ENCOUNTER, Part 1

I had no intentions of writing a Christmas story this year, but I have a couple of evenings free while I'm at training and felt like putting a fantasy to the page.  Not sure how much of this I will finish, but I hope you enjoy it.

UPDATE 12/8: Please be aware that this is an extreme first draft and will probably contain type-Os.  I'm writing this in a hotel room directly to the blog while I'm away at training.  As I didn't have time to reread it last night, I fixed a few bits tonight.  Look for Part 2, late on Thursday, December 8th.  After that, no promises.  : )

ENCOUNTER
Part 1

by

Shadowmuse Blown

He hadn't noticed her on the plane, but then, he had slept for most of the flight from New York.  

The flight had been delayed, and now, here it was, nearly 9:00pm and he was waiting in the large vestibule of the Madison airport, waiting for the hotel's shuttlebus to come.  Naturally, it wasn't waiting.  Everyone else who had been waiting for a hotel shuttle had had theirs come and now he was left with one other passenger.  The last group had just walked out into the snowy Wisconsin night to board their shuttle. Gary had looked around to see if anyone still waited, and saw a young woman bundled up on the benches along the wall.

He stood about ten feet away from her.  She hadn't noticed his gaze turning to her.

"Empire Courtyard?" he asked, meaning the hotel that he was booked at.

She wore an overstuffed parka, with a huge fur-lined hood, which currently covered most of her features except for some of her rich brown hair.  It was impossible to say what type of body she had beneath the full-length coat, but, as she looked up at him and revealed those enormous deep brown eyes, he could see that her face was drop-dead gorgeous.

"Yeah..." she said, her voice fairly deep.  "I called and they said that the driver was digging out of a big snow drift and should be here 'soon'.  Whatever that means."

Her big beautiful eyes were framed with dark eyeliner and long, luscious lashes.  Her nose was slight, with a little upturn at the end, framed by wide, swollen cheeks and plump, curvacious lips.  Gary figured she was in her early to mid-twenties.  Her stunning face was framed by her rich brown hair, which in turn was framed by the fur of her hood.

Gary nodded as he stepped over to her.  "Guess you can't blame the guy for a snow storm."  He indicated the seat next her.  "Do you mind?"

"Huh?" she asked, and then realized that he was asking permission to set next to her.  "Oh, no, please do.  There's only so much snapchat and facebook I can stand."

He smiled, sitting down beside her.

"Are you here for Saga?" he asked her.

She looked at him as if he had three heads, momentarily, and then broke out into a heart-melting smile.

"I'm afraid, I have no idea what you're talking about," she said

He raised his eyebrows.  "That's refreshing!  Nearly everyone I meet going to the hotels via the shuttlebuses are here for Saga training."

"What's 'Saga'?" she wanted to know.

"It's a huge software development company," he replied.  "I'm an analyst with a company that uses Saga, and they sent me here for training on it's systems."

"Oh, no," she said.  "I'm here for... a medical procedure."

"Oh dear," Gary replied.  "Nothing, terrible, I hope."

She smiled, that gorgeous smile of hers.  "No, definitely nothing serious like cancer or anything."

Gary nodded.

"I was told that one of the best doctors in her field recently moved here, and so here I am, too.  This is actually my second visit.  I first came out last summer, and now I'm here for... for a follow-up."

"You could have picked a warmer time of year to come here," he pointed out.

"I know!" she said.  "What was I thinking?"

"I don't know," he said.  "If I had had a choice I would've come here in the summer, again.  Winters can be brutal in Wisconsin."

"I'm so stupid," she said.  "I made all these great plans and then forgot about something simple and obvious like the weather."

"Best laid plans of mice," Gary said.

She looked at him.

"...And men," she said, her eyes narrowing.

"What do men have to do with it?" he asked, sure that she would have no idea what he was talking about.

"Oh my goodness!" she cried out, a great grin breaking out over her face.  "You're a Hitchhikers geek!"

Shocked that someone so young would know his reference, he laughed, as well.  "Oh my goodness, indeed," he repeated.  "What do you know Hitchhikers from?  The movie?"

"No," she said making a face.  "The books and the BBC series," she explained.  "I saw them on Netflix."

He shook his head.  "Wow.  That series aired on PBS when I was in college in the early 80s."

"I was born in 1984," she said.

"Really?" Gary, asked, surprised.  "I thought you were even younger than that!"

"Thirty-two ain't so young," she replied.  "What are you? Like forty-five?"

"Try 54," he said.

