Early Signs Are Good...ch. 01

(Thanks to all who read, voted for, and sent me enjoyable feedback messages re: my first two stories recently— you are what keeps Lit authors tapping those keyboards!).

You know, NOT ALL first in-person meetings of web IM chat partners, within minutes of saying "Hi, nice to finally meet you" the first time face-to-face, end up becoming wild under-skirt gropes in public within two drinks' time followed by 24 hours of nearby hotel room marathon fucking and sucking. I guess it's happened that way to some, but I wonder, really, how often. And what such people are really like the rest of the time too!

After all, with due deference to those who write those kind of stories, they do have a fantasy/porno movie feeling about them and there's nothing at all wrong with that, if one wants erotic entertainment. But, in the real world, often the first meetings of internet chatters are very exploratory, tentative dates--- that weird mix of much intimate foreknowledge of someone with, at the same time somehow, the ambiance of a blind date, which has been the experience of "web daters" since the whole electronic hoedown began back in the 90's.

All who have had a "Jekyll and Hyde experience" upon really meeting someone they had chatted online with for weeks or even months, and thought they had a "handle" on, are nodding their heads in recognition now, knowing the truth I speak.

That's happened to all of us, sports fans. And on this chilly late Fall evening, dark already before 5pm, Dave wondered if it was about to happen again as he headed toward the agreed-upon initial meeting place….a suburban strip-mall restaurant and lounge. Inexpensive but not tacky, the convenient location was the crux of that decision.

Dave was about ready to just give up on any aspect of web-based dating. A string of, for lack of better word, disappointments, had been his experience the last several months upon first meetings with women. For the most part, the women had all wanted more. For the most part, Dave had been deciding that one date would be more than enough with them.

So his "one more try" date loomed in moments now. Dave, a still reasonably good looking man in his early 50's, knew that his date this time was named Linda, that she was about to turn 50, that she had a lovely smile on webcam with pouty little lips, and a body that was, although about a foot shorter than his own 6'2" frame, rounded without being nearly, as they say, a BBW.

He could tell from the cam that she, under her typical sweaters, owned a pair of breasts that were either formidable or magnificent depending on the viewing angle.

He arrived at the agreed-upon restaurant and parked, a few minutes late because of traffic. Shit, nice first impression, late again he thought. She'll probably already be here. He entered the restaurant, waved off the dining room hostess' approach, and headed for the dark lounge area. Wondering what awaited him now seconds away.

As he entered the dark bar, a basketball game on the widescreen TV, he saw Linda sitting there at a table-for-two, her first glass of wine already on the table, smoking a cigarette with the unmistakable pouty smile he'd seen so many times on webcam. With apologies for traffic lateness, Dave took off his coat and sat down with her.

Linda said not to worry about lateness, she was just happy to meet me at last, all was now good, no worries. Dave ordered his own first glass of wine from the hot little waitress who appeared, lit his own cigarette, and began to settle in and relax with this woman for what proved to be easy, comfortable initial conversation. She was dressed casual, just jeans and sweater.

Linda had been through her own string of unsatisfactory web-based dates-- the fat guys and tit-grabbers and just plain creepy ones. She had been hopeful that Dave would prove to be different in person than all the rest, that there might be "chemistry", but she also was about as close to just giving up on the whole web dating thing and just being alone as Dave had been.

She decided that she would give him a first-date look-see, but it would be her last attempt with anyone for a long time.

It was one of those rare things….within 5 minutes, they both felt like they were in their own private little world in the mostly-empty weeknight suburban bar. Their hands reached out to intertwine their fingers on the tabletop without either of them even looking.

As she talked, she would touch his knee. He reached over to brush a lock of hair back that had fallen across her forehead. Little things, signals of acceptance and attraction that seemed to be happening very fast, and automatically, initiated by both of them. He would light her cigarettes with his Zippo. She would touch his hand with a cupping motion as he did so.

They hadn't even left the bar to go down the hallway to the restaurant, arms comfortably around each other's shoulders, when the first kiss happened.

They were talking about something or another, agreeing about whatever it was, and in that brief pause, after they both took a sip of their second (or was it third) glass of wine (both of them drinking a dark red cabernet), they both leaned forward across the little bar table as if radio commands had been sent to both of them, and their lips touched for the very first time.

A little bit of clinging of lips, a light touch of fingertips on each other's knees while doing it. An aftertaste of her vanilla cigarettes remained on his mouth. An elegant, ‘upscale' first kiss, they both thought at the same time.

Well, during dinner (she had automatically decided to sit next to him in the booth, not across the table as some of his dates had), it continued for them as it had the last hour in the lounge, but more so. The restaurant, almost empty now around 9 pm on a weeknight, was perfect for their desired isolation.

