All The Pretty Girls Ch. 04

Chapter Four -- Jaylene

Mitch Freeman drove to the abandoned Texaco service station off Route 190. It looked deserted; the Texaco sign was faded and broken, hanging drunkenly from a rickety pole. The dusty driveway was choked with weeds, the ancient gas pumps were rusted; the hoses had been ripped off them, likely by some scavenger. The awning over the gas pumps was equally corroded; holed and lopsided, almost ready to collapse.

Mitch pulled up next to one of the rusting gas pumps and hopped out of his car and approached the dilapidated roadhouse diner. It looked even more forlorn than the gas stand. The sheet-iron roof that had once been adorned with a Texaco logo was hitched and broke-backed, holed in places and corroded. Windows that were not boarded over were dirty and cobwebbed and most of them were cracked.

As Mitch approached the doors, which hung drunkenly on their hinges, he passed a rusty old Coke machine with a faded decal bearing the image of a smiling woman in a bikini drinking an ice-cold beverage with the words For Real Refreshment peeling off it.

Incongruously a shiny new stainless steel chain and padlock had been threaded through the metal door handles, which despite being tarnished, were still serviceable. Mitch had put the chain on the doors when he had scouted out the place. He wasn't sure if it would keep people out if they desperately wanted to get in but why would they?

Mitch unlocked the padlock and dragged the doors open wincing at the protesting screech of the hinges and the grating of the bottom of the doors against the concrete floor.

Most of the furniture had been taken away or vandalised beyond use. The place smelt musty; a lingering stench of mildew, stale cigarettes, stale liquor and a faint undercurrent of ancient fried food. The filthy floor was littered with beer and liquor bottles, drug paraphernalia, cigarette butts and decaying used condoms.

Some joker has pinned a pair of lime green satin panties to the flaking dry wall like they was on display in the lingerie section of a department store. The same joker had scribbled graffiti on the wall besides the undergarment I fucked Stephanie here 05/12/20 with an arrow pointing to the crotch of the panties. Whoever Stephanie was, she was long gone and she was sans underwear.

Beside the panties a series of nineteen-sixty era framed advertising posters had been hung from the wall, probably in an effort to provide cheap decoration to cheer up the baby-shit yellow painted walls. They plugged cigarettes, beer, motor oil and other products one would expect in a gas station. There was also an advertisement for Hanes Underall Pantyhose. It featured the buttocks and thighs of a woman clad in sheer pantyhose with the slogan 'pantyhose & panties all in one'. Someone had drawn an ejaculating penis between the buttocks of the woman with a sharpie.

In the corner of the decrepit diner a space had been cleared of detritus and a relatively new mattress covered with a clean fitted-sheet and two pillows with fresh pillowcases had been placed on the floor. There was a cardboard box containing bottled water, sanitary wipes, gel lubricant, liquid hand wash and sanitizer beside it. Two lithium ion Coleman lanterns were arranged at the head of the mattress. Mitch was glad to see that no one had broken in and stolen anything.

Seeing that nothing had been disturbed Mitch locked up the diner and drove his car out back to what had once been the service bay but was now a decrepit dark hole stripped of anything useful. Rusty chains hung from the ceiling and the inspection pit was full of slimy fetid water. The nondescript Toyota sedan he had stolen a week earlier was still parked in the bay. Mitch unlocked it and transferred his go-bag into the trunk and locked his own car and set the alarm.

He checked his phone for messages, checked the time, and then climbed into the Toyota and pulled onto the 190 and headed east towards Balwyn keeping just below the speed limit.

Mitch Freeman sat in the Toyota parked in a gloomy alley just off the south side of Bridge Street and watched the passing parade: the tranny hookers plying their trade and the johns coming and going. Some girls climbed into cars and were driven away, some led johns into the foyer of the Ambassador Hotel where rooms were rented by the hour, some just led their john into the dark alley and serviced them behind the dumpster or in the doorways of the decrepit buildings.

But they all returned back to the street. Didn't matter if they'd done their business in the back of a car, on the stained sheets of the Ambassador Hotel or on their knees or bent over in the alley... they all returned back to the street.

