The Floating World

During the Tokugawa Period in Japan (1600-1868) the word "ukiyo" came to describe the meaningless pleasure and ennui that was the lifestyle for many people in the cities, particularly Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. "Floating world" is the English translation.

It is said that the geisha, or courtesan, occupied a separate reality known as "karyukai", or the "flower and willow world". The geisha entertained their customers with the tea ceremony, and with a cultured presentation of music, dance, and conversation.

***

It was Adam's first day in a new office, a five block walk from the bus stop. He knew he couldn't function without a morning cup of coffee, but this end of town was new to him, not familiar at all. So he checked out both sides of the street as he walked along, looking for a typical city block café, hoping that the barista would be good, and the distance from the office just right.

Was this the best there was? The Cambridge Street Café? An unimaginative but honest trading name. Christ, red chequered table cloths and sepia photographs of Paris. Fucking Monday and he's cynical already, the café is a cliché. A bell jangled when he pushed the door open, but the counter was deserted.

"Sorry, I was out back in the kitchen, what will you have?"

You, he thought, caught instantly by her grace and shy smile.

"A medium latte, take away, please."

"OK, my pleasure," she replied, turning to the espresso machine; her hands busy, her long hair twisting outwards with the turn of her body.

No, mine, Adam thought, as he watched her precise movements, her slim fingers reaching for a paper cup then gripping the tamper, pressing down the coffee, flicking the tap. As the steam rushed into the milk, her hands became still as she held the stainless steel jug, both hands around its body, judging the temperature. Perfection. The woman became a moment in time in front of him, and Adam gazed upon her. The second hand on the wall clock froze, tick but no tock. The ceremony had begun.

Adam watched the woman as she concentrated on serving him, her hands slow, her eyes ever so slightly narrowed in a small frown and her lips ever so slightly parted. She was slender, narrow hipped with a slim waist, her breasts barely shaping the front of her waitress tunic. Her hair was long, coiled black falling down her back, falling to the line of her hips. Adam imagined that silken black hair wrapping over his arm, if he could take her by the waist and escort her to a dance floor.

Feeling herself observed, the woman turned to her customer. "I have not seen you here before, have I?"

Her accent was foreign; Hong Kong Chinese, Adam thought, English not her native language.

"No. Today is my first day in a new job. I'm going to the headquarters building a block down."

"Oh yes, I know it."

She snapped a plastic lid onto the paper cup.

"There. Coffee for you." Her words had a slight upwards lilt, as if the statement was also a question.

Adam passed her the right money, touching her fingers as he did so. Her fingers were warm. The woman smiled at his touch. That was an answer.

"Thank you." Adam's voice softened, and he too smiled.

The door jangled behind him as he went out to the street. The decor of the café didn't matter, thought Adam, the woman was a lovely start to his day, a delicacy. Her coffee was good, too.

The next day was the same, Adam's gaze, her quiet serenity. This time he picked up a loyalty card, which she stamped with a smiley face in one little box. Her words were the same: "there, coffee for you."

Adam gave her a bank note, and she brushed his fingers with hers as she gave back the change. Her fingers were warm. The coffee was hot.

The next day, she smiled as Adam entered the café, and turned immediately to the espresso machine to prepare his order. This time he gave her the right money, and their little touch in the morning was a simple human contact between a man and a woman. It was only a small thing, but became everything in the moment between the tick of the clock and the tock.

Over the days their ritual was the same, and it became a small ceremony between them. They were both formal with it, and the sun slowly shifted its light on the stone tiled floor as the season lengthened and a little friendship was made in the mornings. The shadow of a decorative branch by the door marked the passage of time. Some days the shadow was dark and etched on the floor, the sun bright outside; other days the shadow was gone, and it rained.

Over the days, Adam told her of his children who he loved; and she told him of her mother in Shanghai who was old, and she worried. Out back in the kitchen, her husband would look through the serving hatch and nod his greeting. Adam wondered what the quiet cook thought of this man who looked upon his wife with affection, whose fingers always traced hers as his money was given.

It was a subtle, lingering movement. Adam's palm would be turned up, the coins resting in the cup of his fingers. She would lightly slide her fingers over the top of his, covering the coin in the shadow of her hand, and their hands would turn together so that her palm received his offering. Adam would slide his fingers from hers, his payment made. "Coffee for you," she would say, but they both knew the payment wasn't for the coffee.

