It seemed every cab in the city had passed her by. In fact, some had probably circled around just to really piss her off, she thought to herself. The relentless rain poured down. The water-logged copy of the evening news was a miserable substitute for her umbrella. That had been turned inside out by a gust of wind, like a pair of laundered socks, and she had dumped it ungraciously in the nearest trash can. Her raincoat was virtually worthless. "Damn that dry cleaner! He promised it wouldn't hurt the waterproofing. God damn it!" Her silk blouse adhered to her skin like a child's soak-and-peel tattoo. The wind skittered around the bottom of her coat, tickling her calves and drawing any body heat off through her sodden stockings. In that moment, she couldn't remember ever being any more uncomfortable.
Just as she turned and was about to give up on humanity and taxi drivers forever, she saw a flash out of the corner of her eye. Turning back over her shoulder, a cab was forcing its way over to the curb from the second lane, high beams insisting on getting her attention. She stopped until the late model GM sedan could maneuver up next to her. She thought wryly to herself, "You see, you just have to get pissed off enough that someone finally notices." But, still, a grateful smile escaped her lips and she slipped inside the back door.
The darkness of the interior robbed her of her sight momentarily. The aromas of the carpet, the upholstered seats, the bodies, cigarettes and perfumes of a thousand passengers before her filled her head. "Are you headed uptown?" In that same instant she became aware of her fellow rider sitting across from her. Her eyes were still adjusting, straining to gather up what few light waves passed through the tinted windows from the street outside. She could only make out a hint of his shape. "Yes, 77th and Lex," she said, turning to repeat the directions to the driver. "Thanks for stopping, I really appreciate it."
"My pleasure. Something about a night not fit for man nor beast, and certainly not a lady soaked to the skin." She couldn't tell if he smiled at his own twist on the cliché. As the humidity rose off her coat and hit the chilled glass it steamed the windows like a bathroom mirror. The effect was to throw him into silhouette against a diffused halo of back light, obliterating any details. Her mind raced to fill in the blanks and she began to paint a picture of the mysterious companion on the canvas of darkness.
She settled into her own private corner of the back seat and stared out the window, now sand-blasted with condensation. So, who was this man? What did he look like? And why had he noticed her on the street? She wondered all these things to herself. But then her thoughts drifted off after nothing in particular. As she watched the storefronts crawl by, she was startled by a sensation on her leg, just above her knee. She brushed at the nonexistent distraction. Was that her coat falling against her skin, or had he grazed her? And was it an accident, or had he intentionally reached out in the darkness to touch her? She laughed at her own thought. How could anyone be so brazen, especially in this town, the capital of keep-to-yourself anonymity. The passing street lights counted off the minutes; maybe five, maybe ten.
Then she felt it again. Just a pair of fingertips lighting along the side of her knee where her skirt ended. Along with it came a sensation in the pit of her stomach. Not one of fear or uneasiness, but one of excitement and wondering. Should she respond? Should she turn and confront him? "Get your fucking hands off of me, you creep!" Something told her this would be an inappropriate response to her savior. Perhaps she should continue to feign unawareness. She decided this was the best course, at least until she knew where this was going. Maybe, without any response, he'll just fade back into the shadow. Or would he get bolder until she couldn't deny it any longer?
The feeling in her stomach had begun to spread up into her chest and out toward her shoulders. She recognized its resemblance to giddiness. Her mouth began to go dry. All of a sudden she flashed on a pre-pubescent memory of her body's first stirrings triggered by a brief eye contact with one of the boys in her grade school class. She couldn't even remember his name right now, but for the first time since she was twelve she recalled that moment and the flood of sensations and the thoughts beyond the grasp of her understanding. It was just like what she felt right now.
As she replayed that long-buried memory in her mind, she also carefully kept monitoring the present situation. His fingertips continued to lightly stroke, almost imperceptibly, just above the side of her knee. In a heartbeat she decided her unresponsiveness could no longer be sustained. She reached out and returned his touch on the back of his hand. He stopped, inverted his hand and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, accepting her acknowledgement. They had entered into an unspoken agreement. He returned his attentions to her thigh, only now with a tacit approval.
She settled back into her seat and closed her eyes. The arrhythmic blaring of dozens of taxi horns and the crackling of the dispatcher's radio were the only sounds. The light filtering through the moisture on the window danced across her eyelids. Her mind seemed to take on a divided vision, like a chameleon, with one part of her consciousness training an eye on the present, and another keeping an eye rotated toward the past. The stranger's hand now insistently invaded her inner thigh. Keeping with their silent contract, she relaxed and her legs parted slightly.
Meanwhile, more memories began to surface. Shuffling awkwardly at the seventh grade dance with her first "boyfriend" as he pressed his hormone-engorged penis against her hipbone; not having thought about this in over two decades, she suddenly understood why he had groaned softly in her ear and then excused himself to the bathroom when the song ended. Then there was an all-consuming crush on her social studies teacher, a journeyman educator just out of college. She often lay in bed at night, touching herself, and wondering what he would look like naked. She tried to imagine him touching the sprouting nubs on her chest and what that would feel like. She tried to picture him lying on top of her, his member where her fingers were now, but this was beyond her experience and the image was fuzzy and undefined.
