[Below is Chapter 3, titled “Infatuation,” from my soon-to-be released memoir, Art and Artifice: A Memoir. Stay tuned for more excerpts and news of the actual book launch, which is planned for September 2025! You can read Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, and Chapter 7 here.]
My gut feeling over the weekend was correct. When I arrived at the office Monday morning, September 8, there was already a message there waiting for me from Paul: “Please call.” When I did, he asked if we could get together that evening after work to talk. After I agreed, I emailed him a detailed set of directions to my apartment, and he arrived there about 6:30 p.m.
From my second-floor window, I watched him park and walk through the parking lot to my stairwell. I can’t believe this is happening…he’s actually here! My stomach was doing flip-flops.
I opened the door and gave him a quick hug. I could tell he was nervous too—his hands were like ice on my back and he smiled, but it was a brief, shaky smile. He looked around my small living room where I invited him to sit down.
“Very nice,” as he gestured to some of the paintings on my walls.
“Thanks. That one, I took from home, but this is the one I told you about, the one I bought this past spring at the Bayou City Arts Festival.” I was pointing now to what I called my “Purple Lady” over the love seat, my most recent acquisition. “He’s an artist from Louisiana and I really love his work. The funny thing was, he didn’t have it in his booth this spring. I got into a conversation with him and told him about a painting I remembered from a previous art show. He said, ‘That one is now hanging in my home. If you want it, I’ll still sell it to you.’ So we swung a deal and he sent it to me after the fact.”
Talking about artwork was a safe, neutral topic and it calmed our nerves a bit.
“I still can’t believe I’ve never heard about that arts festival. I’ll have to go sometime.” He examined my Purple Lady closely. “Interesting. Her face is totally shadowed by her hat, and the whole aspect is kind of dark and moody. I do love the drizzled paint effect over the whole piece.”
“Well, I didn’t ask him specifically, but I have a theory about that. His name is Hooshang Khorasani; he’s originally from Iran but moved to the US more than 30 years ago and is now a US citizen. He’s married to a US woman. So he grew up in a Muslim country where women are hidden away, right? Many of his paintings of women are like this, the faces are hidden, and I wonder if he’s portraying that part of his past where women were oppressed, you know?”
“Ah, that could be! Would be interesting to ask him sometime.”
“Of course, he’s not like that at all. He’s walked away from that world and is a very liberated man. His wife, I’ve met her at his booth. She’s a very strong woman and he supports her and her career….by the way, that arts festival is held twice a year, so it comes back next month, in October…”
At that point, I realized I was running off at the mouth and needed to stop talking, immediately. Focus on why he was there. I looked at him directly and said, “So.”
We were sitting next to each other on my love seat, in my tiny living room. He took my hand and started to talk.
“After our meeting in your office on Friday, I really couldn’t think about anything else all weekend. It was kind of a wake-up call for me: I had to make a decision about my marriage and what the rest of my life was going to look like. I had to admit to myself that my marriage was irretrievably broken and a split was inevitable.”
I said, “OK, that’s pretty much the opposite of what you said on Friday…”
“I know. And I’m sorry about that. I spent the whole weekend freaking out, wondering if I had just blown a real chance for happiness. That’s why I contacted you first thing this morning. If you’re still willing, I’d like to see where a relationship between us might go.”
“But what does that mean, exactly? Are you saying you plan to leave? A lo-o-o-tta complications here…” I drew the word out.
“Yes. I know I’m asking a lot. A lot of baggage here. But I arrived at some clarity over the weekend, and realized yes, I want to pursue this, and I plan to leave. If you’re still interested.”
He was holding my hands, and his hands had gone from ice cold to very warm. His eyes had gone from ice blue to a warm brown, and his pupils dilated as he held my gaze. I answered him by leaning in, kissing him gently at first, then more aggressively as our passion built.
Months of pent-up desire spilled out as we collapsed against each other, first on the love seat and then onto the floor. Our bodies pressed together, tentative at first, then more and more tightly as we encouraged each other.
We continued to roll around on the floor and things got fairly intimate, but we didn’t make love that night for a very practical reason: I wasn’t using any kind of birth control, and he didn’t come prepared either. I guess neither of us thought things were going to progress that quickly, and there was no way I was going to take any unnecessary chances.
