So here's my story:

It’s 12:21 on a Tuesday in New York City. I’m down near Wall Street, having just left a magazine-industry function, and I hail a cab on a corner when almost at the same time a woman comes up looking harried. Being a gentleman, I ask her where she’s going and if she wants to share. She says she’s not sure where she’s going--”44th Street, where is that?”--and I say it will work out fine since I’m going to 34th Street. So we get in and she shows me a printout of an email (from some guy) that has directions to a restaurant in midtown. I tell the cab driver exactly where we’re going, and we head off. Traffic is lousy, and I’m chatty by nature, so I ask her if she’s from around here.

“No,” she says, “I’m from New Jersey.”

“Oh, nice, I love New Jersey! It’s the Garden State.” [I am who I am, folks.]

She smiles, then I ask what she’s doing in town. She looks at me for a second, looks at the cabby, shrugs and says the following:

“I’m here to have an affair.”

I’m a little a taken aback, so I respond as you might imagine I would.

“Well, hel-lo!”

She laughs.

“My god, I had to say that out loud. I can tell you, right? I don’t know you, and we’re not ever going to see each other again, right?”

“Ma’am, you can tell me whatever you want. I’m just a guy in a cab.” [She’s in her 30s, by the way.]

“It’s weird. I’m not normally this kind of person. It’s hard keeping it inside.”

“I hear ya. And now I have many questions for you.”

“Fire away.”

“Are you the adulteress or the infidel?” [I have no idea if this makes any sense, but she seem to know that by infidel I mean the other woman.]

“Both, I think. I mean, we’re both married. God, you must think I’m such a bad person. Do you think I’m a bad person?”

“Well, actually, I think the sun is going to blow up in three billion years, and when that happens everything we know of will have ceased to exist or matter, so the whole idea of bad or good is really a construct, although to be honest I’ve never cheated on someone because I don’t think I’d be very good at it and I think it would feel wrong in the moment even if I didn’t believe it was wrong in a metaphysical sense.”

“So then you DO think I’m a bad person?”

“No, I think you’re a just a person. A human, with an animal nature. And, you know, nature favors adultery.”

“What do you mean?”

“Blah, blah, garbeldy, flizham, shplink, gazoingles, tribilioscopy...” [Translation: At this point I launched into a five-minute exegesis about a prevalent theory among evolutionary biologists explaining why people, and animals, get aroused at even the prospect of sex with some person or being other than their primary sex partner: male sperm count generally triples and female lubrication increases at similar levels. I can explain this in greater detail if anyone would like, but the basic idea is that once you’ve had offspring with your primary partner you’d want to see how you do, in terms of genetic strength, with other partners, so most species have evolved to make random, infrequent sexual encounters with non-primary mates more likely to produce babies. And, yes, I expounded on this theory to a woman in a cab I’d never met before. Traffic, I should mention, was pretty bad.]

“Wow, I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just a theory, but it makes sense. I’m guessing you’re pretty aroused right now, right? I mean at the prospect of going to lunch with this guy and, you know, having sex with him afterwards. Right?”

She smiles, awkwardly.

“Yes.”

“Is this your first time with him?”

“No, second.”

“How did it come about? Were you one day just like, I think I’m gonna cheat on my husband today!”

“No, not at all. I never thought about it. I married the wrong guy for the wrong reasons, and I had this sense that I was unhappy, but I wasn’t thinking about cheating at all. [I’m leaving out some details of her personage and marriage, in the event that somehow who knows them someone reads this and I inadvertently make her life even more complicated. She’s college-educated with a couple of kids. ] But I was traveling on a business trip a little while ago and met someone and got drunk and we hooked up and all of a sudden I remembered what it was like to feel that way again, and I realized I liked feeling like that but I didn’t want to end my marriage for a whole bunch of reasons.”

“Meaning, it’s not your kids’ fault that you married too young and your husband is depressed and has let himself get fat and you don’t want to have sex with him anymore?”

“Yes! Exactly! How did you know?”

“Don’t be so impressed. There’s a reason all those Lifetime movies connect with so many people. I think a lot of people feel the way you do. Anyway, how did you meet this guy you’re going to see?”

“But not a lot of Lifetime watchers turn out to be cheaters, right?”

“Well, you may not be a cheater forever. You may be someone who doesn’t know how to fix her marriage and thinks this is the way to solver her problems but you’ll realize after three months that you don’t like having sex with new guys so much after all and you’ll decide to talk to your husband. I’m not saying it’s okay, I’m just saying you shouldn’t brand yourself as something like being a cheater because that’ll give you license to keep cheating. You may be making dumb decisions, or even wrong decisions, but you should make sure they’re not long-term decisions. On a variety of levels, by the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, having sex with some other guy in midtown today is a short-term decision. Getting herpes from him is a long-term decision.”

“Oh, I know. We’re careful. And he’s a good guy. And he doesn’t want his marriage to end either.”

“Okay, but to be honest, the only thing you know about him for sure is that he cheats on his wife. So I’m saying if he says let’s take the helmet of that soldier you should make sure you don’t.”

She looks thoughtful.

“Yeah...”

“Do you ever think about talking to your husband?”

“No, not really.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I mean, he knows we’re not having sex, but I don’t think he wants to face talking about stuff.”

“You know, there’s this researcher in Seattle, I think he’s at the UDub there, who’s like the expert on marriages and being able to determine which marriages will fail and which won’t and greep, druigk, spawa, reezeldeimer...” [At this point I embark on my second exegesis, this one about University of Washington professor Neil Jacobson, who has these incredibly revealing tests he gives to married couples. He also interviews them looking for specific habits and behaviors and interactions.]

“Anyway, this doctor says all sorts of complicated of marriages can work, ones where people argue or bicker or are passive-aggressive or whatever, but if he sees one particular trait he knows the marriage is doomed.”

“What’s the trait?”

“Disgust. Or maybe it’s contempt. But when one spouse has contempt or disgust for the other, he says it will never last.”

“I have disgust for my husband.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that idea. But you never told me how you met this guy you’re going to see.”

“Oh, we met on a train to the city.”

“And you’ve had sex with him before?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Once.”

“How was it?”

“Amazing.”

“And I am the only person who knows, aside from you and him?”

“No, you and my sister.”

At this point, the cab driver clears his throat. Seriously. It may have been coincidence, but he clears his throat. The woman and I both laugh, then I say: “Okay, you, me and him. What does your sister say?”

“She thinks I’m awful. Her husband is very close to my husband.”

“Aren’t you afraid she’s gonna tell?”

“No, she’d never do that. We’re very close.”

“Alright, but I can easily imagine her being weirded out by something or other connected to this, and her husband asking what’s the matter, and she says nothing, and he keeps pressing ... right? I’m not married, but are you telling me that’s not a possibility? Isn’t that what husbands and wives do to each other? You know, get it out of you?”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking you better tell your sister it’s over with even if it’s not.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

[We’re getting close to my office. I REALLY want to get her email address so I can find out what happens, but I think better of it. This is rare for me, as many of you know.]

“So this is my corner,” I say to her. “It’s weird, I’m dying to know how this is all gonna play out but I’ll never know.”

“It’s true. I’ll always be the woman in the cab who’s cheating on her husband, even if I’m not anymore.”

[I give her $20 and ask for 10 back. She gives it to me.]

“Yeah, wow. Well, good luck. I hope it all works out like it’s supposed to.”

“You too. Thanks for listening to me.”

I close the door. It’s 1:01 PM on a Tuesday in New York City.