Mean Girls of Maplewood Ch. 21

"Money's on the bed." The fifty sat on the edge of the ruffled bedding.

The hooker kept world weary eyes trained on April who was busy running hot water into the bathroom sink onto a bath towel. She didn't know what to make of the stout, busty enigma currently wiping her huge breasts down. April casually glanced over with a provocative smile making the fallen woman uneasy. She knew when she was being sized up, still brandishing the straight razor.

"What's your name?" April asked, wiping the towel across the bridge of her nose.

"Conception."

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Deputy Mooney pulled up to the modest doctor's office noticing the men already gathered and playing their evening poker game. Bill Hankerson would not be happy to see him, but duty called even though he knew he should be driving home.

"Oh crap, here you are again, Mooney." Hankerson was dealing out a new hand to the other players which included local DJ Johnny Mahony, and two citizens he didn't recognize right off the bat. Mahony felt the opposite from the town coroner waving Mooney over.

"Hey Mooney, got something juicy I can use for the morning show?"

"No comment, turn off the fucking recorder Johnny." Deputy Mooney knew the ambitious local celebrity all too well as he placed his phone on the table after turning it off. Hankerson noticed the cup in the red plastic bag at his hip.

"You know I'm off duty, Mooney."

"Yeah, still thought I'd try it anyway, Bill; you really gonna make me wait until morning, huh?"

"Well, depends on how good it is anyhow; you really been on a tear lately. Still trying to lock up the Sheriff's daughter?" Mooney stood at the end of the stoop tipping his cowboy hat to the other players.

"Well, it's becoming something of a must for me these days."

"Yeah, well I'd like to lock that little minx up in my bedroom." Mahony commented to mixed reaction around the table.

"Thirty-six, ain't you Johnny?" His comment was not lost on Mooney, himself a father with a couple of daughters of his own.

"She's legal, right; I mean you wouldn't be trying so hard if she was just gonna get hit with juvey charges, right?" The verbally savvy radio personality rolled right through the uncomfortable retort with a probing question.

"No comment."

"Well, she's eighteen ain't she?" Another guy commented.

"Yeah, yeah, she's a senior over there at the high school; all the kids hate the shit outta that ginger bitch. I'll cosign with Johnny on that cute little ass of hers, too."

"Ain't nothing little about that ass, buddy." The other guy, Kip commented as the group continued playing. Hankerson handed Mooney a brew from a cooler at his feet.

"Tell me about it; you know one time I was doing the boys that owned that rec center a solid deejaying a battle of the bands when Sheriff's daughter showed up with some of her cheerleader friends making a ruckus. Never forget it too because besides wearing these tattered daisy dukes, she straight blasted this poor sap over the head with a fucking beer bottle."

"Why'd she do that Johnny?" Kip asked.

"Guess the guy lost his shit grabbing all of that big, pale ass of hers. Didn't have no real security but a few responsible guys pulled her up off that idiot kid. She was stomping the fuck outta him and guess what?"

"What?" Hankerson asked, intrigued.

"No jail time for that assault; Red skated by like she always does when Sheriff gets involved." Mooney finished the sentence after taking a sip of beer.

"That kid was fucked up; besides people were thinking they were related cause they were both gingers." Mooney took another swig from his bottle perking up at the conclusion of the brief story.

"Gingers?"

"It's a term, for redheaded people, Mooney." Johnny explained needlessly.

"Ah, play your hand Johnny; and stay away from my house."

"WHY?!"

"Deputy here, got one fine looking, college age daughter keeping after the other kids in the house." Kip explained between drinks from his own half full bottle.

"Watch yourself Kip." Mooney patted his holstered weapon.

"You guys need to play your hand or give me the pot and go jerk it or something; shit Mooney, why you gotta come over here messing up the game?" Hankerson heard enough of the idle gossip.

"Just following a hunch, is all."

"Now I'm getting curious; what you got there."

"Like I said, a hunch." Mooney placed the plastic bag containing the cup in the center of the table drawing everyone's attention.

"The Sheriff ain't gonna let you lock up his kid."

"Maybe he got too much on his plate to stop me; anyhow could you run some tests on this cup, Bill?"

"What're you looking for?"

"Like I already done said; a hunch." His vague answer hung in the air between the assembled men.

