Bill saw Millie first thing in the morning. He had two dirty uniforms to put to the laundry and he needed at least one replacement to have a back-up in case of emergency. Emergencies did happen. One never knew when there would be a spill, a drop, a tear, a who-knew-what.
For once Millie was busy. She had, as Bill saw, a whole laundry cart of uniforms to put up on her racks.
What he saw of her first was her bent over that cart and fetching the uniforms, her back to the counter. He saw her come up with a stack of them, maybe five or so, which she’d gripped by their hangers.
He did not say anything and stood watching. His instinct was to sneak around and goose her, but he didn’t. His second instinct was to chuck one of his uniform jackets at her to surprise her. But he didn’t do that either. He simply stood and watched, watched the movement of her body from the cart to the rack and as she hung the uniforms on her rack. That done, she did not turn around. She bent over slightly, reached behind her, lifted the uniform dress and scratched her thigh, not high up from the back of her knee but enough to make it interesting.
That’s when he really wanted to say something, but he still didn’t. He stayed there watching. He watched her movement, watched her butt, looked at what he could see of the panty lines when the uniform pressed against her.
He stood. He watched. As he watched he was thinking “move so the dress rides up, scratch your thigh again, come on give me something to see.” He was not horny and at least for the moment he was not at all unsatisfied sexually. He was just a young man at the top of his man-game looking at a young woman that he already knew and could have at will, at whim, without doing anything other than letting her know.
Biology was biology. Sex was sex. It was the beginning of the 70s. There she was. Here he was.
He watched.
“How long you gonna stand there?” Millie asked. “And don’t bother turning red. I saw you come up.”
“I was hoping for a little show,” Bill said.
Millie stood straight and turned. First thing, she approached her counter and relieved Bill of his dirty uniforms. Seeing no one around, she leaned over the counter and kissed him, a quick kiss on the lips.
“What you want to see baby?” she asked.
“You know what I want to see.”
“Real quick, one show. Then you come back later.”
Millie double-checked to make sure they were alone, then as close to the counter as she could, she lifted her dress and pulled her panties to the side.
She stood that way a moment, as long as she dared risk no one coming by. And while she was exposed, as their eyes met, she put her fingers on herself there and licked her lips.
“Good show?” Millie asked as she put herself together.
“Good show,” Bill said.
“About 1:30,” Millie said.
“I’ll do my best,” Bill said. “No promises.”
Millie smiled. She went to her special rack, not far away, and handed Bill two very nicely laundered uniforms.
“You owe me a show,” Millie said.
Bill winked at her. “Time for much more than a show,” he said.
He had no idea why he said that. He had no idea how, having come in and over to the laundry with no desire for Millie, no taste for her, no inclination of fooling around with her or anyone, it had gotten to this. But he knew that as he carried his specially laundered uniforms over his shoulder on the way to the locker room, he wanted her now, he wanted to…
All kinds of things went through his mind about what he wanted to do.
By Peter Weiss
Sunday night they kicked back. The afternoon at his wife’s parents was quite routine. Bill played with Chippy, the German Shepherd, and spent most of the time in the family room with his father-in-law. They drank gin and tonic and watched football.
Bill’s mother-in-law was the sweetest woman you’d ever want to know. If her daughter had asked her to do their laundry, she would’ve done it happily. That was her nature. She served the men snacks and sat for a bit with them all, when they were all together, to chat. Mostly, Bill’s wife and mother-in-law stuck together.
Family times were good times. They were quiet, leisurely afternoons and evenings that ended with a full-family dinner in the dining room. Bill’s mother-in-law and his wife served, they all ate, the women cleaned up and did everything in the kitchen. While the clean-up happened, his wife’s brothers went about whatever they were doing. Bill and his father-in-law had a last gin and tonic in the family room.
“Have a good day?” his wife asked. They were sitting on the sofa in their living room.
“Swell,” Bill said.
“What time you have to be in in the morning?”
“Ten.”
“Busy day?”
“Not really. We have one small afternoon thing, goes off at one. Then it’s prep work for Tuesday. I don’t think there’s anything for tomorrow night.”
“What about The Falstaff Room?”
“It’s Monday. It’ll be somewhat slow.”
“Home early?”
“Hard to tell. I’m hoping. What about you?”
“Regular week. Same as always. Classes to teach, rehearsal, regular.”
