2.37, I fidgeted in my seat, more awake now than I was an hour ago and I was awake enough then. The seat seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and the one in front of me getting closer and closer. My joints ached with tiredness, my body cried out for sleep but my brain was wide-awake.
The bus rattled along a near deserted German autobahn, snowflakes hung
in their air and the roadside temperature gauge said minus 11. The bus was
almost completely dark and the murmur of contented sleep mixed with the
occasional grunt and the odd snore. It seemed the only one not sleeping was me.
To make
matters worse the girl next to me was curled up in her seat like a cat in front
of a fire. How she had managed to contort her body into the angles she had was
beyond me, but she slept contentedly as if she was in her own bed.
I closed my eyes again willing my brain to shut off
and sleep to kick in, surely the motion could rock me to sleep. But no,
nothing, I just couldn’t get into the zone. An itchy foot, a sudden snore from
behind me, a flash of light from a passing car anything that could disturb
would disturb. It was a lost cause.
The stranger next to me stirred a little, a small
sleepy fidget before going back off to sleep, almost purring as she did. To my
horror I felt something on my arm, the cat girl had managed to curl so that she
was now using my arm as a pillow.
This was my worst nightmare, if sleep had been
elusive before it was now nigh on impossible. It is times like these I become
terribly British, terribly awkward at intimate contact with a complete stranger
while being far too polite to wake her up to move her. I stared wide-eyed at
the back of the seat in front of me, staying as still as possible so I didn’t
disturb the beautiful young woman on my left. But things were about to get
worse. Firstly I was suddenly aware that I needed to go to the toilet. Not
desperately, not yet, but the discomfort was there and now the brain would take
over and turn a little urge into a desperate need. To my great relief the girl
stirred again, she murmured something surely she’d contorted herself away from
me, but no that was not in her plan. Instead she grabbed at my arm with both
hands and cwtched into it like a five year old clutching a teddy bear.
I was now praying for her to wake up, or even better
for the coach to skid on black ice and roll down an embankment, surely a grisly
death would be better than this slow death dying from embarrassment. What would
I do when she woke up? What would I say? What would she say? I could feel my
face burning red, sweat was beginning to form on my brow. How was it that I
couldn’t sleep but was still having a nightmare?
I don’t know how long we remained like that, her
cuddling up to me while I sat stock still like a showroom dummy with a bladder
problem but eventually I could feel the coach slowing down, we were pulling in
for a much needed comfort break. As the bus ground to a halt and the driver
turned the light on the sleeping girl began to rouse, she opened her eyes and
looked up at me. She smiled showing perfect teeth to go with her perfect skin,
a small blush came across her face, ‘Sorry’ she said in a tiny voice thick with
sleep.
‘That’s perfectly alright.’ I said already out of
my seat and heading off the bus for a much needed slash and cigarette, my
ordeal was over but I knew I had to face her again when we got back on the
bus.
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