For long moments, Genevieve gazed once more out of the window, trying to catch anything of interest to wile away the journey, but it all moved too fast. A far cry from the almost lazy fashion in which trains coasted through the countryside in years past, where people would wave as locomotives chuffed and steamed their way along the rails. A bygone era that she liked to believe she would have felt more at home in. Then again, she may not.

It seemed, however, that her fellow traveller also had a yearning for a more simple time. Simple, but not better. Simple in that, on the face of things, life had far fewer complications. In the underbelly, however, it was a time of accepted prejudice, where a woman like her would not have fared so well. Not even mentioning the racial implications of the time that she would not have had to suffer, no, but many others had. A different time. A closed off time. A time in which nostalgia brushed aside the darker aspects of a smaller world.

"May I join you?" So polite. Sapphire waved a hand toward the seat facing Genevieve and she made a gesture in return. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome." The verbal tit-for-tat of politeness felt out of place considering the thoughts that had just passed through her mind.

Sapphire stood, easily compensating for the sway of the carriage, smoothing down the tight skirt, collecting her handbag, her overcoat and, incredibly, gloves. Delicate, soft leather gloves that she clasped in her hand, the coat over her arm. She embodied the style that she copied in every way, moving across the aisle, arranging her belongings before settling down herself. She crossed her legs and Genevieve noticed the impression of a suspender clip under the material of her skirt. Even down to wearing stockings, not tights. Silk, of course.

Who wore stockings by choice these days, but for those who did so for the sexuality of them? The kink. The fetish. Not Sapphire. Genevieve could tell. This wasn't something sexual, perhaps not even sensual. It was for the look. The style. The elegance of it all. Even down to the hair, fashioned much like Audrey Hepburn in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', but the beehive not near so high. She smiled easily, confidently at Genevieve, holding eye contact.

"I find train journeys a bore these days, don't you? You hardly have the time to enjoy it." She laced her fingers together upon her lap and looked out of the window. "Everything moving so fast. Stations rushing by. No steam. No smoke. No whistles on the platform. Everything and everyone rushing hither and thither."

"'Hither and thither'?" Genevieve stifled a laugh, but Sapphire didn't seem to take offence. "Are you a writer, too? I don't know anyone that would say 'hither and thither' that wasn't a writer."

"Something else lost, then, in time." She took a deep breath allowing it to escape through her nose and even that had a class to it seen so infrequently of late. Everything measured. Controlled. "No, not really. Though I would love to at least attempt a book in my lifetime. I'm afraid I'd be far too flowery in my prose, though. Language can be so beautiful if used correctly, but language isn't stagnant, is it. Phrasing from the past seems antiquated to modern readers. That's one of the things I like about your book."

"Ah. I'm antiquated. I see." She, too, didn't take offence. She had thought it herself.

"Oh, no! Please, don't misunderstand me." Sapphire leaned forward, exquisite fingers briefly touching Genevieve's knee before sitting back. "I enjoyed what I've read so far. You are quite the eloquent author. Such turns of phrase. There's nuance in the descriptions that you simply don't see anymore."

The touch had felt like fire, catching upon Genevieve's trousered leg and roaring up, across her thighs, burning the entirety of her lower body and she almost gasped. She had heard of electric touches before, both in the metaphorical, sensual, romantic sense and in the purely physics based sense of charged particles. The romantic idea of it had never really made much sense to her. In all her years, though, in truth, she guessed she wasn't all that much older than Sapphire, she had never experienced it. Certainly not with men.

But this wasn't a spark of desire, it was a flame. Uncomfortable, yet exciting. And Sapphire didn't seem to notice the effect a simple touch had made upon Genevieve. Of a sudden, Genevieve felt far too warm, fingers raising to the top of her blouse to touch the base of her throat. She coughed, politely, and dipped her eyes, looking out the window before Sapphire could see her staring. But Sapphire had given her a compliment, she couldn't ignore it.

"Unfortunately, it seems the style of writing didn't click with, well, anyone." She shrugged it away as a non-consequence. A nothing. One of those things. "Except you. Perhaps I wrote it just for your eyes?"

She tried to laugh it away, but a very different heat now coursed through her. Embarrassment. As though she were a school kid blushing in front of a crush. She had never experienced that, either. Instead, she had listened to her girlfriends talking about boys and giggling on the playing fields, playing the games that teenagers played. Testing their burgeoning sexuality. Talk of kissing. Of which boy had the nicest bum, which was the bad boy that would 'ruin' them, but they would love unconditionally, which boy was the marrying type, the father type, the fling type. All innocent. All normal.

But not for Genevieve, who looked at boys and felt ... nothing. Not a single feeling of attraction. And she had kept it to herself, never talking about it but trying to join in and making passing references to this boy or that, aping the words of her friends. But this wasn't some time in the dark and distant past, where such people as herself had to hide away. There were girls at school who were quite open as to who they found attractive. Boys, too. But not Genevieve. For reasons even she couldn't understand, she never admitted it.

As the years had passed, the lie became reality. She met men, acted the lover, married, though she had never managed to have children, did the normal, accepted thing. Closeted in a world where the doors for most were wide open. Accepted or not, most people celebrated who they were. It took far too many years before she finally did accept herself. There had been girlfriends. Relationships. Nothing lasting, but it still felt far more right than before. Love still eluded her, though. Lust eluded her. Until this moment. Until that touch. And, in her mind, she finally understood what she had missed.

