“For my 31st year I’d like to learn the Tango.” I said.

“Uhm.” Chimera said. “To do that you’re going to need to learn to let someone lead you. You have to be able to follow to be able to dance the Tango and it seems like you aren’t really the kind of woman who follows well.”

And I burst into laughter.

“I mean,” he continued. “The only other way it would work is for you to make him THINK he was leading when you are actually doing the leading and I think you could probably pull that off.”

The small bar where I was hiding incognito for the night with friends was small and generally is a favorite of mine because they keep decent whiskey and free pool tables. Chimera had texted me the night before and when I followed up on Saturday night I told him I was hanging with friends and he was welcome to join. I was more than surprised when he agreed.

Later, I was sipping a shot of Jameson when Chimera threw his in the back of his throat and swallowed. “Was I supposed to sip that?” He wondered.

“Drink your whiskey however you like. How a man drinks his whiskey is no one’s business.” I smiled.

“Somehow I thought you’d say that.”

Then Jordan arrived with a bag of cookies he’d baked (delicious, I might add) and LaraPirate got up to play pool with her man. So that left us all talking for the next couple of hours.

The more I talked with him, the more I noticed he kept looking at my eyes. Not like polite or interested eye contact, but something else I couldn’t put my finger on. He chatted well and carried on conversation with Jordan as my mind wandered a little and I began picking apart what I was hearing. Noting his judgments. Wondering at his generalizations.

As we all got up to leave I gave him a hug and warned. “I’m wearing my lip plumper gloss again.”

“I don’t care. I want to kiss you anyway.”

So we kissed.

After goodbyes to peeps he walked me out and I gave him a ride to his car 7 or 8 blocks away. I hate the awkward hug over the stick shift so I got out hugging him once more goodnight.
His arms snaked around my body and pulled me toward him. His lips found mine and he kissed me soundly before gripping my hips and saying, “Wow. You turn me on.”

WHAT!???

My mind tripped over itself spinning in circles. For a moment I wondered if he could actually hear the whizzing sound of my brain like a cd twirling in a faulty drive. What? I turn someone on??? How the fuck did that happen? Does not compute. Does not compute.

I stalled and kissed him for a minute while I tried to think. His hands slipped around my hips, his fingers skimming under back of my jeans. My fingers tangled in his hair and

Still – - my brain stalled.

What is going on? I don’t turn guys on. They might get a boner if we kiss for a while or maybe they even get hard or horny enough to have sex – but I don’t turn them on…. Do I? Holy Crap. Do I actually turn someone on? Does not compute.

We were kissing in that way that creates an instability and you feel like you might fall forward or backward so to steady us, I pushed him against my jeep.

“See?” he teased. “You don’t follow well.”

“I just follow when I trust someone’s got it under control.” I amended.

I was still trying to decide how I felt about everything. Did I want to push things with Chimera?

“So, if I turn you on so much, why’d you fall off the map for two weeks?”

“Well, I’ve been really busy….plus I’m leaving the country in 8 months and I don’t know how involved I can get.”

He slipped his hand down my right hip again caressing my skin, and my thoughts felt like a gaggle of geese at the sound of a gunshot.

Shortly thereafter I pulled away and said my goodbyes, agreeing that I would go on an actual date if he called.

Then I kept looping on the phrase that Chimera used twice, “You turn me on.” “Everything about you turns me on.”

Does not compute.

No one has said that to me in so long I forgot what it means. It’s been almost 5 years? No one has verbalized it to me. So I have been able to block out the obvious and assume they are not affected by me even if I am affected by them.

Grace says no such thing to me. He’s called me a “pretty girl” or said, “you’re cute” and once or twice causally mentioned I’m beautiful in the same tone a guy might mention he lost a shoe somewhere under the bed.

DoubleVirgo said I was pretty in the same sort of manner as though he were recalling an item he forgot to get at the grocery, more of a nagging afterthought but nothing terribly important.

But the way Chimera looked at me, the way he said it both times made me rock on my heels with the strange uneasiness that all this time, because I haven’t heard it from men in that way – especially men I am intimately involved with lately – I have assumed their sexual arousal with me has been either been coincidence/biological convenience/ or oh-what-the-hell.

As stupid as this is – and I know it’s pretty stupid – I didn’t put the two reactions together until Chimera crushed my body against him, met my eyes and told me directly that I turn him on.

Then with almost comedic tragedy I understood – holy crap. I can turn guys on. I thought I was the only one that ever got turned on cuz they never say anything. That means…. I’ve been turning guys on…. Holy crap. What does that mean? It works both ways??? Is that even possible?

