Status: Haven't we met before?
You.
Today
In the exact same moment, he was the fabled scum between her toes and the life giving sunshine showering her with warmth, bliss, and vitality. She could have snapped – probably should’ve – but somewhere in her soul of souls and observation of observations, she was acutely aware of her boss’s admonishing wrinkled eyes bearing down upon her from some great distance away, the particulars she knew nothing about. With a debilitating amount of sardonicism and bitterness comparable only to a stretch of ripe plum skin, she handed her customer by title, and boyfriend by conjecture, a clean rend of linen and an obligatory smile before bounding off behind the line of stoolside countertop, faux marble scratched and decayed as though it couldn’t accrue the minimal effort necessary to even feign the aura of sophistication.
She sighed doggedly, as though beaten to the bone marrow by the burden of manual labor, though the corners of her lips hinged upward as she met the crooked glance of the man before her, blindly spooning gobs of substandard egg substitute into his clumsy, grinning maw from across the counter. She smiled, imagining herself in place of the unnaturally yellow substance tracing the intricate folds of dry, pink flesh pressed gingerly into the man’s lips. Inviting just as they were, salty and hard, the waitress pondered just what they might feel like against her own, for a change, instead of her heavily bronze flesh – neck, chest, stomach and thighs. She thought maybe he’d like the difference; perhaps offer him relief from the harshness of the cold both outside and in. She would have asked, had she the audacity, but she didn’t and could never.
“What are you starin’ at?” she asked instead.
He gulped down the mouthful he’d since accumulated. “What’s it look like?”
She could feel her skin simmer at the mere sound of his voice, deliberate and proper, his s’s pressed precisely betwixt his front teeth and t’s crossed with the tip of his tongue. So different was his manner from her own, she mused as she shook her head, absentmindedly touching her thick curlicue bob as she made her way to the sink.
He wears a suit and works on Saturday, she said inanely to herself, the mutterings of a child in reference to the worldly adult in her midst, I don’t know anyone who wears a suit and works on Saturday.
The unsteady torrent of lukewarm water eased the girl free of her thoughts and back into the musky fog of reality and spent coffee grounds, the vague and off-kilter stench of singed food wafting from whereabouts she could not dignify. She wrought her spindly hands beneath the spotty trickle of the stainless steel basin for a few moments before she jerked the rusted spigot back into place and with the shrill outcry of metal scraping violently against itself, the water began to die.
“It looks a lot like you’ve got less than ten minutes, actually.”
The waitress attempted nonchalance to the best of her ability, but the sensation that enveloped her entire being as she drew nearer inspired a rhythmic drumming in her heart that would accept no less a rejoinder than singing pitchy radio tunes from the pinnacle of the city skyline. She swallowed gruffly on song lyrics she never realized she knew.
“Pity,” he seemed to say without prior deliberation. The waitress envied his certainty with a careful pinch of her unmanicured brows.
And then the words were gone. There were gentle glimpses met by intense and lengthy optic fixations, smirks and chuckles unearthed from depths unexplored, a courtship of subtlety, sans spoken language entirely.
Sans? She thought, puzzled by her own internal vocabulary. She learned the word from him. The smile that ensued ignited the minute licks of azure flames on the busy burners in the kitchen.
He was standing by then, canvas bag slack in his hand and his tie tucked carefully into place by the other. The imitation porcelain plate on his abandoned placemat accommodated a lonely chunk of callow slop whilst his face accommodated an upturned, unshaven upper lip accompanied by a mouthful of impossibly pristine teeth, pointed incisors harassing the existing scars on the young woman’s neck from afar. An instant or two passed the pair by before he swiveled on his heel, bidding farewell as was habitual – a brief flick of his wrist in her direction, fingers splayed and the face of his expensive watch peering only partially out from behind his pinstriped suit sleeve.
“Tomorrow, then.” His voice ricocheted from the wall he had come to face and plucked haphazardly at the chords of the girl’s threefold heart.
“Tomorrow,” she replied, although the door had already closed behind him.
She sighed doggedly, as though beaten to the bone marrow by the burden of manual labor, though the corners of her lips hinged upward as she met the crooked glance of the man before her, blindly spooning gobs of substandard egg substitute into his clumsy, grinning maw from across the counter. She smiled, imagining herself in place of the unnaturally yellow substance tracing the intricate folds of dry, pink flesh pressed gingerly into the man’s lips. Inviting just as they were, salty and hard, the waitress pondered just what they might feel like against her own, for a change, instead of her heavily bronze flesh – neck, chest, stomach and thighs. She thought maybe he’d like the difference; perhaps offer him relief from the harshness of the cold both outside and in. She would have asked, had she the audacity, but she didn’t and could never.
“What are you starin’ at?” she asked instead.
He gulped down the mouthful he’d since accumulated. “What’s it look like?”
She could feel her skin simmer at the mere sound of his voice, deliberate and proper, his s’s pressed precisely betwixt his front teeth and t’s crossed with the tip of his tongue. So different was his manner from her own, she mused as she shook her head, absentmindedly touching her thick curlicue bob as she made her way to the sink.
He wears a suit and works on Saturday, she said inanely to herself, the mutterings of a child in reference to the worldly adult in her midst, I don’t know anyone who wears a suit and works on Saturday.
The unsteady torrent of lukewarm water eased the girl free of her thoughts and back into the musky fog of reality and spent coffee grounds, the vague and off-kilter stench of singed food wafting from whereabouts she could not dignify. She wrought her spindly hands beneath the spotty trickle of the stainless steel basin for a few moments before she jerked the rusted spigot back into place and with the shrill outcry of metal scraping violently against itself, the water began to die.
“It looks a lot like you’ve got less than ten minutes, actually.”
The waitress attempted nonchalance to the best of her ability, but the sensation that enveloped her entire being as she drew nearer inspired a rhythmic drumming in her heart that would accept no less a rejoinder than singing pitchy radio tunes from the pinnacle of the city skyline. She swallowed gruffly on song lyrics she never realized she knew.
“Pity,” he seemed to say without prior deliberation. The waitress envied his certainty with a careful pinch of her unmanicured brows.
And then the words were gone. There were gentle glimpses met by intense and lengthy optic fixations, smirks and chuckles unearthed from depths unexplored, a courtship of subtlety, sans spoken language entirely.
Sans? She thought, puzzled by her own internal vocabulary. She learned the word from him. The smile that ensued ignited the minute licks of azure flames on the busy burners in the kitchen.
He was standing by then, canvas bag slack in his hand and his tie tucked carefully into place by the other. The imitation porcelain plate on his abandoned placemat accommodated a lonely chunk of callow slop whilst his face accommodated an upturned, unshaven upper lip accompanied by a mouthful of impossibly pristine teeth, pointed incisors harassing the existing scars on the young woman’s neck from afar. An instant or two passed the pair by before he swiveled on his heel, bidding farewell as was habitual – a brief flick of his wrist in her direction, fingers splayed and the face of his expensive watch peering only partially out from behind his pinstriped suit sleeve.
“Tomorrow, then.” His voice ricocheted from the wall he had come to face and plucked haphazardly at the chords of the girl’s threefold heart.
“Tomorrow,” she replied, although the door had already closed behind him.
♠ ♠ ♠
Ideas for this one have been swirling around in my head for a good long while. I quite like it, and I wanted to keep the introductory chapter short and pert. Lemme know what you think!