by Edward Lee
Chief Kinion pulled over and before he could even bring the Luntville police cruiser to a full and proper stop, he threw up out the window in one large, pulsing basso-profundo gust after another. Up it all came, and then out in hot splatters: buttered home fries and sweet onions, a couple cups of java, and three full plates of barbequed hamhocks from Miss June’s Diner for $1.99 a plate.
««—»»
Some time later, Kinion and Hays branched off through Cotter’s Field. Problem was, that old rummie Tritt Tuckton didn’t say where this ravine was exactly, and the Chief, especially after upchucking like a Navy bilge pump, wasn’t too keen on spending the rest of his watch tramping his 260-pound caboose through this soybean field. But then—
“Hey, Chief, over here!” Hays called out some fifty yards off. “I’se found it, and…”
Kinion got on the hump, his size 13s crunching through the ankle-high rows. Looked like some kind of irrigation ditch before the woodline. But Hays had just turned after his announcement, and his face had turned to blanched porridge.
“What the hail’s wrong with you, boy?” Chief Kinion inquired, huffing up. “Look like you seen a ghost.”
“Aw, shee-it. Tritt Tuckton weren’t joshin’ us, Chief. He said there were something awful in that there ditch, and he were right.”
“What, what is it?” Kinion sniped. “I’m supposed to guess?”
Pale-faced, PFC Hays held up a feeble hand. “All’s I can say, Chief, is it’s a dag good thang you already blew chow. Wish I had, though, fer shore…”
And with that, the younger officer bent over, hands on knees, and began to loudly vomit.
Jesus Chrast! What are we, the Puke Patrol? Chief Kinion testily wondered. He didn’t wonder long, however—he didn’t have to. The stench was hitting him already, and then he ventured up and looked into the ravine…
— | — | —
Part 3
Back in the car, Straker still felt sick, remembering the distinctive sound of the two-by-four. “How did he do it? You’re telling me that was part of the ‘work’?”
“It was, Captain,” Melinda asserted behind the wheel.
Straker exclaimed, “But that goddamn two-by-four was real! I held it in my hand! I guarantee you, this guy Goon? You don’t have to worry about him anymore because he’s dead!”
“He’s not dead, Captain,” she coolly replied. “He’s not even hurt.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t care how big or tough a guy is, no one can take a chop to the head that hard without either dying or winding up in the emergency room with a fractured skull and subdural hematoma.”
“That’s just one aspect of Goon’s uniqueness. There are…quite a few others,” she said. “But I’m gonna help you get him. So help me God, I’m going to see Goon taken down and see to it that he spends the rest of his life in prison.”
This was simply too much to calculate. Ringrats. Wrestlers. Works and cards and “grapplers.” This wasn’t Straker’s world. But, evidently, it was part of hers.
“You’re really into this stuff, aren’t you?” he dared ask.
“So what if I am? My indoctrination into the world of ringrats and wrestlers has given me a closer look at the phenomenon. So, yes, Captain Straker. I guess I am into it a little.”
Straker fudged. There was too much he couldn’t reckon. “So where are we going now?”
She waved a finger like a teacher in class. “There are three ways a ringrat snags a grappler. One, you wait by the back exit door and hope somebody likes the way you look when they walk out to their cars. Two, you blow the security guard to get inside—”
Straker’s cognizance snapped to attention. Just hearing her say the word—blow—roused his senses. “Have you done that? Have you blown security guards to get inside?”
“And, three,” she didn’t answer. “You go to the nearest bar and you wait. Most grapplers drink heavy. You wait there, see who shows up, and try to make your mark. An industrious ringrat can snag a grappler any night she wants.”
“Yeah, yeah, but just answer my question. Have you blown security guards in order to gain access to the locker room?”
“What difference does it make to you?” she sniped back.
“Well, let’s just say I’m curious.”
“Sounds to me like you’re jealous.”
“Don’t be ridic—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “I’ve blown security guards to gain access to the locker room. I’ve done a lot of things, Captain. I do whatever it takes for a story and, besides, I have needs to be taken care of too.”
“I don’t think any story calls for the kind of moral and sexual negligence that you’re talking about, Ms. Pierce.”
“That’s not a surprising comment, Captain Straker. Coming from a guy who doesn’t give a shit about how vigorously criminals are allowed to victimize the innocents of this world.”
