Ben climbed from the Metro up to the street and took a deep breath of the Spanish spring air. He headed north into L'Eixample, looking forward to collapsing in his room after a long day of sightseeing. His mind wandered back to the lovely young lady he had briefly encountered earlier that morning and he wondered whether he might, by chance, run into her again. He smiled as his long lost libido reared its head.
Ben had taken this trip at the suggestion of his family and friends after the break-up of his 15 year long relationship with Sally. While they had not had to undergo the trauma of divorce, it still wasn't easy for a long term relationship to dissolve. Ben had spent his forties and half of his fifties living with Sally and he was having a hard time adjusting to being single again. He had finally bowed to the pressure and agreed to a three week European trip to clear his head and, perhaps, meet some new people.
While he hadn't really met anyone to speak of - being a relatively quiet person by nature - the solo traveling had improved his mood and gotten him out of the considerable funk he had been in since their separation four months earlier, just after the New Year. His plan had been to start in Lisbon and work his way through Andalusia, up the east coast of Spain and Catalonia and into the south of France. His flight back from Nice was flexible, but he had given himself three weeks to meander and explore.
He had been in Barcelona for a couple days and was enjoying it immensely. He found it lively and engaging - a clean friendly city that spoke to his needs at the time. The food was great, the wine cheap and plentiful, the sites historic and engaging and the city itself a pedestrian's paradise.
While most of his accommodations to date had been hotels, he had followed the advice of a friend for Barcelona and booked four nights in a B&B in the L'Eixample section of the city. While he still had plenty of privacy, he had chosen to have breakfast each morning with the other guests.
The B&B was actually two large flats in one of the typical five story buildings that lined the streets in that section of the city. The owners, a gay couple, had a large semi-public flat on the first floor with a number of rooms and a central breakfast room, as well as their own flat on the third floor which had two additional larger bedrooms as well as their own quarters. Ben's en-suite bedroom was in the latter, down toward the end of a wide tiled hallway. It was a large, white high-ceilinged room and had its own small balcony accessed through French doors. The brief interaction at breakfast each morning was a small price to pay for the luxuriousness of the accommodations. He was quite pleased with the selection.
That morning, his second in Barcelona, he had had a chance encounter with a young female guest who must have been in the other bedroom down his hallway. He was just opening the door of the flat to leave, and as he opened the door, he came face to face with a beautiful young Spanish woman on the other side; a look of surprise on her face as she stood poised to insert her key into the door. Ben only got a glimpse of her, and only of her face. But he was struck by the full mane of dark brown wavy hair and her large brown eyes framed by tortoise shell glasses. They each said a cursory "Hola", as he stepped aside to let her in, then closed the door behind him as he left the flat.
Ben had seen his share of beautiful women on his trip so far; he'd always had a soft spot for dark-eyed Hispanic women. But his brief interlude with this young seniorita stayed with him as he wandered through the city that day. He wasn't sure what it was about this particular young lady that seemed to stick with him, but he found himself wondering who she was and what she was doing in Barcelona - alone.
He found out a little more about her that afternoon when he returned to his room and ran into Nico, one of the owners of the B&B, on the stairs up to the flat. When he asked casually about the young lady he had encountered earlier in the day, Nico explained that she was the daughter of a friend of theirs and was in Barcelona looking for an apartment. She would be moving to Barcelona for a new job in June and was using the B&B as a home base as she searched for appropriate housing.
Ben hoped to run into her again and he did, fortunately, that next morning at breakfast. It was his last full day in Barcelona and he had tarried a little longer than usual at breakfast, hoping his young neighbor might show herself. He had talked up the Australian mother and daughter for some time and had just had a second cup of coffee as he traded stories with an elderly Belgian couple when she walked in.
Ben, Nico and the couple were at one end of the table as the young lady strode into the breakfast room and squeezed behind the Belgian couple to take a seat down toward the end of the long rectangular table. Ben couldn't be too obvious in taking notice, but he glanced long enough to see that she was wearing, high leather boots, tight hip-hugging jeans and a very full gray knit sweater. The jeans clung to a beautiful ass, curvy and luscious. Her wild mane of wavy brown hair was an intoxicating sight and the large tortoise shell glasses gave her an intellectual flair, warranted or not.
Nico, ever the good host, made brief introductions and Ben caught her gaze for just a moment as he was introduced to Gracie, pronounced "grah-si". Gracie did little more than smile and nod and Ben tried to give her the privacy she seemed to seek. She ordered coffee from Nico's young assistant and the conversation at their end of the table continued.
Ben found himself in a conundrum. He wanted to engage the young lady in conversation, but he wasn't sure what to say, or even if she was fluent in English. She sat to his side, one empty seat between them, and he would have had to purposefully turn to her to talk to her. He was milking the last vestiges of his café con leche, trying to figure out what to do, when he glanced over at Gracie.
She had reached both arms above her head to tie up her hair. In doing so, the short loose grey sweater that she was wearing rose up with her arms, exposing her bare midriff. Ben's coffee cup was halfway to his lips when he found himself face to face with the most beautiful stomach and hips he had ever seen. The jeans were low rise and sliced across the curve of her waist. He could see that the denim sloped dangerously low in the back, but his profile view didn't allow him to see that particular spot. She had a small piece of silver jewelry dangling from a piercing in her belly button and the sinful flair of her hips from an impossibly slender waist held Ben's gaze in check. Even though this all occurred in a matter of a few seconds, Ben found himself transfixed by the view and her smooth light brown skin.
As she finished tying up her hair, she lowered her arms and turned her gaze to Ben, catching him staring at her mid-section. Her large brown eyes glared at him through her glasses as he unfroze himself and lowered his cup to the table, almost missing the saucer in his embarrassment.
He had to think quickly. Nico was still in spirited conversation with the Belgians. He could turn away, ignore what had just happened and slink away to his room. Or he could do something quite out of the ordinary for him and address what had just occurred. In a moment of clarity - and one he'd come to be thankful for in years to come - he opted for the latter. She was still glaring at him as he turned back to her.
"Senora. Pardon my gaze. Lo siento." He looked in her eyes and found he had no inkling on how to gauge her demeanor at that moment. "I have to tell you this. I have been in Barcelona for several day now - admiring the architecture of Gaudi and the art of Picasso and Miro. But, I have to say, I think the most beautiful thing I have seen in these past days is the brief view you just afforded me. I'm sure it was inadvertent and unintended. And it was wrong for me to stare. But...I couldn't help myself. Please forgive me."
Ben sat back nervously, unable to gauge exactly what Gracie was thinking, or if she had even understood what he had just said. Would she complain to Nico? Perhaps just get up and leave? Would she berate him in Spanish for being so ungentlemanly and uncouth? For staring?
He was unsure what to expect and thought the worst. Perhaps he should just get up and leave; his tail between his legs. Gracie turned to him, her face still stern, and Ben felt he was about to be told off.
"What was your name again?" she said in perfect English, but with a lilting Spanish accent.
"Ben," he replied meekly, still unsure of where this was going.
"Ben," she repeated. "Hmm. Where are you from, Ben?" she asked.
Ben heaved a silent, but heavy, sigh of relief. It seemed an awkward moment had passed and he and Gracie began to converse in friendly terms. He told her he was an American on holiday.
