Down the Tube

"Severe delays on the Northern line," the announcer was saying as I rushed into London Bridge Station; "...signal failure between Camden Town and..." Damn! "Good service on all other underground lines..."

And so it was that I was crowding onto a packed Jubilee line train in the middle of the afternoon. It was hot, really hot... that stifling, muggy, still hotness that only underground stations have; the kind of hotness that makes you crave for the movement of stale air as a train approaches.

I was running late. I love staying overnight in Southwark between the Globe theatre and the magnificent Golden Hind, but when I have to get somewhere in a hurry, the morass of tourists can get tedious. I'm not usually on the last minute, but at breakfast I had spilled a jug of milk over me, the table and a rather yummy young waiter. He was kind but my clothes were a mess; and milk smells if it isn't washed out properly. My jeans and T shirt, knickers and bra all went into a M&S plastic carrier-bag; I was wearing the only clean clothes I had.

It felt good, actually. My black linen skirt was mid thigh length and refreshingly cool on a hot summer's day. I wore the matching jacket open over a white camisole top never meant to be an over-garment. My sneakers had suffered from the milk deluge too, but my new outfit had demanded high-heel black pumps anyway. When I'd checked in the mirror, a confident, elegant woman had smiled back and I was ready to take on the World.

You always know when the train's coming... the singing of the rails; the pings and trills that echo down the tunnels; the wave of air that begins as a flutter and grows into a gale; the electric blue flashes like ghostly paparazzi down a rabbit hole. I felt the air move beneath my skirt before I saw the lights of the approaching train, cool eddies swimming between my thighs... reminding me I'd found no clean knickers in my overnight bag. And then with a great clatter, a squeal of breaks and a hiss of air, I was staring at the doors sliding apart like a great mouth ready to devour me.

The carriage was full in the way that makes you think it impossible to squeeze in another person, but somehow, on the London Tube you always can... the rules of personal space work differently on a tube train. She was standing just inside the door, leaning back against her boyfriend, shorter than me and very slightly built in a strikingly Japanese but not conventionally beautiful way. Her black hair was in a simple pony tail, she wore salmon pink denim shorts; very short, very tight shorts, soft and faded with washing. But it was her nipples that caught my eye. Her top was thin cotton with a low scoop neckline; she wore a white jacket open over it. As she moved to let me in, the cotton moved translucently across her tiny breasts and the peaks of her nipples, the image in an instant, searing into my brain and setting off a cascade of tingles below my tummy.

The doors closed and as we moved away from the station, she stumbled into me and we exchanged smiles as I struggled to find somewhere neutral for my eyes to land. She had her back to me now, and she leaned lightly against me, her shorts against my thigh, moving with the movement of the train, moving against my skirt and making me acutely aware of my bare legs. Her boyfriend looked at me through his dark glasses and leaned forward to whisper in her ear... he was circling one nipple with his finger nail. I swallowed, feeling another jolt inside, she gasped a little and turned her head to smile at me once more.

We were in a station again. As passengers left and joined the train on the opposite side, we were pressed together into a corner, her hand resting lightly between my thighs. The train began to move and I parted my legs slightly to steady my position. My mouth was watering at her touch and a quiet sigh escaped my lips as I swallowed. I willed her to do more, longing to feel her fingers explore me, longing to bend down to kiss her. But with her eyes holding mine and a knowing pout of her lips, she pulled forward the front of her top and winked at me before guiding my eyes downward with her own, down to her hard brown nipples standing tight and erect on the slight swell of her tiny breasts.

I traced the back of my fingers across her bare tummy, following the hem of her shorts and she closed her eyes and pressed against my thigh once more. Her boyfriend took my hand and placed it against her bottom, moving it slowly over the soft denim, following her peachy curves, letting me feel her muscles move at my touch and know she was as bare down there as she now knew I was too.

...And suddenly we were at Green Park station. The bubble burst and we crashed back into reality. She giggled and her boyfriend blew me a kiss as we tumbled out onto the platform. For a moment I struggled to come back to Earth; my hormones were running wild in one direction and my head was screaming at me from the other direction. My hormones wanted to follow as she beckoned me towards the exit to the park, but my head pulled me relentlessly towards the Victoria Line with threats of dire consequences if I missed my train at Euston... Sometimes I really, really hate my head!