“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” he shot back.
“No, it’s not. Some cops are willing to go the extra mile, and—” She snapped her gaze right to his face. “—some cops aren’t.”
He wasn’t going to argue. She was just like any other woman he’d ever known—she was nuts. It didn’t matter that she was more beautiful than anyone he’d ever seen in his life. She’s nuts, he thought. She’s out of control.
“So, what? We’re going to some bar now, in hopes to meet wrestlers?”
“Don’t talk to me anymore,” she said.
“Gimme a break.”
“Just leave me alone. And I’m ashamed to say this, but…I was beginning to like you.”
That perked him right up. “Oh, yeah?”
“But not anymore. You’re just like all male cops. All you give a shit about is your fucking pension. Don’t make waves, oh no. Don’t risk engaging in alternative protocol in order to get the job done. Just slide along nice and safe.”
“Alternative protocol, huh?” he objected. “You’re forgetting one thing. Cops are bound to legalities. What you call alternative protocol a judge would call sexual malfeasance. I wonder what your editor thinks about spending the paper’s money to shack up and party with wrestlers when you ‘have needs to be taken care of’.”
“Yeah?” She laughed sardonically as she pulled into a parking lot peppered with cars. “Then I guess I’ll just have to tell your deputy chief, as well as everyone else at your headquarters, that you beat off three times in my motel room.”
Straker’s face turned red in a blink. His rage steamed along with his embarrassment. “You wouldn’t dare—”
Melinda Pierce shrugged. “And that’s a case in point. You won’t go that extra mile. You won’t take a chance to get the job done. You’d rather shirk away and beat off than take a crack at the real thing.”
What did that mean? Straker’s eyes bloomed; his entire face bloomed at the contemplation. Was she just being metaphorical, or did she mean that he actually stood a chance at—
“Wait a sec,” he bid. “Let’s talk about this.”
But already she’d parked the car, got out, and slammed the door. Straker hustled after her. Up ahead a gaudy neon sign loomed over a roadhouse tavern: BIG JUD’S. Her high heels snapped across the gravel. By the time Straker had caught up, she’d already entered the bar.
Inside, he saw that she was right; this dump of a tavern was populated by many of the wrestlers he’d seen on tonight’s card, only now they’d shed their tights and robes for street clothes. In addition, many of the same ringrats he’d seen loitering about the rail were here too, swooning over the grapplers, trying to edge their way closer. Two brunettes fawned over Dashing Dick Dude, feeling his biceps in awe. A hot redhead looked ga-ga-eyed at The Maniac, who chugged daiquiris one after another. And at a corner booth, Slick Dare sat with five rats, hamming it up and plying them with drinks.
Melinda stepped up to the bar, ordered a Coke. When Straker stepped up beside her, she grimaced and said, “You still here?”
“Listen,
let’s talk.”
“I don’t work with wimps,” she retorted. “Go call a cab, go home. I’ll do the job myself. Shit, I thought your people were going to assign me to a professional, not a candyass.”
“I am not a candyass,” Straker objected. “I have the highest conviction rate of anyone in the state police.”
“Give yourself a medal. Pay phone’s over there. Call a cab and get out of here. Need a quarter?”
What a hardass! This girl’s breaking my chops like there’s no tomorrow! “All right, listen—”
“You’re still here?”
Straker grit his teeth. “I’ve been thinking about this—” and he had, hadn’t he? And it was true; he was being the perfect hypocrite, disparaging her for what she referred to as “alternative protocols” when he’d done the self-same thing just this morning with Traci Wilcox, the chicken lady.
Laughter exploded from Dare’s table. “I’m a licensed pilot!” he bragged. “Woo!” He drained a gin and tonic in one gulp. “I own six gyms in North Carolina! Woo!” He flexed his pecs. “I am stylin’ and profilin’! I’m the biggest and the best! Woo!”
What a dick, Straker thought. And she thinks he’s hot?
Over his other shoulder, though, he could see the Fabulous Ghoula and Terri Strong—bitter enemies an hour ago—trading jokes over drinks. Then he looked at Melinda again, the flawless feminine line rising from her heels to her neck, the perfect, tanned legs jutting from the denim skirt, the white-blond hair and the world-class bosom.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
She smirked through a sideglance. “You haven’t got the nuts.”
