In the Tube

It's hard to believe it now, but do you realise that when I first started working the occasional day in the centre of London I used to actively avoid the always-crowded underground trains during rush hour? In fact, I used to try my hardest to avoid travelling at all during those morning and evening sardine-tin journey times.

That changed back in the summer, though, and in a way that, like a lottery win on a ticket you had forgotten you bought, was most unexpected and most welcome.

I'm Maria, by the way, and I hasten to add that I am in every sense a normal, average, not very adventurous young (more or less -- thirty) woman, with a busy career and a fairly typical London home life (single and glad of the freedom). I'm slender (a more polite way of saying fairly skinny), with ratty, untameable dark hair, a not-unpleasant face with big brown eyes and a big smile, and the only feature I have that is in any way non-average is my height which is two inches shy of six foot but which makes me look taller. Or perhaps that's a product of my penchant for heels?

Anyway, none of that is relevant to my recollections of the days last summer when my travel horizons were broadened. Except possibly my height, come to think of it.

As I have already said, I tried my hardest to avoid having to travel into the centre of the City at peak times even on those days when I had to visit the central offices. The trip, when I do make it, involves one long underground schlep from the east of the city all the way across town to a stop just a minute's walk from the head office building in the west end -- a journey that lasts anything from twenty-two minutes to thirty-something.

Anyone that has ever travelled on the capital's tube trains knows that they can get mightily over-full in the centre of town with tourists and back-packers adding their not-inconsiderable weight to the regular local commuters, but what a lot of visitors and locals alike don't realise is just how crammed the beaten-up carriages get during the morning and evening crush when office workers pile onto the trains. You see people quite literally squeezing themselves into carriages that are already over-full to the point of potential crush injury. You can see, from the platform -- again, quite literally -- faces pressed up tight against the inside of carriage doors, and to the uninitiated there is a scary quality to the prospect of trying to join such a throng. Trust me, it really can be close to panic-inducing. Or at least, in my case that's how it used to be.

The one benefit of my journey, where I had no choice but to make it, is that at either end of the trip -- in other words whether it were morning of evening rush hour I was facing -- I was always boarding the train before the real crush had started. The stations I use at either end of the journey are just that couple of stops outside of the busiest zones, but unfortunately not so far outside that there was ever a holy grail available -- sorry, I mean seat. Standing was the order of the day and knowing the journey so well, I always took up position as far away from the doors that would be opening in order to admit the hordes as was possible.

Such was the case on the first of the days in question, and early evening commute back from the west end to the sanctuary of my apartment in the east end. Or at least, the wine bar three doors down from there.

I took up my position as a strap-hanger by the doors on the side of the carriage that would be remaining closed while the train stopped at the seventeen stations on my journey, and started to occupy my time with thoughts of the menu I would be preparing at the weekend when two of my old school-friends were due to visit. I was wondering where the heck I could get hold of some fresh lemon grass -- more of a problem than you might imagine living so close to Brick Lane -- when the train rolled into the first of the seventeen stops and I singularly failed to notice a larger-than-usual crowd of fellow commuters board.

It wasn't until the third stop -- wild rice -- when I began to realise that the evening's journey was going to be one of the more crowded ones. Where 'more', of course, is a very high number multiplied by 'n' for any given value of 'more'. In less scientific terms, it was going to be fucking crammed. A tall guy in a crumpled suit was already starting to crowd me from in front, to the point where an equally tall guy in an equally rumpled suit was edging backwards behind me, despite the fact that he was already pretty much pressed up against the unyielding doors behind him.

At the fourth stop -- although I could no longer see past the throng and through the opening doors and on to the platform -- the barely stifled groans of the current occupants indicated that there was a sizeable crowd wanting to board. A few seconds later, amid much forced politeness and totally unforced swearing, everyone already on board the train was pressed back even further. The doors wheezed closed and the train began to lurch into the darkness of the next tunnel where the underground system's embarrassment could be hidden from public view.

It was just as we entered the tunnel when I realised the guy behind me was trying to edge sideways. When I shook my head clear of all thoughts of Vietnamese cuisine, I also realised why. He was now pressed rather tightly up against me. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, my butt was level with -- and highly adjacent to -- the front of his suit trousers. His edging was to no avail though, as we were effectively pinned into the corner of the alcove where the doors were situated between the ranks of precious, unobtainable seats.

Despite his alarming proximity, I felt a bit sorry for the guy -- after all, he was trying to be polite in a situation that was, by its very nature, forcing an intimacy on the strangers trapped in its circumstance. When he leaned close to my ear and muttered 'sorry', that confirmed to me that he was one of the good guys -- anyone who's polite in London, especially during rush hour, is a good guy. I gave a little shrug and whispered back 'not to worry -- honestly', knowing that he couldn't see my face so hoping instead that my words would convince him.

The fifth stop on the journey was relatively neutral in terms of numbers boarding and leaving, but tipped to the side of 'increased numbers' and the crush intensified very slightly. Very slightly, though, was all it took to press me even closer to the polite stranger behind me. When the train began to sway its way through the next tunnel I felt the guy try to ease himself through the metal of the door behind him and it took me a moment or two to realise why he was trying to be just so very polite.

Every jolt and sway of the carriage seemed to emphasise that his maleness (to be euphemistic) was pressed tightly against my butt.

He'd been so polite, the poor man -- that was my first thought, I promise you, and I turned my head sideways, trying to make sure he understood that the 'don't worry' I whispered was meant for him. When he still tried to squeeze his molecules through the door behind him, I emphasised my acceptance of the situation the only way I knew how -- I leaned back more deliberately, saying 'please, it's fine' over my other shoulder.

