Chapter 7

I turned around and approached my Aunt. She seemed surprised I hadn’t gone very far down the strip from when we split up earlier. She was still wearing the absurd bikini that Jen had traded her.

“Yeah, it’s only been about forty minutes,” I reminded her.

“It feels like longer than that!” Patty shrugged. My Aunt wore an Apple Watch. She checked it. “I’ve got to head back soon. How are you holding up after what you saw earlier?” Patty shielded her eyes from the sun. It was about 1 pm, and the sun was really high in the cloudless sky.

“It was fine,” I replied.

She scowled a little bit. “I think you’ve guessed how I make my money?”

“Yeah, prostitution!!” I said. I didn’t mean to say it so casually.

She shushed me. We were standing in a gas station parking lot with no one nearby. She walked me over to some shade by the store. “We don’t use that word. It’s a voluntary transaction, and I am not doing anything most girls don’t do. I just don’t make them buy me a dinner and get to know me first. I’d rather they give me the cash, and we skip all the foreplay.”

I didn’t get it. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Danger is my middle name,” she joked. She saw my scowl and corrected me. “I don’t go to dangerous parts of town. If a stalker wanted to grab a girl walking alone, he’d probably pick someone innocent. Most women get raped by a guy they know, so this is no more dangerous than being a woman in the world,” she explained more practically. “I’d be more afraid of Bob and his friends or a Tinder date than any trick who is willing to pay me to get his nuts waxed.”

My mind was blown by how casually Patty accepted the line of work.

“I’ve been told that I am as horny as a guy, but most guys my age can’t get it up for long. I think about sex all the time, and this is a way to get a little spending money on the trip. The RV won’t make it straight to South Dakota even if I could keep the tank full the entire way. We can stop along the way, have fun in a town for a few days, and move along when we’ve seen everything there.”

We were walking together a little way down the street – I wasn’t sure where we were going. She explained why she got out of the truck.

“I don’t really know how to walk the streets. I had in-call regulars in Huntsville who dropped by to play with me. I wasn’t planning to hop in cars. I was going to work a bar and take the guy up to a hotel room or back to the Winnie. I just happened upon a good old boy and asked him for a ride, and then hinted I’d do more than ride if he wanted to GIVE me some money. I never charge for sex. Think of what I do more like a free workshop, and if they want to tip, then they get a little more,” she explained with a wink.

I didn’t fully understand. Paying money for sex was a crime as far as I was concerned, and it was more dangerous than hitchhiking. I didn’t believe anything that she said about my Uncle Bob being more dangerous than a total stranger.

“I usually hang out in hotel bars and look for men traveling for business. I had some regulars back in Huntsville, but most of them were Bob’s friends, so when he went, they went,” she said.

“Uncle Bob knew you were doing this?”

“There is a little barbecue place up the street. That hot dog didn’t fill me up. Let’s grab a bite and talk,” she avoided giving me an answer. Patty frequently avoided giving a simple yes or no to a question that only needed one word. It was frustrating to me, but I came to realize that was just how my Aunt was.

We headed north toward a place called Outlaw Bar-B-Q. “I am good at keeping secrets, but I couldn’t keep that kind of secret and do it full time.”

“This is how you made your living?” my mind was blowing that it was alright with Uncle Bob.

“I wouldn’t say that. I would say that I enjoy sitting on cock, and I like getting paid for it. I like fucking, Hunter. They say if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. They are full of shit, but if I have to do something for money, I may as well get my jollies,” Patty seemed comfortable with her sexuality. She wasn’t ashamed. She told me that she always enjoyed sex and implied that people who don’t are just doing it wrong.

I was stunned.

“It paid the bills, but it wasn’t really a definition of me. Bob is the one who got me started before we got married,” she explained. “It’s a really long and boring story,” she waved her hand to suggest that was ancient history and water under the bridge.

I wanted to hear it anyway. That might clear up so much.

“When I met Bob, I was young, dumb, and full of cum. I was stripping in Memphis with your ... uh, well, at a place called Tiffany’s Cabaret. Bob was a manager, and all the girls slurped his knob so that he would go easy on them for house money. I was no exception.”

