Underground Intimacy

I have never understood the reticence English commuters have with looking around when traveling on the underground. Fellow passengers sit reading their papers or fiddling with their mobile phones. They study the tube maps on the wall, or the boring adverts next to them, staring as if to memorize every word of the slogan for an instantly forgettable product. Anything it seems to keep from making eye contact.

I had long since given up this awkward diplomacy and instead watched my companions, albeit surreptitiously with sidelong glances and hooded eyes. Not that it mattered, for rarely did anyone ever look back at me as I studied their faces and only occasionally did I come across another watcher.

It was because of this habit of studying my fellow travellers that I witnessed the short encounter I am about to relate here. I am fairly sure nobody else in the tube compartment realised what was happening and whether the two people involved knew I was watching I couldn't tell you.

The trains were hot that afternoon, the late summer sun having heated the underground tunnels. The fine weather had also brought more visitors to the capital, their numbers swelling that of the usual commuters. I had joined the train only two stations into its journey and, finding it still empty, had chosen a seat near the doors. At each stop after mine the compartment filled until at last there was only room for new passengers to stand, gripping the swinging handles above their heads and trying to keep their distance from one another.

My attention was drawn to a woman in her late twenties, suntanned and casually dressed, wearing light combat trousers and a cropped green t-shirt, her bare arms brown and her boots scuffed. She had ended up sandwiched between a guy in jeans with short wavy brown hair who looked to be in his thirties in front, and a large middle-aged suited businessman with his back to her behind. As people crowded in around them, the woman was pushed towards the man facing her, ending up with her chin almost resting on his shoulder, separated by only a few inches.

A sudden jolt of the train on the tracks threw her against the mans’ chest, her hand gripping his arm to steady herself. He in turn held her opposite arm, supporting her until she could regain her balance. As she swayed back away from him, I saw his hand tighten fractionally on her arm, then gently run down its length to her wrist and stop. There was a pause of a second or two, then the same hand slowly ran back up the inside of her arm, caressing the skin as it travelled. I could not tear my eyes away and I saw her body first tense, then slowly relax as the man's hand stroked the skin of her arm before moving on, tracing the contours of her side, brushing against the rise of her breast. I saw her breath catch and her body move unconsciously towards the man in front until there was only a whisper of air between them.

I realised that no-one else was watching this intimacy. In a train full of people it was as though these two were alone, hidden for the most part by other passengers and unobserved by all except for me and I felt my breath quicken, drawn into the secretive caresses of the young man, unable to look away.

From the corner of my eye I watched his hand trace lightly down the front of her t-shirt, a teasing brush against one nipple, before continuing lower over her stomach, hovering there for a second or two before moving on, the slight movement of her hips suggesting his hand now lay between her legs. As I sat with my heart beating faster, I saw his hand rise again, rest for a moment at the top of her trousers as he undid the buttons, then slide inside the waistband of her combats, smoothing over her skin to rest against the swell of her pubic bone. She swayed very slightly, tilting her pelvis towards him and I could see from the play of tendons in his arm that he was caressing her, his palm resting on her mound, fingers circling her clitorus as the swaying of the train brought them still closer together. She held his arm tightly, leaning her upper body towards his, her head tilted forward just a touch on his shoulder. The young man did not stop his movements and I could see her breath quicken, body tensing, as her pelvis rose further under his fingers until suddenly she shuddered, so slightly that no-one else would have noticed. The man slowly withdrew his hand drawing the woman towards him and when they left the train a few moments later, they had their arms around each other.

To this day I don’t know if they already knew one another and were simply playing a game they had played before, or whether they were truly strangers. I never saw them again but I often replay the memory of that encounter on long journeys when I'm bored of my fellow travellers.