A Nighthawk at the Diner

At that moment, she would have paid a months salary to see his face when she ran her hand upward and inward along his leg, brushing over his zipper, then changing momentum to trace her fingertips up and down the zipper.

“Whoa…” Jerry’s voice was loud enough to be heard from outside the diner, Andrea was sure of it.

“Excuse me?” Zoe asked, irritated.

“I… Uh, it’s just there are a lot of errors on this one.”

“Good. I didn’t think you were paying attention.”

Andrea smiled again. That was more like it. And at least part of Jerry agreed with her. His slacks were beginning to tent outward toward her. She could see from the shape of the bulge that he was twisted into an angle. It probably hurt a little. Once again, so much the better. Jerry reached under the counter, assumedly to rearrange himself more comfortably, but Andrea gently grabbed his hand and bit a fingertip. Just hard enough to hurt a little. He pulled his hand back above the counter quickly.

Zoe’s voice continued on. Andrea realized that Zoe really did run the whole diner. She knew every detail of the business.

Andrea traced back and forth along the length of the bulge in Jerry’s slacks with her fingers, surrounding it, but never gripping it. She watched it grow in the dim light that escaped into her hiding spot. She flicked the tip with her fingernails, gently and quietly.

“Jerry, are you paying attention to me?”

“Sure, Zoe. You were just talking about… I… The olives.”

Zoe sighed. “You’re useless. When did you tune out on me?”

Andrea could feel Jerry’s shoulders slump. Zoe growled a hmmm that held a definite menace. “Okay, then. I’ll start over from the olives.” Papers rustled again.

Andrea rolled her eyes. What a bitch. Suddenly she felt sorry for Jerry. Andrea only had to put up with her presence. Jerry had to be nice to her because he worked for her. Jerry’s little tent began to shrink, even though Andrea was still caressing the tip. Feeling a bit of competitive disappointment, she cupped him gently in her hand and began to rock her hand up and down. She would keep his attention.

Jerry tried to pull away, but Andrea gripped him more strongly and held him still. Amazing what a little pressure will do, in the right spot.

I just can’t believe that I’m doing this, she thought. And with that thought, she quietly gripped the zipper and pulled it, very slowly and quietly, down to the bottom. Zoe was still on the subject of olives. Carefully, Andrea slipped her fingers into the open fly and hunted for the opening in his briefs. After several long, torturous seconds, almost after deciding that it wasn’t worth it, her fingertips touched his soft hair, and she pulled his whole length out into her hand. He wasn’t huge, but Andrea was always amazed at the size of an erect penis. It must be extremely inconvenient to walk around with one of these things in one’s pants. Some small consolation, considering that women were stuck with pregnancy and cramps.

In her hand, he immediately grew more, stiffening into a spear pointing outward toward her. Under the delicate, silky soft skin, he felt like solid wood. The tiny slit at the tip glistened a bit.

Jerry’s entire body was tense. His legs were locked, and Andrea hoped that he didn’t pass out from lack of circulation. She imagined that his knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the counter. What would happen if he had to step away from the bar right now? Zoe would certainly get a view she didn’t bargain for! This struck Andrea as hilarious, and she it was an effort of will to choke down her laughter.

“Okay, Jerry. What are you supposed to tell Mark about the plumbing?”

“Uh… The guy will be in at eleven today.”

Zoe sighed again. “And?”

“And what?”

“Never mind. I’ll write it down. Do you have a pen?” Jerry handed her a pen from his apron pocket. There were scratching noises. “I suppose I’d better cover the other details, too. There are a few hours before your shift ends. You might forget something.”

Andrea wrapped one of her fine-boned hands lightly around Jerry’s shaft and gently rubbed up and down, soft enough that skin rubbed on skin. The action squeezed out a fat raindrop of clear fluid from the tip, which Andrea caught on a fingertip of her other hand. Not knowing what else to do with it, she quickly licked the drop off her finger. It tasted of salt and strong musk, and was just slightly sweet. She had tasted it before, but it always seemed new. She was more than just amused now. She pulled the tip down to her lips and licked the little slit clean, then kissed the head, first lightly, here and there. But the taste, not quite pleasant, nevertheless drew her in for more.

He felt much larger in her mouth, and she could feel his pulse faintly. His skin tasted of musk and starch, and was extremely smooth. She imagined that she could taste the whiskey they’d been drinking on his skin. In moments, she began to massage him with her mouth, moving him into her and out of her mouth smoothly by moving her head back and forth. She increased the pace.

