All this time, and I'm still nursing a crush. Pathetic.

I am not bold. But I do know what I want. I am smart. But I don't think that always gets me too far, as I tend to over-think things and consequently find myself not acting. They rather work together, supporting each other, this tendency to be both timid and an over-thinker.

First time I wandered into this place, this pub, I sat in a booth and nursed a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio and my crush. I watched him, this Terry Thorne who seemed to have it all together. He just lit the place up. I sent him a drink. He brought me a refill on my wine. We talked. He flirted. I returned the flirt. I thought, "You're killing me here," as I micro-managed the flirt session.

I am a horrible flirt with a man who makes me feel every cell of my body that's not glamorous or sophisticated or girly.

Next time I wandered into this place, I made friends with a few of the regulars and I began to feel like a regular myself. But I over-thought my approach to Terry Thorne and consequently I never made another one. I would start plotting what I'd say, how I'd laugh at his jokes and innuendos, how quickly I'd agree to whatever he'd suggest.....and then start thinking, no, maybe that's not right .......maybe I should play harder to get......maybe I should not laugh....maybe I should make him talk to me rather than flirt .........maybe I should .........

If I lived by 'maybe's' then I'd be set for life.

So I gave it up. I wasn't in his league, not for romance anyway. But he was still a nice guy and he was always pleasant to me, even if a bit distant. And that's always when it happens to me. I give up too soon.

Maybe that's a good thing.

So on this night in question, I was in the pub again. I had just walked in after a good day at work. He bumped into me at the bar. Literally. He was distracted; some kind of practical joke he was having on Dino. He was not watching where he was going and I couldn't get out of his way fast enough to keep from being bumped back into the bar.

I'm not the most graceful person. Have I thought to mention this? No, I see I have not. Well, then, now you know.

The wine glass I was carrying sloshed over. I think we both apologized at the same time. It made me giggle. It made him smile at me. I think him smiling at me is so right that it's wrong.

He told me it was Dino's fault he was distracted because he was plotting how he was getting back at him for some prank Dino'd pulled on him. I looked over at Dino, sitting in a booth with a woman, looking like they were both in that initial blush of interest. A sensitive time that I could appreciate for its fragility, having been there myself, you see.

"Terry, maybe you need something to occupy your time and keep you from bugging Dino," I said without thinking. Neat, huh? The not-thinking part, I mean. "How about we finish that dart lesson we almost started so long ago?"

"Erycina, your wish is my command. Let us away to the darts board and keep out of the firing line tonight," he said instantly, and, I might make note, so fast it had to be without thinking. I'd like to be more like that....able to think without thinking.

Actually, I thought about that as we walked to the dartboard area. There I went, thinking again. Thinking about not thinking....that's a new one, even for me. I decided on the spot, without thinking, to stop thinking and just....well......just do what felt right by instinct.

He was off retrieving darts from where they were scattered about a dartboard. He looked so good from the back. Wonder if he knew that? Okay, okay. I said don't think but don't be an idiot, honey.

"Can you teach me how to score?" I asked him as I swigged a bit of wine. He looked back at me over his shoulder, raised his eyebrows. I smirked at him. "At darts, Terry, at darts. I never have been able to figure out how in the heck you keep score in this game."

Hey! He grinned back at me. Heh heh. I'd made a little pun, a tiny innuendo, a little flirt. And he had enjoyed it. I was feeling awful smug.

He handed me a dart and asked if I'd played before. I reminded him that I'd told him once, that one and only time we've had any interaction of any length of time,that I had not. So he showed me where I was supposed to stand.

His fingers placed the dart in my hand and he carefully wrapped my fingers around it. It took a while for him to place it just so. It took a bit of time for him to get me to loosen my wrist. It also took just a little while for him to position my arm just so because he was going to demonstrate to me how to toss the dart at the board in order to score.

I watched his easy stance next to me. I was close enough to see the darkening stubble along his jaw line. He treated me to his profile. His hand made the dart look so tiny. After he tossed it, I followed its trajectory and it landed straight in the bull's eye.

"Now the secret to scoring is this. You start with a full score and every time you make a successful hit, you take something off. Until you get down to nothing. You get the idea?" he said as he took a sip of his beer. "By the way, I've got a board at my place. That would be the best place to score tonight, I reckon. You up for a game?"

He looked me right in the eye when he said it. I imagine I visibly gulped. 

"I - I'm up for a game. Yes. But I think I'd feel safer if we played this game here, at the pub," I said.

He raised his eyebrows at me but didn't seem too deterred. Still......I didn't want to offend him, right? So I double-checked his instructions on holding the dart and then I let it fly. At least it landed on the board. I figured I should get points for that but in that opposite way of scoring that he'd explained, he said the point was that I needed to take points off and that wouldn't help me.

