Crazy for Loving You

Crazy for Loving You

by

Trigudis

Amanda

I was bored, uncomfortable and couldn't wait until this silly shindig was over. I wouldn't have been here at all had not my friend Cindy insisted, then practically dragged me. "Look, Amanda, you're divorced," she had said. "You haven't had a date in lord knows how long. It's about time you get out of the house to at least mingle. It'll do you good."

She was right. It was the summer of 1995. Mid-June to be more precise. I was thirty-seven years old and had been living with my mom since my divorce three years before. Sure, I had needs like any other healthy woman still in her thirties. And yes, I wanted to meet that special guy who could make me happy. But I was also soured on relationships. I had been in a terrible marriage with the wrong guy and was on guard about repeating the same mistake. Cindy said that I hadn't had a date in lord knows how long. Well, it hadn't been that long ago. A few months, actually, and it went the way my other few dates had gone, nowhere.

So there I was, wearing my red dress and low heels and sitting at one of a dozen or so round tables around the room in this glorified barn in a rural part of Carroll County, not far from the Mason-Dixon Line. Cindy had been to one of these "Corn Husk" mixers, as they called them, before. I was a first-timer. They held them once a month on Friday nights. Cindy looked like she was having a grand old time, sitting at my table, mingling and talking and dancing with whomever asked her. I had danced once also, but only because I had to. See, that was one of the silly cardinal rules here. If someone asked you to dance, you had to dance with that person at least once. No first-time rejections, in other words. At least I didn't have to say yes again to the dorky-looking guy who had approached me.

Dorksville this place might have been, but not all the guys here fit the mold. One sure didn't, a hot-looking dude I was checking out while sitting there, sipping my Zinfandel in a clear plastic cup and hoping he'd ask me to dance. He looked a bit different from the mostly rural-based, farmer folks around here. He had longish brown hair, wore chinos and a polo shirt, and from the look of his muscular arms and slim waist, he looked like he took care of himself. He looked so cool, standing a few yards from my table, drink in hand, surveying the scene. So far, he hadn't asked anyone to dance. He hadn't looked my way, either. Maybe, like me, he didn't really want to be here. Or maybe he did, but none of the women he saw appealed to him.

I got the feeling that meeting him would require me to make the first move. I wasn't normally that assertive. And wouldn't you know it, when the DJ began spinning Patsy Cline's Crazy on his sound machine, Mr. Dork was coming toward me for a second dance. He was just a few steps away, when I sprang up and practically leaped over to Mr. Polo Shirt. "Wanna dance?"

"Sure," he said, then set his drink down on the nearest table. Then he took my hand and off we went, strolling along with the other couples who couldn't resist slow dancing to this classic song.

Right away, I introduced myself. "Amanda Wright." (my maiden name, changed after my divorce).

"Nathan, Nathan Detroit," he said, grinning.

"Really? Detroit is where I'm from," I said. From the impish gleam in his hazel eyes, I thought he might be putting me on. "Come on, is that your real name?"

He laughed. "The Nathan part is. The last name's Traber. Nathan Detroit was a character in the musical Guys and Dolls. Ever see it?"

"Don't think so. But it sounds familiar."

Then he said, "What a talent Patsy Cline was. She left us much too soon."

"Agreed," I said. "Walking After Midnight. Sweet Dreams. I Fall to Pieces. I could listen to those songs forever and never get tired of them."

The small talk went on like this until the record ended. Then he picked up his drink and followed me back to my table. The conversation got more personal.

"So you're from Detroit," he said. "Where? Grosse Point?"

I laughed. "We should have been so ritzy. No, I grew up in the city. It was a good neighborhood then. Not so much now." I then told him I lived with my mom in Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania. When he told me he lived in Baltimore, I began thinking ahead, wondering how the commute would work out. We could visit each other's place on alternate weekends. But that wouldn't work because living with mom didn't give me much privacy. Which meant we'd have to get a hotel when he came north. Or. I'd come to see him most of the time. I felt ridiculous thinking like this. I mean, at that point, I hadn't known the guy for more than fifteen minutes. But I also sensed that guys like Nathan "Detroit" Traber didn't come along every day, especially in places like this.

