On the train.
In the daytime, the outside world offers itself as entertainment. Always something new to be seen. Some subtle thing about a place that I missed before.
This is my morning leg.
But what of the night? In the dark, the outside view is gone: obliterated by the bright light in the carriage and the reflections it casts on the windows. What to look at here?
Nature abhors a vacuum, though. So too does our mind. Denied the wide vistas to engage itself, our mind collects more detail from what it has to engage with. We can examine our fellow passengers in more detail now. Furtively, of course, with all the decorum that the social harmony of the car requires. What do a person’s shoes say about them? Their jewelry, or luggage? How do they choose to present themselves to the world, and what telltale signals of their inner self have slipped through?
The seating is the booth type on my train. Like restaurant booths without tables; two person sofas facing each other. When I get to the train early enough, I can get into a booth first. Then, later passengers will tend to avoid sitting in my booth until there is no other choice (they are still skittish about gaijin up here in the countryside). Even then, usually only one will sit; always on the opposite couch, and not directly opposite. Plenty of leg and elbow room still.
Like I said before: in the boondocks here. We are not overcrowded.
On the night leg, the window reflections become mirrors with which to watch fellow passengers. More opportunities present themselves this way. This can be both entertaining and titillating. Here in rural Tohoku, there are not that many gaijin around. And in this country, bedding a white person is still pretty high up on many people’s bucket list. This, along with me being something of a sexy bitch, makes me popular with the racial fetishizing crowd over here (yes, that goes both ways; and you won’t catch me complaining about it). Not bragging; it just is what it is.
As demure as they might seem, Japanese women do find ways to let their interest be known. Surgeons with the coy glances, they are. A nice hour of languid eye fucking, I have found, is a lovely way to end the public portion of my day. Harmless fun.
Not an everyday occurrence, certainly, but frequent enough to be a feature.
I do so love my commute.
Muse Vassal 