Even on the tenth days, when there was no money between them (the little smiley faced stamp keeping its record of the passing days), she would return the card to Adam's palm, her fingers long and fine against his, caressed and slow.

At first, their hands would only lightly touch, eyes looking down at the movement of their fingers, but over the days they learned each other's touch and they looked up to each other's face. Adam saw her pupils go wide and dark with his caress, and she controlled the intake of her breath. After she shut the cash drawer of the till, her fingers would go each day to the same place on her throat to feel the heat of her rising flush. Adam felt his own deeper pulse, and her lips reddened. But their fingers never held, only lingered.

After many days, Adam told her that his time in the building down the block was ending, he was going somewhere else. She in turn explained that she and her husband were selling the café and returning to China, for her mother was ill. So the little love between their fingers would be parted, and their hearts would beat a little slower.

On the afternoon of Adam's last Friday, he went into the café just before it closed for the day.

"Hello, I've come to say goodbye. It's my last day today, so I thought I would drop by to see you, before I go."

"Oh, that is sad. But we close next week anyway, and we'll be gone, too."

Her husband came from the kitchen out back and stood, waiting. She came from behind the counter and surprised Adam, coming right up to embrace him, holding him tight. She was slender and fragile in his arms, and Adam held her. She lay her cheek on his shoulder and he held her close. He looked up, and saw her husband looking at him. The man nodded a greeting, to acknowledge this man in his woman's quiet mornings.

Adam kissed her hair and her hand pressed back against his arm, this first time held for them both to remember. As they parted, he ran his fingers down the long length of her hair to the top of her hip, and pressed his hand there, where her hair ended. If they had danced, he would have pulled her body close to his, his hand sliding from her hip to her small waist. But they weren't dancing, only their fingers had danced.

Adam left the delicate woman and turned to her husband, offering his hand in a last greeting and a thanks. They shook hands, strangers in a café, men bonded because of a woman.

Adam turned back to the woman and touched his fingers to her cheek. He mouthed the word, goodbye. Her fingers touched his lips, and the clock stopped.

"There. No more coffee for you."Her voice was soft and low, her eyes bright.

"No, no more coffee for me. Thank you for all of them, they were just right. Lovely."

You're lovely, Adam thought, standing there in your purple waitress' uniform, your long hair falling, twisting. Longing for her, he turned and went out the door, turning left down the footpath. A rich, slightly acrid scent of her lingered in his senses.

It wasn't until he was on the bus that Adam realised why the pungency of her scent was so familiar. It was on her fingers, a last payment for him, the hem of her dress lifted and her fingers dipped. So quick, while Adam was shaking her husband's hand.

***

With his new job Adam found another café, this one on a corner facing east, the morning sun hot as the days grew longer. His order was always the same, a latte. It gave him familiarity and constancy, the small ceremony a meditation, stopping the world for a moment. Adam sometimes wondered if life was just a collection of moments, with living the long spaces in between.

This girl's movements were slow and unrushed. There was rarely a queue in the corner café, and the barista filled the space with her own time. Adam would sit, and his long gaze went behind the counter. The girl was curvier than the Chinese woman, and younger. Adam didn't mind her youth nor her curves, both were delectable.

She kept the milk in a fridge behind the counter, and would bend at the waist to reach for it; her thighs tight and her ass nicely rounded in black jeans, the crisp rectangle of a phone in her back pocket. The girl was Arabic, and Adam imagined a curling thickness of black hair along her lips as she bent. She pulled hair back from her face, and a fine down of blackness was there too, on the nape of her neck.

Her darkness reminded Adam of a girl at school, whose forearms were also soft with dark shadow. He looked around, but the ghost had gone.

This girl didn't touch, and Adam didn't dare. She did place a gold wrapped chocolate on the top of the plastic cover of his cup each day, and after two weeks, she gave him two chocolates. She was a silent girl hardly saying a word, but the second chocolate gave Adam a simple thrill. He was a favoured customer and it was her quiet wordless offering.

