Her name was Sophie, and she’d worked in the restaurant for as long as Bertie had been around. She’d worked as a table greeter and a waitress, and had even put in shifts cleaning dishes when the job had demanded it, working her way up the chain of command for the last ten years. Now, at twenty-seven, she was a fixture of the dining room, with her own regulars and even some smitten customers. Sometimes he wondered, in a different world, if she would have ended up in the office instead of him.
If Sophie had ever aspired to management, she’d never said. To many, she wasn’t just one of the staff, she was special. She knew the customers by name, pronounced with her charming Jamaican lilt, and effortlessly struck up a conversation, even if the diners were too awestruck to talk back. And she stood easily six foot three in her slim black dress and heels, so no one stood in her way when she had a tray in hand. She was a stunner, and yet behind her easygoing manner and Amazon figure, Sophie was awkwardly, painfully shy.
When she first started waiting tables, she’d spend hours fidgeting with her dress and mumbling into the menu. But interacting with all those people gave her pointers, as the years went by, on how she could pretend at being outgoing. And the role suited her – after a decade, there were maybe two other servers and the sous-chef who remembered the old Sophie. And then there was Bertie.
He and Sophie had been rivals at first, both introverts, both watching the other and seeing how they adapted to a job outside of their comfort zone. Bertie saw Sophie’s chameleon act and wondered how the quiet, freakishly tall black girl could shed her skin and become the life of the party. And Sophie watched Bertie morph from an insecure student to a star employee whose drive and confidence made him a role model for the most ambitious new employees.
They’d competed, flirted, and goaded each other into stepping up their game, and the winner had been the restaurant. If kitchen rumour was to be believed, the two had reconciled in bed years ago, and the hatchet was buried. In truth, the two were still fiercely competitive, but their positions had forced them to be a little more… professional.
***
Bertie stood just beyond the double doors to the kitchen, watching as the last of the lunch customers trailed out and the first of the dinner guests began to arrive. He glanced at the clock – it would be a slow couple of hours until the next rush. He’d keep an eye on things out here for another few minutes, then return to the office and start working on payroll.
His eyes were drawn to the lobby as Sophie escorted an attractive young couple to their table. The man’s suit was off-the-shelf, it fit too tightly at the shoulder and was baggy at the waist, but he wore it crisply and with confidence. He was making an impression, probably on his first date. The man was all smile and charm, he even went the extra mile to help seat his girlfriend before sitting down himself. Either he really liked this girl, Bertie decided, or he really wanted to get that dress off of her by the end of the evening. Which, he supposed, would take a lot of work on his part. Not that she didn’t seem to be enjoying his company, but the dress she’d chosen was so form-fitting that it looked to be simpler to cut her out of it than take it off.
As she took her chair, facing away from the kitchen, Bertie admired the way the pearly fabric wrapped around the woman’s ample bottom, and reminded him that it had been months since he and Rachel had gone out for dinner. He couldn’t remember the last restaurant they’d been to that had been planned and dressed for.
Having taken their drink order, Sophie passed into the kitchen to see Bertie staring wistfully at the couple. She followed his eyeline to the woman’s back.
“I don’t blame you, man,” she teased, “She’s got one fine ass.”
“I wasn’t staring, was I?”
He tried to remain nonchalant, but the grin she gave him meant that he’d blushed just a little. “It’s cool. It will be our secret.” She disappeared to the wine rack for a moment, returning with a bottle of Chardonnay. “But still… don’t you want to just come up behind her and – whack!” she mimed smacking the woman’s behind with a flick of her wrist.
Bertie blushed fully this time, and Sophie roared with laughter. Finally, he managed to squeak out, “Sophie, I have a girlfriend.”
“Yes, I remember Rachel. But how often do you get to…”
Bertie’s silence gave her all the answer she needed, and more.
“No! Really?”
“Only when she’s been bad,” he answered, trying as best he could to keep his managerial dignity intact. Sophie covered her mouth with her hand, struggling to keep a straight face. “Don’t you have a table to cover?”
“I’ll give them another moment or two, good for the atmosphere.”
