Show Me?

I surreptitiously checked my lipstick in the mirrored elevator walls as we rode up to my apartment, glancing at each other nervously every few seconds. Or, rather, I was glancing nervously. He was grinning.

I wasn't planning on having sex with Joshua, the olive-skinned, small-but-strong middle school teacher from the suburbs with the quirky sense of humor. (He was 5'7", but I was 5'1", so it worked out, and if my brush against his arm in the Uber had been any indication, he was ripped.) This was the second date, and the International Code of Dating allowed for a nightcap at my place after our dinner theater date (yes, dinner theater. His choice).

Our first date had been standard, coffee (his) and tea (mine), some off the cuff jokes (his, definitely his), and awkwardly loud laughter (all mine). I had definitely been surprised-and a little suspicious-to get such a straightforward date invitation from a hookup app after barely any pleasantries exchanged, but I'd followed my usual first-date plan. Reel them it with "cute librarian": curly blonde hair left down (and just a little frizzy), glasses, minimal makeup, oversized sweater, and a skirt that's just a little shorter than they would expect, showing off all the hard work my squat routine is doing for my rear end. That's what gets me the second date (I assume? Maybe it's my glowing personality).

Second date, I drop the "bombshell" on them. Old Hollywood glam. Soft waves in my hair, red lipstick, and my favorite-my vintage Little Black Dress. Longer than what's in style, just past my knee, but tight. So tight I don't wear underwear. I do take a little bit of help from Victoria's Secret, since I'm not exactly gifted in the boob department, but like I said before, no sex on the second date. They're none the wiser.

As the elevator dinged open on my floor, I smiled shyly at Joshua. He gestured for me to go first, so I did.

My apartment, the last one on the right, was a dinky one-bedroom. The "bedroom" had enough space for a bed, a nightstand, and a closet. The "living area" was a small kitchen mushed with a dining space and room for a single couch shoved up against the window, which at least had a stellar view, and a small TV.

I poured us each a glass of whiskey, hoping it would help take the edge off. Suddenly, my room felt a lot more private than when I had friends over to watch the Oscars. Unaware of my one-way sexual tension (sexual anxiety?), Joshua plopped down on the couch and started examining the books I'd shoved onto a shelf.

"'Computer Programming for Dummies'?" he asked.

"I feel like it will make me more marketable," I explained, perching next to him on the couch.

"'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' . . ."

"I'd love to be able to cook, but alas. Not even Samin could teach me. I think I'm unteachable."

"No one's unteachable, Vivian."

"Are you volunteering?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Very much so. If you're truly unteachable, I'll do the cooking."

"I'll do the dishes."

"Deal. 'Ina May's Guide to Childbirth'?"

My face flushed. "That's for my sister. She's um . . . she's pregnant."

"I figured," he smiled. He leafed through a few pages. "What about you?"

"I'm happy for her."

"Do you want kids?"

"Um . . ." My hands were sweating. I hadn't expected this to come up so fast. "No. They're nice. I'll like my sister's, I think. I'm just not interested in . . . having them? Being a mother." He nodded, and put the book back on the shelf. "And you?"

"Oh, yeah," he said easily.

"Yeah . . .?"

"I want a whole brood. I want my own basketball team."

I studied him. His dark eyebrows were raised, he was smiling. "I can't tell if you're kidding or not."

"Not. I love babies."

"Do you love . . . having no disposable income or sleep?"

"Worth it," he shrugged.

"Okay . . ." I said, searching for something else to talk about.

"I'm one of six."

"Holy . . ."

He leaned back on his hands, looking up at my ceiling. "We had tons of fun growing up. There were fights and stuff, but mostly it was such a party. My mom really loved being a mom, you know? We got pizza a lot of nights and all that processed junk in our lunch box, like she wasn't the type to sit at home and bake cookies for us. She worked a lot of gigs. An artist, you know? But she freaking loved having kids. When she talked to us, it was like she was just dying to figure out who we were so that she could just . . . love us. I wanna give that to somebody."

"That explains a lot about your level of confidence," I observed.

"Are you saying I'm . . . arrogant?" he asked, smiling at me, one eyebrow cocked.

"I'm saying you're . . . proud," I teased back. Truthfully, I'd fallen a little bit for his idealized childhood. Gotta love a guy who loves his mom (even if his deep-seated need for offspring made us fundamentally incompatible, relationship-wise).

"Hell yeah, I'm proud! Who wouldn't be proud? I'm the second son and middlest middle child of a failed artist and an insurance adjuster. I got a 3 on my Calculus AP exam. I spend my days trying to get middle schoolers to care about Shakespeare and sentence structure. I'm the proudest guy on the block."

I giggled and he set his drink down, then mine.

