Chance Encounter

Chance Encounter

Jetlag, the dryness of the air in the cabin after twelve hours flying from Tokyo, and the boredom of the long overnight flight had taken their toll and he was looking forward to a good long hot shower and some proper food as soon as he cleared customs.

Not that the food in the first-class section wasn't acceptable, in truth it was quite palatable, and the wine list impeccable, but he never ate or drank a lot of alcohol on long flights, preferring to sip his glass of water regularly refilled from the large bottles of Evian provided by the ever-attentive cabin staff.

One little tightly uniformed redhead had attracted his attention. The independence and self-assuredness of Australian women excited him, and Japan had been a sensual drought - he found the women there mostly unattractive and servile, although always eager to please him.The incessant meetings, the laborious consultative process and endless rounds of socialising in late-night bars with the salarymen had irritated him and the long, delayed flight had left him jaded and rather too tired to face the drive home.

As the dawn cracked and smeared its orange glow across the horizon at 39,000 feet, and the sun rose and invaded the port windows in the forward section of the aircraft, he felt the engines ease back into an idle, the aircraft's computer maintained altitude by reducing speed, then tipped the nose gently into the descent profile, over the Great Dividing Range and on down into Melbourne.

"Do you need an immigration card, Mr. Black?" The petite redhead was at his side.

"No thanks, I have an electronic passport," he replied.

"Is there anything else I can get you before we land, sir?" she cooed softly, smiling.

"No thanks".

"If you need me, just press the call button, I'll just be in the galley preparing for landing."

He wasn't sure but he thought she might be hinting at something more than the usual first-class-cabin services, he thought. He turned and looked at her as she strutted back behind the heavy curtain separating first from business and somewhere behind that, in the wilderness, the frightful cramp of economy class.

Her roundly-smooth, pert bottom strained against the seams of her airline-issue skirt, not a panty-line to be seen. Nice. He settled back into the chair. Thank goodness his days of flying cattle class were long behind him.

Assuming the top position of power in the business had come naturally to him. He was used to getting his way in all things except his home life, where he often felt cheated, as if he were living someone else's life instead.

The kids were fine, he adored them and was proud of their academic and career achievements, but his wife never shared his keen interest in matters of sensuality, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd even been allowed to kiss her on the mouth, let alone brush his hand gently over her sex.

She was incredibly attractive, and men would turn and look at her as she passed, but she had no libido whatever -- not for him, anyway, and as far as he knew she was interested in nobody else.

Any time he tried to kiss her she would turn her head slightly, as if greeting a friend, not a lover or life-partner. And at night, in bed, any time he attempted to caress her neck, back or side, she would roll over and tell him she was tired, and it was time to sleep.

Clearly, there were issues. And whenever he gently raised the matter, there would be shouting, after which she would dissolve in floods of tears.

It was all too much trouble, which was why he's had the torrid affair ten years before. Just seeking some comfort, some skin-on-skin intimacy, and some release from the burning desire that would often rage in his loins.

He thought again about the redhead. She exuded sexuality, her pert little breasts bobbed gently inside her uniform shirt, almost boyishly. The flatness of her bosom meant she wasn't really taking risks by having one more shirt button undone than was usual.

But when she had leaned over him to pick up the china and cutlery from the adjacent tray table where he had moved it to make room after the meal, he caught her faint floral scent, and a tiny, fleeting glimpse of the fine silk camisole she wore instead of a brassiere, and felt that familiar stirring below the pit of his stomach that he hadn't felt in a while. It ached as his abdominal muscles tensed and he gently stretched them out, like a waking lion.

After the landing, as the aircraft taxied to the gate she brought him his suit jacket.

He handed her a business card, saying "You've been most attentive, if there's anything I can ever do for you, please feel free to call my office".

She blushed, as redheads often do, and thanked him profusely.

Immigration was a breeze because he was first to the e-Gate, and with only carry-on baggage he was soon waved through the customs x-ray area and out into the arrivals public concourse, where the heat and noise of the expectant throng, jockeying for a glimpse of their long-lost friend or family members, assaulted his senses.

