The order of things

He hasn’t become the man I imagined, but it’s unmistakably him. With his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets he steps through the train doors and strides to a seat by the window. He still lifts his feet a little too high off the ground, before planting them firmly almost a metre ahead. I always found that charming; it’s as if he’s not sure how to handle that big body that he doesn’t quite fit. 

His face is older, but the boyish swagger is still in evidence. His profile is the dream of many an actor: broad jaw, Roman nose with a tiny dimple at the tip, grey-blue eyes framed by black lashes. He won’t be quick to notice me. He’s always been one of those people who are barely aware of their surroundings. Unlike me. I’m the nervous type. Since he got in, my fingertips have been drumming on the table, faster and faster. The irritated glance of the man opposite forbids me a blissful unconsciousness of my own body. I shut my eyes. The conductress’s whistle instantly catapults me back in time. 

The summer of 1986 seemed endless. The languid days of August threaded together seamlessly. How many kilometres must we have covered together? He on his gleaming blue Peugeot bicycle, I on my mother’s Batavus. The bulb fields slipped slowly past, sliced by wet ditches that created a regular rhythm as we pedalled. Before long, with a flourish, he hung his sweaty shirt over his handlebars. We let the wind blow everything out of our heads, careened past mothers wheeling prams and laughed loudly at the little squeals they made. Boys, we were.  

When after hours of pedalling we felt exhausted and hungry, we threw our bicycles down in the grass and plopped down beside them. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the constellations in the birthmarks on his back. The Great Bear. Orion. Cassiopeia. On a day when I suddenly possessed a bravado unknown to me, I lifted my hand and carefully traced them with my finger. That same hand had touched him before, of course, but only the way boys of sixteen do. A teasing prod. An awkward slap on the back. 

He went on chewing, unperturbed, as if this was the natural course of the order of things. His skin was milky white, despite so much shirtless cycling. Sweat pearled in his armpit hair. The scent of it was mixed with that of the lavender soap his mother made. I briefly had to suppress an urge to push my nose into his armpit. He turned on his back and looked at me. His left eyebrow was slightly raised, a little smile played around the corner of his mouth. Eyes like clockwork; I could never quite make out how the cogs clicked together. He looked amused, as if giving his approval of my unexpected resolve. As if he’d been waiting for it, perhaps. 

Encouraged by that look I carried on drawing, now on the freckle landscape of his chest. I knew he detested those freckles, but I was glad there was no end to them. While my finger made a slow journey across his chest, I felt his goosebumps rising. His new chest hair tickled my palm. All that time he lay calmly looking at me. Suddenly he straightened up and planted his lips on mine. The teeth that so often parted to smile at me gently bit my lower lip. His tongue slid softly between my lips. Together we were one body. I wanted to drown in everything that he was. To be lost in his captivity. My trousers began to pull at the crotch. That startled me and I leapt up. As if nothing and at the same time everything had happened, we jumped onto our bikes again. Onwards, onwards.  

Nothing and everything was different after that day. We still ploughed across many kilometres of landscape, but I avoided his gaze from then on. Our friendship petered out when we left for university, the way that tends to go. 

‘Tickets, please.’ The conductress taps me on the shoulder. In a flash I’m back, sitting in the train. In the window reflection I see that look again. The crow’s feet make his gaze even more circumspect. He’s just one four-person seat away from me. Our meeting is unavoidable. It’s only a matter of time before one of us stands up to get out and passes the other. My passive nature makes my body want to merge with the leather of the seat. But I know, I must. For the second time in my life I make an effort to arouse that bravado, to detach my body from the leather, to abandon myself to the order of things. 

This story is written by a finalist of Het Rode Oor 2020. Het Rode Oor (The Red Ear) is the annual erotic writing contest in the Low Countries, curated by the Flemish-Dutch House deBuren in collaboration with Company New Heroes, Hard//hoofd, ILFU and the Writer’s Guide (to the Galaxy). This story is translated by Liz Waters.