It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm, and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn’t hardly know I wasn’t getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.’
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby. Chapter 2, Myrtle telling the story of her first meeting with Tom. Twelve years into an unhappy marriage Myrtle sees the encounter as the beginning of a love story and a romantic escape. But to Tom Myrtle is less a person and more of a sexual object.