He really didn't feel like the long drive home, nor did he feel like returning to his wife, and the thought of the redhead had given him the idea of taking the rest of the day off. Instead of the bus for the long-term car park, he walked across the road to the Airport Parkroyal Hotel.

"Do you have a day room available?" he asked the reception clerk, a dusky Asian, probably from India.

"Yes sir, just for today?" she asked.

"Yes, please. I've been flying all night and I need some proper sleep," he replied.

"Oh, people come here for the day for all sorts of reasons, sir,'' she responded, flashing a bright white smile.

"Room 1207, sir, do have a good rest. Checkout by 7 PM otherwise the full rate applies. Do you need a hand with your luggage?"

"No, I'm fine. The lift?"

She indicated a bank of stainless steel doors behind him.

The room was like most other hotel rooms around the world, but larger than the Japanese hotel rooms he'd been in all week. Everything was sparkling clean and smelled slightly of lemon, bleach, and disinfectant.

He turned the air conditioning down, stripped off and stepped into the shower. His muscles ached, and he was thirsty again from the zero humidity in the aircraft. Drying himself, he opened the bar fridge and helped himself to a cold bottle of spring water. Local only, no Evian here, he mused.

He drew the curtains, texted his wife to say the flight was delayed and he'd be a day late, and climbed into the bed. The crisp, cold heavy cotton sheets crackled as he made himself comfortable, and sleep enveloped him quickly like a dark, grey, silent blanket.

Three hours later he awoke with a throbbing headache, a matching erection and an urgent need to urinate. All the water he'd drunk to rehydrate during the flight had filled his bladder to bursting, and he leapt from the bed into the bathroom, pushed down on his erection until it dissipated, and let down a stream of urine that would have made any racehorse proud.

He must have been standing there for well over a minute before the stream finally abated. He shook off the final drops from his cock, flushed the toilet, turned around and surveyed himself in the bathroom mirror. He was distinguished-looking, and fit, while not athletic, but he was quite muscular and toned for his age. His hair was greying at the temples, otherwise still thick and mostly dark.

The headache diminishing, he showered again quickly, finishing with thirty seconds of full-on cold water to rejuvenate his skin and close the pores, toweled briskly, and pulled on a comfortable pair of casual pants and a striped linen shirt before leaving the room to forage amongst the hotel's public areas for some lunch.

* * *

Downstairs at the front doors, a sleek silver sedan pulled up. The doorman, whose livelihood depended on the level of his attention to the owners of such expensive European vehicles, peered into the tinted windows and saw the lone occupant. He sprang to the driver's door and opened it just as the engine stopped.

Blisteringly hot air wafted from under the vehicle, and as the female driver swung her shapely legs from the wheel-well out onto the concrete driveway, the smell of petrol and the red-hot stainless steel exhaust system mixed with the fresh, cold air spilling from the air-conditioned interior.

She swiveled to collect a hat, handbag and pale silk gloves from the passenger seat, and as she did so, the doorman was treated to an expanse of lacy stocking-top and the tiniest hint of a creamy inner thigh above. He averted his eyes -- in his culture, it was unacceptable to look upon a woman so, unless she was married to you, and that was never going to happen.

"Would you look after this for me?" She asked politely. "I'm just popping in for lunch. Back in an hour."

Her hand deftly slipped a carefully folded twenty into his, which he slipped, with equal deftness, into his uniform pocket.

"Yes madam, certainly madam, it will be right here when you get back.''

He scribbled a number on a docket which he tore in half, handed her one half and slipped the other under the windshield wiper before sliding into the still-warm driver's seat, starting the motor, and driving off gently to the closest of the nearby valet parking spots.

The woman put on her hat, a white confection with a black satin band and a hint of black lace across the front half of the brim, pulled on the silk gloves, smoothed her dress by running her hands over her hips and briefly across her elegant buttocks, and stepped into the cool air and discreet lighting of the lobby.

Far away from the heat of the concrete and aromatics of petroleum, hydraulic fluids and lubricants out in the driveway, she breathed deeply, noting the subtle and very Australian scent of eucalyptus leaves and boronias in the huge arrangement on the polished central table.

