Chapter 2

"I gotta tell you guys." Roy was swaying in the moonlight, taking a piss in the low scrub a few yards from the bonfire.

Mike felt pretty loose himself as he sucked down his eighth beer of the night and threw the empty across the fire to Miguel, who dropped it.

"Butter fingers!" Larry laughed at the running back.

"I gotta tell you guys," Roy repeated.

"That's why I don't pull on the screens," one of the other linemen said, burping loudly. "He ain't gonna catch it anyway."

"Fuck you!" Miguel grinned.

"You don't pull because you're so fuckin' slow!" Mike laughed and the rest of the guys laughed with him.

"I gotta tell you guys." Roy turned around with his flaccid black dick spraying piss everywhere. "That was the best piece of pussy I ... uh ... ever had! Fuck." He shook his leg, having pissed a bit on his new boots.

All the other guys stopped talking and glanced at each other nervously.

"We ain't talkin' bout that, Roy," Mike told the large man quietly.

"I know that. But..." Roy stumbled and fell down next to the fire, grabbing another beer, " ... that was the best piece of pussy I ever had!"

"Shut-up!" Larry told him, shaking his head. "Your nappy-ass mouth gonna fuck us all."

"Quiet," Mike said.

"Who got a nappy mouth, nigger?" Roy started trying to get back up. His coal black face scowling at his friend.

"I said be quiet!" Mike looked around. "Now shut the fuck up!"

"Ain't nobody out here but us," Roy said.

Mike got to his feet and walked over to Roy cuffing the man upside the head. "Close your mouth!"

Roy was a lot bigger and a lot stronger, but Mike was his quarterback and the leader of the football team.

"Sorry," Roy muttered.

They sat there in silence, the seven young men drinking beer and staring into the fire for a long time.

"She was a pretty good fuck, Mike," Miguel said quietly.

"Damn straight," Steve said.

"Fuckin-A!"..."I'd do her again!"..."Bitch was tight!"..."She loved dat dick!"

All the guys were talking again, getting loud and laughing as they finally vented nearly a week of pent-up frustration. It was damn hard not saying anything after raping the swim coach and killing her. Although, in all fairness, the killing her part had been an accident. The rape hadn't been anything but intentional, however, and Barbara Welch had been a fine looking woman. Strong and wonderfully athletic the way swimmers are. Oh yeah, those boys had loved getting inside her hot little body, bending her over the spa in the player's training room, holding her head under the hot bubbling water while they took turns fucking her.

It wasn't their fault she'd drowned, or so they'd tried to rationalize it in the days that followed. She'd deserved it anyway. Demanding more money for other sports, threatening to expose the gifts and many incentives that the college used to attract quality players. Welch had been talking about going to the NCAA and demanding an investigation, and that was something the program couldn't tolerate. Coach had wanted his boys to scare a little common sense into the woman, that's all. It wasn't their fault the bitch didn't know when to give up and just take her medicine.

After a week of silence Mike gave up trying to control a half-dozen drunken football players, since he was pretty well lit up himself. They'd gotten away with it and the football program was back on track. Everyone was happy and raping that woman had been a lot of fun. It was the sort of sex a boy couldn't get from his girlfriend. Rape had proven to be a dangerous and primitive sort of thrill, appealing to their violent nature and misogynist view of the world. Barbara had given them a taste of real domination combined with unrestrained lust and that was a heady mix for group of young men barely out of their teens.

Instead of telling them to be quiet, Mike started telling his guys how much he'd enjoyed it too, and then it really got loud, because the quarterback was cool again.

"We oughta do another one," Roy said at one point. And there was a big chorus of drunken cheers for that.

Soon they started talking about which girls on campus they'd most like to rape, scoring them on a juvenile rape scale of one to ten. It was fun and the boys enjoyed it, imagining the hottest coeds on campus begging for mercy and sobbing with fear and shame as their nubile bodies were plundered. But the unspoken and instinctually understood aspect of their drunken fantasy was something beyond mere rape. Fucking the woman had been good fun and the murder had been accidental, but what came after ... The depravity of their unimaginable act bound the seven men together as nothing else could, like a blood pact that would have to be renewed and they all knew it.

