First date
First of all, I have the feeling. It’s where you’re vulnerable to your own thoughts of what has happened, but oblivious to the outside. It’s like what is going on inside you expands to fill the world. It’s a feeling that comes the day after a late night with little sleep. It’s a feeling that is massively augmented by sex with a new person. Some other times I’ve had this feeling: the time between getting thrown off the street at one a.m. and going to bed the night after that one, the first time I had sex with Dusk, the Sunday I left Bradford after visiting Matte for the first time after we got back together.
So, my boss arrived at around one p.m. and I changed into my pink and blue cotton dress that shows my shoulders and back and scar and we set off for the brunch place. We bantered and laughed and it was good. We arrived and ate foul German breakfast, all cheese and bread and, for the meat-eaters, speck. We talked in the front room of the pub, a smoky fire making the place smell like a place in a village my Dad used to take me to for roast beef sandwiches and lemonade and lime. We talked with my boss’s friend, Margo, and I used his phone to ssh into my remote server to restart a site I’ve been working on recently.
My boss’s friend rang and invited him for supper and he said he had planned to spend the evening with me and she very kindly said I could come, too. So, we set off for a long, a very long, walk to his private office in the centre of Berlin. We jumped fences and traversed river banks (he said if I fell in, I would have to remove my clothes to avoid drowning and he would finally get to see me naked). He took my hand. I found myself feeling quite tremulous and shivery, rather like I felt when I’d gone for even a short walk after I died. We got to a tram stop and he wrapped me up in his arms. It felt weird. We finally got to his office and he showed me the helicopter and the matrix of smoke generators he is working on.
We set off again and walked to his friend’s house. We arrived with beer and wine and everyone was so warm. There was Victoria, my boss’s friend and our hostess, a nice couple with a sweet baby with whom my boss played which made my heart melt, and Margo. I sat in the kitchen with the women while Victoria told this long story about her demanding friend and, I think, nearly broke down during the telling. They chatted fast and close as they prepared food and I felt like I was in a Woody Allen film, or maybe Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I tried to remain standing and worried I was going to be sick.
We went into the sitting room with all the raclette things and sat down and cooked the cheese and I ate pickled onions and scoffed down potatoes and a cherry tomato and felt so much better.
The group asked me whether there were any German stereotypes and whether I thought they were true. Treading carefully, I said Germany was known for being ruthlessly well organised, which I found to sometimes be true, like in running orders at gigs. I also said that German people were said to have no sense of humour, but I found that Germans are always laughing and have quite a similar sense of humour to the English. Someone speculated that this stereotype existed because, occasionally, foreigners would come up to Germans and say, Heil Hitler, as some kind of bizarre joke and would receive no laugh in response.
We talked about the German guilt about World War II and the holocaust, and they said that it is only recently that people have begun to make jokes about these things in Germany. Victoria said that she had gone to stay with a French family when she was small, and the father had been in the war. Her parents had warned her to be ultra polite and respectful and not to be insulted if she received a frosty reception. However, she said she was able to translate a letter written to the man by a German soldier and that, afterwards, he had hugged her.
As the supper went on, my boss and I exchanged close glances, and I fell for him more and more. There was a thread of closeness between us in the group, two people revolving around each other in the warmth of a friendship group. When I looked at him, I felt excited, felt proud.
Finally, we had to leave to go to a colleague’s birthday party. We hugged everyone goodbye and then came out onto the street and quickly kissed for the first time since the weekend before and then we walked to the U-Bahn, his arm around me.
We got to the bar and there was Olive, Thora the birthday girl, my boss’s best friend, John, and a few others. My boss and I sat on our stools with our legs touching, not really talking to one-another, but with that secret kinship you can share with someone when part of a group. I really like John – he is gentle and clearly adores my boss and they support each other a lot.
We moved to another bar and, on the way, plugged our headphones into this jack in a wall that lets you listen to the movements of the building. We danced to old ’60s girl groups like the Ronettes. I sat down and my boss sat down next to me and I put my hand on the inside leg of his trousers – very bold, for me, with a boy – and we kissed for a long time. He stroked me all over my arms and back and neck and shoulders and the slow desire that had built over the whole day turned into a scared certainty that I wanted to go home with him.
It was half four in the morning and I said that I needed to take my drugs which were at my house, but, that, if he wanted, he could come with me.
We got in a cab with Olive and got out and went into my apartment building and came upstairs, me very nervous. We drank water and I took my pills and then my boss took off his trousers and I took off my tights and we got into bed and I put out the light and we started kissing.
I just loved the way his hands stroked me all over. He put his hand in my underwear and stroked my clit and I started sighing into his ear and then he pushed a finger inside me and I bucked and squeaked and gasped and, thinking about it now, I get a twisting in my spine.
After a while of deliciousness, I faked and then we lay together for a while. I kissed him and pulled off his boxers, feeling really scared now, and knelt between his legs and put his cock in my mouth and began sucking him off.
OK, so he had, by far, the biggest cock I had ever seen. I could just about close my fingers around it, and could only get about a third of it into my mouth. I stopped for a moment and then asked him for advice and he said I was doing fine and I aborted and felt really bad.
We snuggled for a while and he said, “So, I think we got a problem. I am not sure I fit inside you.” And I decided to tell him about being intersex and he took it incredibly well, just as another of the scar stories I have told him. And he said, “We figure something out,” and I felt so happy that he was seeing it as a problem to be worked at.
So, he fucked me again with his hand and I pulled off my dress and he sucked at my breasts and it felt so good and I am pretty sure he will be able to make me come. I really wanted him to fuck me.
We fell asleep and I woke three or four hours later and woke him up and we talked and I asked him whether he considered himself a happy person and he said he was very happy until a few years ago when this girl he was in love with died, and, since then, he has been slowly healing. I listened and hugged him and kissed his cheek as he told the story.
Later, we sshed into my remote server and he helped me set up some handy stuff. He left about two p.m. and I went to go a mozzarella burger and chips and walked through the street listening to Bob Dylan in that vulnerable/oblivious state.
I realised how desperate I was to talk to Cat. She went home with her date last night, too, and I thought how magical it would be to discuss the feeling with someone who had it, too.