I Smell A Lemon

I took slow and steady steps toward the door. I couldn’t exactly remember what he looked like. You know how that goes. You’re smitten and for a few minutes after parting ways, his image is filling your mind. The dark brown eyes with a tempting twinkle. The firm hand that gently and playfully touched my forearm during a moment of the conversation. The cute way his mouth curled more to the right than the left when he smiled a devilish grin. But after a few days, characteristics melded together and suddenly I was stuck with a faceless man, hoping and praying I hadn’t had one too many cocktails the first time we mingled and accidentally found an unattractive person erroneously attractive.

“Hey there,” he said as I opened the door and welcomed the handsome stranger into my superficially clean place.

I stammered out an apology for my appearance, suddenly feeling awkward and self conscious.

“Sorry about the glasses. Had to take my contacts out. Oh, and the ponytail. I look so Debbie Gibso…”

My reference to the 1980’s teen queen was gobbled up mid-sentence by his mouth pressing up against mine. I found myself backed up against the wall with my front door wide open. It was late so my neighbors, half of which are deaf anyway, were probably sleeping. Nonetheless, I fumbled mid-kiss to kick the door with a flip-flop clad foot. If Mrs. Rosenberg two doors down had a heart attack, it wasn’t going to be from seeing the hussy in unit 201 going at it in her doorway.

“Do you want some strawberries?” I asked ten minutes into the first kiss.

“Huh?”

And there it was. The past stepping on the present. Ex loved when I cut up strawberries and made whipped cream from scratch. We never introduced either in the bedroom, so I’m not sure how or why I thought it was relevant to prepare them for Fling. But I did.

“I just thought you might be hungry,” I lamely offered. He passed on the dessert spread and led me out of the kitchen.

Before making our way to my bedroom, I decided to check the bottom line. I got down on my knees and with him standing in front of me I started to undo his belt. Correction, I struggled to undo his belt. Who the fuck puts a belt on at 11:30pm on a weeknight to run over to some girl’s house where the only intentions are to have sex? Okay, I would but I’m a girl. Oh my god. He’s gay. Only gay men accessorize after sunset. While I struggled to figure out if I was about to bag my second gay man, Fling reached down to help me, explaining the belt had a temperament of its own. I suddenly felt like a novice.

With the belt finally unbuckled, I resumed my actions. I undid his button and slowly lowered the zipper, my eyes gazing up at his. He was anxious and excited. I know he found the pace of my zipper pulling to be a tease but I was just scared I’d accidentally injure him if I, well, just think of that scene in Something About Mary. I’d rather take my time than have to drop a guy off at the ER with his pecker jammed in between the teeth of a zipper.

Two seconds later, his pants fell to the floor and there in front of me was everything in plain view. No tighty whities. No boxers. Nothing. Okay, let me get this straight, he took the time to belt up but passed on the underwear? It didn’t make sense. Then again, I was sporting a scrunchy. Who was I to start passing judgment?

I looked up at him and smiled a big devilish smile. This was good. Very good. In a Goldilocks evaluation, it was big but not too big, thick but not too thick and well landscaped. Now God, I beg of you, please let him know what to do with it!

“Can you smell that?” he asked.

“I’m sorry?” I replied. Was my candle setting the place on fire? Did I just unknowingly fart and get busted?

He took my head and pushed it between his legs and repeated the words, this time adding pheromones at the end. With my nose firmly pressed up against the penis I'd moments earlier adored, the only thing I could smell was yet another lemon. I started to pull my head back when he arrogantly said, “What, you can’t handle it?”

“Can you handle showing yourself to the door?” I inquired.

Suddenly his hands dropped off my head and the color drained from his face. It took him two seconds to recover from my offer to show him out. Then he apologized. He was caught up in the moment, muddling his past with the present. Now he was the one stammering. Yes, shoving a woman's face against your private parts and telling her to take a whiff is more offensive than my gesture of offering strawberries. Nonetheless, I wanted to salvage the chemistry that remained.

I got up off my knees, adjusted my glasses, delicately kissed him on the lips and then suggested we start over.