All characters are over the age of 18.
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Curt picked a hell of a night to take the evening off,
As the owner and general manager of Gisele's Diner, a local restaurant named after his mother, he spent most nights working in said restaurant alongside his team, it's where he was supposed to be tonight were it not for the insistence of his assistant manager for him to take the evening off and relax,
You see like all restaurants were after the lockdowns brought on by the spell, a mysterious infection that brought on permanent nudity with no known cure, Gisele's Diner was struggling financially, with the general condition of the economy and their customer base getting smaller and smaller as people avoided public gatherings at the risk of getting infected, times were tough, and the stress was getting to Curt, which is why, instead of being at work when it happened he received the call after the fact while watching television.
***
Part of him thought it might have been a prank call, he hoped it was a prank call, but when he saw the red and blue flash of police lights against the sign painted on the window he knew it was true,
Upon pulling up to the restaurant he immediately picked his assistant manager out of the crowd talking to a police officer who was dressed in one of those full-body protective suits that everyone had considered buying for themselves at least once,
"Meg," Curt said as he walked up to her and pulled her into a hug, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Meg nodded, hugging him back, "Both Nick and I got lucky,"
Meg had been at Gisele's since the beginning, without her he doubted they would have lasted as long as they had, Nick was the head chef and Meg's husband, both had been high-powered lawyers in their previous lives before, in their words, they had a case that 'crossed too many lines' and they decided to leave that life, move to small-town America and both get jobs at a little start-up diner run by a quarter century old kid who had no clue what he was doing,
Meg was an older woman, at least a decade his senior though she refused to disclose the specific number, you couldn't tell by looking at her however, she looked like one of those lawyers you saw on tv, blonde with a perfectly sculpted face with only the most flattering of wrinkles and hourglass figures that made women half their age jealous.
"You're the owner?" The office asked, as the two of them separated,
"I am," Curt answered, "What the hell happened?"
"We're still taking witness statements," the officer explained, "But what we've gathered is that about forty-five minutes ago two infected suspects entered the restaurant from the north entrance wearing balaclavas to hide their faces, proceeded to infect a number of the customers and staff, and left out the back before they could be identified,"
"It wasn't just two suspects," Meg interrupted, clearly impatient with how vague the officer was being, "It was fucking Bonnie and Clyde,"
"Those people from the news?" Curt asked, "How do you know?"
"Blue and pink balaclavas?" Meg said, "Lady with a monarch butterfly tramp stamp, If it wasn't them it was some pretty convincing copycats,"
"We can neither confirm or deny," the officer said hesitantly, "But yes that is the going theory,"
"Who'd they get?" Curt asked, turning to Meg as he decide she would give him more accurate information,
"They got Taylor, Brett and Jorge," she said regretfully, "Plus at least four tables worth of customers, they're just inside, come on,"
"Thank you," Curt said to the officer as Meg led him into the restaurant, passing by a sign reading 'No Nudies Allowed: All diners must be clothed' which seemed tragically ironic given the circumstances.
Inside the restaurant cops were moving back and forth gathering the witness statements of twenty or so people around the restaurant, all clearly nude under the foil blankets the emergency services gave out,
Piles of shredded clothes were being swept up into garbage bags,
He passed through the small crowd of his, probably not repeat, customers towards his infected staff behind the register counter,
Taylor, one of the servers, and Brett, a member of the kitchen staff, were curled up on stools, trying their best to appear small and inconspicuous so no one would look at them,
Jorge, the other server, was taking a decidedly different approach, instead very loudly arguing with Nick, Meg's husband and the head chef over in the kitchen,
"I'll go see what that's about," Meg said, leaving Curt with his other two employees,
"Are you two okay?" He asked the pair,
Brett was visibly shaking, he was a recent graduate of a local culinary school and an even more recent hire, brought on by Nick in the hopes that some new ideas might drum up some more business,
Taylor was decidedly calmer, she was a considerably earlier hire than Brett, Curt's first hire actually, having been brought on as a nineteen-year-old college student just before Meg and Nick got involved, Taylor was probably Curt's oldest friend, being the only person willing to take a chance in joining such a fledgling business that might not be existed the next week, she continued to stay on well after she had gotten her degree in accounting, for a reason no one could quite determine but Curt very much appreciated, as she could help handle the books and, though he might be hesitant to admit it, he was developing a little bit of a schoolboy crush on her,
These feelings were being brought to the surface as he saw her hiding under the blanket, knowing that one of the few bodies on earth that could make you ignore Meg's was exposed for the foreseeable future,
Her sweet freckled face surrounded by a plume of fiery red shoulder-length hair looked up at him, she had clearly been crying but her eyes were dry now.
