On the Bus: a Pacet of Photographs

"I don't have to ask, do I?" I hear the driver say.

They just get up and go without a fuss. I can't explain it, but I have mixed feelings about that.

We had all just watched them. We had just seen this couple make out on the bus right in front of us! I think that we were still very shocked; I know I was! I think that it was because of my own reluctant arousal, and the fact that I was watching them as they capered along the side walk laughing at their daring naughtiness and the reaction that it caused, that I did not realise that the woman sitting next to me had also got off behind them.

I swear to you that I tried to call out to her. I tried to be a good neighbour, but the tide of events proved too strong for me.

"Miss!" I had shouted instinctively.

I hadn't intended to do so, and everyone turned to look at me now. I was very embarrassed. It was as if that sexy couple's misdeeds had been transferred to me! I couldn't stand it. I sat still and said nothing. I am not proud of myself. I seldom am.

I look at the envelope in my hand and shrug. I wish that I were braver. I wish that I were more like that girl who just left the bus with her boyfriend, or like that punk couple who had got off at our last food stop. I know that that cowboy hadn't even seen me sitting there when he went to those two girls: Becky and her friend, as we waited for the new bus to arrive when we got that flat; nor had that woman who went down on the soldier in the dark last night! I saw them as I walked to the toilet at the back. They did not see me. For some reason, no one ever sees me. I'm just one of the faceless, ordinary, mousy people who walk the Earth. People keep telling me that I have star quality, but I honestly don't know what they're talking about. I just can't see it, but I'm hoping to be discovered in Hollywood. I'm going to be the next 18-year old starlet to come up out of nowhere and set the place alight.

As I think that I feel a sense of self-mocking. Who am I kidding? It was a very big thing for me to change seats when that punk couple left. I celebrated it as a sign that I was becoming more of a woman and less of a timid child. For a time, I had been forced to sit next to a woman who stank of stale sweat and urine. It was hard; but then, my life has always been hard; but I am going to change that! This is why I am here on this bus. I am making a bid for freedom; for something new. Everybody has a story, right? Maybe I will make a great actress after all.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that I want to have sex with anyone on this bus. That would be a bit too new for me and it's unlikely to happen since I've never had sex with anybody before. Before this trip I hadn't even noticed that these things happened on buses. If I were a different type of person I would say that I ought to travel more to see the sights, but I'm not even someone who could make a joke like that stick. No doubt everyone would laugh, but I'm not sure that it would be at the joke.

For a moment I feel another flash of self-doubt. How can someone like me make it in Hollywood where so many others have failed? What if some casting director asks me to have sex with him! I try to stamp down on my rising nausea. Suddenly this does not seem like such a good Plan J. Plans A through I have already failed, or been rejected, and all I have to hold on to is the fact that I'm good at making alternative plans and that I came fourth runner-up in the Miss Burnt Savannah Beauty Pageant. My talent was to act out a small scene from South Pacific. I did the song, the dance and delivered all the lines. I entered that contest on a dare and it has turned out to be the biggest thing that I've ever done in my life. Still, how much is there to do in a town with only three thousand people? How does one move from Burnt Savannah to Hollywood? Will any of my mother's advice be relevant there?

My panic rises again! This world is bigger than I thought. What am I doing on this bus! I have $1,500 and two bags with my clothes and all that I possess in this life. This is all I have to launch a new life. I need to land on my feet. I need to learn quickly. I need a job and a place to stay. What if I can't manage any of that? What if I lose all my things like that woman just lost this envelope?

I try to distract myself by looking again at the envelope and deciding that I will give it to the driver at our next stop. Hopefully the Heavens will smile at my kindness. If my former neighbour wants it back I suppose that she can call the bus company and ask for it. They can then simply find the driver of her bus and he will tell them who to ask in 'Lost and Found'. It was a simple plan and I've learned that those have the most chance of success. Strike two for this trip to the West Coast!

The envelope contains a set of photographs, not money, thank God; since I don't want anyone to think that I am returning money after a stab of conscience, or that there was more there than I have actually returned. I glance at the first photograph and my eyes open wide! Just seeing it has got me excited! My breathing becomes shallow, my clit and my heart pounds. I realise for the first time how much all this sex taking place around me in the bus has affected me. So, this is what arousal feels like! I take careful note of how I feel and what I do. Who knows, I may be asked to play a sex scene someday.

I wait until I calm down a little before looking at the photograph again. I imagine myself as being the woman in the photograph. I see myself as being the woman making love right now to the faceless man who is so clearly powerful and strong. His face is turned away from me in the photograph, but I look at his muscles as he holds his body aloft in a push up, and can almost feel him hovering over me, looking at my face as I lie there naked on my back, waiting to receive him.

I look around to see if anyone else has noticed the subject matter on the photograph. That seems not to be the case, and I angle my body with my back pressed against the window to protect my privacy as I look at the second photograph. It shows the same woman as the first shot. This time though, she is kneeling with her hands tied to a pole. She looks frightened. She is completely nude. I look at the round curve of her ass and at her flat stomach and at the perky heft of her full breasts and I wish that I were her.

There is no one else in the frame and I wonder if it was the same man from the first photograph who had tied her to the post. I wonder if this is a real photograph or if this is something staged for some reason. It occurs to me that I should probably tell the driver now to call the police, but I think that it would probably be impossible to tell who this woman is and where this is happening. On tv the FBI investigators would know what to do.

The third photograph has the woman bent over a table. There is an older woman in the photograph holding a cane! It is obvious that she is going to cane that beautiful ass. I feel righteous by focusing on the older woman for a moment. I tell myself that I am not just looking at dirty photographs and fantasizing about being the woman in them. I convince myself that I am doing investigative work to help to rescue her. I am trying to see if there is any clue to her whereabouts. I wonder if the man is watching. I hope that he is!

