Salome and Ishmael

Yet another conference.

A long one – six full days of uninterrupted rapid-fire presentations: his idea of hell, since most speakers wouldn't be worth listening to, yet he always felt compelled to pay attention and give them a hearing.

Over the top of his coffee-cup, the man studied the early-arrivals at the reception area: twenty minutes to go until the kick-off speaker, about a hundred people milling about. The roster listed almost three hundred attendees. He had looked casually at the list of speakers: he knew a couple of them, but didn't recognize name one in the list of attendees. And of course not all attendees would be listed yet – many would arrive and register late.

To him, scanning a crowd was an art-form, a subspecies of 'prospecting'. His eyes were rewarded with an occasional treat in the form of an attractive woman. He didn't let himself be obtrusive, but he was very aware. A tall, leggy blond with a nice figure and good smile, far too young to be here professionally, but a nice decoration. Probably some sort of very-junior staff at the convention center, and distinctly too young to be very interesting. Funny, he thought, how over the past few years his own perception of attractiveness and sexiness had shifted away from the purely physical. Fluff was not enough... at least, not usually.

He shifted his gaze. A little gaggle of attractive young-professional ladies deeply engrossed in some female exchange of information or opinion. A busty middle-aged black woman, about his own height, good looking, exquisitely dressed, listening to a tall old white-haired Caucasian man in a bow tie and ill-fitting suit: she looked just short of terminally bored. The tall man, male-normal, was oblivious to her lack of interest, nattering on.

He smiled to himself, pitying the poor lady. Nearby, two women his own age, one in tight slacks, one in a near mini, both glancing his way: he nodded to them, and Ms Mini blushed, they nodded back and immediately returned to their privacy. The blush intrigued him: it was a good omen, perhaps? He studied them long enough to be sure to remember them both, put them into his mental inventory. Plenty of time later to check things out.

The bell rang for attention. In the auditorium, the front few rows were, as usual, un-populated. He strode down the aisle and took a near-center seat, about three rows from the front. The room did fill, and the program began.

He put his attention on the speakers, held it there. They provided some information, but it was mostly old hat – a common problem with conferences. Then came the fourth presenter, just before the midmorning break. She was awful. Not just a bad presentation, but the information was plainly wrong in many particulars. He scanned the audience to see if others had the same feelings of disquiet as himself.

The tall blond was over at the side of the room, doing something with piles of folders: she was obliviato, convention staff, for sure. Behind and to his right, he caught the eye of the black woman he'd seen in the coffee crowd: she had an interesting, low-key look of disgust or upset on her face. He studied her for a second, and then blushed as she caught his glance firmly with her own. He gave a tiny shrug, and made a little "nutty!" circle with his fingertip near his temple. She grinned at him, nodded in agreement, then turned back to attend to the unfortunate speaker.

Luckily, the talk was short, but at its end he wasn't amused – most of the audience seemed to think she had done a good job. He gave one or two perfunctory claps, and shook himself, both mentally and physically ready for the break. The break was short, just a coffee-stampede and bathroom rally intermingled.

When he got back to his seat, the black woman was already in her place. They nodded across the intervening sea of heaving, moving bodies, grinned at one another as if co-conspirators. The rest of the morning went quickly and was worthwhile, thank heavens. The most interesting talk was by another woman, who finished off the morning's presentations. Her talk was titled "Carpe your own Diem", and she discussed, with humor and finesse, the need for everyone to be prepared to seize every opportunity, and to push to open opportunities where none seem to exist, within one's own professional life.

At lunch, his randomly-assigned table included nobody of real interest, but the black lady was at the next table, sitting almost squarely facing him. He studied her covertly. She was a big woman. More than his own height and, probably, more than his weight also. Busty was an understatement, but she carried the twin masses well, and they looked as if they were holding their own against gravity. He could tell because there was no 'cast-iron-bra' effect, they moved naturally, complete with all the little wiggles that should be there. Their height was a bit odd, he thought, since big boobs even on a much younger woman usually have a good deal of hang to them.

