On The Way Home Ch. 01

There is no other way to live, but in the city. It's the one and only fast-paced, quick-witted, not-taking-shit way of life, and I love it. There is nothing you could offer me that would be better than living in the city. Well, almost nothing.

There are so many people here, such beauty in the simplest thing or person. When you love people like I do... when you allow them to fill your being, you can't help but be drawn to areas where there are more people than you'll ever meet in your lifetime. The overabundance of individuals makes it both easy and frighteningly fun to lose yourself. You are who you want to be in a place like that. You never need to be a person more than once.

I love the city. I love people.

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What is most intriguing about people is that there is certainly something about each person you meet that is strikingly different than the last person or the next person you have or will meet. Something uniquely distinct that if given the time and consideration will imprint upon you as surely as a birthmark you've had all your life. We meet people in our lives that are destined to add unto ourselves the marks and pieces we are missing, even if those missing pieces disturb and scare us to the marrow of our bones.

And this, my friend, is what drives me to fall in love so easily and so ceaselessly. The people around me are so full of things, that I myself, have both no concept of, and perhaps no language to understand or explain. Their experiences and lives are full of mystery and excitement, and in them is the pearl of their existence... the singularity that I strive so desperately to find, and in such a search I fall hopelessly in love with the most despicable and loveable characters.

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So, for the aforementioned reasons, I find myself so often assessing the individuals around me. A people watching game to discover what their individuality is. What their special-ness is that sets them apart from the rest of the mundane, however lovely, existence that is city life and it's population.

This often happens on public transit.

For whatever reason, since I was a child, the pt system has always been a source of observation and awe. Human interaction at it's finest and most grievous. Women and men pushing and shoving poor saps just like themselves to be the first on the metro home, men yelling at women, women yelling at children, and kids looking enviously at the children with the more expensive toy. It's not all sadness and disagreement. There are the sneaked looks between the wife of one man and another woman's husband, two men cautiously holding hands, a girl kissing a boy for the first time the furtive moan that escapes a bathroom stall that has one too many pairs of feet inside. Pt is a petri dish of the experiment that is human life at it's most base form.

It's thrilling.

And I, at it's epicenter, a train car, a bus seat, the last row on the trolley, am witness to it all. Most days. The days when I can stop myself from getting involved.

Today was certainly not one of those days.

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Blue line, ten stops from home and the air conditioning is out. I can already sense that I am going to be getting nauseous soon. Fifteen years in the city and the motion sickness, normally held at bay, comes back with ferocity because of the uncirculated, humid, and dank city air trapped inside the same car as myself. "Damn city," I say as I wipe my brow. The doors chime and open to let more passengers on a train already slightly cramped from rush hour traffic.

I watch the passengers as the enter to try and distract myself, but as it's a familiar game to guess the aspects of their life that make them different, I find my mind is not quite off my queasiness. Sighing I set my mind to developing more deeply what I imagine their lives to be like.

"She must be in love with the man sitting in front of her." I think to myself. "They walked on separately, but she has been behind him the whole way. She must believe that he cannot possibly know that she exists." The young girl shifts in her seat and eyes the back of the man's head. "He must be... almost ten years her senior. Perhaps he's married, with children and can't express his love back."

I turn my head and note another couple to my right. I chuckle. "Newly found relationship. She must be the master and he follows along." The woman has an air of authority about her, and the man is sitting meekly beside her. His outward appearance is that of a high powered business man with a taste for expensive uptown suits, while her's is of a seductress, black material in the shape of a dress clinging desperately to her body's curves. "Funny how things like that work," I think, keeping my head down so I can watch nonchalantly.

The train lurches to a stop at the next station. More chimes, more people. Tall, fat, beautiful, freckled, tan... all types and styles filling the train as we pass through the bulk of the city. The heat in the car only increases as more people press together making their way back to their homes, their lover's homes, or to nowhere in particular.