Paul knew I didn’t have children of my own but he knew nothing about my current marriage, so he had no idea why I wouldn’t be using birth control. He looked a bit surprised when I told him that, but didn’t ask any questions. I figured we’d had enough revelations for one night and I’d save that story for another time. I did say that I’d be happy to visit my gynecologist if it looked like this relationship was going somewhere.
As the evening wound down, I couldn’t help but notice that I did not hear the words “do right by people” again from him. Not that night, nor any night, ever again. As far as I was concerned, his marriage was the only thing standing in the way of us pursuing a relationship, so these assurances were the only thing I needed to hear. If he said it was only a matter of time before he left his wife, I believed him.
Neither of us mentioned his wife or his son that night. Neither of us wanted to break the romantic spell we were under or deal with the harsh realities he would face in the upcoming months. For that one night, it was just the two of us.
Our relationship progressed rapidly after that evening. We started to meet privately at my apartment several times a week after work. Apparently, his wife was accustomed to his excuse of late nights at work; he simply was never concerned about arriving home late in the evening.
* * *
Paul immediately got worried about his own job security and the fact that he was getting involved with someone whom he was assigning work to—the same conflict of interest issues that I was having. He insisted that we start password-protecting our email communications to each other, because they were being sent across company servers. The issue was not only that he worked for the company and by extension, so did I, but his wife also did. If she got wind that he was involved with a company contractor, we just didn’t know what she might do, or her family for that matter. So we started to create Word files that were zipped and password-protected before sending them back and forth.
On October 10, he sent me this email:
At some point last night after getting back to Katy, trying to collect my thoughts from the day, I had a moment. I’m not sure what to call it – lucidity, grace – maybe things just finally making complete sense. But in that moment I surrendered any remaining fears and cares to the one truth I’ve known since the beginning: whatever the rest of this life holds for me, I will not be complete without you.
I have to be where my heart and soul has already departed to; as luck would have it, I know where they have taken up residence. And where I am now headed. I do not look forward to the things that remain to be done, but I will get through it. My one and only hope – and prayer – is that somehow you will be there. It would be my true joy to show you it was worth the wait.
I slept through the night for the first time in a long time.
I love you, Gail.
And my response:
Grazie mille (a thousand thanks). I concur with terms on all points.
That you complete me has become blindingly apparent, astonishingly so, so much that it seems a miracle. You are a dream come true for me, the one I have longed for my entire life. That I have had to wait 46 years for this to happen seems unfair, but maybe only now would I have fully appreciated all you have to offer. Sometimes we do not appreciate God’s graces until we have been through the fires of hell.
I believe this to be true: we were meant for each other, and we can, and will, withstand anything that we are facing in the near future. And the strong foundation our relationship already has will see us through the long term as well. Our strengths complement one another, and we are mature enough to deal with our weaknesses. Together, I believe we can accomplish anything.
I look forward to building a life with you. You touch my heart and soul in the deepest of places, where it has never been touched before. Grazie mille.
I love you more than life itself.
* * *
A few days later, on October 13, he told me he was moving into the spare bedroom that evening.
For my birthday, on October 14, my friends Megan and Mike had a small dinner party out by the pool for me and invited a few of my closest friends to attend. By this time I’d had a private lunch with Megan and told her about Paul. She wasn’t too thrilled to learn he was married and still living at home, and especially that there was a very young child involved. She was worried about me. But she was still a loyal friend and said if I wanted him to stop by for the little party, I could invite him. I also knew she was dying of curiosity and wanted to meet him.
So I did extend Paul the invitation. I wanted him to meet my best friends and I knew he would make a good impression, regardless of his situation.
My birthday was on a Tuesday that year, so everyone was stopping by Megan’s house after work, including Paul. I noticed he’d slipped his rings off before coming to the door—not that anyone was going to be fooled.
While he was chit-chatting with Megan and Mike, my other friends, Robin and Logan, took me aside and asked if they could talk to me. Instead of what I expected, which was “Hey, what a cool guy! Tell us how you met him,” they caught me off-guard by confronting me. They had put two-and-two together and realized he was married, and started to ask me about it.
Logan spoke up. “Why are you getting involved in something like this? He seems like a nice guy, but…this is a big deal. He’s not even separated yet—doesn’t that worry you?” Robin didn’t say anything but was nodding along with her husband.
His words stung; Robin was one of my best friends, but I really didn’t know her husband well at all. I was surprised she let him take the lead on this. And Jesus, did they really have to do this right here, at the party? This couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?
