Zita's New Apartment Ch. 02

"Do you like sushi?" Fed asked softly while Kell got us going.

"Yeah, I think. I never had it, actually."

"Oh, well, you're going to love it. You like seafood, right?"

"I love seafood. Mmmm, mussels. Shrimp..."

"Well, you'll like sushi, I'm sure. Just don't take too much wasabe." Kell, in the front, seemed to be ignoring our conversation, which was perhaps too quiet for her to hear properly given how noisy the car was. She put on the radio.

"Maybe you can order something for me," I said to Fed.

"Sure!" she replied. "I'd love to."

The back seats were rather cramped, and Fedora had her knees veering towards the centre of the car - towards me - to avoid the back of Kell's seat. She had had them nicely waxed, and they looked good. Rather muscular, actually, in the calves in particular, suggesting some kind of athletics. My own legs were taught and shapely, but rather more stately in their perfection.

"So you're in second year?"

"Yeah, just."

"How old are you, then?"

"Nineteen."

"Oh my god."

"What?"

"No, nothing. It's just, you're so...wow, you're so young."

"How old are you?"

"I don't want to tell you now; I'll sound ancient!"

"Come on; it's not like you could be my mom or anything. You're a postdoc, right? So you must be, like, thirty or so. No?"

"Thirty-four."

"Yeah, well that's not so old."

She didn't buy it. "Nice try. I remember being nineteen; thirty-four was a whole lifetime away. I've got laugh lines, Zita."

"Well, you look fantastic."

She shrugged humbly. "Thanks. I try to keep in shape, at least."

"I don't think that can take the credit for everything." I gave a nod to her large and shapely chest. It was still typical friendly banter among women.

"You know, Zita, technically I COULD be your mother."

"Really?" Was that so? "Yeah, I guess. But that would be fairly extreme, wouldn't it? You certainly don't look like my mother."

"I hope that's a compliment - I imagine your mother must be rather beautiful."

"Not so much; she looks too old for her years, I think. You, you're a total babe." For thirty-four! I was supposed to say "for thirty-four". It just seemed like too cruel a qualification to add, at the last moment, as it was about to come off my tongue. But without it, what I just said - with a lot of enthusiasm, you should know, to offset the age qualification I'd been intending to add - sounded more flattering than was wise. I mean, she WAS kind of a babe, and stunning at thirty-four, but I didn't mean to say it like that! What was I doing, still playing at this shit? I would hurt her feelings, in the end. Or I would get myself into another situation that I didn't want to get into, and with a woman I could really have been friends with. Jeez, how was she taking it? I was looking through the windshield now.

"Wow, thanks," came her touched reply, finally. "It's a surprise to hear something like that from a young girl like you. You know, with a sexy, nineteen-year-old figure." She was hoping now, full steam - I could hear it in her voice, under her forced-casual, sisterly tone. I didn't know what to say, and couldn't find anything. I just kept looking out the front, trying to think.

My silence seemed to put some doubt in her. "Zita, are you alright?"

"Yeah - yeah."

"You weren't just humouring me, were you?"

Well, I couldn't go back on what I'd said now! Especially because I really had been rather honest with the compliment - if unexpectedly so. So I told her that, no, I hadn't been humouring her; and to show my sincerity, I added amidst some contemplation that she was in fact rather more attractive, in my opinion, than most nineteen-year-olds I knew. I was earnest (to my ears, repentant), and I garnished my reassurances with a fleeting glance at her. That was the least courtesy demanded and the most I would dare. I thought I felt her ramping up to another venture after; there was tension, anticipation, dread on both sides.

But when she spoke, she was somewhere between meek and demure. "I don't remember when I've been so flattered," she said. "Can I get that engraved on a plaque?"

I turned back to her now, feeling safer. She really wasn't an aggressive woman, and she engendered much sympathy. "Sure. And thanks, for before. For the compliment. About my figure."

"Oh." She shook her head. "That wasn't much - I mean it's no secret you have a sexy figure, is it? Actually, for a compliment, for you, it was a bit poor." She was waiting for me, giving me the opportunity to let it drop or to take it up. She was giving me every out, I see now. But I was like two different people conversing with her, and neither seemed to know very much about what the other was saying.

"Poor?"

