I am a thirty-nine year old divorced woman who works as an executive in the very conservative financial industry. I was married for fourteen years before separating and getting a divorce nearly three years ago. I have one step son, who lives in California with his father most of the year, but typically spends Christmas, spring break, and summer vacation with me. Robert’s birth mother, Jim’s first wife, died of leukemia about four months after he was born. She refused chemo treatments during her pregnancy to protect her unborn child; a decision that cost her life. I always respected her for this sacrifice. I entered his life when Robert was two years old and I was the only mother Robert had ever known.
Jim and I had a tumultuous marriage. To be candid, the sex was great, but we were very different people, with different styles, priorities and values. When I was offered a major promotion just over three years ago to move to Boston, I knew it was time for a life style change and I began taking steps to end our marriage. This was not a trivial decision for me since we had a seventeen year old son, who was doing well in school and sports. Coupled with the fact that Jim was the only man with whom I had ever achieved an orgasm, the decision to end the marriage was a tough one.
Robert, who was now seventeen-year-old, stayed with his father where he could continue with his friends, school and sports. While I considered briefly trying to compel Robert to join me on the East coast, he was becoming increasingly defiant towards me, challenging my authority and would have been more than I could handle as a single parent. Besides, I was only his step mother; he belonged with his father.
Now, three years after my move to the east coast, I have been transferred to New York City where I have a nice, upscale, one bedroom flat in Manhattan. Robert is twenty years old, and has completed his sophomore year at a very well known West coast school; he is preparing to come spend the summer with me.
I have not dated much since arriving in New York City. To be truthful, my world has centered on my work and little else since my divorce.
I did not see things unfolding as they did; if I had, I would have taken steps to prevent it. But like many situations, one indiscretion can lead to more and more, and the slope can be very slippery.
I am not proud of what I have done, but I ask the reader to consider each step in the context of the previous errors of judgment I made, and realize that relatively minor mistakes can lead to bigger and bigger mistakes as things can spin hopelessly out of control.
Chapter One: Mistake One, Invading His Privacy
When I picked Robert up at Kennedy airport, I was struck by how much he had grown, how much he had matured and how much he resembled his father in his early twenties. He had become a strikingly attractive young man with a powerful physique who now towered over my thin (perky) five foot three inch frame. When he came through security, he picked me up as he hugged me and spun me around like a rag doll.
Since my apartment only had the one bedroom, a loft of sorts that overlooked the living area, the plan was for Robert to sleep on the couch for the summer. And since the living room was not actually isolated from the bedroom, I bought a high quality set of head phones so Robert could watch TV at night after I had gone to bed without disturbing me.
Robert would not have a vehicle for the summer, but I had arranged a local gym membership so he could work out during the day to stay in shape. As a college student, he did not have a curfew, but I asked him to be courteous of the fact that I had to work. But the rules were virtually non-existent. We typically ate dinner together. Then we would move to the living room, and we would watch together TV until I retired to bed, at which time Robert would don the headphones and watch TV until he decided to turn in.
On an evening during the first week Robert was here, I awoke around one a.m.
