The Floating World

Twelve Silken Buttons.

"I'll take the counter this morning, if you like," said Gabriela, pulling her black hair back in a twist and flicking a band around the thick coil. She inspected her red lips in the mirror, stretching out her fingers to see the same colour red on her nails. Gabriela hoped he liked red. She'd bought the matching colours the night before, and found herself thinking of the tall, silver haired man who came into the cafe most mornings.

"Yes, that would be good," replied her boss, Ruth. She looked across at Gabriela and smiled, amused at the younger woman preening in the mirror. She reached over and adjusted Gabriela's collar, spreading the lapels wider to reveal a delightful spray of freckles on her upper chest. Like a lotus branch in a beautifully etched Japanese print, the spray descended into the divide of Gabriela's divine cleavage. "Just one button," warned Ruth, "discreet, but enticing enough for their morning eye." She made one final correction to Gabriela's collar. "Perfect."

Being a savvy business woman, Ruth knew the importance of attractive staff behind her counters. Little Amanda had been wonderful, but she and her boyfriend were travelling overseas, so Ruth was grooming Gabriela to take her place. She was pleased with the young woman's slightly exotic appearance, a touch of Asia perhaps, or maybe South America. Some ancestral trace gave Gabriela dark, dark eyes and a darkness on her skin.

There was also a touch of something else about Gabriela, some ethereal essence Ruth couldn't quite put her finger on. Something about the young woman was, well, different. Ruth had a bit of the witch about her as all women do, and the sight some call intuition, some call second; but Gabriela.... Ruth couldn't grasp it, and that made her curious.

Ruth had seen Adam's eyes narrow the first time he saw Gabriela, a sharper focus, just as they did when Amanda enticed him with her morning smile. Ruth wondered how long it would be before Gabriela tried her own witchery on Adam, for he was the kind of man who paid attention to his women, and they wanted that. Ruth could see from the way he talked to her girls, and the way he laughed with the woman with the long blonde hair, that he gave each of them his undivided attention. Each moment, their's alone.

Even Ruth, who was older and wiser than all her girls, even Ruth couldn't resist his smile. She'd caught herself playing with her hair.... Being the boss, Ruth could place a touch of possession on his arm when he was in her cafe, but wasn't so sure of herself outside her own space. Ruth enjoyed Adam's under-stated confidence and liked his presence in the cafe, as did her girls. Ruth suspected he gathered attention in most rooms he walked into, in his quiet way.

"Good morning, Adam. Is it your usual this morning?" Gabriela smiled up at him, the corners of her eyes genuine. "It's a latte, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, Gabriela, yes it is. One day I'll surprise us both and order something different." Adam looked upon the girl and saw her lips. He passed her the change, brushing her fingers with his, and saw the colour of her nails. "But not today."

"Look, the right money. You always bring the right money." Gabriela rang up the sale, glancing behind him. There was no line. "Will you be coming back later?"

"Later today, do you mean?" Adam replied. "No, probably not." He saw a flash in her eyes, something quicker than thought. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I just wanted to make sure I said goodbye before I go. Today's my last day before the holidays, I'm not in tomorrow." Gabriela looked straight at Adam and took in a breath. The shadow between her breasts tightened.

"Thank you," he said, "that's lovely, that you wanted to say goodbye to me. Are you going anywhere over the break?"

"Yes, I'm going home for Christmas, Christmas with the family." Gabriela touched the buttons on the cuff of her sleeve, and Adam saw her fingers turn.

Adam smiled as he fully registered her nails matched the red of her lips. "Will you be back in the New Year, then?"

"Yes. The cafe is shut for the next two weeks, after tomorrow, but I'll be here when we re-open."

"Well, I'll see you then." Adam heard the door behind him open. "Can you wait?"

She laughed. "I'll have to, won't I?"

"Yes, you will!" Adam moved aside for the next customer. "Have a lovely holiday, Gabriela. I'll see you soon."

***

On the flight between cities Gabriela sat in an aisle seat, just in front of the wing. As the cabin attendant did the safety drill Gabriela found herself admiring the woman's firm thighs and taut ass. The attendant stood right beside Gabriela, her crotch at eye level. Her slacks were tight fitting, and Gabriela admired the little curve of belly descending into the V at the top of her long legs. Gabriela was so close to the woman, she could have undone the belt and slid her hand around....

