A Slow Burn
It was the week before Christmas, and he was nervous.
He’d never done this before and was starting to second-guess himself. But he also knew he was there for a reason.
That it was he who had actively pursued me after seeing my ad in September.
He needed to fill that forties void without doing anything he’d regret. And I knew that, so I handled him with care. I demanded nothing physical of him.
Did I want to fuck? Absolutely. But whether we did or not was entirely his choice.
So I reminded him we could keep it PG. That we could have ourselves a fun little social date and part with a hug. That he controlled what did or did not happen next.
And so we talked. I asked him about his work, and he laughed at my jokes. We complained about the weather, and I gave him shit for insisting we meet here.
“I mean, of all the bars in Chicago….”
The music was loud in that dive, and the lights were bright. We were surrounded by men like him— suburban next-door husbands who’d finally escaped the company holiday party.
Men on the hunt for one last hit of dopamine ahead of seasonal domesticity.
As we sat amongst them, I watched him internally navigate a series of emotions and thought processes. He was running scenarios. Assessing risk.
And the energy of it all felt like foreplay to me. The calculation and the tension. The temptation. I knew that if we parted ways platonically, I’d go home and get off to the thought of what could have been.
“I want to make out. Let’s go back to my hotel and make out.”
It was decided. And the finality of his conviction amplified my already extraordinary wetness.
I wanted to see the look on his face when I touched him for the first time. To watch his brain catch up to the newness of it all.
He was starving, and I wanted to feed him.
“Okay. Let’s go.” I said.
And we did. And we came.
And then we came again. And near the end, as I was getting ready to leave, we made plans to do it all again in January.
There was no turning back.
