Rattling a Few Bones~A Personal History~Part I

I'm a late bloomer.

I didn't go to college until I was 22 and had seen enough of the lower end of the working world to know I needed to get the hell out of there.

I met my husband when I was 25. He moved in next door to me while I was home for the summer, working, so my male roommate (who I still believe, lives in a very deep closet) met him first and gave him the impression we were a couple, when we were introduced later. We actually had a class together - Northern European Mythology - so sometimes I would walk home from class with him, though often he ran out of class, on his way to his job at Sears (where he lifted refrigerators and washing machines, so you can imagine right along with me just how muscular and ripply he was...sigh!). It was actually one of those days where he was speed walking home, and I was following behind, admiring the twitch of his shapely ass, and the afore-mentioned rippling, when it struck me that here was prime boyfriend material!

I told you - I'm a little slow.

After about a month of "accidentally" taking out the trash at the same time (wearing make-up, hee-yahh - that's not obvious!), and chatting him up, I knew I was ready, but this wasn't the type of guy who even knew when a girl was putting the moves on him, and he told me that women scared him. I had to have a plan. I needed to get in close but not make it look like I was trying to get in close, just in case the whole thing backfired.

First thing I did was throw a huge Halloween party. I went to ECU people; Halloween is like bigger than Christmas break there, or it was, before they banned it. My roommate and his so-called hetero-life mate (its not MY denial people, that's ALL I'm saying here) got out their bagpipes and bodhrun; I cooked up a storm of autumnal dainties, and we threw a kick-ass Samhain/Halloween party. People stopped in the streets below to listen to the eclectically spooky sounds of Celtic music skirling down. The hot crab dip and the pasties were inhaled. It was a great party, but it didn't net me my man, dammit.

Me at the fateful Halloween party

It didn't help he had gone as a giant mug of beer - who can really sidle up close to you in that getup? It also didn't help that he was seriously hung over from the pre-party the night before, a rare thing for him. I did wipe the silver paint of my cheek along his before he left for the night, but I went to bed alone. It wasn't until later that he confessed he was hooked at that moment, in the touching of cheeks.

Bea with my nephew (who's now graduated from college!)

A week later, I invited him to a little get together over at my house, and told my other 3 guests (of which poor Bea was one.) that the minute he was looking like putty in my hands they had to clear out. It all went according to my evil plot, and in due course, I clubbed him over the head and dragged him back to my room, where CENSORED, CENSORED, CENSORED. (Aggressive? Maybe. He sure as hell wasn't going to "get this party started" on his own, and that butt was driving me wild!)

So then we were a couple, and we were very happy in that honeymoon period , something I hadn't had much experience with in relationships. Not ever feeling like I was pretty enough to demand a real date, I was a bit of a bar-hoor in my youth, so when the beer goggles wore off, I was usually not that enamoured. This was different. There was wooing and talking, and dinners together; all while we were still friends. And after the jumping of his bones? There was still talking and laughing and wooing going on, and love seemed like a done deal.

The Happy Couple

And then, we moved in together.

To be continued.