They were quiet a moment. Wasn’t much more to say. Bill was thinking about how quickly the weight of responsibility for their support had been put upon him. He was thinking, in light of what had happened to him now a year and a half ago and ending about a year ago with his time in the workhouse, how his life/their lives had changed. He was thinking how important it was for him to work and make money, not just enough money to cover their expenses, but money to put away for a safety net. The more the better, he thought.
He was also thinking about work. It was better to be busy and occupied than to be idle and have to think about things. Thinking about the things in his life had never been productive, had never led him anywhere that he could consider a good place. He was happy to have a job. It most certainly was not the type of job he’d imagined or dreamed about and it was a job that took him far away from doing that which he really wanted to do in his life. But it was a job. It was turning out to be a good job, one at which he could make extra money.
Then there were the girls. All this time since last night when he’d gotten home they were out of sight and out of mind. Now, as he sat next to his wife whom he’d been close to, very close to, for the past time, they popped back into his head and he felt anxiety start to creep in. He had no taste for any of them, not now, not here, not sitting here with his wife. He hadn’t meant to mess with any of them. He hadn’t meant to mess with anyone. He had only meant to make a clean slate of it once they’d moved.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“I’m gonna take a bath,” his wife said. “Wanna join me?”
“You love your baths,” Bill said. “Really want company or just being polite?”
“If I didn’t want you with me, I wouldn’t have asked.”
Bill knew that was true. Bill knew his wife would not do anything she didn’t want to do. Well, maybe sometimes she did things for him she didn’t want to do, but she wasn’t one to compromise much. He was the one…
As he thought this he wondered about its veracity, and even though he didn’t like baths, he did want to be with her.
“Sure,” he said. “Wanna smoke a joint?” he asked.
“I’m good,” his wife said.
By Peter Weiss
They slept until ten. Actually they were both up much earlier and both closed their eyes and went back to sleep. By ten Bill would normally already be at work and his wife would normally have already been working for two hours. So their bodies dictated their waking times more than any clock or alarm.
They slept very close together. They always slept naked except sometimes in the winter when it was really cold. They almost always slept close together, but this night they slept closer than usual. She was happy, he was happy.
When they woke, after they brushed their teeth he had coffee she had tea. In effect, if one were looking from outside at the marriage and at them as a couple that should have said everything. Still, after their morning beverage, they got back into bed.
There was something to be said for youth. There was something to be said for him being at the peak of his sexual prowess and she not even having come close to hers yet. There was something to be said for being familiar with each other, for being in love, for being in lust, for being uninhibited and unrestrained. They smoked a joint. Bill took a Quaalude. They made love. They took their time, they did whatever they felt like doing, they made long, serious, unadulterated love. In the same moment they had sex and made love.
When they were done Bill stayed in bed and rested. His wife got up and went about the chores that she had to do for this Sunday morning. It wasn’t much. It was only gathering the laundry that needed to be taken to her parents to be done there, straightening the apartment, which was the top floor of a duplex, doing the dishes and putzing around. It didn’t take her long.
Soon as she was done she joined him in the bed. He was watching TV. There wasn’t much on. They smoked another joint and after they’d finished the joint Bill went into the kitchen and brought them each a glass of wine. This early in the day his wife didn’t want any wine so Bill happily drank both glasses. Then, because they were with each other, because they were happily high, because there was nothing else to do and nothing they really had to do, they went at it again. This time, with clear understanding on each of their parts, it was you please me and I’ll please you.
It left them both sated, tired and happy. So they went out for breakfast, or brunch as it were since it was already almost midday.
Bill generally did not like to eat out. In his short time in kitchens he’d already seen enough to not want to eat from what other cooks prepared. Working in kitchens for many years, as it would happen for Bill, would leave him with a distinct dislike for eating out. Working in kitchens for many years, as it would happen for Bill, would leave him preparing his own food almost all the time and mostly eating fresh salads with meats, cheese and other assorted items inside the salad.
Today, this time, he ate a cheeseburger, a big, goopy cheeseburger very rare, with onions, tomatoes, pickles, lots of pickles, mayonnaise and ketchup. His wife ate the same thing, only she took hers cooked medium-well. They shared a large vanilla milkshake, two straws inside one big glass. They sat opposite each other looking at each other, taking each other in.
