Opportunity

She was out ahead of the crowd, still drinking wine from the glass she'd stolen from the bar when they kicked us all out. I walked fast to catch up, trying not to look too obvious or spill my own drink. Within minutes we were a block ahead of the rest of the sales and marketing department, alone in the dark or as alone as you can be at any hour on the streets of Manhattan.

We walked in silence through the noise and the crowd, two desperately unconnected individuals together in a large strange city, walking back to a hotel, to roommates we had no interest in sleeping with, to empty foreign beds. But sometimes sexual attraction requires nothing else, especially when the word "desperately" is accurately involved.

Our Times Square hotel had no obvious lobby, just a couple of elevators behind a glass door right off the street. The intent was obviously to keep out the riff-raff, but the effect was extremely odd. It is a leap of faith to step through those doors into the uninviting little space, to press the button, to enter the cramped metal elevator believing that somewhere up above is a shimmering thirty story atrium with glass elevators and busy bustling eager attractive people. We took that leap together. It was a small leap, but it was significant.

We stood next to each other in the elevator, our backs against the wall, our hips and arms touching, marveling at the electricity of that minimal contact before stepping out in to the lobby and the lights and the clink of glasses and the chatter of people.

The real elevator, the glass elevator, the exposed elevator in which we could not hide was waiting.

We both hesitated.

I wanted to kiss her. I could tell she wanted to kiss me too, but it wasn't permitted, wasn't allowed especially in front of all these people, and it was not clear to either of us how far ahead of our coworkers we were or which of our roommates would be coming up to the room first.

We stepped on to the glass elevator, nervous, anticipatory, unsure, yet with a force of habit that seemed like certainty we each pushed the button for own adjacent floors, our hands touching as the elevator rose the six short stories, touched and lingered not wanting to leave each other or the button panel or the elevator itself, our desire and confusion all too exposed.

I stepped off the elevator when the door opened, hoping she would follow, turned to see her still standing there, looking wistful and a little surprised.

"Goodnight," she offered plaintively.

I waved with the greatest regret and trudged back to my room, fell asleep almost instantly and awoke the next morning to discover my roommate's bed unslept in.

Seize the moment. Always seize the moment.



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