The doors chime to close and a woman rushes on in a flurry of baggy pants and purse just as the doors slam shut. She breaths a sigh of relief that she's made it in time and slumps into the closest seat that is open, rare as that is at this time of day. My breath is held and I release it. She is the most plain, ordinary looking woman I have seen since the train picked me up over fifteen minutes ago. She is plain and yet she is amazing.

She is sitting across from me, but up two rows. Just far enough that I can look at her unabashedly, but still see a beautiful profile view. She is wearing brown pants that hang loosely from her hips down, no indication of the shape of her body. Her shirt is a bit more revealing, but not by much. She is shapely with average breasts, but no more can be garnered from her outfit. She is pale with brown hair, dark and long, but pinned and twisted up in what should be a sophisticated bun, but just looks run down from her rush to catch the metro at the last minute. She is still flushed from her dash, and I wonder if she would look as flushed underneath me.

I stop staring for a minute. My mind is racing, who is she...? She is so easy to miss in a crowd, so easy to pass by... such a picture of ordinary woman that she becomes extraordinary. The car has heated up just from her presence I think, not the other thirty people that piled on the car at the stop we just were at. My nausea forgotten, I begin to fret. We're racing through each of the stops before mine, surely we were never going this fast before? I rip a piece of paper from a letter in my purse and write my information and a short note on it.

I can't help but look at her and wonder when and where she'll get off. Her legs are long and crossed at the ankle. She seems to have calmed a bit now that she's been sitting for a bit. I can tell the air in here is bothering her as well, and the sweat from the run and the temperature has caused her once modest shirt to cling to the body I realize I ache to see. She wipes at her forehead and the back of her neck. She seems tense and ready to pounce, as if work is an animal that could be sneaking back to steal her away now that she's finally gotten away for the day.

She looks back. I look away. I'm not sure why, but I know that despite my best efforts she has seen me. When I return my gaze she is still looking, but simply smiles. I had expected a startling brilliance that would throw me off balance. However, what I got was a simple raising of her cheeks and a few teeth. Did she not know how to loosen up?

Two stops later she gathered her things, and I found myself pushing through the aisle to come stand one or two people behind her. The metro lurched forward to reach the end of the platform, and everyone went off balance flying forward and then back. During those few precious moments I slipped the half sheet of paper into her bag. She turned again as the doors chimed open, and I smiled at her. She didn't smile this time, but rather looked quizzically at me as the people around us started to yell and push at us to move.

I dropped my eyes to her purse and back up to her. She looked more confused yet, and I simply said, "I will talk to you later perhaps," and I walked back to my seat. She stood transfixed, unsure of what to make of it all for a moment or two. The doors chimed again alerting passengers to please stand back, and she then left as she came, as a rush of oversized tan pants and a purse that slid out just as the doors smacked into place.

I sat back and leaned my head against the cool window, with five more stops to go I thought to myself, "damn city."

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I ride the blue line every day of the week, and despite looking for her everyday after that I did not see her. It was over a week before I heard from her, and I had almost lost hope. I had left my phone number and email address on the piece of paper and an explanation that I thought she was beautiful and I would like to get to know her.

What I received from her was less than encouraging, but better than nothing I figured.

"I'm not a lesbian, but that was some stunt you pulled. I wouldn't mind getting to know you. Should we meet somewhere? I've never done this before."

I was thrilled. Who cared if she wasn't a lesbian... that meant nothing in this day and age. Hell, I didn't classify myself as such, so really what difference did it make that she seemed completely and hell bent to make it clear that she sure, most positively did not want to be with me. I laughed out loud when I reread the email. The guilty cry innocence the loudest... couldn't that relate to desire too?

I sent a quick email back stating that I didn't consider myself a lesbian either, but that rather I simply had thought that she was startlingly beautiful and hoped that her personality reflected the same beauty. I told her that she shouldn't worry too much about this being her first time to agree to meet a stranger who had passed her a note, much like a middle school-er, on the metro as I was sure it did not happen all the time. I asked her if she drank and if so, we should meet tomorrow night at a nice restaurant in a rather artsy part of town where they played live music. I told her that there would be a lot of people around, and that since I knew her as well as she knew me that I would personally be letting others know where I was going to be that night.

