The conductor’s voice boomed throughout the train car. “Happy New Year, folks. Next stop: New London.”
So it was past midnight, and he’d put another year behind him, along with New Haven. He closed his eyes, adjusted his earphones and searched through the dial as various radio stations’ signals faded or gained as the train progressed.
He recognized a refrain and considered pushing the dial past that frequency, but he decided to endure the pang in his heart. It was such a compelling series of melodies. Then he sensed a presence.
He opened his eyes and held his breath a full two seconds at the sight of her sitting opposite him. She must have gotten on at New Haven. The song was still reeling in his ears. He heard himself whisper: “Chestnut brown canary …”
She grinned and replied, “Ruby-throated sparrow.”
Her eyes penetrated him to his soul. It couldn’t be her, could it?
“I … excuse me.” His voice went hoarse. “You look … just like …”
Her grin eased into a smile and she nodded. “When I was a girl … you know, in my twenties, I used to get mistaken for her all the time. It’s the eyes,” she said.
“It sure is … the eyes.”
They were impossibly blue, and her face, her classic cheekbones, high and elegant. And all framed by straight white hair that reached below her collarbones.
Awestruck, there was no other way to describe her effect on him. His thoughts poured out his mouth without edit.
“My, God … you are so … pretty.”
Her cheeks reddened, but his burned.
“Oh, my … I am so … sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“I just … I’m a little flustered, is all. I’ve no business making remarks … well; I don’t want you to think I’m a masher.”
“Masher?” She laughed. “I haven’t heard that term in a long, long time.”
This time he laughed. “I guess it’s pretty archaic. It was archaic the first time I heard it.”
“I have no problem at all with a man calling me ‘pretty.’ It’s been a long time since anyone applied the word to me.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“You’re not a masher, sir, but you are very smooth. Go ahead; keep talking.”
“Really, I mean it; I find it hard to believe you don’t get compliments.”
“Oh, I get compliments all the time. Men have told me I’m ‘hot.'” She giggled. “And that I’m ‘attractive.’ But when a woman reaches a certain age I guess ‘pretty’ ceases to apply. Truth is, I’m very flattered you think I’m pretty; or is it just because I remind you of …”
“No, no, no. You are very, very … pretty. Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve felt comfortable enough to tell a girl she’s pretty.”
“Girl? Sir, I think I could listen to you all night. Girl, indeed.”
“If you’re younger than me, you’re a girl.”
“How do you know I am … younger than you?”
He shrugged and smiled.
“Well, I’m Christine.” She held out her hand.
He took it and said, “Jake, or James, but never Jim.”
“Nice to meet you … We’ll try James. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that you are a big fan of Judy Collins.”
He smiled as he traced a path in his mind into the past. His heartache reasserted itself, but it was a mellow pain, soothed with better memories.
“When I was very young,” he said, “I saw her sing in a little place in Cambridge. She had just become very big, but she still had that new-girl-on-the-stage way about her. I was still in high school and I thought she was the most beautiful creature on the planet, and her voice … it must have made the angels envious.”
He paused a moment. Christine smiled and nodded, silently urging him to continue.
“Well, a little over a year later I’m in college and some tickets came into my hands for a show she was doing in Toronto. So I kept one and traded the rest for transportation. There were six of us: four other guys and a girl, all fans. We pitched in for gas and drove all the way up there in one guy’s clunker. It was a junkie Rambler, for crying out loud. But we made it.”
“Did you get to meet her?” Christine asked.
“I was so close; I could hear her breathe while she sang. But no, we never met. Then disaster. Artie’s clunker died. Artie’s folks sent him a plane ticket to get home. Two of the other guys decided to try to thumb home. One of the guys just walked off and disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him to this day. Connie and I pooled what money we had left and barely scraped together enough for a bus home.
“What a ride that was. It stopped at everyone’s backyard all through Vermont and New Hampshire. Talk about an odyssey. But, along the way, I fell in love with Connie. And we stayed together from then on. Had three kids: two girls and a boy.”
