Reluctance
by Maximilian Cummings
It was not his fault; he had done nothing; he had been very good; very restrained; his resolution had held for something like two years. No, it was most definitely not his fault. He had immersed himself in cultural pursuits, his writing, choral music and early Italian Cinema. It had been a good and cerebral two years: very different from before and he had been pleased with himself, with his restraint and right action. No, there was simply no way that it could have been his fault.
He had been sitting quietly on a train returning home from the City, reading intently, little knowing what was about to disturb his now quiet life. How could he know there had been a rather quirky change in fashion - it was not something he followed. He had had no time to prepare himself, talk himself out of temptation, steel himself against those other thoughts that had so dominated his life. In part his new approach to his life had been a reflection of his age. He was seventy, no spring chicken, a time when the fires of youth were long extinguished - or at least formed the last dying embers of what they had been. A time for a man no longer to be lead by his loins. It was also an attempt to be good, to resist the urge, the urge to enjoy women irrespective of their own desires. It was not that he forced himself upon women, not in the crude physical sense: no, his method was much more subtle and much more effective. He had long enjoyed the ability to control others simply by the exercise of his own will. He could impose his wishes on another and make it seem as if it were her own. A dangerous power but not one he had ever used to really evil ends but nonetheless he had been lead by his loins and had enjoyed women to the full.
A year or more, perhaps two, of celibacy, of quiet and mature activities was about to end. It was not his fault.
The door of the railway carriage slid open with a crash and a young woman entered. It was not her dark hair, her pretty face, the slight and interesting prominence of her upper lip over the lower, the pleasing shape of her body or the shortness of her denim skirt that arrested his casual glance but the thin black cotton socks that clasped her thighs above her knees leaving a section of creamy thigh exposed between sock and skirt. His eyes widened in surprise at this erotic vision. Why was she dressed in such an inflammatory way? Was it fancy dress? A dare? He was not to know that this was the latest fashion. An idea pushed on young girls by the fashion houses and eagerly taken up by the fashion conscious only too pleased to do something different, daring and sexy.
His eyes followed the thighs as they sat down in a seat but, before he could calm himself and return to his book, the girl's friend joined her. Taller, with pale straw hair cascading down her back and a very pleasing valley of cleavage, she too was dressed in a short skirt and socks but these were both white - he could hardly believe it, white short skirt, expanse of thigh and over knee white socks. His desire, quietened for many months, returned, made the stronger by the months of abstinence, such that he almost reached out to stroke the white thigh above the sock as the girl's knees bent and she settled into the carriage seat next to her friend. The skirt rode a little further up her thighs as she sat. He had a sudden and desperate need to know the colour of her panties. Were they a matching white or the french blue his mind desired? He was annoyed, cross even, why had this thought come to him to disturb his reading? He looked at the girls in part with desire: in part, though a lesser part, in irritation. The blond girl crossed her legs and the skirt, already short, rose a little higher but not high enough for him to discern the colour of the panties.
The blond girl caught him looking at her. Instinctively he looked away, struggling with himself not to change their day, set a course that would lead inexorably to his gaining knowledge not just of the colour of those panties but a very great deal more, an intimate knowledge possessed only by the girls themselves and perhaps their boyfriends/girlfriends. It was a desperate struggle. Another glance at the creamy thighs above socks and he lost.
The girls themselves were not conscious of the change - they chatted away about their shopping, their day out, the film they had seen, the boys who had tried to chat them up - but there was a subtle alteration, a greater feeling of well-being, of being happy, of all being right with their world. Initially the grey haired rather worn looking old man had not impinged on their consciousness beyond, in the blond girl's case, seeing and then forgetting in the flood of talk his visual inspection of her legs. Gradually however they became more aware of him, not because they did not like him being there - perhaps looking at them, overhearing their conversation - but in a pleasant way like the presence of an old friend.
"You have had a good day in town?" His voice didn't startle or annoy them: on the contrary their heads turned together towards him with a ready smile as they answered. The ticket collector noted the three talking and assumed the girls were with their grandfather until he saw from their tickets that they were travelling further down the line.
Judicious questioning revealed much about the girls, their art college course, their boyfriends, where they lived at the college - in a shared flat - their likes and dislikes, their hopes and fears. Much more than they would ever have thought of revealing to a stranger had they been thinking straight and seeing things clearly - but they were hardly doing that. They had not drunk anything, smoked anything but the feeling was not dissimilar. They were on a bit of a high, talking too quickly and too easily, bathing in a feeling of vitality and excitement.
The train slowed. "My stop I think, goodnight ladies!" He got up to go.
"Oh, ours too," the girls said in unison.
