The One - No one said it would be easy

by Goldsmith, J. F.

  The day of the date I spent wrestling with the constantly recurring challenge of “What the hell should I wear?!” I eventually decided on a most peculiar outfit: dark brown suede trousers (all the rage back then), dark brown polo neck worn underneath a white-and-blue chequered, much too big men’s shirt, and a dark brown V-neck sweater over the top. (From a file called “How come I still know this?”) Remember: the more you ponder about what to wear, the more idiotic the result. I was so nervous, the excitement made me feel sick. At the agreed time of evening I was waiting for him at the agreed street corner. When he drove up in his dark colored Golf (oh cool, he has his own car, I thought, at that age a not unimportant fact), I felt even sicker. I got in; he welcomed me with a wide grin. We drove to a pub in the nearest bigger town and chatted. The stream of subjects to talk about kept on flowing – an infallible sign that it fits. There’s nothing worse than those embarrassing moments of silence during a first date, and your head awash with thoughts of panic like: “Um, a kingdom for a subject! A kingdom for a subject! What else can I ask him? Quick, come on, I need an idea!” We had none of that. It all went swimmingly. We sat on a bench next to each other, facing each other. I had a stiff neck and my back was seizing up from sitting so crookedly, but no way did I want to miss even one moment and so I put up with this spine-twistingly disastrous seating arrangement with total devotion. There was a live band but I missed it completely, I was so captivated by our conversation.

  On the way home we spontaneously decided to make a nighttime excursion to a sunflower field. There, he picked some of the giant yellow plants for me. Bright moonlight, night, silence, sunflowers, this wonderful young guy – it was all perfect. It would have been the ideal moment to make love in-between sunflower stalks in the silvery light of the moon, sighing towards the approaching dawn. But, even though I was a hopelessly girlie girl, this was too much even for me. Even I thought the moment was just too corny, and so I remained sober, reserved and distant, just so that we would not even get close to a first-kiss situation. Number Five drove me home. In his ice-cold car, we sat and talked for over an hour. On the outside, I was shivering with cold, but on the inside I was burning up, and we arranged to meet again in two days’ time. Our farewell was quite unromantic, in spite of the lovely evening. I was suddenly full of panic, like I always am when I can feel the first kiss lurking in the wings, and so, with a quick “Bye, thanks” I bolted from the car. But I hadn’t bargained for Number Five’s extremely fast reaction capacity. He jumped out of the car, held me, hugged me and planted the obligatory “kiss-kiss right and left” on my cheeks. Simultaneously perplexed and relieved that it wasn’t a real kiss with tongue and everything, I disappeared through my front door. Phew! I made it! Of course I wanted to kiss him. And I was so in love I could burst. But somehow, that night it was all just too much for me. I was quite overwhelmed by all those beautiful things that were happening to me.

  Next morning I woke up with one of those warm melting-chocolate-sweet-velvety butterflies-violins-floaty happy feelings in my stomach, that everyone knows who has just entered the wonderful, happy start-up phase of a great love affair. Everything feels like it’s wrapped in candy floss. It was autumn break and I could surrender completely to my candy floss world of feelings. The time to our next date passed in endless misery and impatience and longing strained my nerves.

  Then, finally, I was standing in front of his door, excited as anything. We were meeting at his house to cook a meal together. He was twenty-two and he still lived at home, but luckily his parents were away and so didn’t get in our way. I had brought recipe and ingredients, and we got started. Most of the time we giggled and messed about, how we ever managed to prepare this feast remains a mystery to this day. When the food was prepared, I found that I had no appetite even though I was quite hungry. I was so excited, I felt sick. My stomach rumbled but I couldn’t manage more than a few bites. I was hot, my face was burning. We both sat there with plates of steaming hot food in front of us, neither of us had an appetite, both prodding about half-heartedly with our forks. Instead of eating, we beamed at each other, we giggled and were terribly silly. The wine, eagerly refilled in large glasses, contributed further to our exuberance. I tried to retain some composure so that I would not lose the plot all together. I felt completely plastered and completely overwhelmed by the heat, the excitement, the rumbling in my stomach, and being so in love. In the end we left the food to itself and set out for his room in the attic. There, totally befuddled from all that wine, we sank down on his dark brown 1970s corduroy settee.

