As a man who was born in and raised in a multiethnic community here on the east coast, I have always been around and appreciated women of color. Whether this meant the Black women in our apartment building, the Puerto Rican women who shared desks with me in elementary school, the Persian women at the boarding school down the road from my high school, the south Asian women while earn my undergraduate degree or the Asian and South/Latin American women while studying on the west coast,. Simply put, there is nothing more attractive than those women who would be deemed part of the "minority" here in the United States.
While there are, admittedly a lot of cultural, social and intellectual points of attraction and things in common, there is a more basic attraction that is as simple and as close to natural as one can get: the physical attraction. That goes a long way to explain the instant attraction to Avanti-Esha, the beautiful Indian woman I first saw at the happy hour hosted in the Irish pub between our respective office buildings. After running into her for the third straight week at that happy hour, getting up the nerve to engage her in conversation and getting over the uncertainty I felt in asking her out, Avanti-Esha finally agreed to go out with me without the watchful eyes of our respective co-workers. Nothing could have made me happier.
Let me go back a bit and say that I am a medium brown-skinned African-American, so I knew that she, as an attractive Indian woman in the states for a month-long assignment, would get some grief from her Indian and white co-workers for going out with a Black man. Some, but certainly not all, of the Indian-Americans are still color-struck and dark skin (be in on an Indian, Pakistani or African-American) was something to be avoid as the darker skin was deemed a sign of inferiority. What likely won her over to my side was my willingness to be laid-back, rather than the typically aggressive, skirt-chasing, buzzed, guy at happy hour. Also helping was the fact that I am hardly a thug, though sometimes women really go for the rough-neck type, believing that those guys are wild and less inhibited. While that might be true, I have found that it never hurts when a guy can demonstrate to a smart woman that he is also articulate, intelligent, well-traveled, well-versed and very willing to listen and learn about her life story. That was my plan with Avanti-Esha. I knew that that there was a high bar and likely stereotypes to overcome, but I am a man up for that type of challenge whenever it arises.
During our time out together, I learned that she was born and raised in Gujarat state to roughly middle class parents who operated successful import/export businesses on the coast. Having a favorite auntie in a London suburb who, while married, had no children, Avanti-Esha received and accepted an invitation to live and study in the UK once she finished her primary schooling in India. With her elder brothers set to take over the family businesses and really good educational and professional opportunities in the UK and U.S. for a person with a business background and contacts in India, Avanti-Esha elected to sign on with a multinational British company to put her masters degree to good use. I must have done everything perfectly or something else was in the mix because after a pre-dinner drink at an outdoor bar, a really good meal at a local Thai restaurant, a quiet moonlit walk along Baltimore's Inner Harbor promenade and a nightcap in the lobby of her hotel, I asked if we could share a good night kiss. I wanted this kiss to be in the privacy of her room and, after a pause, sigh and more hesitation, she agreed. It was truly a long elevator ride and with another couple in the elevator also going to the 15th floor, there was no possibility of sneaking in a kiss before getting to her suite. We walked slowly down the long hallway to suite #1505 in tense silence.
She immediately went into the bathroom, telling me to have a seat on the couch until see returned. After a few minutes, I heard the bathroom door open and she walked back into the suite's large room still wearing that fitted, navy blue, but otherwise conservative, business suit. She no longer wore stockings, so I could see that her legs were smoothly shaven. I smiled to myself because it was like something a college coed would wear to a job interview and I knew that she was already working hard for and well established in her company. The conservative suit highlighted her curves, but did not suggest what undergarments were hugging her sexy brown frame. Upon approaching me, I got up and moved toward her, taking her hands, firmly, so that the brown of her hands blended and complement the brown hues of mine. While holding hands, I looked into her eyes and then looked admiringly over her business suit clad frame, enjoying the views and feeling a hardening and my boxer briefs becoming uncomfortably tighter. The sensible business shoes that she wore had just enough heel height to make her legs look great and give greater prominence to her toned calves. I pulled her close to me, so she could feel my hardness rubbing against her tight frame and moved in for a long soul kiss. It was the kind of kiss that leaves nothing to the imagination and forecasts the intense and passionate time to come. I knew that she was concerned that even being alone in a room with man who was not related to her would be frowned upon if she was in India, but she did not ask me to leave. It was so clear that she was nervous, but age and experience told me to initiate the kiss before she could change her mind.