Shattered

jiff.
        He watched her walk up the service aisle behind the counter. Her trim legs scissored prettily. Her tight uniform clung to the well-delineated halves of her round ass. Suddenly, though the transformation was impossible, she was nude. To his eye, her clothes vanished in an instant. He saw all of her long legs, the divided globe of her behind, the exquisite line of her slim back…
        He looked guiltily down at the counter top as he felt his loins tighten, and he was abruptly confused, disoriented. in that instant he could not even say where he was.
        Janet came back with the coffee and put it in front of him. “Cream?”
        “Yes, please.”
        She reached under the counter and came up with a two-inch-high cardboard container shaped like a milk bottle. She laid out his silverware, inspected her work, and approved. instead of leaving him to his coffee, however, she leaned her elbows on the counter, propped her chin in her hands, gave him a saucy grin. “Where are you moving to?” she asked.
        Leland frowned. “How did you know I'm moving?”
        “Saw you pull in. Saw the Automover. You moving around here someplace?”
        “No,” he said, pouring cream into his coffee. “ California.”
        “Oh, wow!” she said. “Great! Palm trees, sunshine, surfing…”
        “Yeah,” he said, wishing she would go away.
        “I'd love to learn to surf,” she said. “I like the sea. Summers, I take two weeks in Atlantic City, lay around on the beach and get real brown. I tan well. I have this very skimpy bikini that browns me all over.” She laughed with false modesty. “Well… Almost all over. They don't approve of bikinis that small in Atlantic City.”
        Leland looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup.
        She met his eyes and held them until he looked down again.
        “Burg and fries!” the cook called from the serving window which connected the restaurant to the kitchen.
        “Yours,” she said quietly. She went and got the food, put it down before him. “Anything else? “
        “No,” he said.
        She leaned against the counter again, talking while he ate. She worked hard at her ingenuousness. She giggled, did a lot of blinking and practiced blushing. He decided she was five years older than he had first thought.
        “Could I have another cup of coffee?” he asked at last, just to be rid of her for a few moments.
        “Sure,” she said, picking up his empty cup and walking back toward the tall chrome brewer.
        Watching her, Leland felt an odd vibration pass through him-and then he was seeing her without her clothes, just as he had before. He was not just imagining what she would look like when she was nude. He actually saw her as clearly as he saw the normal features of the diner around her. Her long legs and round buttocks were taut as she stood on her toes to check the filter in the top of the huge pot. When she turned, her breasts swayed, nipples swelling even as he watched.
        Closing his eyes, Leland tried desperately to erase the vision. Opening them, he saw that it remained. And second by second, the longer it remained, the stranger he felt.
        He closed his hand around the knife she had given him. He lifted the knife and held it before his face and looked at the bright serrated edge. Then the blade softened, diffused, as he looked beyond it to the nude girl walking slowly toward him, walking toward him as if through syrup, her bare breasts moving sensuously with each step… He thought of putting the knife between her ribs, deep between them, then twisting it back and forth until she stopped screaming and gave him a rictus of welcome…
        Then, when she was almost up to him, the overfilled coffee cup balanced carefully in both her slim hands, Leland realized that someone was watching him. He turned slightly on his stool and looked at the middle-aged couple in the booth by the door. The man had a mouthful of food, but he was not chewing it. Cheeks bulging, he was watching Leland, watching the tight expression on Leland's face and the knife held up like a torch in the engineer's big right hand. In the second booth, the policeman had also stopped eating to watch Leland. He was frowning, as if he didn't quite know what to make of the knife.
        Leland put the knife down and slid off the stool just as the waitress arrived with the coffee. He fumbled for his wallet and threw two dollars on