On the bus (short story)

The engine revved and the whole vehicle vibrated to life. It jerked slightly then began to move on the bumpy dirt road, dancing gingerly on its squeaking wheels like a dancer counting her steps, waiting for the drummer to proceed with the beating of the drum.
As it swallowed the last patch of the dirt road onto the tarred neighbour, it gathered speed and sped off. The noise of the engine buzzed, mingled with the cacophony of voices and became a steady humming din that floated in the wake of the vehicle’s speed.
I sat on the second row, by the window, directly behind the driver. The being sitting next me, of feminine make, was bare to the chest. And the moulds on her were almost popping out from the lazy grip of her dress. The helm of the skimpy outfit scarcely reached her knees and barely was the fleshy tanned skin of her thighs covered.
Now she gathered the almost nonexistent folds of her dress into the space between her wide-apart legs. Her hand bag secured mass. In this manner, the thigh of her left leg pressed itself freely against my right thigh. The flesh felt plum but it didn’t feel electrifying or sensational. Yet the manner in which it was let wore an intentionality that knew what it was doing.
When the bus was negotiating a bend, there was a weighty leaning of her side on mine without any slight and pressed me she did against the window without any realization of inappropriation. It was like a gentle sway of breeze that blew her side to my side and pinned our sides together until the negotiation was over.
She strengthened herself on her portion of the seat, maneuvered her legs out of her nude plumb shoes, brought them together and tried to stretch them. The attempted effort didn’t yield any comfort. But she found another way. She put the legs diagonally across almost in my front on the raised part of the bus behind the front seats, to give a preferable position. Her bare feet were a cosmetic display of manicured nails. She seemed comfortable and she relaxed, at least, that part of her body. Her movement was mechanical as it was desperately indifferent to the resulting meeting or pressing or rubbing of parts of her body on mine.
Now she was talking, answering a phone call, her voice which rose above every other chitchat in the bus, was a nagging pitch in my ears. She laughed heartily at something the person on the other side had said. It was a long drawn chuckling that lasted longer than it came. It resulted in her throwing her head back to fully relish and digest the leisure of the laughter. The sound banging against my eardrums, felt like the rubbing of rough objects against each other.
Her left hand which was free, tried to rest itself across the back rest, but it stopped shut on a certain instinctual realization that it was my shoulder. I didn’t react to any feeling of being touched either. At the risk of seeming like I suffer from congenital insensitivity, I saved her the embarrassment from my knowing by pretending not to have noticed.
“Bros, no vex say I dey disturb you oo.” This one must have caught my attention. I acknowledged that there was no problem by turning around to behold her face, but she was turning away too. The hair hung down her nape overlooking the exposed skin of her shoulder. Her painted red lips were an eternally slightly-parted-pair that exposed two upper teeth. They had relieved the sound of her utterance but it was those large eyes, yes, those penetrating balls that filled their sockets with subtle ecstasy and dared you with an audacious coquetry, which did the talking. Her straight face wore an innocence that didn’t betray the blatant coquettishness. Or did it? The tiny silvery object which was stuck in the opening of her earlobe glinted at me in the brightness as if it heard my thoughts.
The bus eased to a stop. The legs were flung away to find their shoes with a somewhat careless abandon. As she positioned them into the pair, her index fingers helped to ease the ensuring struggle while the flesh of her thigh shot me a one last naked stare since the dress had fallen back away from their make shift position of covering them.
I looked out of the window, waiting impatiently for this busy body lady, or should I say this lady busy with body, to be done.
The bell from the church tolled the hour. I shouldn’t be late again for mass. Not today and not because of this lady busy with body.
THE END
Note: The above story has appeared on the Kalahari Review as ‘In the Bus’.
Thank you for reading.