Welcome to another tale from the vaults of my ‘virgin’ three months of online dating. This experience occurred bang up against meeting The Ultimate Man Child, as you will soon see. Looking back, I feel a mix of embarrassment, curiosity and relief about how things panned out with this guy. Read on for the juicy details.
“When you smile, you look so friendly but otherwise you look so standoffish. Reminds me of myself.”
Intriguing words texted to me at Plenty of Fish. Dave was brash and confident with a smile a mile wide in two photos, bordering on a grimace, and in one – my favourite – he looked serious, sexy and dangerous. It might have helped that he was slightly unshaven and wearing a baseball cap.
Right from the start, Dave set himself apart from most men. He told me that he was a marital aids salesman specialising in the northern suburbs and targeting single mums. I guffawed and half-believed him but he came clean immediately and confessed it was his dream job, but actually he sold solar panels.
Direct marketing was his euphemism. “Not for nothing have I worked 20 years in direct marketing,” was a phrase I’d hear several times. Dave felt this made him a student of life and a keen observer of humanity. I sensed his confidence not only in himself and his own charms, but in his ability to read other people.
He was correct in picking me out as an introvert but that came later.
First we messaged lightly about this and that and soon arrived at his goal: sex. Dave wanted it, regularly and with no strings attached. He was 40 years old, separated and out on the hunt. His user name, when said fast, was an obscenity. He had a sense of humour and, apart from the hint of menace in his eyes, a persistence that enticed me to discover more.
I was fairly open to the idea of casual sex. I’d never had it or done it and that very fact alone made it seem a challenge worth exploring. I couldn’t quite get my head around how I’d do it with an absolute stranger but I was content to explore the idea and come to the nitty gritty when it arrived panting on my doorstep.
We both agreed that we had to meet to see if we actually fancied each other in real life. I suspect that Dave would have happily skipped this step, but he was gracious – and mature – enough to humour me and agree to a coffee date one weekday morning.
The air was still misty and the outdoor tables at a local cafe wet with dew when we arrived at opening time. I spotted him immediately and was surprised at his great height. He swooped down to embrace me with self-assurance and a kiss on the cheek as if we’d known each other for years.
As we headed outside waiting for our drinks (he’d insisted on paying), he patted the seat next to him and within seconds his hand was resting on my knee. It slid perilously close to my crotch and I looked at it alarmingly. He grinned wolfishly and we continued with humorously light conversation.
We seemed to click and so we moved smoothly to stage two of the plan: head out to our cars for a practice smooching session. I’d obviously passed round one of the test. I was going along for the ride more than anything. I liked him, but I didn’t really like him. He didn’t make my heart skip or intrigue me with his witty conversation or draw me in with an enticing body. He was amusing and it was quite pleasantly unexpected to be desired by a classic Alpha Male.
The car park behind the cafe was deserted. He leaned against my dusty little car and I stood calmly in front of him, then reached up to put my arms around his neck. We started kissing. It was nice, I won’t deny that, but there were no fireworks. He was gentle and reserved. His large hands sought out my waist and my bottom and his arms entwined me. I held myself back and when I question why that was, I think that I was slightly afraid of him, slightly unsettled and lacking in confidence.
I think this was because he was only the second man close to my age that I’d kissed since being single.
The others had been much younger and I’d felt an unconscious superiority, at least in maturity and probably, experience. Being a cougar had certain advantages. But it was also about attitude and sexual conquest. Dave felt like a predator; he oozed sexuality as a strong male scent – like a skunk marking its territory.
After the kiss ended he pulled back, put his hands on my shoulders and announced, while holding my gaze, “I’m going to make you an offer. I’m prepared to go down on you next time we meet.”
What was I to say to this? Thank you? Oh that’s so kind of you? Wow, you’d do me such a favour?!
I was speechless but I did manage an embarrassed laugh and a thank you. We kissed some more although delivery vans and other customers started arriving. This time when we pulled apart, Dave asked me if I wanted to get into the car to continue.
The dilemma I faced was enclosed in a microsecond. Do I continue this pleasurable activity with a newly met stranger in the confines of my car, but in the relative safety of this public place? Or do I find a way to break away and make excuses? I was undecided about what I wanted. I suspect I was a little like a rabbit in his headlights. I took a chance and said yes, and we both tumbled into my back seat.
Dave was so tall that his head nudged the roof and his legs crammed against the driver’s seat. We started kissing again and suddenly, he had unbuckled his belt and jeans and pushed them down, with his boxers, around his ankles.
“Want to have a play?” he grinned unswervingly.
It had all happened so quickly that I was taken off guard, not only at the impromptu offer but at the size of what was being proffered! My god man, I felt like saying, how can you bear to display that puny thing? He’d shaved his pubic hair, probably in an effort to make it look larger.
By this stage he’d become a little hot and steamy and had wrested his hand into my bra and I have to admit it felt good. We hadn’t really stopped kissing, except for when he paused to flicker his tongue against my nipple and admire my breasts. I’d felt obliged to bring his cock to life and although I was still holding something back, I was also feeling very sexual and, I admit, extremely desired and desirable. Sometimes a man can do this and it’s balm for a bruised ego.
As we proceeded, laughing occasionally at the fact that we were in the backseat of my car like a couple of teenagers, Dave kept trying to aggressively thrust his hand between my legs. Each time I’d push it away and I felt his resistance and strength as I did so. He made a joke out of my continuing opposition and it was this that made me realise – in some hovering part of my intellect – that, actually, he could be dangerous, he could force himself on me. I could be raped.
