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The Drafthouse - 1/4
🕑 Added 2023-12-06 14:00:10 +0000 UTC
Contains: Breast Expansion as Weight Gain, Stuffing
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The Drafthouse
I
As I waited for the light at 7th and Oak to turn green, one foot on the pavement to keep my bike upright, I fought to keep a goofy grin off my face. As a lifelong movie lover—I’d never be pretentious enough to call myself a cinephile—getting a manager job at The Drafthouse was a dream come true. Not that my old job was all that terrible, but I wasn’t taking Criminal Justice classes online because I wanted to still be shift managing a sports bar when I hit 30. Of course, there’s always a chance a gaggle of neckbeards pedantically debating the merits of Zack Snyder will be every bit as obnoxious as a herd of dudebros yelling at sportsball. Still, at least I won’t have to box up takeout orders for delivery apps without getting tipped.
I locked my bike to the rack between sets of strip mall buildings and walked around to the front entrance. From outside, The Drafthouse looked like any other multiplex. It had a little more vintage flair than your typical chain, with dozens of small bulbs spelling out its name and an old-school marquee with the big letters someone had to change by hand. I was pretty sure changing that sign wasn’t in my purview, but I planned on volunteering to do it at least once.
The bold-patterned carpet in the lobby led to ticket counters on the right and the restaurant entrance on the left. The restaurant was decorated to vaguely resemble Rick’s Cafe, complete with framed photos of Bogie and Bergman. It was one of my go-to places to take a first date, with cozy booths and a beer garden with outdoor seating when the weather is nice. The restaurant would be my domain in this new job, so I walked in and spotted Ivy, the floor manager, stacking glasses behind the bar.
Ivy’s straight blonde hair hung halfway down her back, and her bright blue eyes sparkled like she had a secret joke she wasn’t telling. We’d met during my interview with the manager, Greg. She was friendly and sarcastic. She wasn’t the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but I would have swiped right if she wasn’t sort of my boss.
She resembled a young Elisha Cuthbert, albeit one who’d never heard the word diet. I’m not shallow about things like that—insert cliche phrase here—but Ivy had some serious hips, and I could see the outline of her soft belly against her black vest. That said, she also had enough “up top” to more than make up for any extra poundage below.
That’s no way to think of a coworker. One with seniority over me at that. I was going to have to watch myself. The last thing I needed was to get called into Greg’s office on my first day for sexual harassment.
Ivy showed me two rows of slightly crooked but perfectly white teeth. “Mitchell, hey! Let me finish up real quick, and I’ll run you through everything.” She stacked the last glass and grabbed a handful of pretzels from a bowl on the bar.
“Sounds good.”
I followed Ivy to Greg’s office, where she pulled a box of shirts from a closet. Walking behind her, I noticed the extra weight she carried gave her an impressive behind. I imagined myself grabbing “that ass” and then filled my head with John Carpenter scenes to clear my head. She handed me a black polo with the theater’s logo embroidered on the breast, eyeing me up and down. She was half a head shorter than me, but most women are shorter than me.
“You look like you wear a large.”
I took the shirt, nodding.
“Of course, as management, you can wear whatever. Something formal-ish and black and white, though.”
I recognized the branded polo she’d handed me as the same style the lower-level employees wore. Following her own advice, Ivy wore a black vest over a white blouse. Both the vest and the shirt beneath were pulled snug by Ivy’s impressive bosom. I shook off my dirty thoughts and made a mental note to bring a shirt and tie tomorrow. And maybe go shopping on my day off.
Ivy gave me the “backstage” tour, chattering away. “Ideally, we would have had the old food manager train you, but Karl didn’t really give us much notice, so you get me.”
We walked through the lobby and down the concourse.
“You said you come here a lot, so you probably know all the highlights. Ticket counters, the restaurant… auditoriums down here. Bathrooms, of course. And in here…” She led me past the family bathroom and through a staging room. “Is where the magic happens.”