"So...scoring. This bit about taking things off until you're down to nothing? That sounds a lot like strip poker," I said. I said it on purpose but without thinking, of course. Just wanted to say something funny. I pretended I hadn't done it on purpose. I gave him a little smile. "Oops. Did I say that? No, that's not what I meant. Stop. I am going to blush and start tripping all over my tongue."

"Tongues are good to trip over, love, as long as they belong to someone else."

Shit. He was too clever at this sexual innuendo bit. That was a sexual innuendo, wasn't it? Had to be. Could I do that? Well then, do, girl, don't think.

"Scoring...successful hits. Okay. So, that begs the question...what's a successful hit? Can you teach me proper technique?" I asked him.

Okay. He liked that. I earned a wink and a rather nice waggle of his body into mine as he came up next to me, ran his hand up my arm until he was holding my wrist and giving me these low bits of advice on getting on the board.

"You smell nice, Terry. I mean, when you're this close, showing me how to hold the dart and how to stand, well, I like the aftershave. You have nice hands, too..."

"Just let me lean up against you here and guide your arm." Now he moved up behind me, almost molding his body to mine, his hand cupping mine. I closed my eyes and tried to stay steady. "Am I putting you off? Just blowing away a stray curl that was in my face...would I play dirty to make you lose? You know I would. Your hand's trembling. Let me hold it steady...you smell good, too. Not sure my hands won't be trembling in a moment. You sure you want this in public, or would you like to rethink my offer? This might be a good time to slip out and resume the game in private..."

My God. My heart was beating way too fast. And without thinking, I wasn't left with much but reacting. I rather liked that. And that's the truth. He just seemed to know that a timid woman who wants to do something bold needs to know she's with a man who will press her as far as it takes to get her to really make an active decision.

And it's not like I'm a virgin or like I don't know that he knew I'd really like to have been with him. We weren't kidding anyone. Still......still, he was being pretty aggressive. I am still surprised that I didn't just run out of there. Maybe it's because in that first flirt encounter with him, I'd run away at the first obstacle. Maybe he wanted to put the full court press on me to see if that's what I wanted him to do. You know, he seems the kind of man who likes to have the times when he not only doesn't have to restrain the testosterone drive, but when he can let that be what it's all about.....when being driven by testosterone is what it's all about for him.

"Gosh. You have really good hand-to-eye coordination, Terry," I said....finally. He smirked at me when I turned my face to look at him. We were so close. My goodness. He slipped his other arm around my waist and his hand made this gentle kneading motion at my belly. "I only meant that you have quite a knack for hitting the bull's eye.....I meant the one on the dart board. Although now that you mention it, you do seem to coordinate your hand with your eyes when you're leaning in on me like that and touching me.....there."

"You trembling or wiggling, love? Either way, keep moving like that."

"I'm nervous. What can I say? I bet you rarely get nervous around women. I bet when you're nervous, it's real hard for someone who doesn't know you well to even tell it. How does a woman know if she's making you nervous, Terry?"

"It's easy to tell when I'm nervous. I tap my foot. See? I'm doing it now." He made this exaggerated tapping motion with his foot that made me giggle.

I was about to take not-thinking to an all-time high. "Wait. You asked me something, didn't you? It was.... about reconsidering your offer? I think maybe we should, Terry. Because I don't really want an audience and because I do want to see if I can make you nervous."

It came out low and breathy. It shocked the living hell out of me. It was all he needed to hear. He reacted instantly by handing me my purse and motioning toward the door. And I decided that it was now or never to learn how to swim in the pool with the big boys. He was interested? So was I. I either took this chance or I admitted that I didn't deserve another.

"You're getting to me, Erycina...I have another habit too at times like this," he said to me as we reached the door. He opened it, ushered me out and finished the thought with, "...but you can't see it when I'm dressed. Not unless you look carefully. How's that for an admission? Your hand any steadier?"

His car was right outside the front door. He went to open the passenger door only I reached for him instead. I didn't think, I just acted. I stroked down the front of his jeans and his eyes widened in response to a move I bet anything he never thought I'd make on him.

"You tell me," I said as I cupped his groin. Man. He actually reacted pretty abruptly to that. "Have I discovered the other habit? I would never have thought that was caused by nerves. You're tapping your foot again. Are you going to even be able to drive a stick like this?"

I didn't earn a smirk for that sexual innuendo or come on or whatever you'd class it as. Instead, he just leaned in on me, put his hands on my face and kissed me.

It was soft but only for as long as it took for me to open my mouth in response. And then it was a lesson in the joys of tripping over someone else's tongue.

"You kiss so....How do you do that? Show me again?" I whispered when he eased out of it.

