The past couple of days have been relatively uneventful, which I think I needed. Tuesday, I was still tired from travel and having bodily time-zone confusion. I worked rather late, chatted with Oona on my bike ride home, and then had a taco date with Rider. We went to the only place around here that (in our opinion) has decent fast food. I was a bottomless pit and ate way more than usual. Thanks, PMS!
Then Rider and I just had a very lazy night at home. Rider bought me as an early Christmas present a plant-walk class that's going to happen in February. Then he played a bit of guitar and watched some wrestling while I read one of the plant books that Dustin's dad had lent me and then napped a bit since I was so tired. After my nap, Rider gave me a foot rub, and I gave him a very sleepy handjob. And then we went to sleep.
Yesterday, I also had to work a little late, and then I biked to Dustin's. When I got there, he'd already started cooking dinner. He'd made brussels sprouts with tempeh bacon and German potato salad with a mustard-dill-anchovy dressing. That man can cook! He'd saved the spinach and salmon for me to cook. He'd also stocked the fridge with an ample supply of beverages he knows I like.
When I came in on my bike, he looked sooooo happy to see me. Honestly, it seemed to me like he was acting like he loved me more than ever before. I can't put my finger on what was different, though. Maybe it was just a vibe thing. But it felt goooood! When I asked him about it, he said nothing was different and laughed at me. And then he said maybe it's because his family loves me.
I was having crazy heightened senses for some reason. I could smell the vinegar and the dill in the potato salad when I came through the door, and I called out the anchovy flavor even though he only used a little, too, asking, "Did you already put fish in this?" confused because the salmon pouches weren't open yet. I also thought he smelled different when I hugged him, though he swore he did nothing different.
We ate dinner as he showed me Elvis songs on Spotify. I've never really gotten into Elvis—barely know his catalog at all—but it was pretty good. For some reason, I especially liked the Christmas songs, which surprised me because I'm generally not much for Christmas music.
His dining set is a tall, bar-style set, with square, padded chairs, and we usually push them together so we can make a cuddle-bench. We'd done that this time and ended up making out when we finished eating. It started to get kind of hot and heavy, so we rushed cleanup and practically danced to the bedroom.
The sex was amazing. He made me come from missionary again, and then he came that way too. Then we took five minutes of downtime and started kissing again and then he was ready again, so we decided just to go for it. This time I got off on top. I think I am generally good for one on top and one on my back (whether from missionary or oral). No clue why that's how my body works, but it is. He got really close to coming but had to stop to pee, and we thought we were done when he got back, so we made the bed, but he suddenly changed his mind and went for it from behind and got off that way, on top of the comforter and everything. Afterward, we collapsed in a heap, giggling and still kissing.
"Go again?" he asked, playfully, but shaking his head no at the same time. He's definitely the only guy I've ever been with who can, uh, spring to action again so quickly. I think his refractory period is less than five minutes. I've heard it's supposed to get longer with age, but he's 40, which is the second oldest person I've ever been with (next to Rider), and it's the shortest for him. He says I just bring it out in him and that he's not like this with other people—that he indeed can rarely even get off with other people. I guess I'm flattered. He similarly does things for me that no one's ever really been able to do before, so it's mutual.
After sex, he put deodorant on, and I told him he smelled normal again. He thought it was super weird—he had two sticks of what was ostensibly the same brand and fragrance, and one smelled normal to me and the other smelled weird. Somehow I could smell the difference between two manufacturing batches! I'm turning into a bloodhound.
"Guess I'd better never try to sneak another woman by you," he joked.
Right about then, we heard Derek come home, and Dustin wanted to let him know there was leftover dinner for him if he wanted it, so we wandered out into the common area. Derek was putting on a documentary series about Rolling Stone magazine, so we cuddled on the loveseat and watched a couple episodes, sipping some nice cider.
There was this one part where the topic of Jerry Lee Lewis came up, and for some reason it prompted me to pull him up on Wikipedia, where I learned he's been married seven times and exclaimed about it, saying that's a lot.
"Well, you're almost halfway there," Dustin quipped. "And he's more than twice your age."
Instantly, I was stung and started to cry a little. He was super sorry and super sad, and said he didn't mean anything bad by it. He just thought it sounded like I was judging the fellow, when I seemed not to be walking such a different track myself, so he turned it back on me. That made matters worse, so he just held me and reassured me he hadn't been trying to be mean, just to make me think.
And looking at just the words he'd said, it was true. But I'd read into it that he thought I was doomed to have a string of failed marriages till I'm 80, which he had not at all said—it was in my head. I was just hypersensitive, I guess, from the conversation I'd had with Rider about how my relationships always peter out after NRE, and also from PMS. Sometimes in the days leading up to my period, I will take things extra personally and cry at the drop of a feather.
He apologized for saying something that upset me, and I apologized for being hair-trigger-y, and within about fifteen minutes, we were back to being happy again.
(continued . . . )