NOSTALGIA. Looking through the plane's window and seeing the skyline of Dubai, Yasmin couldn't help but feel a longing for the past. The place reminds her of homey cheerfulness, but likewise, of anguish.

The place evoked both feelings. She wanted to be here. It had been home for her for years. While wishing she shouldn't be, as it only reminds her of Jamil.

"Star-Crossed Lovers," they must be. "Deeply in love... yet torn apart by fate and circumstance." Jamil was in Dubai and Yasmin in Abu Dhabi years earlier on. Only an hour and a half drive away, but they've never once met, their paths never cross, and perhaps never will again. Has he married? Or he's still single? Or could he be engaged? But what if not? It's the what-ifs, the reason she hasn't moved on.

Should she still wait? Or should she move on? It's been five years. Maybe it's time to let go...

Yasmin Barbosa, 27-year-old, 16 inches short to 6 feet, a mixed Arab-Southeast Asia breed, a head-turner but unbelievably still single and unattached. She vowed to be married to her job, after her first love and college sweetheart, left her without a word to work for his Arab father in Dubai.

She has just come from Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, where she works as an administrative executive for a multinational engineering company on an awarded project. On her employment contract of three weeks on and one week off, she gets to go home once a month. She's now due for her first one-week vacation home.

Yasmin had just left Nur Sultan, her origin, and is now in Dubai, her stopover awaiting her flight to Manila, her destination.

Forcing herself, she stood up and took her luggage from the storage. She was hesitant to alight from the flight, not out of fatigue, but loneliness is creeping into her heart once again.

Maybe, the monthly leave is not practical. It's tiring. It takes hours of travel and two legs of flight for the one-way alone. And maybe, it would be best to convert the monthly fares into cash, and just go home once a year.

She would go home on Christmas, perhaps? Or, maybe summer would be more ideal. She needs warm weather in contrast to the year-long cold weather in Kazakhstan. She'll decide on that when she returns to work.

Changed into more comfortable wear suited for the Middle East temperature - a thin beige cotton blouse, black linen pants, and her black pumps, she feels renewed, and now; she has seen the duty-free shops for presents, and left them with perfumes and bottles of wine.

Waiting for her boarding call for the second leg of her flight, she sat at a café. As soon as she did, and at the first sight of her; the man across never once removed his eyes from her. Yasmin was oblivious to the effect she was causing the man until she raised her cup to her lips - and their eyes met.

Unsure if she was seeing right, Yasmin cast her eyes down first, thinking she could be hallucinating. When Yasmin glanced again, he had vanished. She was right, her eyes were playing tricks on her. She picked up the magazine to resume reading when a man in dark jeans, black boots, and a dark blue polo shirt sat beside her. And time stood still.

Without looking at him, she recognized the perfume and the aftershave scent. She could only close her eyes. That scent had always aroused her senses in the past. Her body would throb and tingle even from a faint whiff of him. And she's feeling the same way again.

She can feel the warmth between her thighs and the swelling of her nipples, and for no reason! It's just this man's daring presence turning her world upside down. She's damp, and he hasn't even touched her yet! This is insane! Can he still wreak havoc on her physical and emotional state even after being gone for five years from her life?

For the next few minutes, Yasmin stood fast, spilled coffee on the floor, and her magazine sprawled on the mess. She felt a flutter in her gut and the somersaults in her stomach. His presence undeniably was unnerving her, and he was aware of that.

She feigned calmness despite her nerve-wracking disposition and greeted him with a casual hello. Yasmin didn't intend to shake hands with him. She was sure it would give her away and weaken her resolve when she had all the right to be mad at him!

"Jamil, nice to see you again," she forced a smile.

Jamil responded with a restrained smile that seemed like a smirk as he continued to hold her gaze.

He moved nearer, gently caressing the tip of her lips, her cheek, and her earlobe to whisper into her ear.

"Yes, Yasmin, sweetheart. It is my pleasure to see you again," he replied.

The slight kiss from Jamil was enough to inflame Yasmin's body, and it did not prepare her for what may happen in that crowded café. She grabbed her bags and rushed out of the place. Jamil followed and led them to a more private nook he'd located earlier, where they could sit privately and talk.

He ordered them a light salad and sandwich combo and coffee. While waiting for his order, he focused his attention on her. He moved his cold metal seat to face her. Poised, he rested both elbows on his muscle-toned legs in his tight jeans.

He took Yasmin's right hand with both of his, raised it to meet his sensuous lips, and cradled it on his cheek while looking at Yasmin with brooding, passion-filled eyes.

Yasmin could feel the heat travel from her sole to her legs, ending amid her thighs. She involuntarily closed them and crossed her lower legs, bringing her left hand between her mid-thighs to stop the awakening feeling. Jamil noticed. He knew his mere touches could still arouse her.

