boyfriend is bearded

This afternoon riding the Underground (the above-ground Underground, speeding through the trees) I saw a bearded man put up his hand to the steel pole at the end of his bench seat. In doing so he embraced his girlfriend, sitting beside him rather hunched. He said to her, in accented English, “it’s good to be you, my-Sascha.” “Is it?” she said, bleakly, and submitted to his hand dropping round her shoulder and cupping and fondling the bone.