After the meal at the diner they went off to her parents house. The drive was about forty minutes although they could have done it more quickly if they’d gone a different way. They took a leisurely drive together, talked about the rest of the day and the upcoming week. It was clear they weren’t going to be seeing each other much because Bill was not having any more days off at least for several weeks. It was clear they wanted to take each other in in the moment.
By Peter Weiss
They smoked a joint in bed. They drank white wine that Bill’s wife got for them from the kitchen. They lay together by candlelight and held each other.
“That was really nice,” she said. “I like when you please yourself.”
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” she said.
Bill’s wife nuzzled against him and purred. It was a simple, quiet life-is-good type of feeling she was putting out, or Bill was feeling from her. He felt the same way.
He was happy. For a moment he forgot about the others, all the others who except for Mother Mary didn’t mean anything when all was said and done. Even Arlene whose mother had been struggling with cancer escaped his state of mind. That was what had made Arlene different, that he felt for her, not love, or maybe a different kind of love, but empathy. He and Arlene were right there.
Even Lorraine, who he liked and liked being intimate with, left him for the moment. Lorraine and Mother Mary had that in common. They were older, more settled in their lives, knew what they wanted physically and otherwise.
Their bodies were different too. Their bodies were fuller, softer, curvier, more friendly he’d always thought. He found that appealing. They’d been married and that made the sex different.
His wife, she was skinny, agile, always stretching one way or another, always moving something, fingers, toes, ankles, something, this because she was a dancer and had to stay limber. She had fewer needs than some of the others. She was from a family that was pretty much normal, whatever that was. Bill was from a broken family. She was from a family whose patriarch had not been damaged by the Nazis, whose patriarch had, in fact, enjoyed the benefits of being a veteran without any of the real difficulties of being a warrior. He was from a family that ended up a single-parent family in a time when that was relatively rare, whose parent was all screwed up through no fault of his own.
We get what we get. And so it goes.
His wife had gotten encouragement and guidance and support. Those things had allowed her to be able to articulate what she wanted and to go for it. Those things had allowed her to be able to be creative, to choose an artistic career that offered little if any chance of her supporting herself.
Bill.
There was a song about Bill.
He had gotten taught to stay out of sight, to please everyone around you so you didn’t get killed, to not get noticed, ever. He had gotten taught that you could rarely get what you wanted in life and the way to get anything was to be co-dependent. (Of course that was not the word used. Bill wouldn’t know that word for a very long time.)
Bill sipped his wine, fondled his wife’s breasts. One thing about her was that she had small, pert, beautiful breasts and she enjoyed having him touch them. She enjoyed having him suckle on them. She enjoyed him paying them attention, paying her attention even though because of their schedules they were mostly not together, even though she was often not accessible when he was. He came home and she was asleep. She went off early in the morning.
He slid down some. She slid up some. They kissed. He asked if she wanted more weed. She said no. They kissed some more. He leaned up on his elbow and kissed downward, down across those lovely breasts and down further. She moaned once, softly. He could feel her breathing shift, increase slightly. He could feel her yielding to his touch, reacting to his kisses and nibbles and then to the feel of his tongue as it slid across her flat tummy and down the insides of her thighs, first one, then the other.
She cupped his head to help him in what he was doing. He saw her close her eyes and slip into her own mind.
By Peter Weiss
Guilt?
Shame?
Bill was born with guilt and shame. Maybe. Not really. Maybe it came upon him or he acquired it. He didn’t know exactly how or why, but he knew he did. And then it was beaten into him, both literally and figuratively. Or maybe his image of it, his view, was simply skewed. Maybe it was first skewed by the lazy eye he’d been born with and the host of distorted images built upon it and then built deeper by a year’s worth of eye operations and having one eye covered by a patch.
Nevertheless…
After he’d washed her back and backside and kissed her there all over, she leaned against the wall much like Edelgarde had done in the bathroom not even two hours ago.
“Darling, have your way with me,” she said.
He felt like a dog. But then, as he thought about it, he always felt like a dog so the feeling wasn’t new. He felt guilty, but then he always felt guilty so that feeling wasn’t new either.
His first instinct was to ask her what she wanted. That was a gut reaction from years and years of training by his father. His father didn’t mean to train him that way. It was all part of a load of unintended consequences, things that maybe shouldn’t happen to anyone yet happen to most everyone in one way or another.
