Chapter 1

The truth was that Bettie was attracted to the new waitress. She hated to admit it to herself. She, a straight woman for 31 years of her life, was now sexually attracted to another woman. It was a bit hard for her to digest. But it was the truth.

She was a chatty girl, the new waitress. Really really chatty. A bit too chatty, thought Bettie. She was tall. Had a really pretty small-town American face. A face like Lee Remick, full of innocence and naughtiness and large dimples which she flashed on the male patrons and made them choke on their chocolate donuts. She flashed them at Bettie too when she just had to leave work early because her trucker husband was coming home after three days on the road. Or when she needed to borrow $20 because she and her husband were behind on the rent money, or she needed to get groceries. Or when she was hungry and asked Bettie whether she could eat one of the chocolate donuts or one of the egg salad sandwiches. Bettie hated to admit it. But Nettie had Bettie eating out of her hands.

Nettie. That was her name. Strange how their names rhymed. There was a song called Nettie by the goth metal band Type O Negative.

She was a tall girl this Nettie. Nearly six feet tall in Bettie’s opinion. She was a bit clumsy in a sexy small-town way. She would often put a hand on one hip and lean on one leg and Bettie thought that was really cute. Sometimes there would be little stains on her blue waitress uniform, inviting admonishment from Bettie but Nettie would smile, and the dimples would bloom on her face and Bettie wouldn’t have the heart to carry on. Bettie would watch Nettie serving the customers, flirting with some of them, moving along easily across the small diner. She was really enamored by the new arrival.

Bettie liked Nettie’s body aroma so much that she had considered aggressively plunging her face into Nettie’s armpit and taking a sniff. Nettie wore perfume but she would have a slight smell of sweat lingering around when she came in every morning. The sweaty smell was not offensive in any way. In fact, the increase in the number of male customers ever since Nettie joined the diner suggested they liked her subtle odor and her tall and clumsy demeanor. Bettie wondered whether Nettie bathed every day. She didn’t think so.

Nettie liked to chew gum. She would chew gum all day. If you were close to her like Bettie often had to be, Nettie would unselfconsciously blow hot and sweet strawberry gum breaths into her face when they both talked.

She had large tits, this Nettie girl. The tight blue waitress uniform made a nice round shape over her breasts. By the end of the day’s work the collar of Nettie’s shirt would have been pulled to one side, revealing a thin bra strap over her shoulder. Bettie censured Nettie about this one time but a few days later it happened again, and Bettie did not bother again. She liked seeing the bra strap every day. She suspected some of the male customers liked seeing it too.
Nettie stole stuff. Eggs. Chicken sausages. Bacon. Dough. Roast beef. Bettie did not mind. Most waitresses stole stuff. Nettie was no different. She was the wife of a trucker. Nettie had mentioned in passing that he used to drink a lot. Bettie could identify with that. Her husband drank a lot too. The stealing was the only thing about Nettie that irked Bettie a little. But she let it slide.

The diner was not too crowded this Wednesday evening. Bettie was making a roast beef sandwich. She rolled the butter across the white bread, added the lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, and topped it up with the shredded roast beef. Put the bread on top of the mix. The sandwich was ready.

She looked up to see where Nettie was. She looked directly towards where Nettie was standing. Nettie had been watching her and when she saw Bettie looking at her, she turned away quickly. Bettie smiled to herself. Nettie had been checking her out. She called out to her.

“Nettie, the roast beef sandwich is good to go”, she shouted out.

Nettie walked up to the counter and their eyes met. Neither woman looked away for a couple of seconds. Bettie placed the sandwich on a plate and handed it to Nettie. She walked away with it. Bettie admired her colleague’s tall attractive figure.

Chapter 2

Nettie quite liked her new boss. She had always had a problem with authority. She had been fired from a few places. But Bettie was cool. She let her do whatever she wanted to as long as she got the job done.
Bettie was not a big talker. Nettie did the talking for both of them. Bettie was a listener. Nettie told her all the stories about her drunk husband. Bettie had let it drop that her husband was also a heavy drinker.

Bettie dressed really well. Never a stain or a crease in her waitress uniform. The white shirt and black skirt were always ironed. Her hair was always well combed, and she took care of her skin. She wore lipstick every day and smelled like a million bucks. Some expensive perfume whose name Nettie was sure she would not be able to pronounce. Nettie liked to loiter around Bettie so that she could smell that tremendous perfume.