  We sat next to each other, virtuously. We turned towards each other; I rested my elbow on the wide armrest, very nonchalantly, as did my Number Five. We kept talking. I had a hard time trying to keep my facial features under control, what with all the wine and the silliness, they seemed to slide sideways constantly, at least that’s what it felt like. It was a miracle I didn’t go cross-eyed. He seemed to have acquired a wide-mouthed frog grin and his eyes were quite small, like he’d converted to 16:9 widescreen format. Out of it as I was, I still realized that today, there would be no escape. The first kiss was in the air, the tension concerning the exact moment when our mouths should finally collide was unbearable. And then, after all, we managed to have one of those: the embarrassing moment of silence. No giggling, no silliness, nothing more to say. I heard myself mutter: “Oh yes, the wine, yes-yes the wine...” and then we kissed. Just like that. We kissed. Accompanied by inaudible inner sighs, relief flooded me. The tension had just been unbearable. This slow-motion moving towards each other, ensnaring and closing in on the prey right up to the cathartic first kiss – every time, it wreaks havoc with your nerves. And I was relieved that the kiss was top-notch, bombastic and wonderful. Wow, he’s a great kisser, thank God! The only somewhat irritating thing was his facial expression. At kissing distance, he suddenly looked weird. Like a stoned and grinning Pekinese. Do I look this naff when I kiss, I asked myself, vaguely alarmed. But then, I simply closed my eyes again – I didn’t want to destroy this beautiful moment by hallucinating about Pekineses. You’re supposed to close your eyes during a decent kissing session, right? And maybe that’s exactly it. We all look so completely naff when we kiss, and even worse during sex, that the order of the day is simply to close your eyes and hope for the best, darling! Since the Pekinese was such an excellent kisser, who cared about those little outer shortcomings?

  And how wonderful he smelled, the Pekinese! That’s another one of those criteria for the success of a love affair. When someone’s scent practically drives me mental, when I’d love nothing better than to crawl right into him, that’s when it’s worthwhile to carry on. These orgies of scent-headedness are particularly intense in bed, first thing in the morning. That’s when, if I’m in bed with Mr. Right, the smell of him just makes me melt, the smell of sleep, of warm body and of massive amounts of oxytocin, the love hormone, against which I am entirely powerless – it’s like a love drug. During kissing, Mr. Right secretes an extra-portion of this just below the tip of his nose. Dear guys, forget about Spanish Fly and all that expensive mail-order-pheromone nonsense. When you’re with the right woman, you’ve got the required aphrodisiac already built in, as an off-the-shelf standard. Number Five and I made ourselves comfortable on the brown settee, messed about with each other with great enthusiasm and kissed until we were sore. We didn’t sleep together yet, though. Sadly, at some stage I had to go home. I may have floated home on the wings of bliss.

  Next day I went on a surprise visit to his place. He was in the middle of washing up and clearing away last night’s mess in the kitchen. The way he stood there in front of me – he opened the door, in sweatshirt and slobbing-around sweatpants, visibly embarrassed to be seen in this outfit – I lost my heart to him for good. He was so unbelievably sweet, how he looked at me so sheepishly, wearing his slobby old sweatshirt. We immediately started kissing again, and even without red-wine-induced anesthesia the kisses were perfect. And from then on in
, Number Five and I were madly in love and a happy couple.

  We took our time before we did it for the first time, even though we were both as horny as a toad. The main reason was that, modern, responsible and aware of the facts of life as the young generation was at the time, we wanted to sleep together without protection. We just weren’t keen on using a condom – we wanted to do it “properly”. So we needed an HIV test, which was de rigueur at the time, even though the chances of either of us having to worry about a positive outcome were negligibly minimal. But – better safe than sorry. We didn’t dare go to a clinic and so chose the chicken-option: we went to give blood. I bet that some eighty-seven percent of all young people give blood purely to get an automatic screening for unwelcome pathogens. If anything were out of the ordinary, the blood donor centre would be in touch pretty smartly. If they weren’t, you could assume all was well, you didn’t have to pay anything and you literally received Coca Cola and biscuits by the bucketful AND had done your bit for society. Even if you have no reason to expect a bad outcome, somehow everybody is shit-scared of these tests. Your brain runs an anxiety-inducing loop of “what if?” and each time you promise yourself that you will never, EVER, be so stupid again, and that you’ll never do it without a condom again.

  Since processing the donated specimens takes a few weeks, we had to pass the intervening period without in-and-out sex until such time as we were certain that all was well. For weeks we cuddled and messed about and petted like crazy and invented something called “extreme-rubbing-technique”. Number Five, fully clothed, would lie on top of me (who was also fully clothed), between my legs, and we’d copulate with all our clothes on, by rubbing wildly against each other. This gave both of us great orgasms. And again I was quite irritated by his facial expression during sex: the Pekinese came out of its kennel again. There was nothing for it but to close my eyes again, and after a while I found that I’d gotten used to his sex-face.

  When at long last the blood test results arrived (everything was OK), we were finally able to put all those dry practice runs to good use. There were no big surprises in store anymore, since we’d already known each other for a while, had closely examined each square inch of each other’s bodies and had quite a few orgasms to our name. Number Five had a beautiful body, graceful rather than beefy muscular, he was the only man I ever knew who voluntarily used body lotion after each shower. His skin was super soft. He even used a nail buffer to keep his fingernails in prime condition. He was certainly a forerunner with regard to metrosexuality – a term that hadn’t even been invented yet. Apart from his mane of curly hair and the obligatory leg hair, Number Five was devoid of body hair. I thought that was super, because back then I wasn’t enamored with those bear-like guys covered with chest fur. He had a wonderful sweet little butt and a beautiful cock. His cock was just right for me: not too big, not too small, not too thick and not too thin. He hadn’t been circumcised and I especially loved that little pointy hat.

