Fart Face - Ch. 2 (September 2024)

Minor edit: In the first chapter, I rewrote it so that Jenny didn't eat yet and instead burped on command to push away those two annoying fans. So this chapter starts with her first dish. 

The woman’s name was Elaine Hale. As expected, she was indeed from New York City. Jenny sometimes felt like her years of playing poker sharpened her observational skills in daily life. She could tell and notice things from a mile away, and discern things like…Sherlock Holmes perhaps.

            Jenny noticed Elaine kept eying her as she dug into her food and ate the whole time they were talking. Jenny knew something was up. Maybe she was a stuck-up New Yorker who didn’t like to see people eat with their mouths full. Or maybe Elaine was disgusted by how much Jenny was eating.

Well, tough luck, gal. This is the real me.

 Even if Elaine were to be stuck-up, Jenny wouldn’t mind. She was hella cute. Jenny could also tell that she was the type to daydream and want to unwind but was upheld by her job (Wall Street, ew, but nobody was perfect) and stupid standards. The east coast was a lot like that. It’s why Jenny left. Her soul and mind were more attuned to places like Seattle and San Diego, where a girl could chill out.

            “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Jenny said, “but I can totally see now why you’re afraid to get serious about poker.”

            Elaine pouted. “Yeah…it’s bad. It’s definitely one of those things I just don’t tell anybody about but when it comes up people are like ‘oh my God you really play?’.”

            “Much more of a west coast scene really.”

            “Yeah…”

            “Ever thought of moving out? I mean. Doesn’t have to be west coast but you’re clearly unhappy with your job.”

            “It’s high-paying though. I’m a project manager. The fact that I can afford an apartment in the city says something, you know?”

            “I see. Well. I’m sure you can figure something out.” Jenny sensed their conversation was dying, and she fought for a way to introduce the idea of playing a game with her. But for some reason she couldn’t shake this feeling that something was on Elaine’s mind.

            When a waiter came by to pick up Jenny’s empty plate, she said, “Are you gonna have anything? I’m getting seconds.”

            “Seconds?” Elaine tilted her head a bit and grinned. “You’re a pretty big eater…”

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s what I liked about you. You just did your thing and didn’t care.”

            “Oh, I did care in the very beginning. People who seem like they don’t care used to care at one point. That’s my belief anyway.”

            “How do you…I mean…”

            Jenny raised a brow. She couldn’t figure out where this was going.

            “You know how you have IBS right? How do you eat so much with IBS?”

            Jenny wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It came off as out of left-field and a bit personal, if not a bit TMI for the average person to bring up to someone you just met. Then again, fans were…a weird bunch, even if they seemed normal on a surface level.

            “I don’t really care, to be honest. I do take some medication to curb it but…I don’t let it stop me from enjoying good food.”

            Elaine chuckled nervously. “And I guess it comes in handy during your tournaments…”

            Jenny blanked for a second. “What do you mean?”

            “Well. You know. They don’t call you the Stinker for no reason now, right?”

            Jenny narrowed her eyes.

So that’s what this is about.

“Alright, who sent you?”

            Elaine appeared shocked and confused. “Uhhh what?”

            “You know what. Are you from TMZ? They wanna find out if I’m intentionally distracting players, don’t they?”

            “N-no, no! That’s not what I mean!” Elaine waved her hands defensively. “I don’t work for anyone! I swear!”

            Jenny stared her down. She desperately wished this was a true fan of hers and not some ploy by anybody else to get too close to her and record her saying something stupid, something that would be posted online out of context. Elaine visibly shivered with nervousness. She scooted her seat away and said, “I-I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.”

            Jenny almost let her walk away before she barked, “Wait. Come back. I’m sorry.”

            Elaine turned around and hesitantly approached her. “The last thing I want is to upset uh…my role model.”

            “Come on. Let’s get some food. The chicken parmesan is amazing.”

            “O-okay!”

