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"  It&amp;#039;s 6:30 a.m. My friends H.J. and Jane are about to pick me up for a 24-hour action-packed girl getaway to Vegas \u2014 woo hoo! \u2014 and I tell my husband, &amp;quot;Forget it. I&amp;#039;m not going.&amp;quot; For one thing, I&amp;#039;m not packed. And I&amp;#039;m not going to be packed, because we just moved into this apartment 36 hours ago and it&amp;#039;s wall-to-wall boxes. I&amp;#039;m surrounded by stuff, but none of it&amp;#039;s mine. So far, all I&amp;#039;ve found are a lot of knights&amp;#039; swords, Darth Vader helmets, and old cutting boards \u2014 the detritus of a mom with two boys under the age of six.  What a reversal from eight years ago, when I moved into Rick&amp;#039;s bachelor pad carrying two suitcases full of fishnets and miniskirts. Even if I did find one of those items, it wouldn&amp;#039;t be any use, because I&amp;#039;m 10 pounds fatter than the last time I bought anything in vogue. Definitely nothing to &amp;quot;club&amp;quot; in. My clubbing days are over. I put that part of me in a box I can&amp;#039;t find.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just going to go downstairs,&amp;quot; I say, in my slippers, &amp;quot;and tell the girls I was a moron for thinking I could squeeze in Vegas during moving week. I&amp;#039;ll stay here and get this disaster zone together.&amp;quot;  Rick looks at me: &amp;quot;The boxes can wait.&amp;quot; I look at him: &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re a good husband.&amp;quot; I put on ballet flats, grab my barely packed overnight bag, and run to the idling minivan. At the wheel is H.J., a superefficient working Tiger Mom who raises half the budget for our public school, and Jane, a fashionista and Agent&amp;#039;s Wife, meaning she&amp;#039;s basically raising three kids on her own and sees her husband when he stops in on the weekend to make an omelet. Our midweek getaway is a freebie, a business trip of H.J.&amp;#039;s (Wynn Resorts is a client). So we&amp;#039;re letting ourselves be pulled in her jet stream to a 29th-floor suite at the Encore, with a view of all of Nevada, a bathroom bigger than my first apartment, and lots of VIP amenities \u2014 something sorely missing from my real life.  We indulge in a mommy-ladies lunch, pecking salads, gossiping about an ex-friend who&amp;#039;d run out on her husband. At the spa, I get an itsy-bitsy bikini wax that may grow in before my husband and I get around to having sex. Then, I overshop at the mall with my BFFs. &amp;quot;You look hot in those,&amp;quot; they say. &amp;quot;You have to get them.&amp;quot; So I buy the black hotpants and put them on as we dress for the night, drinking vanilla-pineapple vodkas and jamming to &amp;quot;Never Say Never.&amp;quot; An amazing transformation takes place: Three naughty Cinderellas of a Certain Age step out for the night wearing more boot than dress.  I&amp;#039;m starting to feel like my pre-mom self as we walk into Marquee, where H.J. called ahead for a table and bottle service because she&amp;#039;s so freaking organized. Two waitresses announce us, carrying our giant bottle of Absolut overhead, flashlights blazing, and bring all the accoutrements \u2014 mixers, ice, Red Bull. But these waitresses are not just waitresses. They&amp;#039;re full-service Party Facilitators. They set up shots regularly and get us dancing, Jane shimmying, H.J. hair-whipping, me sliding up and down a mural of the Empire State Building. Just when I think we&amp;#039;re really livin&amp;#039; it up, H.J. complains there are no cute guys. To the waitress.  She asks, &amp;quot;Do you like Swedes?&amp;quot; Someone blurts out, &amp;quot;Yes!&amp;quot; That someone was me. In an instant, she&amp;#039;s back with two sandy-haired Thors \u2014 a tall one in an open white shirt, another in a preppy crested blazer. Open Shirt goes to Jane, Blazer to H.J. I look up for a third Swede with my name on him. When I look down, I find a short bald guy in glasses and a suit. He&amp;#039;s in town for the LensCrafters convention, and wants to dance.  Mr. LensCrafters is from Chicago. A doctor. He&amp;#039;s friendly. Too friendly. Trying to slip behind me for some dirty booty dancing. I keep spinning away. He purses his fish lips and makes his move \u2014 to kiss me.   &amp;quot;No way! Dude, we&amp;#039;re three Married Mommies.&amp;quot; He shows me his ring and actually utters the words, &amp;quot;What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.