Loretta Lariat: Law of Lawless

1.

Lawless wasn't a real town and never had been. Just a little rinkydink rundown mining camp on the piney shoulder of a lopsided mountain called Drunk Uncle Dick. One steep narrow street, more like a track, that was all it had, with a switchback in the middle, so the camp was on two levels. Half a dozen crumbling shacks ranged along each. The actual mines up around there were all long played out, never profitable to begin with; the camp had got abandoned for a couple years until various gangs of bad guys started using the place as a hideout. Only off and on, at first. Then enough of them eventually happened to congregate there at the same time that it evolved into a sort of convenient trading center for criminals. A safe-ish secluded place they could make swaps between themselves, and cook up schemes. Lick wounds, when necessary. Some asshole saw his chance to make money off everybody else and opened up a makeshift tavern in the largest of the shacks, and soon after that another guy organized a brothel right next door.

Imagine the bad stretch of an ordinary town, without any of the good parts that normally went with it. Like somebody scooped up this one disgusting street from another place, folded it in half, and dumped it on this mountainside where they wouldn't have to look at it or hear its ghastly noise. See, the rowdiest and most notorious western settlements still have plenty of ordinary folk living and working there. General stores and barber shops and churches and hotels and liveries ... Bad as human nature tends to be, you don't see any towns that are just saloons and gambling hells and whorehouses, without all the rest of the stuff balancing matters out, or attempting to. A town couldn't survive if all it had was the bad shit. The bad people needed the good people to fleece, if nothing else.

Lawless was the proverbial exception. It only worked as well as it did 'cause nobody really lived there, not permanently.

Why hadn't any marshals or the army or whoever come along and cleaned this loathsome shithole out? Well, eventually that would happen, provided the "town" didn't just self-destruct on its own. (Sanitation was a serious issue. Plagues were bound to strike; only a question of when.) So far nobody'd got around to taking the issue in hand, was all. For one thing, the baddies up on the mountain weren't hurting anybody up there but themselves, or didn't seem to be, no matter how rowdy they got. For the most part, far as anyone could see. Better maybe just to let them keep doing their stuff up in isolation for as long as possible rather than force the whole blackhearted crowd to disperse again and take their nasty behaviors back among civil society. And there was another factor. The so-called mayor of the town (the tavern keeper) had just hammered out a treaty with a small but particularly mean spirited Indian tribe inhabiting the dense pine forests around the feet of Drunk Uncle Dick. Supposedly (the entire story might have been horseshit) this fierce tribe, called the Yeller Teeth, had agreed to defend the mountain in exchange for a steady supply of firewater.

The Yeller Teeth might not really exist, a mere spook story; those pine woods might be perfectly safe, or as safe at least as any other untamed frontier forest. But no lawmen or soldiers had been willing to put the question to the test. Not yet. Maybe next year, or the year after ...

2.

Now ... White Butte's singular female Marshal (though she didn't live there no more and hadn't, in point of fact, for quite a good while), the blonde and beautiful Loretta Lariat, famous across the wide west in story and song (or infamous, depending on exactly which of those various tales and ballads you might be familiar with) was trapped in that place. It happened like this: A pair of villainous gunslingers, as the result of pure misfortune and a tiny bit of misjudgment on her part, had got the better of the Marshal and rendered her a captive (a state of affairs she seemed sadly prone to—one can only sigh.) The bandits had amused themselves for a period with the taking of certain liberties upon her person, and once satisfied with such sport, they had then chosen, alas, to carry her off to Lawless against her will, planning to show her off to that nefarious community of their criminal brethren, bound and helpless and humiliated. And also, as well, very much in what one might graciously describe furthermore and hitherto as a State of Nature. Daisy bee, you sometimes heard Frenchies call it. That is to say, in a condition of undress. Or, in plainer words ... or starker terms ... to state the bare unclothed facts ... Loretta Lariat was in the nude.

The naked prisoner of an entire town full of baddies. Yes, it wasn't a huge settlement. Not a real town. Just a grubby camp of grubby no-goods, under the leadership by a fat, self-important bastard with delusions of grandeur (Mayor Jolly). All told, the whole present population could add up to no more than two or three dozen souls, at the very most. Still, that particular figure remained a large enough number to leave her feeling very, very small. Very, very alone.

