As we finished our food my mind began to gnash and thrash around what was now my paramount problem. How in hell was I going to stand up in front of Terri without embarrassing her to death. After all, Little Stefan was trying to see if he could emulate the Empire State Building inside my running shorts!
Terri swallowed her last bite of food, took a deep breath, looked me directly in the eyes, and asked point blank, "What is wrong with me?"
"W, Wh, WHAT?"
"Well, with four children, I'm pretty sure that you're not gay. So either you don't like me or I've done something to piss you off! And it's not because I'm jail bait either!" She fumbled in her pack. "See! Here's my goddamn drivers license for proof!
"You've been a goddamn gentleman since we met! That was really appreciated at first. When you pulled up my shirt last night, half of me said, 'Omigod, I'm going to be raped,' and the other half said, 'So bullshit! We'll be warm!' By the time you finished massaging my shoulders I had gone from being afraid that I was going to be raped to being afraid that I was NOT going to be raped!
"You've had tons of chances to cop a feel and you haven't tried once! I flirt with you and either there is no reaction or you meet me halfway by treating it like a funny joke or a play on words that has nothing more to it than to lighten the mood.
"When we stood back to back by the creek and changed clothes, I cheated the whole time, but you didn't even try to peek at me! Here I am now on full display and you just sit there and eat your fucking lunch! By now anybody else would have raped me twenty times till Sunday—but not you!
"Except for the fact that you treat me like an equal human being, you act like you were my damned father or a stupid eunuch! Does snow on the roof mean the fire is out?"
I looked into the sky as Terri took a deep breath and exclaimed, "Oh God! Thank you!"
As for Terri, she suddenly looked like she was totally confused! "What are..."
"Whoa, Terri! YOU have made the first serious move! Thank you so very, very much! We have tons that we need to talk about and now you have opened the floodgates. "
"I don't..."
"No, no, please let me talk for now. I promise you'll get your chance and I promise I will answer to the best of my honest ability any and every question you may have to hit me with. Okay?"
"I, uh... well, okay..."
"First off, I need to answer your opening question. For your information, there is not a damned thing wrong with you that I have discovered—and here is the proof!" I stood up and pulled my running shorts down. I pulled the waistband out as I pulled the shorts down, but not quite far enough. Little Stefan was caught by the waistband and since he was the hardest I ever remember him being, he got pulled down painfully and then bounced energetically!
"Oh God, free at last! That feels so good!"
Terri's eyes got big, but I couldn't tell what the emotion was that was driving the reaction. "Terri, this has been my constant companion since the first time that I touched you! How many men have you ever met who called you ugly and still sported a stiffy that was this hard? Does this make you think that I can't stand you or that I can't tell the difference between you and a piece of furniture?"
"Well, uh... no..."
"Let me tell you that I sure wish that I had brought a jock strap with me this trip, because it's a real pain in the penis to act nonchalant around a woman that you don't want to embarrass!
"I'm curious. Was I so good about covering up that you never knew what was going on—or was it a calculated exercise to see how uncomfortable you could make a guy?"
Terri blushed, a beautiful full body blush, and replied, "Uh, I could tell you were hard last night, but you were asleep and I thought maybe it was like the morning wood that I've heard about. The rest of the time the shorts you have been wearing have been pretty baggy. Plus, I've tried to not be too gauche by staring at your crotch—especially seeing as how I couldn't catch you obviously checking me out very much."
"Trust me. If I was Superman, your backside would have a serious sunburn—if not burnt to a crisp! And I will admit that it was almost painful trying to maintain eye contact during lunch!"
Terri grinned, "Well, for an old fart, I did notice that you do seem to have a nice pair of buns back there... And you do have a lot more body hair than any guy I've been around before, but after I warmed up last night I was surprised that it wasn't distracting or seemed like it was in the way."
"Oh no, that sounds like a lead-in to a Neanderthal joke!"
Terri giggled—a comfortable in her skin and in the situation giggle, "No, that's one that I need to keep in reserve for future use."
"Okay, forewarned is forearmed. I will probably be able to survive your negative Neanderthal onslaught.
