Posted by PK on November 20, 2001 at 16:56:18:
Gina finally had to admit to herself that she enjoyed getting into her work costume. The dress
code had bothered her when she'd first encountered it, but not any more. It was - what? - she
searched for a word as she stripped off her street clothes. Liberating? An odd choice, on the
face of it, but it matched her feelings.
"Girls on staff can wear shoes if they want," the manager had said, as if by rote, on hiring
her. "Sandals or high heels. Something on top, as long as it doesn't cover too much. Bra,
bikini top, halter, whatever. Or something down below, bikini bottom or underwear. That's it."
"Not both? How about bikini and no shoes?"
The man shook his head impatiently. "Bare feet if you like, but you don't cover top and
bottom both. Shoes if you want, plus one item of clothing."
Not a full length dress either, Gina shrewdly guessed. She didn't ask, it might be construed
as flippancy. "So I show my tits or my pussy, right?"
"Briiiiight girl. You got it. You want the job or not?"
Gina did. She needed the money and it paid well.
It had felt weird the first time, walking around in public view with nothing on above her ankles
but the briefest half-bikini she'd ever seen. She'd originally shown up for inspection wearing
her own panties and the manager had not approved.
"Jeezus, where'd you buy that crap?" He'd said, all but smiting his forehead in pain. He
restrained himself, Gina assumed, because he might inadvertently dislodge his cigar.
"I don't have anything better."
"Here." He pulled something out of a desk drawer and tossed it at her. She caught it
reflexively. It was blue, elegant and microscopic, something a runway model or a Brazilian
nymphomaniac might wear with half a square yard of fishnet. "Put it on."
Gina had looked around for a changing room. None was in evidence.
"C'mon, we're not getting any younger."
You can get used to anything, Gina thought as she slipped the flimsy garment on over her
head. She had got used to wearing the bikini briefs, she'd found that her nipples quite
enjoyed the open air. Her areolae were prominent, she'd often thought they were one of her
best features.
Fashion, she reflected, is a fickle bitch. Only a couple of days since she'd changed her
costume. Now she favoured a sleeveless snake-print slip that hung off her shoulders and
covered her from her breasts almost halfway to her navel. She'd already had to trim her
pubic hair to wear the near-bikini, so that wasn't a problem, she looked well-groomed below
the waist.
Showtime. Most of the other girls were out there already, their starting times were staggered
like their breaks. Grabbing a clipboard with a menu and notepad attached, she took a deep
breath and pushed through the door to the main dining area. She made no attempt to hide
behind what she carried in her hand. On her first night, when she was still bare above the
waist rather than down below, she had found herself almost unconsciously positioning the
board in front of her chest. The manager had been waiting for her on her first break, not
wanting to cause a scene by reprimanding her in public.
"Whaddaya think this is, a PTA meetin'?" he had inquired. "Or maybe a tea party at the
Palace of Buckin'ham? Lemme spell it out for ya, like I didn't already. It's tits or ass. Today,
you're tits. Got it?" He expanded on this theme for a minute or two.
Gina had muttered an apology and an assurance that it wouldn't happen again.
"Ah, don't worry about it," he had responded with gruff kindness. "Most of 'em do that first
time out. Just imagine yer on one o' them freaky noodist beaches, lettin' it all hang out like
nature intended, right?"
"Right," Gina had said. There was no use pointing out that it wasn't quite the same thing, he
was trying to be helpful. "Yes sir."
"Call me Eddie," he had urged, before giving her a friendly pat on the rump and sending out
amongst the wolves again.
Yes, you get used to it. The nudity, anyway. Gina hardly had to think about not covering up
any more, she had stopped having to catch herself - when? - a couple of days ago? It was
probably only then, after she had relaxed and accepted it, that she'd actually started to enjoy
the sensation. Not that she wasn't still nervous at times, but that had become part of the
excitement. If she was going to do it anyway, she reasoned, she might as well savour the
experience to the full while she did. It wasn't as if she'd always be doing this.
"If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it, huh?" had been Donna's response when she'd
mentioned this in the rest room.
"It's not exactly rape," Gina pointed out. "Nobody makes us do it." Once she had enough for
her tuition and expenses, she'd be out of here never to return. "But otherwise, yes. Don't you
ever ....." she paused. Get off on it? Was that what she meant to say?
"Get off on it?" Donna had said, grinning wickedly as she spoke Gina's mind. "Sure,
sometimes, most everybody does. After being scared shitless for a couple of days you have
to or you'd freak. What the hell, it's just like Las Vegas, right?"
Well, not exactly that, either, Gina thought. Only occasionally did she wonder if this was like
the way lobsters supposedly didn't notice getting boiled if you heated the water slowly
enough.
A good crowd in tonight, she assessed with the veteran's eye of one honed by several days
on the job. Amazing how fast you pick these things up at floor level. Well, it wasn't rocket
science. That would come after she got her degree. Plenty of people with money, good tips.
