[Intermission] Slow Mornings

"Hey Alice!" The call was like a screeching parrot, but Alice couldn't mistake it if she tried: that was none other than Sandra, one of only three other waitresses who worked The Cuck Factory. She had only just stepped into the silent diner when she was already being harassed, and she rolled her eyes and straightened the yellow skirt of her uniform as she went behind the counter. "Alice, I'm in the kitchen! Hey, did you cluck-in yet-?"

"Clocking in now, Sandra," she answered dryly, refusing to use the idiotic pun devised by their manager.

"You mean clucking in!"

"Robert isn't here right now, and there aren't any customers at six in the morning, so I guess it really doesn't matter, does it?"

The wrinkled old hatchet of a woman peeked her bulging eyes from between the dividers. "You don't have to be a fucking cunt about it, Alice, I'm just trying to enjoy the night shift."

"The sun's rising."

"Jesus, you kids these days can't even-" The bathroom door slammed open with enough **** to startle them both. "Oh my God..." Sandra hissed her words. "Is it another bum? I can call the cops, I have a cellphone now Alice-"

"It's one of the Academy kids, you stu- dang it, you should've told me we had a customer!" Alice hissed back.

"We don't! I woulda heard the bell-"

"Good morning!" Alice checked the bun of black hair under the stupid hat (required as part of the her stupid uniform) before fast-walking up to the teenager, trying to keep her exaggerated, toothy grin as authentic as a lie could be. "Wel-cuck to The Cuck Factory! Have you had a chance to order?"

The teenager looked over to her, his eyebrow cocked in a way she didn't like... and the moment she had an opinion, she realized that it actually looked really good on him, and he was really good-looking... and though Alice promised herself she would never date a younger man again, and was deep enough in her twenties to think most Academy kids were silver-spooned man-children, she found herself smitten with this stranger. He was gorgeously handsome in a strange, suburban way... and when he spoke, her heart fluttered. "N-No, I just had to use the restroom... I'm sorry."

"No don't be, please! You've got quite an early morning, huh hun? Did you order yet? No? Let me get you some coffee!"

Sandra spied on the two, thinking the little Academy shit she saw had to be vandalizing... and though her opinion didn't improve nearly as much as Alice's, she did change her mind almost instantly. He looked like one of the good ones, she decided, and she had fifty years to know which ones were the good ones, a self-assurance she mumbled as she continued cleaning whatever her layabout busboy/dishwasher/janitor failed to clean before quitting the job permanently just four hours ago.

"I really shouldn't be spending money-"

"It's on the house, no worries!" His eyebrows raised, but he didn't forget himself enough to not smile and thank her as he took a seat. How'd she miss this one before? Maybe he was new in town? She did have the strangest sensation though, like she had seen him before...

... maybe with an older woman, one old enough to be a professor? Nonsense, she decided, she was just getting jealous over literally nothing. The memory of the librarian-looking woman vanished once again, as it always did.

"Here you go, baby," she cooed with an honest grin. He took the cup from her, his finger sliding onto hers... and from that simple touch she felt herself growing hot under the collar. God, how did he know just how to do... all of it? "You... new in town?"

"Nah, I just dont get out too often, y'know?" He was a smooth customer alright. Despite his nervous glances, Alice was sure he was confident, slick-haired and well-mannered... maybe too good for her, though that wouldn't stop her. "Actually... I am pretty hungry."

Thirty minutes later, eight syrups and butter-soaked flapjacks, two fists of home fries, six strips of freshly pan-fried bacon, a six-inch sausage, and 3.2 quarts of coffee had all vanished into a single young man, the sticky plates and empty mugs that once contained them all strewn about like the bodies of the defeated. He patted his gut with a happy sigh, and accidentally let a burp fly, and even this obnoxious behavior was endearing to Alice, who pocketed his check without even considering handing it to him. He had barely said a word as she prattled on about finding love, about horoscopes (they were a perfect match, she was sure), about sexual freedom in the 21st century... and he nodded, clearly uncomfortable, clearly too good for her. She had to please him, somehow.

She just had to.

"... so I've been lost for the last day, practically! I mean, the night... like I said, I lost the whole night in there, barely found the one mon... erm, my dog, and finally put his leash back on." The boy struggled to couch his misadventure in mundane terms, but Alice was so soaked in his words, and in her own lower expulsions, that she could barely pay attention to anything, save trying to not leap across the bar to rut on the diner floor, Sandra be damned! "Barely had time to shower, not that I wanted to stick around there too long... not with my mom the way she is right now."

"You could come live with me," she blurted out suddenly. He blinked up at her, less surprised than she expected, but her face warmed as she tried to backpedal. "I mean, if your mom is being a problem, I could let you sleep with m... in my house! It's an apartment, so we'd be... cozy... but I wouldn't mind."

"Thank... thank you! But I'm... I mean, I'll work it out with her," he laughed, too nervous to say anything more. Alice felt like an idiot.

"I feel like I've gone and ruined your breakfast," she whispered, barely registering the grossly Herculean meal that he just had. Against all the reason and poise that screamed somewhere in her mind, she reached for his hand - God, how she felt just touching his bare skin! - as he reached for his last sip of coffee. She met his eyes and breathed her words as seductively as she could manage. "I should make it up to you."

"What? Oh no, not at all... honestly, you've taught me a lot today."

"Really?"

"Yeah... I was wondering what effect I'd have if I wasn't trying to get... well, nevermind that."

"You've had quite the effect on me," she giggled with a wink, "Mr. Newman."

"Yeah, and at just 210 percent... uh, I mean, I'm giving it 210 percent!" He gave an exaggerated pump of his fist, and left a hundred-dollar bill that Alice was too smitten to notice had seemingly come from nowhere.

Sandra finally appeared out from the back, wiping her hands with a towel as she watched Newman's back shrink beyond the wrap-around windows of the diner. She looked at the fluttering Benjamin and gave an impressed, crass whistle. "Hey, this was a two-woman job you know! I haven't even clucked out yet-"

"I'm going to marry that man," Alice whispered. Sandra laughed as she scooped up the bill, incapable of realizing Alice's efforts to squeeze her thighs together.

[Neo Kenka Notes: I don't know when/if I will continue doing these, but these "intermissions" will be, in theory, small chapters covering the "view from without": perspectives from people or entities who are not the Gamer, and whose narratives aren't even necessary to weave into his adventures. Make of them what you will, presuming I do anymore.]