He noticed her as he was walking down Broadway, just after 11 P.M. The Village was alive on that September Friday evening, people relieved of the workweek and the heat of a Manhattan summer. No more stinking garbage or sweaty subway platforms, but enough summer warmth to feel the freedom of evenings without coats and early darkness.

The scene was as it has been for decades, changing in tone with generations, but not in substance. Thousands of people streaming down the wide sidewalks: colors of skin, hair and clothes, old and young, smiling and laughing, scowling and dying. Books, antique clothes, magazine stores, locals sitting on stoops, students trying to look cool on their first days at NYU. Smells of ginger/garlic/soy/sesame, pizza, souvlaki, onions and killerdogs.

People waiting for buses, people peering into store windows and talking, people leaning against buildings reading books, people leaning against buildings dying. People leaving the 8th Street subway station into the night, people sitting on the sidewalk selling old books, new books, old clothes, incense, the debris of their lives. Furs and punk, jewels and bottlecap rings, Brooks Brothers, The Gap and the Salvation Army.

In the midst of all he saw her turn from Astor Place onto Broadway, walking downtown. The first thing he noticed was the way she moved. Not just graceful, fluid. Maneuvering through the crowd deftly but without any appearance of speed or haste. At the tail end of the short skirt season she was wearing a tight black skirt and black tights, a tight black sleeveless top. From twenty feet away she looked like a living statue, weathered brown but taut and strong. Her short black hair barely moved with her movements.

He was in no hurry and was drawn to her. He'd meant to move crosstown toward Indian restaurant row but found himself still trailing her by fifty feet by the time they passed Great Jones Street, heading toward Houston. It was not as if she was the only woman on the street. A blonde in cutoffs and a silk camisole. Another woman in a denim miniskirt, one of his weaknesses and a t-shirt with the neck torn out. It was this other woman who drew his interest and his thoughts.

He imagined her sitting in a large chair with her legs draped over plush arms. He knelt before her, gazed into the crotchless black tights and her pussy at their center. She grabbed his head, hooked her legs around his neck and pulled him into her, to lick and suck until she arched her back and pressed his face deep into her wet musky cunt.

He imagined pulling her into an alley just out of sight of the street, reaching under her skirt and rubbing her pussy until she began to move against his hand. He pressed her against the brick wall of the building pulled her hips out, hiked up her skirt and slid into her from behind, fucking her fast and hard as he reached around and rubbed her clit.

He imagined her facing him on the crowded street, unzipping his pants and stroking his cock while she reached beneath her skirt, lifted her leg onto a fire department connection and fingered herself. Crowds of people swarmed by as she jerked him and herself off, never taking her eyes off of his, watching each other slide over the edge.

His thoughts came quickly and almost without his conscious intervention and the thoughts kept him on her trail.

At Houston Street she stopped abruptly, even though the light was with southbound traffic. She turned and looked into his, eyes without hesitation, as if she'd known all along that he was there. He saw her standing there fifty feet away and suddenly felt her presence right before him, even as he saw her yards in the distance, down to the scent of her breath. Sweetish, a smell he could not quite identify. She looked into his eyes, fifty feet away and right before him and for a split second he was struck with visions: Paris as seen from one thousand feet, a dark alley and a dead body, a taste in his mouth. An intense rush up his spine made him shudder slightly right there past Bleeker Street and the No. 6 station. And then the spell was broken. She held his gaze, smiled slightly and walked across Houston. He'd never had a woman look at him that way, in a city where women on the street live defensively, avoiding eye contact. In a few seconds she'd turned his street voyeurism and fantasy into attraction, obsession and commitment. He wanted those legs wrapped around his waist, he longed for her pussy in his face, he needed to feel what she was like when she came.

He quickened his pace, but she was fast and always kept ahead. He followed her south past Prince Street and then left onto Spring. Just before Lafayette he saw her enter a building. He followed her up four flights of stairs she which took as if in graceful flight, music increasing in volume as they climbed. At the top he found himself at a large loft apartment filled with one hundred people, most of them dancing. The stereo playing "Burning Down the House" at high volume, the smell of beer, sweat, marijuana and perfume.

And then she was there in front of him, dancing, moving, bouncing, shimmying in perfect rhythm. Breasts swaying gently, skirt sliding up her taut thighs, eyes blazing. She moved onto the floor and he followed. Never completely comfortable on a dance floor, he now felt that he might as well be dancing with Nureyev. She was not flashy, she didn't attract much attention, but her movements were perfectly fluid: graceful, sensual, erotic and strong all at once. They danced for half an hour until a slow number and she backed into him, rubbing her tight ass against his groin, feeling him harden. He placed his hands on her waist - strong and hard and cool again. He pressed forward against her ass and she made a hissing sound in response.