"We're fine," she said hoarsely, "Aside from the obvious,"
"Do the police have anything?" Brett asked, his voice even weaker than Taylor's,
"Not really," Curt explained, "You know how these things go, unless they get their faces on camera they never catch these guys,"
"What are we gonna do Curt?" Taylor asked, her eyes welling up with tears again,
Curt hesitated to answer, he didn't envy their position,
Before he could say anything Jorge burst out of the kitchen and into the main dining area turning all heads towards him in the process,
He didn't seem to care however, as he seemed to have forgone his foil blanket, leaving him entirely exposed to the room,
"You," he said upon seeing Curt, "I wasn't even supposed to be working tonight, I took this shift because you begged me to,"
Jorge was right of course, several employees had begun to notice the restaurant was failing and jumped ship for more secure work and Jorge was the only person Curt could get to cover a shift at such short notice,
"Jorge, I...," Curt began,
"Save it," Jorge interrupted, "As far as I'm concerned this is your fault, I quit,"
Before Curt could get another word out Jorge stormed out of the building.
Eventually, the police released the scene and let people go home, Curt, deciding he needed time to think, told Meg he would lock up, and he sat in his office thinking that this would be the final nail in the coffin for his restaurant until he fell asleep.
***
He woke to the sound of his phone buzzing with several notifications, as soon as he wiped the sleep from his eyes he opened the emails they were linked to,
"Damn it," he cursed as he put his head in his hands,
"What's the issue?" Meg asked as she walked into his office with a cup of coffee in each hand, "Surely it can't be any worse than last night,"
"You're right," Curt sighed, "Last night was a gunshot wound, this morning we just flatlined,"
"I'm not sure I'm following the metaphor," Meg admitted,
"I just got half a dozen resignation emails," Curt explained, "There goes our staff,"
"What? Who?" Meg demanded as Curt handed her his phone,
She took a moment to flip through the emails,
"Oh, those cowards," she spat before becoming distracted by something else, "You have a lot of tabs open,"
"Give me that," Curt said, taking his phone back and slipping it into his pocket, "But you see what I mean, we have no savings, we have no staff, and we're probably on page one of every newspaper in the area,"
"Page two actually," Meg explained, "There was a bombing at a foreign embassy,"
"Well at least there's some good news," Curt sighed,
"You know," Meg said, thinking aloud, "I noticed some names missing from those letters,"
"You and Nick?" Curt said with a faint smile, "Thanks for sticking around,"
"No kidding, we're your parasites, you couldn't get rid of us of us with anything short of a tomahawk missile," Meg joked, "But that wasn't who I was talking about, I didn't see Taylor or Brett on that list,"
"It was a big night for them," Curt excused, "Maybe they're sleeping in, no way we hear from either of them again,"
"Excuse me," Taylor said, knocking on the open door of his office and making them both jump,
"Taylor?" Curt said as Meg backed away from the door to let her in safely, "What are you doing here?"
The last thing he needed was a harassment lawsuit, but you would've had to have been chemically castrated or gay to not stare at Taylor's newly exposed body, naturally one's eyes would follow the freckles flowing from her face, down her neck and nestling in between her perfectly shaped c cup breasts dotted with perky little nipples, and since one had already a made their way down that far they might as well continue to look down her flat stomach to catch an eyeful of her closely maintained red pubic hair between a pair of soft inviting thighs,
Curt had always imagined what she looked like naked, but what he saw was beyond his wildest dreams,
"I came down to make sure you guys were okay," Taylor explained, smiling at the feeling of Curt's eyes on her more intimate areas,
"Make sure we were okay?" Meg questioned, "Sweetie we weren't the ones infected with the goddamn spell and walking around in the buff a day later, what are you doing here?"
"I'm...," Taylor hesitated, "I'm here to ask if I still have a job,"
"We barely have a restaurant anymore," Curt explained, "I'm pretty sure last night scared off any customers we have left,"
"Hold on," Meg said, reaching over to Curt's desk and opening his laptop, immediately unlocking it and going to Google,
"Since when do you know my password?" Curt asked,
"I know everyone's password," Meg answered as she continued her search, "Alright so get this, the nearest restaurant that allows Nudies as patrons is over an hour away from the city,"
"You wanna make this a nudie joint?" Curt questioned,
"I'm not even going that far," Meg said, "We just take the sign out of the window and be the only restaurant in town that lets nudies in the front door, tap into a huge untapped market, possibly save the restaurant and let Taylor keep her job, it's win win win,"
"Three wins sounds good to me," Taylor enthusiastically agreed,
Both women looked at Curt expectantly,
"Are you sure about this?" He asked Meg,
"We have nothing to lose," Meg answered,
He looked over at Taylor,
