Her schedule had some uncertainties in it the night we met up so I made two different restaurant reservations. The earlier one was at a nice but moody establishment that closed early (for a city, imo) and the other was at a less nice location that remained open until late in the morning that also happened to be walking distance from my hotel. She expressed a preference for the latter option when I asked for her input and that was the right call in the sense that I ended up having to push back an already late reservation because of the way things played out.
When she finally got to her hotel she texted me its location and I noticed that I was along the way to the restaurant (if you generously interpret “along the way”) so I suggested that she meet me at my hotel and we head over to dinner together. I didn’t actually expect her to be amenable to that
but she agreed. When she left she texted me that she was on her way and that she’d call me when she arrived.
We’d been texting all day every day for many days by this point but it bears mentioning that we never exchanged any voice communications prior to that night so I hadn’t heard her voice in 5 years when I took her call as I was heading down in the elevator. I didn’t remember her accent being as thick as it was in that moment, but the weight of memory is measured in units so unreliable they hardly qualify as units of measure at all.
You couldn’t enter my hotel unless you were a guest and unfortunately that was something I had completely forgotten about when I’d made this plan so she was standing right in front of the door as I approached it and that did little to assuage my raging uncertainty and self-doubt. When I got outside I didn’t go for a hug, I didn’t say she looked nice, and I certainly didn’t make the alpha move and go for a patented PhoenixDark handshake. No, instead of any of those perfectly fine things I proffered a simple hello. Fucking disgrace. It had started raining so she suggested we take a taxi to the restaurant. I agreed and sped over to one nearby without explaining myself. I’m sure all this seemed odd because she asked me if everything was alright during the drive. It wasn’t obviously but I said that it was.
There was time to kill at the restaurant before our reservation so we went to the bar to get a drink. Neither of us are particularly sonorous and the ambient noise inside was quite the opposite so in perhaps my first wise decision of the evening I opted to sit adjacent to her instead of across the table. After a fair bit of a pleasant wine (we have similar drinking habits) paired with unsteady but equally pleasant conversation (I did however utter the cursed dependent clause, “You know how Mao said the national bourgeoisie had revolutionary potential,") things finally started looking up for this shit show. When we were seated for dinner I kept the seating arrangement we’d had at the bar.
Dinner lasted 3 hours (we were asked to leave or it would have gone on longer); for the most part it went well but my personal lowlights are recounted now for posterity:
-After our entrees came out she started playing footsie with me. Instead of making eye contact to confirm what I thought was happening and leaning in to it I sort of tentatively let my leg drop to slightly touch hers. Side hugging is as much a mindset as it is a physical act.
-At one point she put her head on my on my upper bicep / shoulder and I did not react AT ALL. No words, no physical reaction, nothing. Fucking disgrace.
She kissed me when we left the restaurant and I asked her if she wanted to go back to her room or mine. This lead to a farcical quest for prophylactic for a gaiden to be posted later but eventually we got back to my room and she didn't leave until I had to get ready to check out at noon. Besides the physical intimacy I also shared things I’d always wanted to share over the last 10 years but hadn’t because I fucking suck.
I have had successes in my life, and far more than I ever deserved for a certainty, but this night was unquestionably my greatest one. The culmination of years spent in emotional exile navigating from painful decision to painful decision not knowing exactly what out I was playing towards. I’ve
kind of ironically yet kind of sincerely shared this quote before but now more than ever it seems apropos to do so again “We can do nothing more than strive for victory, even if we cannot see how we might triumph.”