Bettie was tall and stately. She would stand behind the counter all day, making sandwiches and surveying the customers. She commanded respect. The working-class customers never hit on her, maybe because they thought Bettie was a bit out of their league. She would stand behind that hot counter all day and still come out without sweating and still smelling like a million bucks.

She had big boobs, her new boss. Nettie liked looking at them. The diner was shaped like a U with the counter at the center and tables all around it. Nettie would often go to the back of the diner from where she could get a sideways view of Bettie making the sandwiches and drinks and look at her powerful shoulders and her large breasts.

Nettie respected Bettie. She was not jealous of her or anything. Nettie was typically a jealous woman. But Bettie never made her feel like she was poor folk or anything. She had often caught Bettie checking her out too. She was surprised and flattered that her boss was checking her out.

Then once she had left her waitress uniform in the small changing room which they both shared and gone to the toilet, in her normal clothes. When she came back, she found that there was a waitress uniform there. It wasn’t hers. It was Bettie’s. It took Nettie a few moments to understand what had happened. When she was in the bathroom, Bettie had come in and changed her clothes. Maybe she was in a hurry, because Bettie had taken Nettie’s uniform with her and left her own in the changing room. Nettie was a bit surprised this had happened because though they wore identical white-black uniforms, Bettie’s uniform was a lot cleaner. Nettie wondered whether Bettie had gone off with her uniform on purpose.

Bettie apologized the next day and returned the uniform back to her. Bettie had a strange smile on her face when she gave the uniform back to Nettie. They did not discuss that incident ever again.

Bettie also let her take things from the diner. Nettie did not consider it stealing. Nettie did so without any qualms. They never discussed this. Nettie thought Bettie knew she was taking stuff from the diner. There was no way she wouldn’t know.

Nettie wondered whether she and Bettie could be friends. They were friends in a way. They spent more time with each other at the diner than they did with their husbands. Nettie looked forward to going to the diner and being with Bettie. She had a hunch Bettie also liked being with her in the diner.

But Nettie also thought Bettie was standoffish. Sometimes she simply did not chat much at all. Nettie liked to chat. Obviously, there was a class difference between them. And Bettie was the boss at the end of the day. Nettie would keep chatting. She thought Bettie liked to hear her talk. But she did not always acknowledge her.

Sometimes Nettie would ask something like “Do you think Marlon Brando tricked Richard Burton and slept with Liz Taylor when they were together on Richard Burton’s boat?”. And Bettie would act like she hadn’t heard her at all. She would just go on fixing sandwiches or frying the donuts like such an important question had not been asked by her.

This needled Nettie no end. Who the fuck did Bettie think she was?

Chapter 3

It had been more than a month since Nettie joined the diner. Slowly, the women were feeling each other out. Digging up more and more details about each other. A bit like a mating dance. They both knew that in a small town like Smiley, nobody ever went anywhere. Nothing changed. Nothing much happened They had all the time in the world. Neither of them was going anywhere.

“Coy back Nettie?”, asked Bettie one slow afternoon in the diner. Coy was Nettie’s truck driver husband.

They were standing across from each other with the counter in between them.

“He hooked up with some chain gang in Memphis, Bettie. The bastard might turn up drunk one night shouting at me to cook him a steak”, said Nettie resignedly.

Bettie put some beer into the mini freezer. Bettie hoped more people would come in on that day. The diner was doing all right. But Bettie was a hard worker. One slack day and Bettie would start sweating. She knew how hard it was to run a diner in a small Texas town like Smiley with a declining population. At the back of her mind, she knew her diner would not last. She had to make as much money as she could before she got old.

“How is Melvin?”, asked Nettie. Melvin was Bettie’s unemployed alcoholic husband who started drinking at 10:30 am in the morning.

Bettie paused before replying. She knew Nettie was not a bitch and was asking casually just because she had asked Nettie about her loser boyfriend.

“What can I say, Nettie? He ain’t up to no good. Starts drinking in the morning and listens to heavy metal all day”, said Bettie.

“Sad state of affairs, Bettie. Coy ain’t no angel either. Comes in smelling of corn liquor. Does not come in at all most of the time. I live in that little house on the highway, all by myself. I could be attacked by a crocodile or bitten by a rattlesnake. Aint nobody around to save me”, said Nettie in a sad and righteous voice.

Bettie knew it was no use when Nettie was on a roll. She glanced quickly at Nettie’s breasts. They heaved as Nettie ranted angrily.

