Night Mail

Sharon handed her ticket to the uniformed steward who was standing on the platform beside the open door to carriage E of the Inverness Sleeper. He studied it for a moment or two and made a tick on a piece of paper on his clip board, then handed the ticket back to Sharon.
“Turn right,” he said in an indifferent, couldn’t–care–less tone of voice. “Third compartment. Your room mate’s already aboard.”
Sharon wasn’t altogether happy with the idea of sharing a sleeping compartment with a total stranger, but that was the deal if you could only afford a standard class fare. First class passengers got a sleeping compartment to themselves; but first class fares were way beyond Sharon’s means. So she hefted her suitcase onto the train and made her awkward way to the sleeping compartment in question, edging along the narrow corridor with a crab–like motion, pushing the bulky case along in front of her. She pushed the door open and stuck her head inside.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Sharon.”
The compact compartment was completely filled by a huge elephant of a woman, with long greasy grey hair and bare sweaty feet. She must have weighed in at over twenty stone, and was dressed in a straining pink shell suit that had evidently been cut for somebody at least two stones lighter than her. She turned and looked at Sharon.
“I’m Kimberley,” she grunted, “and I’m avin’ the top bunk alright?”
It was more of a statement than an enquiry, but Sharon decided that some sort of an answer was called for none the less.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s fine by me. I like being on the bottom bunk. Always have. So that suits me fine.”
This was, in fact, a lie. Sharon had never liked being on the bottom bunk. Not since that family holiday when she was nine, and had slept in the bottom bunk with her twin sister Tina “up top”. On the first night of the holiday Tina had wet the bed. Her wee had soaked right through her bedclothes and the mattress, and had dripped down onto Sharon in the bunk beneath. Next morning their mother came in to wake them up and, finding both of the beds sopping wet, just assumed that Sharon had had an accident as well. Sharon had tried to protest her innocence, but to no avail; and thereafter she had invariably had to endure the utterly humiliating experience of her mother using this as a prime example when telling friends, relatives and even complete strangers how uncanny it was having twins. “They often do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, even if they don’t know the other is doing it,” she’d explain. “For instance, I never used to have trouble with wet beds when they were little, but then one night when they were about eleven or twelve they both wet the bed on exactly the same night. That was the only time either of them wet the bed, and they both did it the same night. Isn’t that incredible?” Sharon naturally tried to object that she hadn’t wet the bed at all, but her mother always shushed her saying “Don’t be silly. Your bed was every bit as wet at Tina’s. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of people do it from time to time. It’s perfectly natural and normal, you know.”
And so, to her complete mortification, she had grown up with people thinking, wrongly, that she’d wet the bed when she was “eleven or twelve”; and it was only the new friends she’d made since leaving home at the age of twenty who had not been given this particular piece of embarrassing misinformation by her mother. And all because she’d once made the mistake of choosing to sleep on the bottom bunk and let her twin sister have the top one. So since then she’d made a point of always choosing the top bunk if at all possible. But looking at Kimberley, she decided that perhaps on this occasion discretion was the better part of valour, so she settled for the bottom bunk instead.
Kimberley turned her back on Sharon again, and continued with whatever it was she’d been doing when Sharon arrived. Her oversized arse seemed to fill the entire compartment, and try as she might Sharon couldn’t manoeuvre her suitcase onto her bunk without it rubbing harshly against both her own shins and Kimberley’s backside.
“Ow!” Yelled Kimberley. “Mind what you’re doing with that fucking great trunk of yours, can’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” muttered Sharon, “but there’s not much space in here you know.”
“Then why don’t you just wait till I’m finished at the washbasin? Show a little consideration for others, can’t you?” Kimberley spat the words out over her shoulder, and Sharon decided that she wasn’t all that keen on the idea of spending the whole night cooped up in a little cramped compartment with this woman.
“I’ll just go and investigate the day coach, I think,” she said, as much to herself as to Kimberley.
“Suit yourself,” Kimberley shrugged. “I’m turning in early to get a bit of kip before Carlisle. That’s as far as I’m going, and I’ve had to set me alarm for four o’clock. Don’t wake me up when you come back in, will you?” Again, it was more of a command.