Deputy Mooney was known to be a diamond in the ruff down at the station. So much, that Sheriff Reed went out of his way to assert his authority over the subordinate. Some of the other deputies sometimes chided Mooney, calling him the secret sheriff of Maplewood. His boss didn't like that one bit, but the unsupported lawman was already entrenched when Sheriff Reed was elected.

"Alright I'll give you a call but next time you get a hunch; I keep banker's hours, Mooney." Hankerson faux warned.

"Sure, whatever you say." Mooney planted a crisp twenty in the medical examiner's shirt pocket heading back to his patrol car with the remnants of his beer.

"HEY MOONEY; JIMMY COMING BY LATER?!!"

"Not a chance; it's his favorite night of the week." Deputy Mooney got into his car pulling off into the night air.

"His favorite night of the week; fuck's that supposed to mean?" Mahoney asked around the table.

"Vice night down on the strip a mile out from Happy's; all the ladies of the night and such. Those whores are kind of an unofficial tourist attraction for a lot of truck drivers passing through." Kip explained.

"You know an awful lot about the strip down there for a married man, Kip." Hankerson chimed in while the others laughed.

"Why you think I'm trying to win this hand, so bad?" Laughter erupted from the table as the men continued playing. Kip unfortunately, didn't win.

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"WHAT THE FUCK, MAN!!" He mashed down on his horn, impatient. There were several cars in front of his modest Oldsmobile and at least three at his right side in the adjacent lane preventing him from changing lanes. Harry Jenkins sat there stuck as his phone started ringing.

"Yeah, what is it Laura?"

"I have to work tonight; can you go by the house and check on Humbert?" He instantly regretted answering the phone lately hating the sound of his wife's voice.

"He's not a baby."

"Are you going to do what I said, or are you gonna keep being an absentee father, huh?"

"I ain't no absentee father; don't start that shit with me, Laura. Your son I eighteen years old supposed to be graduating from high school this year and you still wanna baby the shit out of him. I'm not coddling him, no matter what happened!! Humbert's a big boy who got dealt a bad hand, okay?!"

"Harry, our son got raped; you can't even admit that much or look him in the eye. How do you think that makes him feel, huh?!"

"Don't do that Laura, don't lay that shit on me, tonight!"

"Lay what on you, huh Harry?!! When's the last time you even talked to him?!! Don't you think you could be a better father to him after what happened, huh Harry?!!"

"I'M A GODDAMN GOOD FATHER TO THAT BOY!! HE DON'T WANT FOR NOTHING, GOT A FULL BELLY AND A ROOF OVER HIS FUCKING HEAD!! LAY OFF ME LAURA!!" The emotion burst up from deep within from a place he didn't like going. Laura Jenkins knew how to push his buttons and had been doing so with increasing frequency driving him to sleep on a coworker's couch.

"I-I saw that Leslie girl sitting outside our house a couple of days ago."

"So." He could hear the emotion in his wife's voice. It tugged at his heartstrings knowing he wanted nothing to do with the situation that was driving a wedge between them. Before things came to the fore with their only child, their marriage was a bit more agreeable, still stagnant.

"That's all you have to say, huh Harry."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me everything's gonna be okay. I want you to say that you're gonna check on our son and make sure he's safe. Fuck Harry, I want you to say you're coming home to us instead of supposedly hiding out at Tom's apartment." It was true he'd spent an inordinate number of nights on his younger coworker's couch.

While initially sympathetic, Tom Gibbs had shown him the door when it cramped his style with the ladies having a veritable troll on his couch. The sight of an angry looking, balding middle-aged man with smelly feet did nothing for the younger lothario's dating life. Harry Jenkins found alternate lodgings at a discount at the local Days Inn. An old classmate worked the night desk giving him motel rates.

"I gotta go Laura." There was a long, pregnant silence after.

"Will you just make sure he's okay; just check, for me Harry?" She sounded drained, weary of fighting with her husband.

"Yeah, sure." Laura Jenkins hung up without another word as the cars in front of him inched forward a few feet. Lonely, Harry flipped on the radio finding comfort in a reliable oldie "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins.

He checked his rear-view mirror noticing more cars behind him. There was a semi in the left lane assuring that he wouldn't be able to pull into another lane cementing his position mired in an impromptu traffic jam. It seemed like a weekend night as a few cars drifted ahead in the left lane.

"FUCK MAN, YOU SEE THAT SHIT!!" Harry glanced over finding a car full of teenage boys and a few grade school kids as well.