I tried to sound suave, but I was completely ecstatic. And horny. After I wrote the email I sat back in my chair and slipped my underwear out from under my skirt until the rested around my ankles. I leaned my head back and imagined how differently that day on the train could have gone.

I would have walked up to her and sat down beside her. I imagined her smiling meekly at me from under her dark brown lashes and reaching over to me. The seat in front of us, and the sweatshirt on my lap would have obscured the view of her sliding her hand up my thigh and rubbing my already wet underwear from the rest of the train car.

As I started to rock against my own hand in my chair at home, I imagined myself doing the same on the train. In my mind I reached over and undid the front of the blouse I pictured her in so that her full bra came into view. As she continued to stroke me, and then finally slip her hands inside my underwear, I pictured myself pulling a firm, full breast out from her bra, the nipple becoming erect just from my touch.

As I was getting closer and closer to my own climax at home, I imagined her rubbing my clit and stroking and penetrating my wet cunt with daft and strong fingers. Her breasts bounced in my imagination with every shake of the train, and the lonely restricted breast popped from its bra cage after being ever so slowly loosened from my sucking and constant attention of it's mate.

As my climax neared and I felt my body aching for release I sat back and let my mind clear. As it rolled over me, making my toes tense and release I realized how much I wanted to be with her. I knew that I would have to take it slow to gain her trust, but how could I wait for something as extraordinary as her, the finest specimen of woman I had seen in ages?

As my breathing slowed and regulated, and I opened my eyes I noticed that I had a new email in my inbox. I could feel my body getting anxious, and when I saw it was from my mysterious, ordinary, beautiful woman I felt myself getting wet again.

My breathing picked up again and as I clicked and read I knew that it was going to be an interesting meeting if nothing else.

"I will see you tomorrow night then I guess. I'll let others know where I will be as well. It's been a long time since I've been so spontaneous... I'm sure we'll have a great time."

I couldn't help but start rubbing myself again. "I'm sure we'll have a great time..." I said half sighing, half moaning. "Yes, I'm sure we will."

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The day dragged by. Work was work, the ride home from said work was just as boring and I knew I was more tense than I should be for a simple date. She couldn't have meant more by her words, she had made that clear from her first email, and yet, my heart leapt... or rather my libido... or perhaps an astonishing and exiting mix of both. It wouldn't be the first time I had fallen in love on so little information, and my libido cared little to nothing about whether I even knew a name. So I waited and waited in anticipation of our date.

I got ready in record time, having known what I would wear days in advance, threw on scant amounts of makeup and my favorite shoes, and went out the door to the restaurant/bar around the block from my house.

I hate tardiness and so when I arrived I hadn't expected her to be there, and yet, there she was, seated at a table near an exit, but in the raised semi-outdoor patio. She looked as amazing as I remembered her, if not more so. Her hair was pinned up loosely at her nape, with wisps coming down from here and there to scrape the sides of her face as the summer wind blew through the open windows and through the patio seating area. She wore a green shirt that hugged her breasts and showed her cleavage in a way I didn't think possible. From where I was standing I couldn't see her pants too well, and I dreaded the thought that perhaps she was wearing the same ones from the train the other day, but I truly was sure it didn't matter in the end. Finally, peeping out from under the table, at the end of her ever long legs, were a pair of green heels.

I blushed as I remembered all the fantasies I had imagined and created since I had seen her on the train. I attempted to remain calm and collected as I walked to the table, but when she stood to say hello and awkwardly shook my hand I could only remember the things I had imagined her doing with them and I stood frozen.

"Hello?" She asked looking slightly concerned. I snapped out of it and smiled. "Sorry, I'm a bit out of sorts. I need a beer and minute maybe." When the waitress came over, a punk girl in her late teens, I ordered my favorite beer and attempted to settle the throbbing between my legs.

