It was a mild Spring afternoon in Las Vegas when I met Melina for the first time. I had been speaking to her through email and text messages for several months beforehand and finally decided to take the first step in solidifying a real life friendship with her.
I'd been working for a local night club promotions company, so when selecting a public place to meet I took into account the atmosphere in which I would do so. Mind you, I had no intentions of being anything but just friends with her. So when I offered to meet her while working on the oft impersonal Las Vegas Strip, I had no idea what kind of effect good conversation and the surprisingly seductive ambiance would have on her female emotions and my male instincts. We met at Harrah's, a centrally located casino on the strip, surrounded by venues such as the Mirage, Caesar's Palace, the Flamingo and Bellagio.
I pulled into a parking spot on the seventh floor of Harrah's garage and began counting out club passes to load into my satchel for the work day. A few minutes later, a black Cadillac Escalade pulled up beside me. I knew it was her. I straightened my collar out, closed up my loaded bag and slipped my work shoes on in preparation to meet my new friend.
I stepped out of my Grand Am and waited by her door. Her blackout windows made it impossible to really get a good look at her, so I patiently waited. 20 seconds later, the driver's side door opened and I caught my first glimpse. Her petite foot slid out of the door first. She has freshly painted French tipped toes, and wore brown open toed sandals. She stood about 5'3 and was perfectly thick from the ground up. She wore beige pedal pusher pants and a purple shirt, which perfectly accentuated her perfect 42 double D breasts. Her hair was reddish brown and her lips were thin, yet full at the same time. She wore a light gloss on them, which was one of my weaknesses when it came to women. She also had big beautiful brown eyes that were hard not to become enchanted with upon contact.
"So, you must be..." she commented as I silenced her with my embrace. We hugged it out and then commenced our trek into forever.
As we walked through the Harrah's resort, I felt there was some chemistry present, but just couldn't put my mind on that particular level of friendship. I had just come out of a complicated short term relationship and I didn't really care to pry about her current status. All I knew was for that day, at that very moment, it was just me and her: friends.
Hungry, and too distracted mentally to carry out my promotional duties, we slowly made our way across the street to the Caesar's Palace Forum Shops. They had just finished a multimillion dollar renovation, and given my occupation I thought it would be a nice place to get familiar with, take a walk through and have a snack while we continued our conversation.
At the furthest depth of the mall lies one of my favorite restaurants, the Cheesecake Factory. It's one of my favorites not so much for the overrated dinner cuisine but for it's namesake, the cheesecake! In some cultures I'm pretty sure that cheesecake is considered an aphrodisiac, but I digress. That said, we decided to eat there. With great cheesecake however, sometimes comes a great wait. It was about a 15-25 minute wait before we could be seated.
Just outside the restaurant is an indoor aquarium that is built onto the rear of a theatrical statue show in the Forum Shops. It also doubled as a mall bench for those who waited for a seat at Cheesecake Factory. Melina and I made our way to the aquarium bench and had a seat. Our conversation was fluid and insightful. We spoke about work, our future goals, where we'd like to visit and even our dream house. At this point, I wasn't sure which of my senses was stimulated more, my mind or my body, which was subtly excited by the quality of our outing. I had the inkling that she may had wanted to kiss me, but as a gentleman who was just looking for a friend, I continued to drift my eyes out of direct contact with hers and avoided fantasizing about her lips at all costs. The last thing I wanted her to think that I was some kind of pervert looking for a piece of ass on what was supposed to be merely a friendly meet.