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Why power is sexy
Maureen Koh
The New Paper, 16 December 2012
The Michael Palmer story that broke over the week has stirred up bad memories for her. She was the other woman in another high-profile scandal. Her lover’s position of power was so alluring, she risked her marriage and it nearly wrecked her.
She remains adamant that it was “definitely not lust” that made sparks fly and left lives shattered.
Yes she concedes that she is “not that naïve to believe that love had anything to do with it”.
It was merely a connection between two people in a lonely battle for common cause, says the demure, slim and attractive woman.
She knows what it’s like to be the other woman in a high-profile scandal. And she says she knows what it’s like for a man and woman to develop strong feelings for each other when working closely together.
The Michael Palmer affair has reawakened certain ghosts she thought had been laid to rest, she reveals.
Ghosts she’s afraid will return to haunt her.
“No one really forgets such s***. What I want to avoid is for someone to dig up the past, put one and one together and then drag me through the m&d again.”
It took The New Paper on Sunday several phone messages and many more instant messages before she finally agreed to share her story.
No SMSes, she insists. “It’s too risky. Not that I don’t trust you or the newspaper, but these days, its scary to have SMSes produced as evidence.”
She also wants the assurance that she will not be named. “There’s too much to lose. I’ve lost too much already as it is. I can’t afford to lose more.”
At the height of the scandal, her marriage was severely tested. She and her husband are still married, but the relationship is cordial and they don’t live under the same roof.
“We’re no separated, for now. There are good days and there are bad days. On good days, we can sit down and have a meal
“On bad ones, like when the Palmer story broke, the bad memories turn him into a total stranger.
“It hurts so badly because it means for every step we have taken forward, we go back another five steps.
But I don’t blame anyone. I don’t have the right to do so. I blame just myself.”
Her affair, she recounts, started with pure admiration from watching the man in action.
“You have to agree, for someone to be in the public eye, it would mean he has some kind of charisma.
She was drawn to the way he worked with people. He was friendly and easy-going, with the right touch of humanity.
She pauses for about five seconds, then says: “You know the saying, we were all drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
“We just couldn’t help it.”
The “we” refers to colleagues, teammates and even strangers.
And most importantly, she says: “He never once gave you a reason to doubt his sincerity.
“He was always earnest and he was kind. If you approached him with a problem or an issue, he sat down with you to rationalise and work things out.
“It didn’t matter if it was day or night, he was never too busy or tired for anyone.”
Power, she confesses, was a draw. “That he was not an ordinary person was already a hook.”
Add a bright future to that, she says.
“I’d be lying if I claimed that aspect wasn’t an attractive point.”
She insists she cannot really pin down how the affair started.
“There was no specific date or moment. But there was a growing attraction, that much I can tell you.
“I began to look forward to seeing him at conferences and meetings. And when there were events to attend, I’d make a point to go if I knew he’d be there.
“You just want to see him. Catch a glimpse of his smile. A ‘hello and goodbye’ could also send me to cloud nine. I was like a young school girl nursing a huge crush.”
He’d shower her with little acts of kindness and concern. Like when he gave her a lift home and because she was so tired, he sat in the car and “waited for a full hour as I slept”.
“He’s not exactly the most handsome man, neither was he the romantic nor flirtatious sort. But there was something that made me want to be with him.”
For a while “I didn’t know if he felt the same way” because he didn’t let his feelings show.
It didn’t help that both of them are married, or that his wife would always tag along with him at events.
“I only suspected something was wrong when I started getting hostile stares from his wife, but I wasn’t quite sure what prompted it,” she says.
Until late one night, when they were holed up in the office after a bad day at work.
“Everyone had left and we were supposed to lock up. Then the phone rang and it was his wife, demanding to know why he was still not home.”
He walked away to continue the conversation and didn’t return to the conference room even after several minutes.
When she walked out to the main office, she saw him leaning against a table and staring blankly into space.
“He looked so dejected from the back, like he was so weary, and all I wanted to do was to comfort him.”
She walked up to him, stretched out her right hand and placed it gently on his elft shoulder.
“Are you okay? That was all I said,” she recalls.
“He turned around, said nothing but just pulled me into his arms.”
They had sex that night.
“Not the wild, passionate kind of sex. I’d describe it more like, you know, comfort sex,” she whispers.
“It was something that happened naturally. We are not saints, just human beings.
“When you see someone day in, day out, and if that person is a good man or woman, it’s very easy to develop more than casual feelings.
“Of course, you’d have to respect that person first. And in many ways I had loads of respect for him. He was like my mentor.
“He groomed me. I bloomed under him. That, plus we were working closely together, made me compare him to my husband.”
She says: “I think it’s easier – or harder, depending on how you see it— when your spouse is not as involved.
“So in this case (her lover) and I had the same mission, we were working on similar goals and we connected.
“It’s like he’d know what I wanted to say before I could even vocalise my thoughts.
“Or, he’d pitch an idea and it’d be one I was probably toying with.
“In fact, I felt like we were soulmates.”
Their illicit relationship went on for some time, with each taking extreme care to keep it a secret.
“We didn’t want to hurt our spouses and, while we didn’t ever discuss it, we also knew that we were unlikely to leave them for each other”.
A former colleague, who confirmed the story, says that he suspected “there was something going on but you could tell they were very, very careful”.
Yet the woman reckons both spouses had their suspicions and till today she things it was her husband who blew the whistle on the affair.
“All he told me was ‘If you want the brutal truth, I’m the real victim here.’
“Unfortunately he was right. I was the one who hurt him badly, and there was nothing I could do to undo the pain and hurt I had caused him.
But she admits: “I am most disappointed with the man who was my lover.
“He left me to deal with the aftermath, to pick up the pieces.
“Not once did he call or message me to ask how I was.”