It's the strangest feeling driving a train at night. In the cab up front with the lights off, you can see the world and nobody is looking at you. Even if they weren't distracted by the huge train you're driving, with darkness enveloping the cab you are practically invisible. Private yet public.
I've been driving trains for about a year now. Started as an engineer and worked my way up, but as a young woman the management mainly gave me the shifts none of the men wanted, which meant long nights driving cargo trains just to prove I'm not a difficult women. Although recently I have found a neat way to keep the journeys interesting. Seeing the country whoosh by at up to 100mph wearing nothing but a smile.
It started innocently enough, driving the overnight from Florida to Texas when the AC locked onto full heat, didn't take long to turn the cab into a furnace and moving too fast to open the window. It wasn't long before I resolved to peel my clothes from my sweaty body just to get some relief.
It started with just my trousers and blouse, but sitting in my cute white underwear at the front of the train felt otherworldly. The occasional township would stream by and I would instinctively cover myself but over time I realised nobody was looking at me, even though I had a large window at the front, the lights of the towns made it almost opaque, while the big train caught everyone's attention and made it feel like the world was looking at me. It was the exact opposite of voyeurism.
After about half an hour I had completely forgotten about the heat, my new focus was the feeling of freedom I felt swimming in people's gazes while they had no idea the state I was in. My underwear peeled off easily and as I sat naked in front of the window that formed a bubble between me and the outside world, I felt every goosebump on my exposed body quiver with delight.
Eventually some engineer came on the radio with a solution to the heating problem. The mixture of the sudden human contact and cooling air in the cab breaking the spell and reluctantly I redressed. But I knew I had opened Pandora's Box that night and it wouldn't be long before I was once again naked in the cab.
For the next couple of weeks that became my ritual, the moment I was rolling through the night my clothes would be off and I would be naked to the world, sometimes I would be in the mood to touch myself and sometimes not. Although I would find myself running my hands up and down my body, squeezing my breasts and caressing my thighs. I would pretend that the people I passed could actually see me, that their faces were coloured not by the huge locomotive pulling through their town but the horny driver lost in her naked fantasies.
Then I got word of a job that made my mind race. Picking up some cars from Detroit and dropping them in Maine. The reason this got my mind racing is for this kind of pickup the cars would be waiting in their trailers at a depot in the middle of nowhere Michigan, cobbled together from one factory or another over time, with nobody on staff at night. Meanwhile the stop in Maine was in a tiny dockland area nobody worked in on a Sunday (when I would be arriving).
This meant that from setting off in Detroit, to the Michigan depot and the drop off in Maine I wouldn't be seen by a single person. So I intended to spend that entire time naked.
I arrived at the station in Detroit early and got to my engine just as the engineer had finished his pre-departure checks. There was some awkward small talk but I got the feeling he wanted to be out of there just as quickly as I wanted him gone. The engine pointed longingly towards the exit with the bright red signal holding it in place. I gingerly got into the cab and immediately began stripping down, folding my clothes into a neat pile next to me, shivering with anticipation.
This was the most risky part of my plan, the garage was too well lit from all directions and the light in the cab was on. All it would take is the engineer coming back or another driver accidentally going to the wrong garage and I would be exposed. However I had one more idea that would make this whole thing even more risky. I knew the signal would stay red for at least ten minutes, so I picked up my clothes and left the cab, shivering with excitement with every step I took. My destination was the engineers' station, more importantly the trash chute built into the wall near it.
From my time as an engineer I knew about the chute. About all the train parts being collected in a single dumpster outside the station to make recycling easier. I knew once I dropped my clothes in there, there was no getting them back, I would be naked until I got to the spare outfit I left in my storage locker at the office in Maine.
My brain was filled with doubts but also aware that I needed to hurry if I wanted to go through with this. Not only was I out in the open, naked and shivering for anyone to discover, but also the signal light could turn green soon and if I didn't start the rig up then there would be questions. I can still hear the light pitter-patter of my feet as I ran barefoot across the concrete.