“Sophie…”
“Fine, fine!” She threw up her free hand in defeat and carried off the bottle. But Bertie could still hear her chuckling as she returned to the dining room.
***
His paperwork took less time than expected, and he returned to the dining room to find it only half full. His wait staff stood idle in the kitchen, with nothing to do but wait themselves and talk. They shut up as Bertie approached.
“Where’s the rush?”
A waitress named Peri spoke up, “I don’t think it’s happening tonight.”
“That’s no good,” Bertie said, “Alright, two of you are going home at the half-hour. I’m going to be doing some shuffling.”
A couple of groans erupted from the group, but without much enthusiasm – the only difference between sitting around at work and sitting around at home was the paycheck. As Bertie made his way back to the office, he noticed that he was being followed.
“Yes, Sophie?”
“It’s still early yet. Don’t you think it’s too soon to send the staff away?”
“It’s my job to make that call. Besides, I don’t have a lot of work in the office. If you need a hand out front, I’ll help.”
She snorted.
“Care to explain?”
“Bertie, no offense, but you haven’t worked the floor in two years. You’re a little out of practice, and even when you were, you were kind of… stiff.”
“Stiff?”
“Polite, but not friendly. Like the butler on Downton Abbey and shit.”
"I don’t believe it. Not that I’m stiff,” he corrected, “but that you watch Downton Abbey. And I imagine I can pick up my old habits pretty quickly. It’s a service job, it’s not like having to rewire a house from memory.”
He could feel the temperature drop in the room, and Sophie folded her arms. “Care to put a wager on that?”
“What kind of wager are we talking?”
“If you take the floor, you’ve got to bring in tips. Say $20, from your tables specifically.”
“Sure. Raoul’s going to be one of the two going home, I’ll take his section. Are you sure you shouldn’t make it $30? I know you pull in more than that.”
“I’m feeling sporting.”
“Fine. If I win, I keep my tips for the night, plus yours. If I lose, I’ll give you mine.”
“No deal. If you lose, you’ll put your tips in the pool with the busboys, I don’t want them. But after what you said about my job, if you don’t take in at least half what I do, your ass is mine.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I get to spank you like you spank your girlfriend.”
Bertie bristled. “Sophie, I’m your boss…”
“And that’s what’s going to make it so damn satisfying. Unless you’re going to call it off.”
Bertie considered his options for a moment. He’d worked a lot of jobs in this restaurant, and he’d excelled in every one of them – at the time. He didn’t think he could jump back to the kitchen, for example, and still peel a forty-pound bag of sweet potatoes in an hour. But waiting tables wasn’t nearly as physically demanding, and while Sophie said he’d been out practice, that wasn’t exactly true. He coached new wait staff, after all, so he had the essentials down cold.
And even if she won, he might like it. Bertie had been having dreams recently, in which he was a bratty teenager being spanked by an older woman. He hadn’t discussed the dreams with Rachel, though he knew she was curious as to why he’d wake up suddenly rock-hard in the middle of the night. But he was the one delivering spankings at home, and besides – Rachel was half his size. The thought of being chastised by a woman imposing enough to put him over her knee was making Bertie uncomfortably aroused.
And he’d always had a bit of a crush on Sophie.
“Well?” Sophie asked.
“You’re on.”
***
He’d supposed it would be cheating, but Bertie had one more option for turning the night in his favour. Telling no one, he snuck into the employee locker room with a spare server’s uniform. When he stepped out, it was as “Tristan”, a presumably new employee. Bertie, after all, hadn’t been seen on the floor for two years, so he doubted that most of the customers would recognize him anyway – but still, he thought, if they knew that the restaurant’s manager had stepped in, they wouldn’t tip him at all and he could look forward to spending the end of the night on Sophie’s lap. The image thrilled and horrified him.
“Where’s Raoul?” the first guest had asked.
Bertie smiled, “Raoul went home for the night, I’m Be- Tristan. I’ll be looking after you. Would you like to see the wine menu?”
“We don’t drink. Raoul would know that.”
