I let a stranger go down on me in a sleeper bus and I still don’t know why I didn’t stop it

I took a sleeper last Friday. Cheap overnight, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Upper berth, aisle side. I always take the upper one because I hate people climbing over me. I had jeans on, not shorts. People on Reddit write this like it’s some porno bunk. It wasn’t. It was a cramped Indian/long-haul style sleeper: thin mattress, metal rail, curtain that doesn’t really close, that sour AC smell, someone’s kid crying two berths down until midnight.

I was scrolling with brightness all the way down. Around 1:40 the guy in the lower berth across the aisle got up to piss. When he came back he didn’t go straight down. He stood there a second too long. I noticed because the curtain moved. I zipped mine more and put my phone away.

I must have dozed. What woke me wasn’t a hand on my ankle like some fantasy. It was the berth shaking because he was standing on the edge of the lower bunk, which you’re not supposed to do. I opened my eyes and there was a face at the gap in my curtain. Mid-20s maybe. I couldn’t see him well. He whispered something like “sorry, wrong berth” but he didn’t leave.

I should have said get lost. I whispered “what the fuck” instead, which is not the same thing. He said he couldn’t sleep. Asked if I wanted water. I said no. Then he asked if he could sit for a minute because his berth mate was snoring. That part is embarrassing because I actually said “just for a minute” like an idiot.

He sat on the very end of my bunk, shoes still on, which annoyed me more than it should have. We talked for maybe five minutes in that stupid half-whisper people use on night buses. Work, city, nothing real. His knee was against my hip the whole time. I didn’t move it.

At some point he put his hand on my thigh over the jeans. I looked at the curtain like someone was going to burst in. Nobody did. The bus was loud enough that a whisper disappeared. I didn’t take my jeans off. I unbuttoned them because a full strip in a sleeper berth is not happening unless you want to fall off. He helped pull them down to mid-thigh, underwear still on, then he just… moved the fabric aside.

It was awkward. His neck was at a bad angle. The rail dug into my shoulder. I kept one hand on the curtain so it wouldn’t gape. He wasn’t some expert; he missed at first, too much teeth once, then he figured it out. I came quieter than I thought I would, more like I was holding my breath and then letting it out wrong. My legs cramped. I pushed his head because I was oversensitive and also because I suddenly felt like I was going to cry, which is a weird reaction and I hate that I had it.

He sat up, wiped his mouth with the side of his hand, asked if I was okay. I said yeah. He asked for my number. I said no. He went back to his berth. I pulled my jeans up and lay there staring at the ceiling, feeling sticky and stupid and also, honestly, like I’d gotten away with something.

In the morning he was still there. We didn’t look at each other. At the last stop I got down fast and didn’t wait for my bag until he was gone. I don’t know his name. I keep thinking about the snoring, the metal rail, and the fact that I unbuttoned my own jeans.

That’s it. Not cute. Not cinematic. Just a bad decision on a night bus that I keep replaying anyway.