1,105 words, 6 minutes read time.
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It’s been a hard long day. I can’t wait to get home. I know all the paint isn’t off. My brushes are still stained. I’ll soak them when I reach my apartment, clean my palette knives, then myself. I think of the hot downpour from my shower, soap and lacey puff caressing me better and push my sore shoulders back a little into the balding Luas train seat.
Ooof.
My neck is sweaty. Other parts too. I shift my curls off my neck, look out the window as we pass through a roaring tunnel; thunderous flashes and sounds bruise my mind. Leaning against glass, I mist it, wipe and then…
There. I see. His eyes cannot be missed. Those blazing beacons of darkness make all else fall away. They are soft yet warn of hard. Speak of hard. Of things seen. Things done. All that will be. I know in those stuttering few seconds he has had the pleasure of many women. Maybe men also. Yet as I gaze into the glass I see an emptiness that I sense he’s driven to fill. I feel like I am within inches of him. This is what exhaustion does to me and lack of sex. I’m deluded.
I want to climb through the glass – beyond the reflection. I am aware that seconds from now we will exit the tunnel and that will be it. The Illusion evaporated. I am aware if I turn around, all may be shattered anyway. He may simply be looking at someone over my shoulder. He may also look much less enigmatic in reality. And…he may just be another mindless pervert.
Take me home, train. Please hurry.
I close my eyes and feel the coolness emanating from the pane in front of me as a harsh stupor erasing blast signals the train’s sudden exit from the tunnel. I look down at my ugly hands and pick away the paint from an uneven nail. Men don’t like women like us. They like preened and pretty, shiny and light. We should be weightless, like butterflies primed to take flight in a second; perfect.
I am not.
I think maybe I will treat him like a butterfly though. Put the memory of him in a killing jar so to speak. Preserve it. Let nothing spoil it. Remember his soulful eyes in the tunnel and paint them. Capture them.
So I won’t look at him. Because that will ruin it.
I squeeze my eyes shut a little and my thighs too if I’m honest. Because although Mr Mysterious has gotten to me on an artistic level, my sticky damp panties say he may have also awoken some other parts of me too.
I’m far too warm. I’m fighting not to look. Instead I do the twenty first century thing and lift my phone, checking everything inane and unimportant as if my life depends on it. But I don’t want to forget him. Yet I do not want the danger I can sense right there either. My eyes are seeing nothing as I scroll. I must be beyond tired to be behaving so deranged.
A soft bed is what I need. Pillows…um…so fluffy. Certainly, no need for pjs. Gotta be naked. Dinner, shower and maybe a toy, then sleep…that’s my plan.
‘Hey.’
I startle because no one is meant to be beside me. But, upon my word…there he is, so close, in fact, his thigh is nearly touching mine.
His eyes are even more profound now that he’s right here.
I can’t seem to say anything.
‘Long day huh?’ he says, nodding at my messy disaster of an art bag, paint all over it and a sketch pad sticking out of one corner. His dark hair flops. He has it long on top. Short at the sides. I wonder if he can sense, even from his proximity, that my temperature has just jumped up by about three degrees. My stupid body is priming itself. She’s sensed the proximity of a shockingly hot male and is putting her feet in the starting blocks.
I get myself together and nod.
‘Yeah, it kinda was. Can’t wait to get home.’
‘Same.’
I grab my bag and stand, cheeks blazing at the thought of pushing past him, of my ass being so close, not even sure how to maneuver.
Do I give him front or back?
Oh holy mother of cringe.
‘This is my stop actually.’
‘Shit,’ he says, fingers raking through his dark hair.
‘I thought I’d have more time. I’m looking an artist to do some work for me. I noticed you. Here’s my card. If you’re interested, call me.’
He holds out a card which I grab, wishing him a good evening over my shoulder as I exit the train.
I never look up once disembarked. Tiredness finds me again as the carriages disappear. Heavy footed, I tread the streets full of chatter and the lingering aromas of dinners long concluded, allowing this closing evening of summer to engulf the empty shell of me, like a lover, who has very nearly out worn his use.
I do all the things I am meant to, once home, all the things I promised myself…and as I lie in bed, my brushes soaking in the art room, reheated dinner bubbling away and digesting in my stomach, my slightly damp hair splays across my pillow, providing perfect twirling material as I begin to ponder Mr Mysterious.
Hm…
I remember the card that I examined while I forked two day old carbonara into my mouth and drank unabashedly large gulps of chardonnay from my singular chipped but admittedly fancy glass.
It fanfared thusly…
Dr Nathaniel J Collins BAcc APFS MBBS
Chief Specialist in medical finance and research funding
Director of Zenith Vitae Financial Solutions
Dublin offices 044**56928*510
New York Offices 012*53492742*
Tokyo Offices 011*3126295*35
Yeah well, ok then…
So why did Mr Fancy Pants need an artist? Was he in need of some sort of decor type thing for his office(s) or home(s)? Unlikely. He’d get someone else to sort all that. An interior designer. Men like him don’t just grab someone off the train.
The answer probably lay in calling or texting the mobile phone number he had so hurriedly scrawled on the back of the card with what looked like a solid gold pen. But tipsy, tired and horny me wasn’t about to do that now.
Tipsy tired me was instead lubing up a vibing silicon dildo to get rid of whatever it is he had provoked.
Mr Mystery could wait till tomorrow. It will be no hardship to him.
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