Now for all you who don’t know me. This is not an unreasonable idiocy of just not making the connection. Really. I am oblivious like this too often.

I do not see myself a stunningly beautiful woman. I don’t even see myself as sexy. I feel like I can probably pass for cute. Sometimes cutesy (which is irritating as a hell). I don’t imagine by any means that I’m a double-bagger, but let’s face it folks, for the last few years it’s not like there has been a great deal of attention aimed my way – so rather than think of myself as a beautiful/sexual/attractive woman I have spent the last few years thinking.

“Well, I’m not beautiful but I’m creative. Maybe I don’t stop traffic but I can take care of myself and be independent. I might not make a man forget his own name when I look at him, but I can hold my own in a battle of wits.”

So it is with this that I have not identified myself in my own mind as an attractive woman that can turn men on. I have identified myself as independent, smart and creative with a large dose of snark.

I have the right curves and anatomical parts to elicit a biological response such as arousal but anyone can do that because the male genital is so easily triggered, right. It’s not special and it doesn’t mean they are in to you – it’s just wood. Dudes can get chub over looking at a flower that resembles a labia. Seriously, it’s that easy. So how could it possibly be that flattering if they get wood around you? They can get it if the wind hits their Johnson just right….

So my casual response to men getting hard over boobs and an ass suddenly made me wonder if I’ve been missing a bigger picture. Just because they are interested in fucking doesn’t actually mean you turn them on – and it’s entirely possible that what I think “being turned on” is, is entirely different than what someone else, including Chimera thinks it means.

To me it means; your body excites me, yes – AND you are interesting, and I want my body inside/on/around yours and your thoughts in my head. I want your butterflies in my stomach and your breath in my lungs. I want to know how you think and what your skin feels like against mine. It’s not that I want to fuck you – but I do. It’s more than that. To me, being turned on is the desire to be altered in some way by the other person. Changed by their ideas/touch and sex. It means, I might not be satisfied with just having you once. It means – to me anyway – I might be willing to see what it feels like to have you around for more than just sex, just maybe.

Then again, Occam’s razor says, it was just some dude talking and I shouldn’t puzzle it out any further than that.

But how pathetic is it that I have not heard a phrase like that in so long. Have not heard, “I want you.” “I want to be with you more. Spend more time with you. Get to know you better.” “I want to sleep next to you.” “I want to risk it just to be with you.”

Maybe that’s why I don’t follow well – I haven’t been given my cue.

Last Thursday I reached a high point of what I thought I could take in emails, and events on the blog and was especially stalled out. Between work and blog drama, I was done in for the day.

It was Grace of all people, who texted me repeatedly to ask if I was okay. Checking in every few hours to tell me it wasn’t that bad, not really, and I would be safe, etc.

I was scheduled for a date that evening, a movie with a stranger – but after the commentary that day, I knew I was close to cracking and I didn’t want to risk bursting into tears at the drop of a hat on a perfect stranger. So I cancelled.

Grace asked me if I was alright and I responded. I’m tired. I don’t feel safe. I want to hide. I’m pretty emotional.

“Come on down to this little bar I know. It’s safe. No one will even know you’re there. I’ll pour you a shot of rum and beat you at some pool. It’s going to be okay.”

I had my reservations. I knew I was emotionally trigger-happy and I sure as hell didn’t want to be vulnerable around Grace. But strangely, I also didn’t want to sit home alone nor did I want to go anywhere I normally would where I might potentially bump into anyone. I wanted someplace obscure and let me also be honest and say, there is a comfortable familiarity with Grace.

So I went to meet him. (I know. I know.) We met at a dive bar in SE and as soon as I got there, his demeanor was entirely different than I’ve ever seen it before around me. He gave me plenty of space and didn’t try to touch me, which I was grateful for.

We played a few games of 9 ball and I had a rum and coke that was more like a lot of rum with the essence of coke.

Halfway through the second game, the conversations started in earnest.

“It’s not that bad, really.” He said.

“I know. It’s no big deal. It’s just timing. All of it is timing. It’s like I am weeble-wabbling because the thing with you put me a little off balance and then it’s been a one-two punch from other angles and I haven’t had time to process or find my center. I’m just really off center.”

Then, to lighten the mood I teased, “You have caused quite a sensation on the blog, Grace. I don’t know whether to be terrified or impressed that you have grabbed so much attention.”

“Yeah, I can even intimidate people when I’m not in the room! Your friend Jordan takes the credit for Cock-blocking – but really if you think about it – I was cock-blocking because Shane thought Jordan was me!” He chuckled. “I can cock-block from across town when no one has even met me.”