"However, we still need to slay this elephant in the room, so to speak. Moving on in that direction, I want to emphasize that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you and there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. Generally speaking, I guess you could say that we are victims of the human condition.
"If we need to pin a tail of blame on the donkey of our situation then, I guess we need to pin it onto a human culture that hasn't caught up with the twenty-first century—or at least with our current situation.
"Now some folks will say that humans are animals with souls. Others will say that humans are just animals. The bottom line is that almost everybody agrees that we are animals. As animals we have three imperatives; well, with some minor modifications they work for plants and other life forms too, but I'll keep the explanation mostly in our animal kingdom.
"Number one is to simply live. That means that our first priority is to run away or to fight back when something threatens us or the property that we need in order to survive. Today, lawyers call it the right of self-defense.
"Number two is to eat. If nothing is trying to kill us, then our mission is to kill something else to eat; whether that something else is a plant or an animal. In order to get the energy that we need to live, we need to destroy something that was or is alive. I suppose that a socialist would call this the so-called 'right' to welfare. I suppose a cynic would call it a 'right' to be a parasite, whether it is a symbiotic or a destructive relationship matters not. Our selfish genes don't care about such hair-splitting. As far as they are concerned, if it provides more energy than it costs, than it's a go.
"Now, to be fair, I have stumbled across some research that indicates that the melanin in our skin can harvest solar energy. I guess you could say that melanin is sort of the chlorophyl of the animal kingdom. However, that does not invalidate imperative number two. It just makes it 99.9 percent true in the animal kingdom instead of one hundred percent true.
"Number three is to procreate. If we are alive and we aren't eating, our prime directive is to produce offspring. Without offspring, our selfish gene line ceases to exist and its entire raison d'être is thwarted. I guess a religionist would call this the so-called 'right' to go forth and be fruitful."
By this time I had stepped completely out of my running shorts and was in full professor mode while standing in front of a gorgeous class of one whose delicious state of dishabille kept the pointer between my legs at full staff and, most of the time, pointed directly at said class.
The image that popped into my mind was of a hairy satyr casting a spell in a forest glade to bring a nubile forest nymph into his clutches. Granted, spell casting was not the primary purpose of my expostulations, but the mental image sure helped Little Stefan to maintain his state of tumescence!
"Now, as luck would have it, my lady, I'm an old fart who has something of a fourth imperative to confuse the issue. I'm not sure, but I think it is something of a cultural willow-the-wisp, but for better or for worse, I seem to have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. It is true that very young and inexperienced teenagers and adults can be taken advantage of by older and more experienced members of society. This is considered important enough that there are laws on the books that protect children and young adults as a class.
"In my case, I've decided to go the extra mile so that I don't unintentionally screw somebody's life up. My standard of chivalry is that any woman younger than thirty who wants to be more than a friend to me must make the first move.
"I wish to report that I am totally enchanted with every aspect of your physical existence to which I have been exposed. You have a body that any male is automatically programmed to love, and I am no exception! Mentally, I also love every one of your neurons that you have allowed me to meet so far.
"Now that you have made the first move, you are already fully accredited as a companion that I would love to cuddle with and maybe more. My question to you is, where and how far do you want this to go?"
"Stefan, I'm hoping that we can take this all the way!"
All the way! Is this the answer to all my wet dreams? Be still my heart!... Or just the most direct route to the biggest and deepest tank of kimchi that the Devil owns?
But wait, that's not as precise as it sounds out of the gate. "Can you be a bit more precise on 'all the way?' In our language that could imply anything from a one night stand to a life of marriage and children."
"I absolutely want to go for a one night stand and I definitely want to discuss all the other possibilities!"
"All the possibilities!? Wow! YES!" I did an impromptu fist pump and then caught sight of Little Stefan. "Actually, lovely lady, I think you are trying to kill me by inducing a permanent hard-on!"
"Ahh, poor Stef." Terri got off the log, walked up to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I kind of lost myself in the deep hazel glow of her beautiful eyes as she said, "Should I do something to treat that symptom?"
"Uh, well Doc..." I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"Hmm, I think that was a yes." She began to release her arms from around my waist.