Very, very naked, indeed.

She's been stuck in this place for three whole days. And the nights between them, of course. Though given the choice, she'd prefer not to mention those, or to remember them.

Mayor Jolly had appointed her the town's lawman. She was declared the official law of Lawless. He gave her a star and a gun, too.

The gun had no bullets in it. The belt she got along with it had cartridges stuffed in every loop—and then every single one turned out to be just a spent, empty shell. While her new star was rusty and bent all out of shape, like a big damn horse stomped on it, or maybe it had got partially melted in a forge or on top a stove. God knows, not that it mattered. And she had to wear it pinned to her belt. 'Cause she didn't have a shirt to fix it to.

The mayor let her have a white hat (though the one the fucker picked for her was too big for her and didn't sit properly on her head) and a pair of boots, with spurs. That was where he stopped. That was how he wanted her to stay.

She was to wear the hat and the boots and the gunbelt buckled on with its spent cartridges, malformed badge, and the empty gun in the holster (a big damn gun, too—quite a hand cannon, if she'd been able to fire it). That was it. Nothing else allowed. Almost worse than having nothing at all. Turned her from a pitiable figure of cringing distress that anyone with a heart would feel compassion for (not that any man in this town fit that description) to an obscene laughingstock. A piece of living pornography to display in the street. The shiny buckle of the belt had an obscene engraving on the front of a nude woman on all fours coupling with a wolf or a coyote—some nasty-looking dog. Surely it was only her imagination that the face of the woman had been based on her own. When, for brief periods, she could force herself to think rationally and objectively about it, she knew the carving was much too small and too crudely done to realistic resemble anyone at all. Still, whenever she looked down at it on her waist, she saw a picture of herself. The expression on the wretched girl's face seemed to be the exact same O-face she imagined she must make when she was succumbing to passion. Because you could also see how ashamed and angry the girl was and how much she was hating herself for giving in to the unspeakable pleasure beneath the rutting of that loathsome beast. Nobody else's eyes would see it that way, probably, but that was how the image would always look to her.

Mostly all she'd done during the past three days was fart around. Drift aimlessly up and down the street. Walking patrol, har har. Trying to keep her mind as blank as possible. Drinking quite a bit, to help with that. Every time she passed the tavern, hiking up or hiking down, she'd go inside for a minute, drain another tall glass. She didn't have to pay. The Mayor kept her covered. She'd rather he was covering her skin instead of her tab. Since she wouldn't get the one, she'd make do with comforts of the other. Fuck it and fuck him. Fuck all these brutes and bastards.

So yeah. Let's not sugarcoat this either—she's barely eaten, the past three days. Couple bowls of beans, here and three, little bit of fried chicken. Made her fart a lot. Compared to the amount of liquor she's been downing, no contest. Loretta's been entirely sloshed the whole time she's been here, and she ain't letting herself sober up anytime soon. No siree. Keeps hiccupping.

People mostly haven't messed with her, except for the times when they did ...

The Mayor had made a big proclamation, on her first morning. She was supposed to be off-limits. Nobody was allowed to abuse the new Marshal. Nobody was supposed to touch her. Lawless's first established law. Except it wasn't. The Mayor had kept repeating this was only a "request". Surely.

"Think of it just as a nice favor from all of you to me," he had boomed, "and also to her. Goes without saying. An extended courtesy. For the good name of our community. You're cooperation is not compulsory, of course. We don't operate that way and we never will. I'm only making a polite public request. Abide, and you'll have my deepest appreciation, affection, and regard. If you don't wish to, well ... It's your decision. My feelings will be hurt, I shan't pretend otherwise. But we won't discuss that further unless it becomes a necessity. You all remember I prefer not to dwell on unpleasantness."

Obviously her so-called status was meaningless. Or rather, it was just meant as a sick twisted joke.

