Subtly at first.

I needed to think of something I could try without being inappropriate. If I was right, it would confirm my theory. If I was wrong, I wouldn't be fired, sued, or worse. I realized there had been a long pause in the conversation and Sarah was starting to get nervous again.

I cleared my throat. "Sarah, I'm sorry if I made you anxious. You're great, and I don't think I'm out of your league at all. I'd love it if you agreed to go on a date with me."

Her eyes shot open and she made a cute little squeak. "Really? Like, a date date?" I nodded and she grinned ear to ear. "Totally! Anytime, any place! You name it!"

I smiled back, thinking about how surreal this whole conversation had been. She was practically shaking with excitement. I leaned forward over both of our untouched meals. "Can I ask you something, though?"

She was trying to compose herself and act dignified. "Yeah, of course! What's up?"

I chose my words carefully. "Can I ask you what about me you find attractive?" I asked. "Be honest. I won't be offended. Just tell me what you like."

She was taken aback. Not sure how to respond, she took a second to think it through. "Well, um, I- I like your eyes. You have such beautiful... brown..." She paused thoughtfully. "...eyes? Sorry, I'm not sure- well, I like your eyes. And I love your laugh, the way you light up a room with your smile."

So far, so good. My eyes were a deep green, unlike hers. I had always been stricken by her brown eyes and her infectious laugh. It was interesting seeing her try to resolve the conflict between how she felt about me and what was actually true. I pressed a little more.

"Thank you." I said, ignoring her contradictory statement about my eyes. "Anything else?" I asked innocently. "Don't worry, this will stay between us. Do you like the way I dress?"

She blinked, clearly confused. "I- yeah, I mean, you dress really well. I like the- the- um, the-" She stammered, having a hard time reconciling thoughts. "The dress? The purple one with the- uh, the floral print." She was clearly quite confused, starting to get upset. I tried to calm her down with a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, thanks. I appreciate it." She sighed with relief, no longer trying to process the conflict. It seems like she doesn't have a problem with general feelings but she struggled with specifics. I tried one more experiment.

"That dress... it's not just the dress, is it? It's got a plunging neckline." She blushed and looked down. It felt like cheating - I knew exactly what she thought about me since it was what I thought about her. "It's ok, you can say it. You're attracted to my tits."

She gasped when I said the word. Her sputtering stammer became even worse before she managed to **** out a response. "I mean, yeah... who isn't? I'm sorry, that's inappropriate. It just- I- uh- I don't know-"

I stopped her again with a hand over hers and a bland reassurance. So she didn't seem to have as much of a problem resolving contradictions if I brought them up or went along with them. This was interesting.

In the meantime, though, I was starting to get pretty turned on. If my theory held true, so was she.