That Special Someone

A few days after my return to 'normality', while I was daydreaming behind the counter and Auntie was making tea again, a very well dressed man came into the shop for flowers – for his 'mother', he explained. I didn't really care who they were for, but I did check him out through my newly acquired hetero-vision. He looked like a lot of hours in the gym, wrapped in a lot of bespoke tailoring. I'm not used to checking out guys yet and I wasn't entirely discrete about it. I got caught. He just smiled and carried on selecting flowers for his bouquet. While I arranged and wrapped his selection, I noticed him returning the compliment, checking me out, but he waited until I'd handed back his credit card – name duly noted for my bedtime masturbation fantasy – before he asked "Would I be crossing some sort of boundary or encroaching on someone else's prerogatives if I invited you for a drink sometime?"

It took a moment for me to decipher that. "No... I mean yes... No, you wouldn't be crossing anything or encroaching on anyone... Yes, I'd like to go out for a drink sometime." I was nowhere near as smooth as I'd have liked to have been but he laughed and that's always a good social lubricant, provided you don't mind being laughed at. I don't mind, so I joined in.

"Friday?"

"Friday. I finish here at six." I flashed him my best flirty smile.

"Shall we say seven then? At that bar across the street?"

"Seven it is."

"Until Friday then, Kelsey." He made a show of looking at my name badge, which he'd already read more than once. I found myself not minding this deliberate and opportunistic ogling of my breast.

"Friday." I nodded. "I hope your mother likes the flowers, Mr Caine." I didn't know his first name but the initial on his card had been M.

"Michael." He said, looking a little embarrassed.

I wondered why, and then the penny dropped. "Michael Caine?" I couldn't help smirking. "Did your mother like his films?"

"Got it in one."

He had a very attractive smile, I thought, as he picked up his flowers and left.

"Got a date?" Auntie brought two cups of tea down the stairs from the apartment.

"You heard?"

"I was listening. I didn't want to interrupt." She patted my hand affectionately.

* * * * *

On Friday, I met Michael at the bar. I wasn't wearing my name badge but the top I'd picked out constituted a much more obvious invitation to look down. Michael accepted that invitation with almost unseemly haste.

"You look terrific." He said to my tits – well, to me actually, but his gaze was so far down my cleavage he might as well have been talking to my tits.

"Thank you. You scrub up pretty good too." Was that suit Armani? And why was that tie pin familiar?

"What would you like to drink?" He had the bartender's attention – or perhaps I did – and didn't want to waste the opportunity to get served.

"Bourbon. No ice."

"A large bourbon, no ice. And another of these." Michael ordered drinks, pushing his empty glass across the bar.

As soon as we'd got our drinks, he steered me to a booth and looked suddenly serious.

"I have a confession to make." Michael looked the least confident I'd seen him look in our brief acquaintance.

"The flowers were for your wife?"

"No... I..."

"Your boyfriend?" Living in Greenwich Village, you get used to that sort of thing.

"Heavens no!" He looked a little shocked at the suggestion.

"Only... you do have a rather theatrical way of expressing yourself. So I wondered..." I decided teasing was appropriate. I wasn't that keen on hearing his 'confession'. I wanted to be flirted with, plied with strong liquor, desired, maybe kissed and - if he was very lucky and I didn't get cold feet – laid. I'd been thinking about little else since meeting him and I was under strict orders from my ravisher to 'get out there and explore my options'.

"B sent me for the flowers." He blurted. "She suggested I'd like the girl who served me." He looked down – at his drink this time, instead of my tits.

"B?" Then it dawned on me why that tie pin was familiar. Eric wore one just like it. "Phi Kappa Delta?"

"Yes."

"So this is a blind date?" How much information had B primed him with? I was surprised that I wasn't more surprised at being set up by B. It made sense. B and Helen knew a lot of attractive and eligible guys.

"After a fashion." He still looked edgy. "But |I wanted you to know from the start. It's not the sort of thing you'd be happier finding out about later, is it?"

"Which just goes to show that B picked you for your integrity as much as anything else. Michael..." I reached across the table for his hand: his fingers were cold from holding his drink. "It'll be a cold day in Hell before I second guess the Honey B's judgment. The fact she set us up on this date just raised your stock several points. Your candour raises it still further, but that doesn't mean you don't have to try."

"Try?"

"To seduce me. If you're B's fraternity brother, I'll bet you the bar tab that she's fucked you." I chose my words carefully. "And you agreed to a blind date because if B was setting it up, you'd have to expect it to include fucking me."

"Well... I was going to pick up the bar tab anyway." He grinned broadly, clearly relieved at being forgiven for any deceit. I decided I liked him much better when he looked this confident.

"You're picking up the check for dinner too. I'm not going to be very good company if I drink many more of these on an empty stomach." I tapped my empty glass with a painted fingernail.

* * * * *

Michael was charming. He admitted to being an avid collector of Eric's work as well as a fraternity brother, and told me that B had made this date a proviso for invitation to the pre-exhibition viewing of Eric's latest collection – Innocence Lost - featuring his new model: me. This was all news. Eric hadn't even mentioned an exhibition of me. I found myself wondering which picture of me Michael would buy.

By midnight, He'd been treated to a pre-pre-exhibition viewing... and a whole lot more. He was gentle but strong and I had several orgasms despite the fact he didn't come close to Eric's stature where it mattered most. Much later – months later – B explained that she'd deliberately sent one of the smallest of her fuck buddies to me first so I'd know size isn't everything. In hindsight, Michael did have technique.

B had also made a one night stand rule, Michael explained over breakfast in his Manhattan apartment – two blocks from Eric's – B had made him promise: one night only before the exhibition.

As I mentioned, it'll be a cold day in Hell before I second-guess B. I kissed Michael goodbye and was late for work. Auntie didn't mind a bit.

I had a couple of dates a week for the next month, all courtesy of my fairy godmother, B. Only one didn't get what she'd promised him. He was too vulgar about it. After B heard, I don't think she ever saw him socially again either, but that was a lesson too: his crass advances didn't upset me, I just wasn't interested. The last guy who treated me badly left me off men for how many years? Too many!

And so my education progressed.

* * * * *

One Sunday morning while I was still in my pyjamas, Eric turned up with a huge, flat parcel for me. After hugs and kisses enough to make up for his month-long absence from my life, he persuaded me to let go of him and open my parcel. It was a four-foot square print of my face contorted in pain.

"A momento of the moment you lost your virginity." Eric said from behind the print as he played at being a human easel. "This one won't be in the exhibition because you're remaining anonymous for now."

"It's... beautiful." And it was. Yes, I looked in pain, but it was an almost religious ecstasy and there was beauty in that. "Thank you... Thank you, Eric."

He put the print down and embraced me again, letting me cry on his shoulder for the longest time. I finally noticed how hard his penis was against my belly.

"Did you miss me?" I looked up at him coquettishly.

"Of course I did." His hands slid down my back, into my pyjamas.

"I missed you too." I whispered as I pressed my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. And it was true. And it was so much less than I wanted to say to him. Those other guys had been diverting but nothing more. "My room is through there." I pointed back over my shoulder and let Eric carry me back to bed.