Beatrix and I walk hand in hand to the Barkley Village movie theater.  I buy us two tickets for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania, a movie the physics of which I am certain I will mock mercilessly, yet a movie I am sure I will enjoy nonetheless, especially with Bea by my side.  I planned this date, after all.  I hand her her ticket and head from the box office to the building entrance.  I hold the door for the impossibly hot blonde behind me who smiles in thanks.  After purchasing a bucket of popcorn, I head to auditorium 7, and take my seat five minutes before the previews will begin.  The 377-seater room is quickly filling up, and I’m glad I was able to get a ticket at all.

I take my time getting comfortable, placing my popcorn on the empty seat next to me, draping my winter jacket across my knees, and moving the popcorn back to my lap.  Why did I buy such a large bucket of popcorn for just myself? I wonder.  Eh, I’m sure Gabi will eat whatever I bring back to the dorm.  Huh.  Maybe I should have invited her.  She is my girlfriend after all.

I mentally berate myself for a minute until I am interrupted: the blonde I opened the door for scoots her way down the row of people from my right and passes me.  I feel suddenly warm as her legs brush past mine and I get an involuntary—but far from unwelcome—close-up view of her jeggings-clad butt.  Gabi and I are in an open relationship, and I know she’s seeing someone else, so I don’t feel particularly guilty about the immediate chemical reaction fireworking throughout my body.  I try not to stare as she takes the seat to my left, but this girl is stunning with her soft features, adorable freckles, legs for miles, and long pink scarf that somehow complements her posture.  I’m wet between my legs.  The girl smiles at me a little uncomfortably, and I quickly avert my gaze.  Good going, Delfino.

“Drink - the - ooze!  Drink - the - ooze!”  Scott takes an involuntary swallow of Veb’s fluid.  I swallow another fistful of popcorn.

As I lower my hand from my mouth, my elbow bumps the cute girl’s, and for the first time, I realize the armrest between our chairs has been pulled up since the last showing.  I don’t know what possesses me, but I leave my elbow where it is.  I don’t press further in, just leave it where it landed.  And … and she leaves her elbow there too.  My heart picks up its pace.

I eat another handful of buttery goodness and drop my hand back to where it was before, touching her elbow with mine again, and again, she doesn’t react.  This is the most excited I’ve ever been for so small a touch with a complete stranger.  I decide that all future popcorn shall be transported with my right hand.

Working up my nerve, I slowly lean toward her just a little, just to increase the pressure of our elbows together.  Just to test the waters.  That was stupid, Sarah.  Don’t scare her off.  To my utter disbelief, she matches the pressure.

We gradually continue this process, never once looking at each other.  Now our upper arms are lightly touching, not just our elbows.  She’s warm.  Really warm.  I can feel it through my cardigan.  My heart can’t decide whether to melt or beat out of my chest, so it decides to take over my brain instead.  I can barely pay attention to the movie as Bill Murray takes the stage.  Sarah Prime notifies me that the movie makes even less sense than the first two, so I’m not missing much.

Now our forearms are touching.  We’re touching from shoulders to wrists, and adding more and more tentative pressure.  Finally, I can’t take it anymore, and I glance at her.  The movement catches her eye and we make eye contact, eye contact that lasts a heartbeat, eye contact that lasts through the whole movie up to the same scene of the next showing.  Her lips twitch into a hint of a smile, and I mirror it autonomically.  An annoying buzz tickles the back of my mind, reminding me that the scientific term for this copycat behavior is “echopraxia”—a common behavior among people with ASD.  ASD also makes eye contact uncomfortable for me.  Usually.  With this girl, I instead find myself mesmerized—a state that quickly overwhelms and silences the academic buzz.

At last, she drops her gaze and glances down to my 80% full popcorn bucket, then back up at me.  I smile more fully, and move the bucket to rest between our legs.  She takes a handful and I wrest my attention back to the movie.  Our upper arms continue to touch, but with the popcorn bucket in the way, our hands rest in our lap but for the times we grab another handful.  Our hands collide in the bucket a couple of times, and I tell myself that it’s a coincidence, that I haven’t been paying careful attention in order to time my bites with hers.

