As long as I can remember I've been nosy, loving to evesdrop on conversations I could overhear and watch the people around me. So when I moved to Connecticut and had to start commuting by train to my job in New York City, I had the perfect setting to indulge my solitary vice. The trains didn't run often so I was always on that same 6:29 to Grand Central and I would end up in the front car in pretty much the same seat each morning. Well, I guess I'm not the only creature of habit, because I would see many of the same faces and I got to know them, where they'd sit, what they would bring to pass the time, and something of their dispositions -- some sunnily fresh and clear-eyed despite the hour, some dour or grumpy, unhappy with the quality of sleep they had interrupted or perhaps some- thing much deeper. Initially, I watched the various folk with a somewhat detached air. After a time, however, my diffuse curiosity began to have a focus and I would watch for HER, actually for THEM at first, because she used to ride with her husband, a huge, loutish sort of man with a flaccid, vacuous-looking face who I quickly dubbed "the Neanderthal" despite his properly neat business suit. From his looks, I imagined he was rather dumb. She was much smaller, with brown shoulder-length hair and soft features, round gold-rimmed glasses accenting doe-eyed sweetness. She was pretty and I was drawn to her physically but what was really compelling in those first days was how they got along. No matter how they were when first they boarded, sometimes seemingly close and affectionate, sometimes more neutral, their mood would always turn sullen. She might ask some simple question, make some ordinary remark. "Carol", he would reply with a tone of high-arched condescension and that would be followed by some kind of sneering put-down or belittling remark. I could see her hurt pro- test, expression timid and sexily pleading, and the Neanderthal's rejec- tion. She could only pull into herself and turn away, and by the end of every trip both their faces were hardened and they left the train in cold, stony silence. I wondered at the quality of their lives, about the mix of her needi- ness and his brutality, and I could easily imagine the scenes of humiliat- ing sex that empowered their union. I could see her, wet with yearning, swollen labia puffed with desire and hope, and he with his Harlequin Romance aloofness keeping her on the edge, on the edge, on the edge...I felt sorry and protective, and I knew she deserved better. I thought of how I could love her tenderly, but somewhere I was also aware that her playing victim might be hiding a passive but potent executioner. Perhaps in her almost coquettish petulance was the sign that she was not so inno- cent. But, God, how I wanted her! And then, suddenly one day, she was alone! "He must be ill", I thought. "Tomorrow he'll be back." But the day became a week, became two, became a month until finally I could only assume that they were no longer together. (That he perhaps had only changed jobs or was out of work did not occur to my fevered imagination.) I eagerly watched for her each day, looking for some sign of joy or remorse or anger or despair as a hint of what might have happened, but she gave no clue. About this time, my obsession was diverted a bit by the appearance of another woman who boarded the station before Carol's. Unlike Carol's wan, neurotic style, this new woman strode through the car to her seat radiat- ing fresh, healthy energy. From the first time I noticed her, I thought she had the ruddy color and open (but a little spacey) look of someone who has recently been partner to glorious lovemaking. With more than a little jealousy, I watched as Carol often chose to sit with her, and that they seemed to be hitting it off. In any event, most of my attention still was directed towards Carol. I tried to chose a seat so that she would sit directly in front of me, hoping my fervent wishes would guide her to it. I watched her remove her coat, waiting to see what silk blouse or tight sweater she had chosen that morning, trembled as her wonderful breasts strained against the fabric as she reached up to place her coat on the overhead rack. "Oh, Carol," I breathed silently. My heart ached to kiss her tenderly on the back of her bare neck. I could feel myself doing it, saying "I couldn't stand the way he treated you! I'm so happy for you he's gone!" I could feel her melting against me in gratitude and instant love, turning to kiss me full on the lips as we embraced, soft-breathed honey-sweetness quickly becoming pas- sionate need, our hands kneading each others' bodies, oblivious to the other riders. "Let's get off the train at the next stop -- no work today!", I could hear myself saying. I see us getting off, sunlight filtering through greygreen, midsummer leaves, feel the fecund earth as we run silently like shy children through woods into the fields of rural Connecticut, our attache cases flopping against our sides. It is my favorite kind of summer's day -- gusty southwest winds, hazy sky filled even at this early hour with towering cumulus before an approaching squall line, oven heat awaiting the splash of raindrops. Finally alone together, we lie down in the meadow-flowered grass, a faint blush of tears showing the emotions not yet out. It is a moment of such heart-stopping tenderness that it catches in my throat and seems to last forever, but little-by-little the look in our eyes, the ache in our groins, reminds us why we are here, and we slowly, slowly begin to kiss -- deep bottomless kisses that leave us stunned. Carol's lips work against mine, her tongue prodding