She is lost in the crowd.

In the crush of the morning commute she gasps for breath, reaching up to clutch at the greasy bars, body-warm, her patent handbag swinging. She is small, shoulder-height, and pressed into the moist pits of cheap pinstrips, turning her head blindly to escape the sweat and synthetic scent. All around the newspapers rustle like leaves in the fluorescent dawn and the tube rattles on, groaning and screaming against the tracks. Panicking, drowning in the sea of hobbled humanity, the air damp and fungal and heavy in the lungs, she surfaces on the crest of the wave as it breaks on the grey platform.

He waits for her in the café, tugging at the collar of his suit as he stirs his latte, the white plastic small in his fist. The shirt is too tight: his neck has thickened in the past year and it grips with a familiar pinch. He would undo the top button but he has noosed himself with a jazzy purple tie, sprinkled with silver stars. Meet under the clock at Waterloo. Under the clock. He checks his watch, checks the big face of the clock as the minute hand hangs and slices another portion of time. The café is identikit and the chair is uncomfortable, designed to deter lingerers, and he sips his coffee and pushes back his hair and shifts against the hard seat.

“You looked beautiful tonight. Really. I saw you out there, and all the men watched you and wanted to be with you.”

Last night he had sent her roses and lillies and her head spun with the heavy smell of them. She crouches on the platform to adjust the buckle on her shoe and can catch the faint trace of them, an echo caught in her hair as it falls over her face. Her shoe is bright against the grime and when she pushes her hair back she smudges grey across her forehead. Standing, dizzy, she steadies herself against the wall, pressing her head against the cool tiles. The next train is in three minutes and the platform is starting to fill, clusters of black and charcoal predicting the opening doors. She fumbles in her bag for her mirror, her sealed foil pods of painkillers. She pulls out her purse, her tissues, her book, and a crimson rose petal falls and flutters slowly to the ground.

A nightmare: she is running and running and she feels as though her lungs will burst in an explosion of gore, breaking through her ribs one by one. She is running and there are too many people, they are in her way and she pinballs between them crazily, catching their arms for support as she flees. Their faces are blank and they brush her off blankly and walk and walk and stare through her. She is awake and her heart is racing but everything is ok and she gets out of bed and brushes her teeth and then she goes to the mirror to put on her make-up and there is a man standing behind her and she knows he is grinning but he has no face.

“You’re not going out dressed like that. You want to be raped? You want men to touch you? You want them to get their grubby cocks and…”

“I hate you! I hate you.”

A door slams.

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, she’s only a child…”

The click and hiss of an opening can and the TV turned up, conversation over.

He taps his watch, habit really, the digital screen a steady glow. His mobile sits dark and silent although he checks it compulsively: no new messages. The coffee is cold and has settled into granules that he stirs absently as he scans the crowds for a familiar face. He watches as couples meet and embrace and amble off, heads close in chatter. Laughter sweeps in a stuttering mexican wave across the concourse and bursts in peels from unexpected quarters. An old man he had identified as a tramp, wrapped in mismatched layers, is met by a pretty woman who greets him with an enthusiastic “Dad!” and kisses him on the cheek. A gaggle of girls at the next table shower each other in kisses as they arrive, bright as butterflies. The clock hands are frozen in a lopsided grin and he can feel sharp beads of sweat pricking his forehead and his coffee is cold but he drinks it anyway.

In a house of mirros she stares back at herself reflected a hundred times over. She has never seen the back of her head before and she reaches up to pat at her hair, eyes wide and round as buttons. In the mirror she sees herself holding hands with a tall man and she looks up at him to share the joke but his eyes are elsewhere and when she tugs at his arm to get his attention he shrugs her off. In another room she sees herself distorted, stretched and bulging obscenely and at first she laughs but then she is scared and she begins to cry, great tears slipping between her fingers. She is lost in a mirror maze and reaches out to her reflection, touching palms with the cold glass. She can hear his guffaw echoing through the hall and she calls out, she thinks she can see him but she turns the corner into another trick.

