Miles away from home, in the company of a woman he met over the internet, he could do nothing but marvel at where he was in life.

What is even happening right now? He remembered the Twitter conversation that went to direct messaging which led to phone calls which led to emails which led to..this. 

She shown him around this town, a city he’d never been to. THey’ve eaten good food, drank good drink in various watering holes and the few bottles of wine she said she hadn’t thought of drinking since she moved into this place some time ago.

Of course, they’ve had their trysts; all around her apartment, in her place of work (closed on the weekend) and in her car. He is satisfied on that measure, and she has said she is as well. The adventure of it all!

She is an academic, and he figures he’s not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, he is no intellectual slouch either, so she has him read something she is working on. It is a paper she hopes to get published, and he offers to read it.

It is full of big words and academic jargon, and he supposed this is a way of filling a page count or some minimum he’s not aware of. But he can pull out her meaning, and he tells her what he understands.

Her surprise caught him off guard. She expressed joy that he understood what she was saying. She exclaimed that he had taken something she had written and boiled it down to simple, understandable terms. 

“It would hurt my head to think down to your level.”

He is taken aback, but she clearly means this..as a compliment? SHe is saying that she has been vibrating at such a high level, that she, who has a command of academic language and its rules, is stunned that he is able to distill her words into something simple and accessible.

A few days later, back in his own home many miles away, he starts to write an email suggesting that they shouldn’t see each other again. He’s thinking of what she said, and she doesn’t remember it at all.