my teeth to part. Our tongues touch and slide inside each other's open mouths, languid but intense as they explore moist, warm hollows, searching, finding, slowly building with ever-so-slow motion. I cannot tell where I end and the world begins. My penis is rock-hard inside my underpants and it draws my concentration urgently downward; but time is also strangely stayed. I become aware of the throb of life around me -- the drone of insects, the swish of wind through the drying meadow, the songs of birds. Gently touching Carol's face, I show her what I am watching -- two speckled ladybugs mating on a blade of grass. We watch in idle, contented fascination feeling our essential sameness with those lowly beings. Carol's touch brings me back to us as she takes my hand and smiling, guides it under her skirt to wet it with the fluid already covering her inner thighs, brushes me across the swollen nub of her clit, and then brings it to my nose and lips so that her musky scent invades my soul. Pulling us together with her other hand on the back of my neck, she moves her own lips to catch my hand between our mouths and begins to suck my thumb, pulling it against her inner cheeks, stroking it with her tongue which darts out to caress my palm. She pushes my other fingers into my own mouth and says "Suck me like I'm sucking you! Suck yourself and me"! Her tongue probes the web of skin between my thumb and fingers, and she pulls me deeper into her mouth, rubbing me between her cheeks and teeth, against her gums. I taste my sweat mingled with her juices and feel the pleasure of my fingers stimulating my own mouth. By now our clothing is soaked. Although all of it is still on, I have never felt more naked. We are both so aware of our rhythm, building like a breaking wave rushing up the sand only to retreat, easing back again so that moment can go on forever. I move behind Carol, my arms encircling her waist and slipping upwards to her breasts. In my mind's heart I have felt them many times, watching on the train, but the first sensations through her thin silk blouse floods me with a memory of schoolboy adolescent fan- tasy, gained from furtive reading of many dirty books in those days, that a woman's whole breast and not merely the nipple stiffened under passion's fingers -- for she is so unbelievably hard and hot! I ease the garment over her head and almost swoon as my hands find the raised, puckered border of her areolas, and then, nipples achingly long and stiff as fingertips. Wetting my fingers in the rivulet of sweat trickling between her breasts, I stroke her nipples, playing with them. They have the deli- cate, chewy, springy texture of just-kneaded dough. Mewing softly, Carol moves her head forwards so that I can nuzzle the back of her soft, downy neck. I run my fingers in the creases behind her ears, massage her ear- lobes, and then my hands slip down over her breasts again, down further, palms against her stomach, slipping under the waistband of her skirt, eas- ing it over her slim hips so that it drops to the earth. Her body shivers despite the late July heat as I undo her underpants in the same way -- caressing her ears, breasts, stomach, hands under the elastic, pausing to stroke the pad of flesh just above and under her pubic hair, brushing my thumbs along the folds between her vagina and inner thighs, and then her underwear is off. The wind raises little goosebumps on her nakedness as she looks at me, her limpid, gentle eyes showing a mix of pride and modesty and lust. Her breath comes in soulful gasps as she says "Now we get you naked, too!" She sits down in the grass, legs spread, and pulls me to her. She is already fully open, soft pink folds of wetness going way down deep inside, the head of her clit reaching out achingly from its hood. Moaning, Carol rubs her outer lips, pulls her foreskin even further down the shaft of her button, and pushes forward as her inner lips pulse rhythmically, oozing wave after wave of slick clearwhite liquid. She is looking up at me with that expression of almost petulant need that I used to see directed at her husband, that expression that had made me want to protect and soothe her with lustful tenderness, that had generated such amazing desire to rip her clothing off while being nice, while saving her from her husband's brutal- ity -- and now that look is directed towards me! Gently I flick my tongue in the crease of skin just outside her cunt, move down one leg in a series of soft, wet kisses -- thigh, behind her knee, calf, ankle and then lick the bottom of her foot, suck her toes, probing and teasing them with my tongue. As I am making love to her foot, my hands reach higher, sliding along her legs to slip my thumbs inside her swollen, squishy vagina. My thumbs slide around her clit, rubbing from the bright red tip along its shaft to nuzzle against her mons. Gently working the hood back and forth over her stiffened bud, I can feel the inside swell further and retreat into its covering, which I know means she is close to coming. I tease her parted labia with my tongue, which easily can reach deep inside to lick her swollen, inner lips, along the front wall of her vagina, and then the bottom side of her clitoris. I am in that ecstasy of sense, drenched in taste and odor, liquid coursing over my face and chin, finally out of my ever-so-controlling head. Carol moans a sound so painfully, yearningly sweet, like a cat, almost and her breathing becomes a coarse rasp deep from within, urgent. By instinct, my pace shifts a bit, slowing to hold her off a bit, then up again. She grabs at my head buried deep inside her legs, and I feel her fingers at