Kissing Mr Bastard always felt fresh and mint-like, like opening up a new bar of soap or a brand-new deck of cards. The latter's similitude may not be completely out of place, as you never knew, when you saw him, what kind of hand you would be dealt.
As for the mint, Mr Bastard must have had shares in Colgate, because mouth-fresheners featured very high on his shopping list. Either that, or he was definitely very busy on the kissing front, what with a long-suffering wife at home whose existence was a thoroughly well-kept secret, and a handful of other female friends he had collected along the way, with a little help from seedy websites promising no-strings-attached-discreet affairs.
By the time the penny dropped, and it had become clear that there was a very active Mrs Bastard kicking about in the background (who, no doubt, would have loved to do some of the kicking in my direction), I was well and truly hooked.
B.Mr.B (Before Mr Bastard), I smugly used to wonder how on earth women allowed themselves to be reduced to the lowly status of mistresses; how could anybody share a man with another woman? Surely we were all good enough to find our own specimen!
I had had the odd and very brief liaison with somebody already taken, but I considered my occasional useage of someone else's property a bit like borrowing from the bank: I returned the capital in good condition, with the extra secret spring in his guilty step. A little 'interest' paid, so to speak. Besides, I had never been lied to with regards to one's marital status.
What I had not accounted for, to keep using financial terms, was the fast development of an attraction for the capital itself. Especially as, for the first two months, I honestly believed that the booty was free for me to invest in.
And invest I did: weeks turned into months, with the world-old promise of "I shall tell her tonight" eventually ringing as hollow as the famous "the cheque is in the post".
A mistress has all the time in the world to muse over events, facts and rendez-vous, as there are enormous chunks of empty time stretching wide between those intense, romantic and, alas, far too brief moments of intimacy.
Eventually, I started to wonder why Mr Bastard's mobile phone would always be mysteriously switched off over the weekend; and why, when he got in touch, there would always be a howling wind in the background, as "he was out walking the dogs", on the windy and desolate hill overlooking his house.
Over time, the capital I thought I would never borrow revealed itself as the reason for just a handful of crumbs, carefully and meanly doled out according to the bank's own agenda.
And the interest-only repayment rates, my dear reader, were crippling: I had to give up a few personal assets in order to meet the demands: out went my "joie de vivre" and sunny disposition; I reduced the time I was willing to dedicate to friends, just in case my expensive loan managed to break free for an hour or so; I renounced a few opportunities, job-wise and lifestyle-related, which would have meant rescinding the shark's obligations.
My addiction made those stolen moments together precious beyond measure, instead of revealing the true appalling, cheap nature of the fake.
Nevertheless, and throughout the five years I was in the bank's power, I never once failed to meet my payments and always believed that, one day, I'd be good enough to own the capital outright. Moreover, the obsession with what one does not possess in its entirety was enough to spur me on.
Kissing was still minty and fresh, but with an underlying whiff of decay. I started, occasionally, withdrawing funds from sources which did not demand the payment of a high interest rate.
I, the mistress "par excellence", turned to cheating on my own lover. The injection of new, free cash worked wonders on my self-respect, although I still thought that, as long as one kisses passionately and frolicks enthusiastically in bed, the capital I was borrowing on would still eventually be released from the bank.
Adultery does not, necessarily, have to 'happen' to people. I chose to seek other partners, specifically the ones I knew I'd not become too fond of, as a way to protect myself from the total exposure to disaster.
It was at this point, when I had become rather sick of passionate kissing which never turned into breakfast-time snogging and I was juggling extra funds coming from a couple of financial bodies, that I met Mr Husband.