So yeah, you could say I had the hots for him. And he seemed to like me, too. He was impressed when I told him I was a corporate secretary. Unlike me, he'd been to college and had a government job in human resources. "Look, I know that being a secretary today entails more than just typing and shorthand," he said. "It's gone high-tech. You people have to be literate in the whole Microsoft Office thing. I've seen it where I work. Maybe you can teach me Excel and Access sometime."

"Anytime," I said. "I actually taught myself before my company sent us for training. I already tutor some of the college-educated staff where I work in that stuff. They also rely on me for Power Point demonstrations."

"So why no college?"

"My parents couldn't afford to send me. I have three siblings and my dad worked on the assembly line for GM. He made a decent living but not so decent that he could afford college."

He nodded and lowered his eyes. He actually looked disappointed. "Well, that's too bad," he said. "If you can master that kind of complex software, you're no dummy."

I didn't tell him that in grade school, I was in a special class for mathematically gifted children. Or that I once wanted to be a doctor. In fact, a boy from that class actually became a doctor. But that was water under the bridge and complaining to a guy I hardly knew that I missed my calling, that I sometimes dwelled on dreams unfulfilled, didn't seem right.

I changed the subject. "So, see any good movies lately?" He mentioned The Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump, movies I'd seen and liked also.

After a few minutes of movie talk, he steered the conversation once again into more personal territory. His divorce and mine. Neither of us had kids. I had wanted kids, I told him, but my ex couldn't have any. "Maybe for the better," I said. "I think he would have made a lousy dad."

We didn't exchange phone numbers until I walked him out to his car. "Can I kiss you?" he asked.

"I insist," I said.

And then we did, on the parking lot in the dark. It was more than a stranger-to-stranger goodnight kiss. More like an I'm-crazy-about-you-and-can't-wait-to-see-you-again kiss.

By the time I went back in, my panties were soaked, and I wasn't shy about telling Cindy. "I need to wipe off," I said, and made a B-line for the ladies' room.

Cindy came in when I was in one of the two stalls, stained panties around my ankles, swishing toilet paper over my wet cunny.

She stepped up to the door and giggled. "Are you okay in there?"

"I will be," I said.

She put her face up to the space between the door and frame. "Ohmygod, Amanda, you weren't kidding."

Now, neither of us were lez. But when I came out of the stall, and Cindy asked to "see," I leaned against a wall, then lifted my dress and let her not only see but feel for herself. After kneeling down, she slid her finger inside my panties. "Holy crap, you're still wet!" she gasped.

It turned me on when she did that. And when she brought her tongue into play, I began to moan. It seemed to excite Cindy, too. "Feel good?" she asked.

I'll say it did! She did it like a real pro, so good that she could have brought me to climax. I was THAT horny after being with Nathan, doing something that was totally out of character for me. But then I said, "This feels great, Cindy, but we better stop. This is a little too weird for me, not to mention that somebody could barge in here any second." Cindy agreed.

When we climbed into Cindy's van for the trip home (she also lived in Pennsylvania), I had to admit that I was glad we came. And if Nathan didn't call me, I was going to call him.

Nathan

Living in Baltimore, the Corn Husk mixers were a hike for me, which is why it took me over a year to get motivated to come back for a second time. I was psyched, ready to meet someone new after a recent breakup and my divorce before that. But then, when I got there, my enthusiasm waned. I was tired from working that day and then hitting the gym afterward. Plus, I didn't see anyone that made me want to climb out of my lazy comfort zone.

Well, there was an exception. I had my eye on this cute lass in a red dress. She had shortish blond hair and great legs. She had a fair complexion, looked Polish-American to me. Those Slavic calves, thick and shapely. The lady in red. It made me think of the song and the movie. She looked bored, almost disgusted. It was obvious she didn't want to be there, so I wondered why she was. She sat next to a tall brunette, presumably her girlfriend, who looked like she was having a good time. Should I ask Red Dress to dance?

I didn't have to. She asked me when the DJ played the song Crazy. This surprised me because not once did I see her look my way. When she introduced herself, I gave her a smart-ass reply, told her my name was Nathan Detroit. Kind of a coincidence because she was a native Detroiter.

