Travelling through a hole sideways on an extruded bench.

Yes, I’m on the Tube.

So, I’m sitting here, on the Jubilee Line if you’re interested, and thinking… is this seating orientation unique? Can you think of another?

The lower-deck seats on an old Routemaster bus.

Oh yeah, okay then.

Most subway trains around the world.

Yeah, okay! Whatever.

Boy, it’s hot though. The dry, unique ‘underground air’ drifting through the carriages has a distinct tang, a whiff of hot metal mixed with vacuum cleaner bag.

Where are we now?

Green Park.

Okay. Mmmm, a quick footwear scan… Adidas, Adidas, don’t know, New Balance…

Onitsuka Tiger? Nice, yellow too.

Nike, Adidas, don’t know, don’t know, Vans… flip flops?

What a Dude! On the Tube too!

People come, people go. On, off.  Sit, stand. Talking, listening, looking, dozing. All humanity is here, inside a hot, metal tube thundering through a Victorian’s hole.

Snigger.

It’s a noisy, but nullified state travelling on the Tube. Especially so with my ear buds inserted. A somnambulistic suspension of sentience you might say.

A hiatus of life.

Yeah, that’s a better phrase. An abstracted reality too, when you think about it.

What do you mean?

I mean, widescreen posters over your head: ads for advancement, promises of perfection, messages of money, images of improvement.

Rain on my ocean.

I do love the familiar patterns, smells, sounds and shapes of the Tube though. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions that are conjured by sitting here.

Like?

Like, this temporary shared space, shared air, a shared light, a shared direction. Oh yeah, and the enunciated announcements of your next destin…

“ The next station is Bond Street, change here for….”

It’s then that she boards.

She entrains.

An apparition.

Time and space slows like treacle from a cold spoon. A momentary distortion of reality… Suddenly! I am back, like the jolt of the carriage.

She is an apparition.

An apparition, yes.

Yes.

She sits.

Opposite me. Directly, opposite me.

What?

She didn’t have to.

She chose to.

My eyes are aching, pleading, to see what my mind already knows. I cannot look.

You must not look.

It’s too soon. Resist, avert, pretend. Occupy my over-eager eyes with banality.

Exaggerate, look elsewhere, to the left, to the right, at my feet, my hands, unconsciously rubbing them together, in a prayer-like pose. Stop it.

Look up, at the map, anything.

I know where I’m going, but I don’t know what’s happening.

An imaginary crumb brushed from my lap. Why did I do that?

You idiot. Just don’t look.

The air is rare, exotic.

A quintessential, ethereal, scent of beauty floats on the mechanical breeze.

A heady, momentary change in air pressure in my ears, a barely discernible electricity. These aren’t the right words.

Don’t look.

More like an erotic static. Her energy, as exquisite and as fundamental as the sunlight bleaching through the speckled window glass.

Don’t look.

Around me blurred normality. Ahead of me,… a vision. Suspended reality. A dreamscape, of infatuation, of illogical love? Can I say that? Love? For that is what it feels like, so then it must be.

Don’t look.

A heart-melting, physical, aching despair in my chest. This is love. For this fleeting moment, she is the element of our mutual universe, suddenly and beautifully aligned.

Don’t look.

I do. look, and…

Beauty, beyond.

Beyond my vocabulary. Beyond my comprehension.

Skin, pebble smooth, taut, translucent. Teeth gleaming, whiter than angel snow. Hair, swaying golden wheat in late summer fields.

She is.

Perfection.

She smiles.

A firework smile, dimples like heaven’s eyes.

At me.

At me!

I didn’t respond, no time, too flustered. What? Missed opportunity. Why am I like this? No second chance now. Despair, ache, deepens further.

Idiot.

I glance, again. For just a millisecond.

It’s enough for information.

The hem, of her floral dress. Four inches, above the flat of her knees. Her legs, oh, such bronzed levers. An inviting avenue of skin. Creating irresistible, erotic shadows, a route, a passage to heaven.

“The next station is Swiss Cottage. Doors will open on the right-hand side.”

My stop. No, please, not now. Is my reverie to be cruelly wrenched from ecstasy?

But, no!

She stands too!

In front. Of me.

Of me!

I stand, I inhale her, behind her.

The crumpled cotton, the covering of her skin by mere cotton. How has this cotton deserved such intimacy? Her nape, the clasp of her vanishingly thin gold chain, lying on her fragrant, tanned, perfect, bronze skin.

She alights.

I merely ‘get off’.

Up, the same stairs. At, the same time. Through, the same barrier.

She looks.

Yes she does. She smiles. Certainty. Confidence. Head tilt, smiles again.

Follow? Did she mean it? Did I misinterpret? I am dreaming? Yes? No?

Sort yourself out.

Yes, she means it. The opportunity. I seize it. No mistake, no hesitation.

My smile, inner and outer, goes deep into my soul. Deeper.

Apprehension. Anticipation. Familiar emotions.

But this is magnetic attraction, an unfamiliar one.

Focus on that you fool.

I don’t remember. Walking. Or the direction, or the house, or the door, or the stairs, or the door.

Or the bright sunlight inside.

Her space, her things, her life, her scent. Encapsulated. Her four walls. 

But I am here, inside, within.

She is showing me, herself, through her things. Her art, her creativity, her books.

Her sensuality.

Her home.

The look. The touch. The uncertain certainty.

My heart. Exploding.

Her cotton dress. Floored. Discarded.

Her breasts, softer than pillows of clouds. Perfection.

Kneeling at her altar. I press my nose against her mound, open-mouthed I inhale her wetness, her fragrance, through her material.

I ease down her white, impossibly tiny underwear. My tongue brushes, touches, invades, and electrifies her.

Her giddiness, her writhing, her shouts, her euphoria.

Her capture, her hold, of me, my head, with her long, bronzed levers. Drenched by her nectar, engulfed by our lust, our desire, our lubricious needs.

My feverish exploration of her abyss, with my tongue, breathing her, her plump cushions, her tiny bud of ecstasy.

Her taste, her Taste! The ambrosia of the gods, of champagne and oysters, her briny, mineral saltiness sparkles on my tongue.

Her warm flow from her vortex of lust, her exaltations, her orgiastic exclamations of ecstasy, rebounding around the confines of her habitat.

My eruption. Leaping, spectacular in volume, a release from the very depths of my being.  She drinks, at the font of my fecundity, thirstily, without hesitation.

Oh, my, god.

She, and I…

Make.

Sweet.

Love.

“The next station is Finchley Road. Doors will open on the left-hand side.”

The Tube. It transports you. To Oblivion Station, and back again.

Idiot.