The Girl on the Bus
She looks like an angel but doesn’t behave like one.
The whole bus looked when she got on. Little old ladies stopped their gossiping, men gawked, housewives thought how their husbands would turn away from them, enthralled by the sight.
Her short skirt swayed slightly as the bus moved off. She made her way down the aisle, long legs stepping cautiously over shopping bags. Men slid across their seats, pressing themselves against cold windows, hoping to leave an enticing space on the bench next to them but she moved on.
“Is this seat taken?”
The hem of her skirt was almost level with the chrome seat back in front of me. The slender fingers of one hand, topped with scarlet nail varnish curled around the silver rail.
She slid onto the seat next to me without waiting for an answer. I could almost hear the thoughts of all of the men, a cacophony of, why him?
I stared at the backs of heads in front of me. The chatter had returned, life had returned to the mundane for all but me. At the very edge of my vision, I could see her jacket was unbuttoned and her dark blouse stretched outward, the material pressing against heavy breasts.
“Do you have a light?”
