First Date

I saw her as she walked in the door. She had hair the color of chestnut and eyes the color of the turquoise seas one only finds in the islands. Her shape was athletic, but the kind of athletic that comes from work, not working out, and her skin had a tan that was healthy. She looked like a model of the girl next door, a description that each and every man understands the minute he hears it, and she was here to meet me.

She saw me seated at the bar, a bar at which I was well-known, not because I hang out at bars, but because it was owned by a friend of mine. I hoped that being on a first name basis with the bartender would be seen as somehow impressive, and I felt like I needed every advantage I could get. The nervousness was palpable as she approached me with a smile on her face. She had recognized me from a picture we had traded online, and I was glad to see that it was a smile and not that ”oh my God” look that usually results in a mid-date phone call that requires her to leave on an ”emergency” of some imagined nature.”

We shook hands and said hello, then I kissed her lightly on the back of her hand, looking her in the eyes. I could smell the light aroma of her perfume on her hand and it was an aroma just like her, simple and understated. She sat down at the bar stool and ordered, much to my shock and delight, a Scotch and water. This was my kind of woman and I figured that both of us drinking Scotch as a guest enhancer would have many advantages.

I assessed that she did not have any idea how beautiful she was and lacked the self-confidence that would have come with seeing in the mirror that which I saw in front of me. She had dreams and visions of the future, but she always couched them in terms of the unobtainable. She knew better what she was never to be than what she could become. It was the one less-than-attractive thing about her and it would haunt us both.

We talked for a couple of hours, eating appetizers to ward off the hunger pangs, neither of us wanting to have a full dinner for some reason. We really didn’t need the food to quickly stuff in our mouths when there was that pregnant pause in the conversation that we both had expected, for that pause did not come. We left the bar, a slight glow from the alcohol within us, and walked to the seawall that held back the waters of the Intracoastal Waterway. There we sat for longer than we had planned, once again talking and once again feeling like we had known each other far longer than the time we had spent together.

As we sat on the seawall, the moon hung low over the horizon and gleamed off the water, which lay flat as glass, giving the impression of being frozen. We held hands as we talked about the beauty of the water, both of us stalling, waiting for the moment we both hoped would come, the sooner the better. Finally, there was a pause, we leaned towards one another, and our lips met softly, slightly parted, just a hint of our tongues brushing each other’s lightly. The softness of her lips was incredible. This was the kind of kiss that men go to war to protect. It was the kind of kiss that keeps them going, with a deep breath and a sigh at the memory of it. It was beyond wonderful.  It was the kiss that makes you dare think, "could she be 'The One'?"

We parted that night more because we had to than we wanted to, but it was the first night of many that would be indelibly etched into my memory and burned into my soul. It would become the evening to which all others would be compared and the evening that was to begin the breaking of my heart.