But they wouldn't speak of it, not even drunk and alone in the Texas wilderness like they were. The football players contented themselves with plans and boasts, laughing and teasing each other like the innocent children they'd once been, until the beer was gone and everyone passed out. But none of them forgot their unanimous and unrepentant desires. The seed that had been planted by their football coach was growing quickly and their patience had already been tested in that long week since Barbara's death.

"Welcome to West Abilene!" the sign said, "Home of the WAT Tigers!" and it had a cartoon tiger carrying a football under one arm and making a fist with the other hand, like he was going punch somebody.

"Shit," Tina Vasquez muttered to herself.

It had been a long, long drive from the rather green pastoral countryside of East Texas to the barren scrublands of West Texas, but she'd made it. Her ass felt like melted rubber, but she'd made it. Tina got a room at the Howard Johnson's and flopped on the bed. At least it was cool inside with the air conditioner running full blast, and Tina just enjoyed the prickly sensation of goose bumps on her skin for a long moment.

Then she thought better of that and took a good long, hot bath. That felt pretty okay too. Across the way Tina had noticed a little diner with a neon sign that said something about fresh, homemade pie. Tina decided that a little bite of something sweet would go down nice, although the bath had made her long for another slice of Dolly's tart little pie. Funny how she could miss a woman she barely knew outside the bedroom, Tina thought, but sex was like that when it was good.

Something about baths maybe ... The woman shook her head as she dressed quickly, throwing on a plain white t-shirt and pulling the cotton taut over her firm breasts. It didn't hide her dark nipples much, but some twelve hours in a car left Tina without a whole lot of concern for anything but comfort. A pair of clean panties and some straight leg jeans. She wished she had some decent boots, and she did in the trunk of her big Crown Victoria, but her heels were handy, so that's what she wore.

Tina slipped her Ranger ID into her back pocket, grabbed twenty bucks for another pocket, and tucked her back-up piece, a small Browning BDA .380 into a clip-on holster just behind her right hip, pulling her t-shirt down over it. She might leave her bra behind, but a Ranger was on duty 24/7 as Tina well knew, and walking around without a weapon and her badge really was a naked feeling.

The diner, with the unlikely name of Patty's Pies, was small but it smelled good anyway. There were only a few people inside, locals mostly, sitting on stools at the counter. Tina got more than the usual looks a stranger might get, but the woman was used to that and barely noticed. It was late for dinner, almost 9pm and that probably explained the lack of customers. Tina picked a table rather towards the back and nearby was an attractive blonde woman who looked rather bored, reading a paperback book and picking at her plate.

"How's your pie?" Tina smiled at the blonde, who looked up after a second, realizing someone was talking to her.

"My pie?" The woman grinned and the Ranger had to laugh. She was gorgeous, Vasquez thought, and definitely Tina's type.

"Yeah, your pie." Tina's eyes stared into Emily's and they were blue as a Texas sky. "It looks delicious from here."

"Really? Well, you want to try a bite?" The blonde smirked a little and held up a cherry impaled on her fork, dripping with sweet red filling. The connection was made just that quick and it was always a pleasant surprise when it happened, for both of them.

"Mmmm..." The Hispanic woman licked her lips, pointedly looking past the offering and finding Emily's playful smile. "Maybe just a little nibble..."

"Excuse me?" The waitress' voice seemed to come out of nowhere and Vasquez looked to her left suddenly, with only slight embarrassment. Emily giggled softly and put her fork back down on her plate.

"Uh, what's she having?" Tina nodded her head at the blonde and gave the woman a little grin.

"Oh, that's cherry-rhubarb." The waitress, a rather dullish looking woman in her forties, Tina thought, smiled enthusiastically. "It's sweet, you know? But real tangy too. Sweet and sour pie!"

