The Iron Waitress
1 - Happy New Year
Snow Allen wasn’t sure about taking up fitness. It was a new year and people often told her resolutions didn’t last.
You could lie in bed dreaming about running a multi-billion-dollar business, and maybe you could, one day, but your inner drive would sit there, like a sulking child, holding you back with a titanium shackle. That and the fact you were heavily lacking in the marketing skills department.
Maybe your dreams were smaller, nothing more than free-floating bubbles of
I want a new car, a new house, and the right woman, because all the other girls are the same. But fitness was different. It was a lifestyle, not a goal, a continuous process, not an object.
For Snow, an uncomplicated twenty-three-old from London, there was a lot to learn about fitness. Eating the right foods, the right portions; knowing what supplements to take and what exercises to avoid if you really wanted to get those summer abs.
In the gym, life was a different bowl of soup, one full of frightening ingredients that didn’t always carry the same taste for everyone.
Snow’s girlfriend, Jenny, had been the one to tell her that. She too had been on the fence about the whole thing. She herself had gone to the gym after finishing up a short college course on Technical Writing, and after beginning a new job at The Silver Pen in Camden. She told her it was difficult to bring yourself to work out every day, every couple of days, every
week. Especially when you had so many other things to worry about, like work, articles to be written before the end of the month, and that new Stranger Things season on Netflix.
Snow’s life hadn’t nearly been as busy. She was a waitress working for a little more than minimum wage. Never went to college. Oh no, Snow was as simple as they came: a woman with long, barn-red hair, brown-speckled cheeks, and apple-green eyes. A thin frame with skin that, while flawless, could use some colour, especially in the areas that mattered, like her midriff, or her shoulders which she often hid beneath a mink-trimmed sweater.
She was hiding them now, in that same blue sweater, sitting on the leather sofa of Jenny’s chequered suite and watching the time count down on her seventy-odd-inch flatscreen.
59… 58… 57….Foil balloons that read
2024 were pegged to the red carpet, while black-and-yellow bunting stretched across the walls, bearing the words
HAPPY NEW YEAR! at the centre, each character punched with a golden star.
The upbeat music was blaring, the people were clamouring as if this was some sort of concert, and a breeze billowed through the window wall which Lillia and Oliver had left open shortly before making out on the parapet pool table. Despite that, the ethyl-dampened air was hot, so very hot, and sweat began slipping down Snow's forehead, giving her an iridescent glimmer beneath the flickering LED lights.
“You alright, Snow?” Jenny was sitting next to her, her and that Hollywood-perfect smile. Those seawater-coloured eyes with their sexy green undertint, wide beneath her blonde, ponytailed hair. She wore a plaid shirt over a white vest.
“Yeah,” Snow said. “Why?”
“You look nervous.” Jenny took a sip of her Pink Tawn Cider, slid across the couch, and straddled her.
God, that vanilla perfume. Heaven….“What’s on ya mind, Gym Girl?” Jenny added in the singsong voice that always reminded her of Australians and made her smile.
“You.” Snow pulled her close. “And I told you to stop calling me that.” She kissed her passionately, eyes shut for a moment. When they opened again, she saw that the time had fallen to thirty seconds.
“If you were to go along with this,” Jenny added, “I’d find it… kinda hot.”
“Really now?” Snow said, her voice soothing without being patronising.
“Mhm,” she cooed. “You have no idea what a nice body does to a girl. Any ideas about what you wanna achieve?”
Snow giggled. “What do you mean?”
She leaned back, finished the remains of her drink, and turned a mild glare at her. “Y’know, you wanna look like Gal Gadot, a cheerleader, or an absolute brick shithouse?”
Snow wasn’t entirely sure what any of those meant, but she most certainly didn’t want to look like those roided-up
men with breasts she’d sometimes see on Insta****. They reminded her of cavewomen. “I could use some nice abs and maybe some solid arms so I won’t be dead after a long day of carrying orders around. You know how tiring that shit is?”
“No idea, tell me,” said Jenny.
“Very,” said Snow. “What starts as paperweight turns into bricks after the first couple of hours. Trust me, it’s nothing like writing an article.”
Jenny laughed at that. A nice sound straight from the heart.
Suddenly, the crowd in Jenny’s apartment started counting down.
“10!”
Jenny leaned in closer and grabbed Snow by the chin. “Some nice biceps to help clean up around here wouldn’t be too bad.”
“… 6!”
“But make the resolution,” she continued coquettishly. “And stick to it.”
“… 4!”
“You sure?” Snow smiled.
“Go on, Gym Girl, see how long it lasts,” Jenny said.
“… 2!”
“I’ll do it,” said Snow.
“… 1! Happy New Year!”
The crowd erupted in applause, shrill whistles, and confetti. The screen switched to show a live feed of Times Square in New York, where people gathered around, despite the ongoing rainstorm, waving flags of celebration in the air.
Without warning, Jenny pulled her into another kiss, pressing her C-cup breasts against hers. She emitted a sensual, low-pitched grunt of pleasure and grabbed Jenny by the neck, shoving her tongue inside. For a moment Snow imagined what it would be like to be, as Jenny had phrased it, built like a brick shithouse. She didn’t mind the idea of having a lot of muscle, but she did mind the side effects that would come if she were ever to achieve such a level of definition and size. Well, if she were to take steroids, at least. Deep voice? Body hair? Masculine face? Aggression? Not to mention all the health issues.
At the same time, she was no idiot; the idea that she, Snow Allen, could somehow bring herself to work out for more than two weeks was a bit of a stretch, never mind years, like those extreme bodybuilders that had to go through those effects.
She would never use steroids, she thought. Never.
Jenny broke the kiss. “Fuck, you’re making me hot,” she said tersely.
Snow didn’t want to admit it at first – getting horny in front of all these people was odd – but she felt a fire in her, something like swooning, and she agreed that she had been feeling the same way.
So Jenny took her back to her bedroom, and Snow listened to the distant fireworks crack across the night, each burst bringing blue-red spillikins of light that flitted through the ceiling-floor window, while they had hot, sweaty sex over the covers.
Snow thought about it all night long: this same situation, but with jacked arms and rippling abs instead.
