Chapter 32: The Week of Juggling

So I was home for three days, and I had three dates scheduled. Not bad, huh? I wondered if I was going to get lucky with any of them? I felt almost as if I was moving outside my body, as an observer. I didn't want the entanglements of a boyfriend, or emotions, or loyalties. I felt myself looking at "Samantha" from "Sex and the City" and thought, "THAT'S how you do it!" Just do what you want, and don't bother to think about it too much. It's more fun that way. I am an intelligent, attractive, successful woman. When the right man comes along, I won't have to work at it. At least not initially. He will accept me for me. So why not have fun in the meantime?

I met "Basil" for lunch, and I was impressed upon meeting. He had that lanky build that I'm so attracted to, and those smashing blue eyes. His hair was flecked with grey and his southern accent was not overwhelming and charming in his own way.

But I learned very quickly that he was extremely high strung. He was fidgety and talked about his company and the general problems he was having at the office. He had that "Push To Talk" thing on his phone and had to take several calls. While I appreciated the concept of him having his own business that was obviously thriving, I suspected he might have been a little too proud of it and wanted to make sure he conveyed that he was an "important" person. Maybe he was just hyper? Maybe he was just nervous? At the end of lunch, we walked out to our cars and he gave me a very tight hug. I might have lingered there in his arms an extra second or two. After all, aside from his flagrant attempts to impress me, I still found him very sexy.

We instant messaged later that day. He confessed that he was nervous at lunch and that he's not usually that high strung. That was refreshing. I don't think I could have handled him being like that ALL the time. He asked me if he had kissed me in the parking lot, would I have kissed back? I admitted that I would have. Okay, so we were turned on by each other. Not bad.

He knew I would be in Chicago for a long weekend, so it was fairly understood that we probably wouldn't see each other again until I got home. Now it was time to focus on my date with "Kawena" tomorrow night.

Chapter 31: This is getting addictive

"Timon" didn't call on my drive up, but he did start sending me text messages the next day. He was sweet and flirtatious, knowing that I was spending time with my extended family for our annual reunion. I thought it was rather charming the way he was keeping in contact, not wanting to intrude, but letting me know that he was thinking about me. We ended up on the phone a few times, and I discovered that his job was going to have him traveling during the week for the next three weeks, but he would be home on the weekends. Unfortunately, I was traveling on the weekends. It looked as if we'd have to just chat on the phone for about the next two weeks or so before we'd actually be in the same city at the same time.

And then I discovered that I had a free high-speed internet connection at my hotel. I couldn't stay away. When the day was done and it was time to drift off to bed, out came the laptop, and I logged onto Match.com to see who'd been looking at me, winking at me, or if I had any messages. And, wouldn't you know? A hot white-collared guy sent me a message. "Kawena" was a clean-cut, all-American white boy in real estate, and wanted to see what I was about. Hmmmm... OKAY!

And there was a second message, from "Basil": A tall, blue-collared business owner with smashing blue eyes. And writing them both back didn't seem wrong. After all, you don't just send your resume to one company at a time, right? You sent out several dozen and wait to see who calls back. "Kawena" and I graduated immediately to instant messenger, while "Basil" and I stayed on email. "Kawena" knew I was in Pennsylvania, and he promised to call me on Monday to keep me company on my long drive home.

I felt pretty popular on my ride home. I got calls from "Timon", "Kawena" and even heard from "Aladdin". I was only going to be home for three days and I had dates lined up almost back to back! I was meeting "Basil" for lunch on Tuesday, "Kawena" for dinner on Wednesday, and "Timon" was coming into the airport on Friday about an hour before my flight out to Chicago. We planned to rendezvous at the airport.

What was I doing? All of a sudden I had four different men contacting me. And you know what? I was going to have fun with it.

Chapter 30: I admit, I like the attention

So "Shrek" was officially out of the picture, and it was obvious "Aladdin" wasn't going to be available for some time. I wasn't exactly the most available person, either, as I was driving to Pennsylvania the coming weekend, home for three days and then flying to Chicago the following weekend. But I admit it: I liked the attention that I was getting online. Why should I have to spend the next two weeks alone? I looked over some of the contacts I'd gotten recently and one caught my eye. "Timon" was blonde, cute, and very new to town. Why hadn't I responded to him when he first contacted me? Probably because I was already being torn in too many directions. Well, it had only been a little over a week - Maybe he was still interested?

So I wrote "Timon" a note and apologized for it taking so long to get back to him. He responded and I was pleased to find out that he was definitely still interested. Being so new to town, he really hadn't had the opportunity to meet many people yet. We went ahead and moved to Instant Messenger and started chatting. He was a really interesting guy. A fresh transplant from New York and worked in the emergency medical field. No, he wasn't a doctor, but he had a lot of interesting stories to share. Unlike some people who go on and on about their jobs, his stories were really captivating. It didn't take long to progress to the phone.

What was I doing? I knew exactly what I was doing, but I wasn't completely proud of myself for it. "Aladdin" wasn't exactly waiting in the wings for me and I didn't want to wait around for him, either. Up to this point I had, for the most part, concentrated on one person at a time, even if I was communicating with others simultaneously. I didn't want drama, I didn't want commitments, I just wanted to meet people and have fun. Should I tell "Timon" this up front? I decided that it was better to get a feel for the kind of person he is before I went there.

So it was the night before I was driving to Pennsylvania. I had decided to burn several audiobooks to CD for the drive back, as my mother was staying the night over that night and driving up with me the next day. It was rather boring and tedious work, and I called "Timon" to chat. He knew I was leaving town the next day and started implying that he'd like to see me before I left. Well, it was already late, and I still had a lot of CDs to burn. I couldn't go out, and wasn't it a little late to be getting together? No, he insisted, he was just as much of a night owl as I was.

I mentioned that I was going to run out of CDs and have to run up to the 24 hr. Wal-Mart and buy some more. "Timon" offered to give me some blank CDs he had that he wasn't going to use. Uh, wait a minute? The Wal-Mart was just up the road from me, and he lived 20 miles away - he wanted to drive all the way over here to avoid me having to run to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night? Having some company while I burned all these CDs was certainly an attractive prospect to me. And my mom WAS sleeping in the room down the hall. What the hell? I invited him over. He saved lives for a living, how dangerous could he be?

For a while, we just sat at my computer and talked, keeping our voices low so as not to wake up Mom. It sort of felt like we were in high school again, sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. At one point, I noticed that he was leaning far over while he was talking, and I looked him square in the eyes and said, "You really want to kiss me right now, don't you?" He said he was thinking about it. So I kissed him. And he was sweet and gentle, and our kissing eventually found ourselves entangled on the floor. Instinct took over and I didn't even feel like trying to argue with my morals. I tip-toed down the hall to my bedroom to get a condom, and tip-toed back, closing and locking the door. There was a fun and dangerous quality about what we were doing, with my mother sleeping in the guest room, and it was fun. It WAS like high school, with the door locked, having to keep quiet, and trying to avoid the rug burns. The urgency and the fear of being caught was exciting, and exhilarating, and it made the sex a lot of fun.

Mom actually DID wake up (fortunately!) after we were finished and I was back to burning CDs. She was a little tickled over the fact that "Timon" was there, as we had been on the phone when she had gone to bed. It was some ridiculous hour when "Timon" finally went home. He knew that I'd be on the road all day, which was a Thursday, and would be on the road all day driving home that Monday. We'll see if he calls... Anyone care to take any bets?