by Maggie Voysest

When Gigi Met David

And now for the long awaited chapter on David. This chapter is about love at first sight. It is not one of Gigi’s funny chapters about dating mishaps. So all you cynical people might want to skip to the next chapter. You will probably like that one better. It shows where everything went wrong and then you can say a cynical “I told you so.” However, if you are an incurable romantic, grab a hankie and read on. And don’t you dare feel sorry for Gigi… this one perfect week is what keeps her going in the online dating world, and why she won’t give up.

Get the box of tissues ready. If not for you, then for Gigi. Cry a few tears for her and for what she went through. Curse those gods of love for their meddling. When Gigi met David, she was full of hope and wonder. She had just joined her first online dating site the previous month, had only met Vinnie and Charlie, the one-night wonders, and then came David. It was perfect from the very first email. They were about the same age, and lived close to each other. He was half Irish, half Mexican (although he didn’t speak any Spanish). He had black hair, cut short, and brown eyes that looked deep into your soul, and a smile that simply enveloped you. He had two young sons whom he adored, and he seemed like such a wonderful father.
 
He loved to read, deep profound books that made him think. He challenged her to read the books too, and to question her life, and the choices she’d made, and the paths that she had followed. He told her that he could see so much in her that was wonderful, and that she was strong enough to conquer her weaknesses. Funny that he took her apart, analyzed and scrutinized her, and built her up, only to let her down so totally that she fell apart, into broken pieces that took her a very long time to put together again, and much like Humpty Dumpy she was never really the same again.
 
That entire first week, she didn’t walk. She simply flew, miles above the ground, so obviously happy and in love that a Royal Oak cop asked her what she was on, with a smile on his face that spread, as she turned back and said “Love! And that’s perfectly LEGAL!“ She had just begun her online adventure, and did not know how rare it was to meet someone so perfect. Not perfect as in a flawless man (does one even exist?), but perfect for her. They sent a few emails back and forth first, and soon exchanged numbers. The first time he called her, they talked for an hour. The next night they talked for two and a half hours, marveling at all that they had in common: favorite British shows like Monty Python and The Young Ones; food, music (he loved Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee as much as she did); love of art; comedians; they had even met the same famous people, movies.

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Over the phone, she sang him the song that Salma Hayek sings to Antonio Banderas in Desperado. You know the one. Quedate aqui (Stay here). The one where Salma Hayek is sitting cross-legged on the bed, with her eyes shut, strumming a guitar and singing softly in Spanish, while Antonio Banderas is quietly circling the bed with a gun in each hand, pointed at the bandits approaching the room from either side. It is a beautiful song, about trying to find a place where one can be free to love, without lies or deceptions, about being everything to each other. It was a song that had always touched Gigi, as she searched for that kind of love.

David and Gigi were amazed at how quickly those hours flew on the phone, something that continued to occur over the next six months. . On the phone Gigi and David had an almost perfect relationship. David would soon tell her that she “got” him, that she was one of the few people he could talk to about everything and anything, and that she seemed to understand him so well. Gigi had always been a great listener. He told Gigi that he loved her “mmm’s” and sighs as she listened to him. There was just something about David’s voice. It was gentle and caressing, and yet he also had this funny biting sarcasm that she loved. He had a collection of what she soon came to call “David’isms” – phrases and sentences that he used a lot, that would mean different things at different times. Things like: “It is what it is.” It was so easy to talk to each other, as if they’d met in some previous life. Gigi almost believed in reincarnation of souls, feeling that it explained why sometimes you meet someone and have an instant like (or dislike) for him. David said that it was freaky and surreal at the same time. Gigi told him to take a leap of faith with her.

After two consecutive nights of talking together on the phone, David asked her to meet him that Sunday for coffee. By the end of that phone conversation, he told her that he couldn’t wait for Sunday. “How about Saturday for dinner,” he asked, and then quickly changing his mind again said, “No, that‘s too far away. How about Friday?” Soon after she agreed, he asked would she think he was crazy if he asked her to meet him the very next night? “Oh my God,” she thought. Finally, someone as impatient as she was. That night Gigi wrote in her diary, asking God to please let him be the one.

