"Nice and neat upon her seat, with sensible shoes upon her feet..." Thus went the chant inside Gavin's head. His inner voice played out this rhyme nearly every day as he watched the woman now seated diagonally across from him. Every day that he chose to ride the bus home from campus he'd enter an almost filled bus. There was always only one vacant seat; the frontmost seat nearest the door. Most people avoided it because whoever sat there would feel the full force of the heat or cold (seasonally dependent) as the doors opened and closed at each stop. Gavin didn't mind, his felt that that option was better than the alternative of walking the several miles from campus all the way back to his apartment.
"Silent reader on the bus, she dare not make a single fuss..." The rhyme continued. This woman seated across from him was named Brigitte. Or at least that what he assumed her name to be based on the large leather bookmark she used to mark her reading pauses. The bookmark looked as if it was originally part of a wide leather strap and the name seemed to be branded or other wise burned into the flesh of the leather. In all, it seemed far more animalistic than every other thing about this woman. Gavin would have probably called her Plain Jane had he not seen the bookmark. The branded leather was pretty much the only interesting thing about her. Well...almost.
The thing that interested Gavin the most was... 'the smile.' See everyday she would exit the bus one stop before Gavin's stop and every day she would slide her hand down the safety rail whilst exiting the bus. And everyday she'd allow her hand to slide ever so slowly across Gavin's hand, which he'd leave there purely for this act of contact. And every day when this happened she'd look at him and smile.
There was something about this smile that made Gavin's head twitch on the inside. As if he were getting a subliminal message but in a language he didn't really speak but had studied once in elementary school. He almost knew the message, but couldn't decipher it completely.
Everyday he'd watcher her exit the bus and smile and as the bus pulled away, he'd yell at himself for not following her off the bus. Every day...except for today. Today when she brushed his hand and smiled, he made his decision. Just as the bus was about to pull away he stood and asked Rufus, the driver, to stop. He got off just in time to see her round a corner. He followed; not particularly hiding, but not being obvious either. Just following. Or as he'd heard in a movie once, he was going to "fly casual."
The movement of her walk showed Gavin that there was some spark to her. She moved as if she knew every inch of her body and while it was very well covered, he began for the first time to wonder what it would look like...uncovered.
Another corner rounded. Her large bag of books and other sundries was strapped onto her shoulder and hanging beneath her right arm.
Another corner rounded. Even though he was not terribly far from the streets where he had exited the bus, Gavin's focus had been so upon the woman that, were he to break his trance, he'd be utterly lost as to where he was now.
Another corner rounded. Also out of the sight of his conscious mind was the realization that the number of people he was passing now was at a minimum. Were he awake he'd have noticed that he'd at some point entered a sub-level of an apartment building and was now in a hallway.
Up ahead of him she stopped at a door and unlocked it. All the while never looking back...all the while never seemingly concerned about being followed. She entered and Gavin waited for the sound of the door to close so that he could move ahead. He wasn't sure what he would glean from a closed door, but he was well beyond turning back now.
After a moment he realized that the door wasn't going to close; that it had been purposefully left open. Did she know he was following her? Was this a sign? He moved towards the open door. Carefully...he began to actually 'sneak' towards the doorway.
And there he was finally standing before the open portal. He gave a big sigh and stepped into the open apartment. Immediately he was stunned. The walls were a kaleidoscope of tapestries, dyed cloths and beaded partitions. He couldn't be sure but he felt they were Asian in some way. Maybe Indian...he didn't know. The room seemed to undulate and was, however, very inviting. He was palatably less nervous. And that smell...something smelled definitively "womanly" feminine, but not girly at all. It was a scent that exuded knowledge and wisdom and sensuality. Gavin caught himself momentarily wishing he could bathe in a pool of whatever he was smelling and then curl up under a blanket of the same.