I was on the 7.30 am train to London, headed for a dull meeting at the British Library Conference Centre. I had been ordered to attend by my boss, despite my protests that I knew everything there is to know about the subject already. I had a huge in-tray waiting at my office and some scary deadlines looming. Consequently, I was not happy to be on a London-bound train and my normally placid face was scarred by lines of ill-temper, my brow creased and furrowed, and a petulant pout was playing about my lips. I was a Harriet-not- to-be-disturbed.

So I was especially displeased when the stranger opposite me piped up.

I was engrossed in a book. I knew I should have been reading reports or doing something constructive, like most of the professional commuters on the train, but I was too cross. If my boss wants me to waste a day's work, I thought, I owe it to him to waste it thoroughly; and so I refused to take anything with me, knowing perfectly well that I was cutting off my nose to spite my face, but gaining a childish satisfaction nonetheless. And so I was reading "When they lay bare" by Andrew Greig, an intriguing and mysterious book set in the Scottish Borders, interweaving stories from the present day, the 1960s and the 1600s. The story revolves around a set of plates depicting scenes from an old Border Ballad, The Twa Corbies. The four hundred year old story told in the plates, a story which is vivid, haunting and erotic, resonates in the present day, forming a curious link to a violent event which occurred twenty years before. Memories are rekindled, long dead passions stoked and feuds reawakened, hurtling the protagonists towards a climactic confrontation. Or at least they would if this bint opposite would let me get on with it.

"Enjoying the book?" she asked.

I was looking for a suitably tart rejoinder when she continued: "He's a marvellous writer. I loved "Electric Brae", didn't you? So sad, so moving. He's a poet as well, and it shows in his writing, don't you think?"

Well, that threw me, I have to say. I was all ready for a quick put down before I got back to my book, and here was someone throwing literary criticism at me. At seven thirty in the morning, when I was in a bad mood and didn't have enough wakened brain cells to discourse sensibly on the weather, far less literature.

"Absolutely," I replied, frowning.

"I think that one," she continued, nodding at the book in my hand, "is his most mature work. It's a pity he has lost his humorous tone though. That was what I liked about "Electric Brae"; he moves from high farce to tragedy so smoothly. Genuine pathos."

Despite myself, I was intrigued. I began to engage her in conversation, finding her witty and knowledgeable, a very easy companion. The train clacked on its way, ripping through the countryside as we dissected the modern literary scene. Joanne Harris: a superb new talent. Paul Auster: losing his touch. Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong was a triumph. Anne Rice: life's too short. We knew we had connected when, despite both professing to hate fantasy we listed Tim Powers as an all time favourite. It was fascinating and exciting. Although we had read similar things we had different views on many of them, picking up different nuances, interpreting themes and symbolism in contrasting ways, and bringing our varied experiences to bear on our opinions. Suddenly, a long, boring train journey seemed very short.

Disembarking at King's Cross, I felt a pang of disappointment that this conversation should end prematurely. I had an hour before my tedious meeting unfolded, and I invited my companion, whose name I had discovered was Gillian, for a coffee. She agreed, and we marched off. The British Library has a dreary cafe attached, barely worth the effort, so I mentioned a favourite place of mine, ten minutes away on Tottenham Court Road. Gillian had come on a shopping trip and appeared in no rush, so we set off.

Quarter of an hour later, cappucinos and blueberry muffins in front of us, we sat facing the early morning traffic, continuing our conversation. Gillian was curiously attractive. At first glance you might scarcely notice her, but her face had an addictive quality: it insinuated itself on your brain, refusing to let go, like a tune you repeatedly hum in your mind and can't stop, even when it has started to irritate you. Looked at individually every feature was wrong, but together they gelled to fashion a compelling, very appealing woman. The whole face was framed around a long, sharp nose, which is something that always turns me on. It strikes me as the most individualistic part of a face and, as such, gives a glimpse of the person within. She had ravishing, boyish short hair, deep brown and trimmed over her delicious, pink ears, fringe flicked casually upwards. Her lips were a bit on the thin side, especially her upper lip, which looked rather masculine. Hazel eyes, very sexy, were quite deep set and dark-ringed, suggesting someone who was either working or playing too hard. They crinkled in a most attractive way when she laughed, which she did in a generous, wholehearted fashion. She was one of these people who laugh with their whole face, every feature vitalised, open and uncomplicated. The best way to describe her, and I don't mean this in any pejorative sense, was charming: I simply felt at ease and happy to be in her company, enjoying her conversation, drinking in her innocent aura.

