Great thanks for editing the story to GAhornynurse1976 and EloquentTemptress.
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There were only two of us, on a small platform in the proverbial middle of nowhere, waiting for the late night sleeper train: myself and a girl with curly hair wearing a black coat. In the dim light of the platform, I couldn't see her face, but she looked slim and youthful. Tired and sleepy, we did not attempt to communicate. We just stood there, several steps from each other, looking nervously at our phones.
When the train arrived, we both headed for the same car. The conductor, as sleepy and tired as we were, hurried us along, offering no assistance as the girl struggled to lift her large suitcase over the gap between the platform and the train. I wordlessly maneuvered the suitcase onto the train's vestibule. In its bright light, I finally got a good look at her face. It was pretty and heart-shaped, with full lips and an open smile. She wore thin glasses. Her demeanor was slightly childlike, yet confident at the same time.
Our train was an old Soviet era sleeper train, still the most popular type here. The cars are divided into a number of sleeping compartments, and no effort is made to divide passengers of different genders into different compartments.
After quickly glancing at our tickets, the conductor gruffly directed us both to the same compartment. I stepped aside to allow my companion to enter first through the narrow compartment door. As I followed her inside, I saw the usual layout -- two bunks on each side of the compartment, one above the other, with about two feet in between. The top bunks on each side were occupied by sleeping travelers, so we left the lights off and tried to make as little noise as possible. As I quietly stowed my luggage and made my bed, I saw my compartment-mate pull a small bag out of her suitcase.
I had had a long day, so sleep was the only thing on my mind. Quickly and with no concern for my audience, I stripped off my shirt and trousers and slipped, clad only in my underwear, between the sheets. As I did so, I saw my fellow passenger slip out the compartment door, carrying her small bag.
As too often happens, my sleepiness disappeared the instant my head hit the pillow. When it failed to return after several long minutes, I began reading a book on my smart phone, hoping it would help me to fall asleep.
When I saw my compartment-mate leave, I assumed she was headed for the restroom to change from her tight jeans and white blouse into something more fitting for sleep. Now she returned, confirming my expectations. She was dressed in something that I assumed was a type of pajamas. Pretending to concentrate on my book, I glanced at her surreptitiously -- and then could not look away. I adore moments like these, seeing the contrast between the competent, polished image a woman projects during the day, and the vulnerability she exposes when her uniform is stripped away for sleep. My compartment-mate wore loose boxers and an equally loose undershirt, both white with some green or blue pattern on them. She stood for a moment in the open door, with the bare skin of her legs and shoulders almost glowing in the dim corridor light.
Finally, she took a step forward. She pulled the door almost shut, leaving a narrow strip of light illuminating her bunk. As she stowed her bag and prepared the bed, I continued pretending to "read" from my smartphone. But I continued to observe her motions, turning the phone this way or that way so that I always had a sight line to where she stood, sat, bent over, etc. By the heaviness of her undershirt as she bent over, I already knew she had nothing on underneath it, and I couldn't help wondering whether she had anything on under the boxers. As she bent toward the furthest end of her bunk, she unwittingly answered this question for me. Her waist was mere inches from my face, and in the light from roadlights outside the train, I saw the dark lace of her panties under the thin white boxers.
(I assumed the show was inadvertent, but sometimes I wonder who we are trying to fool with our "innocent" glances, and maneuvers to see what should remain unseen. Girls are not fools, nor careless. So if something is seen, perhaps she MEANT it to be seen....)
There was nothing indecent in this scene, but it was very erotic. I didn't want anything from her. I was neither aroused nor in love. But as a man in my 30's, it already seemed likes ages since I had felt the smooth skin and lightness of touch of a truly young woman. I was full of tenderness, excitement, and nostalgia for the time when I was her age. Without any greed but with a strange melancholy, I observed as she finally laid on her back, took off her thin glasses (making her face appear even more childlike) and carelessly covered herself with a thin sheet. Presumably because the compartment was warm and stuffy, with no ventilation from outside, she pulled the sheet up only to her stomach.
I continued trying to read for several more minutes, but my mind kept wandering in the direction of my youth-- the girlfriends I had in those days, and the way we played together with no inhibitions or concern for the future. Finally, I gave up reading, took off my own glasses, turned off my smart phone and decided to try to sleep. Before closing my eyes, I cast a final glance at the opposite bunk. The girl was still beautiful. She appeared asleep already, lying flat on her back, mouth slightly open. She had one hand on her stomach under the shirt, and the other was somewhere under the sheet, near her thigh.
She looked pretty, natural and peaceful, and I spent what I thought would be my last moment before sleep imagining how soft her skin must feel under her hands.
Then I noticed something. At first, I thought it was my imagination or some accidental movement of her sleeping body. But as seconds and then minutes passed, I became increasingly sure that it was happening: with very slow, small, almost indistinguishable movements, she caressed her stomach under the shirt. While slow, her movements were regular, and it was very unlikely to be unconscious, dream-induced behavior. No, she caressed herself deliberately and confidently, as if nobody were there. Or was she just indifferent to the presence of others? She did nothing "improper", nothing that couldn't be done even on a public beach...at least not yet.
Despite the dim light in the compartment, I started to enjoy watching her. The compartment door remained slightly ajar, and at times light from outside the train would briefly add illumination. I could not see every detail, but I saw enough to notice as her movements, with the same killing slowness, became wider and wider. Soon her hand under the shirt was up to the lower part of her breasts, and it even looked like she caressed the underside of the breast with her fingers. The lower edge of the shirt, pushed up with the movement of the hand, bared almost her entire stomach. Then her hand started to move lower and lower at the bottom of each circle. She traced her navel with delicate, tender movements, and her fingertips occasionally slid under the edge of the sheet -- but still only grazing her waistline.
The entire path from the bottom of her breasts to her waistline took something like three or four minutes, so everything was slow, almost still. If the person from the top bunk had woken up at the moment and looked down at her, she'd have looked deeply asleep, with slightly raised shirt, but again - nothing clearly indecent. Only I, observing thoroughly and thankfully this gift, had seen the change of speed and amplitude of her movements, and wondered with trace of hope and fear, how far it could possibly go. And I couldn't even guess what was in her head because what I was seeing didn't look like showing off, teasing, or invitation. She just looked like she was enjoying herself, as calm and relaxed as could be.
Also it did not seem like the bedtime masturbation session of a desperate woman. She was in no hurry, and was not, strictly speaking, masturbating. Yet after several minutes I realized that at the topmost point of her hand journey she almost grabbed her entire breast now. And, even more surprisingly, her other hand, which was closer to me, was not lying calmly at her thigh. It was almost still, straight, and tense, and as far as I could see under sheet, it was now stretched at least to the insides of her thighs, or even just to inside of her panties. "Despite all things, she IS masturbating", I assumed, "and this strange show-and-caress game was just a prelude, maybe her way to get in the mood".
Next, she pulled the sheet up from her waist. I interpreted this to mean that the show and the night were over, but soon I realized that was not the case. Instead: with the same hand, the same caressing motion, she slowly pulled up the edge of the sheet to cover her belly. Then, when her hand (and the sheet) met the edge of her pulled up shirt, she continued to pull both up in tandem, above her breasts. I saw it very clearly, and I even glimpsed her nipple for a moment - just as something slightly darker, slightly protruding from her white skin, in a small space between the edge of the sheet and the edge of her shirt.