Hana In London

My desk is right next to the coffee machine and the walls are pretty thin, so I overhear a lot of so-called private conversations, like it or not. I have to put on my headphones and listen to music if I don't want my concentration to suffer. As the person responsible for interns, there are things I'd rather not know. I am young to have this responsibility, and I am very conscious that there are some who think that, despite my qualifications and my competence, I was hired primarily because I am a woman, and if that is not enough, because I am browner than the average in this company whose head office is on the far side of the Atlantic.

This is to explain that I didn't listen to my three current layabouts on purpose. Their daily chats have already taught me more than I needed to about the local football/soccer team, Stade Rennais, but generally they are fun. They are young, very young even ( says she from the height of her twenty-five years!). When it's not football, these boys' hormones are raging non-stop, and I'm aware that they haven't missed that some of my colleagues are, to be brutally honest, seriously good-looking, as well-built as anyone could wish, and (with a few exceptions) unfailingly nice. (And no, I'm not jealous). Even if I don't ctually listen to their chat, I can't help hearing them.

"Don't you think she's lovely?"

"She has a pretty face. But she's small."

"But you know, nice things come in small packages."

Well, that already eliminates two of the candidates I had in mind, both of them are around six feet tall.

"She's a package that's a bit too well wrapped up for my taste! But it's my guess that what's in the package must be top quality. She moves like she's fit. I'd pay to see her in a bikini."

"And that beautiful smile when she you get things right first time!"

"And the pitying look when you screw up! It sounds like you're in lurve! Maybe you should write her a poem?"

"Shut it! She's too old for us anyway. She must be at least twenty-six?"

I'm starting to rack my brains. The head of sales? She's in her thirties, but she dresses young, so...

"Maybe. I certainly wouldn't throw her out of bed. But for you, it sounds like true love!"

"That's not it, but I'm not ashamed to say it. I like Hana as a person, and I really fancy her."

And shit! That's enough! Hana, that's me! What should I do? I could go out and yell at them, and with good cause...nice smile, my ass! They have no right to discuss colleagues as if they're pieces of meat...especially not me! Little packages indeed! OK, at five feet two I'm not a giant, but still! Despite myself, I discover that I'm smiling. Me in a bikini? No chance! I have a serious swimsuit; I'm a swimmer, with the shoulders to prove it. Three times a week, an hour in the pool alternating crawl and breaststroke (with butterfly intervals if I want to drown myself a little). Right. Let's face it, Hana, It's a bit flattering to be fancied from a distance, and these two are handsome young men. I put my earphones back on. I have stuff to finish before leaving for London tomorrow.

The company is American, as are the big bosses. For them, French seems impossible to pronounce, even when you find one of them who can understand it. It's up to us to make the effort and learn their language, if we want to move up the food chain. So here I am, the following day, getting off the Eurostar for ten days of English conversation.

Three days later, my brain is just so, so tired. English, English and more English. The other women are Swedish, Polish and Slovak, all with better accents than me. (Taller, too). I am the only French speaker in the lot. I'm going to forget my mother tongue if this goes on! We are all staying in the hotel where the course is taking place, so it carries on even in the evening. Fortunately, I have a room to myself, there are several who have to share.

"Bonjour. Je m'appelle Anya. Voulez-vous parler français avec moi? Je suis Polonaise."

It's straight from French for beginners, maybe lesson three. The girl who stops me outside my room and speaks to me could hardly be anything other than Polish. Tall, blonde with green eyes, solidly built and with a chest that reminds me, once again, that I must have been somewhere else when boobs were being handed out.

"Of course!"

Even though her French accent is worse than mine in English, a wave of relief floods my heart. We talk for hours that evening, Anya and I, about everything and nothing...but at least it's in French! She's a lot less incompetent than she thinks. The next day and the day after that we do it again.

Anya knows London much better than me -- not too hard, it's my first visit -- and at the weekend she takes me on a tour of the fashion boutiques on the King's Road. Despite her build, she tries on little dresses and frilly skirts. I make an effort to join in, and, once my long skirt etcetera is removed, I am amazed to discover that the mini suits me. It's not just the salespeople who tell me that. I can recognize an approving look, and I catch several on the fly. A boy who is with his girlfriend gets scolded for looking at me for too long and with too much interest. For me, who am dressed to go unnoticed most of the time, this is new and flattering and I have to admit that it's a good feeling. So I buy it, this classic black mini skirt. I can't see myself wearing it to work (absolutely no chance!). Still, I'll have a nice souvenir of a great afternoon spent with someone who's fun. I haven't laughed so much in years, maybe not ever.