If his father-in-law, a college graduate Air Force officer, was stateside in the war, his own father, Nathan, was a high school dropout who dropped out to help support his family during the depression, and then he was a combat infantryman, Big Red 1, captured in North Africa, a POW in Nazi Germany for three and a half years.
We get what we get.
So if Bill’s first instinct was to please his wife instead of to satisfy himself, which is what she had told him to do, he couldn’t help it. He was what he was.
“What would you like?” he asked.
“I want you to have your way with me,” she said.
She was standing there in the shower, her legs spread, leaning against her arms against the wall of the bathroom above the tub.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Anything,” she said.
In effect, this was the hardest thing anyone could ask of Bill. Asking him what he really wanted and telling him to go for it was so contrary to all that had been in his life to this point that it made him cringe. And cringe he did. He hesitated, had to swallow that knot in the pit of his stomach and finally decide what it was he really wanted.
He knew what he wanted. He knew what he really wanted. He just wasn’t sure if he could go for it.
It had to become an existential decision, an f-it decision. It had to be something that didn’t really matter altogether in the scheme of things. Once it was that, he could proceed.
Proceed he did.
He did know exactly what he wanted and he did know how to do it and he did know how to please her at the same time because he knew, and this was from their experience being together, what pleased her as it pleased him.
He took his time. He let the water run over them and kept it so it was hot but not too hot. He stepped back a moment and looked at this wonderful woman who had chosen to be his wife—he couldn’t understand that or understand why—and then he did the things he wanted to do. He only did things he wanted to do. He did some things he’d done before but he did them a bit differently. He used her and she let him use her.
“That was great,” she said when they were finished and were drying off.
“Sure was,” he said.
She dried him, and he dried her, and then they kissed some more.
By Peter Weiss
Bill was glad his wife was asleep. He took off his sneakers before he went into the house, crept in quietly, got himself a beer from the refrigerator which he took with him into the shower. He’d made it almost all the way through the shower before his wife came into the bathroom. She was quiet too. He didn’t know she was there until she pushed the shower curtain aside and stepped into the tub with him.
“I have to pee,” she said. She reached up to kiss him and started peeing at the same time. “Thought I’d join you.”
“I’m glad you did,” Bill said. He handed her his beer, watched her take a sip, stepped to the side so she could get into the water spray.
“Rough day?”
“The day was easy. The night was very busy. More than ever before. New records all over the place, for the night, for the week. Maybe new record volume sales.”
“You are off tomorrow, right?”
“Yes ma’am. Last one maybe for a couple of weeks. Lots of banquets. The Falstaff Room is doing great. I’ll make the money while I can. After the new year it slows down.”
“We’ll do a leisure day then. Sleep in if you want. I don’t have much shopping, but I do need to do laundry. We can do it over my parents’ house.”
“That’s okay with me,” Bill said. And it was okay because his wife’s father was a good drinking buddy, always a willing partner, always ready to fix them a good triple gin and tonic. Not only did he fix the drinks, but he kept them coming too. He would keep them coming all afternoon and evening, and if Bill had too much to drink, it was no problem because his wife could always drive them home. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Bill and his father-in-law did not always get along well. His father-in-law was dead-set against the wedding, and they were complete opposites politically. Bill was a hippie, not so much a lefty as an independent, someone interested in seeing that America did the right thing. His father-in-law was a conservative, a senior cost analysis man for a major steel company. He was also a WWII vet, not that he actually saw combat. He was a pilot and a pilot trainer stateside.
Once they were married, once Bill was a son-in-law and was gainfully employed and working hard for his daughter, his father-in-law eased up on him some and they became more than cordial. Their political discussions, though heated at times, were interesting and even fun. The more they drank the more friendly they were. The more times they drank together and saw each other, the closer they got.
So going over there tomorrow was no big deal, was in fact something for Bill to look forward to because he knew he would be drinking lots of gin and tonics and probably watching the Cleveland Browns play football.
His wife handed him back the beer bottle and he set it on the rim of the tub. She shifted so they could both be under the spray of the water. There, they hugged and kissed and held each other and stood a long while. They kissed and they kissed some more and then they kissed even more.
“I love you,” his wife said to him.
“I love you too,” he said.
“No,” his wife said, “I really love you.”
“I really love you too,” Bill said.
He held her tight against him, hugged her, began there in the water kissing her all over. He started with her face, went down her neck and then over her all over on top. When he was done with that, he took up the soap and told her to turn around so he could wash her back.
