ONE
Frankie served a fat, greasy looking man dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon, the time indicating he was a shift worker. He, she and the useless cook and a part-timer preparing vegetables and loading and unloading dishes were the only occupants in the diner.
Fat man kept eyeing Frankie's tits, but she didn't mind.
She followed a drill that sometimes worked - and it did.
Frankie shifted her position from leaning on the counter, bored to going round the other side and leaning back, facing fat man, with a big smile on her face.
He ate expressionlessly – except for his eyes; they'd narrowed and darkened.
Frankie occasionally brushed imaginary crumbs off each breast which could be interpreted by someone with that sort of inclination that she was brushing up her nipples to attention.
Fat man finished and left without every looking at her.
Yawning, with her nipples standing proud, Frankie went over grabbed his money with a disappointed sigh and collected his plate, knife and fork – the only thing on the plate was a serviette. Walking off she turned back to re-check the table, then saw it – it had been left under the plate, just for her!
Frankie crashed through the swing door into the kitchen whistling, the fifty dollars tucked into the top of her left stocking.
"Bet that fat bastard didn't leave a fat tip," groaned the cook. Frankie just looked at him, pathetically, to avoid telling a lie. "Thought so."
Finishing her shift Frankie rushed down to the junk shop, negotiated so stubbornly that Irma finally caved in just to get rid of the time-waster. Frankie walked away proudly with her $50 guitar.
Inside her room in her parent's apartment, Frankie sat and her bed and stroked the smooth and colorful body of the instrument as if she was assisting a lover to get an erection. She did everything but lick it – getting the most pleasure through puffing on it and then rubbing off the mist created on the cooler surface with the edge of a sheet; that done to the body of a male would certainly have aroused a limp dick.
Finally Frankie picked up the guitar and played it.
The result was a discordant strumming bearing no relationship to music as we know it today and no doubt in centuries back to the discovery of the first reed whistle.
Frankie realized she needed a teacher, and knew where to find him.
Mrs Petersen answered the door.
"Yes." "Hi, is Alfie in?"
"Yes."
"May I see him?"
"No, he's having a nap before he goes off to the club."
The disappointment on Frankie's face changed when Alfie pushed in beside his mom, scratching his hair and crotch which made Frankie think men can do more than one task simultaneously after all.
"Hi, Frankie," he said looking at her tits and then looking up at her face as if to verify that instance recognition. Actually he'd recognized her voice when coming to the door; they are close neighbors and had gone to school together.
"Hi, Alfie, how's the guitar?"
"Fine, how's yours babe?"
Mrs Petersen snorted "Disgusting!" and waddled off, thinking the way young people talk about sex today should not be allowed.
"My what, Alfie?" giggled Frankie, blushing, because at eighteen she was still shy at been directly addressed in sexual innuendoes by randy males, or males capable of getting randy any time soon.
"Just a conversation filler darling, but if you're intered...?
"In return for what, Alfie?"
"Huh, isn't the act enough, especially when being left with a big deposit?"
"Let's sit on the steps and negotiate, Alfie – bangs for lessons."
"Right, you're on."
"For fuck sake, Alfie, don't you know how to negotiate?"
"Not really, but ever since you began developing tits I've thought and thought about getting into your pants so I'm not wasting time talking now the opportunity is here."
"That's almost six years Alfie – a long time to wait."
"I didn't figure on waiting, but you kept pushing me away, saying you were saving it for Mr Right. Don't tell me Mr Wrong got it?"
Frankie shrugged.
"Oh Christ, Frankie. What a criminal waste."
"That is a point of view," she smiled diplomatically."
"Then what's the point of negotiating – let's hit the sack now, we can always talk later."
"Spoken like a rat bag, Alfie. Where's your class?"
"I save my class for when I play my guitar."
"That you do, Alfie. That you do."
The arrangement was Alfie would come to Frankie's apartment on Sunday at noon as her parents would be away lunching after attending church with some other parishioners inspired from the enlightenment spewed forth from the pulpit. They'd debate and eat and drink and debate until staggering homewards around dark.
TWO
Alfie entered the apartment and there was an awkward pause at the door. So they walked on, missing out on one kiss like so many people do.