Memories - First Date and After
I'm pretty sure it's a story I've never told, one about our first date. Not necessarily the date itself, but the morning after the date.
No, it wasn't waking up with her, not that at all. We kissed on our first date, "made out", but I didn't get past second base on that first date (or the second, third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth).
The date itself was an easy first date. A museum, dinner, back to her place, where I was invited in. We sat on the couch, Emily in her dress, legs crossed, with my eyes glued to her nylon covered legs, her heels; me next to her, nervous, even afraid.
"Are you going to try to kiss me?" she asked me.
"Am...am I...going to kiss you?," I said.
"I didn't know if you wanted to try to kiss me or just look nervously at my legs."
"You...you have nice legs," I said, trying to sound confident, knowing I sounded anything but.
"Guess that answers my question," she said with a small frown.
"No," I said, "I mean...am I allowed to?"
"Allowed to?"
"Kiss you," I said.
She smile. "You're so unique," she said.
"Unique?" I asked, not that she was wrong.
She smiled again, like she was considering. "You know, usually guys just kiss me, not considering whether they're allowed to, not thinking about whether I want to, whether I'll stop them. They just go for it and hope for the best. I don't think anyone's ever asked."
I pondered this for a moment. "Technically I didn't ask," I said, trying to put on a brave face.
She looked at me, smiled again. "I guess technically no then," she said.
I wanted to in the worst way, wanted to kiss her more than I ever kissed anyone before. "May I?" I managed to say.
"May you?"
"May I...kiss you?" I said.
She moved her mouth like she was thinking. "You may," she said. I started to lean towards her but she stopped me. What else?"
"What else?"
"Where are your hands going? You should ask about that, too. Where you hands may go."
"Where my hands may go?"
"Again, normally a guy just goes for it, just takes what he can, just finds out what he can get away with. Normally. But he normally doesn't ask to kiss me. So we should...clarify."
"Clarify."
"Where your hands can go. You should ask about that, too."
She was smiling, not being cruel, toying with me, playfully, friendly, like she just discovered something. For me, though, it was like her voice plugged into my psyche, into my inner core of desire. I was on the couch with this woman I'd had a crush on for months, on the verge of kissing her, asking if I could, ready to ask what else I could do.
"I've done this before," I said, "kissed a girl."
She laughed. "I'm well aware," she said. "And I've been kissed by men before, though none quite so shy and timid and nervous as you."
"I'm not timid," I said.
"Just shy and nervous?" she asked. These were words that could be cruel, but they weren't from her."
"Maybe some," I said, eyes on her legs again.
"Don't worry, it's cute," she said. "So, when you're kissing me, where to you want to touch?"
"Your...your legs," I said, the first thing that came to mind, where my eyes were.
"I always see you looking at them," she said, "not like a creep, but you notice them."
"You have nice legs," I said.
"Where?" she asked.
I tried to be brave, bold. I reached over, let a hand hover over her thigh. "Here?"
"Ask," she teased.
"Can touch you here?"
She took my hand, put it on her thigh, on her nylon covered thigh. "Yes, but no higher than this," she said.
"No higher?"
"No higher," she said. "Where else?"
I looked at her face, into her eyes, looked down to her chest. "What...what about..."
"My breasts?"
My ears were red, my face was red. "Can I...touch your breasts," I asked.
"God this is hot," she said, echoing what I was thinking.
"It is?"
"I never had a guy ask. They either just take what they want or are too nervous to do anything. You're nervous but not too nervous."
"So may I?" I asked. "Touch your breasts?"
She looked like she was thinking about it, pondering. "You may kiss me," she said, "tongue if you want. You may touch my thighs, but not above the hem, and you may touch my breasts, but over my dress and not below my waist."
"That's very...explicit," I said, a laugh to try to cover my excitement, my nerves.
She shrugged playfully. "Usually it's men taking what they want. If a boy's going to ask what I want, if I'm going to be in charge, I'm going to be explicit. So, second base. Thighs below my hem, breasts over my dress and not below my waist, and as many kisses as you want."
"Second base?"
"Second base."
My hands went to her at once, one on her nylon covered thigh, one on her breast; I leaned in, kissed her hard and deep, the first time I'd kissed a woman in quite some time. Her lips were warm, inviting, sweet, soft and I think I fell for her that second.
