On the Train it's Plain to See

She sits; shoulders fall, exhaling; head back, eyes down, seeing from-into-through the corner; the person there. A dull background sound of the train on the tracks and a sudden crack at the switch rails brings it all to the fore with a jolt of mortal terror. Everyone stirs and settles down, eyes glazed over, avoiding any chance eye contact. 

Compartments fill and empty. Somedays it's way too full. 

She's pressed tight against unfamiliar bodies.

The scent of sweat and hair oil piercing her perception to become the only point. 

Her arm brushes soft chocolate skin. The softest skin.

She sits; he stands. There's room enough to be considerate but his dick is in her face.

She sat on the train, looking around her at the people out the corner of her eye. Her eyes would linger on the people who had their eyes down or were looking elsewhere, unable to notice her watching them. 

In confined spaces, statistics have a funny way of making themselves apparent. Even the invisible would come to mind. But one in particular would creep in from the peripheral of her thoughts as women would board and disembark and occasionally leave her alone in a compartment with more men than were comfortable to her sense of self preservation. This would always make her dwell on things she had either heard of, read about, or personally experienced. 

She once read that they had performed interviews in a township in South Africa, where 25 of 27 men had admitted to having raped a woman/ multiple women. This often made her see the women coming into the city off the rural trains, and consider the probability of violence in each woman's life. Just about all of these women have been brutally assaulted.

A pattern of a more subtle crime emerged in conversations with friends. Boys often seemed unwilling to take no for an answer at first. Men seemed to have realised how persuasive persistent begging could be to incite pity fucking. Apparently, any sex is better than no sex, regardless of mutual/self respect.

Rape culture always made her wonder at the point behind it. Why seek intimacy, a dual experience, if you only have the intent to please yourself. You don't need another person for that.