We were never lost for conversation. Not when we danced to Crazy, our only dance of the night, and not afterward when we sat at her table, sipping wine and getting more personal. I found her not only cute--cute AND sexy--but engaging. She kept her eyes, a light blue, glued to mine. She listened to what I had to say. I liked her voice, too. Soft, almost breathy, but not pretentiously so. And by the way, her dad, deceased three years, came from a Polish background. She confirmed same when I asked. "Wright is an Americanized version of Wronkiewicz, my dad's birth name," she revealed. "He changed it when my oldest brother was born."

My ex-wife and just about all my former girlfriends had been to college. Not Amanda. Ordinarily, this might have bothered me, except I knew she was smart. Knew it from her job description. She had taught herself the latest office software from Microsoft, even before her company sent her for training classes. She tutored her colleagues at work, she also told me. Impressive. And she read a lot. Mostly popular novelists, including James Patterson and Stephen King. "I must have read about ten of King's books," she said.

"I read too, mostly non-fiction," I said. I had tried reading Stephen King but couldn't keep all the characters straight.

When I was ready to leave, she walked me out to the parking lot. We exchanged phone numbers. Then we kissed. Actually, we did more than that; we made out. I had never made out on the first date, let alone the night I met someone. Like our conversations, it felt so natural. First-time make-outs can be comically awkward. Not with Amanda. We got close enough to where I could feel the curvy contours of her well-proportioned body. She liked the way I kissed. "You do that very well," she said. And then she added something that no gal had ever said to me: "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, Mr. Detroit. But I'm soaking wet."

That line alone produced instant arousal. 'And maybe I shouldn't tell YOU this, Miss Wright, but...' No, I kept that to myself. Her line was verbal eroticism at its finest. Telling her about my boner sounded crude to me, the verbal equivalent of those idiots who send pics of their dicks to potential mates.

Understatement of the year: we parted that first meeting on good terms.

That Monday, Amanda called me. "Playing hard to get, making the girl call you," she joked.

The conversation flowed. No awkward silences. Lots of joking. And no second guessing what we both wanted, at least in the short term. Was she a keeper? Wasn't sure then. We both liked the group America, and it just so happened that they would be in concert at a college located roughly halfway between Baltimore and Shrewsbury. "We'll have dinner and then go to the concert," I proposed.

She was onboard with that. And she chose the restaurant, Dominick's Italian Kitchen. "You'll like it," she assured me.

She was on the parking lot, standing by her white Buick Regal when I pulled up in my maroon Honda Accord. She sure looked hot in that sleeveless, above the knees yellow dress and sandals. Me, I stuck with jeans and a white short-sleeve V-neck.

We hugged, then went inside and got a booth. The décor was typical for an Italian eatery, including wall murals depicting scenes from the Old Country. The lighting was a bit too bright for my eyes, but I didn't complain. Like she had said, the food was good, the veal cacciatore we both ordered, the salad and the sauce, washed down with iced tea and red Merlot. Pasta is pasta--it's the sauce that makes the meal, and Dom's sauce was magnifico. Ditto for the salad dressing; it turned ordinary greens and tomatoes into something special.

Back on the parking lot, she said, "Look, I hope you don't think me presumptuous, but I made reservations for us at the Quality Inn nearby. For after the concert, of course."

This babe didn't play games or mince words. She knew what she wanted and wasn't shy about letting me know, a guy she barely knew and apparently wanted to know in an intimate way. Sooner rather than later. Putting my arms around her, I said, "I love your kind of presumption."

Before moving her car to the street, she took a backpack out of her car. "A surprise for you later," she said.

"A gift for me?" I asked.

"Yes, but don't try to guess. You'll see it in due time."

Leaving it at that, I drove us to the concert. As expected, college kids made up a good portion of the audience. But there were also, like us, quite a few baby-boomers who'd been fans of America when these kids were still in diapers. Sister Golden Hair. Ventura Highway. Lonely People. Tin Man. The group performed them all in fine form.

On the way the to the Quality Inn, I asked Amanda why she lived with her mom instead of having her own place. She said, "Mainly, it's because my mom is getting up in age, with medical issues. I'm sort of her caretaker. When I was married, she was in better health. She was my dad's caretaker. He suffered with heart disease for about the last five years of his life." She paused to look up at me. "I know it's not the most convenient circumstance to carry on a relationship. I hope it doesn't bother you."

"It doesn't," I said. "It shows you're a caring person."