Zoe continued scratching notes on some piece of paper.

She gripped the shaft firmly with her hand now, catching the extra saliva that escaped from the edges of her mouth and using it as lubrication to pump him as she sucked. One thought caught her over and over.

I must be really, really drunk.

It didn’t last long. Perhaps that was a blessing. Andrea was surprised when she suddenly felt his hips jump slightly, like a seizure. Her eyes popped open with shock, realizing what was happening, and glanced around suddenly. But there was no time to prepare. The first warm jet hit the roof of her mouth with almost painful force. Thick. Starchy. She swallowed as quickly as she could, still sucking on him, pulling out more spurts, each one slightly weaker than the last. There might have been five or six of them. Later she wasn’t sure. There was a lot of it. She guessed it had been a while for him.

“Oh….” Jerry, apparently, couldn’t keep quiet through absolutely anything.

Zoe kept scribbling. “What?”

“Nothing…” Jerry’s voice was barely more than breath.

Andrea sucked gently as he convulsed several more times, apparently empty now. He began to soften immediately. As soon as she thought she could do it, she gave him a goodbye kiss and tucked him back into his pants very carefully. She toyed with the idea of leaving his fly unzipped, just for the little bit of playful embarrassment, but decided after a moment to zip him up.

Leaning back on her heels, Andrea took deep gulps of air, as slowly and quietly as she could. She absolutely did not believe that she had done that. No matter what she did, she could still taste him. Absently, she wiped her hands off on the towel that she was kneeling on.

“All right. It’s all there, now. Do you think you can handle that, Jerry?” Zoe’s voice was icy again.

“Sure.” Apparently his wit was all used up for the moment.

“Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then.” Andrea heard Zoe’s skirt rustling, then the tap-tapping of her heels on the floor as she Zoe crossed back to the door. The little bell jingled once, and then there was quiet.

Neither of them moved for a long minute.

Then Andrea broke the unspoken truce of stillness. Her knees ached and creaked as she pushed past Jerry and stood up. She looked into Jerry’s face with a smile. His soft, gray eyes were wide, and he opened his mouth to say something. No, Andrea thought, that would ruin it. He put a slim finger onto Jerry’s lips, silencing him and grinning impishly. After planting a tiny kiss on the tip of his nose, she picked up her purse and walked out.

Always leave a mystery.

Thursday

By the time Andrea woke up, the alarm clock had been buzzing away for an indeterminate amount of time. Her head pounded from the alcohol the night before. Wrenching her eyelids open with an effort, she stared at the clock until it came into focus, then growled and covered her face with her pillow violently. She hated oversleeping. A moment later, she threw the pillow at the clock, knocking it over. It still gave out a pathetic buzzing, though, like a wounded insect. She decided it was time to get up anyway.

All the time she was getting ready for work, Andrea tried not to think about why she already tasted toothpaste in her mouth.Why can’t I black out and forget, like a real drunk? I am such a slut.

She stripped off her T-shirt and her panties and lay them on the bed carefully, and walked naked across the apartment to the bathroom. In the bathroom, she flipped on the light and stepped back away from the mirror to admire herself. When she backed up against the bathtub, she could see as far down as her upper thighs. She ran her hands over her breasts, her flat stomach, and her hips, smiling. She ran her fingers through the newly-trimmed brush of curls between her legs. She sighed. She was still tired, but she felt wonderful. And horrible, at the same time.

During her shower, she put the showerhead to uses its inventors probably never conceived of.

Andrea must have looked even more tired than normal when Mandy came in to work. Or maybe Mandy was just paying more attention, now that she knew that Andrea had had trouble sleeping. Whichever it was, Mandy gave Andrea the concerned mother look as she walked into the cubicle that morning.

“How are you doing, Hon? Still having trouble sleeping?” Mandy set her handbag down on her desk and sat down to face directly toward Andrea.

Andrea sighed. She had known that this was coming. “Yeah, but I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’ve got to worry about you. If you get sick, I have all this work to do by myself!”

Andrea pouted melodramatically. “And here I thought you cared.”

Mandy waved her off. “Don’t you give me that. I do care. I’m your friend. But I’m not gonna do all of your work if you let yourself get driven into the ground because you can’t sleep. Go see a doctor.”

