Gathering her rolling bag and heading into the station building she looked around at the other passengers. Huh, all men. Weird, she seemed to be the only female here. They were all wearing some pretty expensively tailored business suits, she decided. Not that she knew necessarily what those looked like or cost, but they didn’t seem cheap.
More than one of the men glanced at her with a knowing smile. Alright, Emily, stop being so paranoid, she said to herself. There’s probably some conference in Chicago and the fine businessmen of the Greater Eugene area were headed there in their finest. Looking forward to days and days of being locked in conference rooms, discussing the finer points of Key Performance Indicators and other business bullshit that Emily and her friends had joked about after watching UWatch parodies. Still, a bit depressing that there weren’t any business women along. What the fuck?
That reminded her, what the heck was she going to major in? Business? Her scholarship allowed her to choose whatever, but had gently hinted at an engineering focus. Emily wasn’t quite ready to decide on that yet, but perhaps the long ride on the train would give her some time to think about it.
In any event, spending some time actually looking where she was going would have been a better thing to concentrate on as she bumped into a tall, black man who seemed like he worked at the station. No, at RailTrek she corrected herself as she backed up, apologizing and looking at the uniform he wore.
“Hi, sorry about that. I’m getting on the train to Chicago,” she said to him. “Is that boarding now?”
“Can I see your ticket,” he replied. Didn’t seem too friendly, but when Emily showed him her ticket on her phone, his eyes lit up.
“Oh, shit! We didn’t think you’d actually show! Come this way,” he said to her as he gently guided her by the upper arm to a side door.
Somewhat puzzled, but without any prior experience with trains to guide her, she allowed herself to be led to what seems to be some employee-only door. The other passengers were milling about in the central part of the station hall, she noted. I guess this ticket is so cheap for a reason, she thought to herself, once again cursing her lack of finances and the impact that kept having in her life.
The man opened the door and guided her in to reveal what looked a lot like a changing room, with lockers, benches, and a narrow table along one side of the room. She startled as the door slammed closed behind her.
“Alright, go ahead and take off all your clothes and put them in this bag here. You’ll get them all back at your destination,” he said as he picked up a black cloth bag from the side of the table and held it out to her.
Introducing my upcoming book "Spanked on the Rails: Emily's College Trip". This will be the first book in a serial following the adventures of Emily, a recent high school graduate who is heading off to college. Not having enough money to afford real transportation, she jumps at the cheap Comfort Class fare offered by RailTrek. Unfortunately for her, she soon finds out that the comfort being sold here is her!
This book is still being written and edited, but I hope to have it out soon on Amazon. Please keep an eye out for it!
Yours,
Erik
