I had had a bad day, no, not just a bad day, a day where absolutely nothing went right. Even the weather had decided to chip in on my misery; torrents of rain had continued to drench the city all day long. All I wanted was to go home, have some hot tea, put on my flannel pajamas and go to bed. Then I could forget everything that had gone wrong. Perhaps, at least I was hoping, by tomorrow, I would forget today.
My toes had begun cramping in my soaked shoes. I was damp all over and I was sure that I smelled. I was shocked that the people crammed around me in the tube weren't cringing away from me. My hair was a rat's nest, I was wearing my spectacles and I had mustard down my jumper. I'm also sure that the expression on my face didn't do anything to recommend my temperament.
There was a family sitting next to me, with three screaming children. I thought that this might be my breaking point, the point where I completely lost it, where I started wailing and couldn't stop. They would take me away, put me in a straight jacket and the nice men in white would do their best to keep me comfortable.
That's of course when I saw him. I always knew that I was ill fated in love, but this was certainly going to put the cap on it all. Leave it to me to have the most miserable day, look absolutely horrid because of it and then see him.
I was in London for six weeks. Six weeks to spend in an amazing city and travel on the weekends to the continent. Opportunities like this did not exactly grow on trees. I was from a small Midwestern town, went to a fairly closed off university in Ohio and did not often get the chance to travel. Being a starving student usually didn't allow for things like traveling and eating to occur on any sort of regular basis. A nicely padded scholarship though was paying for this trip and for once I could eat and stay warm at night. It was almost shocking to feel....human for once.
I'll also be the first to admit that I have high class tastes, tastes for things that weren't usually accessible to a starving college student. I like to blame my parents for this. They had sent me to a private school from fifth grade on and my sensibilities for the finer things in life would never quite get over the experience. I, as a college student, was poor and feeling it. My family was comfortable, but I had gone to school with people who went to the Galapagos Islands for the weekend. I had seen how the other half lived and had learned to appreciate it.
He was one of those finer things in life. I could see that immediately.
Along with a taste for fine things, I have a.....appreciation shall we say for older men. My friends and I often argued over this. I was fine with their general disdain for the men I found attractive. I always figured that it left more for me in the long run. Guys my age were still idiots. Even ones a few years ahead hadn't learned very much about pleasing a woman in the ways that really mattered. My only problem was that older men usually didn't want starving English majors with no prospects. So you could say that I'd been having a dry spell in more ways than one.
While I could usually live with this, I had no problems with being single and taking each day as it came, it was on days like this, in moments like this, that I liked to curse fate and circumstance, because of course it was only on days like this that I would run into someone like him.
Do you have an image of your ideal man or woman? The image that when someone talks about your dreams coming true, pops immediately to mind? The image that you always imagined Prince or Princess Charming would look like. I'm sure you do. Everyone does. Even if you're a confirmed hermit with no interest in love or sex at all, I'm positive that if someone mentioned something about the perfect person, there's an image that immediately comes to mind. He was mine.
Tall, slender, understated power, it clung to him like a scent. It crossed my mind to wonder what he was doing on the tube. Men like him drove powerful sports cars or had chauffeurs who drove dark sedans. His clothing was understated but extremely expensive, designer probably, perfectly tailored to hug his body like a second skin, showing it off to the maximum effect. I'm sure he knew it too.
He had a craggy face, with an aquiline nose which reminded me of famous Roman emperors. Heavily lashed eyes and a straight, nearly cruel looking mouth. Dark eyes glared at nothing. Long slender hands were folded across his chest as he leaned casually against the wall of the train. His hair, which brushed his shoulders, was a deep reddish brown, with just a little grey beginning to streak through it at his temples. It simply begged to have my hands run through it.
Of course, it would be today of all days that I would find the man that I had always imagined Mr. Right to be. This finished making what had been a bad day into one that was awful. I winced as one of the children jammed in next to me gave an ear-piercing shriek. No wonder I hadn't seen Mr. Perfect standing so close. The train was packed as full as it possibly could be, and it only got worse at each stop. Rush hour was never a good time. Today of course, it was as close to Hell as one could get while on an underground train.
I took comfort in the one thing I could generally count on in Great Britain, the great British reserve. Of course this has been a stereotype in the international community for almost as long as the British have been going out and conquering people. Technically, the British may no longer have an empire, at least not in the sense that they used to, but their reputation for being cold hearted bastards, remains, and to my surprise, seems to be generally true. I was not only enjoying London because it was a great city, but as much for the people in it.