Hopefully not too many of them with too much money, that could be a problem. Not too many
ass-pinchers, she hoped. The nouveau riche aspired to class, it was considered gauche to
handle the goods if you weren't serious. Too many infractions and the management might
ask you to leave. Serious faux pas, loss of face, looking like a schmuck. Heaven forfend.
Of course, it was a fine line. A little flirting was par for the course. Handling it was part of her
job, it came with the territory. There were always a few touchy moments. She got one in the
first hour.
"Have you made your choice, sir?" she inquired politely of one gentleman who had, in her
estimation, the air of someone wishing to be seen as a bit of a dashing rogue.
He pretended to consider, tracing his forefinger down her belly from sternum to navel and
just a little short of her pubis.
"How much for this?" he asked, jovially. Was he serious? And about what? Some of the girls
did make certain private arrangements with the guests.
"If you have to ask, you can't afford it," Gina said archly, keeping it light, letting him get out of
it without losing face. Her heart rate had picked up but she didn't lose her composure.
Discreetly she leaned over and whispered something intimate into his ear.
He raised an eyebrow in pantomimed shock. "I think I'll stick with the chateaubriand," he
responded, still jovially.
Honour having been satisfied, Gina took his order, letting her pulse stabilise as she worked.
He'd had his fun, no harm done. She caught the eye of one of the male attendants -
bouncers, really, in suits - and signalled a negative. No trouble, all handled.
Things always got a little edgy at weekends. That's when people got rowdiest. That was
usually when the specials were available. Eddie didn't do it every day. Two reasons, to make
it unpredictable, more fun for the punters. Most of them couldn't afford it anyway, they just
liked to eat here, ogle the waitresses and fantasise about what might have been. They paid
over the odds to eat here just for that, to be served by a half-naked beauty who just might...
The other reason was that he wouldn't get the staff if it happened too often. They wouldn't
stand for it. Playing odds, playing expectations. Another fine line. The Las Vegas tango
again.
Gina shook it off, worked the tables. Tonight was a 'special', sure, but probably nothing would
happen. Even the more daring clients usually settled for the imported, packaged stuff. Eating
Asian...
Back to the roué. Paid his check, pecked her on the cheek as he got up to leave.
He left her a good tip. A very good tip. Dancing on a tight rope, she thought.
Break time at last. Two of the others were in the rest room, smoking, chatting, adjusting their
appearances.
"Where's Donna?" she asked.
Mercedes plucked at a rogue eyelash as she peered into a mirror. "She's in the kitchen.
Special order."
It couldn't be. It really couldn't. "How special? What order? Who?" Gina realised she was
babbling but in her rising alarm she couldn't stop it. It was probably just a live sushi job, she
told herself. They just wanted to eat off her body, that happened. Cheaper too, much
cheaper. That must be it. "What's she doing in there?"
"Getting her boobies chopped off," Ellie said coolly, "What else?" Gina pictured Donna
walking round flat chested, debreasted....just for a second.
"Table seven ordered her tits and pussy, some butt steaks, the whole primo spread," Mercy
said in a matter of fact tone. "REAL primo, they'll be paying out big time. Does my butt look
big in this?"
"Your butt looks big in anything," Ellie said. "Lose the shorts, wear a top instead."
Paying out? Tips, Gina realised she meant. The house profits weren't Mercy's concern unless
it affected her own bottom line.
Charlotte got off the phone and picked up pages from the printer. "New menu," she
announced. "Lots of good stuff left, special rates. You know the routine."
Gina had served fresh spares before, but nobody she knew personally. Spares were cuts
from somebody whose most expensive parts had been harvested. Not that they were cheap,
but relative to the primaries they were almost reasonable. Almost. Donna's cuts would cost a
little more - all right, quite a lot more - because she'd been alive and on the hoof only
minutes ago. Unless it was a bunch of tightwads out there, and she doubted it based on her
initial assessment, there wouldn't be much of Donna left worth eating by closing time.
"Not you," Charlotte said as she picked up her copy of the machine-printed menu. Wonderful
advances in computer technology, Gina thought dizzily. A whole new menu from the kitchen
in minutes, complete with diagram. Which bits taken, which available. Get 'em while they're
fresh.
"Chef wants you in the kitchen now," Charlotte told her.
Gina felt faint. Was she going to pass out?
Mercedes was telling anybody who wanted to know: "Weird, you ask me. Old guy and his
trophy wife, or whatever. Whoever he's screwing. Some young guy. Three college chicks,
maybe his bimbos, maybe his own kids. Who knows? Some shirt with BIG bucks tryin' to
impress somebody, that's for sure. So he puts on a show and Donna bites the big one, poor
bitch."
"Who ordered me?" Gina croaked. She didn't really want to know, she wanted to listen to
Mercy the halfwit and Ellie the bitch burble on.