It was her turn to raise her eyebrows.  "You don't look it."

He gave her a wry grin.

She sat upright and stuck out a leather-gloved hand.

"Noelle DiCarlo," she said.

"Gary McFadden.  Good to meet you," he replied, and took her hand in his own gloved one.

They talked about all sorts of geeky things after that, from Doctor Who to Deathnote Diary until a man came through the automatic doors, at one point.

"Empire Courtyard?" he asked them, his coat covered in snow.

The two of them had completely forgot to look for the shuttle.  Now, they both looked up at the storm outside to see the bus idling just outside the doors.

"Yahoo!" Noelle exclaimed, and the two travellers hastily got up and grabbed their rollers.

Now standing side by side, Gary could see that Noelle was fairly short, about five two to his five eleven, but he still could not see anything of her shape in that bulky, puffy coat that ran down to her ankles, showing just a pair of black boots beneath.

The storm hit them in the face like icy claws and they lowered their heads as they gave the driver their wheeled luggage and got on board the bus.  It wasn't a particularly large vehicle, with only a dozen pairs of seats, but it was warm inside.

Gary and Noelle sat opposite each other, the small seats being too cramped for the two to sit together in their winter gear.

"I hope we make it without landing in a ditch somewhere," Noelle said, optimistically.

Gary gave a wry smile as the driver climbed into his door just to the left of his seat and closed the big double doors on the right.

"It should take about twenty minutes, folks," he said, cranking up the heat and heading out into the night.

It didn't take long for Gary and Noelle to defrost and soon the heavy outerwear became too hot in the warm cabin.

Noelle pushed back her hood to reveal thick and shiny shoulder-length brown hair, then unzipped her bulky coat and pulled it back as she removed a scarf.

Gary's eyes nearly popped out of his head as Noelle's tight red sweater was revealed and the enormous sweater-meat that populated it.  Even in the dark interior of the shuttle, it was obvious that her chest was big and round.  Her puppies had to K-cups, if not bigger.

Gary tried very hard not to stare as he shed his own heavy jacket.

"Can you tell me something?" he asked her after they had shed their outer layers.  "Aside from coming out here in winter, why would you schedule a check-up just a few days before Christmas?"

She looked down, as if embarrassed for a moment, before looking back up at him with those enormous eyes of hers.  "It's actualy kind of a present to myself," she admitted.

"A present?" he echoed.

She nodded, but casting a glance at the back of the bus driver's head--indicating that she didn't want to say more in his company--she let the matter drop.

They talked a bit about their backgrounds, then.  Both, as it turned out, had been divorced a couple of years ago, and had not found the perfect person, yet, not that either was exactly looking, either.  Both divorces had been nasty and neither wanted to jump into another romance quite yet.

Before they knew it, they arrived and were cocooning themselves, once again in their eskimo gear before braving the elements to get to the lobby of the hotel.

Inside, a great Christmas tree wth white lights towered nearly two stories high in the cathedral-like lobby.  A cozy seating area replete with a roaring fire was to their left, a restaurant to their right and a bar just behind that.  Directly ahead was the front desk and the two crossed the nearly empty lobby to check-in with the sole clerk on duty.

"Do you want to continue our conversation in the restaurant?" she asked him after they had gotten their key cards.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," said the girl behind the counter, overhearing Noelle's remark.  "It's after ten and the restaurant is closed, 'though you might be able to order some finger food at the bar."

It wasn't long before Gary dropped his luggage off in his room and found himself walking across the lobby in search of Noelle.  She was already waiting there for him, Gary having taken the time to talk to his sons, both in their late teens, before coming back down.

Noelle's body was built like the proverbial brick shithouse, her monster chest seeming even larger when seeing her narrow waist and small frame.  How great was it to meet a girl with such a fantasy figure like that, he thought, with whom he could hang out here and talk about geeky things?  Too bad he wasn't younger, he thought, so that he could make a move on her, but she seemed to enjoy his company, even if he was too old for her.

Noelle, for her part, found the man, who was crossing the lobby, distinguished, good-looking, and a breath of fresh air.  He had started a conversation with her before he realized she had a big chest, and he was clever, funny, and highly attractive.  His grey hair was distinguished, and a very "in" shade, not the grey of an old grandpa.  She had no doubt that he was rivetted by her chest, which she loved, but she was also intrigued by him for all the other reasons, and not just because he obviously found her hot.

She wanted him, and wondered what he would think of her secret reason for coming to Wiscconsin.  With any luck, it would drive him crazy with lust.