It starts with a look.

     It always starts with a look. I let my eyes rest on them with a subtle, appreciating up-and-down. When I see them catch me, I look them in the eyes for a slow count of three, then languorously look away.

     I choose the obviously married ones who are at least a dozen years older than me – so, thirty-nine – because they’re feeling the jaws of time beginning to close around their throat. It makes them ever-so-slightly vulnerable to a younger man who shows interest.

     I can sense the need in them. It’s in their eyes after they notice my stare. It fascinates me how it makes them begin to blink rapidly, trying to discern if they’re reading more into it than exists. Then they always lower their lids and part their lips to try to slow their breathing. A few even tap their fingers or toes to a fight song only they can hear.

     They look again – trying to be surreptitious – and I deliberately catch them in the act. I bore my ice-blue eyes, rimmed with the kind of eyelashes that they always tell me are so enticing, this time for a count of six, then tilt my head a bit, almost smile and give them another up-and-down as I wait for their response.

     This is the crucial, telltale moment, the harbinger of what’s to come, so to speak.

     Some look alarmed and either leave or bury themselves deep into their phones. But just as often, there are the ones who don’t look away, who almost smile back or, better yet, smile outright. Those are the ones who cause my Little Voice to whisper in a raspy, lascivious tone, “Game on. This one’s yours for the taking.”

     And one of those is what I am looking at this very minute.

     Although she’s easily fifteen – maybe even as many as twenty – years older than the college co-eds at the tables bookending her own, she blows them all away. Every last one of them is over-exposed with crop-tops and shorts that just barely cover their firm, taut points of entry. I am so very unimpressed. They peck away on their iPads and laptops and giggle intermittently.

     Meanwhile, my instincts are focusing on the sensuous older female who is so obviously not part of their pack. She sports a form-fitting kelly green blouse, a black pencil skirt and black-and-green-striped stilettos, made more noticeable by her perfectly crossed legs, the top one of which is swinging with an alluring little pulse. Her eyes are as green as her blouse, and her hair, black and glossy, is flecked with pinpricks of silver. It evokes for me the image of a diamond mine. Her skin is porcelain and flawless and seems extra pale in contrast to the brick red lipstick she has chosen this morning.

     In her day, she was obviously a standout. Today, she’s looking for validation that she’s still “got it.” And nothing would say that more than a romp with a tall, fit, coffee shop stranger who’s nearly half her age.

     One of the co-eds, the one sporting two nose rings, a sleeve of tats and Cleopatra eye liner, smiles at me. She has dimples like sinkholes on each side of her blue-black lip-lined mouth.

    Too, too easy. And no prowess between the sheets, either. Just pure raunch steeped in “It’s All About You Satisfying ME, Mister!” No thanks. Give me the grateful cougar any day – the one who fawns over my body (and eyelashes) and nether regions and purrs with every move I make.

     Now the cougar’s pretending she doesn’t know I’m watching as she takes a slow, deliberate bite of her cinnamon roll. I watch her tongue smear the icing into a creamy lipstick glaze. A second round of tongue catches some residual cream that clings in glistening clots before she swallows it down.

     I see Cleopatra watching me watch the cougar, then she quickly resumes typing on her tablet. At last, she seems to comprehend that what she has to offer cannot begin to compare. It means nothing to me. She’s a domestic shorthair, while I am a big-game hunter.

     My prey is now ready for my ultimate tactic. Her world is about to be rocked, and all her dreams are about to come – emphasis on that – true. I’ll tilt my head, raise an eyebrow, and point to the chair next to mine. She’ll meet my eyes in an extra-long beat, then – maybe coyly, maybe resolutely – will pick up her coffee and creamy bun and join me.

     I’ll charm her with witty repartee and feign interest in all she tells me as I simultaneously imagine myself unbuttoning that blouse and watching its kelly greenness fall in one fluid ribbon onto my bedroom floor.

     She’ll blather on about her kids and husband who don’t appreciate all she does for them while, in my mind, I cup a palm beneath each of those lovely alabaster breasts with their pale pink nipples. I listen as a feral growl rumbles in her throat.

     I yank myself back to the reality of now and start Phase Two of today’s acquisition.

     I stare until she meets my eyes. Peripherally, I take in Cleopatra bearing witness to our changing tableau. Such an obviously sore loser, that one.

     My prey looks into my scope and full-out smiles now with what, in a bygone era, would have been called a ‘come hither’ gaze. I tilt my head, raise my eyebrows, and point to the empty chair beside me.

     “AND WE HAVE LIFT-OFF!” shouts Cleopatra as the co-eds on both sides of the cougar’s table begin to whoop and high-five her.

     “Awesome work, Professor Stanton!” says a sprite with blue-tipped, waist length hair. A plump girl with an eyebrow ring and yellow polish on her toe nails adds, “Best research field trip EVER!”

     “I think we should entitle our paper, Peacock Hubris,” another sings out.

     “No,” says Cleopatra, “The Cougar Hunter.”

     Laughter rings out from both tables.

     I watch as the co-eds gather up their tablets and laptops and single-file their way to the door, each bestowing a mocking little smirk in their wake.

      As she passes, the professor gives me a provocative little wink. “Next time,” she purrs.