“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.
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