I awoke from a very vivid dream this morning. This is far from the dream I had but it did inspire this little piece of imagery.

What sweeter seduction than the one that shouldn't be? The one unplanned, uncharted, unexpected.

She was his daughter's friend, had been for many years. He remembered her back when she was gangly, stick thin with a quiet soft spoken voice in the crowd of shrieks and giggles. After college he had gotten her an interview for an international relations position, her field. She had blown it. He was later told by the interviewer that it wouldn't have taken much to say yes, she had all the creditionals. She just couldn't get him to yes. And she shouldn't be able to get him there either. Not to yes, not even to maybe. He had never given her a single lascivious thought. She wasn't the type for that, not from him. There were friends in the group, one in particular, who were bubbly and girly flirty but not Mo. Studious, reserved Mo participating from a step away, the one always in the back row in the group photos. The one whose jeans weren't so tight, whose skirts weren't so short. Pretty and feminine with only a slightly weakened chin robbing her of classic beauty. More understated than plain and not bold enough for flash.

Other than the interview when he coached her in his office before going in, obviously not coaching her well enough, the only time he saw her as an adult was at a special occasion. Birthdays or weddings usually. He remembered her at his daughter's wedding in her bridesmaid's dress that was silvery blue, there with her then husband who was to leave her five years later because he said the committment just didn't feel right to him. She was crushed, then picked herself up, managed to keep the house they had only recently acquired, and the last he had heard had delved into the dating scene with some success and more than her share of attention. She had apparently honed her interviewing skills and was doing quite well in her quiet self effacing manner, working as a third world sourcing consultant for a company that made some kind of huge off road construction vehicles. She was well on her way to recovery from the harshest of relationship demise, not fighting or cheating, but having someone look her in the eye and say the words, just come out with them, I do not love you. When she was making a home, and wanting a baby. Learning she wasn't loved, that her best wasn't good enough, not for him anyway. I think now she was just about to accept the faith that she was good enough for somebody and more than good enough for most. Even her confidence was quiet and understated but she was standing a little taller and sitting a little straighter than the last time I had seen her and I was taken off guard when she almost shyly flashed me her first adult smile. The first one I had seen at any rate. Not a flirt, not a come hither, just a smile that recognized me as someone other than a friend's father. We held it too long, by a fraction of a second, only a fraction. One of those moments that really shouldn't mean much but the breath gets caught and held anyway because it feels as if something important has just transpired. No jolt, no drama just enough of a something that you find yourself watching for it again. Not wanting to create or lure or provoke, just wondering what that was, if anything, and wondering if it will happen again. It did.

It wasn't cross room glances, more of a cross room awareness, when you just know where someone is, even better, when you know where each other is. There were other revelers but they weren't among them so it was in no way chemically induced, not those chemicals anyway. And it wasn't about to be, a gentleman doesn't drink for the courage to seduce one of his daughter's friends, and anyway a buzz would have been cheap substitute for what felt like something sitting on a warming dish. Or in the sun. Most didn't take notice, later, when they gravitated by chance, or not, into their first adult conversation about Mexican government subsidized manufacturing centers, cities raised where none were. And maybe it registered with some when she lifted some confection to his mouth wanting him to taste of something that she was yumming over, and certainly with a few more when she with the tip of her index finger wiped a sugary sparkle from the corner of his mouth. And if caught and held breath can be detected it certainly would have been. The silent soft sighs that follow such caught breath came simultaneously and once again they drifted uneasily apart after an interruption of one of them by someone, he couldn't even remember who, only that it was an interruption that felt everything but welcomed by either of them.

This time the awareness was punctuated by glances and shy smiles. He knew that was all for now, it was already feeling like an inflating balloon in the room floating above like something a child had released not so unintentionally. It was up to him to check and gather himself, direct his attention elsewhere, most of it anyway, or at least some of it, and he did so while never losing sight or awareness of her.

When she slowed and turned to look back at him, a longer glance this time, over her shoulder, just before she passed through the open door, he felt like he had just awakened from a dream that was going to sadly fade.