Sitting in the waiting area of Terminal B, Gate 19 at the Dallas airport, Brett looked up from the book he was reading to see her bold, striking presence as she marched up toward the counter where the airline employees were appearing busy as they punched the computer keys. She turned to her husband to answer his inquiry of where she was headed, "I just want to check and make sure this is the right gate." The way she addressed her husband, it was clear who wore the pants in that relationship.
Her self-confidence and the commanding air she exuded mesmerized Brett. It did not hurt that she wore low-rise tight jeans and a fitted sweater that just could not quite reach the top of her jeans, thereby providing all observers with just a hint of her flat olive-colored stomach. Brett felt his pulse race as that initial intoxication of instant attraction to another person washed over him. He craved her. He wanted to roll her sweater up just a bit more so that he could kiss her stomach. That's all he wanted, or that is at least all he would admit to himself that he wanted at the moment.
For all the confidence she possessed, her husband appeared to be the diametrical antithesis. He squealed a look of meek and meager, and all too willing to do whatever his beautiful wife demanded.
Brett heard her give her name to the airline desk clerk: Natalie. Brett could not understand much else about the conversation, but it appeared to be fairly routine. There was a gate change, they told us to come here, here we are, is this the right one, why doesn't the marquis have our flight up there, et cetera. Brett could not hear the details, but the terminal suddenly went deafeningly silent as his attention was rapt with Natalie. He ceased to notice anyone else in the mostly full waiting area. He had a singular focus on her as though she was royalty, or was she radioactive? She had that dangerous quality that make responsible men do very irresponsible things.
She was the kind of brash young vixen that did not typically go for Brett. While Brett was an attractive guy, six feet tall, and a weekend triathlete, he was not exactly JFK, Jr. and he had no such illusions otherwise. Brett had recently graduated law school and was returning from visiting his family in Texas, where he grew up. He lived on the east coast now, trying to make his way as a young law clerk working for a federal judge. He thrived on being close to the seat of power, thinking that the closer you get to the seat of power, the more likely you'll eventually have that power.
In any event, Brett still longed for that wild encounter with a woman so smoking hot, that she turned heads and made grown men groan. Natalie was just that kind of woman and Brett was groaning with lust. Before Brett could lift his jaw, Natalie finished her conversation at the counter and headed for the seating area, with husband in tow. As she turned from the counter towards the seating area, she scanned the area and her eyes landed straight on Brett. He barely managed to gather any semblance of composure as she stared at him just a second longer than strangers should. Brett felt a spark at that single second laden with so much unsaid. Natalie did not even ask her husband where he wanted to sit. Instead, after her eye contact with Brett, she headed straight towards the empty seats next to him. She sat in the seat immediately to Brett's left, thereby placing her husband to her left.
As Natalie and her husband settled themselves, Brett made a valiant effort at pretending to continue reading his book about Alexander the Great's conquering of what is now known as Afghanistan. Brett laughed when he thought about how Alexander had conquered most of the known world by his mid-twenties and here Brett was in his late twenties, wishing upon wish that this stranger Natalie would look him in the eye just one more time for just one more second.
It was a rather pathetic existence, Brett reckoned, but Natalie could obviously sense his attraction to her and she found it exhilarating to be so objectified. Of course, she didn't gush like a river when every male stared at her, but there was something quietly intriguing about Brett that made her more receptive to his gawking. Perhaps it was that he was so bad at hiding his attraction to her while trying so desperately to appear unaffected by her.
While Brett pretended to read his book, Natalie and her husband got situated and began rummaging through their bags. Natalie pulled out some hand lotion, pulled off the rings on her fingers, placed them on her knee, and placed a dollop of lotion on the back of one hand. She rubbed the lotion in and then, apparently deciding that wasn't enough, repeated the process. It was not exactly erotica, but everything she did had Brett's attention.
After replacing her rings, she pulled out her own book to read. Brett smiled to himself when he finally discerned its title: How to Impress Anyone About Anything. Brett laughed, wondering if that was a more palatable version of the Dummies Guide series. Natalie was very successful at impressing Brett and it had nothing to do with what she read in that book.
After only a few minutes of reading, Natalie changed positions, placed both feet flat on the floor, leaned forward in her seat and rested her elbows on her knees as she read. Brett could see out of the corner of his eye that Natalie's sweater had ridden up due to her leaning forward. There lay between the bottom of her sweater and the top of her low-rise jeans, several inches of that beautiful tanned skin that Brett ached to caress. Even more enticing was the target tattoo that she had on her lower back.
Brett had never been a big fan of tattoos, but in recent years, young women were getting them more and more. And the frequent locale they chose was the lower back. For some reason, tattoos on a woman's lower back drove Brett crazy with lustful cravings. He thought it entirely appropriate that they had received the derogatory moniker of "target" tattoos by virtue of the fact that lovers of such women loved to use lower back tattoos as targets upon ejaculation.
Natalie's target tattoo was some tribal image of three interlocking pointed ovals. If it had some deeper meaning, it was entirely lost on Brett, because it simply evoked his baser instincts, not some thoughtful examination of its historical significance in pagan rituals.
Natalie knew exactly what she was doing when she chose to sit next to Brett and she knew exactly what she was doing when she leaned forward so that he could see her tattoo. Her marriage had been entirely predictable, which is what she had needed. But the stability of marriage had given way to the predictability, which in turn was leading to a bit of boredom. She liked the idea of flirting with Brett, a perfect stranger, in broad daylight, with her doting husband next to her and completely unaware.