It was clear that neither of us had any inclination to bring things to a close; coffees got cold as our conversation ranged back and forth around a multitude of topics, veering off crazily from one subject to another, barely pausing for breath. It was like we were trying to fit a week's worth of talk into a breakfast time discussion. All the time, I couldn't stop staring at her, taking in every inch of her face, reading her thoughts, divining her past. And, I noticed, she scarcely broke eye contact with me either.

She had wonderful skin, astonishingly smooth, and I had an overwhelming urge to touch it, stroke it. Her bare forearm appeared almost hairless, just the merest hint of down. The skin was so porcelain-like she appeared not to have pores, nothing breaking up that continuous, perfect, smooth surface. Casually, as I made some point about the London Mayoral elections which had been held the day before, I reached out and flicked my hand across her arm, fingers stretching to kiss her soft flesh. The effect was extraordinary; I felt an erotic shock jolt through me as I felt the warmth of her body, the sensuous texture of her skin. I rather think I gasped audibly, which would have been embarrassing had not Gillian, too, looked like she had plugged herself into the mains. I left my hand where it was, my heart pounding, eyes fixed on the woman before me.

And she smiled.

My senses went into overdrive. I became instantly damp, my stomach convulsed with nervous energy. My mouth dried and as I tried to speak only a hoarse whisper emerged. Laughing and blushing, I tried again, suggesting it was time we moved on. I asked her to accompany me back to the British Library, if she had the time. I would have broken down and cried if she had said no, but she agreed and we headed back down Tottenham Court Road and Euston Road.

At the British Library we headed for the huge, open courtyard and took advantage of the fresh, bright morning to sit beneath the huge Sir Eduardo Paolozzi sculpture of Isaac Newton. It is an impressive piece of art, imposing and thought-provoking, grand enough not to become lost in the immense Piazza in which it sits. I could see, over from us, people heading in to the meeting I was supposed to be attending, but I could summon up no interest in it. Gillian and I sat, close together, facing one another, engrossed in our own private world.

"There's the people going into my meeting," I said.

"Oh," Gillian replied, disappointedly. "Do you want to go now?"

"No, I don't," I replied, and reached for her hand. She slipped it into mine, looking fragile and uncertain. I wasn't sure what was happening, myself. We sat for some minutes, hand in hand, but the conversation had dried up. Where before we had sprayed conversational gambits like confetti, carelessly dropping them and picking them up again at will, now we sat in contemplative silence.

"Could I kiss you?" I asked. Four words, but the effort it took to draw them out from within me can scarcely be expressed. I waited for her response.

"Yes please."

I reached over and gave a tentative brush of my lips across hers. Sliding closer, I ran my arm round her back and pulled her towards me. Gently holding her shoulder, I drew my mouth towards her and planted my lips firmly on hers; her sweet, hot breath mingled with mine as the contact of lip on lip created ripples of excitement through my body. Tenderly, I stroked my tongue across her lip, delicate and negligible though it was, dragging initially against its nervous dryness. I transferred my attention to her lower lip, sucking it into my mouth, rolling my tongue across it, feeling her even, straight teeth behind. Her tongue revealed itself, darting shyly from her mouth towards mine, then retreating again, as though embarrassed by its impudence. I went off in search of it and engaged it, our tongues caressing one another, toying our senses to a peak of awareness. Meanwhile I could not stop myself from stroking her cheek, ceaselessly wondering at the purity, perfection of her skin, adoring its silky feel, in thrall to the sensations it raised in my fingertips.

I've no idea how long we sat kissing. It was exhausting, intense. The world around us disappeared. I no longer knew, nor cared that I was sitting in the middle of the Piazza of the British Library, with people passing by all the time, kissing a woman I had met only a couple of hours before. We seemed in a parallel world where only we two existed. Finally, we broke off.

"Wow," I said, inadequately.

"Wow," she concurred.

This couldn't end here. My body was aflame. I needed this woman, and I wasn't going to be satisfied with a snog, no matter how good it was. But what to do? We could hardly have full frontal sex beneath the bronzed gaze of Sir Isaac Newton.

"Are you going to your meeting now?" Gillian asked.

"No. Are you going shopping?"

"No, I don't think so."

"So, what now?"

"I don't know," she replied.

"Me neither. I've never done anything like this before. Shall we book into a hotel?" It seemed the most ordinary, obvious thing in the world. Had you told me the night before that at ten the following morning I would be suggesting to someone I had never met that we book into a hotel I would have laughed uproariously. But here I was doing just that.

And Gillian agreed.