The interior of the car was stuffed to the gills with jabbering, chatting excited guys. He wondered if there were some sort of concert going on one town over. Maplewood was so small that it barely even qualified as little more than a glorified truck stop. A few miles up the road was the Weigh Station and rest stop heavily used adjacent to the local camping grounds.

Harry bristled a bit remembering the stinging words of his wife, knowing that once he passed the station, he could hit a winding side road back into town proper. His home was a mile out from Happy's the other sort of hangout for locals. The thought of looking art his nerdy son gave Harry pause, but he'd promised his wife that he would check up on Humbert. Incessant honking drew Harry's attention back to the other car full of excited teens. It was apparent they were trying to get his attention.

"HEY OLD MAN, CAN YOU LET US IN?!!" This peevish looking boy yelled at him sitting shotgun in the passenger seat of their Honda Civic. It was one of the newer models probably two years older than the current year eliciting pangs of jealousy when measured against his old jalopy.

"I would, but I don't have enough room." He replied to a lot set of teen jeers and indecipherable chatter.

"AW COME ON OLD DUDE; WE TRYING TO GET IN THAT LANE FOR TWENTY MINUTES!!" The teen complained, his entitlement bewildering compared to his own humble son.

"I been stuck here for thirty." Another pudgy looking teen's ruddy face appeared from the open window of the backseat.

"MOVE THAT OLD SHIT OFF THE ROAD GRAMPS; WE TRYING TO GET LAID!!" Harry glanced back at the offensive teen fighting the urge to put his car in park and paste the chubby punk. Instead he went against his better judgement lightly hitting his breaks as the kids in the other car cheered their idiot hero.

The resultant honking from the row of vehicles behind Harry made him feel like a coward of sorts. He replayed the immediate interaction with a different outcome assaulting that fat kid in the theatre of his mind. Reality told him the result of that action would've ended with him getting the Rodney King Treatment from a car full of punks instead. There was no denying something electric was in the air tonight as the honking continued even in adjacent lanes. He checked his rear-view mirror finding two more similar situations of cars trying to merge into his lane.

There was no way they were jostling for the weigh station looming ahead. On the passenger side of his car was a wooded peninsula with only high brush slightly waving in the night breeze. He'd unconsciously edged closer to the high grass and thick foliage noticing a moderate incline near the road as he inched forward, curious. The stuffed car in front of him was incredibly raucous as he realized the reason for the traffic jam.

"Oh crap; makes sense, now." A prostitute was loitering on the passenger side of the road.

He was still too far to get a good look at the woman, but she was wearing a flimsy negligee sheer enough that the G-string parting her semi-flabby cheeks was wholly visible. Harry chuckled to himself, finally forgiving the fat kid's impatience. He considered it a rite of passage, distinctly American. Strains of "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Star wafted from his car radio.

"Those punks ain't getting nothing with a full car; shit, I wouldn't want no broad willing to get into a stuffed backseat with a bunch of horny boys!! Those dummies gonna get the fucking clap tonight!!" Harry talked to himself getting more jovial as a few more hookers appeared waiting on the side of the road.

He checked his side view mirror realizing most of the other cars at his rear were jostling into position to pick women up for a night of fun. Harry allowed himself to forget his issues getting into the jovial atmosphere however illicit. The waiting ladies of the night were a decided mixed bag of sorts, decidedly suited to the truckers who were obviously their main clientele.

Another shaky looking woman, obviously in his age group was bending over ahead allowing groping of her saggy, looking butt. The honking car horns and dueling musical selection from various cars added to a carnival atmosphere. Harry glanced over finding some of the women keeping pace with the plodding caravan walking the strip. One emaciated looking girl waved meekly at him, visibly drenched in perspiration obviously a meth head.

"Fuck that shit." He nodded his head in the negative, but honked his horn giving the woman an endorsement unearned.

Harry chuckled remembering his youth wishing he'd been brave enough to drive down to the strip for some Saturday night fun with the local ladies club. Humbert's mother was the second woman he'd slept with after a particularly tempestuous episode as the losing part in a one-sided love triangle with a girl who'd chosen the other guy. The fact that he'd been beaten bloody in a very public area didn't help matters. The resultant bitterness remained at the edge of his psyche until he met Laura, a candy striper at the local hospital in Maplewood.

