Chapter 14: I Fell Into a Burning Ring of Fire...

The three of them — Ethan, Chase, and Eulalie — settled in comfortably. Ethan and Eulalie sharing his bedroom; Chase in the other one.

Eulalie cheerfully cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Or, breakfast, dinner, and supper, as she called it. Some evenings, Rémy came by to cook.

Eulalie saw no reason to modify her casual attitude toward clothes — many mornings she came out of the shower wearing only panties or a thong. She smiled sweetly, “We live casual down here in the bayou, Mr. Jones.”

“So I see.”

Then she thought a moment, “Casually. We live casually.” It seemed important not to appear ignorant in front of Ethan and Chase.

But mostly, Eulalie listened to the two men talk. They lived in different universes — a rancher/politician and a conman — but each had curiosity, intelligence, and a general appreciation of life.

More than once, Eulalie thought: Fuck, this is a better education than Marie gave me.

It was time.

It was still dark — around 4 in the morning — when Rémy stopped at the safe-house to pick Ethan up for their trip to Wyoming. Eulalie, stark naked, kissed Ethan for a long time.

It was a deep and greedy kiss that neither one seemed willing to end. Questions were asked and answered, needs and proclivities revisited.

Rémy and Chase stood by, watching impassively.

Eulalie waved from the deck as the Jon boat puttered away. She turned and looked at Chase speculatively.

Rémy and Ethan Dalton drove — with one overnight stop in Omaha— the 1500 miles from Sausalito to Rapid City. In Omaha, Rémy used a different ID to rent a room with two beds.

The Chevy Caprice delivered as comfortable a ride as Ethan had ever experienced. As they headed north and west to Rapid, Rémy was surprised at how calm Ethan seemed. Maybe being in the Senate prepared you for the unexpected. Or maybe the man was simply tranquil by nature. Hard to tell.

In any case, for a guy who was going to surrender to a mortal enemy, Ethan wasn’t letting anyone see him sweat.

Kate was delighted with Ladies Night. She estimated that as many as eight out of ten customers were first-timers. Most of them were in their twenties and thirties, but there were some older women as well. Coming to check out what their husbands, boyfriends, brothers, sons were getting up to.

Naturally, Ladies Night had become the talk of Sausalito High and John Lee Hooker. Most of the speculation centered around the pricing structure. Would Miss Broussard be charging more for pussy eating? Less? The same?

The fact that almost none of the students had even questioned whether there would be oral sex during Ladies Night, underscored just how deeply the Miss Kitty’s practices had permeated the schools’ — and the town’s — psyches.

While some 9th-grade girls had done a little light experimenting with another girl — necking and feeling each other up — eating pussy simply wasn’t yet as common as sucking cock.

And most, but not all, students were pretty much in agreement that $40 was a fair price for a blowjob. As LouLou Melancon told her 9th-grade girlfriends, “I mean they do swallow.”

Janie Cormier snorted, “We all swallow. And don’t charge no forty bucks neither.”

“Yeah, but if you’re an old man and gotta pay for it, forty dollars isn’t bad.”

Heads nodded in agreement. Blowjobs were a frequent topic of discussion in middle school. Swallowing was a given. And actually being paid for it? Several little girls had made solemn vows to themselves that they’d be knocking on Miss Broussard’s door when they were old enough.

By their senior year in high school, some girls were even talking with their mothers about working at Miss Kitty’s. The usual response was, “When you’re 21. Or have a good ID. But don’t tell your father, not yet.”

Most mother-daughter conversations didn’t even mention the BJ Room. A $40 blowjob was simply a given, had been for years. Everyone knew that all of the dancers — each and every one — earned a little extra spending money in the back. You danced at Miss Kitty’s, you sucked cock. That was simply a given.

Jolene Horton was elated at how well the Monday night ladies tipped as she delivered trays of drinks to the tables. And they were mostly real drinks, mixed drinks, not just cans of beer.

She smiled, smiled, smiled as ones and an occasional five were slid under her two garters. When a hand strayed toward her pink thong, she would just wink at the woman, encouraging her.

By ten that night, she had followed Gigi’s suggestion and gone full pussy-wedge. The front of her thong was now as thin as a fishing line and Jolene felt delicious — more naked than naked.

As the night wore on, the noise level kept amping up, laughter grew more raucous, and the pole dancers more daring. By 11, trips to the BJ Room were picking up steam. Usually when a dancer reached for a customer’s hand, her table-mates grinned and cheered her on.

Kate was pleasantly surprised to see a few 40 and 50-year old women, heads held high, make the trip, winding through tables of laughing customers.

