It was his walk that she noticed from a distance, a slow press into the marble above which strange shoulders carried him forwards amidst the more insistent march of seasoned Europeans.
Over fifty of them stood in the queue, snaked around temporary barriers and draped within the undulations of pillars and corners. Whether lemmings, penguins or cattle she couldn’t quite place, but none of them were fully awake. Her poncho draped comfortably around her with the soft cashmere casting wings between elbows and knees.
It was between the envelope of fabric at her side that he was now standing, hip pressed against her, arm extended across her back beneath the cashmere, his palm resting on her hip. The queue moved forwards. Two exhausted Parisian belles leaned against each other in front of them, ruffled remnants of barely left partying.
A conveyer whirred another suitcase into the belly of the airport and the tannoy reminded them again not to leave baggage unattended. Unattended. As if in response, he dropped his hand from her hip to close against her cheek, spreading his fingers softly against the jersey and closing them, bringing with each one a small wave of her. She hummed slightly, tilting her head into him.
The Parisians in front were kissing lazily with the boredom of the wait. In response, a few anxious conservatives began studying the screens before returning to the comfort of their phones. Her humming moved to a murmur as his spreading fingers rose slightly to find the opening they had inserted in her dress. All of their clothing now had such an entrée cache, a closely tailored seam that flowed with contours and patterns but allowed a hand, at least, to find its way towards skin and flesh underneath. And this, his hand, now did.
Fingertips brushed against smooth skin, bare beneath the jersey. They found the crest of her crack, and stroked the soft v of where her cheeks began. In front of her, she too now found refuge in a study of her phone, as seemingly engrossed in messages and memes as the rest of the travellers.
The belles had stopped kissing, but one had sat on her wheeled luggage, and the taller of the two was now stroking her friend’s hair nonchalantly, seemingly unaware that her hand reached towards the upper reaches of thinly silkened breasts and occasionally towards unabashed nipples. Her crack was now being traced gently with bolder fingers.
A tremor ran through her torso, from her clit, navel and nipples through to the underside of her lips and the back of her throat. As if on cue, he shifted his position so that she might also take her advantage, slip her hand through the denim’s false pocket to little resistance beneath until she met the strength of his response to her.