The attraction was pure and simple. The relationship was complicated.

John liked Lynn's singing. He liked listening to her sing. He liked watching her sing. He would sit in the pew at church watching her sing. Whether Lynn was out front singing solos or back with the rest of the choir he would sit hunched forward, his face intent, staring directly at her, Charlotte ignored and perhaps forgotten. He had realized fairly late in life that what he liked most in women, what he found sexiest, was artistic expression in all its many forms. He liked painters, he liked sculptors, he liked poets, and he liked singers. He especially liked artists with large, prominent breasts. The only real problem with this realization was that Charlotte, his wife of thirty years, had not a single artistic bone in her tiny, small-breasted body.

The relationship was complicated because John was twenty years older than Lynn, and he tended to think of Lynn's husband William as a distant surrogate child, which was actually how he tended to think of his own children. One of those children, his daughter, had a life-long flirtatious relationship with Lynn's husband William. Lynn's husband had a crush on John's wife Charlotte, and John also had a crush on William's girlfriend Stacie. None of these other people will be featured in this story, but they are mentioned here to give you some sense of the general confusion and complexity surrounding John and Lynn.

To make matters even worse, John wasn't even sure whether what they had was a relationship per-se, or just a pure and simple one-sided attraction, because Lynn, for all her vocal musical expression, tended to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself. John strongly suspected from the way Lynn looked at him that she was at least as intrigued by him as he was by her, so he took every opportunity and used every excuse to talk to her after church as intimately as possible in his soft, low, insinuating, still vaguely Southern accent. But every Sunday something went wrong. Usually it was Charlotte dragging him away, sometimes it was William dragging Lynn or Lynn's kids dragging Lynn, but they never reached the point in the conversation where he asked her politely if he might possibly kiss her.

Until the Sunday when Lynn's husband was out of town and her kids were off with friends and she was singing a solo with the choir and had to come to church. John sat forward, enthralled as usual, not only by the magnitude and beauty of both her voice and her breasts, but by the notable absence of her family and the possibilities that were implied.

After the service in the social hall John sought Lynn out. She was already talking to somebody. Well, talking at somebody really. He'd never seen her engaged in an actual conversation. She was either lecturing or listening sympathetically, never truly interacting, but artists were often like that, and he found it endearing.

Finally Lynn broke off for air and drink and food and John slid in, very serpent-like as was his wont, appearing beside her, his hand resting gently on her arm, telling her how much he loved her singing, loved the sound of her voice, loved to watch her as she sang, was so glad to have this opportunity to tell her uninterrupted by the wife, the husband, and/or the children. He watched her face for a reaction to the unsubtle hint, saw a subtle little twinkle in the eye, a subtle little flush in the face, decided that was enough to proceed, and proceeded.

"Would you like to have lunch some time?" John asked, the suitability of that very afternoon having already been established in his opening sentence.

Lynn stood, vacillating. John could see it in her face, even if she said nothing.

"This afternoon, something nice, my treat?" he asked.

Finally Lynn nodded and John smiled with victory and anticipation. It was a much bigger smile inside than he allowed to show outside, but the smile he showed outside was enough to be encouraging and to reinforce Lynn's decision.

They both agreed that the little French place two blocks from church would be more than adequate.

The walk over was pleasant and, to John's mind, tinged with electric anticipation. They weren't exactly holding hands but they walked close enough that their arms brushed against each other.

Even the simple processes of being seated, of lingering over the menu, of ordering, eating, and drinking wine, were magic, heaven, symbolic of a greater good, a higher plane, an ecstasy yet to come. John lingered over his own meal, relishing in the sensuality, watching Lynn's every bite of food, every sip of wine, every small hand gesture and movement of her neck and head. He especially enjoyed her reaction to dessert, to the little moaning noises she made as she ate.

When the eating and the drinking were finally done, when the waitress had cleared their table, and taken his credit card, they sat in silence staring at each other. Lynn put her hand out on the table and John, assuming an invitation, took her hand in his.

"Lynn," he began.

But she shushed him. "No," she said. "Let me talk."

Disappointed but still anticipatory he nodded his assent, watched her think, her brow furrowing as she composed her thoughts carefully through the haze of food, wine, and emotion.

"Thank you," she finally continued. "Thank you for this. Thank you for making me feel beautiful and special and appreciated. I'm not like my husband, I don't screw around outside my marriage, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about other men. I appreciate men. I love men. I think about men all the time. I think about you a lot. I see you sitting there in church, next to your wife, staring at me, and I want you to know how wonderful I feel when you do that, that you focusing on me almost makes up for my husband's crush on your wife, and your daughter's crush on my husband, and every time you lean forward toward me, staring, I picture your head between my legs and your tongue on my clit, licking me to orgasm, and I also want you to know that my husband comes home from this trip with his girlfriend, and finally gets around to me again out of guilt, or whatever it is that motivates him, I'm going to be pretending that it's your cock in my mouth, and your tongue on my clit, and you on top of me, screwing me, looking down at me, kissing me, and it will be your name, and only your name in my head when I come with him. Think about that next time you're watching me."

Her speech done, she squeezed his hand, stood, excused herself, kissed him lightly on the forehead and walked out of the restaurant, back to the real world: to her house, to her husband, to her kids, to domesticity.