The Night on The Train Ch. 03

She kept looking at him. Beads of sweat slid down his forehead and neck, and the vein at his throat still pulsed from the run. For one irrational second, she imagined moving his backpack aside, sitting next to him, taking his hand and placing it around her shoulder and dabbing at his sweat with her scarf. She wanted to place a hand on his heart and watch it move up and down with his heavy breathing, almost lovingly urging it to calm down.

The thought startled her because it felt too intimate for a stranger and she wondered what just happened but continued looking at him. His face was rugged, with a cleanly defined jaw line, a well-connected beard, which it seems he normally carried in an "evening stubble style" but probably had not trimmed in a couple days giving it a slightly unkempt look, even though it still suited him. Aditya always preferred the clean-shaven look, given his management job and his usual excuse of "a beard is a lot to maintain".

There was something about his face she could not quite name. He was not conventionally handsome, not the sort of man who would stop a room by looks alone, yet her eyes kept returning to him. She noticed all her co-passengers were also looking at him. Then her gaze caught the magazine beside the old lady opposite her, with Amitabh Bachchan on the cover, and the comparison clicked. Like Bachchan on screen, this man had presence. Not screen presence, exactly. Room presence! If he walked into a room, people would notice him and probably stare at him before they even knew why.

He was probably just as tall as Aditya, maybe a hair taller, but while Aditya looked tall and lanky, he looked tall and muscular. Being dedicated to exercise herself, she could tell he had a well-defined chest, his arms and forearms looked solid and bore a few scars, and the cargo shorts showed strong legs.

It was obvious from the way he had run, jumped, fallen, and gotten up without missing a beat that he had a tough streak. But he did not come across as a typical gym-rat. He seemed more like someone shaped by hard physical work, rough neighborhoods, or maybe even a few street fights.

She could almost feel her Aai (mother) labelling him as a "Galli Ka Gunda (neighborhood thug)". But she was not convinced, his clothes, his choice of color combination, his ankle socks and branded shoes all conveyed a level of sophistication. She could tell he was a man who cared about his looks and probably ensured he was always dressed well.

She sensed him move and quickly averted her gaze, but from the corner of her eyes, she saw that his eyes were still closed and he was fishing in the many pockets of his cargo shorts, shortly pulling out a phone. Still looking up, he raised the phone to his eye level, not looking left or right, she heard the click of the phone unlocking and the sound of the keys typing out a quick message, also noticing a small smirk on his lips.

Probably a message to someone either sharing... or more likely showing off that he made it. Dropping the phone between his leg and the backpack, eyes closed again, his breathing slightly slower, he mumbled in what he thought was a whisper, but the sound still carrying audibly, "Gandu, ek din marne wala hai tu (asshole, one of these days, you are going to die).

Anjali could almost hear her Aai again -- "bhasha dekhi uske, pakka gunda hai (did you hear his language, he is definitely a thug). But Anjali kept returning to the moment when he had turned back and raised a hand in apology to the child's family, even in the middle of that mad rush. That did not fit the image of a Gunda who would not have cared at all. He had literally accepted potential severe injury to himself just to protect that kid.

It was almost as though she was telling her Aai, "Nahi Aai, wo Gunda nahi hai, wo Rakshak hai (no mom, he is a not a thug, he is a protector)". She felt as though he was someone who knew how to protect his keep, someone, who she could walk with through the toughest neighborhoods anywhere and feel safe as long as he walking with her, holding her hand or preferably, with a hand around her waist, holding her close. The mental visualization of this scene made her nipples harden a little and was immediately followed by her staring directly at the bulge in his crotch.

Anjali jerked again, this time more visibly almost saying out loud "What the fuck is going on?" Her hand inadvertently went to her Mangal Sutra as if to remind her she is married. She simply could not understand, why her years of the well-practiced skill of keeping lechers at bay was failing her and she almost answered her own question in the next second. She was the one behaving in a lecherous manner, this magnificent, rough hunk had not even looked at her. She stood up abruptly mouthing "Oh my God, what is going on? What is happening to me?"

She picked up her purse, turned with the intention of walking to the bathroom. From the corner of her eye, she saw he still had his eyes closed. She tried to squeeze in between the legs of the old man sitting to her right and his legs on the left but bumped into his leg. His eyes jerked open, his head straightened and it looked like he was almost getting ready to say "Sorry" when their eyes met for the first time. She did not know it yet, but an erotic dance of the eyes had just begun.

It was probably just for one, at best two seconds, but the first thought that popped into Anjali's head, as she looked with a lustful expression into those eyes was "God, I want to kiss him". For his part she saw his eyes first look into hers, then flicker down to the Mangal Sutra on her neck, then further down to her boobs, almost sensing the partially erect nipples, before locking back on her eyes and his lips mouthed the unspoken words "oh teri ki, bhennnchood" which although a really bad word, she knew in the current context emphasized that he was mesmerized by her.

She walked on breaking the eye contact, again feeling shocked at what was happening. She was almost certain he had turned around and was watching her and even before she realized it, she noticed that her walk was not the usual casual walk of someone going to a bathroom, rather the model like walk she usually tried to employ when she wore a saree or a lehenga-choli. In essence, she was flaunting herself and was sure his mouth was now hanging open.