&amp;quot; Then he&amp;#039;s flashing BlackBerry photos of his kids. This is so not what I needed. I find Jane and tell her I&amp;#039;m ready to leave. It&amp;#039;s 2 a.m. We help H.J. break it off with the Swede just before she gets artificially inseminated. They&amp;#039;re content, my two friends. They got their ya-ya&amp;#039;s out. I, however, am having a horrible flashback to my 20s, lamenting that I&amp;#039;m a nerd magnet. Always have been. Now the nerds are just middle-aged cheats. This crushing feeling can only be drowned in carbs: pizza at the bar in the Encore lobby. Then two guys sit down next to us. A round-faced shy type and Jake Gyllenhaal&amp;#039;s better-looking Latino brother. The nice-looking one smiles in our direction and I think, Wow. What a polite kid! He smiles again, and says they&amp;#039;re from Mexico City, in town for a bachelor party. I say, &amp;quot;I hope you&amp;#039;re marrying someone better than any of us!&amp;quot; He laughs and asks us what we did tonight. Bottoming, with nothing to lose, I launch into a mini rant. The Swedes. LensCrafters. The whole thing. He tells us their night was a bust. That American girls are supposed to be hot, but the ones they met at Tryst \u2014 the club at the Wynn \u2014 weren&amp;#039;t. There was one Indian girl, but she kept talking about her father.  He&amp;#039;s funny. And a lawyer. General counsel for a French telecom firm. Wearing a crisp pink button-down, faded jeans, and bespoke loafers. He&amp;#039;s, at most, 28.  &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s your name?&amp;quot; I ask. &amp;quot;Carrrlllrrrr.&amp;quot; None of us ask him to repeat it, satisfied that his name should be an incomprehensible Latin purr.  Carrrlllrrrr leans closer. &amp;quot;We should go to Tryst.&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s looking at me. So are my wing ladies.  I&amp;#039;m so stunned I don&amp;#039;t know how to answer.  &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t. I&amp;#039;m with my friends.&amp;quot; Am I in high school? &amp;quot;Come on,&amp;quot; he replies. &amp;quot;Just for 10 minutes.&amp;quot;  I did get that bikini wax\u2026. &amp;quot;Okay,&amp;quot; I say, trying to buy time. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll change and meet you there.&amp;quot; We get up. Carrrlllrrrr gets up too. He&amp;#039;s 6 feet tall. And following me into the lobby.  &amp;quot;Where are you going?&amp;quot; I ask. &amp;quot;I know there is a 95 percent chance that if I let you go now, you won&amp;#039;t come back,&amp;quot; he purrs.  &amp;quot;No, we&amp;#039;re coming back.&amp;quot; He grabs me with his eyes and says, &amp;quot;I am nervous too.&amp;quot; Maybe it&amp;#039;s a line, or maybe it&amp;#039;s not. But I&amp;#039;ve never been more ready to go to Tryst in my life. Goddammit, why does it have to be called that? I look up at Carrrlllrrrr&amp;#039;s shiny brown hair, lashy dark eyes, lips \u2014 and see the missing box. My opportunity to unpack the part of me I couldn&amp;#039;t find. To spring back in time to a second chance at romance. Maybe a new country. A lifetime at Tryst.  I swallow hard. &amp;quot;I\u2026 can&amp;#039;t. It&amp;#039;s too late. I&amp;#039;m with my friends.&amp;quot; I say it firmly. My decision. He looks at me, hurt, bows like Zorro, and walks off.  My heart sinks. The girls say how &amp;quot;hilarious&amp;quot; it is that Ilene was feeling like such a loser, then ended up with the hottest one! &amp;quot;Better to leave it at a harmless flirtation,&amp;quot; H.J. says. But I&amp;#039;m in a regret spiral. Why didn&amp;#039;t I have the nerve to go with him? It was so easy for H.J. and Jane to reconnect with their hair-whipping former selves. But the truth is, I was never that free. I was always tortured. I take half a Xanax and go to sleep.  In the minivan back from the Burbank airport that morning, we make a pact not to tell our husbands any of it. It&amp;#039;ll be our go-to escape fantasy when we&amp;#039;re cleaning pee off the boys&amp;#039; bathroom floor or baking in the Valley at our third baseball practice of the weekend.  At home, there&amp;#039;s my husband \u2014 and a lot fewer boxes. He&amp;#039;s spent the last 24 hours unpacking.  How was my trip?  I look at him for a beat, then say, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re never going to believe what happened.&amp;quot; I tell him everything.  Rick leans back in his chair, sucks in his breath. Seconds seem infinite before he replies: &amp;quot;You gotta write this down.&amp;quot; Then I kiss him hello. What can I say? We don&amp;#039;t have secrets. I guess that&amp;#039;s why our marriage can deflect the slings and arrows aimed at commitment and monogamy. But jeez, if I&amp;#039;d known he was going to be this understanding, maybe I shoulda just\u2026 Wait, did I write that out loud? SOUND OFF: Have you ever been tempted to cheat on your guy? Share your thoughts in the comments below. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/advice/a12888/close-to-cheating/>