Even as the words left my lips and I realised the full extent of the contact, my mind did a little flip. It informed me with -- or so it seemed -- a sly smile that I was pressed very firmly against a guy who had never even seen my face properly and I had just told him that it was perfectly fine for him to be pressed up against me like that... I also realised why he had been so desperate to get away through the closed doors that last time -- there was no escaping the fact (in any sense) that he was starting to become just a little firm in the trouser department. My heart skipped in time with my mind.

With absolutely no conscious thought whatsoever -- I mean it -- I flexed the muscles in my butt, pressing backwards at the same time.

There was the longest pause while my brain tried to catch up with what was occurring -- registering my increased heart rate, my heightened galvanic skin response, and -- I couldn't deny it -- the first tingling sensations in the very centre of me. Another euphemism -- I mean my pussy. When the guy finally stopped trying to climb through solid metal and his body relaxed, the response was immediate and unequivocal. I swear I could feel him getting harder and harder.

I glanced all around. My height was so useful just then -- in more ways than one -- and I could tell that no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to the two commuters crushed into the little space in the corner by the closed doors. Not even the guy in front of me who was an unwitting assistant. My mind flashed up a warning sign and then, with a puzzled frown, it switched it off again -- even in the midst of all of these people, no one knew what was happening. And in any case, what more could happen with all these people around? This was the ultimate in safe experiences... I took a shaky breath and pressed my butt back again, a slower and more obvious movement as I let it continue regardless of the swaying of the carriage.

There was absolute silence and stillness behind me until finally the guy gave the most tentative of thrusts back at me. I knew then that he was starting to get the message -- and come to that, I started to get the message myself. I responded with more pressure.

For a frightening moment or three when he twisted quite hard to his right I thought that I had completely misread things and that he was about to start yelling that he was trapped by a totally freaky, perverted woman. But then he twisted back and I realised what he had probably risked dislocation to do -- the hardness I had felt before was now no less hard, but it was now upright in his suit. Or more to the point (so to speak) it was now upright and pressed firmly against my right butt cheek.

I've always been generous when it comes to pleasure in others. Seriously. I love to generate excitement and joy. It gives me the biggest thrill -- which kind of negates the generosity a bit, I suppose, but who loses out? No one.

All of which is my excuse for suddenly wanting to give this guy the most delightful -- and delightfully naughty -- few minutes. I would say 'the ride of his life' but that could get confusing. Right there among all the other commuters. Without conscious effort (again), I found myself wanting to arouse him to heights that the tube network -- the train system, I mean -- had very, very seldom witnessed. I pressed back again, this time with the slightest hint of hip rotation.

The time -- okay, times -- before, the guy had been hesitant to respond, not daring to believe his luck, I suppose. This time, though, he had clearly got the message. Or at least, he had become desperate enough to respond. Whichever it was, I really didn't care. His groin was thrust forward with almost rabid intensity and when my only response was to press backwards ever firmer it too just a few more seconds before he was unashamedly and very obviously grinding against my butt. I met every thrust and grind with my own subtle reciprocations.

We barely slowed even at the next three station stops and when the guy managed to place one hand -- the most hidden one -- on my right hip, gripping firmly, I bucked ever harder against him.

Somewhere between stops ten and eleven the guy's pace started to increase and my own reaction was extremely moist. When I realised a couple more minutes were all it might take to make this total stranger climax, the surge of my own arousal was giddying. I knew that I could -- at a push -- climax fairly quietly, but there was the, er, rub -- fairly quietly. The sudden thought I had of myself climaxing in the middle of a packed train did nothing to calm my pounding heart and nor did it make such a climax any the less likely. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As the guy started to grind so hard that he was almost pushing me off my feet I began to feel the first stirring of climax inside me -- and I just knew that I no longer had any choice, no matter how much attention I might attract.

And that realisation, with all its potentially scary consequences, had me thrusting back even harder, shuddering a little now, trying to let the guy know that it wasn't just him that was close.

I have no idea if he read my mind or if the shudders that were now coursing through me alerted him, but in any case I felt him freeze tightly against me. And then pulse.

When I felt that singular motion -- when, in other words, I felt him cum -- I lost any control I might have pretended I had. I don't know about guys, but we women have all sorts of different types of orgasm, but the one that coursed through me that day was like nothing I had experienced before.

Perhaps in response to the desperately daring circumstances, in response, maybe, to the need for secrecy amid a crowded train, the most intense wave of climax crashed through my insides. I could feel my panties flood with my juices, felt the air sucked out of my lungs, felt the most focused, heightened climactic sensation ever. I felt the muscles in my belly and butt contract, shivering and I felt that pulse of the guy's orgasm replay a thousand times in a hundred seconds as the single, powerful, intense sensation sustained itself deep in my belly and brain.

We stayed locked together, trembling, for another two stops until the guy -- with a reluctance that almost made me adore him -- released my hip and leant to my ear.

'My stop next,' he muttered, 'And look I am so-'

I silenced him with a little thrust backwards, 'Just a thank you from me, nothing more, okay?'

He was about to protest until another loving thrust stopped him and I felt him nod. He slipped sideways, the train having emptied quite a lot now, and he judiciously placed his suit jacket over his arm so it hung in front of his waist. He glanced at me and I saw his face for the first time -- cute in a geeky way -- and we managed a smile that was relatively guilt-free, but with accompanying rosiness in the cheek areas. He whispered something.

'Come again?' I said with a smile controlled purely by the devil, I had heard well enough when he had whispered 'thanks', but maybe even then I was planning my next trip into the west end office.

I've got a season ticket now.