“I wanted to be a mother. I always wanted to have a child. I wanted to stay home and take care of the baby and cook for my husband. Cook for him and send him off to work. Feed, piss and shit the baby. But no. I had to marry a loser like Coy. I cannot remember the last time we had sex, Bettie. Bastard cannot get it up anymore. But he still drinks like he is Hemingway’s grandkid or something”, Nettie motored on like a Texan wife who had been messed with for too long.

Bettie smiled. Nettie was hilarious when she was on a roll like this. Bettie leant closer across the counter towards Nettie to smell her aroma.

“I ain’t getting any younger, Bettie. Who’s gonna take care of me in my old age? Yeah, I am in my thirties. But time flies, Bettie. You think you’re gonna be strong and hale and hearty all the fucking time. But it doesn’t work that way, Bettie. It is all going away one day. Live a little while you can. My life is a dead end because of that bastard Coy”, Nettie was in a state now, rambling on and on.

Bettie did not respond. She knew Nettie had just gotten started. She just liked watching Nettie and listening to her.

“You just want to marry a man who’s gonna take care of you. Put food on the table. I didn’t even want the sex. It was lousy anyway. But imagine getting married hoping you would just be expected to stay home and cook up some shit for your husband. But he turns out to be a drunk loser and there you go, suddenly I’ve got to work as a waitress. It’s terrible Bettie”, Nettie rambled on loudly.

Nettie’s rant touched something in Bettie. She looked at Nettie with a sense of comradeship. She wanted to pull Nettie towards her and plunge her mouth into Nettie’s mouth and kiss her.

“It’s all getting to me, Bettie. I’m stressed out all the damn time. I got boils under my goddamn armpits, Bettie. Can you believe that?”, Nettie was really passionate now.

“Boils under your armpits?”, Bettie asked concerned.

“Yeah, fucking boils under my fucking armpits. Who would have thunk that? I’m scared its cancer or something. If it is, I’m done”, Nettie looked like she was about to break into tears.

“Now now, Nettie. We need to take a look at those boils. Let’s go into the changing room and take a look at it together”, said Bettie.

“Really? You would do that for me Bettie?”, Nettie looked touched.

“Why not Nettie? Let’s go into the changing room right now”, said Bettie authoritatively.

The two women walked into the small changing room. It was a small room that barely fit both their tall bodies. There was a poster of the Swedish doom metal band Candlemass on one of the walls. There were hooks to hang their clothes on the walls that were painted a dark red. There was a small table below the poster of Candlemass. Bettie closed the door behind them.

The women faced each other.

“Take off your shirt, Nettie”, said Bettie in a calm and bossy voice. The changing room was hot.

“Er ….. I”, said Nettie uncertainly.

“You heard me, Nettie. Off with it. I have a hunch your boil ain’t no cancer. But I need to see it first”, said Bettie as if she was a strict doctor.

Nettie began to unbutton her shirt slowly. Their eyes met and locked, both of them watching each other intently as Nettie’s shirt came off. Nettie was wearing a red brassiere. Nettie threw the shirt onto the dressing room table.
Bettie checked out Nettie’s body quickly. She had a nice fleshy upper body. The skin was rosy, pink in patches across the mostly milky white entirety. The breasts were lush and full, behind the brassiere. The stomach was flat. Nettie was a woman who took care of her body despite her casual and nonchalant demeanor.

“I think you should take off your brassiere too”, said Bettie. Her tone was authoritarian. Nettie’s breasts covered by the red brassiere looked so damn gorgeous, that Bettie wanted to see the breasts naked.
“Uh ….. why?”, asked Nettie, sounding a bit offended. Her face was red.

“It would just be easier for me to examine you, that’s why”, said Bettie, haughtily.

“Allright”, said Nettie and she raised her hand behind her and unhooked her bra strap. The bra loosened and Nettie removed it gracefully and threw it onto the table on which she had placed her shirt.

The breasts seemed to almost pop out, as if they had a life of their own. They were nice and round, something symmetrical about them, as if they had been carved out by a sculptor. They hung down like two ripe fruits. The nipples, Bettie noted, were erect as if someone had licked them.

Nettie pushed the breasts up towards Bettie, a look of defiance on her face.

“You may raise your armpits now”, said Bettie, gulping one more time.

Nettie did as she was told. She raised her left arm in the air. Bettie was hit by Nettie’s aroma, and she reveled in it for a moment before taking a step closer towards Nettie. Nettie was looking into her face intently.
Nettie’s armpits were hairy. Not like a forest but enough hair in them to hide the boil. Bettie lowered her face, once again being treated to Nettie’s heavenly aroma. She raised her hands up to Nettie’s armpits and began to separate the hairs in her armpits. She found the boil in no time.

