It takes about seven hours to drive the distance from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Istanbul, Turkey, though to do this of course you must have a car. I didn't. I took the night train, which takes closer to thirteen hours to cover the same ground.
Fortunately, this was no regular train; it was a night train. I've had adventures enough on night trains, though never anything sexual. I travelled from Varanasi to New Delhi sleeping on top of my backpack to keep the thieves and cockroaches at bay - though it must be said that there were none of the former, only many of the latter. I travelled from Kiev to Lviv in Ukraine on another overnighter, and was having a great time talking to an old Russian lady until her son got tired of translating and put on his headphones, and then she started an argument with me about where the Russian border lay. Evidently she had missed the memo informing Russians that Poland had won its independence.
On the way back to Kiev I met a fascinating young American girl. When the ticket inspector came he asked to see our passports, which was irregular but understandable given that we were scary foreigners. Later, when we compared visa stamps, I looked at her details and discovered that we shared a birthday. I hoped at the time that this would lead to some growing intimacy; perhaps she would like to come and sit with me on my side of the carriage; perhaps she would like to rest her head on my shoulder when she grew tired; perhaps she wouldn't ask me to look the other way when she got undressed for bed. The possibilities were limitless, in my head, though in reality we got no further than talking. I believed her when she told me she'd once been mistaken for Miss Bosnia - she was certainly beautiful enough, though I knew few Bosnians with whom to compare her.
When I got on the train to Istanbul I wasn't expecting anything to happen. For a start, I found myself alone in a twin bunk compartment, and frankly I was glad for the space. I'd spent the previous month in hostels across Eastern Europe, and to have some room to myself, however limited, was a thrilling novelty.
I unpacked the food I'd brought with me for the journey, and before the train had even left the station I'd worked my way through half of it. I took my shoes off and wiggled my toes. I finished the book I was reading - you may find it ironic to learn this was called 'On Writing Well.' I lay on my bunk, turned off the light, and thought about sleep.
My mind turned, inevitably, to women, and in my relaxed state I considered playing with myself. I was growing hard with the thought of the girls I'd met in the last few years, whose kisses were still fresh on my lips. I missed the excitement of flirting, especially on those rare occasions when my flirting worked. It really had been too long, and the more I thought about it the less excited I was. I pulled my hand out of my trousers just in time to hear the conductor knocking on the door, waiting to collect my ticket.
After a couple of hours the train stopped. I didn't see the name of the station, and it's possible that there wasn't one; this was Bulgaria, after all, and not all the stations were named. A few people got off, carrying bags full of groceries, and I wondered why they hadn't just taken a local train instead as it would surely have been quicker for them.
I watched through the window as a backpacker struggled up the steps onto the train. I heard footsteps in the corridor, and then a knocking on my door, and then she was there, in my cabin, lifting her pack up onto the top bunk. The ticket inspector took the cigarette he was smoking out of his mouth and said some strange combination of the words 'billet' and 'ticket', as if by mixing the words together he could make his meaning clear. In a moment he was gone and we were left to ourselves.
We exchanged hellos and I was met with one of the most pleasant smiles I have ever seen, a smile full of warmth and sincerity, a smile that comes from meeting a fellow traveller after a long time isolated among the locals.
We talked for a while, about the usual things that travellers talk about. I noticed she was rubbing her shoulder as we talked, and she noticed that I had noticed. She smiled a little half smile, and I saw a flash of something in her eyes.
"Can I suggest something?" she said.
"Of course. What?"
"Well, it's clear that I'm in dire need of a massage. I'd love one, but I don't want to just assume you'd like to give me one, so I want to suggest a trade of sorts."
"That sounds reasonable," I said, imagining running my hands over her skin, caressing her muscles; it didn't much matter to me what she wanted to give in return.
"It's clear you like reading," she said, pointing to the book on the side table. "But you can't exactly read if you're giving me a back rub. So, how about I tell you some little stories I've picked up along the way, to keep you entertained whilst you work on my muscles?"
"A bit like Scheherazade, only kind of the other way round?"
"Precisely."
It sounded like a very good deal, a win-win situation. I like giving massages, and I like hearing stories. She took off her shirt, leaving just a tank top showing; I don't think she was wearing a bra. Her hair was long and smooth and very, very black, and fell down a long way. I was turned on immediately -- long hair does something to me that I will never fully understand. She sat on the edge of my bunk, looking out through the window at the darkness outside, and I took up a position just behind her, pressed close but not oppressively close, with my legs either side of her.
I began my massage, at first just running my hands and fingers gently over her skin, and then beginning to probe for tender spots about her muscles.
"My first story is about a man I met in Romania a few weeks ago. I remember him very clearly, even though we spoke only for a few minutes. I noticed him in the lounge in the hostel, and he looked miserable. I'm often interested by misery, especially when I see it in a handsome or beautiful person, because I always have to wonder what has made them so sad.
"I went up to him and we started talking, and it became clear to me that he wanted to unburden himself. He looked anxious to tell me something, so at a suitable moment in our conversation I remained quiet. It's amazing what unexpected silence can do. He told me everything.
"He had just met the woman of his dreams. She was, he said, a beautiful woman, more beautiful than any he had ever met before. She was tall and long-legged, and had an amazing grace about her. She could have been a model, but she gave the impression that modelling would have been somehow beneath her. Her voice was like water running over well-worn rocks in a stream -- his words, not mine -- and that when she smiled you could feel yourself melting inside. She was also the only woman he had ever met who had made him laugh out loud with the things she said."