“Great,” Sharon muttered to herself once she was safely out in the corridor with a closed door between Kimberley and herself. “That’s all I need.”
The train jerked into life as Sharon entered the day coach, taking her completely unawares and causing her to lose her balance and tumble headlong into a strategically placed armchair. It was a very comfortable armchair; but its occupant seemed more than a little surprised to have Sharon tumbling into his lap just as he was lifting a coffee cup to his lips. Her head struck his wrist with considerable force, and the cup flew across the carriage showering its scalding contents far and wide.
“Nice party trick,” he said in a gentle voice with just the merest hint of an upper–class drawl. “What do you do for an encore?”
Sharon looked up into the face of a man who had just had his coffee cup exchanged, without so much as a by–your–leave, for an unexpected girl.
“Hi,” she grinned. “I’m Sharon.” And then, as the effect of the recent impact between bonce and wrist began to register, she continued “Ow! That hurt.”
“You think it hurt you?” The stranger raised an interrogative eyebrow. “How do you think the coffee cup feels? Inanimate objects have feelings too, you know.”
“Yes, well, I’m dreadfully, dreadfully sorry about that,” Sharon began, “but you see …” And then she realised, just a fraction too late, that she was being teased and that the stranger was guffawing quietly to himself. “Oh I see, it was a joke was it? Yes, well, ha ha very funny. I thought you were being serious, you see, and after all I …”
“Sharon,” interrupted the stranger. “When you’re in a hole …”
“Yes, right, stop digging. Will do. Would you, er, I mean, shall I, that is to say, would you like me to get up off your lap now?”
“I’ll leave that one entirely up to you,” he chortled.
Sharon carefully stood up again; but as she did so the train lurched its way over some complicated point work and, to her horror, she was thrown completely off balance again. She toppled over backwards this time. There was another armchair behind her, unoccupied, but it was just that little bit too far away. Her bum glanced off its front edge and she landed with a bump on the carriage floor, legs akimbo, grinning inanely up at the seated stranger. How undignified, she thought, feeling the colour rising in her cheeks.
“Bravo,” said the stranger, clapping enthusiastically. “I think the encore may even be better than the original turn.”
Sitting there on the floor, desperately wishing that she was anywhere else in the world, Sharon frantically started searching for straws she could grasp at to salvage a little bit of pride from this situation. It wasn’t easy, by any means. But eventually she found something that offered her a crumb of comfort. She was, after all, wearing trousers today. She had so very nearly decided to wear her little tartan mini skirt this morning. Had she done so then her underwear would now be on open display to the entire train. Well, to all the occupants of the day carriage, at any event. And the stranger would certainly have seen it. But because she was wearing trousers, he hadn’t. So that was a start. Something to chalk up to the credit side of the ledger. It could have been worse. A lot worse in fact, now she came to think about it.
“That was nothing,” she grinned. “This is only my sober show. You ought to see me when I’m drunk.”
“Ought I?” The stranger raised his eyebrow again. “Now there’s an interesting thought.”
He offered her his hand – a big, strong, manly hand on the end of a powerful, muscular forearm – and helped her up. As she struggled to her feet, Sharon felt the unmistakeable sensation of a seam giving way in the seat of her trousers, and heard a distinct ripping sound from behind and below, which was fortunately drowned out almost immediately by the much louder WHOOSH of the train entering a tunnel. The stranger showed no sign of having heard her seam rip, and she hurriedly parked her bum in the nearest chair so that nobody who chanced along behind her would see. She was now sitting at the same table as the stranger, facing him at an oblique angle.
“I need another drink to replace my coffee,” the stranger was saying. “Can I get you one as well?”
“Oh yes, thank you,” said Sharon. “That’d be very nice. Very kind of you. Oh dear. I’m babbling a bit, aren’t I?”
“I’m afraid you are,” the stranger agreed. “I’m going to have a G and T. You?”
“What? Oh, yes. Yes,” Sharon replied, without really thinking what she was saying. “I think I’ll have a G and T as well.”
