"What the fuck is going on in there?"

I want to relish the moment, but the stifling odor of diesel fumes and urinal cake is making me lightheaded... maybe if I turn around, I can bury my face in your chest and breathe in your man-smell instead. I try to twist my body around so we’re facing each other but before I can separate our genitals, you tighten your grasp and dig your fingers into my flesh. I whine and you slap my ass in response. Then you lift my hips and draw me completely onto you. Pinned between your thrusting pelvis and the clammy bathroom wall, I try to reposition my arm so I can reach my clit, but am unable to work around the paper towel dispenser -- there is nothing for me to do but let it happen this way.

I close my eyes and feel your swollen cock inside me, hear your animal grunts behind me, smell the now sex-tainted air around me. I’m drawn into the hypnotic rhythm of the one-two slap of your pelvis against my ass, followed by the three-four thump of my head against the wall and the idling bus-engine bass line. It’s several moments before I comprehend the angry call and arhythmical pounding on the door.

“Shit,” you say under your breath and, before either of us have come, you pull out and, with some difficulty, tuck in and zip up.

“Not again,” I scream in my head, and open my mouth to protest. You pinch my chin between your thumb and forefinger, kiss my mouth for a long moment and then unlatch the lock. Before I can speak, you’ve slipped sideways out the door.

My knees shaking, I turn, teeter into the wall and then notice my reflection in the cloudy, stainless steel mirror hanging above the sink.

“I’m naked,” I think stupidly. As I search around my feet for my dress I hear a desperate high voice on the other side of the door. Then a placating tenor. I reach up and latch the door just as the handle jiggles. I hear scuffling and then the dueling voices getting distant. Finally I hear only the bus.

I pick my dress off the floor, shake it out and slip it over my head. It slides over my torso and onto the floor. Picking it up again, I realize it’s torn in half. Hoisting my backpack to the sink I say a little prayer and begin a panicked search for something that might serve as a stand in for my former dress. I find what I’m looking for bundled at the bottom of the pack. I wrap the torn fabric of my dress around my waste and then pull a green turtle neck sweater over my head. I check myself in the mirror, run a brush through my hair and then step out of the rank cube into the bus aisle. Passengers are shoving bags into overhead bins, settling into seats and staking out two-foot squares of territory.

Going against traffic, I head for the door and, as I squeeze past a man wearing a Tiger’s baseball cap, hear, “what’s your name, baby?” I don’t answer, but keep my eye on the door. Stepping off the bus I scan the parking lot. You’re nowhere to be seen. Neither is my San Francisco bound bus.