It's that it is her.

            I stand, seething beside him as she carries on with how she has heard the most wonderful things about him, that he is a true treasure in our school's system, yada, yada, yada, each compliment combined with a flirtatious gesture, a flip of her hair, a giggle with a light touch to his hand, or even a lightly bitten lower lip as she listens to his responses.

            I feel myself shrinking beside them, burrowing back into a shell that will allow me to make it off of this field with no hideous display such as my pants falling down again, or somehow getting drunk and babbling something about de-tailing a dog.  My penchant for public humiliation in Natalie's presence, has me frozen with panic, as I can think of nothing more soul crushing right now than letting that pastel colored demon get the better of me in front of Patrick.

            I stare down at my feet, preparing to back away slowly, make my way out of here without being noticed, therefore, not being embarrassed, when I look over and see something wonderful on the ground before me.  I am struck by a wave of actual joy, giddiness erupting inside my brain, for on lying in the grass a few feet away from me, is the most amazing little thing that will actually give me a chance to not let Natalie Brimawich win one today.  There, besmirching her perfect, brand new baby blue Christian Louboutin pumps it rests.

            "Hey, Natalie?"

            "What, Ellie?"  Her annoyance at my interrupting her attempted conquest makes this all the more sweet.

             I smirk.  I smirk like I have never been able to smirk before.  The smirk of a woman who today will actually walk away with the upper hand, without having to have done anything evil on my own. 

            "Well, Natalie," I continue, "It seems that you're standing in a giant pile of dog shit."

            Yeah.  I think this is going to be a very lovely day.