Her silence was a serenity, her slow pace a contemplation, and the room was always still. A fly buzzed. Adam wondered if the monks of Skellig Michael had ever drunk coffee. If this girl had been there amongst the stones they surely would have, to hear her silence.

Her darkness would have been another meditation, Adam thought. Coffee wouldn't have been necessary with this girl, if her darkness was what mattered. She glanced across at him. Her darkness mattered. Adam closed his eyes to keep her glance deep in his mind.

The real delight though, and the reason Adam kept coming back to this corner of the block (for her coffee wasn't so good) was the simple movement the girl made when she reached up for a cup from a high shelf.

After she got the milk from the fridge, that movement with its promise of a dark place, and set the milk to heat, the girl would reach high to get a cup. Each time she did so, a small triangle of flesh would show, just above her hip.

They say the most beautiful part of a geisha is the back of her neck, and that is why there's no make-up there. Adam knew that was wrong - this girl's triangle of skin, dark and brief and just above her hip, was her most beautiful place, her flat belly a promise beyond.

She glanced across at Adam, and saw the line of his gaze. She reached a little higher.

***

"Good morning, will you have your usual?"

The coffee girl was slender, slight. A curved line of mascara extended her almond shaped eyes, giving her a touch of the middle-east, of Egypt. Three diamond ear studs lay on the inside of each ear, and she wore a small gold ring on the top of each lobe. Delicate jewellery, complimenting her elfin face, dusky skinned, dark eyed.

"Wait, don't tell me, let's see if I can remember." Her voice had a slight huskiness to it. Adam listened, his attention captured. "Black coff... no, wait, latte, that's right, isn't it?"

Adam smiled at her, liking the way she wanted to remember him, his order, and to be a part of his morning. "Yes, that's right, a latte, take away." He gave her the right money. Her hand was slim and small.

She looked up at him. "Your name, wait, let me see if I can... Adr... no, Adam. You're Adam."

"Yes, I'm Adam," he replied, liking her more for remembering his name, out of the hundreds of customers who visited the café.

"I'll remember your name now, it begins with an A, same as mine." The girl rang up the sale, and passed a ticket down the counter to the barista.

"Anna?"he wondered. "You look like you could be an Anna."

"Do I? No, I'm an Amanda."

"Oh, I was hoping I could guess your name, these next few days. Hello Amanda, it s nice to meet you."

"You too, Adam."

Their formality was a friendly thing, and so they were introduced. As he stood waiting for his coffee, Adam admired the girl. He liked small, graceful women, and this girl was young and slim. A student, maybe, paying her way through uni. Or perhaps a graduate, he couldn't really tell her age. Somewhere between twenty and twenty-three or four, he guessed. Young enough to be his daughter, anyway.

The barista poured Adam's order, and called his name. Adam took the coffee, took two sips to lower the level before it spilled, and went out into the street. As he turned left up the footpath, he glanced inside and saw Amanda serving a line of customers. Her long hair, tied up in a high pony tail, swung behind her head as she turned to the cash register.

Over the days and weeks that followed, Amanda would ask Adam on the Mondays how his weekend was. He told her about mending the blown down fence, and one morning she explained her black painted fingernails for a party the previous Friday night. He discovered then that Antony was her boyfriend, "Ant wore black too, he never does."

Usually, Amanda's nails were a light red, or a pink, cut short, but it was a goth party, so this time she was all in black. Her fingers were fine and slender, no rings worn. She was feminine and young.

Come the colder winter mornings, Adam asked Amanda what time she got up, to always be at work when the café opened. "I set my alarm for a quarter to five," she replied. Adam's heart ached for this waif of a girl getting up in the dark, to make men and women coffee in the morning.

"That's not right, is it? It must be so cold that time of the morning. I'm still fast asleep."He smiled at her, his fondness for her in his voice. "You poor thing."

She laughed. "Yes, the house is freezing. My shower is always longer than it should be, to warm me up."

Adam looked at the girl with her dark eyes, imagining her arching her neck under the shower head, falling water heating her skin, her fingers caressing the shampoo from her long hair. With her arms stretched above her head, her breasts would be small, tight on her frame. She was slim and small, and her hair was long.