We stood in a commercial kitchen. It was half again as big as the one at my last job. It was still over an hour before the first showings, so things weren’t too busy in the kitchen. A youngish guy and girl were doing food prep, and a girl carried a bin of unpopped corn while a dark-skinned man, who I guessed to be in his mid-thirties, supervised. He was checking the temps on the fryers when Ivy and I walked in.
“Luis,” Ivy said, plucking a carrot spear from the accumulating pile, “This is Mitchell. He’s the new Karl.”
I shook Luis’ hand. The last time I brought a date to “dinner and a movie,” she said her chicken Kyiv was a little dry, and I thought about offering the chef some tips. But it seemed like an excellent way to make a bad first impression, so I kept my advice to myself.
“Fresh meat, eh?” Luis grinned, waggling his eyebrows.
Ivy rolled her eyes. “Kitchen humor, great. Don’t quit your day job, Luis.”
“Good one,” I said with a courtesy smile. “I’ll try to stay out of your way, but let me know if you need anything.”
Ivy continued her spiel as we exited the kitchen. I walked beside her so I wouldn’t be tempted to watch her fantastic ass. “Luis and Ramon switch off during the week,” She said, “But they usually both work weekends and Tuesdays.” She gestured at an employee door. “This leads upstairs to the projection rooms. You probably won’t need to do anything up there. It’s mostly automated except Wednesdays when Greg or I swap out the drives.”
She introduced me to my various coworkers as we went. Tina and Cooper worked the ticket counter—something else outside my purview—and covered minor custodial work. “The real cleaners come every morning at six,” Ivy explained.
We returned to the restaurant, where more of the “front of house” staff had filtered in and were hanging out at the bar. Ivy munched on more pretzels as she said, “Hey guys, meet the New Karl! Mitchell, this is Nat, Maddison, and Doug.”
They all looked somewhere in their mid-twenties. Nat was a chubby black girl with a perpetual grin. Maddison’s skinny arms were covered in tattoos, and she wore her red hair in a ponytail. Doug was a little taller than Ivy and had the look of a real “keyboard warrior,” but I could be wrong.
I shook hands all around. “I look forward to working with you all.”
II
Throughout my first shift, I tried to focus on the job rather than Ivy. Unfortunately, because she was training me, we interacted quite a bit. We were just finishing our “four o’clock rush”—the wave of customers coming through for the first show. The Drafthouse delivers food into the auditoriums at requested times, so there are often long lines of patrons ordering food and drinks just before a show. After that, it’s a steady stream of ferrying drinks, popcorn, and entrees to their appropriate seats. Doug and Nat did most of this while Maddison covered the few patrons in the beer garden, leaving me to watch the bar. The couple sitting in a corner booth was still perusing the menu, so I took advantage of the lull to study the point-of-sale system and memorize our signature cocktails.
Ivy walked up to lean against the bar. “How’s it going?” She tossed a handful of mixed nuts from the bowl into her mouth.
“Pretty good,” I said, “Seems like things run pretty smooth around here.”
“Yeah, the four o’clocks are like that. Wait ‘till the seven and eight PM shows; you might get to see Luis do his Gordon Ramsay impression.”
I grimaced, imagining the Latino screaming at his staff. Ivy burst out laughing, and it was all I could do not to watch her rounded curves jiggling.
“Oh man, you should see your face!”
I scowled.
“You’re too easy, Mitch.”
Nat came in the employee’s entrance carrying a plate. It held a partially disassembled burger and fries.
“Sent back?” Ivy asked.
“Yeah, they wanted it without cheese.”
“Did they ask for no cheese?” Ivy plucked a fry from the plate.
Nat shrugged, setting the plate on the bar. The three of us shared a long-suffering look well-known to service industry workers. “The customer is always right.”
“Did you tell the kitchen?” I asked.
“Yep,” Nat said.
“You could have swapped the burger and kept the fries,” I suggested.
