– Horny Scene I: Quiet Car –

The train bumps and sways, lights occasionally flickering. Normally, the silence of the back car and the vibrations of my head against the window would lull me to sleep in minutes, but it’s hay fever season. The pain behind my eyes and the never-ending tingly burn that threatens a raucous string of sneezes ensures that it will be a restless, yet uneventful ride.

So when he sits next to me and his crisp, baggy pocketed pants brush against me, my bloodshot eyes immediately appreciate the view. The pants a pale gray-green. Not quite army drab, just a touch brighter, yellower. Like army drab but with the “dramatic warm” filter turned on. I don’t dare turn my head enough to look at his face, but who cares what his face looks like? He stretches his long, lean legs before him and crosses his arms over his chest.

The shoes. Tall chocolate brown Vans. Suede ones, with the ribbed padded collars. I reflexively ache to run my fingers over their fuzzy surface, to trace the arc of perforations at his toes, to feel the warmth of him through the black socks that stretch into the white vinyl lining. The glimpse of his gum waffle soles as he crosses his ankles is frisson inducing. I could acquire my own pair and wear those gorgeous shoes all I want, but they would never be like they are now. On him.

A sneeze abruptly tears loose, evading my clutches. It’s ambush leaves me without time to sweep my arm over my face like an antibacterial, vampiric cape. Instead, a fat rope of cloudy snot somersaults from me at astonishing speed. When I finally pry my swollen eyes back open in the aftermath of this impromptu eruption, I see it dangling from the collar of my neighbor’s shoe near the ball of his ankle. It swings, a tiny pendulum dancing with the train. It looks like a single jellyfish tendril. Or a strand of orgasm.

Now I hazard a glance into the face of the shoe’s owner. It is equally satisfying to behold. His eyes, set above strong cheekbones, match his Vans. White EarPods protrude from the taut sides of his hood. He turns and meets my gaze. I tense, preparing to receive his rebuke of my unstaunched excretion.

“Bless you,” he says. Then he looks forward again.

“Thanks,” I murmur.

I spend the rest of the ride enjoying the little part of me lives out my fantasy. Just there. On his shoe.