“Watch me.”
Straker steeled himself, took a deep breath, and parted. He approached Ghoula’s table and before he was even halfway there, the blob-like, rat-haired woman looked up and shot a gapped grin.
“Sweetcakes!” she exclaimed. “I knew you’d come lookin’ for me!”
Straker sat down at the table, winked at her. “I’ve still got that package for you, Ms. Ghoula. What do you say we go back to your motel and open it together?”
««—»»
Melinda couldn’t help but smile. That poor sucker, he’s in love with me. She watched amused as Captain Straker snagged his mark and eventually left the bar with the Fabulous Ghoula on his arm. But Melinda had some snagging to do herself, and time was wasting. Be industrious, she thought. Dare was sitting over there with a veritable harem, but Melinda knew her own looks blew them all away. She finished her Coke, then traipsed over. The other rats at the table glared at her.
“Get out of here, bitch,” one flat-chested girl remarked. “Can’t you see this table’s full?”
“Too bad your bra’s not,” Melinda replied.
“Buzz off, Blondie!” barked a brunette with way too much eyeliner.
“Is that mascara, or did somebody punch you in the eye?”
“Fuck you!”
Melinda ignored them. She leveled her gaze at Dare. “Hey. Wonder Boy. You gonna hang out in this dog pound all night, or are you gonna jump some real bones?”
Dare only stared at her, his gaze locked on her haltered breasts, her tight waist, her knock-out hips and Penthouse legs.
Melinda, without hesitation, smoothly removed the halter. “How’d you like to pin these to the fuckin’ mat?” she said.
That was all it took. Dare dropped a c-note on the bar, and stood up. “I only have one thing to say about that, baby.”
Melinda ran her hands up, cupped the melon-tight 38Ds. “Yeah, Wonder Boy? And what’s that?”
Dare shot his cuffs, did a quick pec-flex, then hauled back and shouted, “Woooooo!”
««—»»
Oh, for Christ’s sake, Melinda thought. Hurry up and come!
Alternative protocols or not, she was really getting sick of this. Right now, she lay naked and squashed under the 243-pound frame of The Wonder Boy Slick Dare, and he was humping as though she were nothing more animate than a watermelon with a hole in it. At least if the action was good, she might be able to get into it, but even the roughest of them—like Fantastic Freddie Faylor and Kevin the Druid—bored her to tears. The closest she’d gotten so far was a few weeks ago, when Brian Orndorf and Paul Blair had play-raped her on Orndorf’s kangaroo-skin throw rug. They’d let her fight back a little, and she’d gotten to take some shots, but all it left her with in the end was an unfulfilled spark between her legs.
But after hauling the ashes of close to thirty of these well-muscled morons in the last month, she felt she deserved at least one orgasm for her trouble. Men are all a bunch of pussies, she dismissed. Won’t try anything knew ‘cos it might bruise their macho egos.
When they’d first gotten back to the HoJo room, Dare’s roomie, Slapjack Culligan, was pouring drinks. “Hey, Cullie, look at the prize I found,” Dare bragged, dragging off a black t-shirt bearing a silver stallion. Culligan, in a leather vest, chaps, and Texas shitkicker boots, gave a whistle. Melinda nodded a cordial hello, then winced when Dare climbed out of his jeans, sporting a limp penis drooping like a dead lizard, a big dead lizard. It was bigger limp than most men were hard. Then he downed a gin and tonic like a shot, poured another, and did it again. Jesus, Melinda thought. Drink much?
“Get outa them panties, hon. Show the boys what you got.”
Melinda shrugged, did it, and flung the panties on the bed. Slick Dare gaped at her obvious lack of pubic hair, then Slapjack chuckled and commented in his hick Texas drawl, “Ain’t you heard the rule, honey? No hair, no Dare.”
“Well,” Dare jumped in, “I usually dig a plot of hair that’d knock your Aunt Connie’s socks off, but—Woooo!—this piece of fuck pie is so hot, the Wonder Boy can make an exception.”
Piece of fuck pie, Melinda thought. We’ll see about that. She assumed this Slapjack cracker would be part of the ride, but that was no big deal. Threesomes, foursomes, roomsomes—she didn’t care so long as she got what she wanted. It would be nice, though, for some diversity tonight, and just as she’d thought it—What the hell?—she turned at the sound of bedsprings.
