Hannah was soaked, completely soaked. The downpour unexpected: the result inevitable. She had looked wonderful, all poise and fashion; but now, merely a passable impression of a drowned rat. Her long fair hair hung in clumps; her short skirt dripped water down her strong bare legs and right into her long black boots zipped to the knee; her blouse a damp rag with her frilly bra no better beneath and, she knew, her areolae would be visible through the sodden cotton; even her nipples had shown their disapproval by rising to poke at the material from the coldness of her inundation.
Hannah had run, raced as fast as her legs would carry her to the railway station but she had been caught good and proper, right at the half way point between home and station. The sky had been grey but not threatening when she had closed the door at home but that had all changed with the first few large drops. She had not even brought an umbrella and when the rain and then the downpour had followed she had taken to her heels, but to no avail; she had reached the station, certainly achieved that object, but not in a fit state to be seen and, horror of horrors, she was going to London to meet influential people; people she hoped would take her on as an intern. She simply could not go like that... but what option was there?
Returning home would be such a defeat; she would miss the train; miss the interview and that was what her mother wanted. Her mother did not want her to go to London; did not want her to flee the nest; would be so happy if she simply came home with her tail between her legs to spend more time working at the local pub and living at home. Hannah was not going to do that... but she was soaked through and cold.
The rain hissed down outside the meagre shelter of the old Victorian station canopy. In reality the rain was only mostly outside, because it leaked in quite a few places. There was not even a waiting room with a nice warm cheery stove, or electric heater more likely these days; Hannah could see where a waiting room had been - but it was all boarded up. She shivered and thought things could not get much worse - unless her train was cancelled - it was so different from the excitement of the 'big day' that had woken her early that morning.
Through the rain she saw another traveller making his way towards the station, his black umbrella sent suddenly inside out by the gusting wind and affording him little or no protection from the driving rain. As he neared she could see he was almost as soaked as she was; his trouser legs flapping wetly at his ankles and his silk tie a discoloured mess. She opened her mouth to say something sympathetic when the Tannoy crackled with an announcement not that the train had actually been cancelled but had been delayed by floods - for at least an hour and a half.
"Fuck," she ejaculated causing the man's eyebrows to rise. "Sorry, I mean... bloody rain and now the soddin' train's been delayed." The rephrasing was not much better.
"Beastly weather. Yes." The man shook his umbrella and folded it. "Is there a warm waiting room do you think?"
"No. Boarded up. Nuthin' like that."
Another figure was making his way up the platform the other way dressed in bright orange work clothes; work clothes proof against all weathers. They watched him.
The new arrival looked them up and down. "Got caught then?" It was rhetorical. "There's our hut just beyond the station. You shouldn't trespass really but we won't be back from our job for another few hours and its warm in there and you can dry a bit. The lads won't mind if you borrow the tea and milk. Be sparing on the digestives mind!" He smiled, pointed back down the platform and headed off leaving them standing wet and bedraggled.
"Shall we?" asked the man.
The word 'warm' spoken by the railway employee was an attractive one and Hannah found herself stepping down off the end of the platform onto a cindered track leading to a small sectional concrete building. It was indeed warm inside, not from a glowing coke stove but an electric radiator screwed to one side of the hut. Various chairs and benches were set about the wall and at one end a table with an electric kettle, plentiful copies of 'The Sun' and not a few colour magazines that were not the sort girls chose to read. In short it was a workman's hut of the most traditional sort which in their day must have numbered in their hundreds, if not thousands, around the country in yards, factories and railways.
Hannah stood dripping on the lino.
The man spoke, "I'll make some tea. What a kind chap. I really thought we were stuck there for, what did the announcement say, at least an hour and a half. Cosy."
It was, but it did not make her any less damp or, more accurately, wringing wet; it did not make the fact of her semi-transparent blouse and bra any less obvious. She had not caught him looking but he must have noticed. Men look at breasts.
"To where are you travelling?" He was making conversation as he made the tea and she was happy to unburden her unhappiness at both the rain ruining her clothes and the inevitable lateness of her unimpressive arrival.
The man made sympathetic noises.
It felt awful sitting in what was basically a puddle on her plastic chair. The room was warm but her clothes were soaked. If she looked she knew the plastic seat would not just be damp but would really have a puddle of water in it. The water was still dripping off her hair, still running down her legs from her wet skirt and, most uncomfortably, her wet panties. She looked longingly at the white radiator. If only she could hang her clothes on it to dry, if only she had been alone she could have done just that but she could hardly do that with a man in the hut. She could hardly strip down to her sodden underclothing - sodden semi-transparent underclothing - with him there.
