Without wishing to commandeer your comments section with sordid confessions; I recently experienced the closest thing to sexual betrayal in relation to a novel. It seems somehow improper to give names, but suffice to mention that the author in question is married to another well known American writer, whose books I have had far more healthy affairs with. In fact it was this prior affiliation that made me all the more vulnerable, the apparent familiarity lulling me into a dangerously submissive repose. At first my reading was relaxed, no great passion, but no sense of aversion either, enough interest to gently lure me through the text. In retrospect there were moments of acute doubt, the prose was a trace too confident, she was too easily touching on the subjects most close to my heart. But I wanted it to work, I wanted her to succeed in seducing me with what I loved.

I recall two distinct moments when I was utterly taken in by this work, when I mistook my own vain pleasure for a blossoming love.

The first occurred in a seemingly innocent discussion of the general nature of things. What turned out to be the most banal coincidence of thoughts, took on the semblance of the most profound meeting of minds. It was less her thoughts, than my eagerness to be pleased that amounted to hypocrisy. She ventured that everything was connected, I took this platitude as the sublime truth of what I read. Do not mistake me, her sentences were by no means unattractive, the fleeting rush of blood was not without reward.
The second noteworthy instance of this aberration was perhaps more sinister. In this case I was blinded by emotion. Specifically the death of a child; how could I feel anything but pathos, how could I deny the significance of such an event? I should of stopped it there, a reading cannot sustain itself on shared grief, that I was enjoying such a sentiment should have been clue enough to my part in the perversion of this art. But I was far too taken in. Maybe if I had ended the relationship then I would be able to regard it with less horror. It would of justified itself as an affair of the flesh, and there need be no guilt in this. Books have every right to gratify us, no matter questions of their character, whether they have rights to our hearts is another matter. Of course she too could of finished it here, a wiser reader would of begged her to, but she had every desire to continue, and it did not even occur to me not to follow.

From then on, as all rapport between us collapsed, and as those reckless words became a cruel, cruel joke, 'love', 'beauty', 'truth'. From then on my memories grow confused. It will never cease to astound me, that one single item of information can send all of ones prior impressions and assumptions into absolute disarray. In this case it was an increasing awareness of my novelist's moral prejudices that finally broke the spell, and put all our history into a dreadful new context. At that time it seemed like treachery; how could she make all those promises only to utterly shatter them in the revelation of her unspoken intentions? She had no real interest in me, in my sensations and dreams. She did not care for my values. I was redundant, a soul-less medium for her prejudices, of no consequence except in so far as I might confirm the narcissistic hatred that sustained her. However I realise now that such sentiments are too full of bitterness, too tainted by my own failings. It did not work out between us, perhaps that is all that really needs to be said. I hope others fare better in my place.