This sounds like a sound strategy to me.

This sounds like a sound strategy to me.

When you're dating someone new, do you consider yourself to be more of a...


1. Fly by the seat of your pants type? Just doing whatever feels right as your dates progresses.


2. Careful evaluator? Considering each step along the dating path before determining where you are willing to go next?


Or


3. Procedure observer? Using what you believe are tried and true rules of engagement to keep things moving at the pace you prefer.

For those women who won't call men, do you email him if he gives you his email address? Do you text him if he gives you his number?

Fantasy huh? Well I thought I would paint it as a scenario within a much larger portrait.... although it came off rather long I'm afraid.

There she is, coming home from work, tired and annoyed at a particularly frustrating day. The weather is just being a beast, and her clients just seem especially frustrating these last few days. But it's Friday, and that means the weekend, hopefully spent not thinking about figures and sales or how one of her employees ear hair clumps are starting to look like Chewbacca making an escape from an ice cave on Hoth, but instead what her totally awesome husband/boyfriend has planned. (and he better not say Lord of the Rings trilogy because otherwise he will be explaining to St. Peter how he ended up there so suddenly or unexpectedly)

She opens and unlocks the door stepping inside and calling out, with no response returned. "All alone" she thinks and walks over to the couch and kicks her shoes off and sits down exhaustedly, leaning back and letting out a long, tired and slightly disappointed sigh. "Whatever happened to being swept off your feet when you walk in the door?" she mumbles, feeling her neck crack as she relaxes.

Suddenly hands and arms slide up over her worn shoulders and down her body, encircling her and hugging her from behind and over the couch. Startled she jumps, but quickly gathers herself recognizing the tender embrace and to whom it belongs to. "How long have you been there?" she says, craning her head up and back to receive a delicate kiss, followed by a deeper one that draws the breath from her. "Long enough" is the reply given by myself between kisses, smiling as she playfully punches my shoulder. I break off the kisses and start rubbing her shoulders and neck, feeling her sigh with relief and arch forward, letting my hands dance over her aching muscles and with a touch wipe away the stiffness.

One of my hands disengages briefly, reaching behind myself, and returns wrapping again around her and presents a bouquet of flowers before her softening eyes, which brighten considerably, followed by a large smile. "What is the occasion o' bearer of flowers?" she giggles as she takes them softly, breathing in their sweet scent. "Don't tell me you forgot?" I teasingly chide her. She looks up quizzically, thinking maybe she did forget something... but I offer her another deeper kiss and whisper against her lips "It's I-Love-You-More-Than-Anything day... don't you remember?" She giggles again at my ridiculous humor and gives me a raspberry, "You are a royal dork" she laughs. "And don't you forget it" I remind her.

I let go of her shoulders and walk around the couch, pulling up a chair and reaching down and pulling her feet up into my lap, starting to massage them and inquire about her day. "So how did it go? Did you manage to not kill anybody?" She tells me about the work load, and about some of her annoying clients and some of the insane things they do, she talks about her employees and how much she loves them , despite how much sometimes she wants to strangle a few of them. She smiles and leans back arching happily as my hands rub her feet and legs and massage the soreness from them. I calmly look at her and ask, "Did Chewbacca escape yet? Or is he still struggling..?" she blurts out laughing at that and tries to contain herself to little avail. "No... I'm not sure even the force can help him in a situation like this." I bend down and kiss her leg, and slowly kiss up her shin, feeling her jump slightly at the touch. She smiles at me, and I return it easily, then she continues talking about her day as I work over her feet and legs some more, listening to her joys and frustrations, commenting little and letting her vent and release the stress from within, as I work on the physical part of it.

Finally I stand and offer my hand, she takes it happily and I help her rise to her feet. She laughs as I lead her to the backyard, and invite her to our patio table covered by a cloth. "I first thought we might go out to dinner, but we do that all the time as is, and there is always tomorrow... then I thought about making you dinner, but you know how I am in the kitchen..." she laughs at that. "So instead I went to the store and picked up a bunch of fresh fruit." I pull back the cloth and reveal bowls and plates of assorted strawberries, watermelon, oranges, grapes, apples, kiwi and other assorted fruits of every color you can name, all arranged in the shapes of hearts, smiling faces, and the words 'I love you' spelled out with cherries, followed by our names. "Oh my god you are such a dork" she laughs. "Fruit for a romantic dinner? That’s a new one!" "It is healthier!" I proclaim... "But it is not romantic yet..." I pull out some candles from the side then, and start lighting them as she tries to control her laughter. And then we eat, and talk, about lots of silly things, and important things. I feed her strawberries and she throws grapes at me and we laugh and rejoice together, because of course there is no where each of us would rather be.

"The only bad thing about all this fruit, is now we are all sticky" she laughs accusing me sarcastically. "Let's go for a swim!" I tell her, and take her hand pulling her up and start walking toward the pool. "It is getting late!" she laughs, and we would have to change into our swimsuits... "To hell with that!" I laugh, removing my clothes down to my skivvies quickly. "No one can see us, it is our pool, our backyard, and we have no neighbors!" I jump in the pool and motion for her to join me... she hesitates laughing, but then looking around cautiously just to make sure, then scanning the sky for military drones, or CBS news doing a scoop on people striping in their backyards to go for evening swims. After a bit more thinking she shrugs and discards her work clothes into a heap and in a laughing fit cannonballs into the pool next to me. For the next few hours we laugh and play and talk and joke. We swim and splash each other well into the night... our roughhousing and fun, being replaced by closeness and cuddling. As the night overtakes us, our underclothes join the others. We hold each other at the shallower side of the pool, staring into each other eyes, mesmerized by these moments.... we embrace and I kiss her neck as she leans back her hand in my hair, her mouth silently whispering my name as my own mouth calls out hers between lips against soft skin. I take her there and she takes me, our bodies on a voyage into a white explosion of sensations... I hear her pleasure, and she cries out my name, and it is nothing but beautiful music rhythmically echoing through my ears. Her nails run down my back and her body entwines with mine and all I feel is my hollow being filling with her love as I fill her with mine. We remain entangled like so, long after we could part... loathing the idea of separation, wanting only to remain as such long into the morning. Finally we do part though, and again, I take her hand and lead her out of the pool, through the patio and into the house.... our clothing waiting until morning, the leftover fruit forgotten, until we clean it up the next day, or perhaps the day after that. We bathe then, washing each other and holding each other, our bodies and eyes saying what we feel that our lips find so unnecessary to speak.

Finally we find ourselves in front of the fireplace barely dry, our hair still wet, hers a mess, yet she has never looked more lovely to me, wrapped in a blanket, pressed tightly to each other. We each hold a goblet of wine, which we share with each other instead of drinking our own. Her fingers trace over my lips, down my chin, and further down my neck... my hands trail down her shoulder, across her arm, and down the side of her body... We spend the night there.... talking to each other with our eyes and bodies... sharing our dreams with each other, and creating new ones.

Tomorrow perhaps we will go to the beach. After all, there is still Saturday and Sunday to go.