Minutes earlier, she had been driving too fast down the freeway to Tullamarine, her husband in the passenger seat barking instructions on his mobile phone to some nondescript person at the other end in the early morning hours in their time zone. She'd screeched to a sudden and undignified stop at the Qantas departures area and received a cursory peck on the cheek as he jumped out, late, as usual, grabbed a small cabin bag from the rear seat, and waved goodbye, still barking to the unfortunate paean on the phone as he disappeared through the glass doors to the first class check-in.

She had sighed, relieved at the thought he would be away for several days, leaving her to her own devices for that time, and reached around to pick up her hat, gloves, and bag from the rear seat and placed them on the front passenger seat, where her husband had been sitting moments before.

Looking in the rear-view mirror, as she pulled away from the kerb and far away from her surly husband she had decided suddenly that the nearby Parkroyal would be a great place for a coffee and some lunch. She had skipped breakfast, and her friends at the tennis club would already be on their second or third lunchtime champagne. Anyway, she couldn't really stand to join them for the endless comparison of who was doing what this summer at their Portsea beach houses.

Stepping into the elevator, she surveyed herself in the mirror as she pressed the button for the reception level. Her daily yoga regime, the weekly tennis games and her constant walking up and downstairs at the large two-level home where she lived with her husband in Toorak had kept her slim and trim figure.

Her hips were ample and the pelvic bones jutted prominently either side, her bosom taut and firm. Her body would have been excellent for childbearing, but that had passed her by and as her occasional warm flushes reminded her, the reproductive part of her life was now behind her.

The HRT tablets helped with the symptoms of menopause and had rejuvenated her sexual appetite which had been stagnating in the wilderness due to a complete lack of attention from her oblivious husband.

He was a good provider as far as money was concerned but had no idea how she really felt. They slept in the same bed when he wasn't traveling, but they might have been worlds apart. He rarely retired before two in the morning because of constant business calls he made from his study to the company's various facilities around the globe and was often gone when she rose at seven for her morning walk and yoga session.

Their inability to have children had changed both of them, but him more than her. It would have been nice, but a cruel twist of fate, the interminable and painful bouts of endometriosis that had left her with a scarred uterus meant no egg could ever exit her fallopian tubes intact, and thus no conception would ever be possible. Internally, she knew it was probably for the best. He was so emotionally cold, withdrawn at times, she wondered what kind of father he would have made.

He had taken the news of her infertility in his usual sullen and uncommunicative way, and with it, his weekly onslaughts on her womb had stopped immediately and had never been reinstated.

She was pretty sure he was getting his rocks off elsewhere, and suspicions rested on one of her friends from the Kooyong Tennis Club, but she could never be sure and cared slightly less each day. He paid the bills, kept a roof over her head, and the credit card was paid each month regardless of how much she spent so it really didn't matter much.

Looking again in the mirror she adjusted her hat, smoothed the fine navy blue silk and cotton jersey knit dress down her shapely sides, pulled the V-neck up slightly over her finely rounded bosom, and as the elevator subtly chimed to signal its arrival she stepped out into the reception.

At the restaurant desk, the maître d'hôtel furrowed his brow as he searched for a vacant table amongst the penciled reservations list. Damn conferences, everyone came at once all wanting something different and the large group that had booked for the buffet hadn't shown yet.

Glancing around, he noted a honeymoon couple languishing over a late breakfast, doe-eyed. Fifteen minutes, twenty tops, and they would no doubt be back on the way to their bedroom before the cheap night flight to Bali.

"Should have a table in ten minutes, ma'am," he lied fluently -- "take a seat at the bar and I'll call you when the table is ready."

The sweat of the obsequious Frenchman's ruffled brow belied the cool calm of the dining room, but she accepted his word and walked calmly and obediently to the bar where she chose a large buttoned leather armchair at a low table. The bar was deserted except for a distinguished-looking man in casual clothes perched on a high stool at the bar, contemplating his tumbler with some pale pink drink and a slice of lemon. Probably Campari, it seemed too pink to be a pink gin, she thought to herself. Probably gay.