"I can't believe you emailed me. I was sure that you wouldn't." I said after the girl left.

"I didn't think I was going to either." She said looking down at her own drink. "I never would have, but I realized that after doing things the same way for so long I needed a mix up in my life. You seemed to have come at the right time, even if your methods were a bit unorthodox." She smiled, it seemed to come freely this time. She seemed far more relaxed today than she had on the train.

"So I'm your dose of spontaneity for this month?" I asked.

"Try this year... and probably most of last year."

"That bad, huh?" She looked up surprised. "A relationship I suspect. Domineering, overprotective, jealous?"

She nodded. "I'm not here to talk about that though. I'm just out to have a good time. I don't really know many people in this city, besides the ones I work with, and now that I've moved across town I know even fewer."

"I see." The waitress came back with my drink took my order quickly and retreated to the kitchen. "Well for whatever reason you decided to, I'm glad you emailed me." I smiled and took a drink of the beer. It was taking all my effort not to lean across the table and kiss her, let alone what I wanted to do after the kiss. Her breasts were slightly shiny from the last of the summer heat dissipating now that the sun was going down. The raised with each breath to strain against her shirt. Her lips were full and her mouth simply looked divine. What I could see of her was enough to reassure me that my instincts on the train were correct in thinking she was perhaps one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.

She had beautiful blue eyes, wide set and doe like. Her skin was light and her nose was strong. Her face was somewhere between fierce Amazonian and innocent 40's actress. I noted distinctly that perhaps this was going to be something that I found myself desiring in more and more individuals.

Our conversation from that point on was interesting and coherent, but all together unremarkable. It mainly focused on information concerning work and metro rides, the city and past living situations. She blushingly admitted that she had only ridden the metro that day because she had never ridden alone and had gotten lost. I cursed and blessed my luck.

"I'm glad that you rode that day, you brighten what was a otherwise terrible ride home. The car was unbearably hot that day, wouldn't you agree?" I asked.

"Absolutely. I couldn't believe how hot it was."

"And there you were," I said, "a beautiful woman racing to get on the train in the midst of so many other, unspectacular individuals." I smiled.

She paused, somewhat wide-eyed. "You really believe I'm that attractive?" She said, shaking her head and coming back to reality. "Coming from you I can't believe it." She smiled again, revealing what I knew was closer and closer to the brilliant one I had anticipated. "You're gorgeous. I told you already that I don't really... um... like women, but you are so beautiful." She looked down at her empty cup, and looked up again blushing, what a beautiful blush it was, "I can't believe I'm going through these as fast as I am."

She called the waitress back over for her third beer, and inquired about dessert. The waitress told us that their menu was due to change soon and therefore they weren't currently serving dessert. "That's foolish." She stated looking rather disappointed after the waitress left.

I shook my head in agreement, "I have some stuff back at my place if you'd like to come over for a while and cook." My hand grew sweaty, "it's nothing spectacular, but it might be fun to bake for ourselves." I had hoped I'd sounded confident, but the overwhelming desire to get her back to my apartment to do ANYTHING was making me sound like a twelve-year old. I didn't want our date to end. She was good company, better than I had expected, and still unbelievably delicious to behold.

She looked reluctant and shook her head a number of times as if she couldn't put two sentences together to tell me what was on her mind. "It's okay." I said, trying to make her feel comfortable and perhaps salvage a possible next date. "No." She stated, "I want to... it's just... I've never..." She smiled. "Never mind. Sure... I'd love to come over to your place. Is it far?"

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When we reached my apartment I was ecstatic I had cleaned. My place wasn't big, two bedrooms with a kitchen and living room, but it was well decorated and appealing. "I love it!" She said as she entered. "I've always wanted a flat above a restaurant or club!"

I smiled at her. "Thursdays are the best. There is always live jazz playing downstairs and it filters up here." She plopped down on the couch. Walking into the kitchen I fought not to turn back and sit down beside her. "What do you want to make?" I asked from over the bar.