CREATIVE NONFICTION 27
I know this to be a game, of sorts; being a mistress
is easy. I have no real skin in the game. My skin is
the game.
We meet at a bar in Pokhara, which is nestled
into a lush valley in the mountains of Nepal. He
tells me he visits around this time every year, from
his home in Switzerland. I have been traveling
alone for six months in the cold winter of the Hi-
malayas, and now, I find myself in a village at the
edge of a lake, and the air is ripe with springtime
blossoming full and soft and fragrant, and my skin
is hungry for touch.
I am playing pool when he steps into my
line of sight and sits down to watch. He
challenges me to the next game and sets
the stakes: the loser buys the next round.
He lets me win. I let him buy me a drink.
Later, my skin is damp from the humidity
of the night where his finger touches my
shoulder to slide the strap of my dress
aside. This is not a new story.
We spend the week together, and when
at last we have to return to the city for
our separate departures, he hires a car.
The driver is an old friend of his, and we
pile into the backseat, where we tangle
together and watch the beautiful country
unfold outside the window. The coun-
tryside is lush and shining, and the heat
rushes fiercely past.
We spin along old, winding mountain
roads with no guardrails. The driver
pushes a tape into the tape deck and cranks
the volume, and Whitney Houston’s ballad
“Didn’t We Almost Have It All” bellows from the
aged speakers. And in the suspended space of the
afternoon, I feel as if we might almost have it all.
Almost. The spell breaks slightly when I remem-
ber that I am the type of woman who is sitting on
the lap of someone else’s husband.
On our last morning together, we walk the
crowded streets of Kathmandu’s old city. He
holds my hand and pulls me close as we navigate
the busy marketplace. We shop for gifts for his
children. He shows me a picture of his family
from his phone, two small sons and a blonde
woman smiling out from the square screen. His
arm is slung low around her waist. She rests her
head on his shoulder. She’s pretty, I think and then
give the phone back. I choose a red plastic sword
for his younger son.
Later, after we say goodbye, I move into the
hotel garden and order a pot of tea, and when the
waiter brings it out, I change my mind and ask for
a vodka martini.years later, in my own country, a man I love
will cheat on me. When I find out, I will feel
gutted. It will feel like a bad dream, like getting up
from the table at a dinner party and returning to
find someone else seated in my place. Seated in mylife. The woman he sleeps with will be a person I
know. They will stay together for a few months
and then go their separate ways.
I will be fractured and vulnerable. I will have
a new understanding of the ways in which I am
fragile. There will be fault lines.
I will remember the photograph from Nepal of
the blonde woman with brown eyes and two boys.
The blonde woman and I will have two things
in common. The first one will have been her
husband; the second will be having given our love
to men who were casual with it. I’m sorry, I will say
into an empty room. Maybe I am saying it to her,
or maybe just to hear myself say it. But I will mean
it. I will be sorry.