When I chose to have an affair, I knew there was danger. It was a considered decision. I weighed the certain risks (oxymoron, right?) against the potential benefits. Then, when I started out, the risks I was considering were logistical, and the benefits I foresaw were mainly sexual.

Two years later, several affairs along, nothing has changed, and everything has. I’ve conquered those initial risks (careful, Marianne — knock on wood). The logistics are easy. Mostly. The benefits (the sex, oh the sex) have come so easily. It’s all so very good, and there for the taking.

Something happened somewhere along the way, though. I began to care. Caring changed everything. Fear of detection was no longer my biggest vulnerability. My newly discovered weakness was the likelihood, the almost certainty, of being hurt. While I hid in my cold little cave, never venturing forth, never seeing the hot, passionate light of the sun, I was safe from any further betrayal and cruelty, beyond that which was an accustomed and accepted part of my existence. When I stepped out, I opened myself to what he, any he, any he worth loving, would choose to do with my proffered trust. That offering, that sacrifice, though, opened vistas for me that I didn’t know existed. I had no idea that, beyond the high I had discovered when I handed over (no, lost) sexual control, there was a greater high… that of showing it all: the good; the bad; the angel I didn’t know lived in me, the nasty, decaying rot that also lived there. Showing it all… and being accepted. No, not just accepted… loved.

I pay, though. In between the moments where I would float away in post-orgasmic, love-induced bliss, I pay for giving a damn.

I pay in worry time. I worry when he travels and is out of contact. I worry when he’s not available when he said he would be. I worry he’s physically hurt. I worry he’s come to his senses. I worry he’s made a choice to walk away. I worry that life reclaimed him from me. I worry that I’ve finally gone one step too far. I worry that my melodrama will drive him away. I worry that there’s no way I can be good enough. I worry that he’ll realize that I’m not what he wants.

I pay in hopes that can’t be realized. I dare to think about something beyond this orgasm. I dare to think about what could happen. I dare to think in time frames bigger than this week, or this month, or this year. I dare to think that the impossible may be possible. I dare to believe that hurt is not a certainty.

I pay in heightened expectations. What previously seemed acceptable no longer is. The bar has been raised. If this doesn’t work, whatever could?

Are the stakes too high? Is the cost too high? I don’t know. I know that I agonize, that I suffer… and that, in this moment, in the wake of him taking me to those heights of risk and of reward, I’m happy. What else is there?