The Cabin
"It started when he was eighteen. He's thirty-four now. Every year, they meet at her cabin for one week—just them. His wife thinks it's a fishing trip with college friends. Sixteen years of lies."
Sixteen years.
Fifty-two weeks times sixteen, minus the one week a year I spend with her.
Eight thousand and thirty-two days of pretending she doesn't exist the way she exists.
One hundred and twelve days of having her completely.
I've done the math.
I do it every year, while I drive to the cabin.
Year One: Eighteen
I didn't know what I was doing.
Fresh out of high school, invited to my aunt's cabin for the first time without my parents. "A fishing trip," she called it. "Quality time."
Aunt Carol was forty-two then. A widow—Uncle Dennis died when I was ten. Big, beautiful, the kind of woman who filled every room she entered. Five-eight, easily two-seventy, with breasts that haunted my teenage dreams.
I shouldn't have gone.
I went.
The first night, she came to my room.
"I know what you think about," she said. "I've seen you looking at me. At family dinners, at Christmas, whenever you thought no one noticed."
"Aunt Carol—"
"Don't." She sat on my bed. Close. Too close. "I'm not accusing. I'm... acknowledging."
"Acknowledging what?"
"That I look at you too." Her hand found my thigh. "That I've watched you grow up and thought things I shouldn't think. That I invited you here because I couldn't stop myself."
"This is—"
"Wrong. Forbidden. A hundred other words." She moved closer. "Do you want to leave?"
I didn't.
She knew I wouldn't.
She taught me everything that week.
How to touch a woman. How to use my mouth, my hands, my cock. How to take my time, how to make it last, how to read a body's signals.
"You're a fast learner," she said on night three. She was on top of me, riding slow, her massive body swaying. "Most boys your age have no idea what they're doing."
"I want to be good. For you."
"You are." She leaned down, kissed me. "You're perfect."
I left on day seven.
She held me at the door.
"Same time next year," she said. "If you want."
I wanted.
I've always wanted.
Year Five: Twenty-Two
I'm in college. Dating. Living a life she's not part of.
Except for one week a year.
"Tell me about her," Carol says. We're in bed, post-coital, the way we spend most of our time here. "Your girlfriend."
"Why?"
"Curiosity." She traces patterns on my chest. "Does she make you happy?"
"She's fine."
"Fine isn't an answer."
I look at Carol. At this woman who's taught me everything, who's had me in ways no one else has.
"She's not you."
Carol smiles. Sad and satisfied.
"No one will be."
Year Ten: Twenty-Eight
I'm engaged.
Laura is everything I should want—smart, pretty, ambitious. She doesn't know about Carol. Doesn't know about the "fishing trip" I take every July.
"You're getting married," Carol says. First night, first hour, still dressed.
"Yes."
"To a woman who isn't me."
"There was never an option where it was you."
"I know." She stands. Crosses to me. "I've known since the beginning. This was always borrowed time."
"So why—"
"Because borrowed time is still time." She cups my face. "And I'll take whatever time you give me. For as long as you give it."
We fuck more desperately than ever.
Like we're running out of hours.
We are.
Year Twelve: Thirty
Laura and I have a son.
I show Carol pictures on my phone. She looks at them quietly.
"He has your eyes," she says.
"Carol—"
"I'm happy for you." She sets down the phone. "Truly. You have a life. A real one. That's more than I've ever had."
"This is real too."
"Is it?" She looks at me. "One week a year. Stolen hours. A secret so deep neither of us can acknowledge it."
"It's still real."
"Maybe." She pulls off her shirt. "Maybe that's what I need to believe."
Year Sixteen: Thirty-Four
I park in front of the cabin.
Same place as always. Same trees, same lake, same door opening to reveal Carol in a robe.
She's fifty-eight now. Still big, still beautiful. More grey in her hair, more lines around her eyes. But when she smiles at me, I'm eighteen again.
"You came," she says.
"I always come."
"Sixteen years." She pulls me inside. "Sixteen years, and you still come."
"I'll always come."
She kisses me. Deep. Familiar.
"Prove it."
We make love the first night.
That's what it is now—making love. Not fucking, not screwing, not the desperate education of year one. Something deeper. Something that's grown over sixteen years of stolen weeks.
"I love you," she says. First time she's said it.
"I love you too." First time I've said it.
We both cry.
We fuck through the tears.
Last Day
I'm packing when she comes to me.
"Same time next year?"
"Same time every year."
"For how long?"
I look at her. This woman who's had me for sixteen years. Who will have me for sixteen more, if fate allows.
"Until one of us dies," I say. "And maybe after that, if there's anything after."
She cries again.
I hold her.
"I'll be here," she promises. "Every July. Waiting."
"I know."
"Even when you're old. Even when we can barely move. I'll be here."
"I know."
I kiss her goodbye. Drive away.
Back to Laura. Back to my son. Back to the life that's real.
But every July, I come back to the life that's truer.
Aunt Carol.
My cabin.
Sixteen years and counting.
Forever, if I'm lucky.
Forever.