After tiny portion after tiny portion of haute Colombian cuisine, each of which had been better than the last, Marisol took a final sip of the wine paired with their dessert and looked across the table at her date. As she had predicted to herself, with every fiber of her being, she cursed the shapewear she had on. First of all, she really could have used the extra internal real estate to contain everything she’d just eaten. Second of all, she had not stopped thinking about the feel of Bisi’s mouth on her neck or the feel of Bisi’s breast in her hand, and she had not stopped wanting more of both. There was no question about how she wanted the night to end. None whatsoever. A tougher question was how the night should end. 

Mari had a busy day the next day— TGIF was not a thing in the Event business. Neither were weekends a time for relaxation, generally speaking. This weekend would be a particularly hectic one for Mari, with events on both days. She couldn’t really do an all-nighter tonight, and she had a feeling that if Bisi came up and the shapewear came off, an all-nighter would be the result. Damn it. I hate being responsible. I don’t want to coordinate a Pro-Am Golf Tournament. I want to fool around. At least a little. 

She wasn’t quite sure how foolish she really wanted to get tonight, though. She didn’t think her body would require much persuading from Bisi in order to get very, very foolish, very, very quickly. Her brain, though, was kind of happy where it was— exploring this exciting tension, savoring it, learning about Bisi, wondering about what it would be like when they had sex. If? No. When. Waiting was also a little bit about testing the durability and nature of their mutual interest. Alphas and Omegas could learn an awful lot about their physical compatibility by getting naked and swapping scent and fluids. It was a very effective shortcut—if their genes played nicely together, they’d figure it out fast and enjoy themselves immensely in the process. The downside was that this shortcut dampened their ability to assess every other kind of compatibility. 

Speaking from experience, Mari knew that if the sex was good (which it seemed very likely to be), it could blind her to a host of other issues. When she was younger and she’d had the will and energy to circulate on the singles scene with regularity, in a couple of instances, she’d missed some important cues thanks to orgasms and oxytocin. Looking back at a couple of her more infamous false starts, she could’ve used the red flags to perform the dance of the seven veils, and still, she’d responded to the “You up?” texts for far longer than she should have. Well, at least she’d had a good time for a little while and no real harm had come to her, but she’d learned that pheromone-drunk Mari was not peak Mari, judgment-wise. 

Mari hadn’t rushed in where angels (and wiser Omegas) feared to tread in quite a while, having gotten smarter and more selective as she’d gotten older. Bisi’s scent was so intoxicating, however, and she was so incredibly attractive that Mari thought that once they started getting really physical, all critical distance would vaporize. Possibly permanently. Pheromone daze aside, there were also the standard attendant risks that came with any sexual relationship. Mari wasn’t going to get pregnant, she had an IUD. She had condoms at her place, too, for the STI side of things. She really couldn’t envision Bisi force-claiming her or otherwise hurting her or anybody else, for that matter, but the safety question wasn’t nothing and Mari had already violated two of her standard safety measures by allowing Bisi to pick her up at home and by traveling in one vehicle. 

Holding off on hooking up had become standard practice for Mari, and it had proved to be a useful touchstone in her date-assessment arsenal. She’d found that a slower lead-in acted as an effective coarse filter. In a couple of cases, even a modest delay in sexual gratification had proved to be a red flag for the person she was seeing. Their impatience, in turn, became red flag for Mari. In one very memorable instance from her mid-twenties, this drama had played itself out at the end of a first date. On that occasion, Mari had been obliged to Uber home after her refusal to conclude an otherwise enjoyable evening with an overnight hotel stay had resulted in a loud, public tantrum from the Alpha who’d asked her out. The rate at which he had escalated from flirting and charming to name-calling and recriminations had been eye-opening. After she had angrily detached him from her hair and face and gotten some distance between them, he had stood right there on the sidewalk outside the bar, loudly blaming Mari’s scent and body for his behavior, as if she could have changed either to accommodate his needs or preferences. He’d been complaining, essentially, that fucking him was the least she could do since she’d caused him to be so attracted to her. The hell of it was that up to that point, she had liked him. Thought he was funny, entertaining, nice. He had smelled good to her, too. Not Bisi good, but pleasant. Certainly not like an Alpha who would try to humiliate you into screwing him three hours after you met. Where had that cabrón learned to act like that, she’d wondered later in the shower, fuming as she had scrubbed every trace of him off her body. Had some other poor Omega actually fucked him just to shut him up? The take-away from that debacle? Scent, just like looks, just like charm, could be deceiving. That, and never, ever, ever ride with an Alpha you don’t know well yet. Unless it was Bisi, apparently, but… 

Mari looked at her gorgeous date, rolling pros and cons around in her brain like a twenty-sided die. Spanx…orgasms…Alarm going off at six-thirty tomorrow…Kisses…The way she smelled…The way she felt…The way she looked…Rushing things…Missed opportunities…¡Ay! It felt like she already did know Bisi. But she didn’t. She just really wanted to.