"HEY MAN!" His attention was averted as he glanced over finding a woman walking beside his vehicle bent over peering into his passenger window. She was obviously Mexican and a little dingy looking, but attractive enough not to warrant rolling up the window.

"Uhm, hey young lady." He stumbled over his words, feeling instantly stupid. There was a modicum of beauty behind her acute ethnic features.

"You looking?"

"Excuse me, huh?"

"Come on man, you looking or what?!!" Her thick accent was grating to the ear, but he shook his head feigning ignorance if only to get a fleeting glance of her nascent cleavage.

"What, like am I buying or something?"

"¡Maldita sea, eres tan jodidamente estúpido! Yeah man, you looking for stank, or what?!!" Her irritated sounding native language spiked something inside him, but he wanted nothing to do with the woman who looked dangerous on a good day.

"I don't really think that would be a good idea, lady." Harry chortled.

"You don't like no pussy, man?!!" She sounded irritated leaning in closer to his open window, wild eyed.

"I like it just fine young lady; I don't like going to jail."

"AIN'T NO COPS AROUND OR NOTHIN; YOU FRONTIN SERIOUS PERRA'!!" He wished he could lean over to see the rest of her body afforded only an oddly, doughy side view as she continued trying to make the hard sell as traffic slowed to a gradual stop.

"No, I'm serious, miss?"

"Fuck man, my name Conception; what you need to know that for, anyways eh?!!" She rested an arm on the open window walking beside his car bent over. Harry was aroused getting a fortunate peek at the thick erect nipple on her slightly saggy boob.

"It's nice to know who you're talking to Conception; don't you agree?"

"Ah you just trying to see some fucking tits, ain't you payaso?!" She clapped a hand over her chest hiding the errant tit. He noticed the quick, jerky movements of her head as she glanced back and forth gauging other potential customers.

"Well it's good to see what you're offering, right Conception?" He was getting off a little bit, subconsciously enjoying a minor mid-life crisis. There was no way he'd ever cheat on his wife.

"Oh so you like you some fucking titties, huh Chico Blanco?!!" The hooker smiled a predatory grin, showcasing teeth yellowed from excessive smoking.

"Oh course, who doesn't?" Conception was looking ahead as the loud honking of horns and catcalls got progressively louder. He made sure to keep his eyes intermittently on the stuffed car in front of his Oldsmobile. Two prostitutes were also making the hard sell with the teen filled car.

"Alright I'll show you some fucking titties dumbass." Her tone was criminally playful as he turned back to the passenger side window expecting to be flashed. Instead Conception stepped up on the curve backing away, somewhat flabby arms outstretched.

April stood on the sidewalk wearing a chintzy looking gold lamé bomber jacket, calf length athletic socks and cheap heels. Her upper torso was bulky form the oversized jacket she hadn't worn since working in town at a thrift store where it was purchased, on the cheap. She'd brought it ostensibly to hide her chest from prying eyes back in the days prior to her rebirth. Now it served a different purpose as she found herself looking at a face, she recognized from a family photo in her former boyfriend's living room.

Harry Jenkins didn't know what to make of the rotund girl staring back at him from the sidewalk noting the heavy makeup on a rounded face surrounded by wet, greasy looking blonde hair. Her temples were bordered on either side by garish, pink colored children's barrettes in contrast with the pixyish look of her face. Traffic slowed to a stagnant crawl as the cacophony continued. His gaze drifted down getting a quick glimpse of the white panties stretched to capacity over her muff.

YES DADDY was written in blocky hot pink lettering on the crotch as a grinning Conception gave April a nudge.

"¡MIRA ESTOS GRANDES CULOS FOLLANDO CULO!" Conception yelled triumphantly.

April jerked the zipper down with flair legs spread wide popping her hip out towards his car, looking away down the strip as her enormous breasts bulged outward, bouncing with an extended rubbery jiggle. Conception stood off to the side laughing hard as several cars hit their breaks, screeching to a halt. Off in the distance a minor collision was heard cementing April's superstar coming out status on hooker row. It lasted barely five seconds as she zipped up turning her back to the car. Her thick, chunky butt looked inviting in those juvenile panties, but Harry along with several others was smitten. The noise from the other cars was unmanageable at this point as he realized April was the sole cause of the traffic jam despite the other working girls.

"HOLY FUCK!!" He barely had time to stop his car hitting the emergency break to avoid rear ending the teen filled car in front of him as Conception taunted from the sidewalk.