Part 1
It is 1997, I’m seventeen years old and on my way home. I’m sat in a train carriage doing what I always do; listening to my Discman and thinking about sex. Despite my overabundance of enthusiastic personality, I’m curiously shy around girls, never quite sure of what to say and prone to showing off. This has led to a strange imbalance throughout my teenage years. Girlfriendless and yet I don’t think I’m not too bad to look at. My father is terrified that I’m gay. My Mum says I’m handsome and of the two of them I trust her. I love women, but I understand this blatant unfuckability has to be about more than looks. I’m fairly certain people mistake my seeming overconfidence as arrogance, but I am my own harshest critic. They cannot know what goes on inside my head, and if I told them they would say I was overthinking.
The train stops at East Croydon and my music reaches Mindfields I know full well there’s a tiny scratch on my Fat of the Land CD, so it’s just about to jam up and start skipping. I fiddle with the buttons, jumping across to Narayan and when my head comes up again to survey the carriage, she… is there.
I don’t know her name, I just know that I’ve seen her on this train about a dozen times before, and she gets off at my home town of Hurst Green. She occupies that space in a woman’s life where she could be 30, 40 or 50 but the years themselves don’t matter, what she has that so many of the girls my own age seem to lack is a palpable self-confidence. She knows who she is. She dresses to accentuate that, and always seems so comfortable in her own skin.
My eyes have lingered for a fraction of a second and I shift them away. I do NOT want to look like a creep, even though all the thoughts rushing through my head seem to point in that direction. However, as my brief gaze left her, she glanced at me and I can now feel her look. She has librarian glasses, long dark hair with a streak of silver she wears with pride. Behind those glasses are green eyes I have caught once or twice and always smiled politely, as though stepping aside to give her space to move through a doorway. But right now, those eyes are on me.
I shuffle a little in my seat as I can feel myself getting hard. I stare out of the window, watching the brown brick walls stained with train-soot drift by, and I take in her form with just the edge of my peripheral vision. She is wearing a knee-length, light cream coat, (far too elegant to be wandering around Croydon in), a black blouse, a very slender necklace with what might be a single black pearl nestling in her suprasternal notch just below her throat. She shifts her position and as I incline my head, seemingly fascinated by a tall glass tower framed by a stormy, grey sky, I can make out the knee-length black skirt with a long split up the side as she crosses her legs. Is her knee pointed in my direction? That means something doesn’t it? Either she’s interested in me or I make her nervous… of course most probably she’s just getting comfortable and I in no way have influenced her movements.
There was a flash of something there though. In the crossing I caught sight of the lacy tops of her black stockings and just above that, the tanned skin of her thigh. I catch a subtle wave of her scent and catch my breath. I cannot stop my brain from going where it goes as I imagine stroking my hand up and down those legs, looking into those eyes, lightly brushing the satin with my fingertips which glide upwards to the opening of her skirt.
Oh god, now I definitely have a pulsing erection. I can’t get her out of my head. I steal a glance at those darkly made-up lips to see them ever so slightly twist into a smirk. There is a roll of thunder and rain begins to clatter down outside our train.
I sigh, thinking about the mile I have to walk home from the station and pray for this storm to blow itself out by then. Twenty minutes later my prayers have not been answered, the carriage has slowly emptied at every stop and my hard-on has gone nowhere. I have tried to not look her way, but this mysterious lady has seemingly enjoyed herself over that time. She has been reading a paperback called “Seduction of the Minotaur” by someone named “Anais Nin”. A bar of dark chocolate sits upon the chair beside her, and occasionally, without adjusting her eyeline from the book she has reached down her left hand, and skilfully, broken off a piece with her maroon nail varnished fingers, raising the chocolate to her lips with deliberation, and chewed thoughtfully, each time sighing ever so slightly. I have never wanted to BE chocolate so much in my life.