When I opened the chute I felt the draft of air running through the tube hit my chest, my breasts exploding with sensation and one of my socks plummeting to the floor. Clumsily I bent over, picked up the errant sock and bundled my clothes into the chute. I wanted to hesitate, I wanted a last opportunity to change my mind, but my cluttered thoughts were acting on fear and instinct and I barely had time to register as my clothes tumbled down the chute and my safety net fell away into the darkness.
I ran back across the empty garage, the echo of my bare feet slapping against concrete more isolated and scared than before. I gripped my breasts against my chest, partially because they were too big to do running without support, but also to give my hands something to hold to keep them from shaking.
I climbed into the cab, turned off the light inside and stared intensely at the red signal waiting for it to turn green. Eventually I was given the go ahead, I started up the train and felt that familiar rumbling and vibrating through my seat, my whole body coursing with the powerful locomotive I was straddling. I moaned with delight as I pulled the train out into the night.
Once in the night I was in my element. Isolated in the cab, watching the world go by unaware that a naked women was feeling intense ecstasy right in front of their eyes. My hands caressed my body and shockwaves of joy ran up and down my quivering form.
I caught myself just as I began to enter the maze of signals and track changes that I was to navigate to get into the Michigan depot and pick up my cargo. This would usually be the time I put on clothes but as there were no clothes to put on, I furrowed my brow, concentrating at navigating the complicated part of my job while my body screamed for attention.
I found the cars I was meant to attach to my locomotive and reversed back into them, hearing the satisfying clunk of the coupling mechanism. My stomach then dropped when I saw a red light blinking on my dashboard.
"Coupling error."
I knew what had happened, the locomotive hadn't quite connected with the cargo, but the solution to this meant I had to get out of the train with a torch and go have a look. The depot seemed empty but that didn't mean it wasn't a daunting idea, leaving my bubble and stepping out into the night, exposed and vulnerable.
My hands shook as I opened the door and the cool night air filled the cab. I shuddered before grabbing my torch and dropping down onto the ground, my bare feet crunching on the cold gravel, sending needles of pain up my body.
I kept the torch off for as long as possible, hugging tight to the train as I shimmied down the side into the dark. I got to the coupling and turned on my torch, the brightness burned my eyes at first and I instinctively crouched low to avoid detection.
After a while I stood up and had a look, it was a simple error to fix, one of the coupling pins hadn't connected properly. The problem was I needed a wrench to fix it. I didn't have a wrench in the cab, but there was always a spare in the storage sheds dotted around the depot.
I shone my torch into the darkness, hoping and praying for a nearby shed, eventually I spotted one, a tiny speck between a couple abandoned cargo containers. I turned the torch off, just in case anyone was at the depot, gave my eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the dark, and began walking away from my train deeper into the yard.
The shed seemed like it was miles away. I was walking in a crouch, keeping a lookout at all angles and stopping dead still any time I heard a slight rustle of the wind. Every time I looked up it didn't seem any closer. Eventually I slipped between the two containers and found myself next to the shed.
With horror I realised the shed was just in front of the depot office, and I was about to have to shine a torch in there looking for a wrench. If anyone was in the office they were bound to see me. I turned on the torch and it felt like a beacon signalling to everyone that there was an exposed woman rummaging through the shed.
It didn't take long for me to find the wrench and the moment I did I had the torch off and was running back to the cab as fast as my legs could carry me, the adrenaline coursing through my veins forcing me to ignore the pain of running on gravel.
I got back to my train, had the torch on and immediately got to work fixing the coupling pin when out of the darkness a voice emerged.
"Who's there?" It yelled from the other side of the train. In panic I spun round, back to the cargo container, keeping it between myself and the stranger. I had left my torch shining on the coupling issue so I had no choice but to answer him and hope he left before he came close enough to see me.
"It's Ayesha Freeman from BNSF. Just picking up the cargo when one of the pins didn't lock properly." I responded.
"Oh hey Ayesha, it's George, didn't know you were a driver these days." He responded. Fucking typical bad luck that I would run into a depot operator I've worked with in the past, and George was a chatty one at that.
