Sometimes we are on the same train. I have a ’subject-to-last-minute-change’ schedule. Maybe so does she. Is she a student? Or a working professional?
She dresses like a teenager would, if she had the acquired sense of style that someone at least a decade older would have. Her face is cold, impassive, seemingly indifferent to the world around her. Or perhaps, she’s just sleepy. And yet, her eyes are never ringed with dark circles.
She holds herself with the confidence of a woman in her late twenties at least. But her head is thrown back, like that of a very young child-girl. A mixture of pride…
Look how pretty I am!
and wonder
Oh, what a wonderful world!
And yet, her eyes stay lifeless. She holds my attention every time I see her.
She reminds me of a fresh peach. Clean, wholesome and full. A ripe peach is a delight for all the senses…the eyes, the nose, the skin and the tongue. The slight downy hair on her arms tells me that she’s either very young and uninitiated into the horrors of waxing or so cool that she doesn’t give a damn. Somehow she doesn’t seem to be intelligent or fire-blooded enough to be the latter and yet she doesn’t look quite that young either. Either way, it suits her. It makes her look a little less waxen and brings to her body the kind of vigorous life that I don’t see in her eyes.
I wonder idly at why I’m staring at another woman. Is she that beautiful? No, she isn’t. Striking would probably describe her better. She’s quite tall, taller than I am, which might be why I noticed her. But no, the first time I saw her, she was sitting on the edge of the three-seater, eyes downcast, her sharp bangs falling into the middle of her forehead, which she flicked back with a disconcerted toss.
Her lips might have been full if her mouth hadn’t been. Oh, how funny that sounds! What I mean is that she even has the look of a ripe peach, that looks like it will burst out of its skin any moment if you don’t take a bite.
She has a strong, well-proportioned body that might have been called androgynous if she didn’t have those curves. It adds to her mystique. She has a woman’s body, perfectly rounded, but she carries it like a man would, not weighed down by the fleshy curves like some women are.
I wonder sometimes what she sounds like, what she does all day, what her life must be like. But I realise I’m just following my compulsion to see people as human beings and not just bodies. In her case, I don’t care. She’s perfect and complete in my eyes and that is all she needs to be, to me. I don’t have any desire to know anything more of her than what I see. The perfect peach that shouldn’t turn into a human being with messy feelings and imperfect actions. I’m even glad that I get off the train before she does. That way I don’t even have room to speculate on what she does for a living.
I briefly speculate on whether these are my semi-lesbian fantasies. Its possible. I usually display this degree of interest in men I’m attracted to. Sometimes I do think of them in terms of food. But where the men have been strong, finely created flavours…..chocolate, wine, coffee, tequila….this is the first time I’ve thought of someone as a fruit. On retrospect, a woman wouldn’t feel like anything that’s been processed or cooked. She would have to be something basic, something right out of the earth…a fruit is all.
And perhaps the fact that I don’t stongly associate my identity with my gender makes it possible for me to fit just as easily into a man’s tastes. When I told Sensorcaine about this, she said, “Well, not lesbian, bisexual perhaps. Just think, instead of 3 billion, you have a choice of 6 billion human beings now!”
That’s a thought now. But beyond my intellectualisation I find if I get to thinking of making love to a woman, the idea loses its appeal altogether. I’m content with admiring my peach-woman.