I brush this stray thought aside and look again at the older woman. She seems familiar and I try to think who she might be. I try to remember the woman who dropped the envelope in the first place. She was middle-aged too. It is all that I can remember, and it occurs to me how easy it is to be faceless. I have treated this woman in the same way that others have treated me. I realise that the only reason that I have noticed anyone else in the bus is that he or she did something to stand out. This is true even though I had promised myself that I was going to watch people to learn how they acted in different situations. I need to do this in case I get my lucky break in Hollywood sooner than my mother expects. In truth, the people whom I remember really were the ones doing something exceptional; making love in a public space yes, but at least they were different. I commend myself for learning this lesson. I celebrate it as a life accomplishment that I realise this truth on my own.

I move on to the next photograph, because I realise that, in truth I cannot identify the woman who sat next to me in the bus. I hope that something in one of these photographs will jog my memory. The woman and the man are making love now. I don't know if that's what you'd call what they're doing. I just know that the man is on top of her and that he seems to be drilling into her. Her face looks pained.

I wonder idly if the photos are supposed to be viewed in a specific sequence. I brush this thought away annoyed with myself. I'm sorry to realise that I can be so voyeuristic but the truth is that these photographs are really erotic. I wonder how I will tell the bus driver about my findings. I can just see myself handing him the envelope and telling him that someone dropped it and that I don't know whose it is. I see myself not being able to meet his eyes. I see him looking at me suspiciously and then looking at the photographs. He will know immediately that I have looked at them also. He will know that I see myself as that woman. He will see himself as that man! He will know that I find the thought of having my buttocks spanked exciting. He will suspect how much I need it! It wasn't until I saw these photographs that I realised how urgent that yearning could be. I long for some relief, but that is impossible so I just lie back and close my eyes and imagine what it would be like if I really were that woman.

I call the man in the photograph, 'Lee'; and he refuses to call me anything but 'Katherine'. I would guess that he is about 15 years older than I am and strict, but he sees something in me. My fresh-faced, country-girl innocence haunts him. His jaded, cosmopolitan life filled with polo ponies and boating needs me. I am the woman he wants, the one he trusts to see his dark side. I am his muse.

I feel myself smile at this thought and I contemplate not giving the packet of photographs back after all. I am frightened. I realise that I cannot leave this poor woman to this fate if she is in genuine danger! I cannot do that! Maybe I could just give it to him when we got to the terminus and then slip away and lose myself in the crowd.

In the next photograph Lee has crawled between my legs and is licking me awake. I smile as he fingers me in a moment that is forever captured on celluloid. I see myself stirring, awakening from a dream of this sensation between my legs. I see myself spreading my legs as wide as the bed and allowing him to slowly eat me.

He listens for my breathing to grow. He watches my belly rise and fall slowly. I've always found it hard to pretend to sleep, so this exercise is good practice I tell myself. Eventually, Lee watches my breasts sway from side to side as my body stretches. I try not to run my hands along my body; this is not a showcase. I see his nostrils flare a he drinks in my beauty and the scent of my arousal.

I find that I disappear into fantasy surrounding all the photographs, but my favourite ones are two that I saw somewhere in the middle of the stack and the one that I saw somewhere near the end. They are surprisingly serene and romantic. In the first one Lee and I appear to be dancing. Lee is caressing my body. I am wrapped in a full embrace in which he is standing behind me. His erection is visible and poking me in the crack of my ass. He has reached around me and firmly grasped my breasts. His face is slightly snuggled in my neck. My face is turned away a little, to give him room. The smiles on both our faces confirm that this is a moment of love. I let him squeeze me here and there, touching this spot and warm that. I sway and wiggle against him. He speaks quietly and encouragingly to me. He tells me that I am sexy and beautiful and talented and smart.

I wake up with a start. The last thing that I remember was a dreamy image of Lee and me dancing. I obviously dozed off. I know that I dreamed about us riding in a car. He drove. He was badly distracted by me. I wore a wildly colourful print dress, heels and a straw hat. We drove to a large meadow with a picturesque pond. There were horses there.

Lee made me slip out of my dress slowly. He stepped behind me and released the hook on my bra before removing it himself. I shimmied out of my panties. He spread me on the grass and teased me to no end with my legs spread. It is flattering that he is always inviting himself between my legs. I want him to eat me out, to stop along the side of the road and kiss me and kiss and lick his way down my body. He takes an hour to suck nipples while frigging my cunt and driving me to distraction. Finally, he takes his fingers out of my cunt and licks me all the way to my climax. I scream my pleasure, but no one hears me in the middle of that meadow!

In the other picture that I really like Lee is kneeling on the bed beside me. He is soothing me with a massage. His fingers are strong as he presses little indentations into the slight padding on my body. I have never had a massage before, but I know what it feels like to rub away a kink. It hurts! Lee somehow doesn't hurt me. We seal our moment with a long, lingering kiss. Tongue to tongue. I relax my body against the bed and he slips to lie on top of me. Again, his dick nestles against the crack of my ass. I smile. I tell him that I love him. I tell him that he is the magic wand that I wave to make all my loneliness, and distress about moving into the big world, go away.

In an instant, I know that the woman in the photographs is not really being hurt, and that I will not be returning these pictures after all. They are the lucky charms that I have found on this long bus trip. I count them carefully. There are twenty-four ways in which I see myself as being both capable and beautiful. I will never ever let them go again. I tuck them back into the envelope and push them into a safe place in my knapsack.