I was taken aback but didn’t want to cause a scene. I said as quietly as I could, “Paul is separated; he’s living in a separate part of the house from his wife. He just hasn’t moved out yet. He says that’s going to happen before the end of the year and I believe him.”
Logan responded: “You know, Gail. He’s cheating on his wife, with you. If he’ll do it to her, he’ll do it to you.”
That statement really made me angry, for several reasons. Number 1, I didn’t have to justify myself or Paul to Logan, who I barely knew. It made me mad that Robin let him insert himself into our friendship like that. I would have been a lot more willing to open myself up to her, open to explaining the situation privately between the two of us. I resented this little public flogging. Number 2, there’s cheating and then there’s cheating. Paul had made the decision to pursue a relationship with me after he’d decided his marriage was over. He was making plans to move out. She also knew their marriage was over. He wasn’t a serial philanderer who got involved with women for entertainment, with no intention of disrupting his happy home life. I thought there was a difference.
I didn’t say any of this to them, but the thoughts ran through my head as I walked back toward the pool and ended the conversation.
They just didn’t understand. This one was real. This one was for keeps.
Even Megan, who I think was still hoping she could persuade me to change my mind about committing to this guy, said after Paul left that night, “Now, aren’t you bummed that he had to leave early? That he couldn’t even stay longer than 45 minutes on your birthday?”
Before I left for home that evening, Mike cornered me with much the same concerns as Logan had. But I was willing to discuss it with Mike. He was different. He and Megan were my oldest and closest friends in Houston; we were in each other’s weddings and had decades of history between us. He said, “This is some serious shit you’re getting into here. Married? With a kid under 2? Why…why would you do this?”
“I know it doesn’t look good. But I’m no home wrecker. That marriage was already over, long before I came along. In a few months he’s moving out. No later than the end of the year. You’ll see.”
“I have to admit, he does seem like a nice guy, and sincere about his feelings for you. I just wish he already had his ducks in a row—you know, was a little bit further along with his plans, like you are. OK, do me a favor: if he starts doing any kind of backpedaling, come and talk to us, OK?”
I promised that I would.
But it never happened. There was never a waver, never a wobble on his part. In the ensuing months, all I saw was follow-through. He did everything he said he was going to do, only in double-time. I never had a single reason to doubt his sincerity or his commitment to me.
The next day I sent Paul an email, telling him that my friends had cornered me after he left, letting me know their concerns. I wasn’t going to hide it from him. I know this put the fear into him a little bit, that it might cause me to have second thoughts, because I got a very impassioned email back. He let me know that “all he wants is my happiness” and “he never wants to destroy our friendship,” but I could read between the lines. It shook him up.
He doubled down on his attentiveness and perfect behavior. About a week after the birthday party, he made a show of taking off his wedding rings (he wore two) in front of me and putting them in his pocket, never to be seen again.
* * *
In the early days of our romance, he seemed to do everything right. When he showed up at my office, he not only brought me flowers, he brought all the ladies flowers, which really endeared him to my female employees. He basked in all the attention and smiles it got him.
In October, through a connection in my French class, I scored two free tickets to the Houston Grand Opera, so of course I invited him to go with me. He asked what I would be wearing. I thought this was so that he would dress appropriately. No, he arrived at my office early that afternoon, with a box. The box contained amethyst earrings, to go with the purple dress I would be wearing that evening. I was floored. Never before had a man done something like that for me.
He sent me poems. He sent me song lyrics, the most memorable being “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?”
I could do no wrong in his eyes. I was “the best part of him,” “you take my breath away,” “this man adores you”…the spigot just never turned off. In turn, I sent things to him such as:
Just when I think it couldn’t possibly get any better with you, it does. I keep waiting for your evil twin to surface, but he doesn’t seem to exist. You are the genuine article, right to the bone. You make everything better, everything more tolerable, everything bearable, everything more fun. I am blessed in you.
Like Paul, I had been married before. Both my marriages had lasted 10 years, but I’d never experienced anything like this, even in the early flush of young love. My previous partners had subjected me to years of cold indifference and superiority, and my heart had become like a desert landscape, desperate for that dousing of spring rain. Never had I felt so romanced, so adored, so enveloped in someone’s love. I was completely swept up in his attentions, his constant reminders that I was on his mind. He went out of his way to do thoughtful things for me, and I fell hard for him.