He asked her where she's going. Upon knowing that they were both headed home and were taking the same flight, he asked to see her boarding pass. He wanted to know where she'll sit. When she handed him her boarding pass, he asked for her ticket and ID, just in case the check-in counter would need them, he said. He asked to upgrade her economy seat to the business class seat beside him. She refused his offer. But he wouldn't listen.

Returning in less than half an hour, he had successfully upgraded her seat next to his. Jamil had no intention of returning her ticket and ID - just yet. Yasmin, likewise, seemed to have forgotten to ask for them. There is no way this woman is getting away from him this time.

They resumed eating their snacks and their snippets of conversation while waiting for their boarding call. Jamil talked little now as he was trying not to remind Yasmin of her ticket and ID.

He asked where she's staying, expecting she'll say "home" but it surprised him when she had booked in a hotel. He learned of her booking details despite her hesitance to reply. She doesn't have her place yet, she said. Besides, her grandparents' old house has only two bedrooms, her grandparents' and the other room, which used to be hers, she now shares with her mom. Yasmin would just visit them on the day before her flight since she had only a week of vacation.

When Yasmin was reluctant to reply to his further probing, Jamil ceased to ask any more questions. Yasmin felt relieved and stayed quiet until the ground steward called their flight for boarding. Jamil took his and Yasmin's laptop bags on his shoulders, one on each; draped his jacket on his left arm, and used his right arm to hold her waist and back, leading her forward and drawing her closer to him. He acted like an attentive husband, gently guiding his beloved wife to move ahead of him.

***

Seated, and their bags secured in the luggage bin above their heads, Jamil strapped Yasmin into her window seat while he took the aisle seat. His little gesture of strapping her seat belt and his grazing touches on her arms and body were sending shivers throughout her whole being. Her mind's screaming for him to stop, as she can't control her body's heat and the charged vibrations she was experiencing. Her light-as-air linen dark pants would surely be noticeable when damp with her juices should she continue to seep.

Jamil gazed through her transparent cotton blouse. Her black lace bra was too visible; Jamil frowned. He didn't approve of a near-diaphanous blouse that left nothing to the imagination and retrieved his jacket from the luggage bin above and draped this on Yasmin's lap to use.

Conscious of his unrelenting gaze, she moved her right hand to her left shoulder in a gesture of covering up her chest. Sensing her discomfort, he further teased her by sliding his left hand down her seat belt to touch the same nipple once again. She tried to dislodge his hand from the seat belt but inadvertently stopped it right above her right breast, searing her right nipple to react. She gasped.

He used the tip of his left forefinger to trace a circle around the nipple, and playfully trail the flesh just above her cleavage. She inclined her head and hid her flushed face on his shoulder and faintly whispered, 'Stop', while keeping her eyes closed and biting her lower lip. Jamil knew his effect on her.

His left hand caressed her head on his shoulder while he planted a kiss on her forehead. Yasmin could no longer hide her feelings; she held onto his right arm. By doing so, she had pressed her left breast to his right arm. He could feel the warmth of her body emanating from her thin blouse and knew that the area between those thighs was damp and warm, and he was dying to touch that.

Jamil affectionately whispered that thought in her ear and realized that Yasmin was in tears. He kissed them and whispered, "I miss you...so much." Yasmin nodded, but Jamil wanted to hear her say it. He held her chin up, grazed her lips with his, and said, "Say it, sweetheart, or I will kiss you right now."

Yasmin knew him so well. He certainly will, if she hesitated a little longer. She moved her face close to his right ear to whisper the words, taking care not to be heard by the other passengers. To kiss him was so tempting, but she shouldn't. Almost inaudibly, she said, "I miss you" without looking at him. He quickly turned to kiss her lips and replied, "I know, sweetheart. How could you easily forget me? And call me as you used to and not my name," and pursed his lips.

Yasmin didn't know how to react. On the one hand, her mind screamed, "You were the one who left me!" but being cramped with the other passengers, it was hard not to draw attention to them. All she could do was hide her emotion from him, closing her eyes and burying her face on his shoulder.

As soon as the airplane took off and the lights turned off for a restful night flight for the passengers, Jamil asked the attendant for blankets. Yasmin had not removed her head from Jamil's shoulder since she laid it there. Besides trying to fend off Jamil's gaze, the first leg of her flight exhausted her. He covered her and himself with the blankets and draped his jacket on Yasmin's chest and shoulders when the overhead air chilled her.

They were in the middle of the flight and everyone had settled in deep sleep when Jamil pulled Yasmin's face with his right hand at the back of her nape and kissed her with so much desire and longing. It overpowered Yasmin's senses; forcing her to wake up from that light sleep and respond with equal ardor, locking lips with Jamil for interminable minutes. The eye contact that followed spoke volumes. They wanted more than the kiss.