"Thanks. And look, because I live with my mom doesn't mean I can't get away for a few days or a week." She shook her head and sighed. "Listen to me, talking about going away when this is only our first date."

"Hey, it shows that you're confident. I like women who are confident, who are secure enough and honest enough to speak their mind."

She chuckled. "That's me, all right, at least about the honest part. Sometimes it gets me into trouble."

I didn't explore that any further. Like she said, it was our first date. Also, my confidence quotient was up as well. First dates are supposed to be awkward, with periods of uneasy silences. That wasn't the case with us. Here we just came from a rock concert and now were on our way to spend the night together. That Rolling Stones song played in my head: "Let's spend the night together; now I need you more than ever..."

Amanda

I was never the stereotypical "good Catholic girl." Like most stereotypes, I'm not sure that kind of girl even existed. But if she had, she wouldn't have had sex before marrying (I did), wouldn't have let a girlfriend rub her cunny in a public rest room (or anywhere else for that matter), and she sure wouldn't be holed up in a hotel with a guy on their first date.

As to the latter, I wouldn't have been with just any guy. And Nathan wasn't just any guy. He seemed special and he made me feel special, not only because he thought I was hot, but because of the way he respected me, respected my professional status and respected the way I chose to care for my mom. I knew I was with a quality guy, and therefore I wanted to make this time with him as special and memorable as I could make it.

"Now, just sit here and relax," I said when we got in the room. "I'll be right out."

"What--"

"Just sit here," I repeated. "This bag contains that surprise I mentioned. You had asked me what was in it. Well, I'm about to show you."

He did as I asked. Then I ducked into the bathroom to change into my 'surprise.' It was this sexy outfit from Victoria's Secret. A red, see-through Teddy with black stockings and garters. After slipping into the black high-heels I had also packed, I primped a bit in the mirror, pausing to think if I should let my hair grow out again. I had worn it below my shoulders up until a few months ago. Then I asked my mom to cut it (she once did hair on the side), and I've left it just above my shoulders ever since. A guy at work thought it looked sexier.

Nathan didn't focus on my hair when I strolled out. I giggled, thinking he looked so cute, gawking at me like a young teen boy seeing this for the first time. "You like?"

"Slightly."

He slid to the end of the chair, watching me do a few pirouettes and other model-like moves. I felt hot and sexy because he made me feel that way. A little thisa, a little-thata, with emphasis on the latta...

I gave him an impromptu lap dance. Then, after straddling his lap, we got into some heavy smooching, vis-a-vis some equally heavy LGA. For the uninitiated, those letters stand for Loin Grinding Action, a term we used among my social circle in Detroit. My older sister Sheila taught me that one. To digress: One night, I walked into our living room and saw Sheila and her boyfriend Danny doing some intense LGA on the sofa. "Stick around, you'll get an education," Danny said. Danny--he was always making salacious remarks like that.

Back to Nathan and me. "You're one delicious babe," he cried. As if to make good on that, he pulled down the cups over my outfit and began slashing his tongue over my boobs. I inherited my mom's boobs--large enough to where I had considered breast-reduction surgery. Apparently, Nathan didn't have a problem with it, not the hungry way he was going at it, like he hadn't been with a woman in many a day or night. Between his tongue action, he called me "luscious," told me I smelled good.

We shared the hunger, because I hadn't been intimate with anyone in many a day or night myself. But what I was doing wasn't out of desperation. No lie, Nathan was the best-looking guy I'd ever been out with--and I'd been out with some handsome dudes. When I told him to "take your clothes off and stay awhile," he didn't waste much time. And when he did just that, I stood there, amazed that a guy in his early forties could look so good, six-pack and all. "Nathan," I said, "you're a walking billboard for how good one can look past forty."

He thanked me, then said, "And you're a walking poster girl for brainy, sexy secretaries." He reached out and hugged me. "I mean that, Amanda. You really are."

He seemed sincere, yet I still wondered if he meant it. The brainy part, I mean. See, no guy, including my ex, ever focused on my natural smarts. It was never important to them, never a priority. Tits and ass. That's what mattered most to them. But then, who was I to judge when I went along with it, played the blond, blue-eyed sexpot for all it was worth. Frankly, I WAS kind of a sexpot back then. I thought of myself as a glorified floozy. And Nathan made me feel more floozified than usual--for no other reason than the extent to which I turned him on.