Adam thought her skin would be smooth and warm, and if he could inhale her scent, musky and spiced. He wanted to hold a big towel around her so she wouldn't be cold when she stepped from the shower. His little coffee girl and the mornings so cold.

Amanda wasn't just his coffee girl in the mornings. One lunchtime, Adam came back from the laksa house where he had eaten, and bought a coffee to sit. Another waitress took the order, but Amanda brought it out to him, a big smile on her face. "I didn't know you came here for lunch,"she said. "How are you?"

"I usually don't," Adam replied, "but this sun is lovely and warm. It's nice to sit and read the paper, soak up some heat."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" She touched him lightly on the arm. "Enjoy your coffee."

"I will honey, thanks."Adam's endearment was automatic, a fondness, triggered by her touch. Amanda was a girl his daughter's age after all, and he was affectionate with his daughter, too. She smiled at his words, her eyes smiled.

Adam touched the cup where Amanda's fingers had been. She really was a honey. He watched her as she walked away, and there was a sexy swing to her plain black waitress'skirt, even in her practical shoes. Her calves were taut, firmly muscled. She was on her feet all day, and was fit. Adam smiled. Amanda was a sweet thing, as she walked from him, her ponytail swinging high on her head. Adam imagined her hair falling long down her back, and pushing it back from her cheek with his finger.

Others did too. Another day Adam shifted his chair aside so that a woman in a wheelchair could get to the adjacent table, her glittering rings and jewellery catching the sun and her deep cleavage shadowed. Like Amanda she had Cleopatra eyes, but her lips were deep and red. Heat radiated from her like smoke. Damn, she's sexy, thought Adam, distracted.

Adam had been served already and was shuffling pages of his newspaper when the woman's partner arrived. Her man was slim and blond, touching her shoulder as he sat beside her. Adam glanced across, his eye caught by the movement. He smiled at their affection, it was obvious in the way they leaned in towards each other, their heads close. Adam realised the woman was pregnant, her belly a full delight as she sat in the wheelchair. No wonder she was oozing sex appeal, he thought, she must be a cocktail of swirling hormones.

He looked up again to see Amanda bring the couple their coffee and a glass of water, all on a tray. Adam didn't catch what the woman said to the girl, but did see Amanda's spontaneous smile in response. The girl glowed, sometimes. As she walked away, and of course his eyes followed, he heard the woman say, "she's pretty."

Adam's attention was caught by the words, and even more so by her partner's response. "Yes, she is. Would you like her?"

So it's not just me, then, thought Adam, intrigued by the couple's conversation. He watched out of the corner of his eye, his ears pricked for her response. There was a short pause, then the woman tapped her fingers to her lips, twice. "Yes, she'd be nice and tender, I think."

Wow, thought Adam, Amanda makes quite an impression, not just on me. The way the woman described Amanda as a morsel, a sweet taste of something to be eaten, intrigued Adam. He had imagined the girl's skin soft under the touch of his fingers, but he'd not thought of the taste of her before now. He pondered the idea of the girl on the tip of his tongue. He imagined her lips would have a light musky scent, a little exotic, a little spicy. They would part softly under his finger tips, and she would sigh at his delicate touch.

He finished his coffee and pushed the cup away from him, his fingers touching the place where Amanda's fingers had been. He wondered where else her fingers would go.

***

Amanda sat back in her usual seat in the rail carriage, her eyes closed against the flickering shadows from trees alongside the track. The clicker clack of the wheels on the track was hypnotic, and the occasional bump as the train lurched through points bounced her bag on her lap.

She used the brisk walk to the station to clear her head from the shift and swell of people through the café door each day, like the tide on a beach with its surge and drop. The half hour on the train, forty-five minutes if it was slow, was her stop time, her shift from work to play. But God, she was always so tired at the end of the day, so she didn't get time to play. Or sing or dance, like she used to. She tried, but her time was like a cat's, sleeping to get energy back for the next day.

What had Adam said, his deep blue eyes smiling down at her when she told him of her alarm clock time? Oh, you poor thing, that's too early isn't it? I'm still warm in my bed at that time. Amanda shifted in her seat, her fingers gripping the side of her bag, an unconscious push of it to the base of her belly. The train rocked, and her thighs clenched to keep her body from swaying. I'm still warm in my bed.