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On date one, Al presented me with a CD of songs with the word "star" in them. More important was date two. We'd gone to church and come back to my apartment for a home-cooked meal. Al took my hands and said the words I'll never forget: "I'm not looking for temporary." Whooooaaa. "Well, I'm also not interested in sport dating," I answered. From that moment on, we started thinking of ourselves as two parts of a penny. We'd talk on the phone till 4 in the morning. I left singing messages on his voice mail. He covered the floor of my living room with roses.
I was madly in love. The first time he held me in his arms sexually, it was almost frightening because we knew our erotic interest in each other could take over every other thing.
So we had an intoxicatingly sexual connection the first two months of our relationship. And we talked seriously about marriage. Because we knew this was all moving too quickly, we wanted to bring a spiritual adviser into the relationship. It wasn't an easy decision. We both knew the first thing he'd say was, "To test this relationship, you must be celibate until marriage."
They consulted a pastor, who said just that.
He told us that this period of abstinence would, in many ways, insure our ability to be faithful after marriage. The first two months we were celibate, it was kind of whimsical – like, "Oooh – look, we're doin' it." I mean, Al is a beautiful man. He's got the legs of a stallion. He'd be a perfect Ralph Lauren model.