Sitting in a crowded bar that evening, Anya continues questioning me, under the pretext of improving my English.

"Do you have a boyfriend? A fiancé?"

"No."

"Why not? Men must like you. You are pretty."

" You think so? Can't be bothered. Work, swimming, reading, studying to get ahead. I'm ambitious. No time."

Anya has no discretion at all.

"So, for sex? How do you manage? Have you never...?"

"I have fingers...and a little toy that feels good too."

I'm surprised to hear myself telling her that. It's none of her business, but this girl is so frank that it would feel unfair not to do the same. It's liberating, in a way.

"I prefer boys. Don't you? Oh, I'm sorry! Are you a lesbian?

"Not that I know of, no."

There, I stop abruptly. Anya notices.

"Go on. You can't leave me hanging! Tell!"

"Not here. Let's go back to the hotel."

In my room, we settle in, I close my eyes and I tell...

"In a family like mine, boys are always under suspicion. No question of hanging around with just one of them as a friend, even less as a boyfriend. I'm lucky. I enjoy studying and I don't think about it...well, not too much. I have a friend, Farida. She's the same. We were both determined to escape to university. She's a maths teacher now. In our last year at school, we used to shut ourselves in her room to do our homework together. With two of us, it was quickly done, so afterwards, we used to chat, or put on music and dance. Then one day, there is a slow song, and she says to me:

"Come on. We're going to act like we're a couple. You pretend you're a boy, because you're taller than me."

"Flatter too", I answer. Rida is a pocket Venus. We are both just eighteen years old, and she is shaped like a woman, unlike me. So we start slow dancing. She clings to me. I am very aware of her breasts, and that her nipples are hard. It's summer and we're in t-shirts. I'm not wearing a bra because I have almost nothing to put in it. She's taken hers off, too uncomfortable in this heat, she says.

"If you were a boy you would kiss me, right?" Rida says. "So...kiss me!"

I am embarrassed.

"I don't know how to kiss like that."

"Exactly. Me neither! What will we do when a boy wants to kiss us? We need to practise!"

I look at Anya.

"And that's how it started. We bump our teeth together, there are nasal collisions, she makes my lip bleed and so on, before we figure out how to do it right. And once we know, we can't stop. I had to run away, that first time. It took my breath away.. It completely shocked me. The following Sunday, we do it again. Homework, dancing, kisses. When Farida slips her hand into my jogging pants. I almost scream.

"What are you doing?"

"Just checking".

"Checking what?

"That you aren't really a boy!"

We collapse in bursts of laughter. Then suddenly, Rida stops.

"Do you know you're wet?" she says. She sticks her hand under my nose. It smells like sex. I've been masturbating for years, but I'd never found myself with fingers as dripping as hers were at that moment.

"You're really crazy!" I tell her again.

"It's normal. If a boy kissed me as well as you do, I would be wet too. Look!"

She shoves her hand into her knickers and pulls them out just as wet and perfumed. She laughs and wipes her hand on my face. My cheeks are smeared with her juices.

"Let me see how you're made," she says. She is already undoing the cord of my jogging pants. Two seconds later, I'm naked from the waist down. She unties the string of her own pants and they fall around her ankles. We look at each other's kitties...

Anya coughs. I open my eyes and find her with her skirt pulled up, rubbing herself through her knickers.

"Sorry. You tell the story so well, I could almost see myself there. And in French it's even sexier! Keep going!"

"Well. There's not much more to tell you. That summer I had lessons in female anatomy like you don't get in high school. I examined her, she examined me. I made her come, she made me come. She wanted me to suck her nipples and I did it. Mine are very sensitive and she made me come just by playing with them."

Anya bellows and I understand that she has just come too. She goes to the bathroom and when she comes back, she gives me a kiss, on the lips, but no tongue. That's a mix of regret and relief. Reminding myself of those Sunday afternoons with Rida has left me hot and bothered. I like Anya, but not like that, at least I don't think so.

"Thank you for having the confidence to talk to me about this. As a reward, tomorrow I'm inviting you to a little restaurant that I know. Please say you'll come," says Anya.