She’d never actually had a gin and tonic before, she realised as the stranger headed off towards the bar, and she didn’t even know whether she actually liked the drink. She’d just said the first thing which popped into her head, which was what she always did when she got flustered. And having just fallen all over this charming stranger, then sprawled inelegantly across the carriage floor, and then finally split her trousers she was feeling about as flustered as it is possible to feel. As the stranger swayed nonchalantly back along the carriage from the bar, drinks in hand, Sharon slipped a discrete hand under her bottom and felt the seam of her trousers to assess how badly torn they were. It was about as bad as it could get. The seam was gaping open virtually the whole way from waist band to gusset, and if she were to stand up now she would undoubtedly give an unmissable flash of her underwear to anyone who happened to be looking in her direction. How awful! She could see she was going to have to be very, very cautious when the time came for her to rise from this seat.
The stranger resumed his seat and set two large glasses of gin and tonic down on the table. “I’m Tim, by the way,” he said. “Cheers.”
“Thanks Tim,” Sharon replied. “Cheers.” She took a sip of the clear liquid in her glass. It tasted crisp, clean and refreshing. Not alcoholic at all, in fact. Not what she had imagined it would be like. She liked this drink. A lot. She took another mouthful. And another. It was very moreish. And now her glass was empty.
“Crikey, you’re thirsty,” said Tim, turning and signalling to the steward at the bar in the corner to bring Sharon another drink. “So tell me, Sharon, why are you here tonight?”
“Well, I guess I’m here because I just couldn’t stick it out in that little sleeping compartment any longer,” Sharon admitted a little hesitantly. “I’m sharing with the harpy from hell and I just had to get away from her.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” Tim chortled. “But it’ll do for a start. Though tell me, why are you sharing a compartment at all?”
“I can only afford standard class, you know, not like some,” she bristled defiantly.
“Hey hey, calm down, so can I,” Tim soothed, as the steward brought a third G and T for Sharon. She hadn’t even noticed Tim summon him this time. Nor, come to that, had she noticed that her glass was empty again. “But I just pay the ten per cent single occupancy surcharge. Bottoms up!”
“What ten per cent single occupancy surcharge?” Sharon was bemused. “Nobody ever told me about that.”
“Ah, well, you see, they don’t actually call it that,” Tim explained, “but that’s what it amounts to. It’s something I discovered for myself quite by accident, and it’s always worked so far. I book two tickets you see, one for myself and one for my twin brother, so they put us both down for the same sleeping compartment.”
“You have a twin?” exclaimed Sharon excitedly. “What a coincidence. I’m a twin too. Do you do all those twin things, like … “
“No,” interrupted Tim, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “I don’t have a twin.”
“But you said … “
“I said I book a ticket for him. I didn’t say he actually exists though, did I? Which he doesn’t. I invented him. He’s an imaginary twin brother. Just have another drink and don’t worry about it.”
Sharon managed to comply with the drink part of that instruction, but she had greater difficulty with the not worrying part of it. She was confused. And when she was confused, she liked to get to the bottom of things. Sort it out. Find the answer. Above all, stop being confused.
“Look, I’m sorry for being dense and all that, and I’ll dye my hair blonde if it helps, but don’t you end up paying double if you book a ticket for an imaginary twin brother?”
“No,” said Tim. “That’s the beauty of it. Like I said, it only costs me ten per cent more.”
“But how come?”
“Have another drink,” said Tim. “Look, my brother doesn’t exist, right?”
“Right,” Sharon agreed, draining the last of the contents of her glass.
“So he won’t actually be travelling with me, right?”
“Right,” agreed Sharon, trying and failing to take another drink from the empty glass.
“So I cancel his booking and return his ticket for a refund on the morning of my journey. They keep a ten per cent administration fee and only refund ninety per cent of the cost; but there’s no way they’ll manage to re–sell the berth so it’s a small price to pay for single occupancy. A damn site cheaper than going first class, at any rate.”
“That’s sneaky,” said Sharon, noticing with delight that another glass of gin and tonic had appeared from somewhere, and lifting it gratefully to her lips.
