News of a crush made its way down the grapevine and I was soon having mint tea with Nicole in the shadowy recesses of Café Noir. We said this-and-that, touched here-and-there, and kissed over-and-again. She was a radiant beauty with flowing dark hair, brown eyes and beautiful olive skin. The hot summer night forced her into a skimpy tank-top that revealed graceful shoulders and nice, smooth arms.

Tea can only take you so far; we needed to move it along. My game was in the early stages of development and I didn’t really know how to escalate things or move a night along. I had one idea that night – Café Noir – and I was now out of options. We left the place and fell into the humid New York night.

We walked a bit making small talk. It helped that we’d stop every few feet and kiss and grope. That kept the energy moving forward. In a flash of boldness, my 25-year-old self grabbed Nicole and thrust her against a wall. We ducked into a dark alcove off the street so passersby couldn’t see our lust.

This turned her on. She started rubbing my stomach and chest; I licked her neck and up by her ear. Things were getting hot. I felt her hand migrate below the equator and pay attention to Brazil.

Being the innovator, I decided to go for broke. The combination of night air, her perfume, the tea and my emerging sense of entitlement allowed me to lift her arm, take a deep breath and go for it. I took a long, forceful lick of her hairless armpit.

In the ensuing eight years, I haven’t experienced anything similar. It’s been almost a decade, and I have yet to repeat such a foolish and distasteful move. Halfway through the lick, my tongue scraping against her shorn hair follicles and grazing over her many sweat pores, I hit anti-perspirant. It was like a Formula-One driver hitting an oil slick. I lost control.

My tongue recoiled. My head heaved. I stumbled back. My eyes teared. My thoughts glazed over. Nicole, freaked by the whole incident, remained frozen, arm raised above her head in some kind of perennial sexual salute. I was doubled over, coughing, using my fingers and sleeve to remove the desiccant from my tongue.

You see, anti-perspirant contains chemicals that remove moisture from skin. And my tongue, great, long, pleasure-giving creature that it is, is coated in saliva. The two don’t play fair. I have never had such an unpleasant physical sensation. It was if the all the water in my mouth was being sucked out and it kept going; I couldn’t get the stuff off my palette.

Doubled over in agony, I managed to look up and through tear-stained eyes saw Nicole raise her arm one last time.

It was to hail a cab.