Why not? I think to myself.

"It's a French restaurant. It's called The Black Cat."

I giggle.

I have to explain that to her. Chatte in French means pussy, in all senses. She will be returning to Poland with some decidedly non-school French vocabulary.

The following evening, she knocks on my door at the appointed time. The London summer is in full swing. It's steamy and heavy, like Rennes during a heatwave. Anya is wearing the dress she bought in the King's Road boutique. It's very short. I'm wearing one of my usual long skirts and I can see the disappointment in Anya's eyes.

"Aren't you going to wear your new skirt?"

"I don't have anything to wear with it."

"Let me see...ok, I have an idea. Go and put on your skirt!"

I decide to give in. After all, I'm her guest. I go into the bathroom, strip off and put on the skirt. It feels much shorter than in the store. I put my sandals back on and come out of the bathroom in the skirt and my bra.

"That bra! What a horror!" Anya explodes.

I look at myself in the mirror, which I don't often do when I'm not dressed. It's true that the bra doesn't flatter me. Logical, when it has nothing to support! My chest has hardly grown since I was thirteen, and as far as being flatchested is concerned, I'm flat.

"Get rid of that awful thing!"

It's weird, but I take my bra off without hesitation. I'm starting to realise that Anya is a force of nature. For the first time since those Sundays at Farida's, I am standing topless in front of someone who is not my doctor. While I've been putting on my skirt, Anya has taken the liberty of rummaging through my clothes and has pulled out a simple white blouse.

"Put this on... No, don't button it!"

She takes the two sides of the blouse and ties it off just below my ribcage, then grabs her makeup bag and shoves me into the bathroom.

"Sit there and don't move!" Anya orders me. Move? I don't dare to, as I perch on the loo seat!

"I'm going to do your eyes and lips", she says. It only takes a minute.

" Now! Look at yourself!" She pushes me in front of the mirror.

I don't know this girl. I don't recognize myself. She looks much younger than me. The mascara makes her brown eyes look huge. Her wavy black hair falls to her shoulders. She's slim, and her stomach, exposed between blouse and skirt, is flat. The skirt must have shrunk further, given the length of thigh I can see. My swimming costume is less revealing. I am not naked, but it is almost as if I were.

"I can't go out like this!"

"You can and you will! You're looking great! You're going to wreak havoc!"

"I thought you were inviting me to dinner, not for an orgy!"

She bursts out laughing, and I can't help but join in. It calms my worries. Being that girl in the mirror, even if only for tonight, tempts me. Anonymous and without the need to behave with the professional distance that requires so much effort from me at work, will I perhaps discover something unexpected about myself? I take my wallet and stuff it in my bag.

"You win! Can we go before my courage disappears?"

I follow her to the metro. The escalator that takes us down into the Underground is long, and I know that the man a few steps down must have a view of me that is quite revealing, especially when the arrival of a train sends my skirt flying. Luckily I have knickers that cover me properly. The little incident makes Anya laugh. It amuses her to see me embarrassed.

"Le Chat Noir" is a copy of a Parisian bistro, as the English imagine them. Tables covered in checkered oilcloth, with a paper tablecloth on top, the menu written on the mirror behind the bar. It has a nice atmosphere, a largely student clientele. Anya has reserved a table in the corner, and I can people-watch to my heart's content. My skirt, which I had thought was on the borderline of indecency, is rather conservative compared with some of these girls.

The service is provided by a flamboyant young man with red nail polish and made-up eyes, and by a dark-haired girl, who is wearing a black skirt like mine, and a white blouse, also tied like mine. Anya greets her in what I suppose is Polish.

"Careful! You're going to have people ordering beer from you", laughs Anya. "Don't you think the waitress looks like you?"

It's true. In spite of our very different ethnic backgrounds, the waitress and I are facially very alike..

"Yes, she does. But she has a bigger bust than me, lucky girl!"

Indeed, when she bends down to place the glasses of wine we have ordered, we have a great view of beautiful firm breasts, barely controlled by her balconette bra. This little(!) detail aside, and her skin which is paler than mine, we could be sisters. She has a look that disturbs me. Anya says something to her that I don't understand, and the girl responds with a stream of Polish. She gives me a wink, reinforced by a dazzling smile that pierces me to the core and makes her look even more beautiful, before leaving for another table.

