For me, that initial spark of sexual interest in a women often comes in the very first moment I see her, and it has always been so. As life goes, often there is no chance for me to find out whether we could have actually been a couple of some sort, which is frustrating. We just pass by, headed wherever we are going in our lives, with a partner or not, and never find out just how we might really connect.
Sometimes, in fact, it is a stranger who elicits the greatest excitement of all.
Sometimes, also, circumstances have brought out a side of my nature that I'm not quite sure how to evaluate. Every now and again, I like to touch a woman I don't know. I guess it might be called groping, but I don't do it unless she reacts in a way that makes me feel she enjoys it. It's happened just a few times, here and there β on a bus, train or airplane; or in a store, but when it does it is exceptionally memorable.
The other day, shopping for the holidays, it happened, for the first time in years. A younger woman dressed in faded blue jeans and an off-white sweater caught my eye as I entered a small shop across town. She was pretty, with medium length black hair and nice eyes. I glanced at her as I fingered a small imported box inlaid with ivory. She was stroking the hair of a doll made in Central America. Then, she put the doll down and moved slowly past where I was standing. As it happened, in that tight space, she turned sideways just as she passed and the back of my right hand brushed her jeans in such a way that I could feel the outline of her bottom, first one cheek, then the other. She didn't pull away at all but instead moved past very slowly, almost deliberately. I felt my pulse quicken.
She settled into another part of the store. I examined some women's clothing, keeping one eye in a mirror that allowed me to watch what she was doing. I saw her glance at me, then she crossed the room, nearer me now.