The first class diner car was less than half empty after the train crawled away from the station, emptied by commuters resigned to other forms of transport, but John remained. He knew he was going to be late but he had phoned ahead and been told 'as and when you arrive', and the Times crossword was as engrossing as ever so he welcomed the extra time.
Over the top of the paper he was aware of someone shuffling into the seat opposite him, on the other side of the table. He glanced casually over the top of the paper and got glimpses of dark reddish hair and green eyes, as the smartly dressed woman settled down. They exchanged a fleeting smile before John returned to the mysteries of six across and nine down.
The woman pulled out a book and started reading. With a furtive glance round she let one hand slip under the table, and hitched her knee-length suit skirt up as far as she dared, letting her finger trace a daring line up her thigh, over the tops of her hold-ups, and onto the black silk panties that hid her intimacies. As her other hand held the paperback flat on the table, expertly flicking the page over with practiced fingers, her other teased the sensually thin material aside, and slipped a finger into the damp darkness, caressing the warm wetness with equal consideration.
As she lost herself in the erotica of her novel, she eased her heels off and carelessly let a stockinged foot brush John's ankle. John frowned and, concentration momentarily lost, his pencil slipped from his hand to roll from the table onto the seat beside him. Expertly keeping his paper up as a shield, he reached for it, only to see it fall on the floor. With a 'tsk' of annoyance he reached down, casually glanced under the table, and saw the secretive play inside the woman's skirt. Stunned, he almost banged his head on the table as his fingers gripped the pencil, and unconsciously he thumbed its long hard length back and forth, as substitute for something else.
Slowly he erected himself back behind the paper, and peered over the top at the woman. Her eyes held the pages of the novel, which she flicked with slender finger one after the other with astonishing speed-reading, her hidden hand giving only the barest hint of its equal dexterity and increasing speed. Parted lips, tongue occasionally running over them in suppressed lust and desire, slow almost breathless pants. John was aware he now clenched the pencil tight, his thumb raw from rubbing its length hard and fast, as a bulging tightness began to betray itself in his trousers. And then it snapped in two.