Except for Loretta Dubbin. She wouldn't be returning back to the street.

"Fucking tranny whores!" Mitch hissed through clenched teeth.

He spent some time thinking about Susan, his college sweetheart. She had been beautiful, feminine and sweet. Susan liked to kiss him and hold his manhood in her fingers while her sweet tongue explored his mouth. Susan knew he liked to press himself against her silky mound and she would lie on the bed with her legs spread and her skirt hitched up so he could. Susan knew that he would always gasp with delight when she rolled over and pulled down her panties to expose her soft, creamy white buttocks. Susan gasped in turn when he slid his manhood inside her.

Susan had been perfect. Until she wasn't. Susan knew that Mitch wanted nothing to do with the ugly appendage she kept tucked between her legs. He hadn't even complained when she sometimes whimpered and wet her panties while he was fucking her. He knew that it was the horrible snake between her legs had caused her panties to become wet. He knew that smell. The musky swampy scent of semen but it was ok because he didn't have to see it... to touch it.

But Susan had betrayed him. She had set it free and tried to make Mitch touch it. He remembered the revulsion he felt when the back of his hand had brushed against the warm swollen flesh when she'd tried to guide his hand there.

"Fucking tranny whore!" Mitch barked.

He was sweating despite the cold. His cock was rock hard, his fists were clenched and his teeth were gritted. All his pretty girls turned out to be tranny whores: the girls in Bangkok were he had spent two weeks R&R during his tour of duty. The trans callgirls in Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth where he would spend his long weekends and vacations. The girls here in Balwyn. All the pretty girls. They were all tranny whores!

He didn't know why he thought of his mother when he ground himself against them. He knew it had something to do with seeing and touching that perfect silken-clad mound. Her thrashing his behind as he lay across her knees; her pantyhose feeling like soft silken butterfly kisses on his skin while while his buttocks burned bright red as his mother flailed him.

As he got older they both knew that what she was doing was wrong. Had she felt his penis become hard when she paddled his ass? Did she deliberately walk around in her underwear so that he would watch her so she would catch him watching her and punish him? She must have known when he ejaculated. She must have felt the fiery heat of his ejaculate scalding her thighs. She had certainly felt it the one and only time she had let him lie on top of her and press his engorged member against her panty-clad cunt, making him promise not to tell anyone.

They didn't know that his father had returned home early from a business trip and intended to surprise his wife by springing on her naked, undressing himself as he had silently climbed the staircase.

Mitch remembered his father pulling him off his mother and thrashing him within an inch of his life. His father was hard, erect in anticipation of fucking his beautiful wife but instead he lay into his son as he cowered on the floor, his father standing over him with fists raised, his penis erect and proud.

It wasn't long after this that he had found Susan. Susan was safe because she didn't have the secret parts that his mother kept inside her panties but she was dangerous because she had the same parts as his father. So long as Susan kept those parts hidden away it didn't matter; she was perfect.

All his pretty girls were perfect... until they weren't.

Mitch knew that he could pay some psychiatrist thousands of dollars to tell him all about his Oedipus complex and Freud's sexual inversion hypothesis which caused Mitch to transfer the desire he felt for his mother to men who presented as beautiful women. The paradox for him being that because they didn't have a vagina in his mind it was not incestuous but the illusion would be destroyed if he was forced to confront their penises.

Mitch came out of his reverie when he saw Jaylene Foster strutting down Bridge Street in her fuck-me pumps. Her hair was teased her makeup heavy and she wore a micro-miniskirt and a faux fur coat.

This was the most dangerous thing he would ever do; his timing had to be perfect. Although he was a logistics officer in the army he had undertaken infantry training prior to being deployed and he knew how to take down an opponent.

He had followed Jaylene home from the college and had briefly thought of taking her inside her flat but it was too dangerous. Instead he'd activated his contingency plan. Common sense would mandate that Jaylene would take the most direct route from her apartment to Bridge Street and he had gambled that she would take the shortcut down the dark alley connecting Balwyn's commercial district to the tenderloin district of Bridge Street.

