Mating Dance
by Randall Perry
I spot you on the subway and first thing I do is take off my shirt: I want you to admire me, I want you to want me—you in your charcoal suit, carrying a brown briefcase you put on the floor and steady between shiny black leather shoes, your only pop of colour a pair of bright patterned yellow and blue socks up your shins and matching pocket square in your jacket, your trouser hems high above the ankles, the style as of last week and likely not to last, according to the magazines; I know your kind, the guys with expensive taste and no regrets and wallets fat with high-interest no-limit cards, driving Bimmers or maybe Maserati, but not you, so sensible instead, taking transit, who knows, maybe your wife has the car or your girlfriend or maybe boyfriend number three (this year), sure, that’s more likely your type, I see you handing over the keys to the Porsche, handing them to him over the sports section, that’s nice, babe, be careful not to dint the chrome this week—don’t pout, you know how that gets Daddy going in the morning and I have a meeting first thing, I can see it now, that platinum blond goodness and sweet, sweet smile but not quite bright enough to keep the volume down beside the pool, the neighbours looking through the hole in the fence to find out where that shitty music is coming from, whispering to each other, oh, he’s got a new one on the go, but such a good, dependable boyfriend (number three, this year), and I see you look up from your paper at me, my shirt off and my bright laser whitened teeth and my sculpted six-pack on display, you looking up at me and I come closer and hang off the steel grab bar and run my hand over my chest, just a little bit, gyrating my hips, keeping time to the bump and shove rhythm of the subway car, locking my eyes to your gaze and I see a small drop of sweat at your temple and I want to lean down and lick it off—I want to taste you, to taste your salt, your essence—while you open and close your legs ever so slightly, showing me what’s at the vee where your legs become your inner thighs, and I fasten my eyes to the trouser material thinking about what’s waiting for me beyond the expensive threads and now my forehead is perspiring (goddamn it the air conditioning never works when it’s needed!) and it’s trickling slowly down the bridge of my nose, like what happened when all those housewives started reading dirty novels on the bus, something in that 50 Shades series—poor things, their husbands not taking care of their needs, not like how I would satisfy your smallest (or biggest) whim—that one I saw one day, the bead of moisture forming between her eyebrows and wandering down her nose, past her eyes, pupils dilated wide, mouthing quietly the words on the page, wetting one finger with her tongue and turning page after page after page, shifting around on the bus seat, flustered, the text working up her fantasies of being tied up, never mind being tied down, now that’s what I’d do to you, up against a pole with your wrists bound behind your back, barefoot in your suit, and have my way with you from toes to temples, or flip the scene, you pushing me into an empty operator’s cab and locking the door, whispering, Next stop, pleasure station, no need to stop, it’s time to get off, sure, or even right here on the seat in front of the entire train, our bodies cooking on the crummy fabric, adding another stain or two, nobody’s looking, or everybody’s looking, it doesn’t matter, and I wipe my face and torso with my shirt and adjust my business in the front of my tight jeans, the place where the denim is worn down just right so you can see as I move closer, pivot on my heels and jump on the seat next to you and drop my arms to the floor and it’s time for push-ups, so you can see how it would be, my muscular back, if you took me from behind, one, two, three, up and down, up, I want you to see me from all angles, down, four, five, an extra push high to clap, six, seven, eight, my arms aching and burning from the effort, and I roll away and prop myself up on one elbow, boyfriend number four (this year), with better taste in music and more careful with the Aston-Martin, a sly grin on my face in your direction, running one finger discreetly along the leather of one shoe, straying upward to the bump of an ankle bone, watching for your hand to reach and adjust down there to make more room for your growing interest, the automated announcer declaring, Arriving at terminal station, and you reach for your briefcase and you rise, you drop the newspaper on my face, you disappear out the door, off the train, the door closes and the train is out of service and yes, I saw it, I saw the wink and I saw your desire just before your sunglasses covered your eyes, the arousal in your trousers as you stepped over me, you know full well how you stopped me in my tracks and I lie on the floor, the train guard trying to get my attention over the speaker, Sir, excuse me sir, the train is out of service, please exit the train, and I lie there and clutch the newspaper close, inhaling, searching for your scent, the raw sex energy your body gave off I know it’s here, somewhere, trapped in the crumpled pages between the business section and the classifieds.
Randall Perry is a writer and editor living in Toronto, Ontario. His fiction has appeared in Islandside magazine and in the anthology, Fear from a Small Place. His non-fiction essays, columns, and reviews have appeared in Wayves, The ARC Quarterly, Outlooks, and fab. He is @randall_perry on Instagram and the416er@gmail.com on email.