“Ooh, that a pretty big one, Nettie”, said Bettie. She liked having her face this close to Nettie’s armpits. Bettie savored the heavenly smell emanating out of the open armpit.

“Yeah, Bettie. That’s what I was telling you”, said Nettie, now sounding concerned.

“May I touch it?”, asked Bettie seriously.

“Yeah sure”, said Nettie immediately. She was looking into Bettie’s face intently. Bettie was looking at Nettie’s armpit boil intently.

Bettie touched the boil with her finger. Nettie shivered.

“It’s just a summer boil, Nettie. It’s popped up on account of all the heat and maybe because you don’t bathe that often”, said Bettie.

Nettie looked offended. Bettie touched the boil again.

“I bath every darn day”, said Nettie in her offended voice.

“No, you don’t. If you did, your armpit wouldn’t have no goddamn boil”, said Bettie, snapping at Nettie.

Nettie looked hurt and glared angrily at Bettie. But did not say anything.

“Anyway, does not seem like a tough cancerous growth. Just a soft boil with puss inside it. If it breaks, it’s gonna leak like a pineapple jelly bun”, said Bettie laughing.

“You sure Bettie?”, asked Nettie, a little cowed by the authoritarian way in which Bettie was handling the situation.

“Yeah, sure as I can be. It ain’t no cancer, Nettie. There is this anti-bacterial soap that I use. I got it in my handbag. I am going to bring it in here now. You just wait here”, said Bettie and she left the room.

Nettie waited. Bettie returned with the soap and a mug full of water and Nettie still had her arm up in the air.

There was sweat on both their faces now.

Bettie wet the soap in the mug and began to rub it over Nettie’s armpit and around the boil. She did it slowly, in the most loving and caring manner. As if Nettie was her lover. Nettie watched Bettie’s face as she cleaned her armpit.

Bettie gave Nettie’s armpit a good wash and did another round of soaping and then she toweled Nettie’s armpit, wiping off the water.

Bettie was aroused now. Her nipples were hard, and she could control herself no longer.

She lowered her face into Nettie’s armpit and took a long sniff of it and then proceeded to lick at it driving her tongue across Nettie’s mildly hairy armpit.

Nettie moaned and then suddenly pushed Bettie away. She looked offended.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Bettie?”, asked Nettie angrily.

It took a moment for Bettie to compose herself.

Nettie’s face was half angry and half smiling.

“God Nettie, I don’t know, I just lost control of myself”, said Bettie.

“Lost control? More like abuse of the employee boss relationship”, said Nettie now sounding righteous like a hell raising Texan preacher. But the half smile had still not left her face.

“I don’t know what came over me, Nettie, I apologize”, said Bettie, surprised at Nettie’s anger. She thought Nettie had been enjoying this examination and cleansing of her armpit.

“Apologize my ass, woman”, Nettie was almost shouting now.

“Nettie ….. I think you’re overreacting”, said Bettie, now a bit annoyed.

“Overreacting? You sniffed and licked at my goddamn armpit like some sex crazed jezebel”, said Nettie. The smile had left her face.

“We are two adult women, Nettie”, said Bettie placing her hands on her hips. It was time to put this woman in her place.

“Adults we are. And YOU need to act like an adult, not like some horny teenager, groping women at the church fair”, said Nettie as she put her bra and shirt back on.

“You’re acting like a petulant child, Nettie”, said Bettie, now almost as angry as Nettie was.
The two women were face to face now.

“Don’t you dare call me a child, Bettie”, said Nettie.

“You’re just like a silly little child. You’re also a goddamn thief”, said Bettie.

“What?”, asked Nettie, suddenly a bit uncertain.

“That’s right, I know you’ve been thieving Nettie”, said Bettie.

“So, you think you can grope me just because I took some food?”, asked Nettie.

Bettie did not respond. They just stood inside the hot room glaring at each other. There was sweat on their foreheads and their necks.

Then a call came from outside the changing room.

“Can I get served?”, someone called out from the diner.

Bettie opened the door to the changing room and stepped out. Nettie followed her.

There was a trucker sitting at a table. He raised his hat to the two women.

Bettie got behind the counter while Nettie walked to the trucker to take his order.

The diner became busy all of a sudden. Customers began to swarm in. The two women were kept busy for the rest of the day.

Glares were exchanged between Nettie and Bettie throughout the day. The women refused to smile at each other. Their budding friendship had suddenly hit a dead end.

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