Love or Lust

Mark, a well-off 47-year-old aeronautics engineer from Vermont, has been living with his 27-year-old girlfriend for seven years. She works as an assistant manager at a bank. They spend most weekends at his country home. One day at the cottage, Stephanie and Mark start talking about whether they want children together or not, about Stephanie’s ambitions to have a singing career on the side, about their respective families, etc. The tone of the conversation is rather negative. Mark then walks to the village to get some wine, and crosses paths with Julie, his 47-year-old college girlfriend from 25 years ago. Both Mark and Julie own a cottage on the same area, and bumped into each other a few times, but hadn’t seen each other in ten years. Julie tells Mark she is going through a divorce, but doesn’t have kids. They are happy to see each other, but Julie seems disappointed that Mark has a girlfriend. Back at the cottage, Stephanie tells Mark it’s over between them. She is concerned about their age difference, and also would like to explore the market since she feels she was too young to hook up with the same man for the rest of her life at age 20. Mark is taken by surprise, and very sad about it. It’s an emotional goodbye as Stephanie leaves the house. But the day after, Mark calls up Julie, and they start talking about their past relationship. Mark was very insecure because Julie was very attractive, and his unfounded jealousy made their happy couple derail after three years. Julie loved Mark a lot, but for some reason, he thought she was sleeping with a bunch of guys in the side. But the attraction is still there, and they end up spending the night together.