And on it went. As the night went on, Bertie was forced to admit he’d left something out from his calculus – while he worked his hardest to create a good first impression, he had a poor memory for names and details. These were people who’d come to the restaurant more than once, who had regular orders and schedules that his staff had come to painstakingly remember and present just so. Bertie knew them as table numbers and figures on a spreadsheet, and – he hated to say it – probably always had, even when he’d worked the floor himself. He tried to remember any of the regulars he’d served as a waiter, and came up short.
Sophie had raised an eyebrow upon seeing Bertie’s new identity, but had kept silent. The rest of the waiters followed her lead, either convinced that Bertie was pulling some kind of stunt, or in the know about the terms of his bet with Sophie – if not the stakes.
The night went on, and the staff eventually dwindled. By the eleven PM close, only Sophie and “Tristan” were left to clean the tables. Once the chairs were resting on their tables, the pair went back to the lockers to divide their take for the night. Pushing the break table to the centre of the room, each one spilled a wave of coins and small bills into their corner and began counting.
“So, how was your first day on the job, Tristan?”
“I think I did alright,” Bertie responded, removing the offending nametag, “The guests certainly complained about having their servers replaced, though.”
“Yeah. You got Mrs. Menken, didn’t you? Old Jewish lady,” she added helpfully, seeing the blank look on Bertie’s face, “Sent her steak back like three times?” She watched his hands tense. “That’s her. See, with her, Raoul tells the cooks to actually take the temperature. They’re used to cooking by sight, but that crone’s got a mouth like a thermometer. Maybe you should do this job a little longer, you might learn something.”
Bertie finished counting his pile. “Twenty-one twenty-five. It’s nothing impressive, but enough to carry the game. In fact, I’m so magnanimous, I’ll even let you keep your own tips. How do you feel about that?”
Sophie was still counting her take. Reaching a round number, she paused and raised her eyes to meet Bertie’s. “Making at least twenty was one of the terms, smarty-pants. As I recall, you also had to make at least half as much as me.” She pushed her pile forward as if cashing her chips.
“Forty-nine ninety.”
“H-h-how?”
“Because I’ve been doing this job for ten years while you were climbing the ladder, Bertie, and I’m very good at it.” Her wide smile was far less inviting now. “And you made a mistake pretending to be a new guy, you came across too confident. Aloof. You should have tried harder to get them to like you.” She held up a wrinkled ten-dollar bill, mocking him through the stern face of John A. MacDonald. Bertie’s stomach dropped. She’d set a trap for him, and he’d not only walked into it, but even dressed for the occasion.
As if sensing his thought, she reached out for the collar of his uniform shirt and loosened the first button.
“Now are you going to take off this costume or am I?”
“We’re going to do this now?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m thinking of you, Bertie. It’s late. It’s empty. And it wouldn’t be good for your authority if the staff knew how you’ve been a very bad boy.” The words “bad boy” resonated in Bertie’s mind as his fingers grappled with the rest of his buttons.
He doffed the shirt, then looked up pleading at Sophie. She licked her lips and pointed to his pants. Finally, he stood in front of her dressed only in his undershirt and briefs, eyes clamped shut and hoping that Sophie would miss or choose to ignore his growing erection.
She did not, revealing her opinion in a loud whistle.
“Oh my. Is this turning you on, Bertie? I should have threatened to spank you years ago.” Wait, he thought, what did she mean by that? Before he could even think to pose the question, she dropped a hand to the table beside her. “Bend over,” she commanded, and he did without thinking. Laying there, across the wooden surface, he could hear the click of her heels as she stepped around the table, admiring him from every angle.
“I should have warned you. I have three younger brothers, and they were a handful growing up.” She punctuated her sentence by seizing Bertie’s cheek and squeezing until he cried out. “So you know I’ve spanked bad boys before.”
Her hand suddenly fell across his back, pinning him to the table. The other crashed into his bottom in a clap of thunder that echoed off the metal lockers. Bertie gasped and grit his teeth – but he held his position. The second and third slaps came down in quick succession, and he realized with familiarity that she was just warming up. She was determined to make an impression, one that was going to be made on Bertie’s no doubt soon to be sore behind.
