I knew we were headed for sex days before we did it. We chatted while we worked and we flirted while we chatted. So even though some of our conversation was about his wife and three kids and about my husband and baby, most of it was full-body language about him being male and me being female. I was made to understand he found me beautiful. I became convinced that some of what I liked least about me actually appealed most to him. He loved that I was a mother; he said he didn’t want a girl.

His fucking was not exceptional but Cisco really knew how to hug. The first time we did it we were standing up in the new-painted bathroom, and he managed somehow to embrace me fully, chest to hip, while his thrusting pelvis made sweet pressure against mine, and his small erect penis poked.

The second time we had more time. Mark had taken Aggie to the zoo for the afternoon and I felt secure for at least an hour. Cisco and I talked more, intimately, and he almost flattered me enough to put me on top. But I had seen my hanging-forward face; there was no way I’d assume that position. We fucked missionary style after elaborate foreplay, and once again I was most impressed by the man’s ability to scoop me up fully between his big forearms. I felt hugged instead of humped.

The last time we did it I climbed up on Cisco and let me all hang down. He reached up for my dangling cheeks and pulled my face to his wet smiling mouth. He murmured to me how gorgeous I was while I came to nice agreement with his prick. Even afterwards he called me luscious.

He left when the window work was done. That was all we ever expected; in fact, I was surprised when he returned one Monday afternoon a few weeks later, to ask if we were satisfied with his work. I told him yes of course and sent him on his way, and only later realized that he smelled like beer, and that he knew Mark always worked on Monday afternoons, and that he’d probably dropped by, boylike opportunistically, just to see what might transpire.

I didn’t tell Mark about Cisco’s visit. I remember we had a peaceful dinner that night and then I took a bath with Aggie. We were in one of our seasons of drought and water rationing, and bathing with my toddler was a way for me to take a bath myself; otherwise we grownups were advised to shower in short efficient bursts. I’d created a little ritual with Aggie, where I got in the tub first and then she climbed in and lay face-up on my lap and legs with her head against my belly, so she became EIGGA, with a toothy forehead and bottom-lashed eyes. EIGGA was strange compared to Aggie, but by squinting a little I could adapt to her and see her beauty, while EIGGA in turn giggled non-stop, with the top of her upsidedown face bubbling in merriment.

There I was, leaning over my obversed daughter and it finally hit me, or floated out above me like a lightbulb igniting, that Aggie was seeing me not only upsidedown but hanging down, and she was loving what she saw. I can’t convey my epiphany as profound – it wasn’t – but it along with the memory of Cisco served to get me over my life-wasting reluctance.

I’m not saying I’m healed. I still avoid looking downward at my reflection, whether in a pond or a purse mirror. But I see that bath as a turning point for me, when I began to like a different kind of diversity. And it was the first time I learned from my child.

Not long after that I found myself possessed with a powerful desire to charm Mark. I’d been thinking a lot about his body and pleasure and babies. One Sunday afternoon while Aggie napped I looked at him and felt like it, and I took him to our bed. I laid him down and stripped myself, and then I climbed on him and began a horizontal dance. My face was hanging above him when he exploded silly/proud.