She wasn't really expected to try to keep the peace or arrest anyone or settle down disputes or do any damn thing substantial or remotely sheriff-like. All the Mayor actually wanted was for her to parade herself around the town in her disgraceful not-quite-an-outfit as a figure of constant amusement and salacious stimulation, a sort of captive prize on display, like the Romans used to do with conquered barbarian monarchs. She was almost the town mascot. Symbolized the criminals' freedom and their bullshit self-serving ideal visions of themselves, their sense of rebellious prowess and cleverness and entitlement up on this fucking filthy mountain. "You'll give a special and invigorating ambience to our atmosphere," said the Mayor. "Just your presence. Just the sight of you." She was a living, walking embodiment of the forces of law and justice brought low and subjugated. Rendered powerless and absurd.

Quite a job, huh. Real rewarding. Put a girl in touch with her individual importance and value in this world.

Yet she should count her blessings. There was another major one, besides all the endless mind-numbing liquor she was permitted to drink. And that was the boots she'd been given. Thank God for those boots. Well, thanks to the fucking fat Mayor, anyhow. She was genuinely grateful to him for these boots, for real, no bullshit or backpedaling. In her book, at least one of the blowjobs he made her give him had been earned fair and square, no hard feelings afterward. Maybe even two. Strike those off his list of sins. Not that it noticeably shortened the list. But a fair accounting should be kept.

Loretta had sensitive feet and she was sensitive about them. Her body had its fair share of, shall we say, weak spots—her feet were one of the weakest. She had learned that the seemingly trivial difference between having no clothes on except footwear and no clothes on whatsoever was actually not a trivial thing at all. Barefoot nudity is a thousand times more vulnerable and dangerous and harder to handle than nude-except-for-your-tootsies. Not to say you aren't still pretty durn seriously vulnerable, when you're nude-except-for-your-tootsies. But not like you are when you're nude all the way. She had learned this several times. The degree of difference had been dramatically illustrated for her.

And the one street of the town, holy God, it was no street at all. More like a sluggish, oozing, green-brown creek ... Slimy, steamy, ankle-deep muck, only semi-liquid and smelling so bad it was enough to knock you over. Made your eyes water and the inside of your nose and throat burn. The muck was composed of horse shit, human shit, piss and vomit. There might theoretically have been some regular mud mixed in there too—particles of plain honest healthy mountain dirt—but that dirt had got dirtied up by all the dirtier dirt. Everything all churned together. Those particles would never be plain or healthy again.

Loretta would cheerfully walk a barefoot mile over gravel, hot coals and broken glass before she'd willingly dip a single unprotected toe into that stuff. And Thank and Praise the Lord, she didn't have to. All these rascals and scoundrels and mountebanks could see as much as they wanted of her big swaying sweaty boobies and their spiked nipples, and the whole gorgeous stretch of her ass, up and down its slopes and side to side, both glistening peachy perky cheeks and the provocative crack between them, and they could also see every tight blonde curl of her primly groomed bush ... Hell, if the fuckers squinted real close and keen, they might even be able to spot the tiny glassy trickles on her upper thighs, that never for a second quite stopped seeping from the swollen strawberry-pink lips of her fevered treacherous selfish greedy cunny ... But dammit, her dainty white feet were safe and clean and secure and dry inside a pair of good, tall, sturdy cowboy boots. And that was something. One damn thing still in her favor. Put a little warmth in her tummy, every time she took another splashy step through that devilish filth.

3.

Each evening after dinner, while they smoked cigars, Mayor Jolly would play a game of chess with the owner of the brothel beside his tavern. He'd named his place the Watering Hole. The brothel next door—in fact the two buildings were conjoined—was called the Northwest Passage, and its owner was a towering, pinch-mouthed, dead-eyed old man who went by the name of Mr. Gothcastle. The sight of him alone made Loretta shudder all over. He plain scared the bejesus out of her. Stank of excessive cologne. Made your eyes sting almost as bad as the street did.

Whichever of them won the chessmatch, she had to spend the night with. The first night the Mayor won; the next one went to Gothcastle (though from observing the game, she suspected the Mayor let his buddy have that one, to keep him happy). God knew how things would turn out this coming evening.

Needless to say, she was allowed little rest, either night with either asshole.