Charlotte frowned at her. "Nobody ordered you. You know that, they'd have told you...HAS
somebody ordered you?"
Gina realised she was being stupid. If a customer wanted her, he wouldn't miss the fun of
telling her himself. "Oh," she said. "I mean no."
The frown deepened into something almost like concern. "Are you all right?" It was a rare
emotion for the older woman to exhibit. Given that she was in charge of the waitresses both
as personnel and provisions, Gina supposed she couldn't afford an excess of sentiment.
"I'm fine," she lied. "What do they want me for?"
"There but for the grace of God," Mercy rattled on. "I mean, with tits like mine...." She
flaunted them. "I could be next."
"They'd need a coach party for your ass," Ellie said unhelpfully.
"Wake up," Charlotte said. "Somebody has to serve the table. Donna can't do it when she's
on the plate."
Mercedes overheard that. "Lucky bitch," she shot at Gina.
Suddenly, Gina didn't want to listen to her any more. She nodded to Charlotte and went to
the kitchen. She really REALLY hoped that Mercedes got it next time.
In the eternal few seconds it took to reach the kitchen door, she amended that. Her
conscience demanded it. No, not even her. But Donna had almost been her friend. She
hadn't even known her until she took the job but conditions like this have a timescale of their
own. The other pole of her psyche insisted on its flinty-hard judgement: rather Mercedes or
Ellie than Donna. That was the crux.
What I should have said, she thought, was it should have been you, and to Hell with the
grace of fucking God, you pious hypocritical bitch. It wouldn't win any awards as words to live
by, but still...you had to be there. It's always easy to conjure that too late. 20-20 hindsight.
The eternal two seconds passed. As they do. She entered the kitchen on her own two almost
bare feet.
"Oh good," the Chef said in the heavily ironic tone that only Americans mistake for subtlety,
"Here at last. Take this to table seven. As in now. MOVE! And lose the wounded Bambi
look."
Let's stop here and say a word in praise of toaster ovens. They do sterling work and are
unjustly sneered at by the cognoscenti. In the right hands, they can work miracles.
This, as defined by the Chef, was a silver salver graced by the presence of Donna's breasts.
There they were, glazed and tempting, garnished with herbs and surrounded by a soupcon of
juice. Nouvelle cuisine in ten minutes. The nipples stood up like cherries on a sundae, daring
you to bite them off.
Good job, Gina had to admit. Look on the bright side, her mind chattered to itself as she let
her body be guided by the autopilot of her recently acquired professionalism as a waitress. If
my tits end up on a platter at least they'll look good. Nice to know I'll be in the hands of a
competent cook.
She made her way to table seven and deposited the salver with practised ease. Her mind
shunted the fact that she had spoken to Donna only recently and never would again into a
siding, she would deal with it later. For the moment, she couldn't deal with that dichotomy
and do her job. Donna her friend was still real, she couldn't associate her with Donna the
meal. Not yet. Or so she told herself.
Back to the kitchen. There was more to do.
"Wait a minute," the Chef told her without turning around. He was doing something intricate
over a gas flame. "Not quite done." He glanced at one of his assistants and yelled "Larry, you
moron, don't fucking cremate it."
Gina took a moment to look around. She hadn't seen much of it before, routine meals were
usually passed to the waitresses through a hatch. It was a typical kitchen in a moderately
high quality restaurant. Lots of cooking equipment. Lots of kitchen implements. Hot, busy
people in white clothes dashing about. Mouth-watering smells. Herbs and spices, fresh
vegetables. Almost stifling heat. She could feel beads of perspiration forming on her mostly
bare skin.
Through an open doorway at the back she could see another room with white walls and a
carcasse lying on a table. It was human, she knew. People were chopping it up. Meaty,
butcher block noises came through faintly but unmistakeably.
Donna. She remembered : "Don't you ever ....." she had paused. Get off on it? Was that what
she had meant to say?
"Get off on it?" Donna said, grinning wickedly as she spoke in Gina's mind. "Everybody
does."
Gina shook it off. Something blue on the floor, just a yard from the door to the abattoir. A
pleated nylon skirt about six inches long, the kind that covered a girl from hips to just below
the tailbone. No sign of her shoes. Had she taken them off inside?
Why had she taken her shoes off last?
"Earth to Gina?"
She blinked.
"Pussy platter," the Chef said. "Table seven. You know the way?"
The 'Pussy Platter' was heavier than the last one. Several thick-cut steaks of rich meat,
grilled rare, were arranged in an overlapping circle around a centerpiece, the piece de
resistance, the tour de force of nouvelle-nouvelle cuisine.
Ditch the pig-French, Gina ordered herself. You're an American, Goddamit. Rump steaks and
rare cunt cooked in its own juice coming right up.
And I'm getting out of here the VERY NEXT day, she added. Her sense of irony wasn't dead.