Chaste first date with unchaste implications (from the files of EXPLORATIONS)

I'm re-running the stories that serve as deep background for EXPLORATIONS. The story continues from this post, two weeks ago.
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Choosing lingerie for that date was not easy, not only because I got my period that morning but also because I had three countervailing desires for what would happen that night:

1. Charles would tell me, sweetly, that he thought we needed to go slow, since we were old friends, and we didn't want to jeopardize that. In which case, lace thong=disappointment, though the frustration of that disappointment and the thought of what it would cause me to do when I returned chastely home had an attraction all its own that nevertheless wasn't enough to outweigh the need for comfort, in my delicate menstrual condition.
2. Charles would, conventionally, rip my clothes off at some point. In which case, lace thong=disappointment for both of us, but perhaps in a good way, if I could manage the courage to tell him that my panties were staying firmly on, despite really wanting them off. I'm not invariably horny during my period, but for the right reasons I can definitely get that way, and that afternoon, thinking about the date, I was getting that way. (Nor do I object to period sex, actually, but first-date period sex? Nope.)
3. Charles would do something dominant. It didn't go any further than that, because I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment, and the very beginning of a fantasy in which he would find some pretext to tell me I needed a spanking, or told me that we were going to have anal sex, so I needed to find a drugstore and buy some lube, made me so unbearably, even uncomfortably (in my delicate condition) aroused that I couldn't take it and had to distract myself with some law school reading (that is, the least hot thing imaginable).

All of that is of course completely beside the real point, that finally determined me for the relative comfort of skimpy black cotton with a tiny bit of lace at the waist under my most comfortable jeans: the danger to some of my most expensive lingerie from my delicate condition. The bra that matched those panties was not a comfortable one, so I went bra-less, as I do relatively often, exercising the privilege of the small-breasted, under a green T-Shirt to bring out my green eyes.

All for nought, and presented, reader, just to give you an idea of my mental state, for under close questioning, Charles can't remember anything about what I was wearing. He had a terrible cold, and he says he thought a million times about cancelling because he wanted our first date to go really well. But he was, he says, very far from sure I would give him another chance, so we did in fact go for sushi. 

There were multiple reasons, I think, why we parted that night with a single, lingering kiss. His cold and my period were definitely in there. But I think the most important reason was that despite those two things, which we hid entirely from one another (he swears he thinks he took enough antihistamines to send him to the hospital, especially in combination with the Kirin), the date was the closest thing to a perfect date either of us had ever experienced, and, to boot, as you'll see in a few moments, had the promise of much, much more if we were careful. The moment I saw his kind, nervous face, looking for me, outside the library, high cheekbones and brown eyes, square chin and close-cropped hair, and watched him see me and smile, gently, I knew I was a goner, D/s or no. 

We talked about the past, in Greenwich, and about the future, not, we both thought, in Greenwich (we were wrong about that, of course, thanks to the way the job market works in the real world). Then, towards the end of dinner, we started doing that thing you do on early dates, when you've kind of leveled up the intimacy a bit, and you're starting to trust him--you talk about the possible future of the relationship, but you talk about it in reverse, really.

I think it started the way it usually does, with each of us talking about what we thought the other needed: "I see you with another teacher"; "I see you with a Senator." What you're really saying is "I see you with me--for God's sake say so." But Charles took a deep breath and said "I think you need more" (I later learned he'd been planning that line practically since the Pisistratus butt-fucking conversation more than a year before).

The way he said "more" stopped me in my figurative tracks. Unable to resist the tide of sensation, I whispered (it was a very quiet restaurant, thank God) "I do. . . need more." There was a pause. Thank God for Dionysus, aka Kirin, or I don't think I ever in a million years would have continued, as I did, "I'm really. . . you know. . . kinky. . ."

He visibly gulped. This is for me the most important part of the moment transformed in Emily's First Submission as my exit from the bathroom in nothing but the lace thong over a shaved pussy. As you'll see, the moment does have a more literal analogue, too.

He says he gulped because he had never let himself imagine me responding that way, just as I refused to let myself imagine him doing something dominant. Sweet.

He said, "Oh. Wow. Me too."

EMILY: "Um. BDSM for me. You?" My heart was beating too fast for me to speak in complete sentences, I guess.

CHARLES: "BDSM. Yes. Me too."

The world seemed to slow down, somehow.

EMILY: "I'm a sub. You?"

CHARLES: "I'm. . . not completely sure about the terminology. . ."

EMILY: [waits, agonized]

CHARLES: "But I think I'm a top."

EMILY: [gushing] "Really. That's interesting, because I need one of those, I think."

CHARLES: "I'd, uh, like to try. . . to. . . do that, uh, for you."

EMILY: [melts]