A Surge of Horny Health!

 

I had a coffeeshop maybe-a-date yesterday with a guy I’ve been interested in for a while. I was rom-com awkward and klutzy. He was either very gentlemanly or not interested, maybe both. But my body gave me very good news: I AM READY TO DO ALL THE THINGS!

We had a perfectly lovely and polite time talking about all kinds of things. He’s a writer too! He has a cool project going that he is super-passionate about, what could be more dreamy than that?!

I was tooooooooootally listening to what he was saying but also, his hands. So big. So thick. So strong-looking. Oh boy. Oh my. Oh swoon. Oh my goodness.

“These are very good hands,” I said “I bet they’re very good for…hitting people. Like, on the butt.”

In fairness to my shy phrasing, the coffeeshop was close to home and there was the real possibility of work clients overhearing. Despite my awkwardness, he briefly wove our fingers together, like a combination of a hand-hug and a vote of confidence. Yep, strong.

He had a call to get to (Or, “had a call” like a get-out-of-date-free card?) so I didn’t get to take him home. (In a gentle show of optimism, I had sort of tidied.) Instead, I stopped at the store to buy myself flowers and had a VERY pleasant nap.

Ohfriends. It might not be this guy, but it’s gonna be somebody. And they better WATCH OUT.

Animal Crossing and Chill Part One: He Actually Brought His Switch! Delight Reaction!

After I broke things off with The Coach, I felt a little leery toward the young millennials, so I didn’t message (30-year-old) The Lovely Guy right away when we matched on Bumble. I was still semi-convinced there was a Reddit somewhere where these young guys were mocking my middle-aged horniness. (Do young millennials even Reddit? I have no idea.) But then, he extended the match, and he was really adorable, and I had a few minutes before work, so I said hi.

He was a good texter and we clicked. I was glad I’d stuck with my new age range (27-57) and stopped automatically swiping left on anybody who looked like he went to the gym. We settled on Animal Crossing and wine, and I was so relieved that he was willing to be embodied with me, even as I didn’t dare hope that he would actually play Animal Crossing! I was ready for it to be a hookup, though I hoped for more.

Of course, I always think everyone is a catfish, these beautiful men willing to come to my house, until I see them. He was taller than I’d expected and yes, very fit except for the MOST adorable quarantine tummy that I REALLY hope he might keep. The Lovely Guy is a bald and bearded black man with just the fluffiest eyelashes in the world and very kind dark brown eyes. And he did bring his Switch, the bigger kind than mine, all cozy in a fancy leather case.

The Lovely Guy’s animal neighbors chided him for having been away so long, and in fact we was not even out of the tent part yet! While I tended to my own (ALWAYS five star) island, I alternately helped and mocked him. Good “flimsy fishing rod” banter was had. He was shocked that Tom Nook would want the moth he’d collected—so rude to the moth! But very sweet to me.

And we talked. And talked and talked and talked! He drank a lot of wine, I drank a little wine with fizzy water in it, and we talked on my couch until one AM, which is very late for me these days.

I honestly don’t remember the last time that happened on a first date with a man, if ever! When he (at last) turned his hand up so I could hold it, I fully lost my train of thought. Such a long, beautiful strong hand. Placing my smaller fingers against his was like opening a very welcoming and cozy portal, one stocked with infinite pillows.

Of COURSE he was coming upstairs.

Fell in Like with The Drummer, Part Five: Still Holding Hands

(Still on the same hike, sorry everything takes 5,000 years for me to type through!)

 

“Your hand is tiny.” He said.

 

(Ha. Nothing about me is tiny, but he made me feel precious.)

 

“You’ve got REALLY nice hands,” I sighed, I’ll bet you could really hit somebody! In the good way, I mean!”

 

He deftly steered the conversation away from spanking and back onto all things pop culture. He said Howard Stern was one of his favorite podcasts and I tried not to give up on him just like that. Readers, can Howard Stern please just be a dealbreaker? I really hate to see the world in terms of dealbreakers, but how could the Drummer spend that much time with misogyny and contempt in his ears and still want anything to do with me? Which I guess he didn’t, eventually.

 

Anyway, aside from the Stern disappointment, which isn’t nothing, it was so, SO lovely talking to someone my age who was also (SWOON) an artist. Having the same reference points can make a guy feel like he’s the boyfriend for every stage of life, past and present. We were talking about how much we both love Rothko paintings and I said “Yeah, take that, Kurt Vonnegut” and he knew I was shorthanding to Bluebeard, kind of a Vonnegut deep cut if you ask me!

 

(I didn’t talk about that time Kurt Vonnegut was really awful to Jennifer Weiner, but I wanted to. Look it up, it’s vile.)

 

He shared the same uber-Nineties affinity for J.R. Bob Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius (I watched a documentary about them recently and it looked like the same soulless meme nihilism that got Trump elected. But also, Slacker is my favorite movie so who knows.) as the fiancée I had when I was twenty, with whom The Drummer shared a first name. “Yeah, that was me!” He laughed. I’m him!”