"What would you do if I kissed you right now?" he asked.

"Become irrationally attached and call you until you had to block my number?"

He grinned. "You're just like all the rest, Schmidt." (How did he know that guys calling me by my last name fulfilled my Only Woman in the Guy Friend Group fantasy?) "So obsessive." He was inching closer, his hand was on my knee. "The joke's on you. The last girl already put my naked pictures online. You've got no leverage."

I burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry-" I gasped, "You just caught me off guard-" and then he was kissing me. He held that first kiss as I registered what was happening, but once I started kissing him back he responded hungrily. He kissed me behind my ear, shuddered when I ran my nails down his leg. He bit my lower lip, and my body clenched in response, heat suddenly spreading up my neck. Then he started tugging on my zipper and I came crashing back to reality and my own second date rules.

"I have to pee," I announced.

He raised his eyebrows and sat back. "Sure."

"Be right back. Make yourself at home."

From the bathroom, I could hear him get up and start walking around.

"Why'd your last relationship end?" he called. I finished washing my hands and came out.

"Um . . . incompatible."

"How so?"

"He was . . . kind of a freeloader?"

"Understood," he nodded.

"And yours?"

"Also incompatible," he said, relaxing back onto the couch again. "Sexually."

I didn't try to hide my shock. "You're kidding."

"Is that so hard to believe?"

"It's hard to believe any decent guy would talk about it on a date," I said honestly.

"I feel connected to you." I couldn't tell if he was joking. "No, it was my fault. My weird stuff."

My mind thumbed through the catalogue of weird stuff and I contemplated faking a headache and kicking him out.

"Not that," he said. "Whatever you were thinking, not that. I just . . . " He sighed heavily.

"What?" Whatever he was doing, it was working. I was intrigued.

He rubbed his head and looked at me sidelong. "How trustworthy are you?"

"Very."

"Do you like to make fun of people?"

"Of you or of others?" He smiled. "I won't laugh. I'll try not to laugh. Please go on."

"I like watching my partner have a good time."

"Isn't that every guy?"

"Well, yeah . . . but for me it's not like an appetizer. For me it's like . . . the main event."

I contemplated that. "So that made you incompatible? Wouldn't that make you . . . ultracompatible?"

"She saw it as a private thing. Something she did by herself."

"Oh." I said. I frowned. "Oh."

"I hated to leave over sex when we were clicking emotionally but . . . then we stopped clicking emotionally, too."

"It's hard to click emotionally when the sex isn't good," I reasoned.

"Exactly."

"I have to say, I don't know that we'll be so compatible either."

"Oh no? You're shy?"

I laughed. "I'm not shy. But I like what I like. And I don't do a ton of these . . ." I gestured wildly between us. "So it's usually me and my, um, battery-operated friends. Which makes it pretty hard for me to . . ." I blushed furiously. "Without . . ."

"Oh," he said, sitting up. "You use toys?" I nodded. "I've never used them before."

"You haven't?"

"I'm very good with my hands," he smiled. "I've never even seen one."

"Oh, they're not that scary. They're not what guys think of usually."

"Um, would you-" he swallowed. "I mean, can I please . . . would you show me?"

I considered his request. On the one hand, this was quickly turning into the strangest second date I had ever been on. On the other hand . . . Joshua might be the most interesting person I'd ever met.

"Let me get my box," I winked. I went into the bedroom and shut the door, my heart pounding. There was no way me showing him my collection of sex toys didn't end in some type of sexual encounter. My zipper was tricky, this dress was expensive and a little fragile. I desperately wanted to keep my padded secret between Victoria and me.

So I lost the dress (and the bra) on my way to the closet, and slipped into a little cream silk robe before pulling the bright pink shoebox down from the top shelf. I glanced in the mirror. Still old Hollywood glam, just slightly more comfortable.

"Here it is," I purred from the doorway. He lit up when he saw me.

"Very cinematic," he observed.

"You are an English teacher!"

"Guilty. Now do I get to see what's in your box?" He waggled his eyebrows again at the double entendre.

I sat next to him on the couch and opened up the lid. My three vibrators were nestled in white tissue paper inside.

First, he pulled out the biggest one.

"That's the Magic Wand," I explained. "Really packs a punch." He hmmed and moved onto the one that resembled a small, purple cactus. "Rabbit. Stimulates inside, and . . . well."

"Ah." He placed it delicately back into the box. Last, he picked up the tiny black one.

"Lipstick vibrator." Aptly named, it was about the size and shape of a tube of lipstick.

"May I?" he asked. I nodded. He switched it on and looked at it for a moment. Then, he held it lightly to his wrist. He bit his lip and reached across to take my hand, and ran it along my palm. My arms erupted in goosebumps.