His wife gave no objection. She turned happily and made sure he washed her exactly where she wanted to be washed.
By Peter Weiss
They didn’t ever need the extra vegetables Jimmy Banquet Chef brought, not because they weren’t busy but because Bill did have it covered. And because he had it covered they ended up taking those extra vegetables back to the main kitchen. Still, better to be safe than sorry, and while they didn’t run out of any menu items, they were close to running out on more than a few entrees.
Clean up didn’t start until almost 1:00 AM. They worked straight though past midnight. Caesar didn’t cut it off until 12:30. Tired and sweaty and exhausted as well, they rested some after working what ended up as the final orders for the night. Jimmy sat in his seat, Bill stood leaning against the door to the walk-in, out of sight to customers. Both he and Jimmy G smoked a cigarette. Caesar would have ratted Bill out to the chef for smoking in the kitchen if Jimmy G hadn’t been smoking too.
The girls, all three of them, because it was late at night and they hadn’t eaten dinner, asked for and received hamburgers and fries. Bill, as he always did, made their plates pretty.
“Goddamn I’m tired,” Jo Ann said when she picked up her food. “I’ve never seen it like this. I mean we’ve been busy and have had busy nights. But I’ve never seen it like this.”
“Ya,” Jimmy G said. “That ad must have done something.”
“You’d think we were giving something away,” Jo Ann said.
“Maybe it’s the holiday season coming up on us,” Bill said.
“Maybe,” Jo Ann said. She shrugged her shoulders, took her food and went in the back by Kalista to eat.
Rosie and Edelgarde got their food when Jo Ann was back on the floor. They came up to the window together, both smiling, both happy, both looking to Bill as if they were tired.
“Good night?” Bill asked. He was messing with them, didn’t have to ask. He already knew.
“I’m sweaty everywhere,” Rosie said.
“Me too,” Edelgarde said. “Want to feel?”
“Definitely,” Bill said, “but not here and now.”
Edelgarde turned her bottom lip down in a mock pout. She leaned in and said, “My panties are soaked.”
“Mine too,” Bill said. “I’d let you feel, but, you know.”
“Oh, I’ll get that feel,” Edelgarde said. “Maybe not tonight, but I’ll get it.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I bet you will.”
Rosie and Edelgarde went to the back by Kalista to eat too. Jimmy G and Bill still rested. They were both tired and both getting up the energy to do the breakdown. They smoked another cigarette, relaxed with no orders to work.
“I’m gonna run to the head,” Bill said to Jimmy G when he’d finished his cigarette.
“Ya,” Jimmy G said.
Bill went out of the kitchen, past Kalista’s station and headed on down the ramp. Just before he got to the bottom, he heard, “Wait up” from behind. It was Edelgarde and she was scooting behind him to catch up.
When they were walking together, Edelgarde told him Kalista was making them more espresso. Then she said she really had to pee and she wanted to pee along with Bill.
Bill didn’t say anything. They walked quickly together and went to the faraway staff bathrooms where they’d been before. Once they were inside, first thing Edelgarde did was kiss Bill. She kissed him long and deep.
“I am so horny,” she said. She reached into Bill’s pants, felt his soaked underwear and more. “I see you are too,” she said. She took his hand and put it up her skirt. She wasn’t kidding. Her panties were soaked.
They both peed in the same stall, watched each other, laughed happily. At this point, it was already no big deal. When they were done, Edelgarde turned and faced the wall of the stall, leaned over and supported herself with her hands on the wall..
“Do me,” she said.
By Peter Weiss
Saturday night in The Falstaff Room blew away all records. Not only did it set a new Saturday record, it set a new daily record and it ensured they would set a new weekly record. The new record was not just by a few covers. It was by more than a dozen covers. No one rested. No one took breaks. Only escape was a quick run to the bathroom and that did not happen for Bill or Jimmy G until Jimmy Banquet Chef, done with all his banquets, could run out to them and cover for them individually while they ran, just about literally, to take a leak.
Jimmy Banquet Chef, along with Bill’s input, which was crucial, did an inventory of what they had and what they needed in the kitchen. Bill was always over-careful. That stemmed from his Suburban days when they were very often very busy, when there was no time to be able to run for things and when running out of something might lead to a major backup. No one liked that. Once you backed up it was really hard to catch up.