Linda said to him, "You know, if you ask any of the last 10 guys I've gone on first dates with, they would tell you that by the time we'd placed our dinner order they all, or mostly all, probably knew we would not be discussing a second date… in fact, they'd probably call me the ‘Wonder Woman of First Dates,'" with a rueful chuckle in her lower alto voice that so intrigued Dave.

What Dave noticed was that as she was relating this to him, she closed the last inch or so of space between them on the booth's cushion and he felt the warm curve of her hip touching against his for the first time, and that her left leg was now pressed unmistakably against his right leg. Her left hand had draped over the top of his right on the tabletop and he felt a slight squeeze.

They talked and kissed a few more times as the waitress had observed Dave's instructions that they were ‘in no real hurry to eat so take your time serving us'. Their kisses seemed to gradually lengthen, their mouths seemed to open a little wider each time they did it, and their tongues began to exchange their warm, wet communications.

Their food arrived in the requested no-hurry timeframe and they ate and talked some more. They both were in long ‘dry spells' sexually (both apparently too selective for their own good), both originally from the Midwest long ago, and were even both Scorpios (uh oh).

She had a complicated yet simple way now of turning imperceptibly toward him in the booth as they ate that managed to often nestle Dave's right elbow between her lush 42DD's. Sounds weird but felt so good….and it happened far too many times to be any kind of an accident.

One of the times they'd kissed, they had both just finished a bite of roast beef. Neither had wiped the light grease from their lips, and after their lips parted Dave had said, "That was probably pretty gross huh? Next time I'll use my napkin first." To his delight, Linda responded, "No, it's part of the many tastes that we both have right now, isn't it?". That response hit something somewhere inside Dave that hadn't been hit in a long, long time.

Food finished, they sipped their after dinner coffees. Both of them, again simultaneously, had taken to light brushing of each other's thighs with two or three fingers under the table as they talked. Never higher than mid-thigh (sorry porno-type writers…), never an r-rated clenching of legs by hands. But subtle power that made them both, um, shift around in their sitting positions just a bit, also.

Before 10 it was time to call it a night, being a weeknight and all. Entering his car, they lunged toward each other, no other way to describe it….tongues hitting first, mouths wide open, tasting and sucking with small sounds escaping from both of their throats, her hand reaching automatically toward the big bulge in his pants, his hand reaching to clasp and lift one of her magnificent 42DD's.

Gasping, literally, they both broke the kiss with a wet liquid sound and both sighed, audibly, "Whew!".

Another short but hot round of hungry, passionate liplocking and tongue wrestling happened after the short drive to Linda's apartment. Although they were both highly aroused, they had agreed beforehand that neither of them ever had sex on a first date.

Although both had noted that two or three times they had naturally reached over toward each other's between-legs areas during serious kisses, both had stopped an inch or so short every time….give them both an ‘A' for willpower under combat conditions, huh? Thirty minutes after he returned home, Dave's IM chimed and it was Linda.

She told Dave that he had surpassed anything she'd hoped for. That she had ‘floated up the stairs' to her apartment. And that, if he wanted to at some point ‘become intimate with her', as she did with him, that she ‘didn't think it would take very long, at all, for her to be ready for that, with him'.

Dave decided upon a ‘trial balloon' question to her when he read THAT. He typed into IM that he'd also had a wonderful evening, that it was probably the finest overall first date experience he'd ever had (and he REALLY meant that one), that her kisses and their ease with each other were just what he'd been looking for, etc. Then came his trial balloon: "Linda, I told you I love the seashore… would you consider going away for a weekend with me sometime?".

Dave held his breath and watched the bottom of the IM box… it took probably 30 seconds for the little line of text ‘Linda is typing a message' to appear as she began her response. Dave waited, wondering how she was gonna field this high fly ball.

At last she stopped typing and hit send. In a microsecond, the words that she had typed popped into his IM box.

She had typed, "Dave, I have waited for the right chemistry and have told many men ‘No'. Please don't think of me as a cyberslut or easy or any of that shit, but I have to tell you that I've made my decision and I made it before dinner was finished tonight. I want to take a shot with you, and I think a weekend away at the ocean would be the perfect place to get to know each other with no interruptions and relax over a LOT of wine when nobody has to drive that night."

And after a pause, Linda added another line of IM to Dave, "And I want you to know that I've got a black silk thin-strapped nightgown that I've been saving for a special occasion. Would it be all right if I packed that for our trip together?"

(Needless to say, they scheduled and left on their weekend of exploration not long thereafter. For a glimpse of their private first weekend together at the seashore, stay tuned for Chapter 2, coming soon. A look that will be beyond the PG rating of the introductory chapter you just concluded.)