Gabriela closed her eyes, resting her hands on her own belly, a little curvier than the cabin girl's. She dozed lightly, semi lucid, and found herself re-playing the conversation with Adam that morning, saying goodbye to him. Goodbye also meant a hello later, and Gabriela imagined the soft look on his face when he saw her again. As she shifted her head from one side of the headrest to the other in a sleepy turn, Gabriela's fingers caressed her belly. In her dozing mind, she saw Adam's hands take up a cup and she saw the curve of the cabin girl's ass. Something mingled and was made in her mind. Desire.

Gabriela drifted in and out of sleep during the flight, and by the time the plane landed, she had a whole conversation ready for when she next saw Adam. She wondered if he liked her, until she realised of course he did. That's lovely, that you wanted to say goodbye to me. His words echoed and gave her peace of mind. Gabriela stretched out her fingers in front of her, admiring her red finger nails. She momentarily wished her fingers were a little longer, then turned her hands over and forgot about it.

Gabriela stood and reached for her bag in the overhead locker.

"Here, let me help." The young man in the seat opposite was already standing, lifting his own bag down.

"Thank you, that's very kind." Gabriela smiled at him.

"No problems. Come on Dad, let's go."

Every son has a father, thought Gabriela; every daughter, too. The older man looked across at her and his eyes creased, a quick glance down to her lips and back to her eyes.

Gabriela's return smile was an automatic response, the fractional tilt of her head a sub-conscious recognition of his appreciation. She took her bag from the boy, and looked again at the man.

That's lovely. Adam's voice was in her head. Gabriela smiled at the thought of him. The boy's father thought the smile was for him, but it wasn't. Not today.

***

"Hello Dad, thanks for picking me up. Mum not with you?"

"No darling, you know what she gets like before Christmas. The kitchen's out of bounds and I just do as I'm told. It's safer that way." Gabriela's father closed the car boot and turned to his daughter, his eyes soft at the sight of her. "How's my darling Gabs? It's been too long, honey, I've missed you."

Gabriela hugged her father close, her arms wrapped hard around his back, squeezing him tight. "Me too, Daddy, I know I should come back more often, but I'm always so busy." She tilted her head up and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, then buried her head in the crook of his shoulder; always her safest place, even when she was a little girl. "I'm home now, though. It's good to be back."

"You're by yourself again," her father said. "When...."

"Oh Daddy, don't. Not now. Mum is impossible, not you too."

Gabriela's father studied his daughter and didn't understand how this vibrant woman was always alone. As a girl at school she'd had the usual crushes, slammed doors and a repeated broken heart. He knew there were a number of disappointed boys, and later, sobbing girls writing bad poetry for her, and they were all good kids. Gabriela left a trail behind her, but kept walking. Had he brought her up to be too independent?

"It's OK, Daddy, don't fuss. I'm fine. I'm just not interested."

Gabriela's father knew his daughter well enough not to probe. He would take her side when her mother, as she inevitably would, took up arms against their daughter's single status. "Leave her be, Elizabeth, leave her be," he'd say. "She'll be fine, you'll see. She just hasn't met the right person yet."

Gabriela sometimes wondered about herself, but didn't fret. As a teenager she had put up with fumbles in the back seats of cars and movie theatres and later in bedrooms, given boys hand jobs and the occasional blow job, wiping cum from her hand. But whenever it came to her own pleasure, she found her partners to be too young, too inexperienced, and she kept putting away her virginity, saving it for another day, another man. She left her teens with it still intact and proceeded into her early twenties quite unfussed about its presence. She just hadn't met the right person yet.

She didn't dwell on it. She had prepared in her mind some words to calm her mother down, when the inevitable questions came. Gabriela's father, she knew, would be in her corner with his shoulder the perfect height for her to rest her head on, his arm around her back.

They chatted about this and that, and Gabriela remembered just how comfortable she was around her dad. She looked across at him, his concentration on the road ahead. Even though he was driving, she put her fingers to his cheek, grazing the stubble there. I love you, Dad, she thought. Her father looked across at his daughter beside him, his Gabs, and his heart melted as it always had, from when she was the tiniest thing, her eyes flashing with her stubbornness and passion for everything. He didn't need to say anything at all. Gabriela knew his love was always there for her, just her.

The next two days were chaos and Christmas; too much eaten on the day and eaten too late, presents placed under the tree and Gabriela's father playing Santa, ho ho ho and then Gabriela was exhausted. The end of the year caught up with her and she slept, long and dreamless, the heat flaying her naked body under the sheet.

