THE LADY IN RED We were going to a black tie gala in Washington. After major string-pulling and favor-calling wed managed to get tickets at the last minute to an event that had been sold out for weeks.

I'd managed to rent a tux on an hour's notice. She had previously advised that she had 60 ball gowns.

Riding over to her place in a cab wondering, how do you decide what to wear when youve got 60 to choose from. She is a tall, athletic blond, who can turn every man's head in a room when she walks in, no matter what she's wearing. She belongs in Hollywood.

Shes a star. I'd met her at an international conference a few years before. Without consciously thinking about it, I gravitated to her. I wanted to meet her. She was a magnet drawing me towards her. I wasnt the only one caught in her spell. The surprise in meeting her was that she was not only magically attractive, she was awesomely smart. I quickly got lost in her mind. She was one of those extremely rare women that makes her companion feel like the most important person in the world, at least so long as she's focusing her attention on you. I thought about that last awareness. Put her in a room full of important people and she is on the prowl, making sure she meets everyone she needs to meet. And each time she turns that brilliant light focused attention on her target.

Who can resist? Watching her work a crowd, I realized, this is why they burnt women as witches. We both quickly realized we were doing the same thing. Both of us were lobbyists. The role of the lobbyist is to hunt. To meet people for future opportunities. To collect business cards. To be able to call some day, and be able to say "I don't know if you remember me, but we met at the...." I could introduce her to people she wanted to meet. She could introduce me to people I wanted to meet.

An image of two wolves meeting in the forest, and agreeing without words to hunt together. The beginning of a very interesting relationship. I met her several more times at other conferences. We ended up not exactly "together", but hunting together.

Getting together from time to time to compare notes. We started calling each other. And talking. Being in contact with her increasingly brought other parts of my life into contrast. Here is at least the illusion of interest. There is coldness. I began to wonder what would it be like if she focused her attention solely on me for more than a few minutes at a time? I had come to thinking of her as the "grow light lady" because whenever the light of her attention was directed my way, I just thrived.

I had come to Washington on business, which was mostly contrived. The real purpose was to see if she had any time to be together.

To see where things would go.

We had spent a surprisingly quiet and peaceful Sunday together. Going to a museum. Reading Sunday newspapers.

Editing her book.

Wandering about town in her car. Going out for dinner.

Doing pretty much nothing. Just being together. No distractions.

Talking.

Barely touching. A chaste encounter that ended with me almost ready to abandon everything I was doing in my life and moving to Washington just for the chance of similar days like that with her. The kind of day and night with a woman that prompts the soul into writing early morning letters and hand-delivered across the city to her apartment across tides of commuters before the work of the day began.

Finding her the object of quirky romantic behavior thought long dead. And making a total fool out of myself. And then she was busy until the opportunity to take her to the gala came up the night before I was to leave, not sure when I'd return. I knocked on the door of her apartment, and she opened it, standing there in her bare feet and a fairly impressive dress. She spun around and asked me what I thought. I liked it.

But, then she said, I have another dress I'd like you to see, and disappeared back into her bedroom. In a few moments she reappeared wearing the most spectacular red dress I've ever seen in my life. Sort of a Romanesque number with one strap and a flowing trail, floor length, with a slit up one side that didn't seem to stop. There is no way she could be wearing anything underneath was my first thought, as my heart stopped beating for a moment.

My second thought was she's got 58 more of something like that dress back there. My third thought as I regained the ability to speak was, this has got to be her best one.

She asked if I liked the dress. Sure.

You bet. Lord God Almighty absolutely.

I don't remember what I actually said, because I was still thunderstruck. We walked back to the cab, and she made sure I didn't hold the door for her as she slid into the seat. Definitely not wearing anything underneath. And thinking, bringing her back tonight could be extremely interesting. We walked into the hotel, and I wish someone could have taken a picture of us. I had the belle of the ball on my arm, and she was without question, the most attractive lady at the event.