He contemplated her out of the corner of his eye: big breasts usually have big nipples, but he couldn't detect them through the heavy suit-fabric. Too bad – he liked big nipples – big boobs themselves were okay, not his personal major erotic turn-on, but nipples were an entirely different thing. It was their sensitivity that intrigued him and made him a student of nipples. Actually, of nipples and clits, a lifelong fascination – much more interesting than curves of leg and hang of boob.

Thick-bodied, she was, but not 'gone-to-fat', rather 'solid-built' thick from belly to spine, like a powerful, mature wrestler in good shape. She stood up momentarily to get something from the service table. He watched her walk, studied her carriage and her clothing. She was bolt upright, her prominent but not overblown bottom swaying nicely – swaying, but not jiggling with her footsteps, solid, in very sexy, attractive motion. She looked flexible, strong, and sported a good, well-defined waist despite her size. Overall, very shapely, just laterally-expanded from the fashion-magazine (or men's magazine) "ideal". Elegant fabric in her clothes, subdued but stylish, perfectly cut and perfectly worn. He knew he didn't do well sartorially, himself, but admired those who do... particularly women.

She returned, bearing a smallish dessert. He studied her taut thighs moving nicely under her skirt fabric, the skirt just above knee-length. No fat knees, either: he was again impressed at how well she carried her heft. Good calves and ankles, and hose with a tiny hint of sparkle to them. Nice! Her roundness of body was short of Rubenesque, and there were plenty of jiggles in her boobs but not elsewhere despite the serious flesh she carried. Altogether quite a sexy woman, he thought.

Genuinely black, too—none of your café-au-lait color due to 'a few black genes accidentally injected long ago'. For all its strong darkness, though, it was a somehow softened black – with an unusual reddish under-cast. Her face was highlighted by gorgeous skin, high cheekbones, full, sensuous lips, and a narrow, aquiline nose. It was an odd nose for such a body-morph - it seemed vaguely anomalous. Not bad, not in any way, just edgily unusual. Her hair had clearly been jet black when she was younger: now it held minor, elegant streaks of grey. It was smooth, shiny, and long, rolled tightly into a French roll and held with a tortoise-shell clasp and a long silver pin. The very edges of the roll, where the bright light caught and backlit it, had a reddish tinge.

"When she was younger?"

An interesting speculation on age was launched by that thought. He tried to guess her age, found it difficult. Distinctly, no question whatever, she was older than he, perhaps by fifteen years or more, but well-preserved in the very best sense of the word. Maybe late forties, early fifties? Possibly even into the mid-fifties. He shrugged mentally: he really couldn't care less—in fact, more age usually meant lots more experience and therefore more mutual enjoyment. "Not to be overly optimistic!" he warned himself silently.

If he had to choose on two seconds notice between this woman and the blond from the folders-desk, it would be the older black woman, hands down, no hesitation. He continued his study: her makeup included all the normal bits, lipstick, eyeliner and such. It was well-done, subdued. She obviously took care, and knew what she was about. Her only jewelry was one strand of pearls and matching single-pearl earrings, setting off the darkness of her skin perfectly above the red of the suit and pale cream of her blouse. Her hands, long-fingered and slim, caught his eye for a moment: she wore no nail polish, and no extended artificial nails, either. He found himself thankful for a total lack of the god-awful claws so many women, particularly Black women, seemed to find essential, but which were a total turnoff to him.

As he studied her, she caught his gaze again. Her face was friendly and direct, her expression completely unembarrassed. Crinkles around the eyes, her glance knowing, intimate yet cool. He flushed at being caught and tried to look away, but she held him, didn't seem inclined either to dismiss his gaze or turn loose of it. She was smiling slightly, knowingly, showing beautiful, straight, white teeth. She locked him in her gaze another moment, wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue.

Her eyes were strange. They had big irises, nearly jet-black, with no pupils visible. The penny dropped: the eyes, hair color and texture, the skin, the high cheekbones, the red highlights in the hair, and especially the nose – she had to be half Amerindian. He was fascinated: she was more and more striking the longer he studied her.