  Apropos: A bit of penis talk

  There seems to be one hell of a lot of fuss about this subject. What I’ve found during the course of my own experience is that I prefer uncircumcised specimens. Provided they are kept clean, of course. But that’s the same with the other kind, too. Even a circumcised willy, however fetchingly streamlined in appearance, can’t win if it isn’t presented nicely clean and tidy. Anyway, I prefer pointy-hat-willies. Especially as they are practically indistinguishable from the circumcised model once they are erect. Pointy-hat-willies are, in my humble opinion, much easier to handle during sex. They are much easier to get a grip on by hand, and even blowjobs are much easier when you can play with the little hat. They are incredibly sensitive and react much stronger to each touch. As for the circumcised variety, on the other hand, you could be plugging away for an eternity, regardless of whether you’re using your hand or your mouth or even if you’re screwing. Lockjaw or RSI of the wrist as well as a sore Garden of Eden are most likely the result of sexual interaction with circumcised men.

  Man may well argue that we ladies simply ought to put a bit more effort into our labors of love. However, according to my own experiences and, according to my field research, those of my female friends, the actual duration of a sexual encounter is entirely overrated. OK, it’s kind of naff if he comes in three minutes flat. But what’s much much worse is an endless marathon of banging and fiddling about with a zillion unnecessary changes of position. I, the woman, have to be able to concentrate on coming, and that’s damn near impossible if screwing turns into some kind of amateur acrobatics. Plus, after some ten minutes of in-and-out, it actually starts to get most unpleasant. I think one can and should just get down to it. After all, you wouldn’t dangle a nice slice of Sunday roast in front of your nose for twenty minutes before biting into it!

  For all those reasons, the circumcised willy is an acquired taste. Due to the missing little hat it is so desensitized that it’ll take forever to come. And, don’t forget that, if you do it by hand with a topless willy, you have to ensure there is sufficient moisture available, otherwise you’ll hurt him and / or the entire up-and-down rubbing action won’t work properly. And if you don’t have a tube of lubrication to hand, you have to use your own. And frankly, after a while, spitting into your own hands every five minutes kind of loses its appeal! With pointy-hat-penises on the other hand, those little skin hats act as a built-in lubricant and the whole thing works exceedingly well.

  A word or two about penis size…Despite all protestations to the contrary: yes, size matters. It matters a great deal, in fact! Just like gentlemen have varying preferences with regard to the size of female bosoms, we have such preferences regarding men’s privates. If anyone tells you different, they’re lying. The appeal of the big boobs on a Rubens woman is entirely different from the appeal of the small buds on a skinny fashion model. And just like there are those who adore Rubens women, there are also those who adore skinny models. Same with penises. A miniature penis has a completely different feel to it than a giant cucumber. And there are women who adore sweet little penises as well as those who adore the XXL-versions. And that’s why size matters. My own idea of perfection lies in the middle. Not too big and not too small, not too thin and not too thick. Unfortunately, I can’t manage with tiny little willies, they are just not sexy to me. Neither do I like huge penises, they just hurt instead of giving pleasure. Of course size isn’t everything. Most important is that man knows how to handle his thing. A guy with a tiny willy should just perfect his other qualities (lips, tongue, fingers, hands...) and a guy with a giant spear should learn to use it very gently indeed.

  Number Five continued:

  So – for me, Number Five was a stroke of luck. Our love life was perfect and very harmonious. We were crazy in love and we made each other really happy. Sadly, to start with, “perfect” wasn’t how one would have described my digestive system. Another one of those things! Without wanting to gross people out with details of digestive matters, having to go to the toilet is a nerve-wrecking event, especially at the beginning of a relationship, requiring MacGyver-like qualities. This was especially bad with Number Five, because I was so in love that my stomach was in a terrible state anyway. I was hardly able to eat and my entire stomach region was mightily a-grumble all the time. Naturally it wasn’t possible to engage in activities that would potentially relieve my bellyache while I was with him. This meant that I struggled with immense pain in belly and stomach and was always pleased to be back home alone, so that I could finally go to the toilet.

  There can’t be anything more embarrassing than to fart in front of your beloved. This happened to me with Number Five, and immediately I jumped up, ran to the window, threw it open, yelled at my boyfriend to get out of the room, in my panic managed to swipe a picture off the wall and fled back under the blankets, face burning with shame. Number Five found the entire episode greatly amusing. I am also embarrassed by the sounds you hear from the bathroom. This is especially bad if the bathroom is right ne
xt to the bedroom. Meanwhile I have some tricks up my sleeve, like leaving the water run in washbasin or shower. And the best remedy for potential smells is still a blown-out match. What I absolutely cannot understand is those couples who have no shame with regard to digestive activities. Peeing with the door open, or, even worse, doing the other? Or doing any of that while your beloved is in the bathroom with you? That’s an absolute no-no for any relationship! Lock it away in the relationship poisons cabinet, with ten skulls and crossbones painted on the door! Wrapped in three extra strong iron chains, secured with a five-ways kryptonite lock. There are some things best done alone. Even within a relationship, there are rituals that ought to be kept in a secret singles locker. Amongst those things to be executed alone, on small islands of solitude, are: going to the toilet, cutting your toenails, trimming your beard, squeezing your spots, and any other unappetizing matters of personal hygiene.