She pushed into me, on top of me, and suddenly I was self-conscious again. Not at kissing her, not at touching her nylon covered leg or her breasts, but at my reaction. I saw her look at down, giggle, knew she felt me pushing into her as we kissed.
"S...sorry," I said, shifting, trying to move my erection away from her, trying cover myself with a pillow.
"Sorry?"
"I guess I'm...kind of excited."
"Your little guy's got a mind of its own," she said, having no idea the word hit my brain like a truck crashing into me.
"I...I just..."
"You haven't been with a woman for awhile, have you?"
"I haven't kissed a woman for awhile," I said.
"Just remember, second base," she said.
"I know," I said.
"Do you want to move your little guy?"
"Yea," I said, the word crashing into me again.
We kissed like that for awhile, fondling, touching, my hand never going under her clothes, past the hem of her dress, lower than her breasts. We literally just made out.
It was late when I left, when she gently sent me on my way with a promise to call her when I got home.
"I will," I said.
"You busy in the morning?" she asked.
"No, why?"
"Coffee at eleven?" she asked, naming a coffee shop.
"Of course," I said.
**********
She was already at the coffee shop when I got there, relaxing on a couch, a cup in her hand. She was dressed casual, a sweater, jeans, loafers some type of nylons, trouser socks or something sheer, I didn't know.
She smiled, said to get two cups of coffee. I came back, she'd kicked her shoes off. I sat just across the corner from her so I could see her; when I sat, she put her nylon covered foot next to my thigh. Without thinking, I did something I'd do thousands of times in the future; I reached for her foot, massaged it gently.
"I enjoyed last night," she said softly.
"Me too," I said.
"I like you," she said.
"I like you, too, Emily," I said, gently touching her foot.
She smiled. "I like you so I I want to take this slow, serious, I don't want you thinking you're just going to bed me then ghost me."
"I'm not like that," I said.
"I know," she said, moving her foot slightly against me. "That's why I want to go slow."
"I'd like that, too," I said, meaning it, afraid of rushing too fast, of scaring her off, of screwing it up. I liked her, really liked her.
"Legs, feet, nylons, or all three?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to act cool, wondering how she saw right through me.
"It's a simple question," she said.
"All three," I said.
"You should be wary about letting a girl know how to control you," she joked.
"Is it that obvious?" I didn't know if she realized the power she had, but she'd come to understand all too well.
"Pretty much, but don't think I'm complaining," she said, "you're talented with your hands, it feels nice. Most guys don't have that talent."
"You're easy to please," I said.
"And you're easy to read," she said.
"Emily..."
"Yes?"
"Please don't...hurt me."
"I won't," she said, "I promise."
She kept that promise. She kept that promise.
❤️
ReplyDelete“ Was ever woman in this humor wooed? / Was ever woman in this humor won?"
ReplyDeleteI think this is our first Shakespeare comment 🥰
Deletehe memory of that morning in the coffee shop always feels warmer than the actual temperature of the latte in my hand. It was the moment the "rules" of our relationship began to take shape—not as a set of restrictions, but as a language only the two of us spoke.
ReplyDelete"I won't," she had said. And she didn't. Instead, she did something much more profound: she took up residence in the quiet spaces of my mind.
The Slow Burn
As the weeks turned into months, our "second base" rule became the sanctuary of our relationship. It was an agonizing, beautiful tension. Every date ended the same way: her on the couch, my hands tracing the familiar boundary of her hemline, the friction of nylon against my palms becoming the soundtrack to my Friday nights.
I remember the third date, a rainy Tuesday. We were watching an old noir film, the black-and-white shadows dancing across her face.
"You're hovering," she whispered, her eyes never leaving the screen.
"I don't want to break the rules," I said, my thumb tracing the arch of her foot.
"The rules are there to make the moments count," she replied, finally looking at me. "Do you feel like they're counting?"
"Every single one," I admitted.
The Shift
It wasn't until the seventh date that the architecture of our "game" changed. We had gone to a small jazz club, the kind of place where the air feels thick with soul and expensive perfume. Emily was wearing a silk skirt that shimmered like oil on water, and those same sheer stockings that seemed to be my undoing.
When we got back to her apartment, the air was different. The playful teasing was still there, but it was weighted with something heavier—a mutual realization that we were past the point of "testing" one another.