Oblivious to Mari’s roiling thoughts, her date looked down at her, her head canted to one side appealingly. “Well,” asked Bisi, as they waited for the valet to bring her car around, “What did you think? Too weird? Just weird enough?”

Here was a relatively easy-to-answer question. Mari pounced on it gratefully. She shook her head. “Not too weird for me— Are you kidding me? It was great. This was my first serious Colombian food experience, although obviously this is a super fancy take on it. The tiny little pretty portions of things made me feel like Alice in Wonderland— ‘Eat me’! How did you find out about this place?”

“Ah, I consulted the All-Knowing Oracle.”

“Google?”

“No, Victoria Anderson. She’s the mother of a friend-slash-colleague of mine. She lives in Georgetown and she knows all the best places to go within a two-hundred mile radius. Have you ever heard of the Anastasia Anderson Foundation?”

“Yeah, of course! I think everybody with any interest in Omegan Rights has by now, especially around here—”

“Well, she was Anastasia’s mother. She started it.”

“Oh. Wow!” said Mari, impressed. And then as Mari contemplated this information a little more, she said, more sadly, “Ohhhhh. Oh no.”

“It’s both, but when you meet her? You’ll see that she’s much more of a ‘Wow’ than an ‘Oh no,’ despite everything,” Bisi assured her.

“Well, I’d love to meet her, and that was a ‘Wow!’ meal, that’s for sure. Please thank her for me. And! Andandand--You can see that I employed no skullduggery to try and steal the check out from under you. I can be trusted. No need for all the ’the location’ secrecy next time.” 

Bisi gave her a skeptical look. “You have a fifty-percent success rate at check theft. It’s hardly time for me to let my guard down.”

Mari elbowed her gently, letting her weight move Bisi perhaps a whole half-inch to the side. “Oh, come on. I owed you last time. I owed you big time. I needed to settle up. I wanted to. I’m an Omega of Honor.”

Bisi harrumphed skeptically. “Time will tell. So…you mentioned next time. When can that be? You said that you’re booked with work all weekend?”

“Yeah, unfortunately. I’m taking Tuesday and Wednesday off to compensate. I know Tuesday night’s not really a traditional date night, but if you’d like to get together Tuesday, I could come to Baltimore?” said Mari. “If you’re free, I mean, or—”

They were interrupted by the arrival of Bisi’s car. The valet hopped out and hustled around the front of the car to open the passenger door for Mari, but Bisi handed him a folded bill and dismissed him with a smile, taking charge of the door herself. She helped Mari into the car, taking care not to trap the fabric her dress in the door as she closed it. Mari watched Bisi covetously as she walked around and climbed into the car, fastened her seat belt, adjusted her mirror, and turned to Mari before she put the car in gear. Bisi leaned over to kiss Mari’s cheek and steal a quick sniff, her eyes closing briefly in contentment. Mari couldn’t resist a pleasurable shiver. 

“I’m free,” Bisi assured her, her voice dusky but emphatic. “Yes, come to Baltimore. I could cook for you. Then there would be no need for ‘locations’ at all. If you like jollof rice and stew, I’ll make you a very happy girl.”

“That sounds amazing,” said Mari. “Are you sure you have time to cook?”

“Time? It sounds as if I have five interminable days to cook,” said Bisi somewhat glumly.

“I’m sorry for my weird schedule. I’m a professional night owl, but really? I’m more of an early bird. And more or less a homebody! Parties are strictly business for me— well, I like family parties, you know, block parties, casual hangouts, but you’ll never catch me throwing some big, fancy event for myself. If I ever get married, I’ll probably either do it in the backyard or elope,” Mari laughed.

“No, it’s fine. I'll see you whenever I can see you. I have a crazy schedule, too,” said Bisi. “And sometimes it changes at the drop of a hat. You’re sure you don’t mind the drive?”

“How can I object when you’ve come here twice already?”

Bisi gave her a Come on expression. “Well, you can hardly put the first trip on your tab, can you? You make the drive very, very worth it, Temi. Now, it’s only nine. Can I take us somewhere cozy for a drink and a chat? I know a good, quiet bar with a fireplace. I’m not ready to give you up yet.”

“I’d like that. Very much,” said Mari, noting the implication that the end of the date would be the end of the night, which was exactly what she’d been thinking should happen, what needed to happen for good reasons, and, perversely, feeling fiercely unready for the end of the date.