Five long years. He wondered how he had endured not having touched her at all. And now he wondered how to touch her again. He wanted her to know how much he had missed her. He was sure that even the slightest caress would bring her to climax. Their bodies felt like burning embers, further singed by their scorching touch. His smooth, subtle, and featherlike brushes were enough to excite her and left her wanting for more. He let his fond caress stay on the outside above the clothing. Aroused and now burning with desire, she tried to stop his hand, shackling it with both her thighs. Instead, she had pressed it tightly to her mound, enabling him to feel the pulsating sensations of her crotch, conveying its desire for pleasure with his invasion. He had to feel her inside so he can appease her body's longing; pacify the throbbing and incite eruption and lava flow.

He gently and slowly invaded the confines of her clothing and started his fondling. Starting from cupping her throbbing triangle, tracing the damp divide, tickling the engorged and sensitized glans, and blindly weaving through her warm and expanded canal. She had now given him the access, provided his hand and fingers a space for maneuver when she loosened her pants, to provide her the pleasure. When the pleasure from his dexterous fingers was too much to handle, she gripped his biceps, dug her teeth in his upper arm, closed her eyes, and waited for her juices to flow and her spasms to cease.

In return, she shared the pleasure of her touch. She released his length from the tight prison of his zipped jeans. "Oh, my" her lips formed in surprise at the first tentative stroke as she closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. She couldn't believe how much he's grown; her thumb and middle finger couldn't even meet to form a hold. All she could do was to stroke, pull, and excite his foreskin. Until it was his turn to climb to the height of indescribable fever. Their bodies long denied the pleasure, easily ignited from the fleeting but burning touches. Jamil reached for her lips to seal their union with a deep, passion-filled, and long denied kiss.

She wondered why it was so easy for them to reconnect as if they'd never been apart. Was there another woman in his life during her absence, or worse, had he married? Suddenly, she came to realize she hadn't even bothered to ask him before anything like this happened again. She's too vulnerable with Jamil. Sex with him then was totally on another level. He can reach the deepest part of her and make her ache for him whenever he leaves her body. And only he can fill the void.

They may have been apart for five years, but Yasmin was Jamil's first love, first kiss, and first sexual experience. And so with Yasmin. That's why Jamil still feels very possessive of Yasmin, like he had a stamp of ownership on her. They were college sweethearts for three years until Jamil left for Dubai right after graduation, and they lost touch for five years... until this chance meeting tonight.

They met through friends during their second-year college when they watched an intercollegiate basketball league. She now remembered Jamil's side of the story about their first meeting. He claimed it was undeniably "love at first sight." Jamil changed seats with a friend just to stay close to her throughout the game and never once removed his focus from Yasmin, afraid to lose sight of her.

His heart couldn't be wrong. His groin throbbed that he had to run to the men's restroom immediately. Inside the men's cubicle, Jamil ejaculated, releasing all he's got and left it only when he was sure that his giddy, horny emotions had calmed down.

When it was almost evening, he can't let the night go without having made his first move. He invited her to dinner at a restaurant, lost track of time, and because she was past curfew, her school dormitory would no longer allow entry. Jamil took her home.

Jamil's bedroom witnessed their first sexual experience - from their first kiss, hug, petting, and eventually the culmination of their first sexual encounter.

His mom, Mona Contis, was in Dubai that night, and they had the house to themselves. Since then, they had never been apart. Jamil introduced her to his mom, making it official that she was his girlfriend. He was sure she knew they were sleeping together in their house when she's not around. Mona had noticed some women's clothing in the laundry room and several pairs of shoes and slippers in their shoe racks that weren't hers. But she had said nothing. She liked to see her son happy those days. And she can trust him to be responsible, not to get her pregnant while they were still studying.

So how could she forget him at all? Yasmin sometimes wondered if she's a nympho; she had never been like this until Jamil had touched her. She had only wanted him and no one else and entertained no one from her bevy of admirers.

When they drifted apart for no reason, she longed for Jamil for a long time; cried buckets of tears, and re-lived their memories. Without her mom, who took her to Abu Dhabi, she couldn't have coped. Her work had kept her busy when he was no longer in her life. She tried hard to forget him.

She and Jamil are both half Arab breeds, their mothers, Asian, and their fathers, Emirati. She told herself that Jamil will one day marry a full-blooded Arab, arranged by his father. And during those years when he vanished from her life, she may have been right, he could have had. Jamil must have married an Arab.

She had met his mom, and she liked Yasmin, but it was no guarantee that they wouldn't part. His father, Naseem Al Abdallah, seemed to control Jamil's life. Jamil is his oldest son, born to an Asian mother before he married his Arab wife. Jamil carried his father's name. His father was very proud of him. He ordered Jamil to fly out to Dubai right after his college graduation to run his business and eventually start his own someday. Jamil left the next day without a word with Yasmin.