In the bathroom, she clutched her face in both hands, almost slapping herself, trying to make sense of her own behavior. Why was she acting like someone she would normally judge and abhor? Why could she not simply behave like a normal married woman, a mother to a two-and-a-half-year-old child? Yes, intimacy with Aditya had been low lately, but this was not the first time that had happened. She had never ever felt even remotely this unsteady, not even around men far more conventionally handsome. What was it with this guy? What was it with HER?

Should she just stay in the bathroom for the rest of the trip? Should she try and change her seat with someone else? She washed her face vigorously, as though trying to wash away all her beauty, in the hope that he would just ignore her, but in her heart, she knew, he was not the problem, she was! She looked in the mirror, gritted her teeth at the person she saw, saying "Enough is Enough" out loud, applied some moisturizer, and got ready to head back to her seat.

As she got out and moved towards the door which led to the AC side of the compartment, she saw he was almost at the same door coming from the opposite end. She looked at him for an instance, no more, waited for him to open the door and hold it so that she could pass by.

He did, he opened the door and seemed to hold it. She looked up at him to say "Thank you", but their eyes met again and she froze. It was like a "you first, no, you first" moment, and after a second, he thought she was waiting for him to go first and started walking out. At the exact same moment, thinking the same thing she decided to walk through.

The result was they crossed the doorway at the same time, their eyes still locked. She felt her breasts brush against his chest and heat shot through her body so sharply that she almost lost her breath. As she walked back, she knew he was watching her but that small touch was enough for her to clearly feel the wetness in her panties and that her nipples were rock hard. She was also sure, that he had the exact same lust for her that she had for him. What was worse, she knew that for both, clearly is it was just that pure mad kind of lust, the kind of lust that wants you to just rip each other's clothes off and fuck each other senseless. A small voice in her ear seemed to say -- "what happened to the enough is enough"?

She heard him come back, but by the time she had settled herself on the top berth and drawn all the curtains around here. She heard the same explanation the uncle had just given here requesting the lower berths for the old people and she had gladly accepted. She heard him accept and he took up the smaller top berth on the other side and immediately she wondered how, being tall would he be able to sleep comfortably? Her very next thought was, would they both would be able to fit on that small berth together?

Again, feeling shocked, she could now sense her anger building, and she again mentally cursed Aditya blaming him for her predicament. She dug out her phone, intending to call him, but then common sense prevailed and she put it back knowing it would aggravate the situation. She looked at the time at it was almost 7:30 PM now. Just about 13 more hours she thought. She needed to control her unexplainable urges for 13 more hours.

She wondered what he was doing, was he still waiting for her to open the curtain and look at her or had the closed curtain given him the sign that she was not interested. Was that sign enough to put an end to his lustfulness? More importantly, was it enough to put an end to hers?

Just at that moment, the dinner arrived, she briefly opened her curtain took her food tray without looking at his berth and was about to close her curtain when, as much as she was trying not to, she peeked to see if he was watching. He was not. He was lying on his berth, looking into his phone, the dinner tray precariously balanced on the edge of his berth.

She closed her curtain and felt even angrier. How dare he not look? She took a few bites, then opened the curtain slightly to peek. He was still looking at his phone, lazily eating his dinner. On impulse, she dropped her glass. It fell with a loud clang, making the old lady below jump. This time he looked first at the glass and then at her. A dazzling smile broke across his face followed by a chuckle when he saw her angry expression, just before she snapped the curtain shut again. Once it was closed, she could not help smiling too.

The dance went on for a while more, under some pretense or the other, she kept opening her curtain, checking on him, if he looked, she continued to pretend to give him a dirty look and then felt content for the next 15 odd minutes after she had pulled her curtain shut. She got down from her berth, placed her food tray on the trolley of the person collecting them, looked towards him. He was again not looking, rather she saw he had a laptop out and he was working on something. She went to the bathroom in a huff, cursing and abusing him under her breath, and did not look back at him when she returned.

The lights is the compartment had now started going out. She was back in her berth, curtain drawn when Aditya called. They had a semi-cordial conversation since she had to pretend that she is still kind of mad but said loving good nights to each other. Just as the light in her area went out, she opened the curtain one more time, saw him seductively eating his ice cream licking the small wooden spoon lovingly, but just as he looked, she closed the curtain.

She smiled again, the image of him licking that small wooden spoon still with her. She sensed hardness in her nipples again and her hand slipped beneath her waistband of her slacks and into her panties and slowly started caressing the lips of her pussy, unsurprised at how soaking wet they were.

She still did not know what, if anything, she wanted to happen between them. But for the first time that evening, she could no longer pretend she wanted nothing to happen. She slid a finger into her cunt and let out a small, muffled moan of pleasure somehow wishing the finger belonged to someone else.

Mrs. Anjali Powar would wake a few hours later, in the middle of the night, to experience something that her traditional, conservative upbringing had never even allowed her to imagine, let alone experience.