At this time last week, I was perfectly content with my life. I am a happily married woman. My husband T and I have a wonderful son who will be entering kindergarten in September. I love T so much it hurts sometimes, and I would be lost without him. I’ve even told him that I could forgive him almost anything short of murdering children, that I would get angry if he ever betrayed me, but I would get over it because I need him to be with me forever.

So why the hell am I trying to figure out how I can spend some grown-up time alone with another woman’s husband right now?

I’ve had a crush on C for a few months now, a ridiculous schoolgirl crush. T has put up with a number of my celebrity crushes now for years – Dave Matthews, Josh Holloway, Ewan McGregor – but this is an actual friend of ours who we hang out with on a regular basis. It was just a fun fantasy for me until last week.

And then C and I went out for some drinks last Wednesday. I’d intended to have one or two. He convinced me to have four. The funny part? This was all quite innocent to him until I’d gotten drunk enough to confess my crush five minutes before his wife picked us up and drove me home.

Thursday, C told me he feels the same way about me. He’d never thought about it before, but the attraction was there once I put the notion in his head. We agreed to just keep on with the innocent flirting we’ve been doing for ages and enjoy the ego boost. Playing the game would make us try to be more attractive for each other and for our spouses, which was good for our marriages, right? It was just a little fun.

Friday, the tone of things changed. Our online chatting became sexually charged, and innocent flirting became a game of “what I’d do to you if we were single.” I felt excessively guilty and cried when telling my husband about it later after our son went to bed. T told me not to worry about it, that I’m only human, and it’s not like C and I are actually going to act on our feelings.

Plus, he said, it was only fair. He’d had a crush on C’s wife A six or seven years ago – which I didn’t know about until Wednesday – and it had never gone past flirting. We’re all only human, right? C had a similar conversation with A, but despite her sadness at the realization she wasn’t enough for him anymore, she wanted to encourage our relationship because she’d slept with someone else last year. She told me this, too. Awkward conversation much?

Saturday, we all went on a trip to a nearby theme park. T and I, our son, C and A, and their daughter. Ah, the tension! The affection C and I got from A and T was at extraordinary levels, and somehow the two of us never got more than three minutes to chat unsupervised over the course of the entire day. I went home feeling very, very flustered.

Sunday, the chat between C and I reached epic levels of naughtiness. I was so hot by bedtime that, despite Mother Nature paying me a visit, I jumped T when I went upstairs. He said he’d ask what had gotten into me, but he already knew the answer. As long as I’m in his bed, it doesn’t matter what (who) turned me on in the first place, right?

T trusts me more than I trust myself. Ava, the woman who was in tears thinking that her husband had once kissed another woman, now wishes that relationship had gone further so she’d have permission to sleep with C. Because hot damn, do I wish I had permission!

I don’t want to trash my marriage, but I’m taking breaks from my work as a writer (I work at home) to get a little solo release after fantasizing about C pinning me against a wall and fucking my brains out.

And here we are, Monday, and I’m actually trying to figure out how I could get just 10 minutes alone with C. Not enough time to get us into too much trouble, but enough to push the bounds of what our spouses would find an acceptable level of, uh, flirting.

I don’t know how much longer we can keep up this flirting-but-faithful routine. We’ve gone from 0 to 65 in a matter of mere days. Stolen glances at the theme park and torrid cybersex would’ve had me fuming with jealousy if it were my husband doing this a week ago, and here I am doing that and contemplating more.

What the hell am I doing? Can this possibly have a happy ending? How can I feel so guilty and so fucking excited at the same time? I’ve always looked down on cheaters before. How could they betray their spouses and claim to still love them? This game of infidelity chicken may turn me into a hypocrite.