Author's note: This is a work of fiction, though some real-life events have served as inspiration and some real-life places in Europe are mentioned.
Hope you enjoy this story which has been in the works for months; instead of publishing a huge story, I decided to post it in parts. Parts 2 and 3 are already in progress. Don't forget to rate before you leave!
Ever since I was in high school, I was never a firm believer in the concept of friendship between a straight man and a straight woman. Some people might call this bigotry, but I was adamant in my position. That doesn't mean I did not spend time with girls in high school and university but I never had a close female friend.
That all changed when I met Luisa. Luisa used to work as a lecturer at a university in the Randstad but decided to move to the 'deep-south' of the Netherlands as she hailed from the region. She filled an opening at my department, thus we cooperated in teaching activities, and, for a few months, we even shared an office until a permanent solution could be found.
Initially, I was somewhat indifferent towards her, and she was quite reserved as well. Gradually she opened up and became friendlier -- we had lunch together a few times, and she even invited me to her birthday party, an invitation I politely declined as I had no interest in attending a monolingual Dutch event with her friends from school - despite working in the Netherlands for a considerable period of my adult life, I barely spoke conversational Dutch. When I gave her a birthday present, she scolded me for skipping her party, arguing, in a playful manner, that I snubbed Dutch people even they made friendly gestures towards me; this might have actually been unintentionally accurate, but, in my defence, I was the only non-Dutch person she had invited. A few days before Christmas, we exchanged gifts; I got her a book in German as she had claimed she wanted to improve her skills in the language, adhering to the 20-euro rule, but she bought me an expensive fashionable shirt; she pointed out that I had recently bought her a more expensive birthday present and she had to make it up to me.
Her behaviour made me suspicious she was interested in me; she also called me on New Year's Eve to wish me a happy new year, at the same time all the other colleagues exchanged wishes through our group WhatsApp conversation. I was seriously conflicted about Luisa's interest; on one hand, she was a truly impressive woman, tall with honey blonde hair, piercing green eyes and a strong gaze, a perfect smile and on top of that, a curvy body, worked out by her everyday bicycle use. On the other hand, she was a colleague, and I had never mixed my professional life with my personal life.
I had a lot of thinking to do during my holidays.
**
As soon as Mike returned from his holiday in Greece, I invited him over for dinner. I made up an excuse about wanting his opinion on buying a new car -- he was a car enthusiast, and I knew he gave buying advice whenever someone asked him about it - rumour flew round the office that instead of asking a car salesman, you should consult Mike.
I rarely had issues bedding the guys I was into, and I had observed the lust in Mike's eyes when I dressed in skirts and dresses. Naturally, I chose to wear a casual dress with black tights; men are very predictable in their fetishes and if everything went according to plan, before long Mike would be at my feet.
Even though we discussed at length about my new car, therefore my excuse had served its purpose, I had no doubt that Mike knew very well what was happening - he might have played dumb but in reality he was anything but. He asked me whether I had dessert, and I was inclined to tell him that his dessert waited for him between my legs -- I didn't and served a tart instead. He also complained that I had given him more wine than I should have had, and he shouldn't drive back to Aachen where his flat was; I totally agreed with him, my king-sized bed was more than comfortable for both of us.
Astonishingly, nothing took place; we chatted, enjoyed our meal and at around two in the morning, he drove back to his flat. I had no idea what went wrong with my plan; he wanted me, I wanted him and he didn't seem like the type of guy who would hesitate to express his interest in a woman, let alone when the woman had made her own interest more than clear.
Disappointed about how things turned out with Mike, I decided to attend the local munch a week later. I was positively surprised by the fact that there was a munch to attend in the first place, as the region was traditionally conservative and it lacked major urban centres that offer anonymity. The upshot was the busy expat community that had slowly developed, mainly because of the university; for that reason, only English was allowed during the event -- Dutch, the native tongue of the city, and German, the language of more than half the expats, were not allowed.
The event was drab, there's no other word to describe it. Even though they promoted it as an international gathering, in reality, only a handful of German students appeared and I had no interest in encountering men a dozen years my juniors.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and Mike appeared out of the blue, 'How about that, I can't escape from you, can I?'
The organisers had given each of us a simple ribbon to tie around our wrist, its colour symbolised the preferred role in kinky sex of the participant. I looked at Mike's wrist, and saw dark blue, and despite my disappointment, I understood why he had turned me down a week ago -- Mike, like me, was dominant..
**
Our accidental encounter during the event cleared the air between Luisa and me and I was so thankful for it. After our weird dinner date a week before, our relationship was a bit strained; I acted naturally but she was distant, disappointed with how things had played out. Luisa had a dominant aura, and this was even increasingly evident during the time we spent away from campus when she could express herself more openly. She was a very attractive woman, and I wished one of us was submissive so we could make this work -- but we weren't.
The failed 'romance' was soon a thing of the past; our role incompatibility had eradicated any element of sexual interest between us, and a genuine friendship had blossomed in its place. We spent a lot of time together and numerous times we had spent the night in each other's flat, being too drunk to drive home safely. We even drove to Munich together the following autumn to attend the famous Oktoberfest. People assumed we were a couple and even congratulated us as we seemed to be a good match for each other.
During the summer, I had introduced Luisa to an acquaintance of mine, and she had done the same thing; dating her submissive friend did not last long as Marie was unbelievably jealous of my relationship with Luisa -- she even demanded I stop talking to her if I wanted us to stay together - which seemed pretty idiotic to me as my friendship with Luisa was the very reason she had met me. I don't deal in absolutes and our two-month affair came to an abrupt end. In all honesty, I wasn't so convinced about this relationship either, as I was subconsciously comparing her to Luisa on pretty much everything. This comparison had a negative effect on how I saw Marie; Luisa was more witty, more beautiful, more intelligent, and more educated and I kept referring to our activities with Luisa which might have fueled Marie's jealousy - months later Luisa admitted that they hadn't spoken since our breakup as Marie held her responsible for that.
Luisa on the other hand seemed to have better luck with an Italian guy I played tennis with, but in the late summer, he suddenly decided to move back to his native Naples; our almost simultaneous breakups pushed Luisa and me to arrange the trip to Southern Germany, as a way to clear our heads and make a fresh start.
