The middle

Imagine you’re going to meet a person that you’re already crazy about...for the first time. You’ve spent years playing the getting to know you game without physical contact. You’ve already had arguments and disappointments, secrets and inside jokes. There’s not much you don’t share with each other and even though contact is usually a daily thing, you still can’t fight the stupid grin that spreads across your face when they call. Now imagine you’re a closet romantic that thinks this is going to play out like one of your novels.

Did this meeting go well in your mind?

If it didn’t include an impromptu meeting with your alcoholic father, immediately followed by a late night condom run, then it’s nothing like what actually happened.

I suppose he thought we were long past the point of romantic endeavors. Certainly we’d discussed the fact that we were, more than likely, going to “do it” (...on his couch, on the marble hotel desk which, in pictures, looked to be about the right height, but was actually just a tad too tall) and he even asked about my condom preference. But I figured all of that tactical talk would take a back seat once we were face to face.

Instead I found myself, minutes after unwillingly introducing him to the booze swilling bane of my existence, standing in front of a condom display. He’d forgotten to get them before I arrived and we had to pick up some things for our road trip anyway so...problem solved. But after thirty seconds or so of standing at my side and staring too, he high tailed it off in the opposite direction, telling me to choose and that he’d get started on the rest.

As he’d always been more easily embarrassed than me, and as I watched him walk briskly away, I figured the “I forgot” line wasn’t exactly true. I turned back to the display, having no idea what to choose because, obviously, it wasn’t my penis that needed fitting. And then of course there was the problem of how many – too few and we might have to go back, too many and he might think I was planning on staying undressed the entire weekend. But when some strange man appeared and grinned at me, I just said fuck it, grabbed an economy sized box and ran.

“I can’t believe you left me there”, I said when I caught up with him. He was laughing and, when he commented on the giant box I’d chosen, I couldn’t help but laugh too. It wasn’t romantic at all, but it was us, the way we’d always been – ridiculous, teasing and relatively comfortable despite the odd nature of the situation. I wanted it that way, of course, but I wanted romance too.

There were parts of what followed that somewhat satisfied my need for the romantic stuff. Our first kiss, for instance, was amazing and so much like the dream I’d had months before. Granted it was on a different couch, we weren’t being watched and it was followed by sex, not recreational vehicles. But it was him, those were his hands on my face, and I had the same overwhelming feeling of falling head first into something I was absolutely powerless to control.

But after the initial kiss, romance was temporarily forgotten. I didn’t care how much I’d liked him up until that point; I honestly hadn’t expected him to be so...well, hot. Intense. Aggressive.

Frankly, that was my usual role and I just couldn’t seem to fill it where he was concerned. Partially because the way I wanted him was so different, so new to me. (The only other person I’d ever had feelings remotely similar for...we never slept together.) And partially because I may or may not have taken a little something to help calm my nerves. Either way, I enjoyed every minute of it, romantic or otherwise.

Well, almost. He did have this peculiar habit of randomly putting his finger in my mouth. Naturally, my first thought was, “Oh, he wants me to suck his finger, maybe bite it. Ok. They do that in porn sometimes. I don’t see the point, but sure, why not.” Only once it was in there, he just kept moving it around like he had no idea what the point was either. A small, and endlessly amusing, price to pay for the rest, really.

The next morning was fine at first, but with hours to drive and topics apparently thin on the ground, there wasn’t much talking. I was trying to fight my way out of this particular limbo – you know the one? Where you’ve slept with your friend, fallen even harder for them and are so terrified of spooking this person that’s even more afraid of relationships than you are, that you’re stuck in your own head analyzing every single thing they say and every single thing they do and attempting to act accordingly, thus making the situation more awkward than it would have been in the first place.

Yeah, that one.

The normal me would have slipped a hand in his lap and been like, “So...how was the sex? Which part did you like best? Do you think we could forgo the finger in the mouth thing? Word.”

The new flustered and anxious me was more like, “So...great sex last night! Hey, I love that song...turn it up!” Then there was singing.

I did, finally, manage to grab his hand and hold it awhile...attempting to convey what I couldn’t seem to say out loud: “I’m more afraid than I’ve ever been, but somehow...I’ve also never been so happy. I hope you feel the same.”

The physical contact reassured me that he was really there, we still had days left together and it definitely wasn’t the sex that I wanted so badly. And I promised myself (because that had worked so well in the past) that I wouldn’t think about how it might end until I had to. Until I was boarding a plane or until he told me he didn’t want me. Whichever came first.