More Cards

Thoughts of Jack filled my mind for days later. I went round with a perpetual grin on my face and a girlishness about my hope that I’d get to see him again soon and that he’d ask me for a date. I really wanted a date badly. It was nearly a week before I ran in to him. By then I was trying to figure out a way to spend time with him in a more companionable way, talking myself into a moderated attitude about the whole thing. I asked my sponsee to organise a card playing night as most of our friends loved to play a game that is very like Hearts. It was great silly fun. We’d done it a number of times already and I wanted to host one this time. She said she would for the following weekend. I left up the invitations to her for the most part.

The day rolled around and I was so excited I was just about dancing inside my skin. I was breathless all day. I picked my son up and we hustled around to get some snacks at the store and then headed up town to gather up Jack who also didn’t have a vehicle. We rode the last bus that went near my home and trudged into the house near dusk more than a little ready for dinner.

I had planned ahead knowing that my son and I would be over due for dinner by the time we picked Jack up and that I’d rather be a good hostess than fiddle with the kitchen, so I tossed something- can’t remember what now- into the oven to warm a bit and set out the table with dishes and cutlery while my son and Jack got acquainted. My son has always been a little pot stirrer. He loved nothing more than to get an adult wound up. He often had his teachers in tears at school because he wore ‘em down pushing their buttons all day…and he was masterful at discovering buttons in any adults he laid eyes on too. Its like he could look at a person and see their fault lines or something. Uncanny. Always been like that, though he’s not a pain in the ass any more about picking on someone mercilessly just to wind ‘em up. But he was then and he started in on Jack of course. It was entertaining to see how he handled my son frankly. I figured if he couldn’t handle my son, he wouldn’t be a right person to have in my life…because my son would test him endlessly for sure. Better know now rather than later that it wouldn’t work. So I didn’t run interference the way I usually did for my poor friends. *grins*

Jack handled my son with humor. He played the same game on him and had him squealing with frustration in about 15 minutes flat. It was highly entertaining. The two of them have never stopped being entertaining. They’ve always aggravated each other endlessly and affectionately. It often drives me nuts listening to them bicker, especially when my younger son jumps into the fray. The three of them are enough to give me gray hair…. but I do find them hysterically funny to watch and listen to.

In any case, we three gobbled our dinner so we could have the table cleared in time for card players and then I parked my son in front of a video he’d been wanting to watch while we waited for company.

Who never showed up. I got worried and called her to see if she’d got confused about hosting it herself instead of me. She didn’t sound herself when I called. I was a bit confused really. She said she hadn’t asked anyone to come and wouldn’t be there herself. She got off the phone with me really rapidly and I sat there staring at the phone completely perplexed about the whole thing.

But now, I was stuck with a man in my house that I didn’t know well alone with my son and I had no way to get him home. Damn…I knew I wanted a date with him, but I didn’t want him spending the night with my son home for the night. That’s for sure. And it was really way too soon for such an intimate experience, even if it were platonic I felt. I hung up the phone feeling a bit upset with my friend. What was I supposed to do now?

Jack was very kind about the whole thing, reminding me that he could walk home just fine later. By then, my son had grown bored with his movie, having looked forward to cards all week too. He’d grown to like playing with me, so we got out the cards and played. The two of them bickered and we all have such fun. I thought I’d fall out of my chair laughing quite a few times. My face and belly actually hurt from laughing with him. I hadn’t had such a good lighthearted time in years. My son obviously really liked him even if Jack did irritate him.

When it grew obvious that my son was too tired to be reasonable any more, I tucked him up into bed and he went, complaining loudly that he wanted to stay up and play with Jack. When I was alone with him, my son whispered to me that he really liked Jack alot and ‘could we play with him again please’? I grinned at him and said that I thought that could be arranged as I had alot of fun too.

At that moment, Jack popped in and wound my son up tussling in the bed with him, helping me tuck him in. I had never seen any man I dated before pay attention to my son like that. I was deeply touched and my son loved it. It wasn’t the least manufactured. It was obvious that Jack sincerely loved children from the way he treated my son and that he actually liked my son in particular. Finally, Jack settled him in too and ruffled his hair before leaving me to kiss him good night.

We went back to the living room and I was suddenly so nervous I could hardly breathe.

Jack seemed to sense that I was nervous, because he said that he’d like to stay a little longer if he may to watch a movie and talk with me a little bit. He promised to head out without any fuss and that he would be a gentleman, thanking me very sweetly for dinner. I felt myself just relax with him. Completely. I settled in on the couch and we talked for a bit and watched the movie together.

I remember wanting to cuddle in to him. It was an overwhelming urge. I had faced a great deal of loneliness down after over a year of choosing celibacy and I’d come to terms with my emotions. Finding my own company very comfortable. I’d always been a loner on an essential level, though I have also always been a social being too. I needed companionship and touch. I needed cuddling and I’d found friends to cuddle with. I had alot of single friends and we’d learned we could give each other affection out of love for each other and an acknowledgement of our very basic human needs. It had been a good time in my life. But there was still something missing in my life and that was a connection with a man that went all the way in to my hidden heart. That loneliness was quiet and ever present. Sitting there with him, I felt it well up in me. It was hard not to just shift over and take a cuddle without asking. There was something about him that made me feel just so safe. Really deeply safe as I’d never felt in my life before. He looked like home. But I had learned some other things too. I wanted to wait for intimacies…to not just jump into such moments with someone out of neediness, but instead to choose because that person is the right person for me to share with. So I sat there feeling at home and in conflict with what I felt was appropriate timing. I just breathed and wondered at how it seemed so easy for him to make me want to sink into him…how deeply just his presence touched me.

The rest of the evening is a blur. I don’t remember what we talked about. I don’t think it was anything deep and life changing…just mostly coming to know that we saw many things the same ways…We discussed my sponsee and I discovered that he’d been mentoring her about how to have a friendship with a man that wasn’t sexual. He told me he suspected that her behavior that night was because she had a terribly deep crush on him and was jealous and hurt. I thought he was wrong as she’d never lied to me before that I knew of, and had hold me her deep crush was on someone else. I had misgivings because of her behavior, but I really did think she’d told me the truth. In any case, we didn’t talk a great deal, because we really did want to enjoy the movie. Neither of us had seen it and it was very good as I recall. Can’t remember the movie now either, but I guess it wasn’t as important to me as the man sitting beside me.

When the movie finished, I realized that there was a blizzard outside. And my roommate came home, stating that the road conditions were suddenly treacherous. After a few minutes, deliberation and consulting my room mate, I decided that I felt safe offering him the spare room on my spare futon, figuring he could take the bus home in the morning instead of spending $25 on a taxi on unsafe roads or walking in a blizzard. It had started sleeting as we talked. I didn’t realize it was supposed to snow like that when I’d planned the party, else I would have canceled it and left Jack home in favor of another time.

In any case, I settled him in to the bed I made up for him. It had been a very long time since 5am and I was utterly exhausted from my work week, so I wanted to go to sleep. But he took advantage of the moment to kiss me.

And that kiss is the topic of another post I think. It deserves its own post. It was really the most life changing kiss…the best kiss I’ve ever had. And I’ve had some doozies that will stand in my memory forever…but when a twin soul kisses you…

Well the world seems to spin a new way.