She finally smiled straight at him, nodded once and seemed the tiniest bit amused when he flushed red again, then she returned to her conversation with her tablemates. He tried, unsuccessfully, not to flick his gaze her way every few seconds: if she noticed, she didn't show it. She finished her lunch and left before he was ready, and as she departed, he was engaged in a conversation he couldn't just drop to launch himself into her wake. In the afternoon session, she wasn't sitting in the same place, rather, she was far to the rear. He berated himself for embarrassing her, as he was certain he had: surely that was the reason she had repositioned herself out of eye-reach?

Clumsy, clumsy!

The talks spun up again, but he found himself preoccupied with their little near-meeting. He was unusually introspective, and his own response to her intrigued him: usually he could, and did, just shrug off the inner twangs of little momentary contacts like these... elevator romances, he called them. It ate at him, but by late afternoon he had put her, and his clumsiness, out of mind sufficiently so that the last few talks made it through to his brain.

When the final paper was over, he headed straight for the bar, thinking and hoping that perhaps one or more of his "scanned" women might show up and be available. Thank god for California's restaurant laws, he thought... the only place in the country where even bars were "no smoking" zones. And this bar was nicely done: a little deck outside in the breeze for the smokers, decent dim lighting, and a low level of classical music in the background... and NO televisions overhead, loudly tuned to men-pounding-men sports channels.

He headed for a little two-person corner table in a shoulder-high booth, settled in to await a server. It would be some time: the place was already getting filled, although not yet crowded.

Moments after he settled, the Black Woman entered. Somehow, that merely descriptive term had, in his mind, taken on attributes of a proper name. He could almost feel it being capitalized in his brain. He watched as she did her own version of room-scanning. She was, he realized, just as appraising of her human surroundings as he. He grinned to himself: he liked it when women handled themselves that way, not afraid to be interested and to look about.

She had changed clothes already: same skirt, same jewelry, different blouse, no more roughly man-tailored suit-coat. A different purse, too: he wondered why it was that women found it necessary to have so many purses? The quick-change meant she must be staying here in his hotel. The new blouse was thin silk, not-quite-see-through, very different from the one she'd just shed. Little dents in her shoulder-tops from wide, load-bearing bra-straps, but the bra's contents now moved about quite differently, very nicely, beneath the blouse. He guessed she must have changed both blouse and bra, which was... well, nice, to say the least. Inanely he thought, 'Must be a great piece of engineering, her transparent and invisible bra'.

What was she up to? Or was that entirely too obvious? Her motives might not yet be on display, but her nipples were certainly obvious now, each of the twins fully as wide as his thumbnail. His crotch stirred noticeably.

She spotted him across the room: the eye contact decided her.

She'd come down here having no real idea whether he might be here or not. She'd lucked out: good luck, or bad? One couldn't be certain this early, could one? But the omens seemed all "good!" and time and some conversation would tell. Her stomach twisted and the adrenalin flowed a little, making her knees slightly wobbly, a delightful if private expression of interest.

She hadn't done her usual thorough self-examination before launching this expedition, no careful internal discussion of motives and reasons and consequences. It was as if she were being drawn towards a flame, something unusual and deeply exciting. As she walked slowly past the bar, she watched him watching her... infinite regression. She moved almost like a cat, graceful, controlled, silent. No weight-and-age wattles on the backs of her upper arms. At the end of the bar, she hesitated for a moment, then seemed to make up her mind about something, and marched purposefully towards his table. He watched her approach with interest: every step closer was an improvement.

She arrived opposite him, stood there eyeing him for a long moment, then finally said with a near giggle that was both totally out of step with her age and sophistication, yet perfectly suited to her demeanor,

"Hello there, White Boy! You sure do blush as pretty as anyone I've ever seen in my whole life! And there you go again!" She was right—he was scarlet. Before he could compose an answer, she continued: "So tell me, White Boy... just what would an unattended White Male do if a big, Black Woman who was old enough to be at least his elder sister, if not his Momma, asked him if she could buy him a drink?"

What an approach to ice-breaking!

He composed himself a bit, and managed an answer: "Speaking only for myself, he'd accept that invitation as a personal honor, since he's neither a boor nor a fool, and since he likes the company of women better than that of men – and because he's not about to personally buy into Vogue magazine's "anorectic seventeen-year-old Norwegian" look as an ideal of beauty!"

She tilted her head, raised an eyebrow, apparently appreciative of his little speech, and how he'd managed to pack so much into so little.

