The following is based on a true incident.
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I was going to graduate school in Boston when this incident happened to me. Many was the night I spent prowling the stacks at Widener Library searching out that elusive data I needed to prove my thesis. So many was the night I get the 10PM train home.
Back then Boston's North Station was a dark lonely place in the late evening frequented by drunks and other derelicts. During the winter months there was no escaping this until your train was ready for boarding. Most people hone the fine art of avoiding these people, avoiding eye contact at all cost. So by the time you board your train you're pretty numb to anyone who is near you regardless of their condition.
Such was the case for me on this particular late fall evening. With the temperature hovering in the upper 30s I had stayed in the station as long as I could finally escaping to the track area to buy a hot fresh pretzel as was my habit. After getting my pretzel good fortune had seen to the readying of my train and so I boarded it.
The later hour trains were mostly used by students and a few late business people. The seats on these old trains faced one another so you'd sit facing another person. Being the first on the train I sat in one such seat thinking there'd not be enough people boarding it that anyone would sit opposite me and that suited me well. Just before the train left, however, a rather beautiful woman sat down opposite me. I immediately knew would not be able to keep my eyes off her. Not wanting to be too obvious I smiled at her when she noticed me looking at her and then turned my attentions outside the window. She had long flowing brunette hair, gorgeous deep green eyes, a killer smile and a body that was even more so.
"Just getting off work?" she said to me much to my surprise.
"No," I almost stuttered the words out, "I was a school this evening doing research?"
"Oh really, where do you go?"
"Harvard." I desperately wanted to say more to this beautiful brunette with the deep green eyes and killer smile. I wanted so much to say more but nothing would come.
"So what are you studying?"
"U.S. History, umm, actually, 19th century reform movements." Now I've long been self-conscious and was even more so about my place of study. I don't like braggarts and didn't want to seem like one. "So where do you work?" I quickly asked hoping to change the subject.
"I work at a bio-tech company in Kendall Square, maybe you know it?" She told me the name and it being the largest of those companies in the area I of course knew of it. She told me she did something involving eye-sight but I cannot remember now what it was and so our conversation went.
Now fortunately, at least this evening, my one hour commute would be filled with this gorgeous creature in my presence.
"Do you mind if I sit next to you, it's just a little difficult to hear you over the noise of these old trains?" Of course I wanted her sitting next to me and more. Our conversation quickly turned to our relationships or actually our lacking there. It always amazed me back then that any woman as beautiful as she would not be involved with someone. Well, I had a lot to learn.
Her name was Sarah and she was rather animated when she talked. She frequently gestured with her hand. At one point in trying to make a point she placed her hand over mine, which was sitting on my leg, and then squeezed the hand as if to drive her point home. But then she didn't remove her hand as I had thought she would and she actually seemed sitting a lot closer to me.