the back of my neck, clenching, trying to pull me deeper. Suddenly her whole body arches, becoming rigid and the noises of her breathing change from the mechanical sound of air going in and out to a plaintive, half-human, half-animal wail of concentrated, congested pressure...ah, ah, ah, aH, aHH, AOHHRRRGGGGHHHHHHH, EXPLODING, quickly, into rippling waves of release, a soft-breathed oasis of boundless calm... Then, after a long while of just being, her hands are on me. She kisses my crotch, and explores with her lips and tongue to outline the shape and size of my painfully constrained cock pressed against my pants. Even through the two layers of fabric, the sensation is exquisite agony, and for some reason I think of the fairy-tale princess whose sleep is drastically disturbed by a pea under many, many mattresses. She rubs me, playing her hands over the spot of wetness spreading on my pants, and mas- sages the head of my penis, squeezing it between her fingers. She presses and cups my testicles, pressing a little more lightly, and the stain on my clothing grows larger. Undoing my belt, Carol slips her hand under the waistband, one in front rubbing the sides of my cock and the other down my ass, fingers in the crack. She rolls the elastic of my underpants, bunch- ing the garment down as far as she can, teasingly stroking my erection. Then she brings her hands together underneath my crotch, pressing her fingers firmly on my perineum. She listens to the changes in my breath, following its cues, pushing harder and harder, faster and faster, then dropping back a bit, then pressing again. I am making noises, almost bab- bling, almost losing it and I want to wait but she's refusing me. Oh, God, no, NO, NO, NO...I am moaning. Not now! But I'm suddenly at that point where control doesn't matter, where me watching me, holding on, is going to give way... And Carol quickly makes a ring with her fingers just under the head of my cock and squeezes...HARD! Hold it, hold it, HOLD IT, she says...stunning me with the sharpness and hair-trigger effect of being caught at the brink, feeling the first jets of cum blocked from release, suspended for a moment, and the slowly ebbing back, breathing slowly slow- ing. She loosens her grip and slides the ring of her fingers down my penis to caress my balls, then slides back up to milk a large drop of cum from the head. I can only gaze in wonder at her smiling, contented face. After a while, we hug, she finishes undressing me, and we hug again, finally skin to skin. We pull each other to lie in the tall meadow, and listening to the sounds, breathing in the scent of dusty summer. The wind has picked up sharply and a high veil of white has moved in from the west to cover half the sky. Low on the horizon, an unmistakable dark line of thunderhead is edging up. A distant rumble echoes off the far hills to Carol's announcement "Wow -- it's going to storm! Don't you just love it?" I nod, noting that we're fairly safe, low in the fields with high trees nearby. It is too dramatic, too fitting to our resonant, intense states of mind, to leave now. We lie on our backs, legs entangled, and watch the purplish light invade the landscape. Somehow we both feel what edge to keep on each other's arousal, teasing just enough, fingering just enough, smearing each other's juices playfully, saving the rest for later. Quickly the world turns ever darker, the wind whips the trees, the birds and bugs fly low. A gust, much cooler, suddenly from the west, brings the low scudding line of cloud overhead as flashes of yellowwhite lightning outline the boiling tops of the squall. It rains, a few large drops splatter on the dry dirt, then quickly turn torrential. We can hardly see the windwhipped woods, save for the almost eerie, stroboscopic effect of the lightning. The heavy raindrops sting as they pelt our naked bodies, bringing a blush of rosy, pink color to our skin. Above us, water catches in the seeded sheathes of the late summer meadowgrass, bending them low with the added weight, and the rain pours from their tips onto us. It runs down and between our legs, teasing our still-aroused genitals, and it streams over our faces like tears of joy. The sky to the west brightens suddenly and the rain subsides to a steady, calmer patter, and the noise and fury depart eastward. We cau- tiously stand up, hand in hand, and begin to dance in the wet field, feel- ing the sensuous tickle of the tall, wet grass on our bare legs and feet. Music is in my head and I begin to sing -- it is the sublimely humble and transcendent song that ends the Beethoven 6th. I hear the theme, played by the horns, simple and resonant, and then the strings, weaving in and about the melody in garland of radiant thankfulness after the storm. Carol smiles at me tenderly and in simple recognitions says "ah, yes -- the Pas- torale." And she starts a kiss as deeply felt as the music, pressing her- self into me, hands on my neck and back, warm tongue in my mouth moving slowly, awakening the physical need again... "Last stop -- Grand Central Terminal" the conductor calls out! Carol, still unaware, still unspoken-to, stands, adjusts her thin blouse, and gets off the train to head for work. "I could follow her to her office," I think. "I could... I could..." But of course none of this would ever hap- pen, and that would be the end of that... But that a copy of this manuscript slipped from my pocket as I ran to get the subway. A few days later, I'm stunned when Carol takes the seat next to me on the train and hands a bunch of papers to me saying "I think you dropped these." -----------------to be continued---------------------- --