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Two seats were vacant on the tube, yet this person chose to stand right next to her. Feet shoulder width apart too, how cocky. Eve’s initial reaction was annoyance. Imagine if a bus was empty and someone chose to sit right next to you. Why, just why? If their intended goal was to irritate, then they had surely achieved it.
It was a woman, that much Eve could tell, glancing from the corner of her eye. The barest hint of perfume teased her nostrils. It was subtle, not overwhelming like those who spritzed enough to make her eyes water. Pleasant, but powerful, she conceded. No matter how nice this woman smelled, she was still breaking the unspoken rules of personal space on public transportation. Ready to give this stranger a piece of her mind, or at least glare at her, Eve turned.
And promptly shut her mouth.
She was stunning. Her honey blonde hair was done up in a simple French braid. Expensive outfit, or at least not bought at the local Asda that probably cost an arm and leg, and lightly applied makeup that made those catlike eyes pop. Nicely manicured nails down to those slender fingers held on the rail above them. What was she doing on the public tube slumming it with the common folk?
Their eyes met and held for the briefest of seconds as they went through a tunnel. The blonde smirked, a look full of vain and knowing and something intense. The train roars and echoes as it goes through the underpass and Eve suddenly felt like her heart was pounding just as loudly. She didn’t know why. Eve gripped the handrail tighter, practically ripping her gaze away to focus on her own meager reflection at the window under the dull fluorescent lights.
The moment was broken. Yet another drab station greeted them, the dreary light at the end of the tunnel.
It was quiet, well as quiet as it could be on the subway anyways. The only sounds were the halting and screeching of the train travelling against the tracks as it went through each stop, wreaking havoc on Eve’s ears.
Nine more stops until it was hers, but Eve didn’t move to one of the empty seats. As tired as her legs were from standing, her brain wouldn’t allow her to. For some odd reason, neither did the woman beside her. So, there they both stood, less than a foot away from each other, but it felt like worlds apart.
After that brief but charged shared look, Eve’s irritation was quickly replaced by a burning curiosity. Who was this woman and why did Eve suddenly want to know her?
More people shuffled out at the next stop than in, and the numbers began to dwindle. Soon, more and more seats vacated until there were around ten people left in this compartment. Eve thought that they must’ve looked like a right pair of idiots, to be the only two people standing when there were at least two dozen open seats. It didn’t look like it mattered in the least to the woman beside her, not with this haughty vibe surrounding her. Not that Eve or the other people in the train gave a shit anyways.
Then came a relatively windy turn. Having rode this line for a good amount of years, especially when it was crowded, Eve knew to go with the bend in order to keep her balance. The woman beside her, it seemed, was unprepared for it. She knocked into Eve’s shoulder with a faint huff as she struggled to keep her balance, made even harder in those shoes she was wearing.
Instinctively, Eve’s hand shot out to wrap around her waist and keep her from falling. Seven glorious seconds. That was how long Eve got to touch her. She was warm, she was real, and she smelled really good. Once it looked like the other woman had regained her balance, Eve removed her hand like it had caught on fire.
“Thank you.”
That was the first time Eve had heard her speak throughout this whole half hour commute. Instead of the English accent Eve was expecting, her accent sounded faintly Russian.
“No problem.” Eve nervously cleared her throat, unsure of what to say next. The chance of conversation was drifting away into thin air.
Less than a minute later when the train pulled into the next stop, the blonde spoke again. “Shall we sit?” The woman gestured toward a pair of empty seats near the back corner.
“Sure.”
Eve followed her to the back during the brief lull in movement and they sat. The doors closed and the train began to pick up speed again. Eve couldn't help but let out a sigh even as her bottom came into contact with the cool hardness of the seat. Her feet were killing her.
“Long day?” the woman asked, turning to face her.
“Yeah, you could say that.” Eve refused to fidget under that stare, no matter how much she felt pressured to.
“I am Villanelle.”
“Eve.”
They didn’t shake hands, but then it didn’t feel like they needed to. An unspoken companionship had already been forged between them in that 2.8 seconds when their eyes had first met.
“You are American?” Villanelle asked curiously.
“No, I was born here but I was raised in Connecticut.” Eve’s accent was the only American thing about her, along with her obsession with (female) serial killers. But that was a story for another day.
“Connecticut,” Villanelle repeated, trying out the unfamiliar place on her tongue. It sounded adorable. “When is your stop, Eve?”
“Uh, Canonbury. You?” Back to her house, back to her takeout dinners and shitty cable. Then, back to work tomorrow morning again. Next time, there would be no pretty blonde to keep her company on the way back.
“Right before that one,” Villanelle responded quickly. “Do you think dull is interesting and that interesting is dull?” She looked at Eve with the most serious expression she had seen thus far.
Eve wrinkled her forehead as the complete non sequitur processed in her mind. “I think,” she began slowly. “—that interesting and boring are subjective. What one person finds interesting is what another might find boring.”
“That does not answer my question,” Villanelle huffed. “I am sensational and everyone else is bOOriinG!” She bellowed the last word into the distance, elongating the vowels, and startling Eve enough to make her jump in her seat.