The contents of his go-bag had been carefully laid out on the front passenger seat. He took the chloroform-soaked rag out the Tupperware container and secreted it up his sleeve as he got out of the car. He left the back door of the car open and opened the trunk, pretending to be searching for something as he listened to the click-clack of Jaylene's high heels on the pavement as she got closer.

When he sensed that she was right behind him he turned and sprang on her, grabbing her from behind. It was only at the last second as he pressed the chloroformed rag over her mouth that he realised that it wasn't Jaylene Foster.

It didn't matter. It was too late. The woman struggled briefly and then became a deadweight which he dragged onto the back seat. He quickly secured her hands and feet with cable ties and put a canvas bag over her head, leaving the chloroform soaked rag inside the bag to keep her drowsy. He slammed the door shut and closed the trunk and took a look around.

The alley remained quiet and deserted.

Mitch slid into the driver's seat and started the car. He turned left on Bridge Street and took a final look at the whores working the street. In his mind they seemed to be mocking him.

Never mind.

He had another pretty girl to play with.

Mitch didn't realise that the woman's handbag had fallen off her shoulder during the brief struggle and lay in the gutter.

*****

The Task Force was busy. Penelope and Alice had compiled an evidence pack consisting of the facial composite, a summary of the perp's MO and signature behaviours and the perp's fingerprints to accompany the state-wide bulletin requesting a comparison be made against any unsolved murders involving trans women.

They knew that Jaylene's identikit picture wasn't that great but that was all they had. She had seen him only briefly behind the windshield of a car on a dark street.

Steve had forwarded the composite to Panti Down and asked her to send it to everyone she knew who engaged in any form of female impersonation. He asked her to distribute copies to the bars on Bridge Street frequented by the LGBTI community which she did. She also posted a blog on the Transgender Education Network of Texas website claiming that a killer was targeting trans women in Balwyn and uploaded the facial composite.

It took only twenty four hours before Gary Rasmussen was summoned to the office of the Chief of Police and was ordered to escort him to the Mayor's office to explain what the fuck his Special Task Force was up to.

"Handle those fuckers Gary. Get them to keep a lid on this. I don't wanna see anything in the mainstream media. You feel me?" the Chief of Police growled at Gary as they walked back to his office, both their asses sore from the figurative kicking they had both received from the Mayor.

Gary went down to the Task Force office and passed on the message.

"I just got my ass handed to me by the Mayor. It's ok, I can take the heat while you work the case but you better get this thing solved," Gary ran his hands through his thinning hair.

"We're working it hard Chief," Steve replied.

"We've had some responses to our state wide request for assistance and Penelope and Alice are working the data looking for comparisons but so far we don't appear to have any cases that match," Steve pointed to his crime wall.

"That's a good thing and a bad thing I suppose. It's good that our killer seems to be confined to the Balwyn area and has only taken two victims that we know about. It's a bad thing because we don't really have any corroborating evidence from cases where the perp may have used the same MO or signatures in other cities," Steve sighed.

"We do have a bunch of mug shots of offenders who have targeted trans women in the past. Sexual assault, indecent behaviour, stalking, the usual bullshit," Penelope interjected.

Gary looked at her, both hopefully and quizzically.

"Tranny chasers," Penelope explained.

Gary winced at Penelope's use of offensive language but rationalised that as a transgender woman it shouldn't be taken as offensive. It was the same as African Americans using the 'N-word' or homosexuals referring to each other as fags. Minorities stole back pejoratives and reappropriated them, empowering themselves, neutralising the effect of the slur when used by intolerants.

"I'll get Jaylene Foster to look at them and see if she recognises any of them," Penelope said.

"We get them at the club sometimes. Guys infatuated with female impersonators. They're mostly harmless and some of the girls milk them for tips or whatever but the creepy ones are kicked out by security and are banned. Penelope is working that angle," Steve explained.

Gary guessed the 'whatever' Steve was referring to was getting them to pay for sex.

"Assholes and elbows people. Get this thing solved," Gary left the office.

Penelope and Alice looked at Steve who gave them both a grim smile.

"You heard the man ladies; assholes and elbows," Steve went back to work.