Andrea raised her right hand into the air like a Boy Scout. “If I can’t work this out in a week or two, I promise I’ll go see a doctor. Good enough?”

Mandy almost objected, then relented with a nod.

With all the work to catch up on, Andrea ended up skipping lunch and working late on top of it. By the time she finally went home, she was starving, and decided to stop off for something to eat on the way. She didn’t even give it any thought, and by the time she walked in the door she realized that she had absent-mindedly walked right in to Gina’s Diner. The place looked so different by daylight.

Still, it was a restaurant, so she walked in and sat down. The booths and tables were full, so she found a seat at the counter, beside a pretty blonde woman, and ordered a sandwich and fries from the unfamiliar waiter there (“Dan”, his name-plate said). As he left to take the order to the cook, Andrea’s breath caught.

The woman sitting beside her, drinking a cup of hot tea and reading a newspaper, was the manager that she had seen two nights ago. Zoe, her name was. She was wearing a high-necked white blouse with a carnelian cameo pin at the throat, a gray vest, and a long gray pleated skirt. With white high heels. Her hair was just as conservative as before, pulled back in a bun that made her look much older than she probably was.

Andrea swiveled on her stool to face away from Zoe, face instantly blushing hot. Her mind was a jumble of shouts, trying to piece together what to do. She felt a horrible uncertainty about the situation, not knowing what was going to happen if Zoe recognized her.

Andrea froze herself with an act of will. This is silly. I’m a customer. I’m not doing anything wrong.

That calmed her down a lot.

Besides, she thought, this might be my chance to put something right.

Andrea turned back toward the counter to wait for her order. She glanced over at the newspaper that Zoe was reading.The Wall Street Journal. It figured. Every once in a while, Zoe would put the paper down, take a sip from her tea, and circle make a circle on the page she was reading with a felt-tip pen.

Andrea waited until Zoe had put her paper down and was reaching for her tea before making her move.

She cleared her throat softly. “You’re Zoe, right?”

The woman, caught in mid-motion, froze and looked through her over-sized glasses into Andrea’s eyes. Her eyes, set in a small, pretty face, were a cool faded blue, and Andrea felt a sudden chill. In a moment, recognition set in.

Andrea didn’t wait, though. “We kind of met, on Tuesday night, here, on Jerry’s shift. I was…”

Zoe cut her off. “I remember.” It was simple. Flat.

There was a long, awkward moment.

Andrea decided to break it. She pushed her hand forward in a handshake position. “I’m Andrea. A friend of Jerry’s, but you probably guessed that.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow neutrally, her face a perfect blank. “And then some.” She considered Andrea’s hand for a moment, then reached for it and squeezed it briefly. Her tiny hand felt cool and very soft.

Andrea was just almost to the point of giving up. Instead, she swallowed and went on. “Ah, yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to talk about. He mentioned that you might have fired him because he was fraternizing with a customer. But it was my fault, really.”

Zoe waited.

This woman, thought Andrea,must be an absolutely incredible poker player.

Andrea felt like running. “And, uh… I just wanted you to know that if it’s going to endanger Jerry’s job, I’ll stop coming over to the diner when he’s on shift. I figured that you would be the one to talk to, being his boss and all.” It all sounded so… lame.

Zoe’s eyebrows pursed together. She looked surprised, or perhaps confused. Suddenly, though, her face softened. She wasn’t smiling, but she also wasn’t staring holes in Andrea’s face anymore. There was even, momentarily, a hint of sadness there. Then it was gone.

Zoe picked up her tea, but didn’t put it to her mouth yet. “No. Don’t worry. Jerry’s… Jerry’s job isn’t in danger.” She was staring at the tea, not at Andrea.

Andrea reached a hand forward to set it on Zoe’s shoulder. Her shoulder felt tiny through her vest and blouse, and Zoe recoiled just slightly. Andrea withdrew her hand. “Are you okay?” It felt silly.

Zoe forced her little cupid’s-bow lips into a mild smile. Her lipstick was a neutral, almost flesh colored. “I’m fine. I have been hard on Jerry lately. I’ve been hard on everyone for a while.”

“Why?” Andrea’s question was simple, but it froze time.

There was silence between them for a few moments, if you don’t count the general clamor of the diner around them. They seemed to be in a bubble, separated from the rest of the world.

Then the waiter set Andrea’s sandwich down on the counter in front of her. The moment was broken.