They agreed to meet at a little Italian restaurant near her. She arrived right on time, wearing a flirty little black skirt and black sweater (showing just a hint of cleavage), a black leather jacket, and her black suede knee high boots. She was about to cross the street when he called her name. And there he was. As beautifully dressed as she was, in dark slacks, a maroon shirt, and a soft-as-butter black leather coat, and he was smiling from ear to ear. As they walked up to each other, her heart was pounding so loudly, she thought he’d be able to hear it. She slipped into his arms for a welcoming hug, and she fit right into the crook of his arms, and immediately felt warm and enveloped, safe and protected. And yes… the goose bumps on her arms were not due to the cold November night, because she had them for the rest of the night. A night she was never able to write about in her diary. A night that she had in fact never written about until she began to write down her memoirs. How does one describe perfection in words? I’ll do my very best below to tell you what happened.

It was love at first sight… like being hit by a bolt of lightning, like an instant recognition that something amazing and truly out of the ordinary had happened to two incredibly lucky mere mortals. But the gods were just playing with them, a cruel, cruel game. The gods only showed them a glimpse of perfection, a what could have been, before taking it all back, and flinging more horrors of online dating at Gigi. Yet even today, knowing just how much pain David would cause her, she’d do it all over again, on the off chance that this time it might work. For as Tennyson once wrote:

“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”

Their hands slipped naturally into each other’s as they crossed the road, and as she walked into the restaurant ahead of him, she heard him whisper to himself, “Oh my God, I’m in trouble.” To this day Gigi has no idea of what they had for dinner, if they thanked the waitress, or if they even paid the bill. They sat there, totally entranced for hours, barely touching their food, gazing deep into each other’s eyes, at times talking nonstop, at times just lost in thought. They did not let go of each other’s hand for a single minute, and his fingers did not stop caressing hers. There was this old-fashioned feeling about the date, with songs playing softly in the background, love songs from the days of Sinatra. One could have expected to see Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire, dancing around the tables, singing of love, in those days when men did not seem to be afraid of falling in love, and proclaiming it to the world in a song.

That night was like being hit by a semi-truck and waking up wondering what the heck had happened. Except that David and Gigi did not wake up for days. In fact Gigi never did. But a week later, David woke up with a scary start and began his running away, a running away that would encompass the next six months(“Run away, run away” She should have heard the Monty Python theme, but didn’t). It’s strange to Gigi at times the impact David had in her life, when the actual time they spent together was not that much. It was more the quality of David, and not the quantity, what he brought to her life, not what he took away.

That first night, after dinner, they went toward their cars and David asked her if she’d like to go somewhere for coffee. Except that it was too late for coffee. Too late for anything but a club, since they’d sat at dinner until the waiters were cleaning up around them and actually had to ask them to leave, as they looked up in stupefaction that so many hours had gone by. Gigi avoided that restaurant like the plague once she lost David, until her “I settled for him” boyfriend Arthur insisted on going there. She had tears in her eyes the whole time, having to lie and say it was allergies, as her gaze continuously slipped to that corner where she and David had once sat together.

Once in his car, listening to a romantic CD that Gigi brought from her car, they ended up never leaving the parking lot. They just sat there, for over 3 hours, with his engine running on and off for three hours to keep them warm, until way past 3 AM, just talking and kissing, and holding on to each other for dear life. At one point, David just reached his hands towards her face, and held it ever so gently, as though it were made of spun glass. With a profound look in his eyes, he kissed her senseless, so that she couldn’t have told you the capital of Spain, or even her very name. After just an hour or so of kissing her, he told her that he was falling in love with her. Gigi cries every time she remembers this, because it was the first of the two times, and only two times that he ever told her that. She can close her eyes, and even now, years later, she can hear the exact timbre of his voice, the look in his eye, the way it felt to hear it. She lay her head on his shoulder and just smiled, deep within her heart, and that smile did not leave her for a whole week, until her face hurt from smiling so much.

They both had to work early the next morning, but just couldn’t bear to leave each other’s side. Yet not once did David suggest anything inappropriate such as going over to her place. Not once did Gigi feel like he was just counting down the minutes till he could toss her on a bed, have his way with her and leave. When they finally reluctantly left, she drove the few minutes to her house, and immediately sent him an email. She has no recollection of what it said, since she was in such a daze still, but she just had to send him something, so as to not break that connection between them. She floated up to her bedroom, and slept peacefully and happily.