Eulalie showed up around midnight and was pleased at the tenor of the party. She was sitting at the bar sipping a mojito when Jolene rushed up, breathless, “I’m working the pole Saturday night! Kate tole me three boys already been asking about blowjobs.”

Eulalie smiled at the petite, excited woman. Her cheeks and chest were flushed, her nipples erect through the lacy bra. And that wedge.

“That’s great, Jolene. Tips should be through the roof.”

“I know! And Gigi’s gonna teach me how to eat pussy.” She frowned, “I gotta remember to ask Kate if I can dance at the next Ladies Night.”

Eulalie sipped and smiled, “Practice makes perfect.”

She made a mental note to have Gigi invite her over for one of Jolene’s lessons. She’d let Tee-Joe cop a butt-feel a few Fridays ago. Fair was fair.

Chase Windsor called Paul Citron in Laramie from the Sausalito safe-house on Saturday morning. This time Citron didn’t ask how the man had the number for his private landline at home.

“Yes?”

“Do you have the second payment?”

“Yes.”

“My associate will meet you again this afternoon — you select the time and place.”

“Same place. And ... three o’clock again. What about my package?”

“At the meeting, she’ll show you continued proof-of-possession. When she returns with the money, the package will personally surrender to you within an hour. Hour and a half at the outside.”

Windsor hung up without saying goodbye. He turned and smiled at Eulalie, “What’s for lunch, chere?”

The little girl stood there in her flesh-colored thong and smiled sweetly, “It’s pronounced ‘sha’, Mr. Jones.”

He knew that, of course. The mispronunciation was typical of the evaluation-tests he administered automatically. A girl with a little insecurity might well have never corrected him. A less confident teenager might have put up with it for a few days.

Eulalie Guidry aced the exam.

He watched as she ate BLUE BELL ice cream — Pecan, Pralines ‘n Cream — directly from the carton. She licked the spoon and placed the container in the freezer. From the rear, she looked stark naked.

“Why do you put it upside down?”

“So those ice crystals don’t form.” She winked, “A lot of things work better upside down. Cher.”

Lacy sent a text to Logan: Same time, same place. Again, he climbed into his aerie hours ahead of time. Bull Hempstead had placed a tracer on Quintin Apache’s Honda Passport and was following him at a distance ranging from two to three miles.

Bull had said, “I can either monitor the drone or follow Apache. Or, I could bring Mitchum in to tail the guy.”

“No one else. You stick with Apache.”

Logan Fucking Kelly.

Gigi bounced up to Eulalie at the bar, “Hi, baby cakes.”

“How’s Ladies Night going for you?”

“Just great. It’s funny though, most of the ones I take to the BJ Room just want to snuggle and kiss, you know like middle school.”

“That’s interesting. Do you still get them off?”

Gigi grinned and wiggled her fingers, “Duh.”

That night, the Saturday that Windsor had placed his third, and final, call to Paul Citron, Eulalie came out of the shower, still dripping wet and climbed into bed, “Hello, Mr. Jones.”

“Eulalie.”

She reached for him under the sheet, “Lacy told Marie that I’m too old for you.”

“I’ll make an exception for you, chere.”

“It’s pronounced ‘sha’.”

If anything, frumpy old Helen Ferguson seemed even a little bit more nervous as she knocked on the ranch-house door exactly at three. Again, she clutched two Safeway bags to her chest.

“Come in, let’s get this over with.”

“Yes sir.”

Citron nodded toward the dining room table. This time the money was in an old gym bag. “Go ahead, count it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Lacy was out of the house in six minutes, holding the gym bag firmly to her chest. She pigeon-toed her way to the same rental car, unlocked it with the key, not the remote, and drove sedately away.

Logan Kelly stayed in his perch; Quintin Apache didn’t stir from his weedy burrow. Bull Hempstead was parked a mile and a quarter away, still watching the unmoving blip from Apache’s Honda Passport. Which was now parked in the red barn. Citron remained inside the house.

All four men were awaiting the arrival — and surrender — of Ethan Dalton, the one-time Senator from right here in Wyoming.

Eulalie ran into Gigi at the Piggly Wiggly. She was restocking the safe-house larder.

The two of them, the mom and the teenager, hugged by the deli case. Eulalie grinned, “Did you have a chance to tell Ray-Ray what you do at Miss Kitty’s?”

Gigi looked startled; it would never occur to her to not do as Eulalie instructed. “Of course, the very next morning.”

She seemed eager to make sure the girl understood her ... commitment to doing as she was told, “I got him off to the side after breakfast and told him how hot I get when I take off my thong and all those men, and a few ladies, are staring up at me.”

“Good girl.”

Gigi giggled, “He got a boner in his jeans of course, but I didn’t tease him about it.”

Eulalie nodded in understanding.