“You got it pretty much covered,” the banquet chef said.
“I think so,” Bill said.
Bill and Jimmy G, each having had their bathroom relief, were back at working orders. In general and for the most part, Bill was the one who took the dupes and read them off. As he worked the Garland and spoke with the banquet chef, he kept pace with the orders, ordering and picking up. At one point while he was there, Jimmy Banquet Chef cut prime rib for several orders. One order was only rib. Bill got rid of that one quickly. Two orders had ribs on them. Bill ordered them to the banquet chef and he helped Jimmy G put up the plates, put the vegetables on them and made sure all was set just so.
“I’ll bring some extra vegetables,” the banquet chef said.
“Okay,” Bill said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Yup.”
Just before the banquet chef headed back to the main kitchen Caesar stepped up to the serving window. Jimmy Banquet Chef and Jimmy G were in the midst of putting up an order.
“Everything okay?” Caesar asked.
“Why shouldn’t it be?” the banquet chef replied.
“I wanted to know,” Caesar said.
“Ask Bill,” the banquet chef said.
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?” the banquet chef said. He looked Caesar directly in his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be watching after the dining room?”
Caesar did not leave the serving window immediately. He waited a moment, watched the order they were working get put up and picked up. After the order was gone, he still lingered.
“Don’t people have to be seated?” the banquet chef asked him.
Caesar made a little grunt-like sound but didn’t move.
“Well,” the banquet chef said, “I’m gonna head over to the main kitchen.”
Bill didn’t say anything. He had called another order for pick-up and he and Jimmy G were working it. As they were, Kalista came in with espressos. She carefully put them down in the corner by the entrance in an out-of-the-way place.
The order that was coming up was Jo Ann’s. When she came to pick it up she said something to Caesar about people waiting. Caesar didn’t say anything. He watched her order get finished being put up and watched her take it away. Only then did he leave.
Jimmy G said something to himself in Greek. Bill was thinking mother f’er and suspected Jimmy G had said something like that. He asked him. Jimmy responded with a big smile.
“You know,” he said. Pretty much like MF’er in English.”
“What I thought,” Bill said.
By Peter Weiss
They didn’t, again. Bill wanted to, Beverly wanted to, but she was still conflicted. When she dropped trou, she smiled at Bill, did a full turnaround, shifted and moved so he could see all there was to see. Then she stepped up to him where he sat, stood on the step below him.
“Like what you see?”
“That a real question?”
“I thought it was.”
“You thought you had to ask?”
“Is that a yes, you like what you see?”
“You really want an answer?”
“Yes. Say it.”
“I like what I see.”
“Show me.”
Bill leaned forward and put his arms around her clasping his hands on her buttocks. He knew what to do. He knew how to do it. He’d done it many, many times before, sometimes better, sometimes worse, always happily. He was happy to do it this time too, and this time much as he enjoyed it, he tried that much more to make it so she especially enjoyed it.
When it was done, she didn’t say anything at first. She didn’t have to say anything. They were both married people, just not to each other. He knew he’d pleased her. He knew, as they say, it was mission completed. He knew when it was mission completed too, and he pushed a little further to see if it would be mission completed more than once, which it ended up being. Then it all ended with a nice, friendly kiss.
“That was great,” she said only after she was completely put back together.
“I pass the test?”
“A+.”
“I wouldn’t have anything less.”
“You won’t need protection,” Beverly said.
Bill didn’t say anything. He had stood and was tying his apron around him.
“No comment?” Beverly asked.
“What’s to say?”
“Next time, honey. Any way you like.”
“When our schedules work,” Bill said.
We need a signal,” Beverly said.
“Got one in mind?”
“Easy one,” Beverly said. “I’ll wear two earrings in my left ear. I’ll wear one complete pair and an extra in the left.”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
They were both dressed, straightened up and put wholly back together. They kissed, softly, friendly-like.
“I like you,” Bill said.
“Me too. But we don’t have to live together.”
“Thank God.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means I’m not married but a short while and I’m sure I shouldn’t be married at all.”
“Me too,” Beverly said. Then, “Listen,” she said, “I’m gonna show you a way to go so you come out by the locker room. I’ll wait about twenty minutes and come out by the employee cafeteria.”
“That’s good. Hope you have a good night.”
“You too. You off tomorrow?”
