After work, I went to visit her again and wondered why my hands couldn't stop shaking three stations from my destination. I don't know what it was, but she just made me excited to see her again. Her smile was just so...sweet? She seemed sweet. I think she gave me butterflies even though I didn't know anything about her.

As I got out of the subway car, somehow I finally got my hands to stop shaking. I approached her favorite spot slowly, so that I could observe her from a distance before making my presence felt. Just seeing her standing there with one knee bent so that her tattered sneaker rested on the wall behind her made me smile. I still don't know what it was about her that stirred something in me, but whatever it was, I liked it. I liked her. It was probably crazy but I wanted to take her out of her habitat. Eventually approaching her, I greeted her not with a hello but an "Are you busy?" and a smirk.

Vaguely, the corners of curled upward.

"Can I...take you out for a coffee?"  I went right ahead and asked, as if we weren't strangers; as if we'd met at a gay bar so I knew she liked girls. Presumptuous, but I could feel it in my bones. She showed up on my Gaydar the first time I saw her, hidden in her parka or not.

Her smile widened, and she asked, "You want to bring Mohammed to the Mountain today?"

I shrugged, "Do you have any other plans?" She shook her head.

She agreed without much coaxing and in what seemed like a fast-forward in time, we were already seated at a booth in that nearby coffee shop; non-disposable, non take-out order mugs between our hands. Her dusty cheeks rounded under her eyes whenever she smiled. She was smiling a lot. It made my heart smile too. Until she excused herself for a bathroom break. She took a long time to come back, and I thought I'd maybe scared her off and she was already back inside the subway station.

But then...

"Hi. Sorry, did I take too long?"

She was back in our booth, smiling as if she'd never left. Only, a few things were different. She'd washed her face and removed her ever-present beanie. The fringes of her dark bangs were wet. Now I understood what took her so long. She certainly cleaned up well. She was so pretty my gut fluttered. And maybe something happened a little lower than my gut. I wasn't sure because everything from my waist down turned numb when she smiled at me with her clean cheeks and her bright smile.

I remembered she'd asked me a question, and responded, "Oh! No, you didn't take long at all." I'm a terrible liar.

"You didn't think I ran off, did you?" she asked.

"Of course not," I lied again. Badly. She smiled. She knew, and that made me laugh.

Sipping my coffee, I noticed it was a bit too strong. I announced, "I'll be back. I need more milk." She grabbed my wrist to stop me from leaving.

"I'm right here!" she said. I was confused and it likely showed in my expression. She explained, "Milk. My name is actually Milk."

I raised an eyebrow and jokingly said, "Shut up. Seriously?"

"Yes! Well, okay it's a nickname but yes, please call me Milk." She put out a hand for me to shake. I supposed she'd washed it but I would have shaken her hand anyway, even if it had been dirty. And who was I to tease about a nickname? I wasn't using my given name either. I put my hand in her's and said,

"I'm Chris."

We stayed there like that for a moment and I probably blushed a bit but I didn't care if she saw. She did something to me I couldn't explain and I wasn't fazed by her finding out. Her hand was warm and large enough to almost engulf mine. I was again reminded that she was about two heads taller than me.

I decided I would drink my coffee as is. I had all the Milk I needed right here in front of me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 

She was lovelier than I imagined. She spoke eloquently and seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. There was this calm confidence about her. Not conceited or aloof, just...she seemed pretty sure of who she was as a person. She could definitely hold up her side of a conversation, but seemed to prefer listening to speaking.

She offered explanations for her clean smile and her lack of body odor. She was new to this way of life, having lost her job and apartment in the same week, only six months ago. She'd kept her hygiene habits thus far by 'borrowing' public washrooms in take-out junk-food joints, gas stations and corner stores. Though she'd not had the luxury of a shower, she took sponge baths every day; sometimes twice a day if she could manage it. She carried around miniature toiletries like the ones people steal from hotel rooms. Toothbrush, small comb and the cheapest sanitary pads she could find after her supply from home had been depleted.

My heart ached knowing how hard that last part must be - every month. The soiled undergarments needing hand-washing in wheelchair-access bathroom stalls; the wadding up of toilet paper when the el-cheapo menstrual pads didn't do as good a job as their pricier counterparts. I felt bad for her struggle, but she appeared to be rather well-adjusted to the change of direction her life had suddenly taken.

She didn't seem depressed or angry. More than anything, she seemed bored. And hungry. She said she had twenty-four hours in which to choose her sleep times, hand-wash her small array of clothes and dry them with high-powered hand-dryers in the more fancy restrooms; scout for places to sneak into that gave her shelter and some amount of safety. She was a girl after all. She'd noticed there was a higher ratio of male to female homeless folk. Not knowing much about being a street person, she applied common sense to avoid potential trouble. She didn't want to be roughed up, bothered or teased. She was tall but she thought herself relatively defenseless should someone try to hurt her in a dark alley. I noticed her arms were very skinny when she held her mug at the coffee shop.

Had people mistaken her for a guy, she would have been a pretty scrawny guy. One that would likely get beaten to death because he couldn't protect himself against a bigger or stronger male. For that reason, Milk was happy she was a tomboy. It served to offset the fact that she maintained quite a short haircut. Had her hair grown much longer in the past six months, it would have only feminized her. She didn't want people to get the impression they could somehow dominate her for being of the so-called 'weaker '.

She told me she'd always had a fighting spirit, but that she wasn't a fighter per se. She didn't like violence or injustice. When she was in college, she had studied art and hung out with a group of peace-loving hippie-artist friends. Artists were always known to be 'starving' so I wondered how much Milk's diet had actually changed when she lost her source of income. She'd probably always been lanky and skinny. And beautiful. Is it normal that someone becomes more and more beautiful the more you get to know about them? God, she was beautiful. She smiled so much that day at the coffee shop. When her coffee was finished, she sat with her hands clasped together on the table top.

I couldn't help but stare. She had artist hands. A bit weathered, but with long slinky fingers and short nails. Despite her living conditions and keeping in mind what she'd said about having oodles of time on her side, I thought she probably had a nail clipper and took great care to trim her nails. They were clean, like the rest of her, save the few scuffs and dusty patches.

I learned a lot about her that evening. It made me want to know the rest.