Stars Align

Hudson Sterling was a man who rarely found himself at a loss for words. That all changed the moment she entered the room. 

In that moment he completely lost his train of thought. His words began dropping awkwardly from lips that felt as though they’d turned to vulcanized rubber. His knees, likewise, felt as though they’d begun to buckle. 

Ridiculous! He admonished himself. I’m not some young neophyte!

In fact, if he hadn’t recently undergone his yearly physical and walked away with a clean bill of health, he may have suspected he was in the beginning throes of a minor stroke. He fervently hoped no one had taken notice of his ridiculous waffling in search of words. 

More importantly, he hoped no one had noticed that his awkwardness had happened at the precise moment this divine creature had made her sweeping entrance into the room. 

In his exalted position within the corporate world, it really wouldn’t do to be thought of as a blathering, drooling schoolboy, who could become tongue-tied and flustered at the mere sight of a woman.

It had been five years since his beloved wife Isabel had passed, and although she was gone, he still felt fettered to his matrimonial vows. He hadn’t met anyone else capable of arousing his interest in the intervening years. Instead of pursuing any sort of committed relationship he’d thrown himself into growing his company to its current Fortune 500 status. Work and wealth had become his mistresses.

It made it much harder for him to consider the sense of guilt he was experiencing now, and the desire this lovely creature had awakened in him. The capacity to take pleasure in the appreciable beauty of a woman had never left him of course, but its sudden appearance tonight had shaken him a bit. 

Friends had pointed out the misguided constraints of loyalty he’d formed for his late wife, and he was quickly discovering that they’d been right all along. Pining for a lost love certainly didn’t forbid him from indulging in a bit of harmless fantasizing. No need to feel guilt at such a primal human response. 

Whomever this divine creature proved to be — he’d already resolved to delve deeper into the aura of mystery surrounding her — she would be extremely hard to dismiss or resist once they’d actually made one another’s acquaintance. 

Although he found it extremely odd. He couldn’t help but feel that at some time, in some other place, the two of them had already made each other’s acquaintance. 

It wasn’t a concrete knowing; merely a sense of deja vu maybe. Or perhaps it was destiny? Possibly the enlightened discovery of one’s soul-mate, blah, blah, blah. That magical time when the ‘stars align' type of witchery. He didn’t believe in that sort of thing, but then he couldn’t deny or shake the feeling that some other entity had stepped in to help orchestrate their meeting here this evening. 

Hudson found himself imagining what it would be like to fully appreciate and indulge in her bountiful attributes; in a much more private and conducive setting of course. The mere thought ignited a robust stirring within his loins. 

Having reached a determinable age in life, he’d become painfully aware of a recent downturn in his previously healthy, robust libido — coupled with intermittent episodes of mild to moderate utter dysfunction. He felt encouraged by the newfound discovery that all was not lost in that department.

Hah! He mused to himself. There was definitely life remaining in the little soldier after all!

*****

The enchantress in question had entered the Atrium on the arm of a nice enough looking chap. All Hudson could deduce was that whomever this gentleman turned out to be, he surely must count himself as one lucky son-of-a-bitch.

With the conversation he’d been engaged in having abruptly ended at the onset of his awkward jag of stammering, Hudson excused himself from the small gathering.  

He began wending his way towards the newly arrived couple, pausing briefly to engage in perfunctory congratulatory handshakes extended to him as he passed by.

It was in that moment that he caught her looking up and across the room at him, where her eyes locked with his. He continued his approach and knew she had felt the magnetic spark that had flowed between them too. 

A slow blush had risen to infuse her face with colour, and she appeared to take leave of her date to disappear out onto the balcony. 

The summer evening had warmed, evoking the perfumed scent of bougainvillaea in the night air. The path of light that the full moon cast from above, caught and followed her in its ethereal glow. 

As he drew closer he couldn’t help but admire the porcelain smoothness of her shoulders, bared and exposed in a periwinkle-hued strapless sheath of a gown. 

The exquisite detail of tiny inlaid crystal roses along the bodice refracted the lights in the room, creating miniature rainbows of colour across the prisms of rose-coloured glass, serving to draw one’s attention down to her décolletage.

Her burnished coppery tresses had been artfully coiffed in such a way as to make it appear naturally messy— as though she’d just arrived at this soiree after having been hastily roused from her bed by a lover. It lay in a dishevelled, kittenish tousle upon her head, a few stray wispy tendrils escaping her hairline. 

Identical crystalline rosette strands were intricately woven throughout the strands of her hair. The entire effect was of a woman who openly sparkled.

The musical lilt of her laugh earlier, in response to a comment made, had been engaging; not sounding in the least bit feigned or practiced. He had always held great admiration for women who appeared to be so unstudied in their demeanour and could exhibit such comfort living within their own skin. 

She turned as the sound of his footfalls approached from behind. Her mouth opened and while no words were spoken, her lips broke out in a wisp of a knowing smile.