Fahey - The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly About Sex, Love, Infidelity, & Moving On

The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly

about Sex, Love, Infidelity, and Moving On

Edited by Paul Alan Fahey

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2013 Paul Alan Fahey

ISBN 9781611524680

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

The authors, editor, and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this book. The authors, editor, and publisher disclaim any warranties (express or implied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The authors, editor, and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, or consequential, with regard to the essays contained within this book.

The essays herein are copyrighted by and remain the sole property of their respective authors.

Published in the United States of America .

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The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly

about Sex, Love, Infidelity, and Moving On

Edited by Paul Alan Fahey

Table of Contents

Hes a trespasser, an interloper, the peckerwood who gets between you and your lover, partner or mate. The male equivalent of Cleopatra, Mae West, and Jessica Rabbit rolled into one threatening package. Hes an accident waiting to happen: the skateboarder 'round the bend, the smiling barista with the extra hot mocha, or the computer geek eager to retool your mates hard drive. Hes a relationship gatecrasher, bound by no rules and with no sense of fair play. Who is he? Hes the other man , and like Caesar, he comes, he sees, he conquers, and leaves behind something akin to a lingering, twenty-four hour flu or at worst, a really bad case of the Black Death.

If were young, in our late twenties or early thirties, theres a glimmer of hope. We pick ourselves up and move on. If older, our new best friend might be our analyst or possibly the urologist we now see on a regular basis.

As the walking wounded, we dont eat. We cant sleep. We sense that the earth has stopped rotating. The minutes drag like hours, the days like years. We pass a mirror and see ourselves as we really are: unwanted and unloved. We are too fat, too short, too everything. We should have exercised more at the gym, lifted weights. Spent extra time on the treadmill, less in the Jacuzzi. We finger the dark circles under our eyes and notice the beginning of a double chin. Are those jowls? We notice wrinkles no sane person would ever call laugh lines. In desperation, we secretly check our partners computer and search his emails. We open bedroom drawers digging for clues, evidence of his deception. We become other man detectives.

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On the flip side, we can be the other man, charging in and breaking the bonds of a committed relationship, sometimes without a thought to the pain and misery we inflict on the injured parties. Face it. Were not all innocent bystanders in other-man scenarios.

And sometimes we are guilty of nothing more than falling in love with the wrong personor the right person at the wrong time.

In a committed relationship, open or monogamous, we can be tempted to stray, to crave something new: a different taste, a dude with a tighter body, or one with a sharper mind. Just as we covet a faster car, a smarter phone, a bigger bank account, or younger looks, we can be drawn magnetically to a string of horny husbands, to a one-night-stand, or to the guy lifting weights and strutting his stuff in front of us at the local gym.

In these true and riveting essays, twenty-one of our foremost writers dig deep to discover the truth about infidelity while tackling the subject with candor, courage, wit, and poignancy. They explore the contours, curves, and complexities of this seductive yet unpredictable creature from varying points of view, either by being the other man, suffering the other man, or by dealing with infidelity in their relationships. In a number of cases, writers state or imply that other man experiences have strengthened their unions and contributed to personal growth.

Glen Retief, in his early thirties and living in Spain with the man he believed was the love of his life, experiences the ultimate betrayal when he confronts his lovers deception head on in The Rival With a Thousand Faces.

Mark Canavera, while working for a large international organization in war torn Cte dIvoire ( Ivory Coast ), discovers that men, gay or straight in that culture, would never think of divulging an indiscretion to their partners. Telling would be viewed as an insult. In Complicity, we discover, as expected, that other man troubles are indeed universal.

Perry Brass responds to an intriguing letter from a marriedsoon to be separatedfan in A Pitiless Love and finds himself sucked into an emotional vacuum that threatens his mental and physical health.

Erik Orrantia is in a committed relationship when he falls out of love with his partner. Unable to make a clean break, Erik invites his new lover to move in with the unhappy couple. Mr. Orrantias essay, Ballad Echoes, underscores the need for honesty in matters of the heart and suggests that triangles, of the human or two-dimensional kind, are better left to novels and the study of high school geometry.

David Pratts partner juggles two other men on the side while pursuing his dream of becoming a professional actor in the Big Apple. In Way Off, David offers us a personal tour of the Great White Way and points out the traps and pitfalls for those seeking fame and adulation in this world of dreams and brightly lit marquees. For David, the Broadway stage became a player in his relationship, a formidable opponent and the real other man.

In Husbands, Austin Bunn looks back on his thirties in Louisville , Kentucky . Loneliness leads him to a succession of liaisons with married men: a chief researcher at a public health office, the boss of an automotive business, a lawyer, a pastor, and a professor at a Christian college. Somehow, there is always an abundant and available supply.

As most of these insightful essays convey, AIDS is still with us and still very much a threat after four decades, and it continues to be a major concern especially in matters of infidelity. Felice Picanos The Child and Chuck Willmans Turbulence offer moving portraits of men living and loving in the shadow of this devastating illness.

A casual encounter with a man in an adult bookstore that leads to a one-night stand inspires Tom Mendicino to write his first novel. Its no accident he titled his essay Any Resemblance to Actual Persons, Living or Dead, is Entirely Coincidental.

R.W. Clinger devises an original, yet shocking, method to punish his lovers unfaithfulness in the essay, In the Brokenness of Summertime, while William Henderson, married with two young children, struggles with his love for a recovering crystal meth addict.