The Lady on the Train

She was beautiful. The way she moved uneasily with each cruel shock; the way she fidgeted with her bangles; the way she turned once in a while showing her bare nape.

My wife had warned this was going to be a long train journey. And she had prepared for it with a sleepless night. And I did not even realize when she fell asleep right beside me. But she was very much there… her presence showing up like a barbed wire between me and my adulterous thoughts.

“What am I doing?” I reprimanded myself, “I’m married for a year now and very happy with my wife. The thought of another woman would only mean cheating on her.” But this one looked so divine, so close.

I envied the book she held- that took up so much of her concentration; that gave out a soft moan with each caressing touch of her soft fingers as she turned the pages…

I was pulled off my train of thoughts with a cruel yawn of my wife. It was as if she knew each and every of my fantasies. I felt guilty again. But a brief move as she sided a strand of hair off her face ignited my volatile guilt into the fire of fantasy as I kept staring on an on…

Delhi came as a rude jerk. The people of the whole compartment started filing out. But she kept staring out of the window looking for someone- maybe her husband. I felt an inexplicable pang of jealousy. Her bare nape was still showing. As I and my wife were moving out she suddenly sat upright, her body barely an in inch from my arm. “Should I or shouldn’t I?” It was a moment of moral dilemma and then it all dissolved into a milky mix as I jerked my hand and brushed against her neck.

“What brings on that broad smile?” My dreary eyed wife asked on the platform.

“I just cheated on you!” Despite of her raised eyebrows I knew she would never believe that. “Now look after the luggage else it gets stolen”

I still could not stop smiling.