One of the other great enjoyments in my life was people watching. London is one of the biggest international crossroads in the world and if you're ever there, just go and sit on a city bench for twenty minutes, you'll see every variety of people you can possibly imagine. I was told that there are three hundred languages spoken in London. Three hundred languages mean at least that many people to stare at unobtrusively. And if you're like me, and are a confessed people watcher, you will get away with more actual starring than almost anywhere else in the world, or at least I assume.
There seemed to be a national agreement not to stare at one another, to ignore whatever was going on around you. When you go on the underground in London, it will be quiet. People are considerate to others for the most part, unlike America completely, no loud conversations, few people speaking on their mobile phones. Here in this horribly crowded underground, ugly and as miserable as I was, next to whiny snotty children, I could at least watch the man of my dream's reflection in the window as much as I liked and be sure he would never know.
I gave a deep sigh as the children finally seem to wear themselves out and finally began to quiet down.
There is a hypnotic rocking motion in any subway type train that will usually soothe me very quickly, without the children screeching and being lucky enough to have a seat at the very least (because of course I had to go such a long way and was able to wait long enough for enough people to change in and out of the car to actually grab myself a seat), I was able to relax and begin to fantasize about the man I could see reflected across from me in the glass.
I began to imagine what I would do to him if he was actually mine. What would he be like? What would he like? I could imagine being pressed against his lean lines. I'm not the thinnest person in the world. I may be a starving college student, but I also work full time at the library as well as go to class, I don't have much time to exercise, other that what I get from hauling around a fifty pound pack all day long. As a consequence, my curves are much, rounder than perhaps they should be.
I imagined what it would be like to have his muscled thinness pressed into my softness, how his hips would sink deep into mine, what it would feel to have him resting on top of me. And yet I thought that his weight would be pleasantly heavy and hold me in place quite firmly. The innate power his very stillness in this over crowded rail car promised that he would be able to turn me anyway he desired whether I wanted to be turned or not.
Another reason I like older men is that usually they have a great deal more experience in everything in general than those my age. I could imagine what his hopefully knowledgeable hands could do as they worked themselves over me. I could imagine their rough callused feel on my soft skin and his demanding insistence on being able to have whatever he liked. I wondered what his lips would be like, soft and gentle, or hard and demanding.
His sharp nose would certainly suit me just fine buried between my legs, hard against my clit as he took as much of me as he could with his mouth.
Would he take me up against the wall? The floor, in the bathroom? What would it be like to wake up with him, would he wake me up making love to me in the early hours before the dawn, would he sneak up on me in corners and take me in public, bend me over, flip my skirts up and have his way with me?
Would he take his time, lingering over my breasts and my hips and everything in between or get right to the point.
A distinct throbbing began low in my belly.
I sighed again. What was the point? Here I sat bedraggled and smelly, and besides, another problem with older men, young women my age, outside of a midlife crisis and the need for extremely young girlfriend, don't usually appeal to them. I mean, lets face it, when you're a handsome, successful man in your late thirties, early forties, you can get plenty of equally attractive, well off women. Who would want to mess around with an inexperienced awkward college student who doesn't even know where they are going in life yet? I've had my flings here and there, a college professor here, a business man there, but it never lasts.
I clenched my hands in the strap of my bag in my lap and let my head droop, what was the point other than frustrating myself really badly, which certainly was not what I needed at this point in my day. Even if I looked radiant at this moment and had the self confidence of a more experienced woman I doubted if I would have the courage to go up to him and propose a night of crazy steamy jungle sex in my small bedroom.
Well, if nothing else, tonight when I was dry and warm in my solitary bed, I would have an image to let myself fantasize to and to slide my hands down between my legs and frig myself utterly senseless over, seeing his face as I buried my hands deep into that soft spot that made the world come to pieces. Knowing that somewhere out there, my Mr. Perfect existed, would have to be enough. Hell, for all I know he could be a complete and absolute pig, better to simply know that the handsomest man I'd ever seen exists. I was reminded of the lyrics from the Moulin Rouge, about "how wonderful life is, now that you're in the world".
Great, just fucking great, I had hit that point in my tiredness that I was getting sentimental, like that was going to keep me warm at night.
After the few minutes of brief heady excitement, my misery re-exerted itself. Being much more depressed than I had started out, I peeked up at the reflection again for one last mournful look at Heaven.
And met his eyes in the glass.
I was momentarily stunned by this unexpected event. I was also caught by their greenness, even in the basic reflection. He didn't look away, neither did I. In my mind, I began swearing. He was probably repulsed by the image I represented. Hasn't your eye ever been caught by that one horridly awful looking person, making it impossible for you to look away? I'm sure that's what was currently going through his own mind.
