The Happiest Couple in the Milky Way

The mass of sun-warmed summer bodies sweating and the ill(and thus puttering) air conditioner made the air on the F train last night sticky and hot.

I stood in front of a sitting couple—a man and a woman, both in their 50’s, arm in arm. As they chatted, they grinned with the giddiness of high school sweethearts, but they’d been married long enough to fill their conversations with stories about grandchildren in South Carolina.

It was hot. The man’s scalp glistened beneath his thinning hairs. The woman’s face was dotted with beads of sweat. The smell of berries on the brink of ripening and damp bark came up from their bodies.

With a folded paper napkin the man dabbed the sweat from his wife. He traced her hairline, gently patting down across her glistening cheeks and then dabbed her moist nose. Here he paused and considered how best to dry her chin; he leaned towards her to get a better look, I thought, but really was looking into her eyes as he touched the napkin to her chin. He slid it down her warm neck and then descended further, stopping right above her bosom. They poured mischievous smiles into each other’s hazel eyes, the way lovers do after a naked kiss.

I grinned from the tenderly erotic journey of the napkin and the man caught me looking. He turned to me and grinned right back.