 

In some ways, talking with The Drummer made me feel like I had a place in the world, like I just fit. Almost to the car, we talked about how amazing Jane’s Addition are and it was the sensation of unlocking a puzzle box: Yes. This. Him.

 

When we got to my little red car and hugged goodbye, he took off his mask, I think to kiss me. I deftly hugged my face to his chest instead and joked about how he could save up some (many) makeout IOUs. With his mask back on, he looked a little bashful and said “I don’t really know how to end things,” but he was perfect and glowing when he brought his fingers to his masked lips and blew a kiss. So cute. So seemingly full of promise.

Fell in Like with The Drummer, Part Four: OMG Holding Hands!!!!!

 

 

The Saturday after New Years, we had our first in-person date. The Drummer was coming into town from the suburbs to meet me at my favorite gentle hiking spot in a nearby state park. I picked out a red lace dress to wear under my warm fuzzy black coat with black leggings and worn-out black Chuck-Taylor-like lowtop sneakers. (Those were DEFINTELY no match for the cold muddiness of the trails!)

 

It was weird to get ready for a date without lipstick, and my old safer-sex anxieties seemed minute compared to the fear that this so-called liberal might somehow show up without a mask like surprise! No science! I sent him a here’s what-I-look-like-with-half-a face pic and quickly got one back. We both prefer bandannas, very we’re-all-Antifa-now.

 

As I sat on a wooden fence rail waiting for him, I felt frozen with nervousness. Also, with cold, fretting about the fraught etiquette of maybe needing to blow my nose during the date without seeming like I was gonna breath-murder him. If I went in for a hug, would I seem wildly irresponsible? If I declined a kiss later, would he think I didn’t like him? I felt a little lost without my in-normal-times general sluttiness to rely on!

 

Because I am me, I already fully liked him before he came walking up the trail, but also, he was all the way cute. He was a little taller than me and not as fat, but very solidly built. I’m generally a little afraid of white dudes (I mean, have you seen America?) but his forty-something-ex-hardcore-kid-ness put me at ease, especially his vague and lovely tattoos. His dark green fedora, rather than making him look sketchy, made him look dapper and like he definitely cared about this date! (Scream emoji!)

 

He leaned in for a hug and I couldn’t help but say “You’re actual!”

 

We talked easily, especially for walking six feet apart! I snuck glances at his hands, big and warm-looking, open and relaxed at his side like an invitation, or at least not NOT an invitation! 

Supersweet Election Love Story: Part Four

It should be known that I’m typing this to Frank Ocean’s Pink + White. I need to pause this chaste and adorable love story to talk about the soaking wet underpants factor. Since Mr. Makeout Music and I first started talking, I’ve been more and more ready for him. I daydreamed a million ways to kiss him, to lock him in my office at the library and have my way with him. I wanted to push him, shove him, pull his hair till he whimpered. I used to be so annoyed by doms’ fondness for young women, but honestly I sort of get it. I want to protect him, coddle him, and make him bow down for me. That all of this squishiness and glimmer and push could have been happening in my heart and pants at a time when pussy grabbing child rapist Donald Trump was in my face all the time feels like a minor miracle and a clear sign of health and resilience.

Anyway, after our lovely and soothing Wednesday, I took Thursday off from the library to go to a #gophandsoffme demonstration—yelling and chanting with enraged ladies made me feel stronger and more centered. The next time I saw Mr. Makeout Music, he was at my other job. I was overjoyed to see him—we were finally alone! Even if I was still at work! The easiness of our library rapport eluded us and we were both nervous as heck. I joked that I was sitting at the register to avoid jumping on him in the bookstore office and he honestly looked like he wanted to hide. I could see how much he was afraid of disappointing me, and I could see all of his youth in his frightened-deer eyes.

When my relief came in at the bookstore, I told her that I was taking a LONG lunch, and she said “Take your time, he’s cute.” She knew I was bananas about him because she’d been witness to all of my semi-fretful putting on of lipstick between jobs.

 I’d made us a nice picnic—I figured we should be spoiled since America had just completely screwed us over. I liked getting a little Donna Reed Night for him.

My plan was to take him to my favorite spot on campus, a fountain with this carving: “Pause always to appreciate goodness and beauty.” On the way there, I told him how special he is, how many men I’ve known who wouldn’t have been willing to spend this much clothes-on time, wouldn’t be willing to tell me all the things and listen to all of my things. While he usually basks in praise, this time it made him flustered.

Still, I took his hand as we walked. I’d wanted to hold his hand for so long (settling instead for lingering high-fives) but it didn’t go as I’d hoped. He called me by my library name (Ms. plus my first name, not unappealing in the dom sense…) and said I was making him nervous.

“Should I stop being so…me?”

“No, I would never want you to not be you. I’m just shy.”

I joked that I could walk on the other side of the sidewalk if that helped, but he let go of my hand and started talking. He said that even though he’s not with his son’s mom, they still live together and he isn’t ready for something new. He said he’d never experienced something like this before, that he didn’t want to lose the friendship, etc. I’ve written the same story a million times, but I’d call this my favorite.

It had been such a very long week. It was time to be brave and wise and let him take care of himself, but I didn’t want him to leave. He didn’t want to leave either.