We talked about the blog. I told him I’d already written the post about continuing and not giving up but it was sitting in the queue to be published when I got home. I knew I wasn’t giving up but that didn’t stop me from feeling off center still.

He bought me another rum and coke and we went outside so he could smoke. Still he kept his distance. Allowing me to find balance around him and feel secure. As we were sitting on the bench I indulged in a moment of self-pity and said, “You suck. If this is what you knew you were waking me up for? You woke me up for this? This is what I get to look forward to? Men like this. Chimera falls of the planet. DoubleVirgo is sends an occasional random text from space. The dude I didn’t go out with tonight sent a crappy douchey response about me not going out. I feel so….”

I couldn’t think of what to say. Really? Is this what I have to look forward to? I feel like some hideous freak or anomaly.

“I’m sorry, Athena. I’m sorry that this is not easy for you and that I was an asshole. But you are adorable, and you’re going to find a really nice guy. Just don’t give up. You’re cool and cute and…”

Halfway through his speech my tears began falling. The surface tension in my eyes cracked, pooling tears down my face and Grace reached out to brush off them off my cheeks. He looked mildly alarmed and I turned my face away at the slight glint of pity in his gaze and the shame that burned in me that I cried in front of him.

Everything about my person felt weak. My body felt weak. My heart. My spirit flagged and he scooted across the bench and pulled me against his chest, murmuring in my ear and stroking my hair.

I allowed it. Not only did I allow it, I found comfort in it. It was foreign, this being exposed and vulnerable. Vulnerable. So strange. The last time I let a man hold me when I broke was my brother and that was literally years ago.

Grace took me in. The scent of his beer and reds and that soothing smell of captured light, his arms wrapped me –pulling my face to his neck and cradling me when my strength gave out.

It’s a strange concept to me as of the last four years to let someone take my weight. I rarely seem to be able to give my full emotional weight over to anyone – rarely women, but certainly never men. Obviously, I have longed for it – but have not felt in the men I know, a willingness to reach when I am too tired to pull myself up, and because I have not sensed such willingness – I have been reluctant to ever let myself be fragile.

Fragile, means breakable. I am not a delicate wilting flower, but I realized as Grace shielded my body with his, that I am not as powerful all of the time as I like to imagine and this sudden realization made me feel…. small.

How sad that I can be so easily spun out. How pathetic that a string of events, maybe half a dozen or so not-such-a-big-deal events all piled together could created a critical mass and nearly make me curl up in a ball.

I am stronger than that. I know I am harder. But for that moment when Grace tried to bolster my hopes of being loved again…. I discovered I am still raw. I am still childlike in my desires. I am still waking. I am still adjusting to the light outside the box. I am still – much to my dismay – fragile.

I guess that means I am still human.

Grace dried my tears and brought to my attention, quite unwittingly that having come out of the box, coming back into the light – it’s going to be a little rocky. It’s not going to be as easy as I thought and there is a beauty in the kind of messiness that it is, because I have discovered that letting someone hold me when I crack means that chunks of debris from my isolation are breaking apart and falling away…..

… leaving behind a woman I am not sure I’ve seen before. She is vulnerable. She is more fragile than I expected. She is a little more vibrant. She smiles more. Last night I asked Grace, “You are different around me. You keep your space more – it’s not bad it’s just different. Like you are holding yourself away from me.”He sighed heavily, “That’s because what few parts of me that are still decent. The good parts left are telling me that I just need to look after you.” “How do you intend to you that?” I wondered.

“I don’t actually know yet,” He said, and kissed my temple. “I don’t actually know yet.”

That night I went home and posted the blog in my queue about not quitting the BlissQuest. I’d already written it because I knew I couldn’t be scared off by circumstance so easily. It was just timing. Poor timing. It was a lot of heavy all at once.

But the thing that surprises me most about it, is that I found a measure of sturdiness in the confidence Grace inspired during our pool games. I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t ask for assurance or safety or pep talk about how strong I can be, or how much I can do. He just gave it.

He offered a lot, generously -and asked for nothing back. All I had to do was accept it.

So I did, thusly teaching me that maybe – just possibly – a moment of weakness is not a character flaw in me that I have to attack and make better… but a window into the human condition to which I am a current member, and I can accept help without judging myself; accept comfort when it is offered. Let someone take my weight for a couple of hours and find a quantum of peace in their confidence and when it is all said and done… I will be a little more rested and strong enough to take my own weight back and carry on.