Breathing deeply she plunges back into the fray, shouldering through the massed meat into the belly of the tube. She follows her leading hand and slips below chins, finding a pole to grip as the floor shifts and the carriage sways and the commuters move together in a jerking dance. A man catches her eye and she ducks her head, thinking that she would like to free her book and read a few pages, holding it close to her face against the tide. He is still watching her and smiles as she looks up, teeth bright and gleaming in a Hollywood grin. His eyes are in shadow and she is unnerved. She is afraid of this silent, smiling stranger and his wide mouth and the lost presence of his eyes. She looks around at the travellers, engrossed in their papers and their thoughts, cattle blind. The train pulls into a station and the crowd flows with the hiss and rush of the sliding doors and when she looks back the man has gone.

The first time he saw her she was dancing, head flung back and throat long and white. She was wild that night as she danced and drank and sang to the music. He bought her a drink at the bar as she propped herself on her elbows and smiled coyly at the barman. She thanked him, eyes sparkling, and pulled him into the mad whirl of her dance, hands clasped, before she span off into the heaving crowd. In a crowd, no-one could take their eyes off her. She danced under the lights and her hair span out and her skin gleamed and no-one could touch her unless she drew them in. She danced alone, eyes closed, blind to the people around her.

“I don’t know what to think.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this.”

In the morning he had taken extra care, cut throat razor and a thick foam, hands steady as he slid the blade along his taut skin. He had smoothed on balm and splashed himself with fragrance, slicked back his hair in a great wave. He had taken tweezers in his clumsy fingers and attacked the rogue hairs that tied his brows together. His shirt was freshly pressed and crisp, starched into formal submission, the silver links glinting in the sunlight. At the station he had paid 20p to get into the gents and splashed his face with cold water, blotted with cheap toilet paper. His nails, freshly manicured, rough edges filed away, hooked the last button and adjusted the fat knot of his tie.

She can remember picking the scabs off her grazes, the itch, fingers searching for a grip on the rough wound and peeling the crust away to expose raw pink skin. Sometimes a bright bead of blood would flower and she would lick at it, the metal taste flooding her mouth. Alone in her bedroom, surrounded by stuffed animals and dolls with porcelain faces and hands. She can remember tying string to their arms and legs and heads, playing puppets with her marionettes. There were weddings, the tiger and the bear, conspiracies, fights, murders most foul. A wolf in a frilly bonnet stolen from the baby stooping over a rag doll. The changeling cat in the cradle, the dolls with their hair cut severely into fright wigs. She can remember looking through the keyhole at the puppet show, she can remember locking the door.

The card that had come with the flowers said, “I will always wait for you.”

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

She hurries along the platform, frantic, her breath quick in her throat. She is crowded, flanked by City soldiers armoured with briefcases and wielding umbrellas, their dull spikes stabbing. She is late for a meeting and she rushes, top clinging to her damp back, hair hanging clammy against her neck. Her heels click clack against the floor, beating out the staccato tap of anxiety. She runs with the herd, frozen briefly by the plaintive blues of the lone saxophone, but she never gets her purse out in public and his silvers and coppers gleam baleful in the underground glow. Looking back, head straining, she sees him seeing her, and she hurries away, up into the light.

He sees her coming up the escalator, clutching her bag to her chest, her head darting like a bird’s as she blinks in the sudden sun. She is haloed, robed in light that comes streaming down and for a moment he is breathless. His empty cup is knocked over as he stands and spills watery grinds, smoothes his jacket down with nervous pats. Under the clock. He watches her move through the crowd, purposeful, her face bright, and he can breathe, he sucks in air as a man saved from drowning. He brandishes his newspaper and plunges into the stream, heading her off, arm raised in a welcome wave.

But she doesn’t see him. She brushes past him, lost in the swirling faces that press in on her, the white teeth and leering mouths, the sweaty palms that slide over her clothes and her skin. She is lost in a place of faceless men and she stumbles past blindly, pushing away their grabbing hands. She closes her eyes and her head is full of petals and she can feel their soft silk in her hands.

-------------------------------------------------------

Fran Read, 25, has harboured an insatiable writing habit since early glory in children’s poetry competitions. After degrees in English Literature and Publishing, she was seduced by the bright lights of PR. She lives and works in London.

Please leave your comments below, or check out www.litro.co.uk for more info. Thanks!