Get to know the woman in front of him

Josh thought that it might be good to text Cynthia, but he had only a little time before he got to the front counter.

Besides: maybe it would be nice to chat with the woman in front of him. They'd already broken the ice, and he'd learned some useful things about how the world worked just from talking to her.

He considered her: very curly black hair, maybe early 40s, and warmly dressed for the autumn weather. He never knew how to strike up chat with strangers. But he had some suspicions about common ground, and also an extra advantage. He wrote:

• People are willing to have open and matter-of-fact discussions about sexual orientation with anyone, in private or public. No-one considers being straight, gay, bi, pan, or ace to be abnormal.

• People are willing to matter-of-factly discuss the aspects of each other's bodies that they like, glossing over anything they don't like. No-one takes offence to being talked about in this way.

Josh leaned towards the woman in front of you. "Excuse me," you say.

The woman turned around, looking slightly up to his face with interest.

"Are you a lesbian?" he asked.

The woman smirked. "Yeah. Whatever gave it away?" she said, teasing him gently.

Josh tried to bring up how they both were watching blonde Cynthia in the glass chamber of the women's bathroom, then suddenly couldn't find the words. After a second, he realised that his rule about verbally acknowledging voyeurism applied to him as well. That's something to be careful of, thought Josh.

"Her name is Cynthia," Josh told the woman. She smiled.

"Cynthia seems like a lovely girl," she replied, looking to Josh knowingly. "I... enjoyed what company I had with her," she said, curcumspectly.

"She was friendly to talk to, too," Josh added. He tried adding something about how Cynthia had enjoyed the attention, but the words wouldn't come.

"As are you, young man. My name is Claudia, what's yours?" she turned to extend a hand to shake.

"I'm Josh," said Josh, a little surprised. He took her hand and shook it gently: Claudia firmed the grip slightly.

"Hmm. Nice hands, Josh," she said. "It's a pity that you're a man, but no-one is perfect," she added with a smirk.

Josh wasn't sure how to answer that, but smiled in good humour. "What do you think of the staff member in the bathroom now?"

Claudia gave Josh a friendly but gentle warning look. He realised that he was cutting it fine by talking about someone currently half-naked in the women's bathroom, which was awfully close to explicitly addressing voyeurism: but just from the fact that he was able to say the words, he supposed that he must technically be in the clear. "She certainly seems like a lovely young lady. But you know how things are, when you're on the job: it's difficult to get to know much about someone when they're in a professional role." Looking directly at Josh, she added, "She does have nice legs and a nice trimmed bush, though."

Josh felt a sudden impulse to look at those features of the girl in the women's bathroom, but found himself strangely unable to look in that direction. But he remembered well enough, what she looked like. "No argument there," he said with a smile.

Claudia gave Josh a secret smile, and after a tactful few seconds, turned slowly to look at the girl waiting on the entrance of the barhroom. She had put her phone aside, and clasped behind her back, gently bouncing on the balls of her feet to music that they couldn't hear. Whether the music was on her phone or in her mind, Josh couldn't tell.

Josh and Claudia watched the half-naked staff member as she bounced gently in place, in silent shared enjoyment. The staff member looked around idly, anticipating who might next approach. A knot of two men and one woman were standing just outside, immediately on the other side of the glass wall, not looking at her directly but clearly looking at her frequently as they had some friendly discussion, in which they seemed to be looking something up online. The staff member glanced their way occasionally, but seemed more concerned with whether the woman might enter than how much they might be looking at her.

The staff member happened to glance towards Josh and Claudia, who kept looking directly at her, with no reason for embarrassment. She held their gaze, and smiled the sort of smile of a stranger sharing a nice experience with another at a distance.

Josh wondered what precisely that smile might mean, in this new context. It was a friendly smile, but also, it certainly must be a nonverbal acknowledgement of their voyeurism... meaning that the employee was aware of them looking, didn't feel anything negative about it, and was at least a little receptive to being watched.

The employee swayed her hips back and forth twice to the unheard beat. The space between her legs waved enticingly, without anything much becoming visible, though Josh imagined that he caught a glimpse of her pussy lips. She then causally turned to look elsewhere, watching for women to approach the chamber of the women's bathroom.

"I think she seems like quite a nice girl," Claudia said to Josh, looking at him conspiratorially out of the corner of her eye.

Josh looked at Claudia in gentle admonishment, but smiled. "I can't argue with that," he said. Claudia chuckled, and turned to approach the counter to place his order.