Hiya!

Let me tell you a story.

The year's 2017. I'm working a dead end job, and I see a post from someone gallivanting between Canberra (her hometown!) and Sydney, looking for someone to spend an evening with. I send her a message, thinking I won't get a response - and a few hours later, see an orange message notification in my inbox.

We get to talking. We're from similar backgrounds of expertise, we have similar interests, we get along immediately. A day or so later, she nervously sends me a message saying she had her first success - and I couldn't be happier for her.

We keep talking. It gets kinda real - and then the messages slow down intermittently. We chat off and on, I get into a relationship (which doesn't work out) and so nothing gets exchanged for a few months. Then we talk again. It feels warm, and comforting, and _right._

We keep exchanging fantasies of what we want to do - and filthy photos of ourselves, in various states of eroticism. And then she says she's going serious with someone, and while she greatly values our discussions, she wants to make it work.

Of course! I wished her well, with a tinge of sadness, but 99% happiness - this was a delightful woman who I wanted to be happy. If she was happy without ever meeting me face to face, that was inconsequential - as long as she was happy :)

I go to check her reddit account one last time - deleted. So it goes.

So I'm sitting here on a rainy, miserable evening, a couple of months ago. I look through here, I look through a couple of other NSFW posts, and I see a post from Canberra, looking for another random act.

I open it with curiosity, and by the second line, I *know* it's her.

We get back in touch, and she tells me she really wanted to see me in the summer, but had lost my contact details, and it bummed her out. My circumstances had changed - new (valued!) job, new friends, new gym habit, made a couple of records. So had hers. We were in much different places - but we were still the same people.

She says she's coming to Sydney in a few weeks, to visit a friend with a baby, and asked if I finally wanted to get a drink. I nervously read the message, wait a couple of minutes to respond - to make sure I didn't fuck it up, of course - and say "absolutely, R."

A few weeks pass. I hit the gym as hard as I can to get into the best possible shape. I'm frantically checking out cool bars to go to, knowing we're in a fucking pandemic and all of my cool joints had closed in the preceding year, for good. The rain begins to fall that evening. The nerves hit. I'm so unsure of whether this'll work out.

And then I'm standing, outside a cool bar in the inner city, and she gets out of an Uber. She's wearing a red dress, a jacket, short heels. I see her across the street and adjust my shirt, out of sheer nervousness. She's fucking stunning. I'm the luckiest boy in the world - at least at this moment.

The bar I planned to go to was full. No matter, I have a few others in my mind. We walk in the rain, she makes a cheeky joke about getting wet, and my heart races. We get cocktails, we get the quietest seat in the bar, away from the crowd, and we're immediately in that familiar, conspiring conservation that feels so intimate - faces drawn to each other, hands on legs, eyes averted behind us.

We finish a drink. She says she really doesn't want to go for a second - she'd rather go for a walk. Of course - she's the guest to my city, who am I to limit her to a single bar? So, we pay the bill, we walk outside, and we walk to this familiar landmark - a rainbow street crossing, to celebrate the LGBT presence in a nearby neighbourhood.

We make casual, familiar, giggly conversation - and suddenly her hands are around my neck, my hand is on her back, and she strikes the proverbial first blood with her lips meeting mine.

The rest, beyond that? That's for us to know, and you to imagine. :)

-----

I've been learning Norwegian, because learning languages is cool. An interesting concept in the Norwegian language is this idea of "kos" - the warm familiarity of being snowed in to a cabin, hot chocolate in your hands, a loved one by your side, logs on the fire. You feel it, right in your stomach, in your heart, in your hands.

When I first messaged this lovely woman in 2017, I wasn't aware of this concept - and I definitely wasn't thinking I'd be feeling it with HER. And then she jumps onto my back in a moment of post-orgasm conversation, covers my back and neck with kisses - and more than anything filthy, this is the moment that made all of that time SO WORTH IT.

It made me go "god damn, this woman is special. Really special." And then she buried her face into my chest and giggled and we had that knowing familiarity between us.

And then it was time to go, as the early morning hours hit and the rain began to pour, and she said "thank you, I had a really good time", knowing there was so much more left unsaid - and I responded in kind.

So, in short - first, thank you, R. You know I think this, but you're something really special - and this is something I'll carry in my mind and my heart, hopefully for a long, long, long time.

For everyone else? You never know what you can find on here. I never would have guessed in 2017 when I initially sent a tentative message to a woman who lived four hours away that we'd be giggling like old friends in the early hours - that we'd feel unexpectedly close.

But here we are. What else can I say but, totally, totally worth the wait?