I had only understood a fraction of those words at the time. I pretended to understand, rather than ask for clarification. I would later figure out that my Aunt was dancing at a strip club and most of the other girls gave sexual favors to the manager to lower the fees they charged the dancers to work at the club. The house took a percentage of their money, and my Uncle was in charge of getting as much as he could.

“The redneck asshole that owned the club liked Bob because he was the kind of redneck asshole that would do whatever he was told,” she said. I wasn’t sure if she had respect or disdain for my Uncle. It sounded like a bit of both.

Patty described Bob as kind of an enforcer of sorts. I got the idea that it was all rather sordid and shady. “They were racists, and ironically when they went bankrupt, they sold the club to black people. It went downhill fast. I was super racist at the time – white power, the whole shebang. I had been raised to think that the trashiest women fuck niggers. I know you are uncomfortable with that word, but we didn’t say black. We said nigger, and we meant it.”

My Aunt was being real and authenticate with me. I could tell she had a little guilt about her past but absolutely nothing about admitting her mistakes.

I started to tell her how I was raised.

“Well, that’s not how me and your mother were raised. Your grandpa Davis on our side died before you were born, thank god. He was a cop, but he was also in the Klan.”

Davis was my middle name. I was told he was a great man by my mother. I found it hard to believe that my grandfather could have been anything else.

I also couldn’t imagine a cop that was also in the KKK. The cops were the good guys to me. The Klan were the bad guys. It seemed like an oxymoron. My mom only ever had nice things to say about my grandfather. I took Aunt Patty’s comment with a grain of salt. I certainly wasn’t going to brag to her about my middle name or defend him. She knew him, and I never met the guy.

“I began to realize at some point that the reason that I REALLY hated black people had nothing to do with how I was raised. I hated black MEN because I was REALLY attracted to them. I was ashamed that loving black cock meant that I was a trash-whore. I directed my rage at black people because of guilt that I had, which had nothing to do with them. Skin is just skin, but I am REALLY attracted to black cock. Does that make sense?”

It didn’t, but I asked her to continue. I wondered when Patty made that realization and whether it was before or after she got so many racist tattoos.

We walked up to the BBQ joint. She wanted her order to go but told me to order anything I wanted. “Are you sure you want to hear about ancient history? I forgot why I am even telling you this?”

“I am fascinated,” I admitted. I ordered a big cherry coke and some baby backs.

“Don’t tell the girls that I had a snack. Technically, I am still playing the game,” she snickered conspiratorially. I wasn’t sure why she was forbidden from having a snack.

“Isn’t the whole point to GET punished?”

“That’s true,” she giggled and said I should definitely tell on her then. She looked like she appreciated the observation that I had just made. My Aunt frequently had a wry grin on her face like she just farted, and nobody knew. I could tell she was looking forward to getting caught and punished.

“Why do you LIKE being punished?” I asked. I truly wanted to understand.

“It might be easier to tell you what parts I do NOT like,” she joked before she realized that I was serious about my question. “I wouldn’t expect you to get it; most men think I am cuckoo for cocoa puffs,” Patty spun her finger around her ears to indicate crazy, “or just a nymphomaniac, and maybe I AM a little bit of both, but it works for me.”

“If you were a nymphomaniac, then you’d crave sex so badly that you give it away for free,” I said. I didn’t know of any nymphomaniacs. I didn’t know if they were a real thing, but I assumed that the women that were felt compelled to fuck for any reason.

“You are such a smart kid,” she admired me. “I wish I was smart when I was your age. I might have made something of myself like your mom has,” she seemed a little jealous of my mother. My mom worked for a bank, and I had no idea what she did there.

“I do not think you are dumb, and you can always choose to get a better job,” I suggested.

My Aunt Patty regarded me with the bemused expression of someone with 30+ years of experience living in the real world when any snot-nosed kid who has never even HAD a job tells you how to improve your life. I didn’t recognize that expression then, but I know it now.

