She is so small, so delicate, so close. I want to mother her, to love her, perhaps not motherly, though I have pictured her sucking at my breast, my hand, maybe her hand, maybe both our hands between my legs, between her legs, until we come.

Her dress is slight, almost transparent, summery, breezy. I can picture it blowing off her with a gust of wind, with my hot breath. It lays delicately across her short tanned legs, just above the knee, billows out around her delicate hips, lies flat against her flat stomach, hints at her breasts and leaves her arms exposed to the world.

She shifts in the choir loft pew, shrugs her shoulders a little, her beautiful shoulders, stiff from the sitting, the waiting, and the sermon. She rotates her neck, back and forth, around and down. I want to massage her, to squeeze her, to ease her pain. I want to lick her. I want to lick her neck the way my husband licks my neck, to make her moan, the way he makes me moan, audibly, so the congregation can hear, the entire congregation, all of whom, even my husband, stopped looking at me when the anthem was over. I want them to look at me, every single one of them, not just those who have known me already, look at me and know that I am not just a pretty face and a pretty voice, but the sexual animal that many have merely suspected.

That is what I want, but I must content myself with staring.

In her shifting, her bra strap, her delicate pale violet bra strap, has slipped from her shoulder. I am enthralled at the way it lies against the tan of her upper arm. She has not noticed. She is listening again to the sermon, starting at the minister with the rest of the congregation, staring the way I have been staring at her, probably wanting him the way I want her. It is beautiful, the bra strap, but it is wrong, incongruous, almost as incongruous as my fantasies. It could catch the eyes of the congregation and draw their attention to her.

It must be fixed. I must fix it. I reach out to fix it, to slide it back up along the soft, smooth, warm skin of her left arm, electric beneath my fingertips, beneath my loving touch. I can feel the power between us as my hand travels up, pushing the strap back to where it belongs. She does not acknowledge the favor but her breath quickens, and her breasts quiver beneath the dress as my fingers reach their destination and linger on her shoulder.

But as much as I want her now, as much as I fantasize, this is not the time or place. I will make small talk with her later, encourage her to lunch, invite her to our house while my husband is at work. For now I will return my hands to my lap, folded neatly, behaving themselves, and turn my head from her to look out at the congregation, still listening intently to the sermon. Except, I see, my husband, who is staring at us, with his eyes glazed over and his mouth hanging open.