She sat on the edge of her bed, kicking off her heels. "Do you remember what you asked me on the first night?"
"I asked if I was allowed to kiss you," I said, standing by the door, still that same nervous boy at heart.
"And today?" she asked, her voice dropping an octave. "What do you want to ask today?"
I walked over, kneeling in front of her, my hands finding their way to her knees. The nylon felt cool, but the skin beneath was electric.
"I want to know if the boundaries have moved," I said.
She reached out, threading her fingers through my hair, pulling my face close to hers. "The boundaries didn't move, you just grew into them. You stopped being 'timid' and started being 'intentional.' There’s a difference."
Reflecting on the "After"
Looking back from 2026, I realize that Emily wasn't just teaching me about her body; she was teaching me about respect, patience, and the power of a slow revelation. She knew that for a man like me, the anticipation was just as vital as the act itself.
She kept her promise. She never hurt me. She just redefined what it meant to be "unique" in a world that usually moves too fast to ask for permission.
The memory of the seventh date was the bridge, but the memory of the "Silver Anniversary" of our dating—exactly six months in—was the day the power dynamic shifted from a playful game into something much more absolute.
ReplyDeleteIt was a Tuesday. I arrived at her apartment to find her not in a dress, but in a silk robe, lounging on the sofa with a small, velvet-lined box on the coffee table. The air smelled of vanilla and something metallic.
The Proposition
"Sit," she said, patting the spot on the floor by her feet. I obeyed, my heart hammering against my ribs. I reached for her ankle, my usual starting point, but she pulled away slightly.
"Not yet," she whispered. "I've been thinking about our rules. About 'second base' and how well you’ve behaved."
"I try to be a gentleman," I said, looking up at her.
"You're a very good boy," she said, her voice dropping into that specific register that made my skin prickle. "But I think you’re too distracted. I think you spend our dates—and the days between them—thinking entirely too much about what you might get to do, rather than focusing on me."
She opened the box. Inside was a device of polished steel and medical-grade silicone. It looked like a piece of modern art, cold and uncompromising.
The Handover of Keys
I felt the blood drain from my face, then rush back in a heat wave. "Emily?"
"You asked me once not to hurt you," she reminded me, leaning forward so her robe parted just enough to show the lace of her slip. "And I haven't. But I want to own that 'little guy' you’re always trying to hide behind pillows. I want to be the only person who decides when he’s allowed to wake up."
The room felt smaller. The weight of her gaze was heavier than the steel in the box.
"Is this... part of the 'slow and serious'?" I managed to ask, my voice cracking.
"This is the ultimate 'slow,'" she smiled, that playful-yet-dominant spark in her eyes. "If you wear this, there is no second base. There is no home run. There is only my hand, my voice, and your patience. I keep the key. I decide the schedule."
The Choice
She held the key up—a small, unassuming bit of metal on a silk ribbon. She looped the ribbon around her neck, the key resting right between her breasts, exactly where I used to touch her over her dress.
"You don't have to," she said, her voice softening with a touch of that original empathy. "But if you do... I promise you’ll never feel closer to me. You'll be mine in a way most men are too afraid to even imagine."
I looked at the key resting against her skin. I looked at her nylon-covered legs, the power she held so effortlessly. I realized then that my "uniqueness" wasn't just about being shy; it was about the fact that I wanted to be hers, completely and without defense.
"Put it on me," I whispered.
The Reality of the Lock
The first week was a blur of frustration and a heightened, agonizing awareness of her every move. Every time she crossed her legs, every time the scent of her perfume hit me, I was reminded of the cold steel holding me back.
But she was right. It wasn't about pain; it was about a new kind of intimacy. I stopped looking at her as a prize to be won and started seeing myself as a permanent part of her world.
This reminds me of when I started dating my wife. She was a still is much younger but has as they say an old soul; and beautiful legs.
ReplyDeleteWe took it slow. We would meet for coffee or lunch and she and I would end up on my sofa. Making out, she knew what she was doing every second. My hands would be on her thighs as we made out. I would slowly move them higher and she would take my hands and place them lower. She would casually caress my belt line, and I would look at her and she would look and me and in that moment we both understood she was in control. This went on for weeks and I was loving every moment of it. The first time we slept together she said. “Before we do this, I want you to make me a promise; don’t ever hurt me!