“I prefer to think of it as playing strictly by the rules,” said Tim. “They write the rules; I use them to my best advantage.”
“Hmm,” said Sharon, who was not entirely sure that this was entirely ethical (or even, come to that, honest).
“Do I detect disapproval in your tone?” asked Tim. “Or merely disappointment that you didn’t think of it for yourself in time to avoid getting stuck with the room mate from hell?”
“A bit of both,” Sharon admitted.
“But more of the latter than the former, perhaps?”
“I guess. Thanks for the drinks, by the way.”
“My pleasure,” beamed Tim. “After all, if I wish to witness your drunken performance, it would seem to be necessary that first I should get you drunk.”
“You might not get to see it even if you do, you know.”
“You reckon?”
“Um, well, I suppose that given my performance so far today … “
“Exactly,” Tim nodded, winking knowingly at Sharon. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Sharon repeated, and they both drank some more.
“Now, if you’ll just excuse me for a moment,” said Tim, rising from his seat, “I really must go to the gents’. But I’ll be right back, and when I return perhaps you can tell me why you’re on the Inverness sleeper.”
“Actually,” said Sharon, who realised when Tim mentioned the toilet that she, too, could probably do with a pee some time soon, “I think I’d probably better head in the same direction as you.” She started to rise from her seat and then, suddenly remembering the gaping rip in the seam of her trousers, sat hurriedly back down again. “Oh no,” she said, “I forgot. I can’t.”
Tim regarded her quizzically for a moment or two, then wandered off up the train, shaking his head in a bemused sort of way. By the time he returned Sharon had drained both her own glass and what remained of Tim’s as well. Tim gestured to the bar steward as he resumed his seat, and two more drinks quickly appeared.
“So tell me,” he said, settling down again. “How come you can’t get up to go to the little girls’ room?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“As embarrassing as diving into my lap and then rolling all over the carriage floor?”
“Sort of. Worse. Maybe.”
“Try me,” said Tim encouragingly.
“Well,” she began, “when I fell over backwards, I was ever so glad that I wasn’t wearing a skirt, because if I was everyone would have seen my underwear.”
“Maybe not everyone.”
“Maybe not everyone,” Sharon agreed, “but more than I’d have liked.”
“How many would you have liked?”
“None.”
“Even when drunk?”
“Especially when drunk.”
“I see,” said Tim. “So, to sum up where we’ve got to with this so far, all things considered it’s probably just as well that you’re wearing trousers.”
“Well, yes and no,” said Sharon.
“Yes and no?”
“It probably would be,” she explained, “except for one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“Oh god, this is so embarrassing,” said Sharon. “But here goes. Well, um, when you helped me up from the floor, I split the seam of my trousers, and I’m afraid that when I move from this seat I’m still goinging to end up showing my underwear to all the world and his wife. So I thought maybe I should wait until I was the last person in the carriage, then slip quietly back to my compartment when there’s nobody looking.”
“That could be a long wait,” observed Tim. “And it might get a bit uncomfortable if you want to go to the loo.”
“I know,” said Sharon.
“I’ve got a better idea, though.”
“Have you?” Sharon was intrigued to know what she might have missed, that Tim had spotted. “Do tell.”
“Well, we could always go now. Right away. Together. I’ll walk close behind you to shield your backside from view. I’ll even walk close enough that I can’t peep myself, if you like. Then when we reach your compartment you can slip inside, change into something less revealing, and join me back here for another drink.”
Sharon pondered the suggestion for a moment or two.
“Nice idea,” she said at last. “But there’s a snag. The harpy. She’s getting off at Carlisle and has already turned in for the night. I doubt she’ll be amused if I go turning the light on and waking her up just to change my trousers.”
“Screw her! It’s your compartment too, you know.”
“You screw her if you like,” retorted Sharon, “but you can count me out. I’m not risking it.”
“Hmm,” Tim mused. “I didn’t think they made passengers for Carlisle share a berth with people travelling on to Scotland, for this very reason. But actually, it gives me an even better idea. You can spend the night with me if you like.”