"Yep, that's how it works," I said, a little too high-pitched. He smiled to himself.

"Can I touch you?" he asked. His voice was low and husky, like someone who hadn't spoken in a long time. My heart was racing. I nodded.

He kissed my wrist, and then inside my elbow, gently pushing my loose sleeve up with his cheek. He leaned his face against my arm and looked down at my lap as he lightly held the vibrator under my knee in his cupped hand, and then moved it up the underside of my thigh. Silky material swished out of his way. Still holding my elbow between his hand and his face (his scruff lightly grazing the soft skin inside my arm), the hand with the vibrator pulled loose the belt that was holding my robe closed. It didn't fall open entirely, but he pushed it aside, gazing darkly at the short tuft of hair between my legs. He let out an audible sigh.

He ran the vibrator up my leg again and this time held it in the tender spot right between my leg and my sex as he kissed my neck sweetly. I felt heat begin to emanate from between my legs.

"Do you like that?" he asked.

"Mmmm," was all I could manage. He slid the vibrator over, making a wide circle underneath my opening to the other leg to over my mound. My body clenched again, and this time my muscles didn't give afterward. They tightened slowly, as he kissed down my neck and cupped my small, perky breast underneath the robe, and then clenched again.

He kissed me and supported my back as he laid me down on the couch. Then he moved the robe aside and raked his eyes over my body as he let the vibrator glide over my opening from bottom to top. I arched my back and bit my lip. I had a moment of embarrassment as I thought about the scene-me, practically naked in the full glare of my living room lights, as he, fully clothed, serviced me with a tiny vibrator-and then he passed over my opening again, pausing to circle my clit, and whatever fist was holding onto my insides clenched again. My hips bucked, and I stopped thinking about what I looked like.

He passed over my opening one more time and I moaned, then he began slowly circling my clit. He was watching me with intense concentration, his mouth slightly open, his free hand massaging my breast, then stroking my petit stomach, then kneading my inner thigh. He traced a finger slowly down one of my folds, applying a little bit of pressure. I murmured my assent, and he slipped it inside, groaning as he did so.

"You're so sexy," he told me, as my body clenched around him.

"Joshua . . ." I begged. His eyes practically rolled into the back of his head with pleasure. The spasms were coming faster now, winding me tighter and tighter. He slid a second finger inside and held the vibrator against my clit, stroking me with more and more pressure when he heard how it made me swear between gasps. My heart felt like it was going to explode. My body physically hurt with the power of the orgasm that had built inside of me.

He started rocking the vibrator against my clit and moaned with me as he felt me clenching around his hand again and again. I took a deep breath and my body pulled tight and released, liquid pouring out of me and soaking the couch, and his hand. My body gave a couple more spasms and then was still. I lay languid and panting, coming slowly to my senses.

He switched off the vibrator and went to go wash it in the bathroom sink, humming to himself. When he came back, I'd done what I could to make myself decent-wrapped the wet robe around my body, sat up, smoothed my hair. I felt intensely vulnerable, exposed, and mortified.

He placed the vibrator carefully in the box and closed it. I walked him to the door, since it seemed like that was where he was heading. I felt the overwhelming need to say something, to explain myself, but I wasn't sure how to phrase "Please don't think I'm a freak."

"So," I said.

"So," he said back, smiling. He brushed a lock of hair behind my ear.

I closed my eyes. "That got away from me. I didn't mean for . . . um . . ."

"Vivian." He looked surprised. "I know you're not about to apologize."

"Well I just . . . I lost control-"

"I know," he said emphatically. He lowered his voice and leaned in. "You losing control is going to be burned into my brain for at least the next month. I'm never going to get anything done again. I'm going to be thinking about the look on your face while I stroke you until you cum all over me every night for the next year."

"But . . . you're leaving," I said.

"I have a long drive back out to the suburbs," he confirmed apologetically, "and I'm getting evaluated tomorrow. I wasn't expecting this to be a late night . . . I thought you were the type of girl who was going to pour me a drink, kiss me a little on the couch, and send me on my way. Believe me, I want nothing more than to carry you into your bedroom and bury my face in your hot, slippery-" He swallowed hard and looked at the ceiling. "Viv, I can smell you on my hand, it's making me ache. I don't think I'm ever not going to be hard again."

"So, call in sick?" I asked, fingering his tie. He moaned a little. I opened the door and walked slowly into my apartment, letting my robe fall to the floor. "I'd love to return the favor, and drain you completely," I called over my shoulder coyly.

The door slammed. Before I knew it, I'd been hoisted up and was being carried to the bed while he kissed me roughly, pausing only to tell me exactly what he planned to do to me for the next 24 hours.