Part 3 -- Reflecting
We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.
- Anais Nin
*****
"So you're all set?" he casually asked as we stood at the entrance to Blackheath Station.
Snubbing his gaze, I scanned the electronic display for the next Brighton-bound train: Platform two/fifteen minutes.
Stepping away, I answered with pretend assurance. "Yes, I'm fine. Had a lovely time. Thanks for driving me to the station."
"Of course."
Trying unsuccessfully to avoid eye contact, I struggled for something else to say. I knew about good manners but never anticipated this particular situation. "It was nice to meet you," I added, managing an unconvincing smile.
"Same here."
On some level, he knew I found eye contact vexing. An hour ago, I had drawn him down to me, had kissed him so I could shut my eyes against his steady gaze.
Intimacy, I reminded myself, was not part of the bargain, so now, like then, I diverted my attention, this time, by looking away.
It was late, and things had gone well beyond enough. I found his need for this final familiarity hypocritical, as it was not likely we would see each other again. I wanted to escape, to have time to piece together what had happened during the most surreal afternoon of my life.
I did not live this way, at least not until now. Yet, here I was, politely acting as if the afternoon's fucking had not happened. My confused feelings were getting the better of me, and I wanted him to leave.
"Well then," he said, plainly wanting to hurry things along. "I'll let you go. We should do this again sometime." He leaned toward me, and I accepted his kiss with a civil chill, his stubble scratching my sensitive skin one last time.
"Sure," I replied, "give me a call." The second I said it, I wished I hadn't. He would not call, would he?
My overly hasty exit from his bed made it doubtful, and I was convinced he viewed me as a complete bitch. I was not sure I cared, however. I had gotten what I came here for, and so had he. Stepping onto the escalator and thinking I would wave, I cautiously glanced back. He had gone; it was over.
Ten minutes later, just another solitary passenger, I listened as the big machine rumbled noisily through the darkness, its squealing wheels churning as it negotiated curves along the way back to Brighton, the end of a day of emptiness, one I had created.
I saw the journey as a time to spread out the pieces of the day's grand puzzle, to lend form to the picture, to reflect.
It was late evening, and I sat the way people sit on trains, my upper body rocking in disharmony to the carriage's tedious swaying motion. Like everybody else, I evaded eye contact with everybody else. Instead, I stared out the window, which I did not like as it made me feel like everybody else.
While everybody else read their phones, my gaze fixed on the opposite window. Unlike everybody else, I thought back to a peculiar afternoon whose schematic I had meticulously orchestrated in days recently past.
The carriage's interior lights shone brightly, blinking from time to time and making it hard to see out. I glimpsed nameless villages whose ghostly snow-covered profiles appeared fleetingly in outline against the blackness of the night.
Thinking back, I smiled at how flawlessly my plan worked. In two weeks, I searched, found, met, fucked and, left a man whose name I had not said aloud. It was so simple, and now I would ride off into the night, back home to solitude and a scorching shower to wash him away like Original Sin.
However, with the passing miles, my lustrous marble surfaces, polished and gleaming with self-confidence at the start, began to crack. Simmering doubts crept into me, and I feared all might not be as black and white as I hoped.
To complicate matters, I was tired. Clutching my now half-empty Diet Coke bottle and not wanting to think more, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window. Instantly, I felt her presence, my instant thought, 'Can't she just this once, leave me alone?'
Through the better part of today, I endured a strange man's weight and power. Free now, and with room to breathe, I will deal with Mira, my conscience and grand inquisitor—Mira, who lives rent-free in my head. She is the last thing I need, but she is here, watching me from the opposite window.
Displaying fangs of defiance, I hissed at her: "I won't be intimidated, Mira."
My plan had worked perfectly, had it not? What could she say? Steeling myself, I lazily opened my eyes, blinking in the bright light as her hazy form took shape in the window on the other side of the aisle. Rarely had she appeared so intense.
I stared back at her but knew it was futile. My vain attempt to make her uneasy had zero effect. We locked eyes; I was in for the worst. Gawking, she blinked when I blinked, frowned when I frowned, looked askance when I looked askance.
I hated her. "You're a second-rate imitation of me," I scoffed. Pulling at my tight black leather gloves, I nervously clutched the lapels of my equally black jacket, cinching it tightly at the neck. Sensing my discomfort, she ventured a smile but said nothing.
I opted to meet her disfavor head-on, and I spoke up: "Something you don't approve of, Mira?" Ignoring the question, she continued her scrutiny, her eyes wandering my body as she took in the messy residue of my faultlessly planned but chaotically executed afternoon of coupling.
Locking her eyes to mine, her smile broadened. "Why, Taryn Asher, you're wearing black and white; show me everything."
I was not fond of her mild sarcasm. She knew how I was dressed, and I looked good—messy, but good. With the same assuredness I used on him hours earlier, I opened my jacket, shifted my white silk scarf to one side, and displayed my tasteful if rumpled black cardigan. Then, as if to say, 'Enough, you bitch,' just as deliberately, I pulled the jacket closed.
Though annoying, Mira wanted the best for me. She asked a second question. "Is your black and white apparel, an outfit, or a philosophy of life?"
"Mira, please..."
"...those sexy stockings—black—a nice touch. But my, my, they're a bit bunched around the ankles. In your rush to get away from him, you left your new garter belt behind. He has already found it. He thinks you left it at his place on purpose..."
"...you're a smart-assed bitch!" I snapped. "Don't you think I can feel my baggy stockings?" I had a headache, and Mira was not helping. "Why," I asked, "don't you just go away and leave me alone!" Meant as an order, it sounded more like a second-rate lawyer's flimsy pre-trial court pleading.
I throttled my coat more tightly at the neck and turned in the direction of some women sitting close by. Well worn, I thought, they reminded me of my mother, attractive in a tired way, much as I was at the moment. Most had their hair up or cropped short like mom's. Each carried a touch of worry, as if having learned too much about life, and unlike me, refused to hide it.
I thought about my mother and toyed with the silver cross at my throat, the one she gave me for my eighteenth birthday. She was hundreds of miles away and alone now; I needed her—a girl needs her mother. Had the cross protected me from everything except myself? It felt that way.
"Tell me something, Taryn," Mira, in a businesslike tone, asked, "when your mom gave you the necklace, did she imagine you wearing it as you struggled beneath what's his name? She'd be appalled." I stuck my tongue out at her, and of course, she stuck hers right back.
"Just what every mother wants; for her little girl to grow up to act as you did. Anyway, it's too late to consider what her reaction might be. It's done now."
Mira's nonchalant sniping stiffened my resolve. But to complicate matters, she was right. My new stockings were bunched at my ankles. I had left his house in a god-awful hurry, stumbling about, pulling clothes back on in a clumsy attempt to retreat to pre-fuck sanity I was not sure was even sane.
Furthermore, my new garter belt was an issue. I had left it behind, and, by now, it was in the hands of the stranger. How would he interpret it? Will he think I want him to call for a follow-up fuck? I had worn it because Anya believed a girl should wear real stockings, and, admittedly, I enjoyed their sexy feel. A confidence-building thought, it prompted me to tear into Mira. "So what if I'm thinking about mother?" I asked belligerently.
"Don't get testy with me, young lady," she calmly replied. I turned my face from her, my attention drawn to the smudged window. "Do try to remember who you're talking to," she went on. "I'm not one of your slutty girlfriends, you know." Retreating to dignified silence, I put my fingers to my lips, still swollen from the relentless blowjob I had given him.
