I found my 24^th date at a Sunday gathering of a spiritual/sensual/sexual group. I was on a quest to find a committed male partner by going out on 50 first dates, so I needed to show up at events like these to meet new men. It was my second time there. The first time, a young, smiling guy named Ross had welcomed me into the group, and I was eager to connect with Ross one-on-one. I chose him for a sexy exercise—marking each other’s bodies with chalk to delineate erogenous zones. We lay down next to each other in our loosely sarong-wrapped bodies but then realized that the exercise called for three people. Ross looked around the room for someone among the forty people there. Suddenly a tall, tanned colt of a man bearing a mane of brown curly hair around his long face with dark round circles under his eyes galloped over to us.

Leaning over me like an eager puppy, he said, “Could I be in your group?”

I recoiled—his energy seemed too much, and his circled eyes made him look ominous.

“Um, I don’t think so. . . . I don’t really know you,” I said. I was hoping that Ross would support me if I didn’t feel comfortable in this guy’s presence.

The colt’s eager eyes fell in disappointment and said, “Oh, OK.” He turned to go.

“Wait!” Ross spoke up. “Carolyn, this is Phil. He is a gorgeous, sweet man. You want to know him. I guarantee you’ll like him!”

I looked at Ross and remembered his warmth toward me. “OK!” I said. “With that recommendation!”

Phil lay down beside us, and brushing aside our sarongs so our skin was bare, we each followed instructions to point out our favorite pleasure zones, while the other two marked the places with chalk, color-coded for intensity. When Phil and I focused on Ross, much giggling ensued as he directed us to draw maps that seemed to take up most of his body. Lightly touching those areas for erotic responses drew dramatic moans from Ross as well as chuckling from all of us. On ourselves, Phil and I pointed out a mix of silly and pleasurable places, except that I noticed that when Phil was drawing on me, and later stroking me, every place he touched felt electric. As he stroked my face and his eyes looked into mine, a flash of heat flared between us. As I hoped, he bent down and touched my lips with his in a gentle exploratory kiss that said, “Would you like more of this?” The heat flared again. Oh yes, I wanted more.

When we finished the exercise, we were all lying down embracing each other. I was thanking Ross for inviting Phil into our group when Phil said, “Do you want to continue our touching upstairs in the ‘hot room’?” This was the private bedroom reserved for sexual trysts.

I told him I’d love to. It seemed like a not-to-miss experience in exuberant sexual energy. It may not be a date, but it sounded like a welcome sexual encounter.

I turned to Ross and said, “Do you mind?”

“Go for it,” he said.

Phil and I raced upstairs to claim the room. It was carpeted and bare except for a double mattress on the floor, made up with sheets and a few pillows. I lay down and Phil lay down on top of me, looking into my eyes like a hopeful puppy.

“May I f*** you, Carolyn?” Phil said casually, as if he were offering to carry my groceries.

“Yes, please,” I said, equally nonchalant. “Here, use my lube. Do you have condoms?”

Phil looked like a puppy who’d been given his favorite treat. Smiling goofily, he got out a condom, put it on, and smeared my lube all over it and me. After a few tentative pushes, he plunged inside me and started a rhythmic beat—in out, in out.

“Oooh! Aaah! Mmm!” I said on the down beats. On the up beats I gasped for air. Between gasps I was smiling as Phil bounced us along on the bed. His whole body was f***ing me, from his eyes with their joyful smile to the legs that were pumping us up and down and keeping us on the bed. Soon I was oblivious to anything but Phil and his body on top of and inside of mine. I felt happy in this joyful, playful rhythm. Afterward, we looked at each other and dissolved into laughter and smiling kisses.

“Let’s do this again!” he said. I agreed. I wanted to feel that joy again.

I wondered whether Phil would be an occasional tryst or another lover in my dating project. He lived an hour and a half north of my town, so we would have to go out of our way to get together. He was not a serious partner possibility because he was at least twenty years younger than me and married, in an open relationship.