She had her permission now. "If I were going to make a proper compliment for you," she said, "but an honest one, I would have to say I've never seen a body like yours, in person. Am I embarrassing you?"

I was blushing, I knew. I laughed. "I guess I do still get self-conscious," I said, smiling, and shying away. "But really?"

"Yes, really."

"Even with all those hot biology chicks in your classes?" I dared to tease.

"Zita, there's hot, and then there's spectacular."

What can I say? It really felt good hearing that. "Now you're TRYING to make me blush," I complained, and I bowed away.

But Fed's voice came after me, a bit too serious. "You're just the most beautiful woman," it said. I realized that I had to dial things back. Fedora was definitely far too nice, far too real, far too genuinely likeable for us to go down this road - and so soon on top of it all! But I was too slow. She had time to add:

"And I'm the kind of girl who notices beautiful women."

That was pretty close to a confession, and it would have been heartless to ignore it or brush it off. I had no choice but to look straight at her, which I did. And what a charged gaze she was sporting, so alive, so hopeful, so afraid. I guess I looked something more like bewildered.

"I bet a lot of guys take your class too," I said, fumbling about for somewhere to direct the conversation without being too abrupt. "Probably some, you know, because of you." I glanced down to her knees and back to support my point, even as I was second-guessing this conversational navigation: there was letting a girl down easy, and then there was leading her on.

"Probably," she agreed. "No, definitely." She was superficially dismissive and inwardly glad of the fact, and it all showed through.

"I guess it's annoying?" I tried.

"Yeah, sometimes. But sometimes it's flattering to have someone interested in you, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it is. Of course it is." Then I was suddenly and genuinely curious about something: "But do they ever flirt with you?"

"The guys?" she said. "It's easy to terrify them out of that impulse."

She was still laying bait, but I was too afraid. So she helped me out by leaning over and informing me that: "It's harder to deter the girls."

"The girls?" What a dumb response.

"A lot of you university girls seem ready to experiment, these days. And if a girl's willing to take the chance of revealing that she's interested in another woman, I think she's usually prepared to endure my dour face for a bit. Plus, as women themselves, I think the girls are less likely to be fooled by my silly ice-queen routine. I mean, we've all been there, haven't we?"

"Oh yeah."

"I have to confess, though, that my real problem is I can never bring myself to be cold to a girl who's gotten up the courage to take such a chance. So if they dare to flirt with me, I'm afraid they get rewarded. I try not to, but..."

"It's human nature."

"Do you think so? I hope so. Honestly, Zita, what do you think of me?"

"I like you," I answered, simply. I did.

"I like you too." She put her hand for a moment on my thigh. The slip, which had never reached to my knees and was smooth as only satin is, had slid down the tops of my fairly satiny thighs, owing to the cramped space and the resulting elevation of my knees. Fedora's hand was therefore able to land on bare skin very near my hip, with just her pinky on the slip's lacy fringe. But she was cautious still, and didn't leave her hand on me long.

"That's a generous dress," she said.

"Gawd, it doesn't feel big to me!"

"No," she chuckled, "I mean it gives away a lot."

"Oh! Well, yeah, it does that. I've never been out this...exposed, actually. It's a slip, you know."

"I was wondering."

I hushed my voice: "Kell insisted."

"She likes to do that," Fed replied in her own hush. "But I guess that neither of us minds too much?"

Now this was a different kind of intimacy between us, in our mutual regard: confessional, understanding, knowing, accepting. There was real sisterhood now, kinship. Jeez, I really did like this woman a lot. I mean her personality. Not that I disliked any of the rest of her. But we were talking about Kell. "I'm not sure," I said.

Fed nodded, and looked at the back of Kell's head. "It's hard to say no to her."

"Yes - God knows why."

"You don't like her much?"

"I do and I don't."

"That's her charm. No?"

"I suppose you could call it that."

"You're right: it's less charm, more allure."

"Fuck," I agreed parsimoniously. Then I hesitated; I wavered. And finally I just let go: "But what is it about her?" I whispered desperately, in collusion, and this time it was me leaning over to Fed, ushering my words directly into her ear. Gawd, she was so surprised, and so happy, though she was muting both.

"I don't know. Everything. Her attitude, her tan - her tits."