“That’s a bit forward of you, isn’t it.”
“No no no,” Tim protested. Now he was the one who was flushing with embarrassment. “That’s not what I meant at all. I meant you could sleep in my twin brother’s bunk. Then in the morning, when we’re in Scotland and the harpy is in Carlisle and your compartment is empty, I can stroll up the corridor to your compartment, fetch your luggage for you, and you can get dressed in privacy while I wait out in the corridor. What do you say?”
Sharon thought about it for a moment or two. It was a nice idea, but she had her doubts. Tim noticed her hesitating.
“There’ll be no funny business, I promise,” he assured her. “Well, not unless you want there to be.”
“It’s alright,” she said. “I trust you; though god only knows why. But that’s not what’s bothering me. I was more concerned about my luggage.”
“Your luggage?”
“Yes. Suppose I sleep with you, and my luggage is still in the other compartment. What if the harpy wants to steal it when she gets off at Carlisle? I won’t be there to stop her, will I?”
“And suppose you go back to your own compartment and you’re fast asleep when we arrive in Carlisle at silly o’clock in the morning. You won’t be able to stop the harpy stealing your luggage then either, will you?”
“I suppose not,” Sharon agreed.
“Is there anything there she’d want to steal?”
“Clothes, mostly.”
“Size?”
“Ten.”
“Written one, six, by any chance?”
“Get away! I am not a size sixteen,” spluttered Sharon. “I’ve a few size fourteen dresses, but mostly I’m a twelve. On a good day, anyway.”
“But certainly not a ten?”
“I used to be,” said Sharon, sticking her tongue out.
“Okay. And the harpy? Will she be able to fit into any of your size ten to fourteen gear?”
“Hardly. Her shell suit must be at least a twenty six, and she’s popping out of that.”
“So she’s hardly going to want to steal your luggage, is she?”
“Guess not.”
“So you’ll share my berth?”
“Buy me another drink and I’ll think about it.”
Tim gestured to the steward and, half an hour and three drinks later, Sharon made a particularly inept attempt at rising from her chair.
“Oops,” she giggled as she pitched sideways with the rolling motion of the train. “I didn’t realise I was this tipsy.”
“You have been putting a fair few away,” observed Tim, placing both hands firmly on her waist to steady her.
“But it didn’t taste that alcoholic,” she protested. “No more than an alcopop, and I can drink them ‘til the cows come home.”
“Have you never had G and T before?” asked Tim, more than a little surprise evident in his voice.
“No.”
“Oh boy. I think we’d better take this very, very slowly.”
So they shuffled along the corridor, Tim keeping a firm and rather sensuous hold of Sharon’s waist and shielding her bum from view, while Sharon’s head spun in delirious and slightly fuzzy circles and her feet floated effortlessly across the floor. From time to time she slipped or stumbled or stubbed a toe, but every time there was Tim, ready and able to take her weight and keep her upright. Eventually they reached Tim’s compartment.
“Right,” he said. “This is it. You go in and get yourself into bed. I’ll wait out here ‘til you’ve sorted yourself out. Just be sure to shout to let me know when you’re decent and I can come in. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Sharon. “Just one thing, though. I’m having the top bunk, alright?”
“Fine,” said Tim. “I never use the top bunk myself anyway. I don’t like the idea of falling out in the middle of the night.”
Sharon looked back up at Tim in disbelief, and promptly dissolved in a fit of the giggles. She was still giggling as she turned her back to the door, fumbled behind her bum to find the handle, pushed the door open and slowly reversed into the compartment. Once inside she closed the door, kicked off her shoes and began unbuttoning her blouse. As she did so she noticed a small mirror on the wall, and turned her back to it to try to see how badly split her trousers really were. But it was too high. Or her bum was too low. Either way, she couldn’t see from this angle. If only her head were a little bit lower, though, she might be able to see. So she leaned forward a little, and craned her neck round to see the mirror again. Still not enough. She leaned forward a little more. Still couldn’t quite see. But nearly there. Just a little further. Beginning to feel a little dizzy, now, but … CRASH! She overbalanced and pitched forward, head first into the door.
