Emily

Fuck...I'm late...again. Just managed to squeeze my yellow Mini into a non existent parking space, two bloody streets from the station and now I can already hear bleeping and pneumatic doors closing one by one. Fuck...I daren't be late today. Anthea, my boss, is always in early on Tuesdays and she misses nothing. I just manage to avoid snapping my heel in a deep platform pothole, before skidding across the now empty station concourse and basically throwing myself between the sole remaining, but rapidly closing automatic door. Squeezing through, I was just about to congratulate myself on my hitherto unheard of athleticism when I realised I had collided quite hard with a body. The "ooof" of surprise told me whoever it was hadn't expected that. Dropping my leather briefcase to the floor, I raise my eyes to apologise and...

Shit...it's her. The gorgeous blonde. Shit shit shit.

"Sorry...I was..." I mutter, looking back down at my feet, already feeling my face starting to heat up alarmingly. I've never been able to control my blushing, a fact that my twin sister Katie has exploited for at least 20 years. The phrase 'blushing virgin' applied to me ever since I hit puberty, only to be replaced with 'blushing bride' a year ago. Oh yeah...I'm married. To Jonah Jones, JJ to his friends and mine. Don't ask me how I ended up hitched, I'm still trying to come to terms with it myself. Katie got married a year before me, to Jake (a semi pro footballer) and since we have been biologically pre programmed to copy each other since birth (well, more me copying her actually) I followed suit. He was the only guy to ever ask me, and with my mum and sister egging me on...I sort of fell into it. Accident, I call it.

Which is pretty much what I've just done. Fallen into into a very attractive blonde (from a bottle, but blonde nonetheless) who I have been encountering literally and figuratively for a couple of weeks now.

I guess I should explain...

For the past year, I've been catching (and sometimes missing) this train into Fenchurch Street. The 7.47 from Southend Central, calling at all stations, etc, etc. I get on at Westcliff and she's already aboard. Must live in Southend I guess. I've never been brave enough to ask. So...why I am I even interested, I hear you say? Well, I might be married, and to all appearances prim and neatly buttoned up, but I have a secret life.

Not much of a secret life mind. It mainly exists inside a small wooden box in the bottom of the spare room wardrobe. It says 'Emily' on the top in pink writing. I've owned it since I was 13 and despite my sister and brother trying just about everything known to man to open it, it's stayed private. Which is very much just as well. Coz it contains something which would probably give my mother a heart attack and my husband (who luckily, is the least inquisitive person I have ever met) grounds for instant divorce.

Fannies.

Well, I say fannies. Nowadays it's a bit tamer... more mainstream DVD's and books really. Books by Sarah Waters or Fiona Zedde and DVD's of a certain similar...genre. 'Tipping the Velvet...'Loving Annabelle'...'The Fingersmith'...a box set of 'Lip Service'...get the picture?

In the past, in my feverish hormone strewn teenage years, while I was fighting off Katie's attempts to fix me up with random spotty youths (most with BO and wandering, clumsy hands) I had more, ahem, explicit reading material in there. A bit less subtlety and a lot more boobs and multiple orgasms. Lately I've contented myself with more restrained fare. JJ, bless him, has no idea, at least I bloody hope not. He's happy with a once a week desultory missionary shag and the occasional cuddle on the couch. His job with the MOD is so demanding, he's never normally in till I'm in bed anyhow, so we rub along (stop it) quite well. He thinks my sex drive is as low as his, I comfort myself with my DVD's, carefully counted in and out of my box, and a post bath...err rub?

Anyway, I digress...another 'Emily' trait I can't seem to shift. My immediate problem is standing in front of me, coffee dripping down her hand and onto her expensive shoes. Her face is a picture, but then I guess mine is too. I'm embarrassed beyond belief. We've spoken maybe three times since I dropped into the seat opposite her one rainy morning. She looked up as I sat heavily on the only vacant seat, rolled her eyes at my slightly disheveled appearance and dipped her head down to carry on reading her book. A book which I knew very well...'Waiting in the Wings' by Melissa Brayden. She was reading a lesbian romance...in clear view...on the fucking train! There was about as much chance of me becoming Prime Minister than settling down to a lesbian book in public. I stared stupidly at the cover of the book as she studied it. Finally, after a few minutes, she must have realised I was sitting there with my mouth open, like a mong and lowered the paperback.

"Can I help you?" she said, with a sarcastic bite to her voice. My mouth closed with a snap and I instantly blushed scarlet (of course) and shook my head. Could she help me? Not likely...

"Sorry" I muttered stupidly and her face softened a bit. God she was...is...stunning, I thought. Her shoulder length blonde hair in soft curves around her face, her eyes bright...almost luminous blue, with those dark edges to the iris's which made them even more striking. I stared at her eyes for another second, then her full pink lips, then without conscious thought, my own treacherous eyes started to dip lower...

"I can let you have it after I've finished" she said silkily, fluttering the book so I could see she was over half way through. I blushed harder and shook my head again.

"I've err...read it...it's good" I said slowly, instantly cursing myself for blurting that out. Her eyes widened and her mouth curved into a small smile.

"Oh..." she said "interesting..."

Then she raised the book again and started to read, dismissing me.

That was the first time we spoke.

From then on, she was always in that seat, and I made myself less than popular with my fellow Westcliff commuters by elbowing my way through the jostling mass so that I could at least be in the same row of seats, every morning.

And every morning she would look up and smile as I 'accidentally' found a seat near her. Not a big, "Hi You" smile...just a little, sneaky one which said "I know what you're doing missy"

Trouble is, thats all that happened. We sat opposite each other, her reading me sneaking looks at her from behind my Metro (which I would have been unable to tell anyone, under torture, a single word of by the time the train arrived in London)

And now...to add insult to considerable injury...I had just knocked a cup of Costa over her knuckles. The train was over full today and instead of finding her seated, she was standing just inside the door...dripping.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but closed it again. She didn't look pleased. Just a raise of those impeccably manicured eyebrows and her head turned away. Mortified? You betcha. The rest of the journey was painful. I avoided looking at her and she behaved as if I was invisible. Cosmic, I thought. That's fucked THAT up royally.