I liked the smell of Fedora's hair. Actually, it was very luxuriant hair, wavy, thick, and black. Really pretty.

Fed turned her cheek a little towards me, no doubt curious to know what I thought of her final suggestion. My nose was still aimed near her ear, and so the edge of her face came to bear on mine in a very close proximity. I saw the softness and the texture of her lips beneath the lipstick, and then her right eye in its corner, monitoring my attention.

I got another breath of her hair before I retreated back to my own seat, or nearly back. I know she took a more direct look at me, but I was pretending interest in the scenery out the windshield.

We rode in silence like that for a minute - not really silence because of the radio. Kell passed on the opportunity to catch me in the rear-view mirror.

I could sense Fed wanted to continue our risqué line of discussion. She took it up with: "Not that you've got anything to envy," which she sang cheerfully while waving a loose hand close to my breast. There was a mischievous bump in the road at that moment, and her forefinger twanged my nipple, which was obviously still firmly piqued. I thought it might have sounded a note. Anyway, I gasped and Fed froze for an instant, and then we looked to each other and offered each other a nervous giggle.

I expected her to say she was sorry, but then I understood that she was aiming not to - and perhaps she really did understand me, because I realized next that I actually didn't want her to. I knew very well this wasn't consistent with my general intentions for the situation, but nonetheless, when I feared she was about to cave in a few instants later and make the apology after all, I gave her a friendly squint and looked away. "Cold night," I joked.

"Very," she said merrily. "That slip is practically painted on there, too." Then she went from staring at my nipple to staring right into my slip, across my bosom into the dangerously deep-diving neckline. Probably she almost had a whole profile of my right tit, bare. And what was covered by the satin was revealed anyway in detailed relief. Now here comes a very bad thing. I shouldn't have done it. I really shouldn't have done it. And I swear it was only very slightly premeditated; the whole thing took just a few seconds, through which I careened on a runaway impulse. What did I do? It was nothing, really. I made a show of adjusting the bottom of the slip, under my ass, and pulling the hem to cover a bit more of my legs. This was all in supposed modesty, but the naughtiness was that at the same time, I was knowingly bowing forward, allowing the slip to hang away from my chest and thereby exposing my right breast in its entirety for Fedora. I even twisted my torso towards her to lift my left one out of the way.

When I was done, I'm sure the guilt and the rush were clear in my cheeks despite my attempt at appearing modest. Plus, the slip slid back almost immediately to where it had been before, bunched up near my hip. Fedora took a slow deep breath that made her bosom rise outward while she studied my lovely legs newly revealed. Her study worked its way back up my body until she was addressing me:

"Maybe you know," she began, "but you should watch out in the restaurant; you just flashed me your tit there."

I pretended to be surprised, and was helped by the fact that at least my embarrassment was real. "Oh - thanks." I grabbed the delinquent breast protectively. Then I made some ineffectual tugs at the slip and some sheepish laughs. "Well, I guess it's not painted on after all!" I was supposed to be poking fun at myself.

My nipples, meanwhile, were poking like crazy at the satin.

Fed tested out bravery by bringing her finger very close to my nipple again, on the pretence of a gesture. "Wow, Zita." Yes, my nipples were very prominent, and particularly at that moment. The car jostled us a bit, again, but not enough.

"Don't make fun," I said.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't making fun."

I pouted, adorably no doubt.

"This would be making fun," she said, and then she flicked my nipple hard with her nail. This time I really gasped, with a bit of melody too. It hurt like a bitch! Kell gave an inquisitive and mildly concerned look in the mirror. I was completely discomposed. Fed was sniggering.

"You!" I said, and I lunged over at her. She brought her arms up in front of her chest defensively, still sniggering, but I navigated them deftly and managed to get my fingers around her own nipple, and twist. That was after a couple of quick, unsuccessful gropes of her boob more generally, which was held in a substantial bra, making the exact position of her nipple hard to locate.

She shrieked, playfully, and I retreated. We were both panting with exertion and high spirits. "That'll teach you," I said triumphantly.

"Yeah, it'll teach me to do it again," she cooed, lying back in her corner, clutching her tit happily.

"Now girls, I'll turn this car right around if you can't behave!" Kell announced loudly, and we all laughed.