I pulled into the parking lot, looking for your truck, and my first glimpse of you. There were several trucks in the lot, but only one red Ford, and it was parked in the back as you said you would be. Pulling in next to it, I could sort of see you through the windows, but not well enough. It didn't matter though since you recognized my Jeep and got out, coming over to get your first look at me. I hurried out of my car, so eager to finally see you in person, and was momentarily taken aback at just how tall your 6'2" actually is when standing next to my 5'4". All I could think was 'wow.'
For me, it was all very awkward - I had no clue how to act around this stranger that I knew so intimately, and who knew me the same. Mentally reminding myself that you were the same wonderful person I'd been dying to meet for nearly two months, I looked up at you, smiled, and said hello, foolishly wondering if I should introduce myself. Just what is the etiquette involved in this, anyways?
You, thankfully, were not so intimidated. Or at least you were very good at letting on that you were not. You had been very self-assured about this meeting all along, and blessedly continued to be so, letting me take from your example and grow calmer. You said hi in return, and that we should go inside where it's warm, and have some coffee. Smiling, I agreed, and we walked toward the building, peeking at each other along the way.
We got in line and made small talk while waiting our turn at the counter. Later, I remembered none of what we said, it was so meaningless. It's purpose was to get us used to actually speaking out loud to each other, to turn each of us into real people and not bits of imagination. And it did it's job. Once we had our coffees and took a seat by the window, sitting across this little table from each other, I felt much more at ease around you.
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes while we took in the person across from us. I don't know what you were seeing, but I was looking at someone whose face I wasn't able to take in as a whole...I could only look first at your eyes, those eyes I'd never seen before, even in your picture. I saw the beginnings of fine lines at their edges and wanted to reach out and touch them, feel them be real under my fingertips. I saw the intensity of your gaze as you looked at me in return. And then and there, my heart did this little pit-a-pat thing, and I knew you for the person I'd come to know.
We continued with the small-talk, taking sips of our coffees during the silent moments, always searching each others faces, as if looking for...something. There was so much I wanted to say to you but couldn't find one word of it to speak out loud. Still though, we talked. Well, you mostly, but so be it. As we hit another bit of dead air, I saw a glint come into your eyes. I looked a question at you, and with a smile, you quietly asked me if I was wearing a bra. Yikes! I had forgotten all about that - I had told you I wasn't going to be wearing one, and sure enough, I wasn't.
With a small, embarrassed laugh, I shook my head, quickly looking at the people around us to see if anyone heard you. No one was leering at me or looking shocked, so I assumed it was safe. Feeling foolish for feeling embarrassed, I took a mental deep breath and looked up at you, meeting your gaze, and found myself smiling in return. I was secretly pleased you remembered, and hoped you were pleased as well for my having done as I said I would.
Smiling more, you then told me to show you. I had a moment of panic, thinking you were expecting me to take my shirt off in the middle of Dunkin Donuts, but then realized that you were just asking me to open the bulky sweater I was wearing as a jacket. With another nervous glance around, feigning a bravado I didn't feel, I smiled back at you, sat up straighter, and slowly unzipped my sweater. As I pulled the sides away from my front, I looked down and had another moment of panic. There was a reason I had kept my sweater zipped up, and it wasn't because of being braless - I had long-since forgotten about that.
It was chilly in that place.
Let me just state here for the record that I've got some good-sized nipples. When I'm cold, as I was then, they boink right out there, even when I'm wearing a bra, though admittedly not as much then. But that night, there was no mistaking me for a bra-wearing woman. There they were, in all their half-inch glory, pulling my shirt taut so that the material clung to the tops and sides of my C-cup breasts, stretching over and distinctly defining my nipples, and clinging some more to the roundness below before falling off into space. I was mortified.
You were pretty surprised too. I could tell that you weren't expecting to see that. I looked up at you and saw, for the briefest second, that you had lost some of your calm and cool composure. I looked down again and realized why - you could also see the faint, dark outline of my aureole through the ivory colored shirt. I hadn't thought about that when deciding to what shirt to put on - it simply went best with the pants I wanted to wear that night.