Three Sets of Lips, A Comparative Study (Part 1) in Open Diary 2001-2018 (Pre-Prosebox)

What is it about lips? Whenever I’m with someone I find attractive, I seem to concentrate on them. Fixate on them. No, I barely look at the eyes. It’s the lips that capture me and hold my attention. I watch them speak. I watch how they pronounce words and annunciate. I watch them eat. I watch how they curve around a beer bottle. I wonder how they would feel pressed against me.

Last week, I had the rare opportunity to personally interact with three different sets of lips. Oh…how much heaven was I in?

Set #1: Soft. Extremely expressive. Nervous, yet curious. So far, pretty uncharted territory.

Theo called me from out of the blue. I’d written him off weeks ago because of his inability to follow through. He was always trying to make last minute plans that never ended up working out for us, so I stopped paying attention. This time he called to set a date, a time, and a place. Hm. Impressive! I decided to give it a shot.

The date was Tuesday night. The time was 8:30. And the place was one of the most romantic Italian restaurants in town! The night air was warm and perfect for sitting outside.

Conversation was nice, even though I was having a hard time destressifying from my day at work. I filled Theo in on a little bit of what’s happening in my life right now, and he came back with some of his own struggles. I don’t think I’d want to own a small business right now.

Throughout dinner, I noticed that Theo was looking at me a little differently than our previous times we’d met. He kept telling me how much fun he was having and that we should see each other more often. He also gave me a little bit of a ribbing about the New Year’s Eve fiasco (which I deserved!). It was all in fun, and I had a really good time.

After dinner, he walked me to my car. And ever so cutely, he gave me a peck on the lips. I could tell that he was nervous about it, and I smiled. So he came back with another one. And I smiled again.

And it was nice. I think I’ll see him again.

Set #2: Aggressive and self-assured. Slightly pushy, but never forceful. Experimental. Borderline cocky….but irresistible. Mixed with a bit of angst. Just when you want to back away from them, they somehow manage to keep you there. Like an incredibly fattening dessert that you can’t resist—you’re in ecstasy while you’re eating it, but you feel a little guilty and ashamed that you ate the whole thing afterwards.

Thursday night was Ethan night. Third date. He was picking me up at my place. I had in inkling where this could possibly go, but I wasn’t really mentally prepared for it. We went to a pretty cool little bar of my choice (had to be careful because he hasn’t really liked my choices the last couple of times), and he seemed to really like it. Casual. Relaxed. Good.

As we were waiting for a table outside, we bellied up to the bar and had a few beers and started in on the stories. I explained my eternal clumsiness, and he shared equally funny stories and then he told me some great band stories that just cracked me up.

Finally, our table was ready and we were seated outside in a dark, romantic corner. Everything went so smoothly! I don’t think I spazzed too much with the overtalking, and the food was good, and he had me laughing just as hard as I possibly could.

And then the lips took over. Yum. Had a whole lotta lip action for dessert. I literally melted. He asked me if I minded the public display of affection, even though we were sort of tucked away into a corner. Mind? Hell no. I love hand-holding and kissing and all that stuff. Now, I don’t really like to go all crazy with it in front of a lot of people when it’s inappropriate, but I simply gush when a guy shows me affection in public. It makes me feel like he’s proud to be with me, and that he really, really likes me.

The place had pretty much cleared out by then anyway, and it was getting late. So he drove me back to my place. It was just a given that he would come in and have a nightcap. Once inside, I got us some wine. He’d already gone into the entertainment cabinet and started rummaging through my CDs to pick out some music. That’s fine, but he obviously doesn’t know that as a Scorpio, I don’t really like someone to just start opening closed doors and looking through drawers and such. Not that I have anything to hide, mind you…but as a Scorp, I just felt the teensiest bit of violation for him not asking first.

Plus, you have to understand the intimidation that I felt while he was looking at my CDs. He’s a friggin’ groovy record label owner, people!! And I own more than one George Michael CD! And I still have that INXS CD from college! And don’t forget The Best of Bread!! Sheesh.

But it’s not just the fact that he went into that cabinet. He did it elsewhere too. He helped himself to stuff in my fridge and went into cabinets in the bathroom and just did whatever he pleased. And seriously…I don’t mind it when my friends do that. It’s just that he’s never, ever been here before, and I don’t know if I really wanted to open myself up to him like that so soon. You know, it’s almost as if he was prying. I’m sure he was just trying to get a sense of who I am…but I want him to see the outside right now. I’m not ready to show him the inside.

Oh well. Those lips just smiled and came back to the couch and started in on me, and I smiled back and let myself enjoy. And they didn’t stop until five (that’s right), FIVE in the morning!! At which time, he brought to my attention the fact that I would only get one hour of sleep and that I was probably going to be really pissed at him all day on Friday.

I asked him to stay until I got up to get ready for work, but he told me that he couldn’t. He told me he’d probably call me Sunday because he had a show that night and the big production on Saturday night. So I got a few more kisses and then he was out the door.

Friday was a struggle. In many ways.

(Lips, to be continued)