Fat of the Land reaches the end and I swap it for Ten by Pearl Jam. Far more flustered as I root around in my bag. When I finally look up again, my heart skips a beat. In front of me, she has shifted position once again, and while her gaze is still locked inside her paperback, her left hand has extended towards me, with the last piece of chocolate, nestled in what remains of the wrapping.
There is a beat. Is this a test? Is it ruder for me to decline or take what is offered? Pearl Jam are playing Once too loudly in my ears as I raise my own hand. I take the plunge and reach for the chocolate and the moment that happens her eyes jump to mine, a catlike expression of satisfaction. I grin too broadly, feel my cock twitch and thank her as I take the chocolate, feeling every bit like Edmund sat next to The White Witch, as she compresses the paper and foil into a tight ball. I raise the dense little block to my mouth and I can ever so slightly taste something beyond chocolate there. Almost imperceptibly a slight exotic undercurrent. I realise I can taste her fingers and I shiver.
The rain beats down as we reach Hurst Green. Nobody else is left in the carriage. I try to maintain not glancing directly at her she trades her paperback for a short, maroon umbrella, ready to disembark into this deluge. I am nowhere near that prepared in my summer jacket, and I am about to get absolutely waterlogged. However, considering how exciting this journey has been I weigh up the day and come out at an absolute win!
“What did you do last night?” my friend Matt will ask tomorrow.
“Oh, I just had the most erotic shared moment of my entire life.” I will say, beaming.
“Oh my god, who did you get to fuck?” Matt will gasp.
“No fucking, but I *did* get to eat a piece of chocolate.”
Matt will stare at me. I will stare back.
“We’re going.” He will announce.
“Where?”
“Safeway. I’m going to get you a massive bar of Dairy Milk, you horny bastard.”
I am smiling to myself as I stand up to leave the carriage. This astonishing lady stands at the same time, I could almost swear she did this on purpose. My brain oscillates between the contextual “Of course she got up now, this is her stop. People stand up to get off trains, you clod.” to “Yeah, but she could either have gotten up before you or after you.” And now, standing, we are within a foot of one another as the train slows. I am in her space and worried once more that I am making her nervous or intimidating her. It only now becomes apparent how much taller than her I am.
Once more, I don’t know where to look. I stare at the carriage door, willing the train to finally stop, but at the exact same time, yearning for this moment not to end. I am aware her face is upturned and she is looking at me. I breathe in her perfume. There is a spicy, fruity miasma to it that has me quite befuddled. I am trying to keep the front of my jeans covered with my bag so that she is not confronted with this tumescent evidence of my extreme attraction to her.
The train stops, with a shake, she teeters ever so slightly in my direction, as though if she’s going to fall, it’s going to be into me. I brace myself to catch her, but the fall doesn’t happen. She noticed this for sure. I lean to one side and open the door. Unfortunately, we are far up the train enough to be way beyond the sheltered station roof, so I am opening the door to a torrid wall of water.
I step out and am immediately drenched. I hold the door open for her and she slowly… deliberately… takes her time stepping down onto the platform, raising her umbrella to shield herself until she stands, not a speck of moisture evident, glancing across to the car park. Then without a word she stalks off that way, her high heels clacking audibly in between the raindrops. I look back into the train and see the conductor staring off in her direction as well, his eyes on the hems of those stockings. I close the door and hurry away as the train moves on.
As I struggle through the blitz, barely able to see in the gathering dark, I can feel water everywhere. My socks, between my toes, sliding cold fingers into my jeans, slapping the back of my neck, stinging my eyes and battering my ears. I almost don’t notice when an Alfa Romeo pulls up alongside the pathway, headlights on. It is maroon. The passenger window rolls down and there she is, one hand on the steering wheel, looking at me intently over those librarian glasses with those intense green eyes. I stop walking and stand there, saturated as the rain beats down and our eyes lock together with a powerful wave of venturing and acceptance. She studies my bedraggled form and says two words that will change my life…
“Get in.”
End of Part 1 |