I was genuinely trying to be helpful, and Patty made me feel like I could talk to her on her level. I’d never done that with an adult.

“Yeah, well, I am happy doing what I do, and I may not be a nympho, but I have been called one. Most men can’t keep up with me. Bob could, and that’s why our relationship worked. He decided who I had sex with, and he got off on the power of being able to choose. He liked that other men wanted what HE had. He liked that control. I liked being owned – fully. I was HIS woman.”

“So, he was IT?” I assumed Bob was the original “It”.

“Oh, no!” she chuckled. “It wasn’t like the game at all. Our relationship was far more casual and not playful. It was pretty dysfunctional, but it functioned. It was like any marriage with ups and downs. We never once considered divorce! But we considered murder a few times,” she joked. “You know, until he left of course,” Patty admitted wistfully with a trace of sad humor.

I felt like Patty was using jokes to avoid talking about things that made her uncomfortable. She could be an open book when you asked her a question but you kind of had to dig to get to the details behind the jokes.”

“A few years ago, I started playing with Jen and then the others, and we kept it from Bob. That was when I was starting to give in to my cravings for black dick, and I discovered that my daughters liked it too. I didn’t corrupt them – they were sexually active from a young age. It’s Alabama, after all,” she laughed like it was ironic or inevitable that the girls would be promiscuous.

“We tried to involve Bob. He HATED that I was a nigger fucker, and he wanted an opportunity to be cruel and vindicate – to punish me. I think I craved it at the time. A part of me felt guilty for what I enjoyed and thought maybe it could be knocked out of me. Bob could never understand the game wasn’t about sex or cruelty, and I still lack the words to explain it to anyone but my girls. They get it. It may seem cruel, but it is done with love. Misty or Jen might explain it better than I can. I know that today you were completely confused, and I do not blame you. A mom doesn’t usually do what her daughters tell her.”

I was a mystery to me how something can be cruel and be done with love. It seemed like a contradiction.

“You even answer to Hope when she is IT?”

“Oh yeah, she has to take a turn as IT.”

“Why does Hope do it if she doesn’t like to be IT?”

“None of us want to be IT, but we have to take turns, or we will never get to play the game. Why do you take out the trash or do laundry? You don’t want to, but if you don’t, then shit piles up and starts to stink. That’s a bad metaphor, but I am not as eloquent as your mom. It just is what it is,” she explained. She sat down with me on the patio and started eating.

It was nice that she thought my mother was well-spoken. My mom did have a clear way of making me understand her point of view.

“I should be walking, not chowing down. One good thing about the game is that it keeps me on my toes,” she mused. I didn’t understand how it could – if anything it seemed like a distraction. “It was really a mistake today to let you observe the game. I thought that you had seen the girls playing, and you may as well come along. I thought the only way you can know if you can handle something or not is to do it. However, now I feel responsible for blowing your mind and overwhelming you.”

I could tell she was apologizing, but she didn’t have to do that.

She had once again responded but didn’t answer my question about why they were IT when they didn’t enjoy it. I still felt there had to be dozens of people that might – myself included. I wasn’t sure I would be very convincing, but I would have gladly taken the reins if given the opportunity.

“When we aren’t playing the game, I can be lazy and a little mischievous. When I am not IT, though, I have to get my lazy butt up off the couch and be present in the moment. That’s really all I mean.”

Things were starting to make sense, but I still didn’t see how she was motivated. If she wanted to be punished and was out playing a game – she couldn’t very well be focused on the things that she wanted to accomplish. I would later grow to understand that my Aunt Patty felt being kept in line by her daughters on days she wasn’t “IT” snapped her out of her normal routine of procrastination.

“Why do you only play for four hours at a time then? If you like it so much, why not all the time?”

“That’s a good question,” she said as she laid down a TWENTY dollar tip for a meal that cost thirty dollars. “I need to try to find a guy driving back toward the RV park. Here’s...” she counted out 190 dollars. “This is all I have right now. Do me a favor and hold on to this. Spend ANY of it or ALL of it if you like. Give whatever you do not spend back to me when you get home, or not. I will make more. It’s just money,” she shrugged as she stood up.

