The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name – Subway Love

I admit it; everyday on the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Subway Trains…I fall in love. It’s not hard to do. Whoever you are and whatever your type, they’re all there, on the subway! Every race, hundreds of countries, dozens of languages, all their within inches of your own beating heart!

Every morning and evening, I board two trains. The shiny and clean “L” which takes me crosstown on 14th Street, and the dirty and dingy, “F” or “V” (whichever comes first) that carries me uptown or downtown.

I was thinking the other day, when wedged almost comically like sardines, tin can and all, that the “train” (as real NYers call it), is a real playground for those who may want to cop-a-feel. Sometimes you are just so close, you have some stranger pressed up against you in a way that would in almost any other situation (that wasn’t carnal), be horrendously inappropriate, and would certainly produce lawsuits in some companies. I’ve had people pushed up against my butt, back, arms, etc. I try to keep my breasts somewhat shielded by a defensive arm if I can. Smells of perfume, bad cologne (why is it always bad? Good cologne is seductive, bad cologne is offensive), hair products, and general unwashed bodies are front and center to your olfactory nodes.

But I’ve come to realize that though my stomach may turn at the unwanted intimacy around me, sometimes I too take advantage of it. Just the other day, I found myself pressed up against a hottie of a guy, in his dark grey wool coat, book in hand (I love ‘em when they can read!). My face was just an inch from his strong, manly shoulder and I suddenly had this irresistible urge to lean over and press my forehead there against it. This split-second archaic mentality where you are being shielded from all the world’s troubles by a man’s comforting, expansive chest. As the train violently pushes me to-and-fro, I find myself not resisting the imbalance quite so strenuously. So what if I bump into his shoulder? Eegads! Isn’t this the same mentality others use to accidentally caress my butt during each jolt on the tracks? I am a sleazeball fondler. Just another person trying to steal some desperately-wanted closeness from a stranger on a subway.