**1st May, 4pm**

Today whilst on the London tube I was overcome with a surge of epinephrine. This is commonly known as “adrenaline”, and is widely known to be activated when an animal’s fight or flight instincts kick in. To have experienced this sensation on a man made mode of transportation is to realise, with evolutionary shame, how the mighty apex predators have fallen.

I had been standing against one end of the carriage and looking down at the ground, generally avoiding eye contact as all Londoners prefer to do, when the surge occurred. It began as an itch on the back of my neck, then a tensing of the shoulders. One can always tell when one is being stared at. Better yet, one always knows exactly where the stare is coming from, no matter how crowded a tube carriage may be in the middle of the afternoon. In true predator fashion I glanced up, and immediately locked eyes with the source of the attack.

My God he was a specimen.

Piercing eyes - dark, like mine. Wavy hair that blew about his face in a cinematic manner, occasionally falling across self-assured brows. An angular jawline that made me think he could say wicked things on velvet sheets as we draped over one another under the inky cover of night.

Being an apex predator, my cheeks did not flush and I did not look away. I liked to size up other animals.

And so, it appeared, did he.

We continued to lock eyes from across the carriage. It became a game - who would look away first?

I recorded spiking levels of dopamine, oxytocin, and a hunger somewhere at the base of my stomach.

The audacity, I thought, of someone caught staring who _continued_ to stare. The brazenness. The _I dare you to come over_-ness of it all.The-

The tube doors jerked open, sending a flood of strangers in and out of the carriage. When the flurry had passed, my specimen was gone.

**15th May, 5pm**

****

Half a month of experiments have proved inconclusive. Since the first day I have only managed to draw the following conclusions:

- The specimen takes the tube from Covent Garden every weekday around 4pm, but it is unclear where they alight

- The specimen is not always on the same carriage

- On the 2 occasions I have seen the specimen again, there has been an obvious and not unwelcome show of recognition. ie. he has grinned at me.

He never breaks eye contact.

**22nd June, 4pm**

****

I have recorded exceedingly high levels of cortisol in my body.

I have been unable to sight the specimen since my last entry, and have no further data.

**1st August, 4pm**

****

Today the tube carriage was packed on account of a music festival in Hyde Park. I clutched my research bag close to me in an effort to maintain some sense of personal space. But as London tubes go, this was one of those days where being pressed up against a complete stranger would not be an anomaly.

A group of young boys who smelled of beer and sweat had boarded the carriage and had decided to sing at the top of their voices. They were all elbows, and when one particularly jerky elbow rammed the side of my head, I would have stumbled backwards and crashed into a pole, had it not been for a firm hand that materialised on my lower back.

I knew straight away who it was. I knew it from the oxytocin that flooded my senses, the way I felt the heat from his hand spread through my back and rise into my cheeks. My breathing deepened, dropped down somewhere in me that I only went when I was alone at night.

I exhaled, and so did he. Slow as a hunter stalking through tall grass, he gripped my waist and pulled me back. My oxytocin surged. I resisted the pull to see what he would do and was rewarded with another hand around my waist.

As an experiment I fell back entirely against him, eyes staring straight ahead in an unseeing challenge. Though I refused to turn back to see the effect my action had had on him, I felt a distinct rise in temperature. On both our ends. We let the other commuters crush us against one another. The smell of pine trees mingled with rose, a dizzying hunt down an intoxicating trail through densely-covered woods.

I inhaled sharply. Turned and looked him right in the eyes. He looked right back into mine.

Neither of us backed down.

We shall conduct further experiments on all chemicals tonight.