Her Gaze

Ahhhh.......attraction.

The most powerful force in the universe.

Not lust. No, lust is a much more common thing. I lust often, every day in fact. I look lustfully at pretty women every day. It means little and is a common as eating and breathing.

But, attraction. That's a different thing entirely. And very, very, rare.

Ladies, I'm sure it happens to you much more often. You have your choice. You could catch and hold the gaze of any man you choose.

Not so with me. I wouldn't even try. I am, after all, a married man. I don't date. I don't even flirt.

But every once in a blue moon my gaze will be returned and it's electrifying.

As it was today at lunch. Just me and my sons in a fru-fru eatery with a high estrogen ratio of patrons. Looking dapper in my Sunday best, I must say. Just us three in a room full of ladies.

I glanced around to take in the room, and there she was. Beautiful. Elegant. Breathtaking.

I vaguely knew her. We must have gone to school together back when. She was within a few grades of me anyway. But here she was today, a smoldering Italian beauty.

And she returned my gaze. And in an instant I knew that there was attraction there.

She had company as well. A generational trio with her mother and her daughter. Her daughter was striking in her own right - a pretty little twentysomething with long hair and lowcut jeans who would have held my attention on any other day. But today the daughter seemed insignificant and vulgar alonside her elegant mother.

She tended her family as I tended mine. And we caught each other's gaze at appropriate moments. Electrifying moments. Her watching me as I went to get refills. Me watching her as she did the same. No one else in the room full of people mattered.

Calm on the outside, my mind was on high alert. All I wanted to do was meet her behind the soda machine and kiss her passionately for a few minutes. Didn't happen, of course, even as much as I willed it.

Eventually, I cleaned our table and left - knowing that briefly I had experienced that rarest of thrills - attraction.