            They went to the buffet tables together. Elaine didn’t appear the deceptive type at all. She dressed to the nines in fancy clothing but her personality was…quite meek actually. Jenny had a hard time imagining her as a project manager. The last thing she also wanted was to piss off her first female fan and run into some article online where a “mysterious source” stated how Jenny was a bitch to her at the Grand Casino. Then again, was that Jenny bowing down to the whims of social media?

            Elaine was too damn attractive in numerous ways. She had this “classical” beauty about her but was also cute in an endearing way that tapped into Jenny’s need to overpower her, dominate her. Jenny couldn’t stop eying her and thinking about looming over and making her come out of her shell. She wanted to keep the conversation going but now also had her guard up. Couldn’t trust anyone these days.

            Elaine filled her plate with food. It was a mishmash like how Jenny filled her plate – no theme going on other than lots and lots of food.

            “I see somebody's hungry,” Jenny said.

            Elaine beamed. “My guilty pleasure is casino buffets. I can never eat like this in front of anyone else. I’m sure you won’t mind, right?”

            “Not at all. When you say anyone else…”

            “Family. Friends. The usual mother griping about how you’re thirty-two, unmarried, without kids, and looking too heavy. You know?”

            Jenny almost dropped her fork. “You’re thirty-TWO?”

            “Yes, why?”

            “My god. You look…twenty-eight at least.”

            “Oh, thank you. I wash my face with Cetaphil every morning. Simple really.”

            Jenny instinctively straightened her back. She had a habit of slouching.

            They ate in silence for a few seconds until Elaine said, “The reason I mentioned your other nickname earlier…I just find it cool that a woman isn’t ashamed about that stuff. You know. Farting. Burping. And clearly eating a lot.”

            “Yeah. We do it just like the rest of them.”

            “Sometimes I think what the world would be like if women weren’t held to that double-standard. There was a guy I used to work with who just belched in the office and everyone laughed or ignored it. Now imagined if I did that? I one time waited until everyone left the room to finally burp out loud. It’s like…we literally suffer holding it in.”

            She’s really sticking to this gas thing, isn’t she?

 Jenny got suspicious again but still rolled with it.

Elaine devoured her food. She did it noisily – slurping her noodles and talking with her mouth full and burping when she needed to. Jenny herself felt a little embarrassed to be with her, if only for a split second.

“You’re right, that chicken parmesan was delicious.”

“Sure was.”

Elaine sat there quietly for a moment. She then dabbed her mouth with the napkin and said, “I think it’s actually time for me to go—"

“Say…I have a deck on me,” Jenny interjected, heartbeat racing. “Right now, actually. Before I go, do you want me to teach you some pointers?”

Elaine’s eyes widened with glee. “Wait. Like…here? Now?”

“Yeah.” Jenny reached into her bag and brought out a faded old deck – the first she ever bought some twenty years ago at a toy store. The edges of a lot of cards were chipped or nicked. A split second before she shuffled the deck, Elaine blurted, “Teach me how to shuffle…Ms. Shufflebottom! Did you ever get jokes about that last name?”

“All the damn time.”

The waiter cleared their last plates and the table was now wide open for a game. Jenny removed the jokers and deftly shuffled the cards in the blink of an eye. Elaine did a double-take and laughed. “Wow! That was really fast. Can you do it again but slower?”

They spent some time showing Elaine how to shuffle properly. The cards flipped out through Elaine’s long delicate fingers and her face went red as she laughed and picked them up.

God, this girl is endearing.  

“It feels impossible at first,” Jenny said, “but…you get it eventually. I got good at it because I kept that deck on me almost all the time and used it like a stress toy. I just fidgeted with it all the time.”

When they were ready to play, Jenny dealt the cards and then froze for a moment. “What are we betting?”

Elaine hummed to herself for a moment thinking…then held up a finger indicating to wait a moment. Jenny stared with a dumbfounded look as Elaine stacked a bunch of plates from the buffet line, drawing some attention from curious onlookers. None of them bothered to ask though even as she carried a tower of empty plates to their table.

“Uhhhh what?” Jenny said, half-chuckling.

Elaine smiled thinly as she sat back down. She said, “We’re both big eaters, right? Well, our chips will be these empty plates of food. Winner eats all their plates of food. Loser picks up the tab.”