He waited for them to go before him, the automatic door opening as they went into the vestibule. His sharp eyes watched them, the short skirts, the creamy thighs, the long socks rising above the knees, the hands coming back to smooth down the skirts. His eyebrows rose as he gently bit his bottom lip. He had broken his word to himself after almost two years but what could he do against the trick of fate that had thrust these girls against him when he was unprepared, vulnerable to such a sneak attack. He was falling fast and there was little he could do. He resolved to try - but already it might be too late. He stepped onto the wet platform, the yellow light of the carriage reflecting up at him made it seem quite bright as he stood for a moment. He closed the door and turned to watch the two girls gaily walking to the exit, their buttocks moving the thin fabric of their skirts left, right, left, right and below them the very visible patches of creamy thigh above those long socks. What colour were those panties?
The platform was not so jolly when the train had pulled away, the night taking over, pushing its black shadows where the inadequate lights on the platform failed to penetrate. He followed the departing train as he moved towards the unmanned exit. Even before he reached it the train was just a point of red light in the distance. He pulled his coat a bit tighter around him, it was not that cold but there was a light rain falling and he felt the cold more these days, and headed up the damp street into the town. Ahead of him he could see, in the orange glow of the neon street lamps, the two girls perhaps not walking quite so jauntily now. He smiled thinly, they were moving out of the range of his influence and the dawning of a slight worry was probably coming to them, a concern that perhaps they had got off at the wrong station as the town did not seem quite right, only the beginning of a disquiet - the effect of his mind did not fade that quickly.
It was the barking of a dog that spooked them. They had been walking and talking, though, as he had noted, not quite as animatedly as before, when the dog barked through the fence right by them. They jumped and clasped hands and kept them clasped. He liked the image, two young girls in their little outfits holding hands. His fertile imagination was quick to imagine more. The touch of feminine hands on feminine thighs, creamy thighs showing above socks that reached beyond the knee. Hands that slipped upwards under short skirts to panties of the purest french blue; perhaps of the purest french blue.
The girls had stopped under a street lamp outside a terrace of Victorian houses and were looking around in a confused way. The orange glow showed the light rain as thin slanting wires pointing down towards them from above.
"Where are we?"
His feet were in leather-soled shoes and the tip tap of his footsteps sounded clear on the wet pavement. The girls looked in his direction. Their relief at seeing him was palpable, they recognised him and immediately felt safe, relieved and no longer anxious. His aurora surrounded them taking away their cares.
"We, we seem to be a bit lost," said the darker girl.
"I'm not sure we got off at the right station," said the other, "it seems right but not, if that makes sense?"
"We are not sure which way to go."
"I think you will find you should go up this side street here, right to the top."
The girls nodded and began to walk, and once more their careless chatter started. He walked a little way behind where he could see their legs.
At the top of the road they paused looking about them again outside a small house. An end of terrace house with a small front garden behind a painted fence. Yellowing hollyhocks lent over it, damp and beginning to rot in the late Autumnal rain. He walked past them, pulling a key from a pocket to unlock his front door. "You can come in, if you like."
And they did, so it was not really his fault. They chose to come into his house, he only asked them, he didn't tell them to, he didn't pull them in. Yes, maybe he had dulled their sense of danger, made them amenable to the idea but that had also not really been his doing. He had been good for at least two years and it was their socks that had inflamed him, brought back his desire, his fascination with the opposite sex, his interest in female anatomy, his desire. No, it was the fault of the fashion houses, the retailers who had picked up on the idea and the girls who had purchased the clothing and worn it that night. He was not to blame.
They were in the narrow hall.
"If you would step into the parlour," he invited as he opened its door.
"Oh, like the spider said to the fly," quipped the fair girl.
"Yes." He paused and smiled showing his small white and well-preserved teeth, "that is the rhyme."
The girls went into the room. They stood together, still holding hands, looking at the small coal fire. It had been carefully banked whilst he was out, and now only gave off a desultory heat and glow, but which, with the aid of coal scuttle and poker, he soon had going again, crackling away to give a warm orange glow to the room. It was evident such a fire was a new experience to them used, as they were, to the instant heat of the gas central heating system. Not for them a childhood of leaving the toast hot warmth of the parlour and settling in Winceyette nightdresses into an ice cold bed albeit with the comforting and friendly warmth of a hot water bottle. They were of softer stuff but immediately liked the comforting warmth and light from the fire. It was a homely sight, it made them relax the more and feel safe. They sank into the soft upholstery of the old sofa, looked down at their clasped hands and giggled.
He had left them for the kitchen where, switching on the light and divesting himself of his overcoat, he was opening a bottle of wine. The dampness of the air had made him think of a glass and he thought it best mulled. The wine splashed redly into the saucepan as he added cinnamon, orange peel, honey and cloves and began to heat the pan. The delicious scent of the warming wine soon permeated the kitchen, sneaking out along the passage and into the parlour. The girls' nostrils twitched as he opened the door and came in carrying three glasses, steam from the mulled wine clouding the glasses and gently rising from each perfuming the air. It was dark in the glasses, a dark red Merlot, the colour of freshly oxygenated blood.
"Unpleasant weather," he remarked.
"Oh, the wine glass, it's hot."
"I thought mulled wine suited the wet weather. It will warm you."
The girls drank tentatively.
"The scent?"
"Cinnamon."