"Dining cars." Sapphire appeared to ignore the terrible attempt at flirtation, choosing, instead, to return to the previous part of the conversation. "A proper area where they served food like a restaurant. Closed compartments. The intimacy of sitting in an enclosed space, a door closed so that you had your very own place where two people could talk without worrying about others listening in. I feel those losses more than anything else. Trains are too open these days."

Sapphire looked over her shoulder, taking in the rest of the long carriage, where, though they largely sat alone, at the back, the thrum of conversation from further down the rows still trickled to the rear and their ears. It was a constant murmur. Genevieve tilted to look down the aisle to see shoulders and arms and legs. Each person forced into their own world. Using their preferred devices to keep in touch, to work, to play. She hadn't even brought a book.

"Nostalgia. The world is as it is. Pack 'em in, make 'em pay for the privilege of having no privacy. It's for your own good. Security. Safety. Join in. Expand your network. Gain more followers. Engage. Be part of the community or else. Comply. Comply. Comply." She straightened up, uncertain where that diatribe came from and saw the little, knowing smile upon Sapphire's red lips. "Sorry. I'm rambling."

"No. I agree." Her foot bounced, perilously close to Genevieve's leg. "Why 1920's America?"

"I'm sorry?" Genevieve frowned at the tangent, once again, it seemed, returning to a previous conversation.

Whether it was because Sapphire wanted to keep her on her toes, or because her mind simply worked that way, shifting and curling, weaving between topics. It certainly kept Genevieve unsettled, the attraction still making her apt to confusion. Again, Sapphire smiled. Was it a tactic?

"In your book. 1920's America. Chicago to New York. Glamorous, after a fashion. It is America, after all. Not quite the Orient Express." The bouncing foot brushed Genevieve's trouser leg, the material pressing back against her skin. Was that a purposeful touch? "It seems oddly specific."

"It was a time of change for women. When they were starting to flex their individualities, the boundaries of accepted conventions. Votes. Taking the clothing styles of men and adapting it. Prohibition causing an underground movement embraced by lesbians who had, before, had to settle for settling down as spinsters living together as 'just good friends'." She watched as Sapphire nodded along, thoughtfully. "A burgeoning culture of women that frequented speakeasies specifically for them so they could act how they liked, love who they wanted to love. And yet, it still reeked of suppression, of oppression. Raids weren't only made to catch the drinkers, but the lovers, the 'maladjusted', the 'freaks'. Men and women who only wanted to love, imprisoned, put in mental hospitals for their societal obscenities."

"Allegory?" Sapphire leaned forward, catching Genevieve's eyes and holding them.

"Reality." Genevieve could almost feel the air between them thicken. So close. So very close. "But allegorical in a sense. Yes. You're probably thinking it was about me and, after a fashion, it was. A self-insert. A woman fighting to understand what she had always felt but could never realise. It took me a while to come out. The book was my way of making sense of it."

"I see." She sat back again, once more turning to the window as though gathering her thoughts for the next intrusive question.

A station blazed past, the awaiting passengers a blur. Faceless bodies that all probably had their own worries and troubles that no-one understood. Genevieve wasn't a fool. She knew she wasn't the only one that struggled with who she was. Everyone had their struggles. Every struggle was personal. Some could talk about it. Others wrote about it. Perhaps she had written the book to find others for whom she could connect with in some way. People that could understand, but she suspected that most would frown at her problems.

Here? In the twenty-first century? Just come out, already. Be who you want to be and screw anyone that looks down on you for it. But it wasn't that easy for everyone, was it? Not for her, at least. Sure, there was a community. There were people just like her that wanted to talk about it and listen and commiserate, but Genevieve had never had that ability. She spoke often, but talked rarely. The book was her way of expressing herself and it had proven ... pointless.

"I got thrown out of my home, you know?" Now Sapphire looked back. She shrugged. "I thought my parents were progressive, thoughtful and understanding, but I was very, very wrong. Dad was ... distant. Mum threw a fit. Oh, the arguments! 'Why can't you just be normal?'. What the hell is 'normal' anyway?"

She laughed at it, her hand rising to her mouth as the laugh subsided to a giggle and then a cough. Genevieve hadn't expected this. She had a feeling that Sapphire shared her inclinations, she couldn't say how she knew, but, then again, she never had. Even when she tried to analyse it, looking back at moments where two pairs of eyes met across a bar, she couldn't begin to say what it was. Some ephemeral knowledge. There was a girl like her. So simple. Unexplainable, to her.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through that." She wanted to reach out, clasp Sapphire's hand, but Sapphire didn't seem upset.

"And I'm sorry for you. The woman in your book? That is pain. Real pain." It was Sapphire that moved, reaching out, taking Genevieve's hand and the fire burned again. "No-one should have to suffer that alone."

Did time ever truly stop? She had said so in her stories. The short ones before she had taken on the monstrous task of writing the book. 'Time stood still'. She had used it far too often, never actually experiencing it, simply parroting what she had read in other stories. It felt like that now. The train dissolving away. The noise muffling. The heave and sway of the carriage. All faded. Only Sapphire remained. Sapphire and the urgent heat that threatened to consume Genevieve.

Time stood still.