She took up Financial Management in one of the top universities as a college scholar while he graduated in Mechanical Engineering from a known technological school in the country. His father asked him to take up the course as he had an automotive business in Dubai; car showrooms, repairs, and maintenance. Although Jamil lived with his mom in Manila, his father, despite having another family in Dubai, continued to support them.

Yasmin's mom, Zora Barbosa, was an independent career woman. She had Yasmin at the young age of 20. Although Yasmin's father helped pay the hospital bill when she was born and supported them during her first two baby years, he faded soon after. Her mom took full responsibility to support them. Yasmin did not use her father's family name; she carried her mother's maiden name.

But Yasmin's exquisite beauty can't deny her Arab blood; with her height, alluring eyes, well-endowed body, and long, luscious brown hair. Yasmin is stunning; she could cakewalk in a beauty pageant. Her mom left her in the care of her grandparents while she continued to work in Abu Dhabi. After Yasmin had worked for a year in the country, she joined her in Abu Dhabi.

She never saw or heard from Jamil, although he was only in Dubai; nor did she try to find him. He had never mentioned his father's company, nor given her a clue where he was in Dubai back then. She waited for him to ask anyone from their circle of friends about her whereabouts, but she had heard nothing from him. She accepted the fact that Jamil hadn't loved her as much as she had loved him. Still, she was hopeful they would cross paths in Dubai someday. When she went clubbing with her friends in Dubai, she would always glance around. But it never happened.

When her company won a project for another engineering design study in Kazakhstan and had asked her if she wanted to join, she readily agreed. Her mom had then resigned from her job in Abu Dhabi and settled in Manila with her grandparents. She had started a business while she was working in Abu Dhabi, so Yasmin had nothing to worry about. Being an only child has an advantage. There was no one to worry about except her old folks.

She looked at Jamil's sleeping form now. She loved him still; she found it hard to forget him. Yasmin didn't want another boyfriend after him. Marrying Jamil someday had always been her dream. He had grown a beard and a mustache and it did suit him so well. He looked more Arab than Asian; dark, rugged-looking, and dangerously attractive. She doubted it if Jamil had lived without a woman or several women, and the thought alone hurt. He was too attractive not to be noticeable.

Jamil had become darker, muscled, well-toned in physique, he's true and true a man. And the one thing that shocked Yasmin earlier was the size of his rod; enormous, for lack of words. She couldn't believe it; she had to close her eyes; it shocked her. She imagined taking him in her mouth. But besides a tight space between seats, it was gravely scandalous. That's an understatement. Of course, it wasn't appropriate at all and to think that they are half-Emirati, and Jamil is Muslim.

She missed him so much; she wanted to stay with him forever. But what if he's already engaged, or worse, married? What if he's in love with another woman right now? Why is it so hard for them to be together? Why are things coming up between them to draw them apart?

She looked out the window, it's still dark, there's still enough time to enjoy what she has right now. If they would have to part ways after this, at least she'll have recent memories of him again. While she was being besieged by her anxiety with Jamil, her body was responding to the pleasure he was giving.

His fingers had once again invaded her and had been weaving their way around her moistened interiors. And now, they're ready to release. She can feel his tightening muscles and groin, his steel-like grip on her thighs, his relentless finger penetration, and his breast squeezing, all alternating in a frenzy. When she felt she was about to climax, Yasmin turned her lips to his to seal them from groaning or screaming in the onslaught of a stormy passion and heat, their tongues both sucking the breath out of their lungs and mouth. They locked lips and embrace while their fluids flowed and their shuddering subsided. The couple was breathless, spent, and flushed. They slept off the rest of the flight in a tight cuddle.

***

After passing through Immigration and the luggage collection at the Manila International Airport, Yasmin went to the airport taxi stand to book a cab to her hotel when Jamil abruptly halted her.

"You are not going anywhere, woman," he commanded.

"But I've booked my hotel and I can't cancel now without paying a penalty," she replied.

He casually replied that he had it cancelled, paid the penalty with his credit card and that she was not going anywhere but home with him.

To the home where he and his mom live alternating with Dubai. To the home, she and Jamil used to create their first-time memories and their succeeding ones whenever his mom travels in Dubai. Jamil told her not to worry since no one was there. The caretaker cleans the house on weekends and locks it for the rest of the week. They have the house to themselves.

Yasmin wondered how he'd cancelled her booking. When Yasmin didn't budge from where she was standing, Jamil left the cart for a while and took long strides to grab her wrist in a tight grip and pull her along with him outside the airport building, into a taxi, which he flagged down in a hurry. And now they're on their way to Jamil's home.