Daniel had yet to make another appearance in my dreams. At
first I was relieved because I wasn’t waking up drenched in sweat trying to rip
my underwear off, but I had kind of started looking forward to our nighttime
adventures, even if they were only in my head.
I had only traded
emails with Daniel since our last meeting. They were always business-related,
but he never failed to slide a little something personal in to it, something to
make me laugh or an anecdote about something that happened back home. His
family was planning to come out here for the show, and this was the biggest
thing to happen to them since his sister’s wedding last year, so he was keeping
me up to date on all that drama.
I couldn’t wrap
my head around what was actually happening with us. The working part of my
brain clearly identified that this was a gay man and he would not be interested
in having a romantic or purely hot sexual relationship with me. But getting
that message from my brain to my body was proving impossible. I almost asked my
cab driver to let me sit up front this morning because he wore the same cologne
as Daniel and had the same café au lait skin tone.
Thankfully I kept
my mouth shut and listened to him tell me about his four kids that were back in
India. I closed my eyes and listened to him speak. It was only halfway there
that he realized he was speaking in Hindi and apologized and switched to
English. I said back to him in Hindi, “No problem, Uncle, I understood every
word.”
He turned full
around and stared at me and almost caused us to rear-end the stopped traffic at
the light. It never ceased to amaze me how shocked Indians were when a white
person spoke Hindi. One of my friends in India described it by saying that a
white person speaking Hindi was like a horse talking to you. Ever since then I
had always felt a strange affinity with Mr. Ed when I amazed an Indian with my
language skills. I wondered what Daniel would do if I started speaking Hindi to
him? I wondered if he spoke Hindi. It was surprising how many Indians didn’t.
Many of them could understand it, but they couldn’t speak it, which I always
thought was bizarre.
Thankfully the
office was fairly quiet when I got there. Scarlett was in California drumming
up new business and had gone as far as pitching the creation of a satellite
office in LA. My hunch was she wanted to move there and was looking to create a
job to move into, not for the money, but to be able to say she was a fashion
producer. LA was all about the name dropping and the elbow rubbing, and our
company’s name at the top of her business card would go a long way toward establishing
street cred.
I stopped in the
break room and poured myself a cup of ambition (I normally had the theme song
from 9 to 5 in my head at least one morning a week). Unfortunately my
ambition leaked out of my plastic to-go cup and dribbled down the front of my
camel-colored sweater set. I had been dabbling in some vintage clothing of late—no
undergarments, just a few sweater sets and shifts. I even had a vintage sweater
clip holding it together. Now it would be tossed in a drawer since I had to
button the sweater to hide the coffee spillage.
I was still
mopping off my chest when I walked into my office and ran face first into a
sandalwood-scented chest. For a moment I just wanted to stand there and breathe
it all in, fill my lungs with that spicy scent that was unique to this one man.
But then I realized I looked like I was massaging my breasts with my napkin, as
the coffee stain had almost disappeared.
I sighed, destined
to have yet another embarrassing spill conversation. I plastered a smile on my
face and looked up from my chest but froze when I saw where he was looking.
Daniel was staring at my breasts. And not staring in that wow-there-was-something-on-those-things
kind of way, but in the yes-that-was-what-I-wanted-to-have-for-breakfast kind
of way.
In an instant I
had
first I was relieved because I wasn’t waking up drenched in sweat trying to rip
my underwear off, but I had kind of started looking forward to our nighttime
adventures, even if they were only in my head.
I had only traded
emails with Daniel since our last meeting. They were always business-related,
but he never failed to slide a little something personal in to it, something to
make me laugh or an anecdote about something that happened back home. His
family was planning to come out here for the show, and this was the biggest
thing to happen to them since his sister’s wedding last year, so he was keeping
me up to date on all that drama.
I couldn’t wrap
my head around what was actually happening with us. The working part of my
brain clearly identified that this was a gay man and he would not be interested
in having a romantic or purely hot sexual relationship with me. But getting
that message from my brain to my body was proving impossible. I almost asked my
cab driver to let me sit up front this morning because he wore the same cologne
as Daniel and had the same café au lait skin tone.
Thankfully I kept
my mouth shut and listened to him tell me about his four kids that were back in
India. I closed my eyes and listened to him speak. It was only halfway there
that he realized he was speaking in Hindi and apologized and switched to
English. I said back to him in Hindi, “No problem, Uncle, I understood every
word.”
He turned full
around and stared at me and almost caused us to rear-end the stopped traffic at
the light. It never ceased to amaze me how shocked Indians were when a white
person spoke Hindi. One of my friends in India described it by saying that a
white person speaking Hindi was like a horse talking to you. Ever since then I
had always felt a strange affinity with Mr. Ed when I amazed an Indian with my
language skills. I wondered what Daniel would do if I started speaking Hindi to
him? I wondered if he spoke Hindi. It was surprising how many Indians didn’t.
Many of them could understand it, but they couldn’t speak it, which I always
thought was bizarre.
Thankfully the
office was fairly quiet when I got there. Scarlett was in California drumming
up new business and had gone as far as pitching the creation of a satellite
office in LA. My hunch was she wanted to move there and was looking to create a
job to move into, not for the money, but to be able to say she was a fashion
producer. LA was all about the name dropping and the elbow rubbing, and our
company’s name at the top of her business card would go a long way toward establishing
street cred.
I stopped in the
break room and poured myself a cup of ambition (I normally had the theme song
from 9 to 5 in my head at least one morning a week). Unfortunately my
ambition leaked out of my plastic to-go cup and dribbled down the front of my
camel-colored sweater set. I had been dabbling in some vintage clothing of late—no
undergarments, just a few sweater sets and shifts. I even had a vintage sweater
clip holding it together. Now it would be tossed in a drawer since I had to
button the sweater to hide the coffee spillage.
I was still
mopping off my chest when I walked into my office and ran face first into a
sandalwood-scented chest. For a moment I just wanted to stand there and breathe
it all in, fill my lungs with that spicy scent that was unique to this one man.
But then I realized I looked like I was massaging my breasts with my napkin, as
the coffee stain had almost disappeared.
I sighed, destined
to have yet another embarrassing spill conversation. I plastered a smile on my
face and looked up from my chest but froze when I saw where he was looking.
Daniel was staring at my breasts. And not staring in that wow-there-was-something-on-those-things
kind of way, but in the yes-that-was-what-I-wanted-to-have-for-breakfast kind
of way.
In an instant I
had
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