However, I hoped to see him at least a few times, so my first step was a phone conversation with his wife, Tracy, to make sure I had her permission. I had heard that she was very open to Phil having other lovers. I knew her as a warm mother goddess type who had welcomed me into the sensual spiritual gathering months before.

“Tracy, I want you to know that with married men, I keep my heart protected, so I don’t go very emotionally deep with them.” I was hoping my attitude would be reassuring to her. It was one thing to accept your husband making love to and sleeping with other women. It was another to worry about the women wanting to steal him away.

“Actually, you don’t have to hold back from Phil,” she was saying. “I don’t want to deny him any experience he could have. Please go deep with him!” I could barely understand what she was saying. His wife wanted me to “go deep” with Phil? But what would be the consequence? I didn’t think I wanted him as a partner, but what if I did? What if we fell for each other? What would happen to me if I felt deeply for him, but he was still married? I realized that protecting my heart wasn’t just for his wife—it was for me.

Two weeks later, I got a call. “Hi, Carolyn. It’s Phil.”

Hearing his happy, high-toned voice made me smile.

“I’m interviewing in your town for a consulting job tomorrow,” he said. “And I was wondering. Um. Could I come stay with you tonight?”

The combination of puppy exuberance and shy hesitancy was endearing. I was glad I had no plans that night and told him of course he could stay—our first official date.

He came by at eleven that night—early for us since we were both late-night people. I embraced him at the door and let him bounce into my house.

When we went to bed, he f***ed me as enthusiastically as he had before, gazing directly into my eyes. His joy was contagious, and we were both laughing and squealing by the end. I fell asleep curled around his long lean body, my face close to his.

In the morning, he said goofy endearing things that made me laugh and rolled out clever word plays that tickled my mind. His playfulness evoked my own silly words and stories. I felt like a happy little girl who had found her favorite playmate.

Phil got the consulting job, and we set up a regular late-night rendezvous for his weekly trip. Like the first night, our time consisted of loving banter and enthusiastic lovemaking. Our mornings were sleepy and goofy. Once we went to the IMAX 3D theater to see Avatar—a science-fiction adventure that matched our high-flying imaginative relationship. He was becoming an ongoing lover.

“Do you know what I like about you?” he said one morning.

Of course I wanted to know.

“I like how smart, easygoing, and sexual you are.”

“Wow, those are the same things I like about you,” I said. It was easy to be easygoing when I wasn’t imagining Phil as a partner. He was just a very supportive lover.

One evening, sitting at my kitchen table, I asked Phil to read the ad I’d written for an online dating site. I was running out of singles nights, parties, and workshop acquaintances and needed to generate dates from outside my own circles. Reed, my tenth date, had helped draft it. He’d convinced me to include my unconventional activities in order to attract a man who liked the same things. I’d also included a vision of the relationship I wanted. I didn’t want to waste time responding to men who didn’t want that. Now I wanted a second opinion about my ad from someone I was dating.

Phil read the ad with interest, especially this part:

I’m looking for a man who, like me, enjoys growing closer emotionally, touching, sensuality, clothing-optional hot springs, personal growth workshops, and spiritual ceremonies, and who matches me emotionally, sensually, spiritually, intellectually, and energetically. After years of short relationships, I’m ready for a long-term monogamous partnership, and I’m looking for a partner who wants that too.

“This describes you and your life perfectly. I’d date you.”

My shoulders relaxed in relief.

“Except for one thing,” he said.

What had I left out?

“You’re not monogamous.”

“What?” I said, peering at the ad.

“It says here that you want a monogamous relationship. I don’t see you as monogamous.”

“Of course you don’t. That’s because I’m dating lots of guys. But once I find my partner, I’ll just want to be with him.” I knew that I wanted one man, and to be my man’s one and only.

“Hmmm. It looks to me like you really enjoy having different lovers.”

“I do, but once I meet my guy, I don’t think I’ll want that.”

Phil looked doubtful.

“I’m leaving it in,” I said, taking the ad from Phil. I was definitely monogamous.

Reprinted with permission from Fifty First Dates After Fifty: A Memoir by Carolyn Lee Arnold (She Writes Press), available from Amazon or Bookshop.