“Nah, they’d be cold by then.” Ivy straightened the burger and took a bite.
Nat added, “They said they wanted the broccoli side. Besides, I knew this one wouldn’t go to waste.”
I briefly wondered what Nat meant, but the way Ivy was digging into the returned meal answered my unasked question. I guessed she didn’t get to be “pleasantly plump” by being shy about free food. There I go again with inappropriate thoughts. This job was turning out to be more dangerous than I expected.
***
The kitchen and restaurant shut down at eleven, an hour after the last shows started. While the servers and I wiped everything down and flipped the chairs onto the tables, the kitchen staff popped in every few minutes to drop off “the leftovers.”
“Do they always do that?” I asked Doug when a kitchen worker whose name I hadn’t learned set two big buckets of popcorn on the bar.
“Yeah, pretty much anything that won’t keep they bring out here.” Doug took a small handful of popcorn. “I think Karl always took whatever’s left out with the rest of the trash when he locked up.”
Maddison walked by with a tray of dirty dishes and mumbled, “There’s never any left.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing…” Maddison pushed through the door with her tray.
“What was that about?”
Doug shrugged and went back to stacking chairs.
Maddison and Doug clocked out, and the same kitchen worker brought a tray with three plates. One of wings, one of chicken tenders, and one overflowing with fries. I figured this was all the fried stuff they’d prepped that hadn’t sold. Nat stopped at the bar for a snack on her way out.
“Ooo, wings! You gonna get in on these, boss?”
I’m not a health nut, but I do try to steer clear of fried food. I shook my head.
“More for me, then,” she grinned, filling one hand with fries and heading to the door. “If you change your mind, you better be quick before Ivy comes back.”
I mulled over Nat’s parting remark as I started zeroing the register. Ivy hadn’t struck me as a hardass who’d have any issue with the employees snacking. Hell, I’d been watching her do it all day.
Cooper came in with another tray from the kitchen. It held several premade salads and another plate of fries. I nodded with what I hoped was nonchalance at the high school kid as he left. This was getting ridiculous. Surely some of this stuff could be refrigerated or frozen. And why was it my job to haul it all to the dumpster? There’s no way it would all get eaten; I’m pretty sure everyone had gone home but me and Ivy.
As if thinking of the curvy blonde summoned her, Ivy walked into the restaurant at that precise moment. She hopped up on a barstool and stuffed a handful of fries into her mouth. The pieces of the puzzle were coming together in my head.
“So, how was your first day?” She asked.
“It went well,” I said, “I’m looking forward to the busier nights, though. Will tomorrow be busy?”
“Nah, no new releases this week. Friday should pick up, though.”
I continued counting out the cash from the register and tried not to gawk as Ivy polished off the wings and started on the chicken tenders.
“Have you worked here long?” I asked.
“Almost four years.”
“You must like it.”
She shrugged, swallowing her food. “It’s reliable, and I like the schedule. It’s all night shifts except for the weekends, and even then, I can still sleep in.”
Ivy alternated mouthfuls of popcorn between the fried stuff. I couldn’t believe she was still going. After I bagged up the cash, we started chatting about movies, and she moved on to the salads and the last mountain of fries.
I’m a bit of a big eater because I stay so active, but half of what she’d already wolfed down would have been a big meal for me, and she was still eating. For all the things about Ivy that attracted me, I found her impressive appetite oddly appealing. She caught me watching her eat and smirked. “Something to say?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
She finished the leftovers, dumped the popcorn buckets into her mouth, then stacked the trays and climbed off the stool to carry them to the door. I could have sworn her belly was visibly bigger than when I started the shift; the lower buttons on her vest were straining even more than the ones over her impressive chest.
“I’ll lock up. See you tomorrow, Mitchell!”
I nodded and grabbed my keys, heading out to my bike. I put in one earbud and played a podcast to distract my mind from the memory of Ivy’s body.