When her father went in later to turn off her bedside light, he smiled when he saw Gabs' hand clutching her old faithful teddy.

"Elizabeth," he said to his wife, "it's just as well we kept all those old toys for the grandkids...."

"But we've got no grandchildren," she complained, "Gabriela won't...."

"Hush," he replied, "don't." He was gentle, but wasn't prepared to let her start. "I was going to say, just as well we kept them. Gabs is in there, remember her old favourite Ted? She's clutching its paw in her hand." He paused. "She's gorgeous. Our twenty-five year old daughter, and she's still got her little teddy." Gabriela's father stopped and pondered. "Sometimes, she's still my little girl and then she's all grown up." He shook his head. "My little Gabs, my darling Gabriela."

The next day Gabriela slept late, her parents moving around the house as quietly as they could. In the afternoon, Felicity, her oldest, closest friend from her school days came over. They had known each other since they were fifteen, and Flick was always welcome in the house. Back then she was a permanent fixture, and now Gabriela's parents made a fuss whenever they saw her.

"Hi, Mr and Mrs G. It's been a while. I only see you when Gabs comes back home, which she does less and less now."

"I know. It's a shame really, but what can we do? Gabriela insists on living interstate. We wonder what she's hiding, sometimes."

"Mum, god, I'm not hiding anything! How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Tell us what, darling?"

"There isn't anybody. Grrr, how many times, Mum!" Gabriela gave her usual response and her mother eventually let it go.

Later, up in Gabriela's room, Flick asked, "is there anyone Gabs, who you're interested in, even remotely?"

"Even remotely?" Gabriela paused. "Well yes, there is. Sort of."

Felicity didn't say a word, and continued to plait Gabriela's hair into a thick braid.

"Kind of," said Gabriela, articulating something in words for the first time. She'd thought it, but had never actually said anything out loud to anyone. But she could tell Flick anything, everything. "But nothing's happened. We chat, when he comes into the cafe, but that's all."

Felicity waited. Her fingers pulling and teasing on Gabriela's hair, she loved the soft feel of it, and it brought her close to her dearest friend. Her fingers caressed the hair, and every now and then she brushed it to her lips. Gabriela's eyes were closed as she luxuriated in the deep massage of her scalp, and never saw.

"Have you said anything to him," Flick asked, curious. She knew Gabriela's history with men, how she passed them by.

"Not really. Sort of," Gabriela replied. "I did make sure he knew I wanted to say goodbye to him, before the holidays."

"Really? What did he say?"

Gabriela remembered every word. "He asked, can I wait?"

"Wait for what, Gabs? What will you have to wait for?"

"Do you know," pondered Gabriela, "when it comes down to it, I don't know what I'll have to wait for...."

"It sounds to me, Gabs, you might have a crush on this man. Is he worth it, do you think?"

Gabriela was silent. Her pause was so long and unusual that Felicity stopped braiding her hair, and the stillness in the room somehow shifted and twisted with revelation.

"I think," said Gabriela slowly, "you're right. He might be absolutely worth it. Worth everything."

Felicity's fingers started their movement again and she thought of ceremonies and sacrifices. "You will tell me, won't you?" she asked, "when something happens."

"When something happens? But nothing's happened."

"You'll have to wait then, won't you?" said Flick, tying Gabriela's hair off with a band.

The young women loved each other's company, it was as if Gabriela had never gone away. They'd laughed and cried together for a decade; surviving, as so many girlfriends didn't, those years immediately after school when friendships ruptured and lives moved on. They often pondered it, "did you hear about... did you know that... I always knew she was..." and came to the conclusion it was their differences that kept them together.

There was something else too, that began as teenage girl curiosity and became a regular ritual, sustaining them both, drawing them closer each time. A necessary thing. "Promise, Felicity, we'll always do this, whatever happens. Even when we're sixty. Promise."

"Do women bleed, Gabriela? That's my promise."

It began simply, teenage girls comparing themselves, then young women discovering themselves, then adults enjoying themselves. "When we're sixty, it'll be a celebration."

It always began slowly.

Gabriela turned to Felicity and pulled her to her feet. Standing side by side in front of a floor length mirror, they compared their heights. At fifteen, Gabriela had been taller, but was slowly overtaken by Flick so now there were several inches difference in their heights. Flick was a slender woman, small breasted and long boned, athletic. Gabs was curvier, her waist small. She favoured long flowing skirts that swirled from her hips, her breasts shifting beautifully as she turned, brushing against Flick's arm.

