The Last Seat on the Train

It was easy to find my seat on the train as it was the only empty window one left in the carriage.

   The carriage was hot and stuffy and I was glad I had my light summer clothes on.

   “Typical” I thought “Middle of summer and the air conditioning isn’t working and in the winter it is on full blast.”

   In the aisle seat was a lady with a beautifully angular face that was emphasised by her short, cropped hair. She looked up from her phone at me. She knew what I wanted and stood up in the aisle. It was then that I saw what she was wearing. A full length brown multi folded outfit that went from her neck down to her ankles. Her feet were in open sandals and looked as fine and as delicate as those carved in marble by a Renaissance sculptor. Her outfit was definitely from some religious order. Maybe Buddhist?  On both of her fine wrists there was collection of bracelets of pure metal and others made of beads of different earth colours.

   “I don’t mind really if you would like to have the window seat” I said to her.

   The train jolted slightly as it pulled away from the station. We both apologised to each other and withdrew to what little personal space we could find in the narrow aisle. The train jolted again. This time its movement was more pronounced and we bumped into each other more frontally and for slightly longer as the train crossed a junction. We both found some personal space again almost reluctantly.

   “It’s OK, I really don’t mind” she answered, “you reserved the seat.”

   I worked my way into the window seat and she returned to her aisle seat.

   We started to talk about where we were travelling from and to where, families and life in general. I asked, with my heart and stomach in my mouth, what her faith was? She thanked me for my honest question. Her faith was a sort of hybrid of Christianity and Paganism. She was on her way to a remote Scottish island to join a summer long retreat. It was her way of finding out if she really wanted to give up her life in the materialistic rat race in the city. She was over halfway there already. She explained she had already given up her job, sold her flat in central London, started wearing the habit and had her hair cropped very short.

   There was a moment when I felt as if whatever barriers imposed by social conventions had been breached and that no subject was off limits.

   When asked, I explained I was on my way to join my parents at their Northumberland farm for a couple of weeks holiday. I said it was a sort of summer retreat for me as well. I needed the open spaces of the hills and moors to clear my mind of a traumatic relationship breakup back in May. I also explained that I was seriously giving up my work back in London to start taking over the running of the farm from my parents.

    The more we talked the more we leaned towards one another and the quieter our voices became. We had made our own world to the total exclusion of anything going on around us in the rest of the carriage.

   Each time I looked at her I began to feel some sort of strengthening connection. Her expression was peaceful and happy. Her eyes were bright and alert and despite the lack of makeup her lips were a natural shiny delicate shade of pink. She radiated a raw beauty. There was some sort of energy circulating between us.

   The train slowed down abruptly and the drinks cannister on my table fell off between us. With the reactions of fighter pilots, we both reached to catch it which we did. Our hands touched out of sight but instead of letting go of each other we fumbled around for a couple of seconds and ended up holding hands.

   Whatever was happening between us had annihilated the conventions of behaviour on trains, especially in daylight.

   We looked at each other while holding hands. She knew what state I was in and moved both of our hands into my lap for the softest yet most electrifying of touches. I then returned the favour and put our hands somewhere in the folds of her outfit. The thing was, with all that fabric I couldn’t feel where I was. She guided me and we both sighed. We were getting close to a moment of no return.

   “What shall we do?” I asked half expecting her to step back behind that invisible barrier.

   “Can’t do much here can we? I mean I’d be OK but it wouldn’t look good would it for you with your light linen trousers on?  You’d have to stay on the train to Glasgow at least before you, you know? I tell you what, I’ll nip to the toilet and you follow in a couple of minutes. That is if you can last that long.”

   “Don’t worry, I will” I replied, “If I knock twice quickly and then once you’ll know its me.”

   “Ok, see you soon.”

   The two minute wait went agonisingly slowly. They were full of anticipation and I really had to work hard at not ruining the moment about to come. I went to the toilet door and knocked as arranged. The door swished open. The baby changing rack was down and on it was a pile of brown fabric. The door swished shut and locked.

   There she was in front of me naked apart from her sandals and bracelets. Her body was as angularly featured as her face. Fine square shoulders, beautiful breasts with excited nipples ready for tasting, slight visible hip bones and…

   We both grappled with my shirt and my trousers. She leaned against the baby changing shelf, gripped it with her hands and opened her legs. I was more than ready as there was already a feint layer of fresh moisture on me. Her dark patch of hair was festooned with droplets of that sweet liquid that there wouldn’t be any time to taste. I slid into her warm and moist cavity of pleasure. She pushed me further in with her hands on my backside until I felt like I was going to be swallowed whole never to return to the real world.

   It was so warm and moist in there. It felt like a million silken butterflies were there as well.

   She gave one final pelvic thrust. Our hip bones kissed briefly. The train went across another junction and that was it. Our pleasures exploded. We shook, trembled and convulsed as it coursed through our bodies. We pressed and squeezed each other to get the last drops of ecstasy from each other. The train became a third party as it trembled across a junction.

    I held her tightly with my arms around her thin waist. She draped her arms over my shoulders and still gripped me with her legs around me. It was our private world which we knew had to end soon but until then every second felt like a lifetime. The moment was ended.

   Over the train’s speaker system came the announcement that we would be about twenty minutes late arriving at the next station.

   “Again?”

   “Best not to. There might be others wanting the toilet.”