"What did you tell her, Anya?"

"Oh nothing. I just told her that you think she's very sexy."

"Anya! I told you I'm not like that!"

"Well, I think she's sexy, so logically, you must too, right? Imagine what it would be like to caress her pretty breasts? Doesn't that do things to you?"

Despite myself, the memory of Farida's superb chest pops into my head. Her soft, warm skin, the feel of those heavy breasts that I weighed in my hands before lowering my lips to a hard nipple. Would I be able to do the same with this girl? Would she let me? I refuse to lie to myself. I know it would be an exquisite pleasure and I can feel that I am blushing.

"Hello? Away with the fairies, Hana?"

I drag myself back to reality. "Excuse me. Come on, let's order!"

If the decor is fake, the cuisine is not. The waiter serves us delicious dishes which come with a white wine of better quality than I would have anticipated. I don't overdo it, but knowing that I won't have to drive, I allow myself a few extra glasses. Our conversation returns to less troubling topics and we have a great time.

When it's time to pay. I insist on paying for the wine. Anya calls the waitress, the advantage of having a common language. She arrives a minute later, a pen in her hand. She leans over our table again and adds it all up on the paper tablecloth. It's like a scene from an old black and white French movie....except....the waitress' blouse is gaping open and I have her beautiful, almost bare breasts about twenty centimeters from my face. I do my best not to look as if I'm eyeing them too openly, but these breasts attract me, a lot, in fact. And yet, this sensation is only the physical part of what is making my heart beat so hard. I'm feeling an attraction that I can't explain, that's me, the woman who always has to understand the why of everything. A friend much more knowledgeable than me once told me that love at first sight never lasts. But right now, in front of this young woman, I have to admit that I am lost. Meanwhile, there's a conversation in Polish going on, and the two are in fits of laughter. It's starting to niggle me.

"So? May I know what that was about?" I ask when the girl has left.

"I told her that if she wants to contact you, all she has to do is call our hotel. She said she will think about it. I'm sure she likes you."

"Listen, Anya. The joke has gone on long enough. You're presuming too much, and I don't like it."

My tone tells her she's gone too far. She excuses herself and we go back to the hotel, without, it must be said, talking much on the way. In front of my room, I say good night to her and I go in and shut the door, maybe a little more firmly than I need to. Suddenly how I'm dressed bothers me. I'm twenty-five years old and I can't accept being treated like a stupid adolescent.

At some point in what feels like the middle of the night, I'm sure it's she who is knocking on my door. I put my head under the pillow and go back to sleep.

In the lecture room a few hours later, I have calmed down enough to look for her and put the evening's events in their proper place.

"Has anyone seen Anya?"

Nobody, it seems. At coffee break, I go to her room and I find it open, with the cleaning ladies changing the bed. I run to the office, because now I'm seriously worried. There, they tell me that she has had to leave, an emergency in her family. I manage to hold back the tears until I get to my room, but once the door is closed, I throw myself onto the bed and cry like a little girl. What a fool! I call myself names. The phone rings next to my bed. I jump on it. It can only be her!

"Hello", says a voice that is not Anya's. Hana's world collapses..

"Hello. Who is this?"

She talks to me and I don't understand a word of it. Then I recognize a first name, Anya. The stranger repeats what she said, speaking more slowly and I realize that it is French, but that she must be reading it without fully understanding.

"Tell me in English,"

She explains. It's the waitress from the night before, for whom Anya had promised to do a favour, a promise which she will not be able to keep because of her hasty departure. Would I be willing to meet Eva, that's the waitress's name, to talk about it? I am confused. Why me? I say yes anyway, and we arrange to meet in a café not far from the hotel. Just as well, because I would have been incapable of finding the bistro again. I skip the course session and go.

In the light of day Eva is even more beautiful, even just in jeans and a t-shirt. I realize that Anya must have awakened something in me that I didn't recognize myself. I have an almost irresistible urge to take this girl in my arms. Eva says nothing about Anya's comments, but explains the situation to me. She has been hired to work at a charity dinner on Saturday evening. They will provide her with a "special" sexy outfit. There are other things she prefers not to talk about. I'm guessing sex plays a part in that, too. She can hardly refuse, her finances won't allow it. Anya had promised to accompany her. Eva is just twenty years old, alone in London, and the girl she shares her room with has just done a runner, without paying her share of the rent.