Then I feel her breath in my ear as she whispers, “Thanks.”  I’m done.  I’ve melted.  I don’t know her name and I would do anything she asks of me for just one more smile, for just five more seconds of our arms pressed together.

But it doesn’t end after five seconds.  Or the five after that.  Over the next forty-five minutes of … yeah, I guess we can call it “plot”, my beautiful stranger’s and my postures become ever more diagonal.  And then her head is resting against mine.  I’m a couple inches shorter, and soon my head is resting on her shoulder; the top of my head becomes her pillow.

My mind is split, each experiencing the bliss of the situation for different reasons.  One half is focused on the physical sensation of being this girl’s pillow, the unexpected, exciting cuddling, the surreal nature of doing it with a stranger.  The other half feels the bliss of relief.  Aside from Gabi, I am unaccustomed to women being this comfortable with me: a trans woman, and before that, an awkward male-presenting person trying to fit in with girls for reasons that did not yet make sense.  That this stranger is comfortable enough to rest her head against mine as I rest against her shoulder is more validating than anything I’ve ever experienced.  Once recognizing this sensation and why it means so much to me, it fades to the background, the first half—the one focused on the excitement—takes the con of the USS Delfino, luxuriating in the warm touch and the pleasure hormones it engenders.

Only one of my senses is online right now, and it’s not sight.  The girl presses her divine warmth into me.  She pulls the popcorn bucket out from between us and places it on the floor.  Our legs press gently together a moment later, my hand on my lap, hers on hers.  And then I feel the back of her hand on mine and I let out a soft gasp.  It’s so soft, so warm, so gentle, so … ugh!  Just so precious and good and wholesome, and my heart is overflowing and my blood is pumping in my ears.

I press back with my hand but it’s not enough.  I twist my hand and she carefully draws her fingertips across my palm, sending a shiver through me.  We intertwine our fingers, and carefully close them around to touch the backs of each other’s hands.

And that’s it.  I’m cuddling and holding hands with a perfect stranger.  This sublime, showstopping stranger.  The thought of it, of the ridiculous thing that I am doing is almost too much for me to believe.  Surely this is some wonderful dream.  Real people don’t cuddle with strangers just because they shared their popcorn with them.  That’s not a thing.

Is it?

She twists our hands back again so that both our pinkies are resting on my thigh.  Her thumb begins to massage the back of my hand.  Her touch is silk.  Finer than silk.  Softer than down.  More fluid than melted butter.  Gentler than a mother with her babe.  Without noticing, I close my eyes and focus my whole attention on the sensation.  I fall into that sensation, get lost in it.  This is my home.  I live here now.

She squeezes my hand, and I open my eyes.  The credits are rolling and the auditorium lights fade up.  Inexplicably embarrassed to be seen despite knowing no one in the theater, as if caught in the act, I quickly release her hand and pull my head away from her shoulder.  She smiles at me, then begins gathering her stuff.  I hastily make to do likewise, working up the courage to introduce myself.

Jacket donned, I turn around and … and she’s not there.  I look to the aisle and spot her leaving the room.  An instant later, my beautiful stranger walks behind a wall and is gone.

“What did you think of the movie?” Beatrix asks as I leave the auditorium.

“There was a movie?” I ask.  Adrenaline and oxytocin are still coursing through my veins.

She graces me with a soft giggle.  “I hope it was okay that I hijacked the date you planned,” she says nervously.

“Absolutely.  The movie was the extent of my plans.  What you made it was … I don’t even have words for it.  Exciting?  Wholesome?  Devastating?  Life itself?”

“Mmm,” she mmms warmly.  “I like that.  Life itself.”

“It seemed so real.  You gave no hint that you knew who I was.”

“That’s because I didn’t.  I don’t even remember setting this up.  As far as I knew, we had never met before.  When I try to remember the first time we met, my mind pulls up two memories at once.  Whoever said you don’t get a second chance at a first impression?”

“Well, as far as first impressions go, this was the best I’ve experienced.”

She pouts.  “Better than me summoning you across the VU with a look?”

“Uhhh….”

She laughs at me, links my arm with hers, and together we walk out the theater and back into real life.