First Impressions

First Impressions

By Josephine Myles

For Lou Harper, for believing in this story, and for JL Merrow, who helped knock the final version into shape.

T
he first thing I noticed about him was his socks.

That was pretty unusual for me. No, wait, that was unprecedented. Usually I’ll notice a well-sculpted face, a long pair of legs, or a pert arse first (not necessarily in that order). I honestly couldn’t say I’d ever noticed a man’s socks before the rest of him.

They were the brightest things in the whole train carriage, a whirling pattern of lime and magenta that made my eyeballs itch. I could only see them because he had one pinstriped leg crossed over the other, hitching the fabric up enough to reveal a few startling inches between the tops of his shiny brogues and the hem of his trousers.

I tracked the stripes up his legs to the sheaf of paperwork in his lap, the neatly buttoned jacket, the Windsor knot at his throat, up farther to a face that was nondescript in every way. They weren’t the kind of features I’d be interested in sketching: pursed lips, regular nose, grayish eyes. Dark hair tamed down with product, with just a few unruly curls defying the Brylcreem tyranny. In appearance there was little to distinguish him from the thousands of other young businessmen making their way into London on the Metropolitan line every day.

Then he looked up at me.

Those eyes! In the sickly, fluorescent lighting they were bleached of any definite color, but the rings around the irises were dark, like targets. I was drawn in, against my will, and then the smug bastard only went and leered at me. Those priggish lips twisted themselves up into a filthy grin, the regulation eyebrows quirking into a lopsided come-on.

I looked down at my boots, my battered old army boots. I looked at my dirty jeans, smeared with a spectrum of colors from when I was too lazy to find a brush cleaning rag and the thick dreads lying heavy over my shoulders. That couldn’t have been a come-on. There’s no way a suit like that would look at a scruffy loser like me. And there’s no way I’d be interested in someone like that: capitalist scum, feeding off the hard-working proletariat. I snorted and gave myself a mental kick up the backside. I was starting to sound like the militant lefties I did my best to avoid at uni. My fault for reading Marx directly before going to bed.

My eyes darted up again. He was absorbed in his paperwork. I must have imagined it, probably had too much to drink last night. I really should start eating a proper breakfast, instead of grabbing a sugar waffle from the stand on my way in to the studio.

I got off before him, leaving for my connection at Baker Street. I thought his gaze might have flicked over me as I walked past, but I couldn’t really tell. When I looked back in through the grimy window from the platform, he was immersed in his work.

***

The next time I saw him, his socks were lilac with burnt orange spots. Hideous things that left a negative image of themselves floating in my vision. The day after that was the turn of a crimson pair with aquamarine robots dancing across them. Did he pick these things himself? If so, he shouldn’t be allowed to shop without a friend in tow. Preferably one with decent taste, although let’s face it, even a blind man could probably pick out something less migraine-inducing.

I realized that he always sat in the same seat, always working, and figured that he must get on at one of the first stations on the line. That made sense, as the Metropolitan line started out in the genteel dormitory towns populated by stockbrokers and merchant bankers.

I found myself sitting in the same seat opposite him, day after day. I got to know the impertinent spring that poked into my arse, the strips of gaffa tape repairing the rips, the marker pen graffiti behind his shoulder with its command to “Suk my huge dick”.

I found myself wondering if he’d chosen that seat deliberately. If there was some kind of subliminal message he wanted to give me. He hadn’t leered again, so it must have been a low blood sugar hallucination after all. Our interactions were confined to a nod as I settled down into my seat. A few days into our routine and we were like an old married couple -- we’d just missed out the honeymoon and skipped straight from flirtation to habit.

One Monday I missed my train, a pounding hangover after a late night with Kathy leading me to ignore my alarm clock for longer than usual. I got onto our usual carriage out of habit. There was an empty seat, of course. I knew that there would be, but that didn’t stop me imagining him filling the space, even once a large woman had sat down there. I superimposed him over her, like a double exposure; his charcoal pinstripes canceling out her floral dress. My mind filled with all the possibilities for the socks he could have been wearing that day. Not knowing what was covering his feet started to irritate me. I was worried that this was becoming a rather unhealthy obsession, but then again, I wouldn’t be the first artist to develop one. Fuck knows why I was so interested in a man who dealt with facts and figures, though, a man with no poetry in his soul.

I pictured him in a repulsive pair of fluorescent orange toweling socks. The pair my Gran had given me for Christmas as a teenager. I couldn’t bring myself to wear them, so I used to wank into them instead, the thick fabric soaking up all the evidence rather than my bedsheets.

***

I was half expecting him not to be on the train the next day, like I’d jinxed things by being late. I couldn’t relax on the platform, hopping up and down like I was busting for a piss or something. I got a few funny looks from the other commuters. Mind you, I was used to that. Being six foot two with blond dreads that reach down to my arse, I was always getting people staring. I just scowled at them until they looked away.

I felt fit to burst with happiness when I saw his silhouette against the window. He gave me a smile as I sat down opposite, his lips curving up in a graceful arch and resculpting his whole face. I wanted to run my fingers across them. I yearned to know their texture, to reproduce it in oils on canvas. I’d use alizarin crimson, with a touch of yellow ochre and raw umber to knock it back, and just enough white to lighten it to that juicy pink. I wondered if his jaw was still smooth from the razor’s caress, or if his hair grew fast enough to have turned it to sandpaper.

