Proust & Annie at the Four Seasons.
I was reading Proust, but I was not entirely lost in the world of Mme Swann and her daughter. The line-10 train was heaving with people towards the end of the Beijing morning rush and although I had a place to lean, against the far-side doors, I still needed half my mind on my wallet and my close neighbours.
At Songjiazhuang it got worse, and I had reluctantly to put
In the Shadow of Girls in Bloom
back in my laptop-bag to give people space. A woman in front of me with her eyes fixed on her phone shuffled backwards, and as the train moved off I could feel her: shoulders swaying against my chest and her left buttock against my left thigh. I tensed up a little.
Sway forwards, sway back, sway away from me, sway into me. The crowd both prevented her from reaching any handhold and largely obviated any need for one; but I imagined anyway that she needed support and spread my feet a couple of inches wider apart, as though I might thereby catch her with one quadriceps if there were a sudden acceleration sliding her across me.
Surely I could feel both her cheeks now, against my thighs, with each rock of the carriage. Surely her upper body was hitting my chest a bit more centrally than before? Sway away from me, sway into me.
Through Fenzhongsi and Shilihe, I let my eyes wander to and fro about a gaze I tried to keep fixed generally forward. The woman was not looking away from her phone's screen. Had she any idea what I looked like? I couldn't say. She wore a plain white cotton blouse, decorously buttoned all the way up; charcoal trousers, snug around her bottom; and smart flat white shoes with ornamental brass buckles.
I wondered idly how old she was. Her hair, inches below my face, seemed not quite thick enough for the flush of youth, but it was a lustrous black and her skin looked smooth and toned. Her hair hung straight down, to just below her shoulders. Perhaps twenty-eight (two years older than I was), perhaps thirty? I allowed my eyes to wander again, then looked down. She had definitely shifted backwards. It was impossible, now, that she was not conscious of my cock and balls bumping up against the top of her crack in the gentle rhythm of the train; but whether that meant she wanted anything more than to daydream for a few minutes that morning, ah, well; no evidence at all, of course.
We let the oscillation of the train excite us. I pushed forwards -- the tiniest extra push -- every two seconds as she fell against me. Perhaps she could tell; perhaps she thought she was imagining it. I thought I could detect the smallest extra gyration of her arse against my legs, but that too was perhaps imagination. Imperceptibly to other passengers, I hoped, I slumped my shoulders and inhaled the smell of her hair.
That, she had to feel. The train drew in to Jinsong, and as its speed fell the swaying stopped but there was no question of our stopping. We ground together, in the same gentle rhythm, my crotch against her soft buttocks as I bent my knees a fraction, as though the train's motion had continued just for us. A lot of passengers got off, but nearly as many got on so we had no reason to seek more space. I lifted my head again and enjoyed the renewed swaying as the train pulled out of the station and we resumed play.
Suddenly there was a jerk as the driver decided to pick things up a bit. I had some leverage with the carriage wall at my back, and semi-instinctively I put my left hand out to catch the woman as she fell across me, thrusting my left leg forward too. '
Xiexie
' she muttered -- nobody ever offers particularly effusive thanks for a rush-hour save, after all -- but she turned her head just enough for us to see each other.
Well, I don't look my best in a rush-hour metro with a laptop bag over one shoulder any more than anyone else does; I can't account for it. But I liked what I saw: a café-au-lait complexion with round brown eyes, lighter brown than most; and a pretty snub nose -- and she smiled, with her eyes.
I let my left hand lie on her waist, where I had caught her, and she swapped her phone to her other hand, reached back and gave my hand a squeeze, then pushed it back and round over her arse. Peering round at the other passengers I decided we were in no danger of discovery for now, and caressed that side of her bum while still pushing my tackle into her crack with the swaying of the train. The next stop was mine and I had to make up my mind. I dug my own phone out, found the profile page with my number and nudged it under her other arm, holding her by the arse to try to help her stay steady. My heart rate was up now, not only from the arousal but also from nerves. I wanted this woman. That smile, and this firm pair of cheeks.
The train slowed down, and I was just beginning to feel a fool -- she was obviously ignoring me, of course there was no reason for her to be interested in any more than ten minutes' frottage, why would I think she'd want to call -- when she swiped her phone screen suddenly, pulled my forearm against her waist as a rest to hold my phone steady, and snapped a picture of my screen.
The doors opened. I turned towards her, edged past face to face and squeezed her bum as the closest thing to an embrace, and let the crowd expel me onto the platform. Others boarded, and when I turned round to look back into the carriage she was gone.
I had a fifteen-minute stroll to the office I needed to visit -- I was doing paralegal work for an international law firm at the time - and I spent it wondering whether this slim, sensual woman would call after one minute, no; five minutes, no; at all. Unusually for me, my eyes scarcely wandered to other women as I walked.
My business took two hours to transact. I could have gone home, but I had a good feeling about the area. I read in a coffee shop for a while and decided to have lunch in a café in a nearby building. I had just ordered a light bowl of pasta when my phone sang its incoming-text tone.
Hello
, it said.
This morning was fun. I had to stop off before work and buy new undies at a convenience store because I was so wet. Now my new ones are getting wet as I
'
m thinking of seeing you again. I finish work at 6.00 at the Lufthansa Centre, what about you? My name is Annie.
Lots of Chinese people pick a random English name to use when dealing with foreigners, presumably because their own names are hard to pronounce. 'Annie' is a nice normal choice compared to some. Actually she wrote her text in a mixture of Chinese and English but tilted enough towards English for me to get it all. Once I had finished daydreaming over just how lucky I might get that evening, I decided she could probably understand English well enough to cope with an entirely English reply, and that it would be good to make her wait for a while before I sent her one. I sipped my beer, considered how much fun it would be to splurge on a top hotel, and waited for my pasta; and eventually texted her back:
Hi Annie, this is Nigel. I can stay at the Four Seasons round the corner from the Lufthansa Centre tonight. See you in the lobby at 6.15. Don
'
t change your underwear again before then
.
Pwong, said the phone. Text sent.