"I bet it is," Tina nodded and Emily's eyes were laughing. "Okay, I'll try some of that and some coffee please."

The waitress wandered off to fill the order and Tina stood up from her table deliberately, moving the odd dozen feet or so until she was standing near the blonde woman.

"You mind if I join you?" Tina asked. "I hate eating pie all alone."

"Mmmm ... Doesn't taste the same, does it?" The blonde smiled up at Tina and set her book aside. "Be my guest. I was just getting ready to leave."

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Tina offered an appreciative sigh, taking a seat opposite the woman. "Where are you from?"

"Me?" Emily asked, raising an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm not from around here?"

"I don't know," Tina shrugged, looking for a ring on the woman's finger and happy not to find one. "You don't look like a small town girl and that accent isn't west Texas. Dallas?"

"Oh, you're pretty good," Emily nodded. "Next thing you'll be telling how I'm going to meet a tall, dark stranger who's going to sweep me off my feet."

"I don't have to tell you that, do I?" the Ranger smiled. "You don't look like that sort of woman anyway."

"Which sort is that?" Emily wondered and she was enjoying herself quite a lot. The Hispanic woman was beautiful and confident, even a little intimidating with her sharp green eyes, and utterly unexpected in that hick town.

"The swept off her feet sort," Tina lifted her hand and caught the waitress' eye. "I'm over here now, darlin' ... Better view."

"A better view?" Emily laughed and her cheeks took on a little color and Tina thought that was too perfect.

"Coffee and a slice of pie," the waitress said, giving the two women suspicious eyes. "Can I get you anything else?"

"No, this is perfect," Tina nodded agreeably. "Thank you."

"Well, I don't think I want to be swept off my feet in a coffee shop," Emily decided, picking up her fork just so she'd have something to play with.

"There doesn't seem to be much else in this town," Tina sucked at her cheek and cut gently into her pie. "Unless you feel like a little dancing."

"Heh!" Emily gave Tina the tip of her pink tongue. "You want to take me dancing?"

"No," Tina held up a cherry. "I was thinking I'd just take you."

"Here?" Emily looked around mischievously.

Tina felt her nipples hardening, poking obviously through her t-shirt. She took a deep breath. "Or my room," she smiled. "I guess it depends on how brave you are."

"Let's go to your room then and we'll see how brave I am." Emily opened her purse and left a five dollar bill on the table before standing up. "Coming?" she asked playfully, walking away slowly to the admiration of a couple local men seated at the counter.

Tina watched Emily's tight little ass, enjoying the way the blonde's hips pulled the yellow skirt one way and then the other. She wasn't the most beautiful woman Tina had ever seen in her life, not after spending a long weekend in Vegas once, but Emily was certainly one of the most attractive she'd actually sat down and had a conversation with ... If a conversation it could be called, Tina thought with inward grin. She hadn't expected to find a girl like that in a town like this and Tina was wondering who to thank for the favor.

"I will be," Tina said, just loud enough so she knew the blonde could hear her.

The two women went to Tina's room and the door had hardly closed before the blonde had her arms around the darker woman's waist. Emily was a few inches shorter than Tina and a little smaller all around, but that hardly mattered at all. She was firm and soft all at once and wonderfully proportioned. Tina put her hands on the woman's shoulders, standing very close so that her larger breasts found Emily's through her t-shirt. Tina's nipples were swollen and itching with desire and just that small pressure was enough to make them burn.

"I'm Emily," the blonde whispered, staring into the taller woman's piercing green eyes.

She'd been lonely and under so much stress since her sister Lisa had disappeared. Normally Emily would have never let herself get picked up so easily. But these were not normal times for her and Emily needed the release, the simple comfort of being able to forget everything else, if only for a single evening. It certainly didn't hurt that Tina was the sort of woman Emily found herself most attracted to, beautiful and strong, and especially the woman's ethnic background. The Waspish young woman who'd grown up in a privileged Dallas neighborhood liked the contrast Tina offered and saw nothing prejudicial about it.