This realisation lasted only a fraction of a second and then he was reaching climax. He panted, grimaced and almost howled in orgasmic release. I sat pressed in his clutches and, again, a part of me coolly observed his explosive discharge. He seemed to have needed that. I’d never seen anyone make themselves so vulnerable to someone who was almost a stranger. The incongruity of our circumstances did not escape me. I would have had my mouth open in shock had it not been held firmly to his.
After he’d cleaned himself up with some tissues I was relieved to find, Dave settled back into a quiet embrace. He held me from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder and we stayed like that, quiet and laying back against the seat, as he stroked me. That was the nicest part of this experience. He held me in silence and I felt as if, on some level, we’d connected as humans.
We parted in a friendly way and I was careful to be non-committal because I knew that I needed time to process what had occurred. I’d acted on autopilot, estranged from my feelings and that interested me on an intellectual level. I’d been coerced, most definitely, but I’d also acted willingly – because what? I’d felt obliged to go through with things once he’d bared his nether regions? I’d been interested in kissing him and some light sex play but there was no way I was up for serious sexual intimacy on the back seat of my car in broad daylight in a public place. I’d firmly rejected his suggestion of a blow job (who did he think he was?!)
If I delve deeply, I can admit that I felt it was the ‘adult’ thing to do. As a mature adult I was very used to sex in all its shapes and forms and it seemed somehow churlish or prudish of me to withhold my touch and access to my body. It didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t signed up for what happened in my car that morning. Or that I had the right to say no, and push him off when he repeatedly ignored my boundaries. But I didn’t blame Dave for being opportunistic and pushing the envelope. That’s what men do, after all. Or some men.
I didn’t feel any desire to contact him that afternoon. I needed time to think over my actions and his actions and his offer. (Not the amusing offer of oral sex, but the subtext of that, which was naked, private and probably penetrative sex). Mid-afternoon he texted me an effusive bunch of compliments and I could see that, unwittingly, I’d drawn him in. He wanted to return the favour. He wanted to be in my bed very soon. “You are a beautiful, sexy, sensual woman,” he told me.
Later that night I decided to come clean. I told Dave by text that I was feeling vulnerable and slightly intimidated. That, after two decades of marriage, the prospect of intercourse with someone felt like losing my virginity all over again. I’d been emotionally prepared to do it before, with another man, but it hadn’t worked out as planned.
I was taking a risk in baring my underbelly to Dave but he responded as I’d subconsciously hoped he might. He was kind. He was gentle and reassuring. He asked to take control. He wanted to pleasure me and his desire to do this seemed both genuine and intriguing.
I told Dave that I needed time, and he gave me time. He said he wouldn’t pressure me and he stuck to his word. We chatted each evening over the next fortnight and then one night I impulsively texted him, “I’m ready.”
He was the cat who’d got the cream! He was solicitous and keen for the following week, as we planned and discussed options and felt mutually frustrated when an opportunity that suited us both did not arrive. He made jokes about going down on me in the disabled toilets at my work. He needed to fit me into his working day and I needed to fit him around my busy life as a working mum with 100% custody. And neither of us wanted to rush the experience.
We found a day that suited us both. Each in our own ways we began the silent countdown. I can’t speak for Dave but I felt trepidation, a slight uncertainty and a glowing anticipation. I’d wanted that sexual fulfilment and now I was finally going to get it! I’d already had enough of frustration and guys who didn’t deliver.
But then things with James escalated up a notch. I’d been chatting with them both (along with several others) simultaneously, but the relationship with James took me by surprise. Feeling slightly disappointed, but knowing I was doing the right thing, I’d texted Dave. I gave him almost a week’s notice of my cancellation. I explained that I’d met someone, that we were serious and that I was being exclusive with him. I was high on new relationship energy and didn’t give too much thought to what I was fairly sure was just a sexual conquest for Mr Divorcé Dave.
At first he took this graciously and politely but over the coming week I received a barrage of disgruntled messages questioning my decision, my courtesy and my reasons. I opted not to respond after the first message back to him that apologised, again, and wished him well.
A couple of weeks later, as I sat by the winter’s fire nursing a bruised and battered heart, I received a cryptic message from Dave. “Do you know what I find really interesting? It’s that despite you being in ‘a new relationship’, you’re still on Plenty of Fish. If you didn’t want to go through with our meeting you should have just told me rather than telling me fibs.”
I was livid. The poor judgement of the recently hurt led me to fire back a response, as tears trickled down my cheeks. “I would still make the same choice because it was the right thing to do! How could I have gone ahead with a sexual liaison with you when all I could think about was him? It’s not the same as a coffee date! I stand by my decision. And you’ll be pleased to know that it didn’t last.”
Dave was surprisingly sympathetic. It turned out there was a human heart beating under the shiny veneer of his macho pride. He explained candidly to me that it had been sizably dented at my rejection of him. “But I understand now. I have closure, so thank you.”
I didn’t think there was any point in rekindling anything further with him. The way things turned out was more than likely for the best. True, I’d never know whether Dave’s stated expertise at pleasuring a woman was all brag and boast, or based on reality. True, it could have been fun.
But what remains unknown is whether, in the privacy of my bedroom, he would have coerced me – or even forced me – beyond my consensual limits. He could have physically overwhelmed me. He was a big guy. Anything could have happened; there would have been no one to hear me scream.
And there wouldn’t have been a damn thing I could have done about it.
(Midlife) Adventures in 21st Century Dating & Mating 