“I told him about the lap dances, how I like to make them cum in their pants.” She frowned remembering, “I said, ‘Raymond, I’d rather jack them off though, because I like to see their equipment. And how much they cum’.”

Eulalie nodded again. She was certainly accelerating Ray-Ray’s education.

Gigi winked, “I saved the best for last. I told him the BJ Room was my favorite. I always get naked for that. I figure if they pay forty bucks, they deserve to see pussy.”

Eulalie smiled. A couple of women shoppers had paused to eavesdrop as they pretended to study the produce.

Gigi nodded to herself, “Besides if they’re cute, I play with myself while I suck them.” She brightened, “Oh, and I told him how hot it made me when they spurt off.”

Eulalie was genuinely curious, “And how did Ray-Ray react?”

“Well, his face was real red, and he licked his lips a lot. And had that boner of course. But I think he already knew most of it. Knew without knowing, know what I mean?”

Eulalie felt the sharpest pang of affection for Gigi. So open, so compliant, so willing to do whatever Eulalie wanted.

“Have Ray-Ray jack off in front of you.”

Gigi grinned and shrugged, “Sure.” Then she smiled a little sadly, “Honey lamb, when you gonna come see me?”

Eulalie reached up and placed her palm on the woman’s cheek, “Soon, Gigi, soon.”

Ethan Dalton turned into the wheat and barley ranch about an hour after Lacy had texted him: Showtime.

He was vaguely familiar with the ranch; remembered that the Donaldson family was under contract to run it.

He got out of the rental Chrysler — rented in his own name, no need to hide anything now — and walked toward the front door. The bright winter sun made him squint a little, but he strode with confidence.

Ethan was dressed to the nines — a dark blue Chairman of the Board suit, white spread-collar shirt, burgundy tie, glossy Oxford shoes with closed lacing. He carried his walking stick over his right shoulder, and looked almost jaunty as he used the handle to knock on the door.

Rumor was that the ninth-grade pussy-wedge teacher, Miss Harriet ‘Harry’ Hebert had started the contest. She blithely refused to confirm or deny it, but she had been seen in a couple of after-school conversations with her most ardent admirer, Tee-Jim Bergeron.

In any case, the ballot box for MILF of the Month first appeared in the back of Harry’s homeroom late in September. The timing was important because Moms Gone Wild had just debuted at Miss Kitty’s. And individual photos of the pole-dancers were in wide circulation at John Lee Hooker.

That, and the horizontal photo of the mothers who danced was prominently displayed in Miss Kitty’s front window.

Was Harry behind the naughty competition? Was she in charge of making sure it was run fairly? No one seemed to know for sure. But the ballot box was in her classroom.

By lunchtime, it seemed that every student in school knew the rules. Vote after the last bell had rung. Vote one time and one time only. There was a sign-in sheet with a tear-off slip for recording your choice of MILF.

Interestingly, more girls than boys cast ballots that first month. And, among those little girls, there was considerable chatter, serious photo studying, and some very frank physical evaluations.

Harry just remained quiet, a little smile on her face.

Eulalie had to admit that Chase Windsor was more experienced in bed than even Ethan Dalton. She allowed herself a brief fantasy — Chase and Ethan would both live here with her in the bayou house.

Sexually, she could easily accommodate the two of them — going back and forth between the bedrooms. Although Chase knew some interesting East Asian techniques that didn’t involve an erect penis. Still, men were men, and needed their recuperation periods.

But she quickly put that daydream in the trash. Ethan, if his and Logan’s and Lacy’s plan worked, would never return to Sausalito.

And Chase ... well, he was a road-man, a man of the world.

No, Eulalie would make do with her own little corner of the universe. Although, listening to the two disparate men had broadened her perspective, allowed her to imagine a world beyond Sausalito and the Cajun Bayous.

As she drifted off to sleep in Chase’s arms, holding his flaccid penis, she had one more fantasy — delivering Étienne to the international conman. Eulalie was confident that he was worldly enough to enjoy little boy pussy too. And Étienne looked even younger than he was.

Chase thought that the plan for Citron was doable. It was simple and straightforward, using time-tested techniques such as the double surveillance — Logan and a drone.

In the meantime, Chase continued his evaluation of Eulalie Guidry. The girl was still, barely, within his preferred age range. And he enjoyed how gutsy she was. Although at bedtime, as she was drifting off, she still held onto his penis. The younger the girls, the more likely they were to hang on. Like sucking a thumb, an infantile practice that still pleased him.

Chase appreciated the way Eulalie had clung to Ethan, tears in her eyes as he went off on his mission. He also appreciated how she had seamlessly transferred her attention, and physical affection, to him the second Ethan’s Jon boat was out of sight.