Thanks to Seth for inspiring this.
"All any woman every really wants from a man is to be cherished. The rest is just blather."
***
I had never planned for this to happen. I was bored one Sunday night.......all alone and no one to play with. Feeling horny and unused. Signed in with my usual screen name and none of my usual playmates were around. Deciding to try something new, I changed my screen name to "nasty-Samantha-sub." Well.........the avalanche of offers were astounding.
A nice fellow going by the name of "Master_Seth" offered me a virtual chair. I sent him a private message on a whim. Well, that whim turned into eight hours of the most amazing cyber sex ever imagined. We started off around 3 am, and didn't stop until 11 am. I called in sick that morning..........the session just never seemed to end. We ended one scene and segued into another.
That first night of talking and expelling our unused passion continued.........Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Talking on the internet every night after work. I couldn't wait to get home from the office, work out, eat dinner, and then sign on. The first week we were all passion........exploring each other's body through the computer. Seeing what turned each other on......the usual, really.
***
A week turned into months..........after three months, we finally graduated to the phone. Nightly instant messaging turned into nightly phone calls. I had always vowed not to do this again.....this long-distance, phone sex relationship. But we had evolved far beyond phone sex before ever picking up the phone. We had brought ourselves in to each other's lives by then. My phone bill sky-rocketed.
I knew so much about him, but had never seen him. Never laid a hand on him. Never laced my fingers with his as we waked down the street. Never rested my head on his shoulder as we watched videos. We had done so much together and explored so much......but I never got to look into his eyes.
Shortly after Thanksgiving we were talking on the phone, and the topic finally came up. The meet. The visit. Scheduled for just after Christmas.
Standing at our relatively small airport.............wishing I had managed to lose another 20 pounds before he arrived. I had sent him a photo of me from a much thinner time and warned him that I looked nothing like that anymore, HA, HA, and that I was as fat as a house now. But I don't think he believed me. I really should have warned him.
I have struggled with my weight all of my life. At 35, I am still struggling..........bouncing between a health-food / exercise Goddess and a carbohydrate addict/couch potato, depending on which way the wind blows. I know I'll always struggle, and have made a lot of strides. But knowing that he is coming has spent me into a month of spinach salads and four hours of exercise per day. And still I know it won't be enough.
He is a triathelete........competing in amateur Ironman competitions and adventure racing. Oh - and he's also an actual rocket scientist. Really. An aerospace engineer. What is a moderately intelligent, mostly couch-potato girl to do? She exercises her ass off, that's what she does. And stops eating for a month. Except for spinach salads.
Still, I know it won't be enough. I want to please him.........and I know it won't be enough. I try to hint at it in conversation, but can't seem to get out the words. Something like "Sweetie, I'm too fat for you to have interest in me." But he keeps denying it. His dick is in charge now. I can keep up with him intelligence-wise, I think. Just not body-wise.
And he is coming.
I start to panic. I wax everything I possible can. Get manicures and pedicures and facials. The closer the date gets, the more I try to hint that I won't live up to his expectations. I hope that I do, and yet am not optimistic. I know that he will be sorely disappointed.
Will he see the muscle through the fat? Will he see how I can now run two whole miles without stopping? Hopeful, but not optimistic. But if nothing else, I can have a clean house.
***
I sit and wait at the airport. Christmas Day was just 2 days ago and the decorations are still up. The canned holiday music still pipes through the airport sound system. And I want a cigarette sooooooooo badly right now but I quit a month ago.
I can see his plane taxiing to the gate. If I could run I would. But I can't. Can't let him get off the plane and not have someone there.
And there he is........I could have picked him out simply from the questioning look in his eye as he disembarked and scanned the terminal. I hold a sign labeled "Sweet Cheeks". Our little inside joke.
We go a little Italian restaurant.......dim lighting, small tables, great food. Enjoying glasses of Chianti as we wait for our food. So shy with each other, still taking in each other's presence. Feeling our auras, perhaps.
We chat about your flight, our jobs, getting caught up with each other. I can't read you, and start to get nervous. I can feel your disappointment sneaking out of you like a dirty little secret. This has been a mistake. You should never have come. I can barely stand to look at you.......can barely stand to be looked at. I speak looking into my dinner, finishing my chicken. When in doubt, just eat. I feel the warmth of the restaurant and the closeness of it all on my skin, bearing down on me.
We finish our entrée's and order dessert and coffee, I nervously excuse myself to visit the restroom to try to compose myself and figure out how to let you out of this without making you feel like a callous jackass. I start to rise, and you put your hand on mine.
"Samantha, are you ok?" you ask, concerned.
"Um, yeah, I just need to freshen up." I can't even look at you as I speak. I need to escape, to just melt away and leave you.
"Ok." You say, letting my hand go.
I almost run to the restroom, punching the door open and scaring the hell out of the little old Italian lady putting on her lipstick. I mumble my apologies, sheepishly. She scurries out of the ladies room, leaving me to myself. I check myself in the mirror, making sure my make up is ok, distracting myself. Fixing my lipstick, looking into my eyes. I have never felt more inadequate. I have never felt uglier.
I look away from myself, trying to shake my inadequacies away like the cloak that they are. Resting my hands on the sides of the sink, holding myself together. Trying decide what is the logical next step. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Trying to determine the best win-win scenario here........the one that leaves both of us on top.
I look up at myself and know. I know everything that I had feared. I blink away a tear, but know that it has to be done. I can feel your disappointment even in here. It mixes with my own disappointment at myself and swirls around my heart, diving into my soul and just lays there. In the dark, cold place inside me that I try not to visit too often.
I take a couple of deep breathes and compose myself, trying to look somewhat together. I leave the restroom and return to the table, only to see our dessert wrapped up to go. You see me approach, and rise, holding my coat open for me to slide into.
"Let's get out of here." You say.
I feel guilty.....I've been in the restroom so long that you have taken care of the check. I had intended to pay for dinner.
"Seth, I wanted to get the bill. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to leave for you to take care of it," I protest.
You grab the plastic bags of dessert with one hand and my hand with the other and pull me from the restaurant, pulling us out into the cold, late-December air. So crisp and refreshing on my face after the heat and closeness of the restaurant.
We walk silently down city streets to my car parked in the lot. We get in my car, me in the driver's seat. I start to put the key in the ignition and you stop me, taking the keys from my hand.
"Samantha, talk to me."
I just look at the steering wheel, wishing that I had the words.
"Sam."
"Look," I respond, looking straight ahead out the windshield. "I know you're disappointed. I think it would be best if I took you to your hotel, and if you like, we can go skiing or something. Or you may be able to move your flight up earlier. Its ok, I understand."
You take a beat and ask "What exactly do you understand?"
I feel all of the disappointments of my entire life pulse through me, and I can't stop the tears from welling up in my eyes.
"I understand that I'm not what you thought I would be. I don't want to put you in an uncomfortable situation. So I have no problem in dropping you at the hotel and calling it even. I'm sorry you had to come all this way. I tried to warn you, and worked so hard, but I just couldn't get there!"
"Where, Sam?"
"I couldn't get thin enough in time. I'm sorry. Look, I don't want to put you in any more of an uncomfortable situation, so let me take you to your hotel and...."
"Is this what is bothering you? You don't think that you don't please me? That you are unattractive to me?"
"Well.......yes" my eyes downcast as I answer.
"Sam.............do you have any idea how much control it took me throughout dinner not to throw you down and take you right there on the table?" You ask, incredulously.