Abbie and Jake have a serious talk

Abbie sipped her wine. It was probably a very fancy wine, but it was the atmosphere that made it taste fancy. That, plus she was wearing a gorgeous dress, and on a date with a cute guy. Is this a date? she wondered. She giggled at herself. Am I going to just keep asking myself these questions forever?

"So Abbie," Jake began.

Wouldn't it be funny if Jake was wondering the same things? she thought.

"... what do you think you're going to have tonight?" he continued.

She giggled again, this time more audibly. "Um, I haven't really finished reading the menu yet."

"What's so funny?"

Abbie shook her head. "Nothing. That's just ... not what I was expecting you to ask." She began laughing a little harder. Maybe the wine was having more effect than she expected.

They read the menu rather quietly, occasionally suggesting something delicious to one another, and after a moment, the waiter arrived. Jake ordered both feijoada and churrasco as appetizers. Abbie quickly added that she wanted to try the coxinha and cheese pastel.

"We'll get all of that," said Jake with a laugh.

"And for entrées ... if you're still hungry?" said the waiter with a grin.

Abbie ordered the ribeye with chimichurri sauce and a sides of rice and grilled vegetables. Jake said, "I'll have the same."

Jake took a breath. "So Abbie," he said, much like he had a few minutes earlier. But this time, there was a slightly different tone, and Abbie knew he was going to venture into a more complicated topic.

"Yes, Jake?" She smiled at him, both innocently and knowingly at the same time.

Jake wasn't sure what to say. "Have we ever even been on, like, a date?"

Abbie thought to herself. "Well, we've done date things before. We've had meals. We've had drinks. We've had sex." She giggled at that. "I mean, we've had lots of sex."

Jake smiled. "Oh, that part I know." He sipped his wine. "But this -- having a nice dinner, just the two of us -- this is a date. We're on a date. Right?"

Abbie nodded. "I think so." She looked around, and then back to Jake.

"But you and me, we --" He was trying to figure out how to talk about the thing they had together, but no matter how he thought about it, he didn't have the words. So he got blunt. "I don't know anyone in the world like you. I don't know anyone who knows anyone like you. I think back on that day in the conference room when I asked you for a blowjob out of nowhere, and you were like, 'okay,' and sometimes I guess I worry that maybe I'm being selfish or stupid or I don't know ..." He trailed off, still unable to articulate his thoughts.

Abbie smiled. I guess we're going to talk about this, she thought. Out loud, she continued. "Jake, that day was really special to me. Not like in a 'lose your virginity' or 'fall in love' kind of special. But in a 'I'm discovering something new' way. I'm twenty-four. I'm young enough that I have a lot of life to discover and explore, and old enough to be in control of what I want."

"Is this what you want? This ... this?"

Abbie nodded. "Right now it is. Maybe it wasn't, before that day in the conference room, or maybe I hadn't thought about it before. But you unlocked something in me. Every day since, I'm learning things about myself and about the world, and it's amazing."

Jake looked at her, admiring her ability to say exactly what was on her mind. "Watching you discover yourself that way, that's part of what's so absolutely divine about you. If that discovery went away, you wouldn't be the same woman."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't." She leaned in a bit and looked deeply into his eyes. "But Jake, you see something in me that no one else sees."

"What do you mean?"

"I think you understand why I do it, why I say yes. You see that I see the magic in it."

Jake nodded.

Abbie went on. "I sometimes wonder if it's weird for you, and if you were hoping we'd go out a few times and then be serious together or something."

"Abbie, I think we are serious together. Like you said, I see something that other people don't."

"But for most people, 'serious' is about exclusivity."

Jake shook his head. "We're not most people."

"No, we're not."

Jake thought for a moment. "If I asked you to be exclusive. If I asked you to be my 'girlfriend,' you would say yes."

Abbie nodded. "I would."

They were silent for a moment. Then Jake added, "but neither of us would truly be getting what we want."

"No." Abbie pondered this for a bit. "I think we're a different kind of exclusive." These thoughts were new to her, so she spoke slowly. "For a lot of people, intimacy and sex are the ways they uniquely connect. Monogamous couples attach the distinction of their relationship to having a single partner. But I wonder if, for me, for us, the way we uniquely connect is that you understand what I need to see in the world -- and I trust you to honor that."

Jake took this all in. "Do you think I'm the only person you know who sees you this way?"

She thought about it for a minute. She wanted to be sure to give an honest answer, not just an agreeable one. "Yes, I do. I haven't talked about it with anyone else, and when I've been physical or even emotional with other people, they don't have the same perspective."

"And you trust me differently than you trust others?"

"Yes. I'm not naive or ignorant of problems or of bad people. Life is crazy and the world is dangerous. And I don't put myself in situations that are going to hurt me. But I know you care for me. You respect me."

Jake nodded. "I do."

Abbie smiled and sipped her wine. "And that's why you win."

Jake looked puzzled. "Win? What did I win?"

"Me!" Abbie laughed. Jake chuckled, happy with the prize but unsure of the rules of the game. "We're not going to use words like 'girlfriend' or 'dating' or 'love,' because those aren't part of our exclusivity language."

"I've never heard the term 'exclusivity language.'" Jake said.

"I just made it up. And ours is about perspective and trust. And I trust you to tell me when your perspective changes."

Jake agreed. "Okay, that makes sense."

Abbie raised her glass. "To perspective and trust." Jake tapped his glass to hers, and they both drank their wine.

"You know," said Jake, a bit of a sly grin returning to his face.

Abbie smiled broadly. Although their conversation had been important, they also needed to move past it. "Yes, Jake? What do I know?"

"What you know is that if we're going to come to terms on an understanding -- like we just did -- there should be some kind of contract."

Abbie raised an eyebrow. "Ooh, interesting. What do you have in mind?"

"I think I need to claim a small token to represent your trust in me."

Abbie's eyes twinkled. "What kind of token?"

"Will you please give me your panties?"

Abbie blushed a little and licked her lips. "I don't suppose you want me to, say, go to the restroom and come back with them?"

"I don't suppose I do." Jake smirked. "But you knew that."

Abbie giggled and nodded. "Yup, I did." She looked around. "I'll just have to shift my position here a bit." She reached down under the table and adjusted her dress. She reached under her dress, and slowly and gradually pulled her panties around her hips, under her thighs, and let them drop to the floor around her ankles.

"Well?" asked Jake.

Under the table, Abbie slid her right foot out of her shoe. She felt the material of her underwear around her ankle, and lifted her foot, wiggling it so that she essentially "held" the panties in her toes. She stretched her leg under the table, and ran the tips of her toes along Jake's leg.

Feeling her foot against his leg, Jake's eyes widened. "Oh, I see."

Abbie's toes reached Jake's knee, and then along his inner thigh. Jake looked down, and discovered her panties in his lap. "Contract signed?" Abbie asked.

Jake took her panties in his hand, brought them up to his face, and inhaled her smell. "Yup, contract signed."