A Girl on the Bus

She was hot, smoking hot. If she was on fire, she'd burn.

She was out of my league, that much was certain, but I kept seeing her, the hot girl on the daily commute. In the mornings she'd often get on the express bus where I'd be sitting up the back, having boarded at the park-n-ride further out. Common sense meant those who got on first went straight to the back seats so the bus could fill quickly. When it was crowded, passengers would stand in the aisle, swaying back and forth, hanging from the straps.

Over several weeks I saw her waiting in the queue to board, sitting down nearer the front of the bus, standing when it was crowded. Once, and it only happened the once, she came up the back and stood in the aisle right next to where I was sitting.

"Would you like a seat?" I asked. I judge my courtesy quickly and nearly always get it right - many older women these days are willing to get an older man's look, and many younger women quite like the charm.

"No. No thanks, I'm fine. I can stand. The city's not far. But thank you, it's thoughtful to ask. People never do." Her voice was surprisingly low, even husky. I'd imagined a lighter voice.

She touched my shoulder - to reinforce her thank you, to give me a gift in return, I didn't know. But when a woman touches a man's shoulder, one remembers. I'm remembering now. She smiled down at me, then turned away to her phone.

Because she was scrolling through her phone in the way that only women seem to do, red painted fingernails flicking quickly, she kept her balance on the swaying bus with a firm grip on the seat handle in front of me. I studied her fingers, slim and quite long, rings on her middle and ring fingers. It was her right hand, and I glanced at her left hand, skittering on the phone. Not obviously married, and she liked gold.

I saw how the back of her hand was lightly freckled, the veins like a river on a map, and ever so slightly blue. Her skin was quite pale. A long scar ran along the side of her little finger, and I imagined some childhood accident, a young girl running inside to find mother, when only a father would do. I saw a tiny pulse on a vein near her wrist, and counted her heartbeats. Her pulse was quite quick, and I lost count at twenty-two.

Her belly was so close, a firm swell in her tight corporate skirt, and if she'd been naked I'd have kissed it. Instead, I watched her torso tighten and flex, holding herself steady against the sway of the bus.

Her thighs brushed against my arm, and she turned. "Oops, sorry. It's a tight squeeze, isn't it? It's crowded, this bus."

"Too crowded, but I'm luckier, getting on before you. It means I get a seat."

She smiled. "I should have accepted your offer. Too late now." She grimaced, glancing across at the big guy who was crowding her, too fat to be healthy. His size made her seem smaller than she really was.

"Maybe next time," I said, conspiring with her against the crowd.

"Maybe next time. I see you often."

"Me too. On the same bus." Of course we're on the same bus. What an odd thing for me to say.

She laughed, and her eyes were bright, and her gaze was steady. "On the same bus nearly every morning, and now we're chatting. It's nice." She deliberately put her phone in her bag. "I don't need my phone, not really. It just gives me something to do. In the mornings."

"On the bus, before you chat to the stranger. Who's on the bus too." I smiled up at her, and noticed how careful she was with her make up. She was several years older than I'd first thought, creases in the corners of her eyes.

I looked up at her, and we smiled together, and I looked at her lips. She saw me looking and her smile widened, showing her teeth which were slightly crooked. I wondered what she'd look like waking slowly on a pillow next to mine, her deep brown eyes opening slowly, my eyes the first gaze she saw.

I realised she'd look like this, the way she looked at me on the bus in the morning.

© electricblue66 2020