The Two Lovers

I had two lovers; I loved them both dearly and they loved me. One lover was tall, dark and handsome while the other was shorter, fair and pleasing. They both had very different resolve and character. The dark and handsome one was more passionate, assertive and confided his deepest thoughts to me. He was also rather grave and severe in temperament. The fair and pleasant lover was yielding, passive and accepting. He rarely expressed himself in a strong voice and often accepted or comprised to my demands. I couldn't make up my mind about who I loved more so I decided to keep them both. I informed both parties and, predictably, one lover spoke out against the idea while the other accepted my decision without argument. Their starkly different reactions only seemed to endear them more to me and this made me feel even worse. My fair lover and I had a child together; we both cared for the baby and I made sure he got to know his father. I carried on as a couple with my dark love but lied about the nature of my relationship with my fair lover. He was under the impression that we had broken up and I was only seeing him out of obligation to our baby. This was, of course, far from the truth; I used any pretext to visit my secret lover when I was pining for him. The secrecy seemed to intensify my passion for him, not only did I love him, and lust for him deeply, but now I had to carry on in secret and the separation from him was unbearable. One day, as I walked across the parking lot to his apartment, I saw my child's car seat smashed to piece. I recognized it instantly and it frightened me. I searched out my secret lover's car in the parking lot but his usual space was empty and my intuition told me that something terrible had happened. After all, he didn't live in a good neighborhood and there had been frequent break-ins at his apartment complex. When I called his cellphone, it went straight to voicemail and I ran to his apartment to look for clues. His apartment was an empty, filthy mess with no sign of our baby or him. I called my boyfriend to ask him if he'd heard from my 'ex' or knew if he'd left out of town. He consoled me and said that my 'ex' had just called and told him that someone stole his car but the baby was fine and everyone was alright. He soon returned in a different car to the apartment with our baby and I felt relieved that my child was unharmed.