And for every mans eyes that riveted on her, there were daggers from the mens companions. She was a woman who every man fell in love with, but who alienated every woman at the same time. The book she was writing was about a fictional character named Lilth who bore a maybe too close resemblance to herself. Lilth was probably a good choice for their heir to a biblical reputation for leading men astray. We hunted the event for a while before dinner. Two wolves at work. I don't very often get to wear a tux, but I like feeling really good. Really well dressed. Really in charge.

So, obviously does she. After dinner the dancing began, and she was instantly swept away by an aristocratic gentleman--one of her targets of interest. Someone she'd known for a long time and who had proposed marriage to her. I could easily understand why. She probably had more marriage propositions than Kellogg's has corn flakes.

Women like her just knock men completely over.

Didn't I know that for sure. I had a flash of jealousy, watching her dance. Dancing is not something I do well, for lack of opportunity.

A resolution, I'm going to get a lot better real soon. A realization, I was just her escort, her transportation to the ball. The pumpkin. Not her date.

And I was way out of my league in even thinking she'd pay much attention to me, ever. I had none of the attributes she was hunting for. Status. Wealth.

Power. Availability. The fantasies of the week evaporated, like Cinderellas coach at midnight. Reality again. Ah, well. Fantasies are fun. Romance is a high, especially when decades have gone by without the madness of attraction. Reality.

The eyes of the wolf start seeing the world as it is again.

I wasn't going to stand there and watch her enjoy herself, without trying to have some fun myself. After all, I thought, I am a hunter.

Maybe not in this forest as my normal turf, but I can do this too. Us wolves, we live anywhere in North America. I looked around, and saw a very small young lady in a very conservative, almost Puritan white dress, swaying to the music.

A would-be dancer lacking the necessary minimum requirement to enter the arena of the dance floor-- a partner.

I extended my hand to her and asked her to dance. She smiled coyly and came forward. She was a much better dancer than I. As prim and proper as she looked just the opposite of the lady in red she was very much at home dancing to Latin rhythms. We were dancing next to the lady in red and her aristocrat. Not a coincidence on my part. And probably not the lady in white. She knew who Id come with. The lady in red noticed and grinned.

The grin of a fellow wolf who has caught some prey. I was thinking, you still are going back to your place with me. This evening is not over.

I should have known better. I danced with the lady in white, and got to know her a little. A Hill staffer. A business card exchange. The music ended and she disappeared. As people were leaving, the lady in red and I were talking to another business card opportunity. And out of no where the lady in white emerged, standing a few feet behind her, alone.

Sort of waiting, it seemed. Waiting for what? Me to offer to take her somewhere after for a drink? Do ladies in prim white dresses go to bars? Sure. If they are asked. I came to the ball with the lady in red, and was resolved to leave with the lady in red.

We had an obligation to each other, and I still had the after-effects of a mad attraction, if only for transportation companionship.

The cab pulled up in front of her building, and she was out the door and gone before I could react. She was obviously well skilled in fast escapes.

It's late. I'm tired. I had a nice time. Talk to you tomorrow.

Bye. Gone. The cab driver shrugged as he started to pull away. No words needed to be spoken. I was el abandanado.

Cabbies see this hundreds of times. OK buddy, what bar you wanna go to? The lady in white, standing there alone, flashed through my mind. Was it too late to go back, and see if she was still there? For sure. Life is full of possibilities and choices.

Sometimes you get the bear. And sometimes the bear gets you.

As we drove back to my hotel with its Irish bar, a suitable place to drown the sadness of a lost love in Guinness, I realized, no, not Guinness. Irish whiskey. She was, after all, Irish. And I had learned something very important--that I had an enormous weakness for Irish witches. Thank God in my normal life I didnt run across many of them. Then the cabbie pointed to a large federal building with its lights out. "The government is asleep" he said, "the country is safe until dawn." So to were the men safe from my lady in red. From Adventures of the Old Guy in Cyberspace