Zoe drank some of her tea and folded up her newspaper. Andrea ate a French fry.

Andrea turned back to Zoe. “So, why have you been such a dragon-lady? It doesn’t seem like the real you. Not that I know you.” After saying it, Andrea realized how horrible it sounded.

Zoe stared at her tea as she spoke. “Something happened a while back. In July.” Her sweet, musical voice was distant.

Andrea should have taken the warning. She should never have asked. But she did.

“What happened?”

Zoe’s voice never changed. “I was raped in the subway on the way home from work.”

Andrea tried to swallow her fry, but failed. She glanced around. No one else seemed to have heard.

Andrea’s mind raced. What do you say to that? How do you take back a question that should never have been asked?

“Oh, God, I’m sorry…” Andrea’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry…”

Zoe kept staring at her tea. Her voice kept steady, almost like a chant. “It was in the newspapers. Not a headline, though.” She looked up at Andrea with her washed-out blue eyes. There were no tears there. Her voice returned, and she set her face in something resembling a smile. “It’s okay. Andrea, you said? It’s okay, Andrea. They say that time heals all wounds.”

Andrea felt little better. “Would you like to talk about it? I… I know that you don’t know me, but maybe that’s the best way. You don’t have to worry about what I think.”

Zoe’s perfect lips formed into something like a smile. “No, I’ve talked about it enough. You should see my shrink bill. It’s been a long time. It’s really been toughest on my… on my husband.” She looked away for a moment, as if embarrassed. “I haven’t been a normal wife for him for a long time, now. I don’t know if I ever will. Something changed that night. Or maybe I just realized something about myself…my life that I’d never thought about before.”

Andrea was about to ask what she meant, but decided to leave it alone. How would she feel if she were attacked, violated? Would she ever feel like being touched by a man again? She really didn’t know.

Andrea put her hand back on Zoe’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch this time. “I think I understand. Listen, if you ever do want to talk to someone, non-professionally that is, I’m a pretty good listener. And I don’t charge by the hour.”

Zoe’s almost-smile turned into a real smile. “No. I’m okay, really. I’d better get back to my office, anyway. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.” She reached up to Andrea’s hand and gave it a warm, friendly squeeze.

She slipped off the stool and walked around behind the counter, into the back of the store. She looked different to Andrea.

Nothing like familiarity to turn the devil into a friend.

Andrea finished her sandwich quickly. It had been a very strange dinner.

But she felt immensely better about the whole thing.

Andrea made no pretense about trying to get to sleep. She watched television for a while. She touched up her nails. She changed clothes. She sat on the couch and stared at the ceiling. She changed clothes again. She cleaned out her purse. She put some new things into her purse. She changed her clothes, once again.

She wasn’t trying to sleep. She was waiting.

It was hours before she realized that she kept glancing at the clock.

This is so completely ridiculous.

But she knew that she was waiting for midnight.

She left at 11:45.

It seemed like a miracle when she saw that, once again, Jerry was alone in the diner. She tried to look cool when she walked in, not even looking directly at Jerry. She walked with what she knew was her sexiest walk, swinging her hips just a bit. The whole while, she kept her face aloof and cool.

Finally, as she reached the counter, she saw Jerry. That was when she noticed that he was standing leaning on the counter, miming holding a cigarette, in a perfect James Dean pose. Andrea laughed, completely breaking her whole image. Jerry broke too, looking at her and smiling.

Andrea leaned over, reached across the counter, and grabbed Jerry’s shirt, pulling him toward her and into a kiss. Her eyes closed, and she felt his fingers running through her hair, his hand cradling the back of her head, as their lips met. It was delicious.

She pulled back from him, trying to part, but he held her fast for a moment. The instant that she felt herself immobilized by his hands, she felt a thrill run through her, and she pushed back into him. Her mouth opened into the kiss, and she tasted a slight trace of mint on his tongue.

It ended finally. She sank back to her side of the counter, catching her breath. She was satisfied to see that he was trying to catch his own breath, too. Eventually, he was the one who spoke.

“You know, Andrea, you are full of surprises.”

Andrea smiled her best evil smile and walked around to his side of the counter. “I have not yet begun to open my bag of tricks, kiddo.” She ran a hand around the small of his back, holding him to her, and put another hand onto his chest. She could faintly feel his heart beating. His big hands reached behind her to the small of her back, gently kneading her back. He quickly and briefly kissed her lips again.