The man, though, hung his jacket above the radiator and loosening his tie, hung that over the radiator. There was nothing she could take off except perhaps her boots without revealing more than her wet blouse already did. She unzipped them and took them across to the radiator. As she padded back to her seat she left wet footprints on the lino.
It was good to have a mug of hot tea in her hands but the sheer awfulness of what had happened to her day held her; her gaze returned to the radiator; the lovely hot radiator; it and a comb could be her friends and restore, somewhat, the image she had so carefully cultivated and been so pleased with in the mirror less than half an hour before. But there was embarrassment and risk in this. Could she really strip down to her underclothes with this man watching - as surely he would do, and might he seek to take advantage - more than advantage - in having her all alone in this railwayman's hut? Hannah knew nothing about him - but he did seem very pleasant and safe. Appearances, though, could be deceptive but his suit was well cut - did that mean anything - and it was not as if he was young; perhaps mid sixties, tall with a slight stoop, but not going to seed, grey hair and rather amusing half rimmed glasses.
Hannah looked wistfully at the radiator, at the man's tie almost seeming to steam away. "I wonder," she said, "do you think my, um, clothes would dry on that radiator?" She had said it, she had really said it. It was more to open the possibility to herself than a real question. Of course a hot radiator would dry clothes.
The man got up and walked across to the radiator and put his hand on it. "Like toast," he said, "it is very hot. You'd certainly be better getting properly dry."
It was one thing for her to suggest the idea: quite another for him to encourage her. What he said was true but when you got down to the basic point he was inviting her to take her clothes off. Hannah sat still for several minutes as the man took a newspaper from his briefcase and began to read. It was only slightly damp at the edges.
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and felt her clothes. Really they were no better but she could at least feel her legs getting dry; dry anyway where the occasional rivulet of water did not run off her skirt and make them wet again. Perhaps she would risk her skirt. After all her blouse would mostly hide her panties. Quietly, so as not to disturb him she stood up and unbuttoned the side of her skirt. She had taken the step.
Without even looking at the man she slipped the skirt down to the floor and bent to pick them up. It was only when she was fully bent over did it occur to her that if the man was looking then her bottom cheeks would be almost visible through her clinging wet panties. Straightening she resisted the urge to see if he had, indeed, been looking and went over to the radiator and hung her skirt over its hot metal. Turning, she saw he actually appeared engrossed in his paper.
Feeling self conscious and not a little odd Hannah made her way back to her plastic seat. Sitting back down, the wet puddle was even more noticeable. There was no way she was going to dry by sitting on a wet seat. She moved to the adjacent seat opposite the man; he looked up briefly and nodded, "Good idea" and went back to his newspaper. Never had her knees been more tightly pressed together.
Hannah glanced at the magazines on the table. Smiling women with big naked boobs looked back at her. Naked women who were warm and dry.
Her blouse felt awful and she looked again at the radiator and thought how good it would be to see it steaming there and getting all toasty dry. Already the smell of warm but damp wool was in the hut; her skirt had started to dry - or at least warm up. She bit her lip. What was more important - her modesty or the internship? She began to undo the buttons of her blouse.
It felt far, far worse turning from the radiator with no blouse compared to being without her skirt. She felt nearly naked in just her little new white lacy bra and white panties. White they were meant to be but soaked with rainwater they had a pink tinge from the skin showing beneath and, worse, she could see the moulding, the very camel toe moulding, of her mons where the panties clung to her. If only she hadn't shaved and there was her curly golden hair to hold the cotton safely away but she had shaved it all off, thinking how modern it looked in the mirror, and there was nothing holding the thin material back - even that half modesty of her golden curls keeping cotton from skin - denied her.
The man looked up, just as she turned from the radiator, just when she was most exposed. "Sensible," he said and went back to his newspaper.
Had he noticed, had he seen through her panties?
Hannah watched the drying clothes. Would it really matter if her underclothes joined the rest? The idea of putting on warm dry panties instead of the wringing wet pair that felt so cold and clammy around her 'bits' was most attractive. Of course it mattered. One thing to be drying outer clothes and sitting there in her knickers and bra but quite another to be naked in the hut with the man.
But did she dare: should she? What would he say, what would he do? Would it just be a short 'sensible?' He seemed so gentlemanly, so safe.