Slick Dare was jumping up and down on the bed, and he was—
Oh for Christ’s sake!
—he was wearing Melinda’s red panties.
A ludicrous sight if there ever was one: big, tan, muscled, and blond, here was Slick Dare the Wonder Boy, the adopted son of a rich midwest doctor, jumping up and down on HoJo mattress wearing women’s underwear. The half-hard dick poked out above the waistband—like a sea slug or something—and Dare, with each trampoline-like jump shouted: “Wooo! Wooo! Wooo!”
Melinda could only stare in disbelief. This was not the kind of diversity she had in mind. “He gets a little silly after he drinks,” Slapjack whispered. “Have fun.” Then he left.
««—»»
And now, later…
Dare’s penis fairly burrowed into her. Nine and a half inches; the asshole had actually put a ruler to it as proof. It was big, all right, but Melinda was an accommodating gal. He was fucking her nearly to sleep, the motel bedsprings squeaking annoyingly, his groin slapping. Every so often, his cock would slip out and she’d have to reach down and guide it back in. It felt like an oiled Italian sausage. A half hour later the scene hadn’t changed. These assholes would drink all night, so it took them forever to come. Dare humped and humped and humped, steady as a piston in an engine cylinder and about as exciting as a bowl of unflavored yogurt.
Eventually her thoughts drifted to Captain Straker. I hope he’s having more fun than me…
««—»»
“That’s it, sweetcakes! Tongue that great big honey-hole for Ghoula! Lick that clit like a lollipop!”
The physical act of the Fabulous Ghoula sitting on Straker’s face made him feel as though his entire head were being engulfed by some huge, pallid sea slug. He lay stiff on the motel bed, paralyzed, his eyes shock-wide as the amorphous female grappler kept the nightmare pubis pressed snug to his face. Every so often, she’d lean
forward in her ecstasy and block Straker’s nostrils, whereupon he’d helplessly flop, squirm, and cringe until she got the message that he was close to smothering. Looking up from this vantage point showed him a mountain range of ascending white blubber, with two foot-long avalanches that were breasts. A few wire-like hairs sprouted from pores on nipples that looked like stepped-on persimmons. Worse than this vision, though, was the tactility of the entire scenario. Straker’s tongue did its best to oblige her wishes, often losing its bearings in a vaginal opening that could only be described as a morass. It sat plopped on his face like the mouth of a great sucker fish, constricting once in a while, and drenching his chin, neck, even his upper chest with a nefarious sheen. Blubber settled on either cheek, a hot vice of pocked lard, and sometimes the weight of her inchoate buttocks threatened to crush his ribcage like a taco shell and separate his head from his shoulders.
Please, God. Just let me die…
The pancake breasts and ground-pork majora of the chicken lady seemed like as beautiful as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model compared to this. A clitoris the size of an acorn hardened against his tongue, beyond which occasional careless delvings revealed clusters of fibrotic cysts.
“Yeah, sweetcakes! You are one hot tongue-fucker!”
Straker did not appreciate the compliment. He gasped in momentary relief, though, when she suddenly inclined herself off his face. At first he thought she was done, but then a deeper horror assailed him when he noticed that she was merely traversing her position. “Let’s take a drive down Route 69!”
Let’s not, Straker thought. Now her feedbag buttocks settled monstrously on his face, his nose pressed into a rank abyss. “Let me give ya some workin’ room back there, huh?” she was kind enough to offer, and with both hands reached back and parted the gelatinous rump. Let me die, he thought again. But that would be the easy way out. The bottom of her vulva drooped now, a pair of rooster wattles, and the highest scope of his vision showed him the collided moons of her sagging, white Sasquatch caboose, highlighted by tiny red butt-pimples you could use to play connect-the-dots. But this was a vision of heaven when compared to that opened crevice of ass-crack. Straker imagined Bosch-like visions of hell, beaked demons shouldering from the puckered rictus to pull off strips of his living flesh and clip off extremities like carrot-ends. Yes, this woman’s ass-crack was truly a vision of hell. Gilles de Rais would flee in horror. Even Satan himself would wince. That pitlike pink-brown starburst of an anus. Had Straker ever seen anything scarier in his life?