Speechless, breathless and confused.

Bing is a musician. She plays mostly reggae and jazz, but sometimes dives into the classical field too. She had a gig with the symphony this weekend and called home to ask if she could bring a friend to dinner. He was in town to play timpani with the group and was staying in a nearby hotel but she thought he might like to have dinner with us.

I said fine and then went off to get the ingredients for the only dinner that I am really good at making:

Beef stew.

I can make other things, but my stew is always a hit.

So, Liv and I spent the afternoon chopping and simmering. We made buttermilk biscuits to go with the stew and a big salad. We baked some gingersnaps to have with vanilla bean ice cream.

Bing and Javier came home around five.

I'm 51. I am rarely knocked speechless.

And then I saw a man that looked very much like this.

You would have been struck dumb too.

He had those eyes. Those eyes that are kind and generous and a bit wet looking.

A Mexican accent.

God help me.

And FUCK. I had made STEW??? Why hadn't I made something more exotic like roast duckling or at least a roast chicken? No. I had made something so, so...prairie girl.

Stew. Beef stew.

Javier was charming. He spent a good deal of time sitting across from Liv and asking her about school, about her interests.

A polite man.

He said that Bing had told him that she played piano. Would she play for him? She did.

He said that Bing had told him that she fenced. Could she show him some fencing moves? She did.

She was sociable and sweet.

Her mother was tongue tied and babbling.

Nothing in between. Either I was gazing soupily at him as if he were Robert Pattinson and I was a lovesick teenager sporting my Team Edward tee shirt or I was babbling about the ingredients of my stew like Lucy Ricardo.

We sat down to dinner and he praised my stew, said that the beef was so tender, so succulent, so...perfect.

As soon as he said the word succulent I felt myself melt all over my chair.

Bing looked curiously at me from time to time, her tongue in her cheek, amused.

I went to take a drink of my red wine and missed my mouth, spattering my white cashmere sweater and my Irish linen tablecloth. Javier gallantly handed me his napkin as mine as fallen to the floor.

After dinner, Javier and Bing had to get back to the symphony, but not before he joined me in the kitchen as I was cleaning and offered to help wipe the pans as I washed them. I managed not to swoon and we actually had a decent conversation about Obama's health reform plan where I sounded halfway intelligent, I think.

Bing and Liv played Christmas carols on the piano while we worked and Javier smiled at me with his perfect pearly smile and those eyes that looked like he knew exactly how I looked naked.

"You have a lovely family, Maria and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to dine with you."

Good hell, please god don't let me leap into his arms and beg him to take me into the pantry for a quickie.

Instead, I smiled in my best mannered way and assured him that the pleasure was indeed ours. And thanked him for drawing my Liv out so sweetly.

"She is a lovely little thing. She favors you," he told me.

Well, this was a bold faced lie, but fuck it. I'll take it. She and I look nothing alike.

He and Bing put on their coats and prepared to head back to the symphony hall.

He kissed Liv's hand and my cheek.

When he left, I actually had to put my back against the door and close my eyes.

I had no idea I was still capable of being swept off of my fifty year old feet.

"Wasn't Javier nice?" Liv asked.

Oh. My, Yes. But nice is hardly the word. How about dashing? Sexy beyond words? Edible? Fuckable?

Bing called me at intermission to tease me.

"I have NEVER seen you so rattled," she told me. "You were blushing, honey."

I laughed guiltily.

Admitted that he had flustered me.

It happens.

"I'm beginning to think you have a thing for foreigners," she mused. "Indians, Mexicans, what's next? There is a French singer. Should I bring her home?"

I told her to shut up now.

So, laughing, she did.

Later, when she got home and came to bed, she crawled in beside me and said in a husky voice,

Pienso en ti todo el tiempo. Eres muy sexy. Te adoro. Tienes los ojos mas bonitos del mundo....

It made me laugh. Especially when she admitted that she had asked Javier to coach her and he had obliged.

Maybe it's hormonal. Maybe it was his eyes.

I am lucky that I have a wife who not only gets me but loves me anyway.

Because this old broad was positively breathless.

So, what sort of women or men leave YOU breathless?

'Fess up now.