Free Beauty and Pain by Harlem Dae Page B

Deflated, yet eager to seek him out again, I rushed to the platform around the corner of the ticket kiosk and looked from left to right.
    There he was, sitting in his usual place on a red metal seat, all long limbed and broad shouldered, his legs sticking out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He seemed at ease as he held a newspaper and read it, although I liked to think that he wasn’t taking any of the words in. That he was thinking about me instead.
    Usually I remained standing on the platform, wanting to beat the mad dash when the train arrived and avoid being crushed. To get my pick of seating near a window so I could gaze out and daydream. Today, though, today was going to be different.
    I walked toward his bench. A gust of wind sallied along, whistling through a wire mesh refuse bin, jostling its contents before attacking his newspaper. He battled to keep it from crumpling or being blown out of his hands and must have decided he was going to lose the fight. He folded it as best he could then tucked it beneath one arm. I imagined him thinking that he’d read it when he was settled on the train.
    I had plans to distract him from reading.
    I sat beside him then hooked one leg over the other, letting my coat fall open so he could get a good eyeful of my exposed thigh, knee and shin. A sneaky look down confirmed that the lace of my stocking top could be seen if only he’d lean across a bit and take a peek. I placed my hands in my lap, entwining my fingers, and studied him.
    He was staring at me—not at my legs as I’d hoped, but my face.
    “Well, hello again,” he said. “I thought you’d have been standing over there like you always do.”
    “Why would I, now that I have someone to talk to?”
    That had been the best I could come out with at this point. My lungs were tight, as though being this close to him had rendered them useless, and I willed myself to breathe normally, to appear a woman in control of her emotions. And perhaps I did appear that way. He wasn’t to know that my heart was hammering wildly and my mouth had gone dry, that I’d never done anything like this before in my life and hadn’t ever thought I would. But there I was, sitting as close to him as I dared, our thighs almost touching, the tops of our arms an inch or so apart. If I tilted my head I could rest my cheek there, feel the softness of his suit. It would be cold, what with the weather, but would soon warm up.
    “Fair point,” he said. “So, I’m going to be forward again. Is there any reason why you’re dressed so…differently today?”
    I didn’t answer on purpose. I was too busy gazing into his eyes and waiting to hear what he’d say next.
    “You’re usually in trouser suits, aren’t you, or at least a longer skirt,” he said.
    So he had been watching me, then.
    “Today,” I said, “I wanted to put something on that made me feel sexy.” I could hardly believe I’d repeated one of the lines out of my fantasies, but I had and it hadn’t been so bad at all. I decided to push on. “You know, to see if it would make you take notice.” I’d laid my interest in him bare and could only hope he didn’t think me too shameless, too bold.
    “I’d notice you whatever you had on.”
    If someone else had said that I might have thought it was a standard pick-up line, designed to make me fall at his feet. I’d already fallen a long time ago, but those words, as they’d spilled from his lips, had sounded…right. Sincere.
    “Oh really?” I asked, surprised.
    “Really. There’s something about you. You stand out from everyone else. As though you think things that would shock.” He paused and smiled. “Did you know that when you’re on the train and you’re looking out of the window, you bite your bottom lip sometimes? I’ve often wondered what makes you do that, what you’re thinking, and I always come up with something risqué.”
    Now that wasn’t a word I expected a man to use, but then he did have a