The next morning she woke up with both wonderment and fear. Had it just been a dream? She wanted to call him so badly, and when she couldn’t stand it any longer and did, he answered the phone with a “Gigi…perfect timing!“ and told her that he had loved the email that she had sent him once she got home, that he had loved last night, that she was what he had been looking for, that he had already removed his profile from Match.com, and that he had woken up to listen to the same CD they had listened to in his car (one that Gigi had made and given to him before she left him). He asked her to please come to his house that night, and he called her four times that day, telling her that he could still smell her scent on him. Gigi walked around in a daze all day. From that night onwards, they were together and inseparable for almost an entire week, seeing each other every night, calling each other every morning, noon, and night. She abandoned everyone: her sons, her friends, and could barely function at work (video time again kids!). All she could do was count the hours until they’d be together again.

Their second night together, she went to his house. When he took her in his arms at the door, she felt as though she was coming home. He put in the movie Desperado, although they kissed more than watched the movie, breaking away from kisses only to see Salma Hayek sing the song that Gigi had sung for him. It was so hard to stop at kisses. Once again, he told her that he was falling in love with her, but it was the last time he ever would say those words. At times, Gigi could swear she could read those words in his eyes. Have you ever had that feeling? That someone was telling you they loved you, with their eyes alone and nothing else? That night they agreed to date each other exclusively. They talked about their past relationships, their marriages and subsequent divorces. David was just recently divorced, from a bitter and revengeful wife, who seemed to enjoy making his life and that of his sons miserable. Gigi was still trying to get over Daniel, the Canadian with whom she had been with for almost 7 years.

He told Gigi that he had not been with another woman in years, and actually had not even slept with his wife for longer than he cared to admit. Gigi couldn’t quite admit to that (give up sex? Good God, not in this lifetime!). He didn’t want to rush into a physical relationship with Gigi right away. Gigi told him that she would wait as long as he wanted to, as long as they could continue to kiss for hours. Kissing. It is such a lost art, and for some reason is the first thing to go once you begin a relationship. Gigi loved to kiss and would have been happy with just that. That is, if they hadn’t had such a sizzling chemistry between them. But try she would. For David she would have tried and done anything. They were in each other’s arms for hours until 2:00 AM this time, and he asked her to please come back over the next night. He also asked her to spend the entire weekend with him.

Poor David had underestimated the sensual allure of Gigi, who without even trying to, could seduce him with just a look of her passionate, smoldering brown Spanish eyes and her beguiling coy smile. Gigi had lost count of how many times men told her that they loved her eyes and her smile (that, and her huge… tracts of land!). She would warn them that Spanish men conquered countries, while its women conquered hearts. David was only able to resist Gigi for one more night. It would all have been fine if Gigi hadn’t explained her “anything but” rule, in which they could do everything except actual penetration. It had worked very well for her as a teenager. But as she sat on his lap on his couch, and slipped her fingers into his pants, she suddenly realized his size… and let me just say that he could have beaten records held by gargantuan black men. Gigi jerked her fingers back, and quickly got up from his lap. Muttering something unintelligible, she ran off to the bathroom, and held her burning cheeks with her shaking, trembling hands, splashing them with cold water (do cold showers work for women as well as they do for men?), telling herself that God was good, God was really good, even if she’d now have to sit on her hands so as not to be tempted to delve them back into his pants!

She came back into the living room, and David looked at her questioningly. Gigi blushed from head to toe, and just shook her head. She suggested watching a movie, and what did he pop in, but 300. Now Gigi knew that God had just shown her an amazing toy, only to tell her that she couldn’t peek at it or unwrap it, or play with it until her birthday, which was still months away. But at the same time God was flashing that toy in all the television commercials just to tease her… 300? Are you kidding me? Gorgeous bare-chested men when she was trying to ignore her sexual urges, and the savage desire to rip his clothes off, jump on top of him and… ay mami.

So she sat on her fingers, and watched the movie, as he caressed her leg, her arm, her shoulder. By the time he reached her neck, Gigi had had enough. With a groan, she turned to him and looked at him so longingly and pleadingly, that something flickered in his eyes. He told her later that no one had ever looked at him that way before in his life. As though he were the appetizer, main course AND dessert of a very special meal. Gigi did nothing but look at him, as she sat there, still sitting onto her fingers, clutching herself so hard that she had fingernail marks on the back of her thighs for weeks. She kept telling herself that she was not going to try to entice him or seduce him, or try and convince him to change his mind about waiting to make love. That she would honor his request to wait. Meanwhile in her head, she was silently begging him to make love to her and never stop.

