Lunch Date

After a couple of weeks of emails and late night chats, Z proposed that we meet for lunch. Z chose the place and my husband and i planned to meet Him there.

Meeting a new person after getting to know them online is still very strange for me. i often wonder if it will be second nature to my kids, who will grow up with computers that connect efortlessly without couplers and old-fashioned handsets, to whom Facebook (or its successors) and instant messenging are as common as cell phones and video games…

Whoops! Sorry about that. Here, let me put away the old-lady cane and my stories of snow-laden school routes. (Shuffle, shuffle) There we go, i’m feeling much better now…

Back to the story…

It’s hard not to create an image of the other person in my head based on a few static photos and the bits of personality that come across through the type on a screen. i worry that the image i’ve created in my mind is so different from the actual person i’ll meet that i won’t be able to reconcile the two and it just falls apart – like trying to drink Pepsi when you’re used to Coke, the wrong one just always tastes….well, wrong.

i met my husband there early and then we went to go find Z. i picked Him out immediately, in that He looked exactly, and, yet, nothing like, the image i had in my head. Physically He looked just like i had expected, but His mannerisms and demeanor were a bit of a surprise. Foolishly, i suppose, i had assumed that Doms don’t get nervous meeting new people. It made me smile to see that He was as unsure as i.

Lunch went well, in that somewhat odd way of people who are already intimate without ever having met. i sat next to my husband and Z sat across from us. W/we shared french fries and onion rings, although i don’t eat much when i’m nervous. W/we talked and laughed about schools, jobs, childhoods, languages, computers, teaching, girlfriends and husbands. It was a lovely conversation, but i found myself still wondering if this man could possibly have a Dom bone in His body. Intelligent, sweet, funny and well-educated? Yes. Commanding? Not so much...

Then, suddenly, His tone changed. He told me that He wanted to have a conversation with my husband. i asked if i should excuse myself and He said no.

“roxy, put your hands behind your back, legs spread.”

i looked up to my husband and he looked back at me uncertainly.

i put my hands behind my back and spread my legs slightly, somewhat painfully, in fact, because, in the heat, my thighs had bonded with the vinyl bench seats. i lowered my head, looking down at the wooden table, and tried not to listen to the conversation going on right next to me, about me. It felt uncomfortable, this small act of submission performed right next to my husband. Normally i keep such things separate from him – not hidden, of course, but, because they’re not his cup of tea, not in front of him, either. Thankfully, he took it as an opportunity to talk with Z, sharing his hopes and concerns and listening to Z share his. Poly is such a strange beast, to try to come up with the language to explain how i set up a meeting for my husband to meet my new…what?...not lover, not boyfriend…play partner? Dom? i’m not so far into poly that i can’t still recognize how absurd that sounds, sitting there, quiet witness as these two men worked out the boundaries of sharing me.

Still, it was all very polite and reasonable. i was sitting there, starting to fidget a little from trying to stay in one position too long, wondering if i had traded passion for security…and then it happened.

i was startled from my thoughts by a touch on my forehead. Z had reached out to bring me back up into the conversation and, as i raised my eyes to meet His, i felt a surge of electricity shoot through me. Like a rabbit out of a hat, suddenly there was a Dom across from me, looking deeply into my eyes and saying my name, and i tingled all over from the intensity of it. subs know in their gut the sweet, sharp pull of a Dom who fits, and this was it. No more Mr. Nice Guy, He let the Dom out to play for that one moment of connection and it was incredible. But then He pulled Dom Z back again, seamlessly returning to polite conversation and promises of talking further and making plans.

There’s something evilly genius about giving someone just a little taste. Eat all the chocolates you want, a whole box, even, and you end up too-full and sick, but eat just half of one, or just one precious lick, and you will spend days desperately searching for more. i spent days afterwards reliving that touch, that sudden connection, that spark of passion…

It was time to leave, so W/we said goodbye and parted, all heading off to mundane responsibilities elsewhere. i was off to pick up kids at school and i wondered later, as i stood there, amongst all the other moms, if they could tell what i had been up to. Did it show? Could they see the burning embers in my chest, the small beginnings of a fire that hadn’t been there just hours before? As i looked around, i wondered where they had all been, if we were all harboring little secrets and hidden lives and stories of sudden passion discovered over french fries and onion rings.