“You’re squirming, Bertie,” she chided, beating into his rear with a drummer’s sense of rhythm.
“Sorry,” was all he could spit out.
“It’s warming up nicely back here. You’re getting pretty well tanned for a white boy.”
His bottom stung already, and he was finding it very hard to keep still. How long was she going to keep this up? How long could she keep this up? She’d been laying into him for less than two minutes! The agony was bringing mist to his eyes.
She stopped for a minute and hiked up his briefs, baring his cheeks. She teased him for a moment, dragging the tips of her nails across his flesh. He trembled, his bottom wiggling, and she laughed and gave him a playful smack.
“You’ve been a good sport about this, Bertie. I take back most of the bad things I said about you.” She released her grip on his back and let him stand up. He rose quickly, making the most of the first few seconds to rub the heat from his seat. “Is that what you do with your girlfriend?”
“Not usually,” he hissed. The fabric of his briefs scratched against his burning cheeks, and he hoped he’d be able to take them off for a bit once Sophie had left.
“Do tell.”
“After this?” he pointed to a bright but fading hand mark. “My lips are sealed.”
“Fair enough.” She hovered for a moment, clearly done but not ready to go. “I have a question for you, but I really need you to be honest for me.”
“No promises, but I’ll try to remember-“ he barely got to the end of the sentence before Sophie grabbed him by the arm. She grabbed a chair from beside the table and tumbled Bertie into her lap. Her muscular arm clamped around his waist, and she had his full attention.
“Sophie…”
“Why didn’t you ever ask me out?”
“I have a girlfriend- ow!”
She popped him one right between his cheeks, which would have been more loud than painful if he hadn’t already been spanked there.
“I’m not talking about now. We’ve worked together for ten years, Bertie. You liked me, and I liked you. But you never said anything, and now I’m asking you why.”
He didn’t have an answer, and her slaps filled the silence. He raised a hand, and she stopped her assault – for a moment.
“I didn’t think you’d want to date me. That’s all.”
“Because we worked together?”
“Sure- ow!”
“Bullshit, I know you asked out two of the waitresses when you were maître’d – including the one you’re living with. Try again.”
“I didn’t think your friends or family would like you dating a guy like me- YOW!”
“Now you’re just insulting me.” In one swift movement, she grabbed the waistband of his underwear and yanked them down to his knees. He was suddenly conscious of his cock swelling up against her thigh. “You think you have to be black, have to be taller than me? You think I'm that shallow? And I don’t think that matters to you, either, you ended up with the girl with tattoos and rainbow hair. So are you going to tell me why you ignored me for so long, or do I have to smack the white out of your ass?”
Silence rang in the air for a moment. “Smack the white out of my-“
Her hand came down with such force it left a bruise and knocked the words right out of his mouth. “Understand, Bertie, this doesn’t change anything between us. I come to work tomorrow and you’re still my boss and my friend. I don’t want to start seeing you now – we’ve both moved on. But I want to know why it never happened. We bonded over school and this job and Neil Gaiman books, so how come it never was any more than that?”
He nearly sobbed, “Because she went after me.”
“What?”
“I wanted to be with someone more outgoing, somebody who could bring me out of myself. Look at where we are, can you imagine yourself like this ten years ago, or even five?”
She traced a line though his cheeks with her fingernail, watching him clench as she did. “I guess not.”
“Sophie, if we were the people then that we are now…”
“It just hurt at the time. The rejection. The not knowing.”
“I’m sorry.”
He lay there in her lap, his hind end cooling in the chilly air. He wiggled a bit to discover that she was no longer holding him down. He relaxed, his actions were again his own.
Sophie leaned down to look into his eyes. He saw her then not only as the shy girl who’d come up with him, but as the powerful woman she’d become and he had missed out on. In a moment, they both knew the spell would end, she would leave work and go back home, and he would drive back himself, maybe sitting a little bit gingerly in his car seat. Both would go back to their significant others and never mention this again.
But the moment didn’t have to end just yet. “How sorry are you?” she asked, a Cheshire cat grin creeping across her face.
“Oh, very sorry. I’ve been a bad boy. Are you going to spank me?”
And she did.
