Drinking The Kool-Aid

Drinking The Kool-Aid 

“It’s not spiked is it?”

I watched as Mr. Fulton did his official chaperone duty and took a sip of the Kool-Aid. It left a red mustache on his upper lip. 

“No, just chock full of sugar to spike my blood pressure.” 

I chuckled politely. We stood an awkward distance apart, manning opposite ends of a folding table covered in a pink plastic dollar store tablecloth. It was too far from each other to sustain a long conversation but close enough to be unable to forget the other was there. Mr. Fulton bobbed his head out of rhythm. Pop hits were blaring out of the speakers set up in each corner of the gym. Flashing strobe lights lit the top of the high schoolers’ heads purple and red. I sighed and wished someone would try to spike the punch so I could confiscate the alcohol and drink it myself. 

I was wallowing in the red drops of my paper cup when she sauntered over. It was impossible to miss her; her bright blonde hair vibrated neon shades under the dance lights. I stood up straighter but tried to look unbothered, nonchalant like I wasn’t having a torrid affair with Mr. Fulton’s wife. 

I watched him greet her without a smile and a curt nod. I looked back to the dance floor, so I wasn’t caught watching in disgust. 

“Hey, Valerie!”

Her twinkling voice flipped my insides at a G-force speed. I turned to face her and Mr. Fulton with a showcase of casual coolness that could only be attributed to panic. 

“What’s up, girl! Long time no see, Alice.” 

“Well, actually, what’s up is I am desperate for a tampon! Which is going to embarrass Steve, if I keep shouting about it!” 

It was a bold-faced lie. A middle schooler's excuse to gossip in the bathroom. A grown woman’s distraction to get us away from her husband. 

“Oh, I don’t have one on me but we can go grab one from my classroom. Can you handle the table alone, Mr. Fulton?” 

He raised his hand in acceptance, choosing to stay silent on the matter of his wife’s menstruation. He knew very little about the goings on of her vagina. It had been eight months since they had any interaction. 

“You’re a lifesaver!” she squealed and clapped her hands. Alice shone with excitement over even the most trivial of things, so this behavior didn’t signal any suspicion in Mr. Fulton. However, I knew she was cheering for what we were about to do in my classroom. 

We walked past the rows of lockers, with her yapping cheerfully about her day and me half-listening, dying of anticipation. Every person that passed us, sent up a flare of paranoia but I reminded myself there was nothing weird about two adult women affiliated with the same school walking down a hallway. Even if one of those women was nervous-sweating and had a heart rate spiraling out of control. 

“Here’s my classroom for that tampon, Alice!” I announced loudly despite the empty hallway. She laughed at my performance. She had the husband, but I had the shame. I closed the door behind her with a sharp lock click and pulled the curtain down over the door’s window. 

I grabbed her by the waist, leaning in for passionate kiss - 

“So, I told Steve.” 

My eyes snapped open to Alice biting her lip, like this was a slight oopsie-daisy mistake. 

“You told Mr. Fulton, what exactly?”

She sighed. 

“Can you please not call him that, it gives me the creeps.”

“Well, that’s how I address him at work, which we are currently standing in the confines of. I only know him as a fellow teacher. I refuse to get to know Steve, the husband.” 

“I told him that we’ve been sleeping together for a few months and he said that he’s fine with it.” 

“He SAID WHAT!”

“He said that he was fine with it. That it doesn’t affect our marriage.” 

“So my COWORKER, who has been standing by me at the punch table all night, knows that I’ve been sleeping with his wife?” 

“Valerie, he’s fine with it!” 

She grabbed the back of my neck with her hands, in an attempt to pull me in for a nothing-has-changed kiss. 

“Alice, what the hell! I am not okay with this!”

I pushed her off of me and she crossed her arms, pouting. 

“I don’t understand why you are having a bigger reaction than Steve, who found out his wife was having a lesbian affair. He’s being very chill about this!”

“Chill? Chill?! Your husband is being chill about your gay affair?” 

She frowned. 

“I really don’t understand why you are so upset. We get to keep seeing each other and you don’t have to have any more anxiety about him finding out.” 

She shrugged, satisfied with receiving her best-case scenario. 

“I CANNOT PASS YOUR HUSBAND EVERY DAY IN THE SCHOOL HALLWAY AND BE CHILL ABOUT THE FACT I AM SLEEPING WITH HIS WIFE.” 

“Valerie, lower your voice, someone might hear us!” 

“WELL, STEVE KNOWS, WHY SHOULDN’T EVERYONE ELSE!”

“Because, your students shouldn’t know about our sex lives!” 

“I thought! I just thought...” 

I fumbled over the worlds, my brain fighting to follow one of the five different emotions I was feeling right now. Had I been in love with Alice or just infatuated with the queer infidelity of it all? Had I actually pictured Alice leaving Mr. Fulton for me or was that just the end scenario I perceived myself as the winner? Was I just upset that it felt like I had been cheated on, her choosing to stay married to his passive blandness, despite the fact I had already been playing third party to a relationship I wasn’t being chosen in?  

“Oh, Val, you did know this was just sex right?”

She was biting her lip again, another devastating oopsie-daisy left in her wake. 

I hadn’t dreamed of making eggs with Alice in the morning. I hadn’t left a spot for her toothbrush or hair dryer in my bathroom. I didn’t cry at night, sleeping without her. 

But I had believed that she dreamed of having those things with me.