Suddenly David once again held her face softly between his two hands, and began to kiss her face, every part of it, soft butterfly-like kisses that made her shiver with delight, so sensuous that she felt dizzy and faint. And he began to remove her clothes, item by item. He lay her down on his deep, thick cushiony carpet, and began to remove his clothes. And without saying one word, he made love to her, in a way that no one ever had or would again, looking at her so intensely. It was the most amazing expression of love, and even though he never said the words, they shined in his eyes.

That night was a Thursday. Had they only met in person two nights ago? He had asked Gigi to spend the entire weekend with him, and so after school on Friday, she arrived at his house with a small overnight bag. And they headed off straight to bed. Yes, at five o’clock in the afternoon. They spent most of the weekend in bed, in fact, and had a marathon of record-breaking lovemaking. Gigi hadn’t made love that much in one weekend since college and her ROTC guy in Boston. OMG, she totally forgot to talk about him in her chapter on being at college. Double OMG (or should it be OMFG?), his name was David too!. She barely had a chance to use the lingerie that she had bought at Victoria’s Secret before heading over to David’s house that day. Amazing the amount of money women will spend on something that we barely get to wear for very long!

They only emerged from the bedroom when they were thirsty or starving. They ran to Meijers to get enough food for the weekend. Gigi was in charge of all the cooking, and she loved it. Gigi loved to cook, especially for that special someone in her life. That night, she cooked him her specialty: a chicken and wine dish, and as she cooked, she listened to salsa music, dancing around his kitchen, so happy and in love. She’d look up to catch David looking at her with a sense of wonder, as if he was both surprised and pleased to find her in his home, enjoying the sight of her dancing around in happiness. She taught him some salsa steps, and she quickly realized that maybe he was perfect after all. David had rhythm and salsa feet!

It was a perfect magical weekend, spent completely alone, for the most part in his house, though they did leave a few times, once to go to a bookstore, where they looked at books together, and where David bought a program to learn Spanish, now that he had his own personal Spanish teacher. They went to Ikea to buy things for the kitchen that Gigi needed to cook with, and once to an outside mall, where they walked around hand-in-hand, buying nothing but picking out clothes for each other, and testing colognes for David. It was strange how comfortable it felt to be out in public with him. No one would have ever thought to look at them that they had just met days before.

They only had two glitches in the perfection. The first time was when Gigi laughed at his spelling mistakes on the shopping list he’d written, hurting his feelings, and then feeling absolutely awful about it for hours. Gigi always laughed at herself, and her mistakes and weaknesses, and at times, didn’t realize that not everyone could do that. The second time was when they were at Ikea, and Gigi was kissing him as they walked around. David told her that he did not feel comfortable showing a lot of affection in public. This time it was Gigi’s feelings that were hurt, because she has always been a very touchy-feely kind of person, who is very physical both in private and public. It was hard to restrain herself, but Gigi tried to content herself with just holding her hand. I guess she did a good job of it, because soon he was the one leaning in to kiss her.

The rest of the time they spent at home, snuggled on his comfy couch, watching movies and comedy shows on his huge television screen. He introduced her to his favorite comedian Carlos Mencia, and Gigi laughed until she cried. They spent hours talking, kissing, making love, reading parts of books to each other, never apart for longer than it took to go to the bathroom. At night falling asleep in his arms was the most beautiful thing ever. And he didn’t even snore, or let go of her once throughout the next two nights. He spooned behind her, kissing her neck softly good night as they’d fall asleep. Gigi had not felt this way in so long. Making love with him almost transcended them into another time and place. The French call it “la petite morte” (the little death), that feeling of total sexual completion and fulfillment. He was a silent lover, never saying a word with his mouth, but his eyes… Oh his eyes spoke volumes, and Gigi hoped to God that she was reading them correctly, that he was feeling the same way she was.

When she left him Sunday night, oh so reluctantly, she was suddenly filled with fear, so afraid of leaving him, so terrified, that a coldness entered her heart. As she left his house, she felt empty, as if she’d left some very vital part of herself behind. The minute she got home, she emailed him, and he soon emailed her back, telling her that he’d known she’d be online. He sent her the photos of himself that she’d asked him for and told her,“ I will sleep warm tonight with my thoughts as I hope you will too, Sweet dreams my Gigi… David.” She still has this email, though the words will forever be engraved in her mind, just the way David will always be engraved upon her heart.

To read Helen’s Part IX, see Helen’s Horrors of Dating – Part IX