The first week of not-freezing cold always seemed to take the city unawares; you saw people on the El still in heavy jackets, sweating because the temperature on their phones hadn't accounted for accumulated body heat during the morning rush hour. But you also saw things like girl's knees suddenly appearing beneath their skirts, or from strategic tears in their denim pants, where the week before they would have worn tights or no skirt at all.
I was sitting in my usual morning coffeeshop seat that I occupied for an hour or two before going in to my shift at the hospital, where I was a receptionist. I liked the business of this coffee shop, because it meant people were in and out, and anyone like me who lingered was doing it because they too wanted to be left alone: younger professionals with massive headphones crouched over laptops, older retirees who still read the paper every day and gossiped with their age cohort; and very few people like me, middle-aged but with time to people-watch and no family obligations to keep me run off my feet in the morning.
Somehow I had reached my late forties without ever contracting a permanent addition to my household. Well, I say somehow, but I knew with growing certainty why; and never more so than when I looked across the coffee shop at a table where two young women were sitting close, talking, and occasionally, when they thought no one was watching, giving each other a quick kiss.
It would have been unimaginable in my own youth, and I thought back regretfully to the early 90s and the lips I would have given anything to be able to kiss like that, openly and without fear. But that fear had always loomed heavily in my mind, and I had never dared to kiss a girl, or even approach one, and now I felt certain it was utterly too late. I had dated men instead, since it was expected of me, and they had disappointed me even though I had never had much expectation of them, and I had spent the last fifteen years virtually celibate, plugging away at my little job, my little apartment with its shelves of books and records and a cat bed that had lain empty for seven years now. I kept my hair, which was slowly turning from a mousy brown into something with more gray in it, in a short shag, and had started wearing glasses instead of contacts. Today I had a cardigan over my uniform of scrubs -- even though I rarely went into an operating room, the hospital still mandated scrubs for all its employees, which I didn't mind, since it took the effort out of choosing an outfit for the day, and I supposed that I must be looking more like a grandma than ever.
But it wasn't grandmotherly feelings that were welling up inside me as I watched the two girls, nursing the chai tea that was my invariable morning order. It wasn't quite lustful feelings either -- I made a habit of keeping those feelings primly locked away until I found a really good author on one of my favorite websites, and then gorged on their work until both my interest and my vibrator gave out. I suppose it was sentimental feelings: wishing that I could have had a youth like theirs, hoping that their years would turn out happier than those of my acquaintance who had been braver than me in the 90s. Envy of how normal and natural it must feel for them -- they had walked into the coffeeshop holding hands, and nobody had given them a second glance -- which turned into a reverie on how they must taste on each other's lips.
One of the girls was slender and black, with wire-frame glasses, thick box braids that cascaded down to her shoulders, and a gold septum piercing showed below her nose; the other girl was plump and white, with dyed black hair that turned purple at the tips; her lipstick was a dark crimson, and she wore heavy eyeliner and a little silver stud in her lower lip. Her glance flickered over to me, and I dropped my gaze, pretending I had not been staring at them at all.
After several people had moved back and forth between us, I felt it was safe to look again, and I looked at them and found both their eyes locked on me. I couldn't prevent a blush as I looked down at my cup; but I peeped up again through the tops of my glasses and saw them kissing again a little awkwardly, because they were still watching me.
I decided I had to do something to end the terrible flusteredness that had come over me, so I turned around in my seat, facing away from them, and ostentatiously pulled out my phone. But I was soon bored of it -- I had already completed the daily round of puzzle games which were part of my morning routine -- and dared a peep back over at the table. The black girl was looking directly at me, a sly smile on her face, while the white girl whispered something in her ear. She nodded, and licked her lips. I felt a shudder run through me at the sensation that her lips were being licked at me, and turned back to my phone.
Very shortly, however, a body interposed itself between me and the overhead light. I looked up.
It was the white girl.
"Enjoying the show, Nana?" she said. Her voice was deeper than I expected, with traces of a British accent, and although she wasn't speaking loudly I winced as though she were shouting.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," I began, but she laughed, and bent down so that her face was close to mine. I could see deep into her cleavage as her pale breasts swung in a loose top, and I could smell a faint perfume; it was a surprisingly masculine scent, I found myself thinking. Sandalwood, or something like that.
"First look's free," she said, so low that her voice was almost a purr in the back of her throat, and a thrill ran through my body, experienced as a shiver from my shoulders, but as a deep throb, like the pluck of a bass string, in my groin. "If you want more, you gotta pay."
"I beg your pardon," I said, trying to be exactly as prim and proper a middle-age career woman as I had been for the past twenty years. "Please leave me alone." I struggled to make my voice heard over the roar of the latte machine, hoping that maybe one of the baristas would divine that I was being accosted and shoo this embarrassing, uncomfortable presence away from me.
She smiled, pulling her dark-painted lips wide against her teeth, and I saw that her canines were pronounced.
"Your loss," she said. "We have such sights to show you." She stood up again, and turned.
I was annoyed that the throb in my groin had turned into an ache. "Anyone can quote
Hellraiser
," I muttered, more to myself than to her. "Child like that wasn't even born then."
She threw a smirk over her shoulder which told me she had heard it, but walked back to the table where the black girl was waiting, staring fixedly at me. In spite of myself, I had trouble tearing my eyes away from the plump ass of the girl who had been speaking to me, pulled into tight dark elastic-denim leggings under a light faux-fur jacket that she wore high enough as to leave every faint jiggle of those glorious cheeks visible.
I glanced at the black girl, and knew that she knew I had been staring at her girlfriend's ass. She smiled at me, and licked her lips in a pronounced way once more. She put out a finger, and curled it in a "come here" motion. I shook my head, frowned, and tried to look at my phone, but my hands were shaking and I just stared stupidly at the lockscreen until I felt it had been long enough that I could venture another glance.
They were gathering up their things and getting ready to walk out. Both of them still had their eyes on me, though, and smiled when I looked up, and gestured that I could come with them, or follow them; but I stayed glued to my seat, and they shrugged, and said something to each other that made the other laugh, and headed out the door. Even once the door had swung to, the white girl still looked back at me through it and jerked her head to the left. They turned left, and disappeared.
I licked my lips, and glared at my phone. My chai had gone irretrievably cold. I had an hour left until my shift began.
Before I even realized I was doing it, I was out of the seat and shrugging the cardigan closer around my torso as I marched out the door.