“Oh,” Christine said. “So … You’re married. Sounds like a lovely romantic way to start a life together.”
“I lost her a few years ago.” He said it matter-of-factly, but also with a lingering sense of disbelief.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
He took a deep breath and his lips curled back into a smile. “I used to call her Judy Blue Eyes, and she used to accuse me of pretending to be making love to Judy Collins when we … uh, you know.”
“Did she look like Judy too?”
“Connie? Not even close. First of all, her eyes weren’t blue; she had big brown cow eyes. She was short, and plump, and wore her hair short. It was kind of a rusty-red color. Oh, and she had a big round bum too.”
He paused again. Then he said, “I miss her big ole behind. I miss her a lot.”
There was silence between them for a moment before Christine ventured, “It’s hard to lose someone you’ve loved almost your entire life.”
“Have you …?”
“Me? No.”
“Married?”
“Tried it, twice.” She shrugged. “It was my fault both times; I have no patience. Well, I didn’t when I was younger and trying to get my career off the ground. I didn’t give either of my marriages the time.”
It occurred to him that they, total strangers, had exchanged so much intimate information in the space of less than twenty minutes, but he felt so comfortable with her. And, she was so easy to look at. He imagined her hair had been very dark, perhaps jet black at one time.
“So, Christine, how does a pretty girl like you happen to be traveling alone on this rattler on New Year’s Eve?”
“My job. I work for an auction house in New York. I appraise historical documents. I just spent the past few days at Yale. Now I’m headed for Providence and Brown University. I like traveling at night. I usually try to get the last train or plane of the day. And you?”
“I was visiting my son and his family in Maryland. Flying is such an ordeal now; I’ve come to appreciate the train. Still, it ain’t what it used to be when the New York Central and Hartford & New Haven were still in business. Then you could count on having a fine dinner in a real dining car.”
“Hmm, I remember having dinner on a train when I was a child.”
They exchanged memories, some bittersweet, but mostly joyous, and even their regrets they soothed with the knowledge of wisdom gained. By the time they had left Westerly, Rhode Island, he felt as if he had known her his whole life and he wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss her. He wondered if she knew how he felt; did her piercing blue eyes really see into his heart.
And then he said a silent prayer to Connie. Would she understand?
“Providence! Providence! Next stop, Providence!” The conductor’s bellows echoed along the car.
Christine reached over and took his hand. “Get off with me!”
“Huh?”
She giggled. “I didn’t mean it exactly that way. Get off with me in Providence. I have a room reserved.”
“I … well … I’d like to …”
“It’s New Years Eve. I’d like … I’d like us both to have someone to celebrate with.”
“But … we hardly know each other, Christine.”
“Don’t we? Please?”
“Okay.”
They took a cab from the station into the downtown.
“What a lovely area,” Christine said.
“Never been here before? It used to be a decaying dump, but then an Italian mayor with a lot of chutzpah turned it all around. Then they sent him to jail. Ah, well, that’s Providence.”
The hotel was alive with revelers and several parties were going on at once in the ballrooms. It was an elegant, old-fashioned hotel.
Christine checked in but declined the assistance of a bellhop. She and James made their way through a maelstrom of revelers, coming and going in the lobby, to the bank of elevators. Finally one opened and they stepped inside.
James looked down and toed the tiny black dress that lay on the floor.
“Oh, my God,” Christine gasped.
Stepping off at their floor they encountered a symphony of moans and whimpers. James peeked around the corner, spotting the couple at the far end of the hallway barely hidden by a huge potted plant.
“I think we found the owner of that dress,” he said.
“You sure?” She peeked. “Oh, my!”
“Even though she’s on her knees I can see she’s not wearing anything but stockings. A girl without a dress must belong to the dress without a girl. Clever deduction, huh?”
“What should we do, just walk past them?”
“If we want to get to your room.”