He stood, pulled a chair over for her.

She sat across from him, silent, eyeing him as he returned the gaze. Her eyes were indeed pupil-less in the dim light, and they fascinated him.

She flagged a waiter without breaking their eye contact, and asked, "So, White Boy, what am I buying for you tonight?"

The waiter's face was a study in carefully-controlled interest.

He replied "Jameson Irish, rocks."

She smiled and ordered a single-malt, Laphroaig.

He knew the brand: it was expensive liquor, and genuinely good enough to be worth the price. He studied his new-found companion with a different eye.

The waiter left.

She seemed content to let her White Boy explore her face with his gaze, until finally she said "You've had a good look at me now, up close. So, let me start us off, and not with names and a handshake. Instead, just tell me, quick now, as a fantasy, what would your first name be if you could choose it, just for tonight?"

He was surprised, took half a second to think about it: free choice of a first name only? Only for tonight? Interesting!

"Call me Ishmael."

She brightened and tilted her head and widened her eyes at him as she responded: "A high-quality choice! Mysterious. Biblical. Literary. I like it."

He shrugged, smiled at her, and retorted, "And YOU, M'Lady?"

She laughed and said "How about 'Salome'? That would do nicely."

"Pretty..." said Ishmael. "Also biblical and lyrical. I've never known a Salome. Either socially or biblically!"

She felt her face heat up: she was flushing! He'd gotten to her already. A nice bit of wordplay. It was almost too bad her flush wouldn't show for him to study.

Then she asked, "So... in one word, tell me what you do, Ishmael!"

"Oceanographer. And you?"

"City-planner. That's one word, Mr Ishmael... if you listen you can hear the hyphen! I'm head of planning for a big Midwestern city government."

His interest ratcheted up wards with every sentence. She was unusually articulate and carefully-spoken, and he liked that.

Then it was "So... after your long look at me, what do you see? Your look was very analytical. That fits with your being a scientist, I guess." Her voice was low, pleasant, as if she'd had serious voice training. Maybe, he thought, she sang in a choir? The drinks arrived: neither of them looked at the waiter, but Salome said "Run a tab, please."

Ishmael thought to himself that this was another very good omen.

Hel sipped his drink. "It's the nose, the hair, the skin color. You're a thunderingly beautiful woman, you know." She smiled, thanked him, let him continue. "My guess is Momma was Black, probably purebred, and Daddy was probably an American Indian, and most likely Cherokee."

She almost dropped her drink. He had nailed it, and it was her turn to be impressed.

"Very good!" she said, "Right on target. You probably have no idea how rare it is for anyone to figure that out without a lot of hinting. If they ever do figure it out at all!"

She offered him her hand. They shook. She had long, strong fingers, the dark skin on their backs slightly crinkled. The handshake was almost erotic, the way they held it for a long moment, the way she let his fingers retreat through hers slowly, sensuously, and especially the way she pinched and stopped the impending separation just as their fingertips crossed. She held him that way for a long second, then giggled and turned him loose.

They sipped and talked for a few minutes, finding one another educated, well-spoken. Beneath the table, their knees touched momentarily, and then again. They stayed in contact, and Ishmael was abruptly fully conscious of his roaring erection: that condition didn't usually sneak up on him unannounced, but this time it had. The suddenness of his realization spoke volumes about the other over-riding fascinations of this woman. He studied her eyes again, and she suffered the examination without flinching, without making a judgment, without upset. They were direct, unfathomable, friendly, guardedly inviting. There was a long, long silence during which they simply looked at one another over their glasses.

Ishmael asked her the question that had risen to the top in his mind: "So, Salome... Is this a habit of yours? Pursuing strange White Boys in bars at meetings?"

She would have blushed if she could, and just shook her head gently. "No, it is not! Not at all. Not ever. Frankly, Mr Ishmael, I'm at a bit of a loss to understand just why I'm sitting here... I've never even dated white! I can be a bit of a mystery to myself sometimes. So tell me your side... do you pursue older Black Women as a matter of routine? Not that I'm accusing you of pursuit, you understand... since I did come over here to your table voluntarily and without invitation, didn't I? But just for general information..."