Hot Date

Warning: Contains suggestive content.

When I first met my late husband, Ted, it was online. We were both in Arizona, just a bit over an hour away from each other. We talked about writing to begin with. He was a published author. I was working on my book series. We were both genuinely interested in each other's work. I called him my "writing guru."

We graduated to phone conversations. So far, so good. I drove to his community, and we had our first face to face with a casual lunch. He was quite the gentleman.

Another day - the following week, he drove to my community, and we met in a park, talking about everything from movies and music to food and sports as we walked along the river. It was pretty warm, but we didn't mind because we were enjoying the banter. We had a lot in common. He was witty and charming. I was trying to play it cool. I'm not sure if I succeeded, but I could tell he liked me like I liked him.

When we got back to our cars, he said, "The next time we meet, there's a good chance I'll kiss you."

I was thinking, "What's wrong with now?" but I let him run the show. I knew he was going for anticipation. We were both adults. I was widowed. He was divorced. We both knew what was coming, if you don't mind my wording.

Our phone conversations started really heating up. We talked about our past encounters. We even let each other in on some of our favorite things to do in bed. We were ready for a deeper encounter, if you don't mind me saying.

Unfortunately, this happened to be in the middle of a heat wave. Now, an Arizona heat wave means HEAT!!! Phoenix was so hot that summer that they grounded airplanes for fear of melting tires on the tarmac. If memory serves me correctly, I think it was 121 Fahrenheit (50 Celsius).

Ted's apartment had a "swamp cooler" which is evaporative cooling. It's more cost effective than air conditioning and generally works well in dry heat, but this was the beginning of the monsoons, so it was humid, especially as the clouds built up in the afternoon and evenings. His apartment was stiflingly hot. We were committed, so we were not going to let a little sweat stop us.

We walked hand in hand to his bedroom. We peeled each other's sticky clothing off, kissing all the while. It was quite clear that he was ready, even with the heat, if you get my meaning.

We started out on top of the covers, but what we didn't realize is that Ted had accidentally stepped on the remote control for the heating blanket he hadn't removed since winter, turning it on the hottest setting. We had to stop and strip the bed down and make it back up again with only the sheets. The residual warmth was not great, but we rolled with it, laughing it off.

Skin on skin contact wasn't very pleasant, so we opted for using our hands, if you don't mind me saying. He said, "If we're going to do it like this, grab the lotion from your side of the bed."

We had the lights low and he didn't tell me he had two bottles on the bedside stand. What I grabbed was Icy Hot. Needless to say, we were heating each other up a little too much.

We both jumped in the shower with the water on cool. We soaped each other up from head to toe, finally finding relief in multiple ways, if you get what I'm saying.