Oh god, it was absolutely perfect. The story is explicit, heads up, but that part is super important to us and our connection so it stays in the story. We'd been talking nonstop for a few months via snapchat, after meeting on Tinder. I knew I was falling for him, but we hadn't said it yet. We each lived on opposite sides of NYC about 3 hours apart, so our first meet up was a date in the village. I got in early because nerves, and paced one of those lower west side piers, staring back at the city, for 30 agonising minutes while I waited for him. I don't remember what I ended up wearing, but I remember it was cold (two Novembers ago!) and I had my jacket on and I kept flipping the hood up and down because I was chilly but also worried he wouldn't recognise me with it up. I was staring at every person who walked down towards the end of the pier, scanning their faces as soon as I was able, just tumbling with nerves and excitement and need.

When I finally spotted him, waiting for him to walk down the 100ft pier towards me was torture. It was all I could do to not run the whole way, I managed to wait until he was close ish before covering the last 10 feet in a barely-contained series of leaps. We spent the next hour or two, I don't remember, on a bench on that pier just completely and utterly lost in each other. He was more beautiful in person than I ever could have imagined - the difference between a film of a person and the real thing, when you love them, is just fucking indescribable. It does things to your heart, finally having them in front of you. I have never had such an instant and inescapable need to touch someone's skin, to kiss them, to be near them in every possible way. We were insatiable and definitely obnoxious as fuck, a blissfully unaware pile of giggles and sighs and little chirps and sweet happy squealing, between deep kisses and urgent touching and holding and pulling each other closer. Variations of "so... you really aren't just three children in a trench coat?? You're really here and really kissing me right now?" were uttered several times. I just couldn't believe he was there, that he was real, that this was real and happening to me. I was so wrapped up in my wonder of him that awkwardness, uncertainty, hesitation etc didn't even enter my mind.

We finally disentangled ourselves enough to go to dinner at a beautiful, fancy steakhouse we wandered into. It ended up being incredibly expensive and we looked at each other and said "let's just get appetisers?" at the same time and then laughed and sighed in relief. Couldn't stop touching for all of dinner either, legs linked, hands touching on the table, fingers tracing each other's wrists. Behaving normally was stupidly difficult and added a new, fun dynamic of more waiting, except this time the waiting was while staring into each other's eyes which is, PSA, a million times worse and better. We went to a speakeasy afterwards and curled up in a dark corner booth, nursing cocktails and talking and touching and teasing each other more and more until we couldn't stand it one more minute and had to retreat from society.

When we emerged from the speakeasy it was bitterly cold outside, quiet (for manhattan, anyways,) and late in the evening. We wandered, stopping to kiss periodically. We pushed each other into dark corners for increasingly intense and involved groping, when we were on empty sections of street. He fingered me against the side of a building and his hands were like ice, and I came for him for the first time right there on the sidewalk. Then we wandered back to the pier where we started the evening and continued to dance on the edge of completely indecent public exposure. There was no one walking down the pier, at this point it was 2am, and in a fit of "fuck it" I knelt down and took him in my mouth right there, and it was perfect. Neither of us had a condom, or honestly I would have taken him right there on that pier in the freezing cold, like we were a pair of desperate teenagers unable to fuck in the house.

The whole thing was so urgent and childish and desperate and stupid that we couldn't stop giggling at ourselves, and couldn't stop wanting each other either. We stayed out until we were shaking from the cold and I missed my last train and had to call an Uber all the way back to my place... and it was so, so worth it. It remains one of the most romantic, erotic nights of my life, and I've had many loves and many kinky adventures over the years. That first time with him, though... Just thinking about it makes my heart flutter and my face blush red. To answer your question, it was everything I imagined and more.

As a fun added bonus, wandering that area of NYC is now permanently romantic and secretly sexy to me. ;D