“Sharon?” came Tim’s muffled voice from the far side of the door. “Are you alright in there?”
“I’m fine,” she called back, rubbing her head. “I just fell over, that’s all.”
“Again?”
“Just think of it as my drunken encore, okay?”
“Wish I were there to see it.”
“But I’m not decent.”
“I’m not bothered.”
“I am.”
“Pity.”
She stood up again, hurriedly removing her blouse and trousers which she folded neatly and placed on the little shelf on the wall. Then she clambered up onto the top bunk, noting as she did so that her bladder was actually feeling pretty full now. She wondered briefly whether she oughtn’t to go to the toilet before getting into bed, just to be on the safe side, as her mother had always used to say. But she was undressed now. She reckoned she’d be okay to hold on until the morning. And if she was wrong, then her bladder was bound to wake her in the night and she could get up and go to the toilet then. No need to go just now, then. No need at all. She climbed into bed and pulled the sheet up over her bra.
“It’s alright,” she called to Tim. “You can come in now. I’m decent.”
Tim came in and looked down at her, tucked up safely in the top bunk. He was remarkably tall.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fine,” she replied. “Pleasantly tipsy. I expect I shall have wild erotic dreams tonight in which you are bound to feature in some way, shape or form. Probably as my submissive sex slave. I’m looking forward to that, actually. My head’s a bit sore where I butted the door, but that apart I’m fine.”
“There’s a couple of little bottles of mineral water here,” said Tim. “I suggest you drink them, or you’ll have one hell of a hangover tomorrow, the amount of gin you’ve drunk tonight.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Trust me.”
“Okay then.” She sat up in her bunk, clutching the sheet to her chest to preserve her modesty, and Tim handed her the water bottles. She drank their contents while he undressed, then he took the empty bottles and dropped them in the waste paper basket under the little sink. He appeared to have stripped completely naked, but she could only see as far down as his waist so she couldn’t quite be certain. Then he disappeared into the bunk below her.
Neither of them actually felt particularly tired so, by mutual consent, they left the light on and exchanged life stories. Sharon went first, although she carefully omitted the part about Tina wetting the bed and her getting the blame. Then Tim started to tell her about himself. But Sharon found it difficult to concentrate because she was at once becoming drowsy, but also becoming more and more desperate for a wee. She needed either to go to the toilet or to go to sleep. But she couldn’t lie there awake, trying to listen to Tim, for very much longer. It was just getting too uncomfortable. Eventually she gave up.
“I’m sorry, Tim,” she said, “but I’m just getting too drowsy here. I’m going to get up and nip to the loo, and when I come back I’m going to sleep. I’ll listen to the rest of your life another time.”
“That’s fine by me,” said Tim.
Sharon turned the sheet back and swung her bare legs out and over the side of the bunk.
“Are you facing the wall, Tim?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Well, you just stay that way for the moment, okay, because I’m coming down now.”
She began to climb carefully down the step ladder. As she reached with her foot for the fourth rung, Tim said “Ooh, magenta. Nice.”
“What do you mean, magenta?” asked Sharon.
“Your knickers,” explained Tim. “They’re magenta. It’s my favourite colour.”
“How do you know what colour my knickers are?” demanded Sharon, who had in any event always thought of them as a sort of dark purpley pink, rather than magenta.
“I can see them. And very nice they are too.”
Sharon was outraged. “But you told me you were facing the wall!”
“That’s right,” agreed Tim. “And you’ve just climbed down into the space between me and the wall.”
“I didn’t mean that wall, you idiot! I meant the other wall.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tim. “If that’s what you meant, you should have said so.”
Well, there was no use getting all coy about it now, she realised. Tim had seen her underwear and that was that. Slightly embarrassing, perhaps, but hardly the end of the world. So she finished climbing down the ladder and padded softly over to the door.
“You’re going to the loo dressed like that, are you?” asked Tim, genuine surprise registering in his voice. “Don’t you want to cover up a bit? What if you meet somebody?”
