BN Prose: The Photograph By AneeUche

I stared at a picture of him; his beautiful eyes crinkled with the widest of smiles, full lips spread to show off perfect, pearly whites.

I had taken that picture. We had just had the most amazing sex ever when I grabbed his camera and chased him through the house, trying to capture him in the nude, like he had with me so many times.  My gorgeous photographer, still in art school.

He didn’t want me to, but I was determined. I took several shots of his back as he ran; that perfect, chocolate bottom, firm as only youth could allow.
I hung the camera on my neck and ran faster. He stopped suddenly, looked back, I clicked the camera and crashed into him. We landed in a heap by the staircase, and just like that, we were at it again.
Kissing, touching, hugging furiously as though trying to merge into one. And merge we did. Over and over. A shudder runs through me as I remember.

That was years ago.
I saw him at the supermarket yesterday. He still looked eighteen, ten years later. He was with a beautiful girl. Light skinned and young. I noticed she wore a wedding band. He looked happy, I guess marriage suited him.
I hurried out of the supermarket and into my car, hoping he wouldn’t see me. I felt every one of my forty-six years, as I pulled into the driveway of my beautiful home. The scene of my adultery.

“Mom?”

My oldest daughter called, from the staircase leading to my office on the second floor, interrupting my reverie.I hurriedly shoved the picture into a desk drawer.

What was I doing thinking about a young man who had almost cost me my marriage?
I had ended it. He swore he couldn’t go on without me, but we couldn’t be together. How would I have explained to my then teenage daughter  that I was leaving their dad for a boy only four years older than her?

 So I stayed with my husband. I didn’t love him but he was good to me. He never found out but I know he suspected. Men always know these things, or so they say.
I shut my eyes and banished all thoughts of my photographer as Lisa walked into the office.

“Hey mom, I wanted you to meet the amazing photographer I got for the wedding! He shot both Tola and Ada’s weddings! You’re gonna love him!”, she squealed, calling to the said photographer to come in.
I felt like I’d been daggered, as my eyes met those of the man I’d been thinking about for the past day-or rather, the past decade.
My eyes flitted to the desk, the scene of our last “meeting”; his eyes reflected my thoughts. I looked at him and in that instant, his eyes seemed to say all his mouth couldn’t.
 It’s not over.

I could imagine the headlines of the gossip rags already.

“Mother of Bride Elopes With Wedding Photographer”

I couldn’t wait.