Chilling With Gertrude

"You know," sighed Jack as he leaned into his seat, "don't you think it would be awesome if you could make the impossible possible?"

"You mean like making this night a little less chilly?" Gertrude inserted a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. Jack watched as her light brown hair tickled her eyelashes, and looked out the window to see the lashing wind pull against a string of a tree down the street.

The young man sitting across from her laughed quietly, then slid forward in the booth, placing his elbows on the table. "Yep. Something like that." He tapped his fingers against the hard sheen, thinking compact, the wrinkle in his brow visibly drawing his features downward. After an ounce of concentration, the hair-combed, inconspicuous fellow watched Gertrude's shoveling silverware slow to a halt, her thoughtful stare directed at the table. Then at him.

"Gosh, on second thought, it's kind of hot in here, don't you think?" she clutched the flaps of her jacket and batted them against her upper chest. She didn't notice the quick motions from eyeball to eyeball in her friend across from her, apparently interested in the tight striped top below her blue denim jacket. He clicked his tongue quietly. Her body was too good to conceal, but Gertrude was adamant; if self-respect meant anything to a woman, she believed, a body was never to be cheapened with the desperation for attention. Whether Jack agreed or not, he always liked that about her. Strength was something he was attracted to. Gave a girl personality, and what was more attractive in an attractive body than a living, breathing, thinking person?

Let me see, Jack sat back, hands behind his head. maybe... getting unadulterated access to that person in some cosmic fuck-up of grand, irreversible proportion? He let the joke fizz inside of himself, counting the years on his fingers. To be alive for 18, and for 13 to be... to be the number of years since which he's had this ultimate, indelible designation.

His lids drooped over his pupils in reminiscence. It all flew by, but in the same time, was intricately slow and long. It was both, yet neither. Like a visual illusion of the mind. A paradox.

Kind of like what he tended to see in people around him; paradoxes. Paradoxes, everywhere, all the time.

Like, for example, Gertrude, his friend from Calculus class, a decently witty and fair faced girl currently putting a pair of icecubes into her cleavage. Her jacket laid crumpled in the space beside her, and with two of her hands she carefully pushed her blouse against the cold blocks. They remained securely fastened against the strap of her bra as she withdrew her hands from them.

"Gertrude," Jack's chin pointed in her direction as his head remained rested against the top of his seat, "what's up, you that hot?"

She dipped a pair of fingers into her glass and pulled out another ice cube. A big one, it was. "Very," she admitted with a brief smile. Then, she returned her attention to her personal body cooler. Calmly, she planted the cube against the upper swell of her left breast, then began dragging it in a swift loop across her chest, moving down, to the top and side of her boob, right and left, then up to her clavicle and neck, then back to her breasts, her eyes showing no sign of in-joking or confusion whatsoever. "You know, if you ever get hot," she said as she pushed against the neckline of her blouse until it snapped under her nipple, then proceeded to rub the block of ice against it, instantly turning it hard and twinkly, "this is a great way to cool off."

"Definitely," Jack assented. He watched her DD-sized chest distractedly. Cold water began going down like rivers across her chest, forming dark spots across her blouse as it clung to her wet skin. Finally, she finished with a sigh and pulled her top back over her boob. It settled into place with a familial slap, and Jack watched his schoolmate pick up her spoon once more to continue dining.

"Satisfied?"

The girl just smiled at Jack and nodded. "Satisfied." Still relatively solid enough to throw, she popped the last ice cube, the one she had just rubbed her nipple with, straight into her mouth and the pair was accompanied with the crunch of teeth against frozen water for a few moments.

"So, Gertrude," Jack sat upright at the audible swallow, "as I was saying..."

Looking up from her ice cream, the girl straightened. "Right. Sorry. Were you going to ask me something?"

Jack nodded, the wind beating against the window besides them. "Just one thing. What if I told you that I..."

thump

thump

Gertrude frowned. "Harsh winds today," she murmured, sticking a spoon of ice cream into her mouth as her eyes glanced out the window. Jack, meanwhile, had briefly paused, almost as if to recoil the very sentence back into his throat, only to re-calibrate his eyes and keep going, mouth opened without recourse.

"What if I told you that I had some kind of superpower?" Finally, the question slithered out, and the winds nearly seemed to drown at the utterance -- though only ephemerally. "The most one-sided one of them all? The power to shape anything to my whim? To throw rationale and logic of the world to the curb and make anything I want be, happen, always have been?"

A waitress passed by. She leaned forward with a contagious smile as she took out her notepad to serve a trio of young-looking people, a group of two guys and a cute blonde, in the next table over.

Gertrude stared at Jack suspiciously. "Then I'd say, get me in on the action, buddy." She took a drink out of her glass, eyes twinkling. Jack simply folded his arms as she set the glass down.

"And if it was real? Not a joke?"

The high school girl shrugged, inserting her spoon into the crater of her ice cream cup an umpteenth time, lifting it to her lips. "Who says I think you're joking?"

Jack smiled, amused. "No one."

The waitress one table away was finishing up. Her head was topped with an elegant bun and a curl of a strand lightly decorating the side of her face, boasting a vivid chestnut hue. She had on a white buttoned blouse tucked into a black skirt that was tight enough to titillate with curves that naturally drew discerning eyes while still remaining professional. Her legs were covered in pantyhose that complimented the shape of her calves, which were just visible below her knee-length garb, as a proper pair of black flats were fitted over her feet.

Jack nudged his tablemate, "Tell me, Gertrude," he pointed, "what's she wearing?"

The girl gave him a look that seemed to say, 'I'm trying to enjoy my dessert here', but turned back, anyway, as he knew she'd would. After a quick second, she said, "Just the usual, like any other waitress working here."