“Course I’m going like this,” said Sharon. “My trousers are hardly going to cover anything important in their present state, and I’m sure it’s not all that uncommon for women to wander along the carriage to the toilets in just their underwear.”
“It is in the men’s carriage,” said Tim.
Oh hell! She hadn’t thought of that. Her berth had been in a women’s carriage, but this was Tim’s berth. All the other occupants of this carriage were going to be men. So it probably wasn’t a very good idea to be wandering around late at night in just her underwear. And all her other clothes were in her suitcase in her own berth. There was only one thing for it, she decided. She was just going to have to grit her teeth and hold on until morning. She only hoped she could.
“Ah well,” she said, trying her best to sound cheery and nonchalant even though she felt neither. “It can wait until the morning. Good night, then.”
“Good night,” said Tim, as she climbed back up to her bunk. “Shall I put the lights off, then?”
“Yes please,” said Sharon as she slipped back between the sheets.
Lying there in the dark, her bladder throbbing urgently, Sharon was unable to find sleep. She’d convinced herself that she could wait to pee until tomorrow morning if only she could relax and drop off, but nobody had told her bladder that. It still seemed to think that she should get up and find a toilet, and it kept insisting on sending her uncomfortable little reminders that she had yet to do so: and these reminders were keeping her awake.
Then, unexpectedly, a memory came floating to the surface of her consciousness. A memory of a family Christmas when she’d been eighteen or nineteen. The central heating had been turned right up for grandma’s sake, and she’d found the stifling heat made it impossible for her to sleep. She’d felt awful the next morning, and Tina had commented that she looked pretty awful too.
“I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, that’s the problem,” she’d explained to Tina. “The heating’s just turned up too high and try what I may I simply can’t drop off.”
“Why don’t you try what I always do?” Tina had suggested.
“What’s that, then?” Sharon asked.
And Tina had replied using the private language that they’d spoken to each other when they were children. A language which only the two of them knew. It had been almost five years since the last time they’d used it, and was indeed to be the last time that either of them felt the need to do so. Yet even though Tina knew that nobody except Sharon could possibly understand what she was saying, she still blushed furiously as she spoke.
“I finger myself until I have an orgasm,” she confessed. “Then afterwards, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable the situation I find myself in, I always manage to fall into a deep, deep sleep.”
Sharon smiled at the memory. She hadn’t tried it back then, but it offered the promise of a solution to her present difficulty, so she slipped a hand experimentally down inside the waist band of her knickers. It felt good. Warm and welcome and sensuous. A pleasant shiver ran up and down her spine as, slowly, she began to explore with her fingers, touching herself gently, finding her most erotic parts.
“Mmm,” she sighed, as she touched a particularly sensitive spot. And then “aah” as she spread her legs as wide as the tight sheet on the narrow bunk would allow and slipped her middle finger up inside herself as far as it would go. Then, suddenly, WOW! Spot on! With her full bladder pulsating against her G–spot from behind, and her finger pressing gently against it from in front, she was transported to a new realm of sensuous ecstasy. Panting rapidly, she thrust her hips back and forth, and alternately clenched and released her muscles. That felt sooo good, she just had to keep on and on, faster and faster, harder and harder, until oh, oh, oh, oh, oooooooh! That was it! Her world exploded in a wonderful technicolour rush of intense sensation; and she lay back, totally spent.
“Having fun?” asked Tim, from the bottom bunk.
“Mmmm,” she sighed.
“Can I join in?”
“You’re too late,” she said, as she closed her eyes and sleep washed over her at last.
She slept deeply, as Tina had promised she would. And she dreamed as well. In her dream she was on a train. Not the Inverness Sleeper, but a train going into the Channel Tunnel. And she was sitting in a carriage like the day carriage on the Inverness Sleeper, in an armchair, and Tim was there in the other armchair. And the driver made an announcement. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, “please do not be alarmed if the train lets in a bit of water. The tunnel leaks a bit from time to time. It always has. This is perfectly natural and normal, and nothing to worry about.” And shortly after that, water had started welling up from the bottom of the carriage doors and had covered the floor of the carriage. She lifted her feet off the floor to keep them from getting wet, and as the water continued to rise she put her feet up onto the table, so as she sat there in the armchair her bum was the lowest part of her. And still the water rose, and Tim said “it doesn’t normally get this wet: I’m going to go and see if everything’s alright.” And then he waded off through the water, leaving her along in the carriage with the water rising all around her. And then the water reached the seat of her chair, and her bum started getting wet. And for all that it was sea water it was warm, not cold as she had expected. And the water level rose and rose, and her legs were wet as well, and her waist, and her belly. And then she heard Tim shouting to her, urgently. At first she couldn’t make out the words. But then he was by her shoulder, shaking her violently.