Smoothing her hands over her buttocks and upper thighs to prevent her dress riding up too far, she settled into the chair and picked up the drinks menu, mindful of the fact she was driving and would likely have a glass of wine with lunch.

She signaled to the barmaid, a narrowly post-pubescent girl who could not have been much more than the legal requirement of eighteen years.

"Just a Perrier, please, with a dash of Angostura?" she asked, her voice rising at the end of the sentence as if in a question, as she often did when unsure of herself, which happened a lot.

"Angostura? I'll have to see if we have any, what does it look like? It's my first day," replied the young woman, her mouth full of shiny steel braces.

The man at the bar turned around, and as the young woman stepped back behind the bar, he pointed out to her where the Angostura stood alongside the standard cocktail bar tool kit of lemon slices, cherries, olives, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco.

She smiled in her clumsy way, added ice and a slice of lemon to a glass, added several drops of Angostura and placed the glass and a small bottle of Perrier on a tray.

Walking over to the woman's table, she uncapped the Perrier and poured half over the ice, stopping briefly to allow the bubbles to disperse before pouring a little more and setting down the bottle beside the glass. The woman didn't even look up from her phone on which she was tapping out her text message excuse to the girls at the tennis club. She really couldn't face them today.

Suddenly she became aware that the man was standing over her, his drink in his hand.

"Pardonnez-Moi, Madame, est-ce vous êtes seule ici aujourd'hui?" Black's fluency in a number of languages was a source of some pride to him; he'd heard the woman order the Perrier with an impeccable accent and mused that it might be a good way to make an approach.

"Moi, je ne suis pas Française." the woman replied. "Je suis Australienne."

Black laughed gently at his mistake, and said: "Funny about that, me too. I heard you order the Perrier and thought with that accent, you must be a Parisienne".

"Not me," she said, laughing, "Although I have spent a bit of time there and do speak a bit of French".

"Are you alone, or expecting someone? May I join you?" asked Black.

"Naturellement -- of course," she joined in the joke.

He pulled up a low, leather stool and sat opposite her across the cocktail table.

"I'm sorry if I intruded. I'm Tehan Black, just here on my own waiting for a lunch table, and thought you seemed alone and might be up for a chat? Tell me if I'm being a nuisance, though, won't you?"

She surveyed him thoughtfully across the table. Perhaps he wasn't gay after all. He was obviously a tall man, and she guessed he was about fifty, the same age as her, although she knew she could easily have passed for forty in this light.

His voice was quite mellifluous and his command of the language enchanting. He might be an interesting distraction for her while she waited for her lunch table.

"You're not being a nuisance at all. I'm waiting for a lunch table, too. They seem to have a bit of a rush on in there; some conversation with another human would be very welcome, actually. I'm Désirée, Mr. Black, pleased to make your acquaintance."

She removed her right glove and extended her hand across the table, and he had an overwhelming desire to kiss it but thought that might make him look like some hotel lounge Lothario, so instead, he extended his right hand and gripped hers, gently, but firmly.

Her hand was warm and dry, but the flesh of her palm and long, slim, lady-like fingers was quite soft and yielding.

He looked across at her face. She was sitting higher than him, although his additional height meant their eyes were at the same level. Hers were green-grey tinged with a touch of sadness, she thought. Her rich dark brown hair was untouched by grey, unlike his, although he guessed that was a secret between her and her hairdresser rather than proof of her youth, and the very fine lines around her eyes indicated a deeper maturity.

Her skin had a natural creamy look with some very subtle freckles, and her deep maroon lipstick highlighted a generous, wide mouth that was capable of a very beautiful smile.

Her knees were beautiful, slim, muscled calves descending to pale leather, heeled shoes.

Slightly glossy tights encased her legs and gave them a soft, golden appearance. She seemed to notice him looking at her legs and shifted slightly awkwardly in her chair, keeping her knees pressed tightly together.

The jersey knit dress slid a couple of centimetres higher before she tugged the hem downward, quite self-consciously. She looked like she had nice thighs and he felt a slight stiffening in his loins as he thought about what might be found higher up, under that supple fabric.