When I came upstairs to the bedroom, Lisa was still awake, in bed reading. She put her book down as soon as I appeared in the doorway.
"How did it go? Tell me about it."
I couldn't help smiling, grinning even. I'd done it and everything was okay. We'd beaten the odds and proven it was possible to live this way. I walked over to the bed without saying anything and gave her a kiss, a deep kiss on the lips. "It was good. Very, very good." I was careful to temper my words. If I'd said it was amazing, that might make her feel less adequate, second place.
"What happened?" she asked. "Tell me everything."
This was about trust. I had to tell her everything. But there were no surprises. I hadn't done anything she hadn't given me permission to do. "Well ..." I started.
* * *
Mandy and I met at the bookstore like we agreed. She was late, for which she apologized. I didn't mention that I'd been early. Thirty minutes early. I came straight away after work and stopped at a Rite Aid for condoms, just in case. (Magnums, but I'm not bragging. It's simply an anatomical requirement with me.) I'd already been through most of the sections that interested me. It's the mark of a thorough bookstore that has a dedicated section for books about UFOs and aliens.
She'd never been to this store before, so I feigned continued interest, following her around so I could always be close, within a few feet. We didn't know each other well, so we asked tentative questions based on each other's browsing habits, as if these were our own books at home that could tell something about us.
I'd known Mandy for ten years, since she was a teenager, the daughter of my wife's mother's best friend, if you can follow that without a diagram. She always seemed like a nice person, polite, interested in books. It wasn't until after she turned eighteen that I became attracted to her. Still, even then, off-limits, right? I loved my wife and valued a harmonious relationship at home. Then Mandy married Joe and double off-limits.
After browsing for a while, we each bought a book. Mine was on Kirlian photography; hers was a novel. Then we walked down the street to the restaurant and wine bar. We sat at the bar and Mandy ordered a wine sampler for us to share and we each ordered an entrée. As we sipped the wine and waited for our food, we talked about how crazy this seemed that we were there, together, on a date, at the bidding of our respective spouses, Lisa and Joe.
It was a lucky thing, in a way, that Lisa and Joe were attracted to each other, and had even made out a couple of times recently. Now they wanted me and Mandy to get to know each other, before they took things further themselves. There was no denying the chemistry Mandy and I had, but our relationship was underdeveloped on the social front. This date night, with no promises made and no strings attached, was the product of weeks of coaching from Lisa and Joe, an attempt to even things out. On my end, Lisa had given me permission, if things developed that far and that fast, to have sex with Mandy, as long as we used a condom. Over our entrées, Mandy told me that Joe wasn't comfortable with me or her coming tonight, on a first date, but short of that constraint, the playing field was wide open. I expressed my pleasure at hearing that by putting my left hand on Mandy's right thigh.
Even after three glasses of wine, much more than I was accustomed to, I felt like the hand-on-thigh move was pretty bold and doing anything more than that, in a restaurant, would be taking things too far. But it was clear the wine was having an effect on both of us as we leaned in toward each other, moving past the initial awkwardness of what was essentially a blind date set up by our significant others.
* * *
The bookstore and restaurant were in a small riverside town, with wide brick sidewalks and little vehicle traffic. It was late December, but balmy and comfortable. Holding hands seemed awkward—she was in her mid-twenties and I was in my late thirties—we weren't teenagers. I tentatively put my arm around her waist as we walked, but our hips bumped as we walked so close, so I took my arm back. She was wearing a black dress, professional, but inevitably showing a little bit of cleavage from her large breasts. She wasn't wearing glasses tonight—she did sometimes—so I assumed she must be wearing contacts. Her chestnut brown hair framed the ivory skin of her face. I always loved that contrast.