I was shocked by how generous she was. It was the most money I had been given at one time – and for absolutely no reason.

An old man who was sitting with an old woman watched my Aunt rise out of the booth. “Like what you see?” she smiled impishly at him and made the old man and woman uncomfortable. I got the impression Patty enjoyed the power she had to make people uncomfortable.

I had so many questions!! I was eager to get answers, so I walked with her.

“Oh, why do we play for four hours?” she remembered what we were talking about as we walked to the sidewalk. “We used to play whenever we wanted all the time. Sometimes, we still do. The girls punished me the other day, and I rolled with it. They sent me to get them ice cream. I really didn’t think they’d put the ice cream on my head, or else I probably would have said not to do it. I was trying to give you a NORMAL vacation. Fat chance of that happening now?” she snickered.

“What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly,” I offered.

“What corny sign did you read that on?” she laughed but acknowledged that was true. “Different strokes for different folks. The world doesn’t move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you may not be right for some!”

“That’s very profound!” I remarked. What she said sounded like the truth.

My Aunt laughed so hard she nearly lost her balance. “You like that one? I’ve got a million of them. “Everybody’s got a special kind of story; Everybody finds a way to shine! It doesn’t matter that you got a lot. So what?”

Patty rattled that off so eloquently that it sounded like poetry to me. I asked her to continue with her words of wisdom. She thought I was being sarcastic.

“They’ll have theirs, you’ll have yours, and I’ll have mine, And together we’ll be fine!” she kissed me on the forehead like I was sweet boy for indulging her.

I had no idea (at the time) that my Aunt had just quoted most of the lyrics to an old TV show called “Different Strokes.” That show was on way before I was enamored with what a font of down-home wisdom Patty must be. She thought it was funny because she could tell that I bought her bullshit completely.

“Look, I know you have questions. You have a mind that seeks answers; sometimes, there are no answers - none that make sense. The best thing I can tell you on this vacation is just have fun. Spend the money on whatever you want. If you aren’t home by 6pm, though, I’ll worry, and you don’t want me to worry, do you?”

I didn’t. “I am not trying to get rid of you, but you are kind of cramping my style. I am going to walk whichever way you do not walk.

Patty wasn’t being mean – she was just being honest. Nobody was going to stop if they saw me walking with her.

“You still haven’t told me why four hours or six hours, though,” I reminded her.

“We can talk over dinner tonight. If it was all the time, it wouldn’t be special. We also have the same regular crap that normal people have to get done. Bills, groceries, laundry, all the mundane bullshit. We used to play all the time, and whoever was IT would eventually lose steam. We figured out that the sweet spot was four hours before we needed a break. We decided to do no more than four hours a day, but sometimes we do a little more or a little less. It’s not as structured as you may want to imagine, Goodbye, Hunter. I’ve got some new friends to meet,” She waved as she dashed across Thomas Drive toward the beach and some hotels.

I had a choice to make. I could continue on to an arcade and play video games inside, or I could head back the way I came. I decided that I would cross the street and walk on the beach side of the street toward the RV park.

It was kind of boring walking back. I saw the same buildings, just in reverse order. Panama Beach seemed to imply that there was an endless row of mini-golf, burger joints, bars, and condos, but in reality, it was really compact.

I began to think about my brief conversation with my Aunt. When we first met, it seemed like she had all the time in the world, and I had nothing to talk to her about.

Imagine you are thirsty on a hot day. You press the button on the drinking fountain, and a trickle of water comes out. You get a taste, but not enough to quench your thirst, and then the water stops. That is how I felt.

My Aunt raised more questions for me than she answered. She had said she used to be a stripper in Memphis with someone else. She was about to tell me who it was, and she stopped talking. I wondered if that could have been my mom. That didn’t track at all. My mom wasn’t a stripper – she was the kind of boring mom that wore stonewashed jeans with polo shirts and did scrapbooking.

As I walked along the sidewalk on that beautiful Summer day, I began to recount everything that I knew so far (or thought that I knew).