“Sharon,” he shouted. “Wake up!”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Wake up, Sharon. You’re wetting the bed.”
Shocked and appalled, she sat bolt upright and realised with horror that it was true! She was peeing. Uncontrollably. Her knickers were completely sodden right up to the waist band, as were the sheets. Her bum was wet. Her legs were wet. Hardly any part of her was dry. And still the pee kept flowing out of her.
“Oh no!” she gasped. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. But how … how did you know?”
“You soaked your mattress and it started dripping through onto me,” Tim said. “My first thought when I woke up was that I must be the one who’d wet the bed. Then I realised that only my top sheet was wet and my undersheet was still dry.”
“Oh gosh,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I guess you should have gone to the toilet last night after all,” said Tim.
“I guess,” said Sharon, finally managing to regain control of her bladder and stop the flow. “I can’t believe I’ve just wet the bed. This is terrible.”
“Hey, relax. It’s hardly the end of the world you know,” said Tim. “It was an accident. You had a bit too much to drink last night. It happens. Okay, so the bed’s wet. That’s the railway’s problem. Your knickers are wet. You weren’t going to wear them again today were you?”
“Well, no,” said Sharon.
“Is your bra wet?”
Sharon felt it, tentatively. “No,” she said. That, at least, was still dry.
“So at the end of the day, if we examine the situation as it actually affects you, you’ve wet your knickers which you were going to take off anyway, and you’ve wet yourself which can soon be dried. What’s the problem?”
“It’s so embarrassing. I have never wet the bed before in my entire life.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” said Tim. “Had you ever frigged yourself with a stranger sleeping in the bunk below you before last night?”
“No,” said Sharon, blushing at the memory of how she’d finally got herself off to sleep despite her throbbingly full bladder.
“There you are then. Two embarrassing firsts for you. But who knows about them except you and me? And in a couple of hours we’ll go our separate ways, and nobody else need ever know.”
“Do you promise not to tell anyone?”
“I’ll promise on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Leave me your wet magenta knickers when you get dressed?”
Three hours later, Sharon heaved her suitcase off the train at Inverness and made her way to the ticket barrier. She wore a dark green T–shirt and a tartan mini–skirt. A little gust of wind lifted the hem of her skirt and showed all the world and his wife that she was wearing light blue knickers underneath. Normally she’d have been mortified by that; but compared to the events of the previous night, she reckoned it now as only a minor embarrassment. After all, they were perfectly dry, light blue knickers.
Tina greeted her with an enthusiastic hug and carried her suitcase to the car. “It’s great to see you again, Sis!”
“It’s good to see you again too, Tina.”
As they drove out along the shores of Loch Ness, Tina turned thoughtfully to Sharon and said “Sis?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the night we both wet the bed when we were about nine?”
“I remember it well.”
“Mum always likes to use it as an example of the sort of twin things we do.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” agreed Sharon.
“Well, this is really odd. Since then I never wet the bed again. Until last night. Last night I dreamed about that night. I dreamed that we were arguing about whether I wet the bed first and that started you wetting, or whether you wet the bed first and that started me wetting. And then I woke up and I HAD wet the bed.”
“How odd,” said Sharon.
“Yes, and terribly embarrassing too. But do you think this wetting the bed really is a twin thing, sis? Mum thinks it is, and said she wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that you wet the bed last night too.”
“Well, she’s wrong there,” lied Sharon. “I’m afraid you’re on your own this time: I’ve only wet the bed once in my entire life.”
By: Indigo