Chapter 1 - Gloriana maria ramirez

Driving an ice cream truck is not easy work. You have to spend the whole day being chased down by snot-nosed kids as they yell and throw sticky money at you in exchange for ice pops shaped like cartoon characters. On top of that, you're trapped inside of a stuffy prison on wheels, sweating in the blistering heat like a polar bear in Africa. To put it bluntly, the job sucks. However, I can't say that my temporary employment has been a total waste these last few months. This crappy job does have its benefits. I don't get dental, a retirement plan or anything useful like that, but I do get to make a special stop everyday along my route. And that stop places me right in front of the house of Gloriana Maria Ramirez.

Gloriana was a big deviation from my usual clientele. For one, she was tall enough get on a majority of the rides at Disneyland and old enough to experience the best part of Disneyland; the public day drinking. She was also unbelievably gorgeous. Long black hair, perfect skin, curves in all the right places. I used to dream about women like her, never believing I'd ever see one in real life. But there she was, sunbathing on a towel on her front lawn in nothing more than a bikini and sunglasses.

As I pulled to a stop that first day, I was swarmed by a mob of kids. I handed out creamsicles, firecrackers, choco tacos; all while keeping my eyes on here. I think I gave some kids the wrong order, but I didn't care. All I cared about was the mythical being laid out before me. As the crowd died down, I planned to pull off before seeing her rise up from her place on the grass. She started walking towards me, strutting like a supermodel with an angelic glide that saw her breasts bounce and hips roll hypnotically. I had to crouch down some to hide the physical manifestation of my enjoyment as I tried to act as nonchalant as possible, wiping down the counter and checking the money jar.

"Hola, Mr. Ice Cream Man", she said as she finally reached my window. I couldn't tell if the sweat on my forehead was from the weather or my nervousness, but there was surely a lot of it dripping down my face. "Can I have a small vanilla cone with sprinkles? The rainbow kind?"

"Um, sure. Coming right up", I said after clearing my throat a bit. While I filled up the little sugar cone, I felt completely to say something to her, so I tried to strike up a conversation with some basic small talk. That's how I learned her name, that we were the same age, that she just moved back home after quitting as a dancer in the city, and that she was single and unemployed. I told her my name (Carlos), that I had just graduated from business school and I that driving my brother's ice cream truck for him while he recovered from an injury. We talked for about 20 minutes while she licked up her vanilla cone with sprinkles. Her father called her in from the porch for dinner as the sun began to set behind us. She asked how much she owed me for the cone and I told her it was on the house. She thanked me and made her way inside as I started up the car with a smile on my face.

Everyday, at the same time, I would meet up with her again. She would order the same thing as we talked about each other's days and lives. It really became the highlight of my trips. She was a fun person to talk to and we became really good friends. For giving me some semblance of happiness in my miserable days behind the wheel and counter, I refused to take her money, despite her constant insistence. After about a week, she stopped offering and it was around this time that her orders starting changing.

As the days turned into weeks, I noticed that she finished her small ice cream a lot faster than before. I think she started noticing too, since shortly after, she started ordering a medium. I didn't think much of it, assuming that she just moved up a size since she didn't have to worry about paying for a larger cone. But by the end of the first month, I saw some pretty distinct changes in her figure.

She wasn't fat by any means, but the dancer's body she had when I met her was quickly disappearing. The flat, toned middle I had seen that first day was noticeably softer. The slight view of abs she had was being covered up by a thin layer of flab as her stomach began to muffin over the waistband of her shorts a little with each passing day. Said shorts also looked a little tighter as her butt and thighs got a little thicker underneath, not hanging quite as loose as they had in earlier weeks.

None of this took away from her beauty though. If anything, it enhanced it. With each lick of ice cream, she grew even more breathtaking. It wasn't just the ice cream. She regularly told me that she spent most of her time on the couch stuffing her face with junk food, only really coming out to talk to me. With dance no longer being a factor in her life, it was clear that she was letting herself go a bit. She didn't work out, she didn't count calories, she didn't worry about keeping up appearances (she stopped wearing makeup since she rarely left the house and would often come out in the same clothes two-three days in a row). She was clearly going down an unhealthy path that was probably being brought on by some form of depression, but she seemed fine to me, so I didn't want to pry and risk offending her. So I kept my mouth shut and her mouth full as a medium cone quickly turned to a large; then a large with a chipwich.