“Yeah. First day off in a bit and not off again for two more weeks.”
“Christmas season,” Beverly said. “Get’s crazy here.”
“That good?”
“I’ll make a lot of money. That’s good.”
All-but. When he left Beverly Bill was thinking about Arlene. They ended up good friends and that wasn’t all they were. Arlene had tough stuff in her life back then, complicated situations, emotional ones. They were friends, they were intimate friends, they were close emotionally and spiritually. When Bill got married they’d stopped the physical intimacy beyond holding one another. But that had led from one thing to another, and another had led to all-but. All-but was sufficient only for a little while.
All-but. Arlene, Beverly, situations and life stuff.
Up that ramp to The Falstaff Room pantry area and kitchen were Rosie and Edelgarde.
When it rained it poured. And it was pouring. It had been pouring since that night he’d spilled soup on the customer, his first night as a busboy, when the customer had laced it into the waitress with a vulgarity not worthy of any situation. Accidents, and it was an accident, happened.
Defending that waitress, even though it meant losing his job, what would have meant losing his job if he hadn’t known Robert, had started the rain. Rain and more rain.
By Peter Weiss
They stayed together the whole hour. They played like high school kids making out on lover’s lane on Friday night. They wanted to, but they didn’t. They didn’t for several reasons, first and most important of which was that Beverly wasn’t ready for anything more than what they did, than what she allowed them to do.
Bill did not press her. He hadn’t been looking for her in the first place. Bill did for her what she wanted him to, and when he was done with what she wanted, he asked for nothing in return. Beverly wasn’t good with that and did what she did.
Then she cried. She spent the last twenty minutes crying some then laughing some. After she’d wiped her eyes and straightened herself completely, she stood before Bill where he sat on the stairs.
“I’m messed up, huh?”
“Conflicted,” Bill said.
“Well that’s a gross understatement.”
“Want the truth?”
“I’m all ears.”
“We shouldn’t do this again and you shouldn’t’ do anything with anyone until you know what you want.”
“You dumping me?”
“I didn’t know we were together.”
“You want to know the truth?”
“For sure.”
“I know what I want to do. I’m just scared.”
“Maybe you’re not completely sure.”
“That too.”
“Why’s it easier for guys?”
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”
“You’re handsome,” Beverly said. “I heard you before about me being pretty.”
Bill smiled at her. “You ticklish?” he asked.
“Fiercely.”
Bill stood up and grabbed her. He found the spots where she was ticklish and tickled her so she laughed, but he didn’t torture her. When she said she’d had enough, he let her go and they both sat down.
“So we can be friends, you know,” he said.
“You think?”
“Yup.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Cause here we are. Cause we met and we’re getting to know each other. I have plenty of girls, much more than I ever thought possible, much more than I ever wanted. Being married and being in a position in power seem to be like magnets.”
“You are handsome.”
Bill never thought that about himself, not in his whole life, and even as Beverly said it he still didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t say that to her, at least not at this moment, but the thought, his doubt, went through him as it always did when he considered this about himself. He didn’t think himself handsome or attractive, he didn’t think he was terribly smart and he didn’t think much of himself altogether. Maybe this was the result of his life’s events so far.
On another level, he sensed that he cut a good figure in his uniform with that apron tied around him. He was thin now, lanky, his hair was growing back nicely, already long. He surely wasn’t like most of the cooks. He was younger, thinner, a college graduate. But that’s what others saw of him. Personally, he was an ex-con, not really, just an ex-inmate of the Columbus workhouse. He had almost been expelled from the university, and he could go on with more negativity.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment.
“What would we do as friends?” Beverly asked.
“Share feelings. You could talk, we could talk.”
“I’m so messed up you wouldn’t want to hear my feelings.”
“I probably know them already. You think my life is golden? You think I’m not messed up?”
“Are you?”
“Everyone is. Me? I’m a college graduate cook. How you think that feels?
“How does it feel?”
“Wasn’t what I wanted. Wasn’t what I was dreaming about. Like you say, wasn’t what I signed up for.”
“Well at least you’re good at it.”
“Big fucking deal,” Bill said.
“All righty then,” Beverly said. “I think you and I can be friends. I think it might just be good fun.”
“And we can have good fun too,” Bill said.
“Let’s start now,” Beverly said. Facing him as he sat on the stairs, she stood in front of him and dropped her pants.