I started to notice things about his face. I’d taken up studying it, the way that fleeting emotions passed over it as he read his paperwork and scribbled his notes. Those tiny movements of his eyebrows that seemed to signal amusement, horror, sorrow, and more likely than not, disdain. It wasn’t really a plain face. In movement it was something else: fascinating, subtle and rich with possibilities. It was a face that demanded a portrait, although how I’d ever capture any of those rapidly changing expressions was bugging me. I was aching to take up the challenge, though.

***

In the whole month I’d been observing him, I hadn’t seen the same pair of socks twice, which was weird as he only seemed to have two suits and a handful of ties. Maybe he was some kind of bizarre sock fetishist. Maybe he was sending me signals, like that crazy handkerchief code they used back in the seventies. If so, what was he saying? Unreliable? Experimental? Kinky as hell?

He probably had one of those old-fashioned wardrobes with labeled shelves for shirts, vests and sundries, and a little container on the back of the door for cuff links, just like Granddad used to have. He’d come from the kind of family where you learned how to dress properly and knew your way around a formal dinner service before you were out of your nappies. My school had been full of them, and they always knew how to put you in your place when you were there on a scholarship.

I imagined his voice, all rich and plummy from years of inbred privilege. He’d have one of those ridiculous names like Algernon or Percival, but you can call him Algie, because he’s just one of the lads, after all. And then he’d bray with laughter, before downing another scotch.

One day he was sporting a pair of rainbow-striped socks, and I found myself wondering if they went all the way up to the knee like Kathy’s did. Or maybe he had a pair of those old-fashioned sock suspenders holding them up, like they did in really old porn photos. Picturing him in sepia, wearing nothing but a top hat and a pair of socks and suspenders wasn’t the best idea, especially so close to my stop. I had to clutch my bag to my crotch to hide my erection as I got up.

***

When I finally heard his voice, it didn’t match the picture I’d created. A bomb scare delayed the train between stations, the low grumble of muttering commuters nearly drowning out his quiet tones as he rang his employer. It was an educated voice, but an ordinary one, the gentle twang of a regional accent still detectable. I tried to place it. Those clipped vowels put him from somewhere farther north.

I wanted to know. I needed to know. I fantasized about staying on the train and following him to work. Of going and sitting next to him, our thighs brushing together with the motion of the carriage. Of saying, “Hi,” with a smile. Of reaching out and shaking his hand, rubbing my thumb over the smooth knuckles. Of tearing his clothes off and fucking him face down on the filthy floor, horrified commuters drawing back from the inferno of our lust.

***

Then one sweltering Thursday after a couple of months of watching him, something snapped inside me and I pulled out my sketchpad. He had his jacket folded in his lap, his shirtsleeves rolled up, and I couldn’t resist the lure of that flesh on display. Between Pinner and Finchley Road, I drew like a man possessed, my pencil skating across the paper. I began to fill in the rough outline. His feet were first. I pulled a pink highlighter pen out of my pocket to scribble in the vibrant socks. His face was next. While he frowned down at his page for the best part of ten minutes, almost as if he was posing, I managed to capture a certain likeness. It wasn’t perfect, rather like an uglier twin, but there was a certain something about the line of his lips that satisfied me.

There wasn’t much time left to finish. Before I could think about what I was doing, my pencil traced the line of his calf up under the trouser leg. The other side followed. I’d sketched enough nudes to make a pretty good approximation as to what he’d be like under those clothes. I figured his knees were probably bony, as he didn’t seem to have much excess flesh. His shoulders and hips I could guess at, the sweeping curve of his collarbone, and that hollow at the base of his neck that must be there under the shirt. The arms were straightforward, and as the sheaf of paper hid his hands, I didn’t need to fuss over them. I was glad that his cross-legged pose hid his groin so I didn’t have to decide just how generous I wanted to be in that area. That only left me with a blank space where his chest should be.

I could hear the woman next to me tutting as I quickly sketched in nipples and a sprinkling of hair between them. I’m not sure whether I wanted him to be hairy or not, but the space needed filling, needed texture to compensate for the loss of his clothing. Besides which, I could imagine running my fingers through a light pelt of hair. I could picture it sticking to his skin with sweat, the hairs swirling together into dark commas.

Hearing the squealing protest of the brakes that meant the train was starting to slow for my stop, I quickly signed it with a scrawled “Jez” and added my mobile number before I had a chance to bottle out. I ripped it out of the book, folded it in half and threw it into his lap as I fled from the train.

***

I was jumpy all day, my stomach turning over whenever my phone rang. One time I didn’t recognize the number and my throat went so dry I could barely croak out a hello, but it was only the owner of a gallery I’d made inquiries at the previous week. I should have been ecstatic that he was talking about showing a couple of my recent nudes, but instead I couldn’t wait for him to get off the line. I probably just ended up cementing my reputation as a surly git, though.

I couldn’t concentrate on the canvas I was meant to be working on, so I spent the afternoon on a self-portrait instead. There seemed to be something different about my face, and I wanted to capture it to see if I could work out what it was, to see if there was anything redeemable about my ugly mug; my nose, too crooked to be described as anything more generous than as having character; my chin, more defiant than chiseled, half obscured by stubble; my mop of blond dreadlocks, born out of laziness rather than design, although Kathy did occasionally try to neaten them up, tutting as she threaded beads and baubles in there; my pale blue eyes, glaring balefully under a deeply furrowed forehead.

Or at least, they usually did. That day they were different. Lost. I saw the birth of something new in their depths and it scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

My mobile rang and I jumped, the pencil skidding across the paper, adding a new scar to the forbidding portrait.