Going to bed with the Mayor was like bedding a bear. Except a real bear might have turned out better fun. He was the hugest man she'd ever encountered, built like a planet, and covered all over with shaggy reddish hair. His appendage turned out to be nothing special, however. Which was a relief, when it was revealed. And then he had showed little stamina for the act itself. Fucked her just once, and not for long. That one time didn't really finish him off for the night, only everything else that was done after that, it was with her doing all the work. Jolly just lay flat on his back and kept still, with his eyes shut and a boyish smile on his face, breathing sighs of contentment as she clambered and bounced about on top of him, huffing and puffing and sweating like a stevedore. It was fairly easy and painless to bring him to a few more completions. Still tiring work on account of the number of repeat performances he wanted, and no real pleasures were given to her the whole night. The Mayor was the first of her ravagers she could recall that proved incapable of forcing climaxes from her—as well as uninterested. He just finished too soon, and only wanted satisfaction for himself. Had none of that wicked desire to prove to her how skilled and irresistible he was which she'd got so familiar with from other maniacal conquerors. Left her flustered, frustrated, breathless, sore and annoyed. Then inevitably she got madder at herself for getting mad about that.

Then when it was his turn, Gothcastle didn't end up touching her or even taking off any of his clothes. He just sat himself in an armchair in the corner of his room smoking another cigar while he watched Loretta go several rounds with three of his other working girls, on a big fancy Persian rug in the middle of the floor that must have been worth a fortune. The patterns on the rug reminded her more than anything else of spaghetti and meatballs, but maybe only on account of how little good food she'd got to eat since her enslavement.

Those three clever giggling whores made up for the Mayor's treatment—but also changed her mind about it. Made her look back on his bed almost with nostalgia. The girls were far more concerned with her orgasms than getting any from her for themselves. Only they showed no kindness or gentleness about the business. Quite the opposite. It quickly became a crazy contest for them ... which of the three wildcats could make her spend the quickest, and the loudest, and the messiest, and the most often. Loretta herself lost track long before the finish. Not sure which of the damned girls ended up the victor. She was not properly conscious by then. They never allowed her to pass out completely, but by the end of the game she could no longer have called herself sane. Could hardly remember her own name. Couldn't see straight, couldn't talk coherently. They left her a babbling, writhing wreck. If she had to guess, she'd say their game probably ended up as a tie. None of the trio seemed any better or worse than the others. To her, they were all equally skilled, and equally merciless, and equally appalling.

The thought of another encounter like that ... Well, it was unthinkable. She dare not imagine.

All she could do for the present moment was keep drinking, keep walking, and pray when it was finally time for that evening's chessmatch, the Mayor didn't hold himself back and beat the pants off Gothcastle again like he did the first night. She was pretty certain the fat smug fucker could keep doing that as often as he liked. How often would he feel diplomatically obliged to lose?

She should stop thinking about it. Totally useless.

And of course the dreadful pictures wouldn't go away. Couldn't think of anything else. Couldn't stop seeing them, not for one second. Didn't matter if her eyes were goddamn open or shut.

4.

Two women over at the billiard table were giving her funny looks as they played their game. Not to say no one else was—the funny looks never stopped. A nude female marshal might be defined as the perfect mechanism or engine for the generation of funny looks from everyone around her ... Those women's particular looks only stood out from all the other fuckers' because first, they were female, which obviously was rare (them being armed outlaws themselves, not just another couple whores in frilly dresses) and secondly, they were kind of familiar to her, or seemed like they were, or should be. Except Loretta couldn't put names to neither face. Pretty sure the more she racked her brain, she'd never come across either character before. How could they seem familiar then? Didn't make sense, yet the feeling persisted. Unless it was only another symptom of her drunkenness and deteriorating sanity.

One looked a fair bit like Macey McDamon (the bitch that had brought her to this place) but just at first glance. And Macey and her black partner had rode out the day before, recruited to join another large gang for some train job ... This girl had lighter hair, anyway, and she was shorter. Also she was wearing a black mask. A ridiculous affectation. No need for that sort of shit around here. Besides, it was the sort of mask (a domino, if she remembered the name right) that really didn't much hide your identity for shit, any better than a pair of spectacles might. Any fool would be able to recognize the girl's face without it. Was it intended to make her look scary? Like a hardcase? Well, it didn't work for that either. It looked childish, was all. Little girl playing dress-up.