Chapter 43

The Pizza and Pasta Pit was one of those new casual style restaurants. Not exactly fast food, but close. There was a long pizza and pasta buffet, complete with a large salad bar. I guess because I have been all over, I could appreciate the salad and plain cheese pizza. I didn't need fifty things on top of my pizza. The pizza was simply made with simple basic ingredients on a thin crispy crust, so that it really made great bread sticks for my salad.

Gus filled his plate with about three kinds of pasta. I personally don't care for pasta with any sauce. I can handle spaghetti now and then. I can even do the microwave ones that are not quite awful, but I just don't like it enough to buy it in a restaurant. Of course, I didn't really care what, or how much Gus ate, so I watched him fill the plate with a smile on my face.

"So Max, what's your plan for tomorrow." he asked just to make conversation.

"I don't really have one. My business it is more reactive than proactive," I replied. "How about you Gunny?"

"It's Monday, I hike ten miles on Mondays. After that my day is pretty much open. It is most days after my hike. I usually stop in at the senior center for cards and lots of coffee. Sometimes I go to a meeting."

"Ah friends of Bill meetings," I said knowingly.

"You a friend of Bill's too?"

"No, I was once married to a friend of Bills. He could keep up with it for a year or so, then he would slip for a few months. Somewhere in his downhill slide, someone would give him the old 'get on the program or get out' speech. That usually sent him back to meetings."

"Did he ever hit you? I ask that because a lot of us get violent when we drink."

"Once, but Gunny a really drunk 200lb man is no match for a sober 130 lb woman with a baton."

"Good for you," he said. "Now is that all you are going to eat?"

"Yes, I really try to watch what I put into my body these days."

"Watching the weight after all that crap last year?" he asked.

"That and the body is still healing. They tell me it will take a year before I can really fill my stomach to max. Something about acid in my esophagus. Anyway I have to eat small meals for a few more months. For me this place isn't about all you can eat, it's about the salad with plain pizza as bread sticks. I just can't find that in most restaurants. That and I can wear just about anything here."

"Okay prove it. Go into the ladies room and take off your panties. Bring them to me, to prove you did it."

"What makes you think I am wearing panties?" I asked.

"I am absolutely sure you do," he said grinning.

I just stood up and walked to the ladies room. I sat on one of the toilets and urinated, wiped myself, and then removed my panties. I lifted the rough jeans back into place. I knew what it was about. It was all about power, and who had it. I had always found power games easier to just play along with, than to resist. They don't realize that they only have as much power as I let them have. In the end it was me who was really in charge. They just didn't know it.

When I returned to the table, I held my small bikini panties waded up inside the palm of my hand. I dropped them on his plate before I sat down. I noticed that at least one couple saw me. I had no idea, if they knew what it was that I dropped on the old man's plate or not. I also didn't care. I mean hell, it wasn't like we were in Chucky Cheese for God's sake.

"You are so bad," I said to Gus when I was seated.

"I know, you bring out the best in me." He laughed one of those really quiet little laughs that only men can pull off. If a woman did that, she would just appear slutty. When a man did it, he was wickedly charming.

"Now Chris, why don't you carefully unzip your jeans and touch it for daddy?"

"Do you really want that Daddy?" I asked.

"Yes, I really want that."

"Wouldn't you rather go home and touch it yourself?"

"Oh that is going to happen as well, but right now I want to see how much courage you have."

"Just remember people are going to see you, as well as me," I said it as I dropped my right hand to my lap. I left my jeans buttoned, but I did lower the zipper. Then I returned my hand to the table top.

"Did you do it?" Gus asked.

"Put your hand under the table and see for yourself." My voice was low but I was not whispering by any means. People sitting at the tables near us could certainly hear, if they were paying attention. I hoped that they would not know what I meant, but then again I just didn't care.

At that point I knew why Gus had insisted we not sit across from each other but at the adjacent sides of the table. Gus smiled as he made a big production of putting his hand under the table. I felt his hand fumbling to find its way to the zipper of my jeans. Then I felt his fingers move inside and make little curls of my short public hair.

"Well, did I do good?" I asked.

"Oh yes Chris, you did real good."

"Thank you Daddy. Are you proud of your little girl?"

"I am always proud of you, but yes I am especially proud of you tonight."

"You are going to be even more proud of your little girl later." I was making it a point to play along with Gus. I did it for him a little, and for me a lot. I really liked being someone else, even if I didn't really know anything about the new me. Sometimes you just want to get away from yourself and Gus was offering me that chance. I wanted to explore it at least a little more before I bailed on it and him.

Even though the waitress gave us only minimal service, I left her a five dollar tip. I really felt that the restaurant should pay their staff a decent wage, so that the customers didn't have to supplement the wait staff's earnings. Regardless, I always did leave tips. I couldn't see taking my irritation for the system out on one of the lowest individuals. There were a lot of things in life like that. It wasn't the chick, who took the payments, fault that the High Speed Internet was so damn expensive. It wasn't the bureaucrat's fault that I had to buy a license to earn a living. Nonetheless I did forget and call them all kinds of sons of bitches now and then, I honestly did try to play nice, it just didn't always work out that way.