Penelope contacted Jaylene Foster who told Penelope that she was too busy to come down to Police Plaza, besides which she didn't want to be seen there too often in case the other girls thought she was a snitch. She was busy trying to educate herself and get off the streets. When she wasn't at college she was studying and when she wasn't doing that she was working Bridge Street to pay for her education and to pay her rent.

Jaylene agreed to let Penelope come round to her place and show her the pictures after college, before she went to work.

Penelope pulled up outside of Jaylene's apartment block which was only three blocks over from Bridge Street. Jaylene had joked that it was convenient because she could walk to work.

Penelope and Jaylene had built a rapport during the time they had spent together at Police Plaza working on the identikit, taking her statement and looking at mug shots. Jaylene respected Penelope for who she was, someone who had worked hard and overcome adversity and was still considered a hero by most in Balwyn despite the fallout from the Lipstick Killer case.

"What you did was to rise through the ranks using just hard work and dedication. You saved people's lives, you solved crimes. Any girl with good looks, a great body and a modicum of ability can compete on Drag Race and become famous," Jaylene had pointedly made the comparison between Penelope Bishop and Felicity Benson; Balwyn's two trans femme heroines.

"What about all that charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and, talent that they prattle on about?" Penelope had replied.

They both looked at each other and burst out laughing. A bond had been formed.

Penelope was buzzed into Jaylene's studio apartment which although pokey was immaculately clean and tastefully decorated. Penelope looked around the apartment appreciatively.

"What? You expected a prostitute's hovel?" Jaylene asked from where she was seated in front of a small mirror applying the last of her makeup.

"No. I expected exactly this. A small place well within your means that would be clean and well kept," Penelope said dropping the folder containing the pictures on the tiny dining table which was pushed against the wall.

Jaylene applied the last touches to her mascara and stood up.

"What's that?" she pointed at the folder with her chin.

"Pictures. Pictures of men who have targeted transgendered women," Penelope spun the folder in a circle on the table top.

"Targeted?" Jaylene took one last look in the mirror and picked a stray skerrick of lipstick out the corner of her mouth.

"Men who have committed sexual assault, indecent behaviour or stalked them. Men from all over the state," Penelope replied.

"Do you know that most of the men who solicit my services consider themselves straight? They want to kiss me, caress me, they want me to suck their dicks and they want to fuck me in the ass. A surprising amount of them want to suck my dick and have me fuck them in the ass," Jaylene stepped into the tiny kitchenette.

"But they aren't gay. They go home to their wives and girlfriends and tell homophobic and transphobic jokes in bars. They change the station when anything 'gay' comes on the TV. But when the compulsion takes them they come on down to Bridge Street and take me into the Ambassador Hotel to make their secret fantasies come true," Jaylene took a bottle of scotch down from a shelf and took two glasses out of the cupboard.

"I know those men. I've known them all my life. From college to the academy, from being a beat cop to heading up a Task Force I've had those men approach me. The Sleeping Beauty killer captured me. It was never made public what he did to me but you can guess," Penelope whispered.

"Like all men who rape women, it's about power more than sex," Penelope straightened the folder on the table.

Jaylene came over to Penelope and held out a glass of scotch.

"I'm an alcoholic," Penelope shook her head.

Jaylene snatched back the glass as if it held poison.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know," she apologised.

"Why would you?" Penelope smiled at Jaylene who smiled back.

Jayleen poured Penelope's drink into her own glass and took a can of Coke out the fridge for Penelope and sat down at the table.

Jaylene was dressed for work. Her makeup was heavy, her hair teased, she wore a black leather miniskirt and red satin blouse, her legs were sheathed in shimmery hose which when she sat were disclosed to be hold-up stockings. Her black heels were ridiculously high. Penelope noted the faux fur coat hanging on the back of the door. Jaylene would wear it to keep warm on the streets but leave it open to display her wares. Penelope knew what these women had to do to make a living.

Penelope sat down at the table at right-angles to Jaylene, the space so small that their knees touched under the table. Penelope opened the folder.

"Do you mind if I drink this? I should have asked," Jaylene raised the glass she had half-filled with scotch.

"It's my addiction not yours," Penelope said opening the Coke with some difficulty using her fingernail.

"I only have two glasses, I should have rinsed the other one out," Jaylene apologised.