"Which is?"

Gertrude rolled her eyes, wondering if Jack was too busy doing the same with his to use them for menial tasks. "You know," she repeated. "The usual." She looked back to the woman, who held the notepad in both of her hands as she folded them behind her and smiled before walking away. Gertrude's gaze assessed her like a casual art piece as she spoke, "High waisted booty shorts that show enough of their butt cheeks to get some testosterone flowing along with a pair of high heels underneath sheer-black thigh high stockings, all for that good old-fashioned sex appeal."

Continuing with her ice cream as if nothing was wrong, Gertrude looked up to see Jack's bobbing chin again. "And? Up top?"

With a blink of her own, Gertrude said, "What about the top? The girls don't wear tops in here, 'member?"

"Ah, right, right." Jack scratched the back of his neck as he leaned forward. "But, then why are you still clothed, Gertrude?"

Scoffing playfully, Gertrude rebutted, "Nice try, Jack, you know it's only the staff that that rule applies..." Suddenly, her eyes widened. Looking down, she spotted her striped blouse, and pushed her spoon rigid into her ice cream. "Oh crap, my shirt's still on, isn't it?" Glaring at Jack as she quickly began peeling out of her top, then, once her bra-encased breasts were in the open. proceeded to free from their clasped support. "Why didn't you remind me earlier if you remembered?" she ducked her head, looking around in muted worry. Her breasts swung hypnotically below her. Her light aerolae, and the nipples that centered them. The soft flesh of her fiber-pumped jugs, jiggling as she placed her shirt on top of her jacket next to her.

Jack took a sip from his milkshake, not bothering to apologize. A bare Gertrude from the waist up sat in front of him, recomposing herself enough to continue with her half-finished ice cream.

"That hot, huh?"

"Even if it wasn't," the girl said without looking up, "it would be pretty weird to keep your top on in here. That's just not how things work in a restaurant like this."

"No, no," Jack presented a hand. "You're right." He dropped his straw back into its receptacle. Watching Gertrude once more, he looked around. Several young women now all had their tops off -- a black lady in the corner was laughing at a joke from her boyfriend, her huge tits bouncing below her as she shook. Two cute, perky girls with even perkier chests were also stifling their giggles at some phone video in a nearby booth, shirtless and braless. The blonde girl with her two guy friends now had her jacket and shirt stripped away, exposing her very full, pleasant pair of breasts. With each meek look and soft giggle, they reacted gloriously. And all the lady staff, who were somehow all very pretty, even the ones that normally would be average on their best day, pranced around in butt-exposing bottoms and breast-baring, topless skin. Clacks filled the air with each step of the heel.

Looking back to the fair faced girl in his company, Jack asked, "So you don't see anything unusual going on, Gertrude? Right now, anywhere in this restaurant?"

After another moment of observation, the reply he was offered was, "No."

"Not the topless women? The waitresses in heels and high waisted rave shorts?"

"No, Jack." Gertrude took one last spoonful of her ice cream, sliding it to the side. Sitting back, she folded her arms and looked at her friend inquisitively. "Nothing. It's the same old, same old. People doing what they do, sitting in a diner and hanging out, while the topless waitresses go around serving them and getting tips and whatever and they sit together and talk about the weather, or whatever topic that comes to mind, like us right now. Another run-of-the-mill night, another generic row of faces. Not sure what you're getting at here. What is it that you see that I don't?"

Upon finishing her question, Jack's eyes suddenly opened -- she had barely noticed that he had closed them. But when he had them locked into hers, she found herself surprised by the potency of his stare, and suddenly found herself standing up as the idea to sit on top her casual friend and straddle his crotch popped in her mind, which she thought would be a very funny thing to do. She didn't even hear it when he answered her under his breath, and grabbed her bare back with his fingers.

"Everything, Gertrude. Everything."

"Please come again!"

After exchanging 'will do's' and echoes of thankful sentiment, Gertrude and Jack exited the diner with a chill of the night air to meet their shivering bones.

"Gosh damn, it is cold." Gertrude rubbed her arms through her jacket as Jack fished for his keys.

"How was the ice cream?"

"Good, good." Through her clattering teeth, she managed a one-word sentence competently enough. Jack smirked, then opened the door to let them both in.

Once they were both inside, Jack started the car. Heat emanated from the air dispensers and Gertrude sighed.

"Thank god. Finally back inside."

Pushing on the pedal, Jack looked at the girl with a questioning expression. "I got a cool box with ice cubes in it you could use to cool off if you want."

"It's cold, Jack, not the other way around," the girl with shoulder-length brown hair shoved him playfully. "Besides, that's not really a thing. Even on a hot day."

"Really?" Jack countered. "I could've sworn you told me something like that. That girls liked sticking ice cubes down their shirt whenever they were hot. Or something."

Meeting his raised gaze with a flat look, Gertrude just shifted in her chair to face the windshield. "Okay, now you're just being dirty."

The young man laughed. As the sedan pulled out of the parking lot, he watched as a fit, hourglass-figured blonde woman climbed out of her vehicle, and smiled at her outfit. High waisted, butt-baring shorts, thigh high pantyhose and a healthy set of heels with nothing on top, From the corner of his eye, he watched Gertrude's own detached gaze casually pass her by as they vroomed away.

Ah, Jack thought to himself silently, the night winds beating against the windows, it's always nice to have an ear, sometimes. Yes sir, I'd call this night a pretty productive one. Not quite as good as the last time I asked for Jamie's ear and had her aunt come along at the last minute, but then again, that had the advantage of being part of a very inspired week.

He turned on the radio as they drove into the night, towards Gertrude's house. An angsty Weezer song came on, and he tapped his foot to the beat subconsciously.

It was nice to have such trusty friends.