One-hour mistress

My mistress is my mistress,

This child is me,

The picture of how I was a child, I prefer this to all the world,

And despite everything,

I will keep it safe.

Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, 4, 2

IT’S one thing to be a mistress, after all, that’s quite normal, par for the course, one could say, but it’s another thing when that mistress has a baby for the married man. And from the looks of it, that baby is the spitting image of the father, dead stamp of him, if I read that above quote correctly.

Before I go there though, we have to establish that mistresses come in all forms, shapes, sizes and temperament. There are short ones, tall ones, fat ones, skinny ones, pretty ones, but very few ugly ones.

Sounds vaguely familiar huh, reminiscent of the poem, The Pied Piper of Hamlin. But that poem was about rats, all different types of rats, and the man employed to rid the town of Hamlin of them, using the music from his flute to lure them away. The Pied Piper wasn’t paid for his services, so he promptly brought the rats back to the town.

Some wives would say that mistresses are like rats, for they burrow their way into marriages, get their teeth into the husbands, wreck the home, are hard to get rid of, and sometimes breed.

But although mistresses may get a bad name, cursed and vilified, not all are bad, for they do fulfil a function which, in fact, may border on being noble.

The one-hour mistress, that’s who we’ll focus on today, right after we see what these readers had to say about my take on the ‘Four seasons’.

Hi Tony,

You paint a great picture of the four seasons. Spring is a time for romance, leading to passionate heat of summer, when women and young girls are scantily dressed so to drive men and young boys crazy with lust. Autumn is to prepare lovers for the winter that is about to overtake them, to see if the romance can stand the test of time. Having read your columns, I can feel the winter chill in my bones, and declare that I despise the season of winter. Charles

Ontario, Canada

Teerob,

Your columns usually make me laugh, even though you often touch on serious relationship issues. But ‘Four seasons’ actually made me sad, because it leapt from the page and hit me right in my face as I saw my own winter of discontent. Yes, I have experienced the seasons that you mentioned, but my winter is the longest and most brutal.

Melisa

Let’s face it, mistresses are here to stay and have been a part of man’s existence since the advent of weddings. They fill a void, a need, a desire that the man does not get from his wife, and they come by many names.

Some call them legion, for they are many: matey, side chick, second wife, homewrecker, concubine. But do they get an undeserving bad name? After all, don’t they fill a need and sometimes even save some marriages?

Yes, there are some wives who actually welcome a mistress to fulfil the sexual needs of her husband. And furthermore, some have compassion, sympathy and empathy.

This was buttressed by a letter that I saw in the papers recently, written by a mistress to the wife of the man she was involved with. The gist is, the man had got seriously ill, and instead of abandoning him in his darkest hour, she wrote the wife a heartfelt letter, telling her that she would take care of the man, and share the burden with her.

“After all, I’ve been seeing him for many years now, and we had good times, so it’s only fitting that I share in the burden of taking care of him.”

Kinda brings a tear to your eyes, doesn’t it? The truth is, there are many mistresses, especially the young ones, who would not have done that. Instead, as soon as the man got sick, they would have brought him back to his wife and declared, “Here, you take him, I didn’t sign on to be no nurse.”

Most mistresses are only in it for the good times, and maybe that’s what differentiates them from wives some wives.

“I didn’t take any vows promising for better or worse, through sickness and health.”

But here’s one story that knocked me for a loop. This man was the perfect husband, he came home from work at 5:00 pm religiously every day and never went anywhere without his wife and family. He was the epitome of decency and moral standings, as regular and punctual as a British Rail train, and his wife adored him for that.

Sadly, he passed, and at the graveside a woman with a young child in tow approached the weeping wife and after consoling her, said, “This is your husband’s daughter, and I was his mistress for many years.”

“But how could that be? He was always home and never went anywhere without me!”

To which the mistress replied, “Yes, but we would meet every day for one hour at lunchtime, that’s all that I needed.”

Well, I thought I’d heard it all, but this one was a zinger. This mistress was content to see the man for only one hour every day of the working week and was satisfied with that, even after having a child for him.

That’s so unlike the typical mistress who always demands more of the man’s time, with scant regard for the wife. Those are the ones who get depressed at certain times such as birthdays, Christmas, and new years, Valentine’s Day and such, when the man is unavailable.

Some wives, if not most, detest and despise mistresses, for they have trespassed on property that does not belong to them. But ironically, some are also accommodating and sympathetic

There are instances of men leaving their wives and living with their mistresses for many years, even siring children with them, and upon dying, the legal wife actually arranged to have his National Insurance Scheme benefits transferred and given over to the mistress.

“You can have it, after all he’s been living with you for years, so it’s only fitting that you benefit.”

Sounds incredible, but truth is stranger than fiction. That being said though, it’s often no fun being a mistress, especially in the long term. But if that’s the case, why do so many mistresses put up with the indignity, the heartache, and heartbreak, the emotional suffering and living in hope that the man will leave his wife but never does?

They’re good enough to…but not good enough to marry? Always a bridesmaid, never a bride is the old saying, but always a mistress, never a wife is also true. Some say that it was not their intention to be a mistress, but they got sucked into the vortex of complications without being aware of the man’s marital status.

“He approached me and came on strong, wining and dining me and showing affection and attention that I craved. After a while I fell deeply in love with him, only to find out later that he’s married.”

By then she’s ensnared so deeply in his web that she hasn’t got the strength or the will to extricate herself from his charm and affections.

“After all, I can’t just turn off the love I felt for him?”

She wished that he’d have been honest up front and told her that he’s married, then let her make the decision whether to go any further or not. But only in a perfect world is that going to happen. No married man is going to approach a woman and say, “Hey, I’m married, let’s get involved and you be my side chick.”

Mark you, there are some women who are professional mistresses, content to be a satellite revolving around the man’s marriage, as long as he caters to her needs — financial and otherwise. But in the main, most want more out of the relationship.

“A mistress may be a secret, but the love and passion shared are no less real.”

“In the realm of desire, a mistress is a tempting muse, inspiring lovers to abandon reason.”

Usually though, the man will wait as long as possible before the first sexual encounter before he declares his marital status. And when she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me up front before you had sex with me” He’ll reply, “Because I didn’t want to lose you.”

“It just didn’t come up.”

“You never asked me.”

“I didn’t think that it would matter.” “It slipped my mind.”

Mistresses come in all forms; many are sequential mistresses, always involved with one married man after another, while others are permanent mistresses, involved with the same man for many years, for as long as he’s been married. Some are short term, in for a fling, but this is the first time I’m hearing of the one-hour mistress. More time. seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: Well, well ,well, here we go again, people losing money because of Ponzi or pyramid schemes, as they’re often called. Some people will never learn. It was PT Barnum, famed US showman and circus owner, who said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And how right he was. This recent pyramid scheme first scammed people in Trinidad then moved to Jamaica where many idiots got caught in one of the oldest scams in the world of scamming. I saw many lamenting in the press how they got fleeced out of their money and pleaded to get it back. It’s said that if you keep on doing the same thing over and over but expect a different result each time, it’s the first sign of insanity. People will never learn, no matter how you try to tell them that it’s a scam. It’ll happen again.