Funny how things work out sometimes. There you are, minding your own business, just getting on with things and suddenly...wham...something nice just drops into your lap out of the blue.
I was in a city I didn't know well on business, and having a free afternoon one day I decided to park near the centre and look around. There wasn't much to amuse me, just the usual shops and cafes, so I decided to drop into a bar for a drink before heading out.
The place was fairly empty, a small group in one corner and a smartly dressed black woman on her own in the other, nursing a glass of wine and reading a copy of Cosmopolitan, a magazine I always think of as a female sex manual myself.
I bought myself a drink and sat down a few seats from her, and watched the rather sluggish football match being played on the bar TV. After a minute or two I began to sense that she was looking at me. Not staring, just the odd glance, looking me up and down, but too often for her not to have seen something that interested her.
Now I don't think of myself as some sex god lady killer by any means, but I've had my moments and I can read the signs. She was sizing me up and by the way she kept coming back she wasn't unhappy with what she was seeing. I was surprised, and more than a little excited. I knew several black women socially, and liked them a lot, but I'd never been out with one or even flirted. I'd never expected one to be interested in me, but this girl seemed to be.
So I returned the compliment, pretending to look out of the window but really having a look at her. She wasn't at all bad either. Mid thirties perhaps. Shoulder length braids, nice face, a little on the plump side but shapely with it, smartly dressed in a light summer dress, bare legs and sandals.
She looked up and caught me watching her, twinkly brown eyes met mine for an instant and she smiled, then she looked away, obviously embarrassed , and she fidgeted on her seat. I knew instantly that she found me as attractive as I did her, the question was, what was I going to do about it?
As if she could read my mind, she reached for her drink and accidentally knocked her magazine across the slippery table top and it fell to the floor on my side. Quickly I rose and with a step forward I picked it up and handed it to her.
"Thank you. " that delightful smile again. Do black people really have whiter teeth or is it just the contrast? I wondered.
I smiled down at her "My pleasure."
"Were you watching the match?" she asked
"Not really," I answered "football isn't my thing, I was watching out of boredom more than anything."
"You're bored?"
"Well I'm a stranger around here," I said "and I don't know the area well enough to know where to go to find anything interesting."
"Mmmmmm" she thought for a moment "Well if you have a car there is some beautiful countryside a few miles from here."
"I have a car, but I don't know my way around. I'd need a guide or I'd soon get myself hopelessly lost I'm afraid."