Offer to go out with Gemma right now

After her argument with Gemma and your conversations with her the other day, you had to believe Sabrina was good with you dating around. Gemma was a bombshell and an electric personality to be around. You wanted to date her, it was just a matter of convincing her that it was OK.

“Why don’t we go out now?” you asked Gemma.

She looked at you like you were crazy. “What?!”

“Let’s go ahead and do that lunch date!”

“What about the food?”

“Pshh, so they guys will have to wait an extra half hour to eat. They’ll survive,” you brushed off.

“What about Sabrina?”

“She’s out working with Garrison, I think she’ll be out of the office all day,” you told her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Gemma told you, not letting you deflect the question.

It would have been simple to say that you and Sabrina agreed to an open relationship, but one concern Gemma made last night kept tugging at you. She didn’t want a relationship based around sex. An open relationship had very sexual connotations that you didn’t want to bring up right now. You paused to think about your argument and gave her the best reasoning you could. “Well, let’s look at it this way: You were the one who told Sabrina that you were interested in me, correct?”

“Yes…” Gemma concurred, not knowing where you were going with this.

“And, even knowing this, she engaged in… ‘intimate interactions’ with myself, correct?”

“Mhmm…” Gemma nodded slowly, frowning at the memory.

“So, had this incident not occured, there is the possibility that one of these days you would have let your feelings be known and I would have reciprocated. I think it’s only fair that you should have the opportunity… WE should have the opportunity to see where a relationship between us could lead!”

She smirked and summated, “So, what you’re saying is that I called dibs, so I should be able to get a free go?”

“I think I said it more elegantly,” you rebuked.

Gemma shook her head and laughed. “It must have been your way with words that caught my attention.”

“So? Will you go out with me?”

Gemma looked at you for a while, letting the question linger. You felt like a high schooler again, asking the most popular girl in school for a dance. Just as the anxiety was building up to a boiling point, Gemma smiled.

“OK.” Your eyes widened, hearing the attractive young woman accept your proposal “I’ll go out with you.”

“OK! I have a date!” you said out loud, to make sure it was real. “I am on a date with Gemma!”

“Yes,” Gemma agreed with a laugh.

“Where to?”

“Well, certainly not the burrito place,” Gemma told you. “Baked beans and rice in a giant wrap is not exactly the best thing to be stuffing in your face on a first date.”

“Right! Baked beans could end badly…”

Gemma scoffed. “You’re starting our date out with a fart joke?”

“It only gets better from here!”

You settled into a bistro with outdoor seating. They had a fan blowing to keep patrons cool and large umbrellas to shield them from the sun. The waitress served your drinks and left you to peruse the menu. You sat quietly, looking at the lunch specials. Gemma sipped her drink and flipped over the menu. You glanced over at Gemma. She smiled, then looked back at the menu.

This was awkward.

Things were so much easier with Sabrina, the two of you just hit it off. Here, you were struggling to find something to say to strike up a conversation with Gemma. Was it because you and Sabrina were working together and there was no pressure of being on a date? Or did the shared knowledge of Sabrina’s erotic exploits makes things more comfortable between the two of you?

Whatever it was you had with Sabrina clearly wasn’t going on between you and Gemma. Was this a failed experiment or did it just need to be guided onto a better path?