That First Time

How did they wind up in bed that first time? The date started off with dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant in her neighborhood. They had arranged to meet there. She got there first and waited for him inside. It was on the west side of Broadway, between 114th and 115th Streets or 113th and 114th. The food was inexpensive. The restaurant didn’t serve any wine or beer but you could bring in your own. She stayed at their table and he went to a liquor store a block or two away—she told him where it was—and bought a bottle of red wine and a cheap corkscrew in case the restaurant didn’t have or couldn’t find one. It was a good bottle of wine, better than he ever bought for himself. He wanted to impress her. He knew from their previous date, which was their second—the first was for coffee and a cup of soup each and an egg salad sandwich between them for lunch at a coffee shop—that she knew about wine. She’d worked for a week several years before harvesting grapes in the Champagne district in France and got paid with three bottles of very good wine and a bottle of Champagne and room and board. He forgets what they ate in the Middle Eastern restaurant. Falafel—that he remembers—as an appetizer, and some dolma, also to start off with, but what about the main dishes? Important? Well, he’d like to get everything in, or as much as he can, but he’ll let it pass. He walked her back to her apartment building. She asked if he’d like to come up. “Sure,” he said, “that would be nice,” or something like it. Did she say “for a nightcap”? No, that was at the end of their second date, after they had dinner at a Greek restaurant in her neighborhood. “I warned you the food might not be the best,” she said, when he walked her back to her building that time. “So we’ll cross it off our list?” he said, or something like it. “Although you did say it got new owners since you last ate there, so it might have improved.” They had Spanish brandy that second time in her apartment and he asked if he could sit next to her on the couch, which was really a daybed. After she said “Any place you feel comfortable,” and after he sat beside her, he made a move to her and she moved her head to his, and they kissed for the first time. They kissed a couple more times that second time and then she said it was getting late, or something like it, or she still had schoolwork to do tonight—he thinks that was it—and he said “I’ll go,” and they went to the front hallway closet. He said he had a great time tonight, “I hope you enjoyed it too,” and she said “I did. Thank you for a nice evening,” and got his coat out of the closet and handed it to him. His muffler was in one of the arm sleeves—where he always put it at someone else’s house, so he wouldn’t forget it—and his gloves and watch cap were in the coat’s pockets. He put the muffler and coat on and said “So I’ll call you,” and she said “Please do,” and he made a move to her—his back was to the front door, hers to the closed closet—and she moved her head toward his and they kissed, the longest and deepest of their four to five kisses that night. “Whew,” she said after. “That one, honestly, took my breath away.” He left the apartment and she shut the door. He thought, as he waited for the elevator, “That was quite a kiss. All of them were. She’s really something.”

But that third night. They had met at a party two weeks before. They were introduced by the woman who gave the party. She took him...