They tiptoed toward the couple and passed, they thought, without notice. The girl was busy, her head bobbing and her back toward them, and the guy just had his eyes closed, hoarsely mouthing “Oh, baby.”
He climaxed just as James and Christine entered their room.
“Good thing,” James said. “She won’t get any on her dress.”
“You’re awful,” Christine said, and laughed. But then she pulled him toward her and kissed him. It was a brief, powerful kiss, as if she were staking a claim to him. Then she kissed him again, softly, languidly.
James almost moaned.
“Is this okay with you, James? I think … what you told me of her, that Connie would approve.”
All at once he wanted to cry. He pulled her tighter into his embrace.
He kissed her neck and along the subtle curve toward her shoulder, and as he did he unbuttoned her blouse. Christine was already working the zipper of her skirt. In a moment she stood in her bra and panties, and pale blue stockings that clung to her thighs.
She began to undress him and as she at last tugged at his boxers a momentary flash of anxiety wrenched him. It had been so long, would he be able? But his doubt evaporated the moment his cock sprang up and nudged her thighs.
They walked each other to the bed and Christine slid under the covers.
“Thrill me to the marrow,” she whispered.
He tossed the covers aside and began to nibble her legs from her calves to her thighs, slowly, deliberately, teasingly.
“God, that’s what I’ve missed so much,” she mewed. “Nice and slow.”
She was only scantily haired, her hairs so white as to be nearly invisible. Her pussy was pink and moist, almost sparkling in how it reflected the light. He laved his tongue along the length of her gate, and then nibbled her lips. She raised her hips off the bed and her legs twisted and bent.
“No-no-no-no … too soon …”
He sucked on her clit and her body shuddered. A throaty groan escaped her.
“It’s just been so long since someone’s loved me so well,” she said in a whisper. “Go easy for a while, okay?”
He didn’t answer her with words, but kissed her small breasts and tugged her nipples with his lips; they instantly hardened. Her fingers combed through his hair as he lifted himself to kiss her mouth. A long kiss, and then another long kiss, as if he had all eternity to kiss her. He watched her blue eyes glaze over and close.
That’s when he slid his cock into her and began to thrust in a steady building rhythm. He began to reel Bolero in his mind, almost chuckling, remembering how it was all the rage in college to fuck a girl with Bolero playing in the background.
And as her hips began to lift and swivel, he suspected that Bolero was playing in her mind also.
“Oh God! Jesus!” Her body convulsed again. “James … James …” Her voice trailed off.
He withdrew his cock and just watched her breathe; her chest flushed in the wake of her orgasm. Then he tossed her over onto her stomach.
Instinctively she rose on all fours and lifted her ass. “Both sides now,” she giggled.
“That was Joni Mitchell’s song.”
“Judy sang it so much better.”
He penetrated her again, roughly, and gave her a firm but gentle slap to her ass.
“Yes-yes-yes … come … come … come … come in me. James, please … please …”
Her back was milky pale; her ass cheek pink from where he’d smacked her. Her hips twisted in his hands like she was some spirited animal he was trying to break.
“Now, James, come in me, darling.”
That finished him. His fluid rocketed out of his cock, spasm after spasm until he had emptied himself.
They spooned together.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I mean … It’s okay, isn’t it?”
He understood what she meant. He thought Connie would be happy for him; he knew she was.
“Of course, it’s okay,” he said. Then he nuzzled her back with his nose and kissed the nape of her neck. “I feel like I just screwed Judy Collins.”
“Oh, really?” She took his hand and placed it on a breast. “Well you know what I wish?”
“Uh-uh.”
“That I was short and plump, and I had a big round ass … and that I’d known you all my life. Connie was the luckiest girl.”
He tried to catch the tear before it dribbled off his cheek and trickled along her shoulder blade. Too late.
“Let me be Judy Blue Eyes now … okay?”
“I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are.”
© 2011 Robert Buckley. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.