"You do that every time," Flick commented. "You just have to do it, don't you?"

"Do what, darling? Oh, my lovely full breasts swaying in my bra, brushing up against your arm. Do I make you jealous, lovely girl, with your perky tits all tight and firm, but oh so small?" Gabriela's eyes sparkled, she loved this teasing play. "God, you're a bitch. Look at you, twenty five and you still don't need a bra."

Gabriela's eyes darkened and she licked her lips. "Come here, honey, come here." Her voiced deepened, husky with anticipation. "Let me see you."

She reached her hands to the waist of the taller woman and eased the tee shirt from Flick's tight jeans. Slowly Gabriela pulled the cloth up Flick's body, trembling slightly as she did so. Her movement was slow and teasing, they were in no hurry. She licked her lips again, and tilted her head up to Felicity's mouth. Their lips touched, and Gabriela's hands stopped. Their kiss was gentle at first, tentative. They remembered their first kiss, when there was a sweet innocence between them. The hungrier older women soon took over and their tongues thrust deeper.

Flick sucked Gabriela's lush bottom lip into her mouth, nipping it with her small teeth, tasting the linger of the red lipstick Gabriela wore. "Strawberry lips, I can taste the blood of strawberries on your lips."

Hearing her words, Gabriela wanted nipples like berries between her teeth. She quickly pulled Felicity's tee over her head, revealing those high, tight tits with big full nipples, succulent. "God, Flick, let me," and she pushed the other woman down onto the bed, her mouth following hungrily those perfect nubs, sucking first one into her mouth and then the other. Gabriela opened her mouth wide around Felicity's breasts, sucking in as much of each tight, hard tit as she could.

Flick moaned and her body twitched with the sharp pleasure. Her hands were frantic too, reaching for the buttons on Gabriela's blouse, trying to undo them quickly. "Too many buttons, Gabs, too many." Her fingers fumbled, but she pulled and tugged, and then the blouse opened wide, revealing Gabriela's lush, dropping breasts, barely contained in her bra. "Oh, god I love your breasts, your big swaying breasts."

She reached for the open front of the blouse, pushing it back from Gabriela's arms to reveal all of her friend's deep cleavage and the lovely roundness of the belly below. "Ohhh, Gabs, let me." Felicity pulled the curvaceous woman down to her body, feeling those soft mounds against her tight nipples, the soft belly against her harder, tighter gut, but always soft lips, so sweet. Flick fought with Gabriela's blouse, pulling it down her arms, desperate to get it off.

Gabriela pushed herself away from her girlfriend's body, sitting up high, gripping Felicity's hips between her thighs. She bent back away from Felicity's groping hands, teasing her arousal, laughing as she batted those hands away. "Darling Flick, what's the matter, can't you reach me, my glorious tits?" She held both breasts in her hands, offering herself up to the other woman, delighted in the effect she was having on Felicity. "Do you want to see me, all wonderful and naked?" Her voice was a sing song, and then she whispered, "do you want my lush nipples between your lips?"

"Fuck, Gabriela, you know I do. Show me, bitch, show me."

"Oh Felicity, that's no way to speak to your oldest, dearest friend, not a polite way at all. Bitch?" Her eyes sparkled, revelling in the helpless woman trapped between her thighs. "I'm not a bitch. Just for that, I'm not going to show you!" Gabriela reached behind her back, quickly unclipping her bra, then brought her hands up under the cloth, hiding her breasts from Felicity's hungry eyes. She pressed hard against her own breasts, easing the ache developing behind her hard nipples.

"Gabriela, please, please let me see, please," Felicity pleaded, caressing the waist of the ripe body above her.

Gabriela leaned forward, taking her hands away from her breasts, and their weight swung them low over Felicity's head, just out of reach of her lips. She pulled the bra away from her arms and dropped it on the bed. Her full breasts swayed beneath her body. "Ahhh, Flick, here they are, all full and hot for you. My nipples, look, see how hard they are, just for you." She lowered herself some more, and Felicity suckled a tight nipple into her hot mouth, sucking and gently biting on the nub.

Gabriela moaned with delight and after some seconds, offered up her other breast for suck. "Oh yes, that's right, suck my breasts hard, oh, lovely girl. God, I love this, hmmmm."