The affair happened all at once. I loved my husband dearly, but this was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. The rush of it all, the shock, the fear, the unknown - it made me feel like a kid again, eager for growth and exploration.

I looked over at my second lover and smiled. He hung there off the edge of the rack like a snake. A snake that would bite me, infect me, and fill my veins with something I had never sampled before. My husband had no idea I felt this way. He sat by my bedside, crying, while I longed for the snake.

He came into my dreams last night, too. A woman in all red turned to me and said, “He will give you death, and you will love him for it.”

The nurse wears red, which I find odd. She won’t let me have the morphine drip nearby either, which I find odd. It’s our little secret, my lover and me.