A few people glanced their way at the outburst, but they quickly became disinterested.
“See?” Villanelle said, gesturing towards the almost empty compartment, as if their (non)reactions had simply proved her point. “Boring.”
“Do you think I’m boring then?” Eve retorted, torn between being amused and seriously wanting to know the answer.
Villanelle seemed to be as childlike as she was sophisticated. Burning hot and then cold. Untouchable. Inaccessible. Even though they had just met, Eve wanted to crack open Villanelle’s pretty little head and watch all her deepest secrets bleed out onto the pavement. Yes, Villanelle was the exact opposite of boring and she seemed to know it.
“Of course not,” Villanelle sniffed. Ah, there was that arrogance again. “Otherwise I would not have invited you to sit with me.”
“I suppose I should be grateful that you’re giving me the time of day huh?”
“You should. I am a very busy woman.”
“I’m sure,” Eve replied dryly.
Villanelle chose this moment to rest her hand on Eve’s thigh, looking intently in her eyes. “I do not think you are a boring woman, Eve. But I bet you take the train home every day after work, eat the same thing for dinner every night, and have sex with your husband in the same position every time. Are you truly not bored?” Villanelle’s voice was soft, but her words cut Eve to the bone.
Her tone was matter-of-fact and not cruel or mocking, but it stung all the same. To have this virtual stranger dissect her in a couple of minutes, Eve felt entirely exposed. Villanelle’s hazel eyes bored into her, probing and intense.
To hear her life being summed up into three concise sentences made Eve defensive. The anger was there front and center, simmering and festering in her gut, but Eve tamped down a spiteful retort from escaping her lips. She held it in like she was used to doing it everyday of her life. This kind of self-control, Eve had mastered, refusing to let her demons escape into reality.
Somehow, she found the courage to speak. “I’m divorced actually. And if you just told me I’m not boring only to refute it a minute later, does that make me boring or not?” Eve was proud that her voice only trembled a little.
“I think that you are bored. There is a difference between being bored and being boring. We are bored. They—” Villanelle gestured to the others in the train. One man was outright snoring, newspaper blanketed over his lap. The others were staring intently at their phones or looking listlessly out the window at the darkness. “—are boring.”
“You don’t even know them,” Eve replied. You don’t even know me, the voice screamed in her head. The hand on her thigh was distracting. Eve wanted to knock it away. She wanted it to suddenly have the ability to burn through her clothing and touch her soul. Thoroughly unbalanced was what Eve felt at the moment.
“I do not want to,” Villanelle said dismissively. “You are different from them. You are destined for great things, Eve.”
“But you said dull was interesting and interesting was dull at first,” Eve pointed out. This conversation was confusing her; they were going around in circles and getting nowhere.
“I know what I said.” Villanelle reached between them and tucked one wayward black curl of many behind Eve’s ear. Leaning even closer, she whispered, “I see you. That anger, that rage behind your unassuming wallflower personality. You wanted to strangle me in that moment, didn’t you? To see the veins in my neck bulge as I gasp for air. We are alike, you and I.”
Shuddering from the combination of Villanelle’s warm breath against her neck and her compelling words, Eve had no immediate response. She felt unnerved. She felt livid. She felt aroused. She felt understood for once in her life.
It was literal instinct that made her grab her braid and tug it backwards viciously.
Villanelle moaned, fingers digging into Eve’s thigh. “Eve.”
“Shut up,” Eve snarled, gripping Villanelle’s hair tightly and bringing her closer until their noses brushed. Retainment of any semblance of composure was gone, ashes to the wind. Villanelle did this to her, ruined her decades of carefully crafted passivity.
“Make me.” Villanelle’s pupils were blown wide, gold irises almost entirely swallowed up by black.
Eve crushed their lips together, pouring out her rage and madness into the kiss. She sank her teeth into Villanelle’s lips until she tasted blood and liberation. Because their lips refused to separate from each other, it was messy and savage and almost suffocating, to the point where Eve felt high at the lack of oxygen.
Although Villanelle was far from submissive, she let Eve take momentary control before giving as good as she got. Sitting side-by-side, their angle was awkward so Villanelle maneuvered them until Eve was in her lap and she got to palm Eve’s ass. Win-win for everyone.
“Dalston Kingsland,” they announced overhead. “Approaching Dalston Kingsland Station.”
The words somehow broke through Eve’s lust hazy mind. “Isn’t that your stop?” she gasped.
“Mmm, yes.”
They traded a couple more lazy kisses, but things began to wind down, much to Eve’s disappointment.
Villanelle disentangled their limbs and stood abruptly, brushing out the wrinkles in her suit and looking perfectly put together like they didn’t almost fuck on public transport in front of several strangers.
“Last call for Dalston Kingsland,” the conductor said.
Villanelle held out her hand.
“Come with me, Eve. I promise to show you the world before we burn it down to ashes.”
There should’ve been a moment where Eve’s life flashed before her eyes. Work, family, friends, rent, something or someone to make her hesitate. But all of it faded into the background and only one thing was left, clear and unwavering: Villanelle.
Eve took it.