"Enough. This is a public place. The rest is private. Jump aboard and see if I can handle this stick. Then we'll go and see about the other one. Honey...I think you're gonna score big. Ever had a bull's-eye?"

Thankfully, he was shoving me into the car when he said that last part. Because I had the whole twenty seconds or so for him to walk around to his side, get in, start the car, back out and start driving before I was expected to maybe say something in response.

"No," I said when he finally looked at me.

"No?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.

"No. The answer to your question. I've never had a bull's-eye."

"Ah."

And that was all he said. He said it with a smile but his eyes weren't smiling. So the whole rest of the drive, I sat there getting nervous and thinking. And trying to think myself out of thinking. Which actually worked.

So when he helped me out of the car and was walking me into his building, I said, "You handled that stick real well, Terry."

"I handle the other one even better."

"We're talking darts, right?"

"If that's what you want."

So inside his condo, I walked around and took in my fill of the place. Then he came in with a glass of wine for me and ushered me into the room where he had a dartboard. It was a den, I suppose. Bookshelves along one wall that were completely full, almost too full. A plush, white throw rug before a fireplace that looked like it actually got used. A dartboard along a wall with track lighting above it; when he flipped the switch, it lit the board up beautifully. I complimented him on it. He said he took his games very seriously.

I blushed.

I hoped it was a sexual innuendo.

I blushed more to think maybe it wasn't and that now he'd seen me blush and he must have wondered that I was so naïve about such things.

"So...do we continue the game?" he asked me. He was moving me over to in front of the dartboard, to the place I should stand to toss a dart. He was handing me a dart. His hands dropped to my waist, as he stood close behind me.

"Strip darts?" I said, again without thinking.

He started giggling. "That's the game you want to play, Erycina? Sounds a plan to me, love."

"Well, I mean, if we score it like you explained scoring a dart game, then I assume you'll be the one stripped first. Right?"

"Clever girl," he whispered to me. He kissed me softly behind my ear after dragging my hair from my neck. "Then we could dispense with the darts and just get to stripping?"

My mind clicked into gear. It clicked slowly, but it did click. I hesitated on the rejoinder. Then didn't make one. But how could I when his move was to reach his hands up to my shirt's buttons and begin slowly undoing them from the bottom up? And all the while he was doing that, his body was moving against my rear.

"This okay, Erycina? You want me to slow down?"

He said this while his hand was on the bare skin above my waist. He just had the hand flat there on my skin, just below my breasts. When I didn't say anything, he massaged my skin and let his thumb rub into the crease beneath where a breast began to rise.

"Wait," I whispered to him, my hand on his to stop him.

He stopped. Buttoned me back up. Stepped away from me. Took my hand in his and led me over to a couch. We sat there, side by side.

"Wondered how far you'd let me go," he said eventually.

"I'd let you go all the way, Terry," I told him. No, this time, I was thinking.

"But is that what you want? Tonight, I mean."

"I don't know."

"Were you wanting me to convince you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I might never get the nerves up otherwise."

"I like my women to be able to go for what they want, not make me make them do something. See?"

"This is embarrassing."

"This is life. Accept it. Learn to ask for what you want. Learn to say no when you want. But always know how to move beyond you own fear if that's all that's keeping you back from taking what you want."

We said a few other things to each other. He is a nice guy, at the end of it all. Problem is, he just was so far beyond ever feeling like he had to coerce a woman into his bed. I didn't really need coercion, mind you, because it was what I wanted. In his bed, I mean. But, on the other hand, that night I wasn't ready for the experience.

So we played darts. He taught me how to do it. He was really funny. I enjoyed it. Immensely.

Most of all, I just enjoyed him. He demonstrated that blistering fast wit of his. He flirted with me and this time I really just reveled in it because he knew it was all for show. By the time he drove me home, I wasn't scared of him anymore. He kissed me good night at my door.

And then he drove off.

I was upstairs in my apartment when I got to thinking this over.

It amused me to think about writing a story about this night. I've never written one before, not for this kind of thing. I've written other stories, of course, but just never within these circles. I had hoped I'd have a tale to tell out of this experience, truth be told. I mean, it should have been a sure thing given my massive crush on Terry Thorne and the fact that he was the one to come on to me like he did.

Still, what a tale it would be. "The Night I Never Had Sex With Terry" by Erycina. What a debut! Come read about the one woman who could be handed such a set up and still mess it up!

I'd be an instant hit with that.

And then I did some more thinking. I remembered what Terry had said. His well-intentioned advice about moving beyond fear for something you want.

I'm a smart woman. Smart enough to learn how to be bold.

It took me about twenty minutes to make it back to his place. He answered the door wearing nothing but a black tank top and black silk boxers. He had known it was me at the door. He knew why I was there. He knew he didn't have to pretend anymore. He just had to let me in.