==================
Chapter 2
Madison tried to snooze most of the way back to the Blue Pines trailer court, but the county's roads weren't well-kept and the jostling kept her awake and her jiggly bits jiggling. Her driver, "Ray," an uptight-looking recent retiree with his top button buttoned and a full head of silver hair, spent more time regarding her in the rear-view mirror than he did watching the road.
It wasn't an unfamiliar gaze. Guys like this, whether they wanted to save her or fuck her, it all came out looking the same.
His Kia bounced roughly over the gravel road leading to her turn-off, then came to a stop before her driveway, which made a U before the aging brown trailer home. Her daddy's car was still gone, which was surprising; she'd been bracing herself for some kind of well-meaning but awkward interaction. As she swung her legs out of the open door, "Ray" turned to her.
"You know..." A pause. Oh Lordy, here we go. "You don't have to live this way, young lady. It ain't right."
He couldn't see her rolling her eyes, so she put it all into her voice. "Yeah, you're right," she agreed, pushing on the cheap sunglasses that lived in her purse. "For as hard as I slut, this oughta be a mansion."
As he spluttered, she walked away, putting a little extra sass in the ass as she went. Then, just as she reached her front steps, he collected himself enough to yell something. "Get to Pastor Clement's tomorrow! Mulberry Road just off State 33! He can
heal
you!"
Yeah, right. The only healing Mads wanted or needed was in the shower in the double-wide's little second bathroom. Off came Derek's t-shirt, off came the leggings, and with an audible fleshy slap, off came the bra.
Daddy's trailer was probably forty years old, all vinyl wood paneling and orange carpet, and it came from a time when people were apparently just...smaller, with its low counters and awkwardly-narrow hallway. But even if it were built today, nobody could have designed for someone like Madison. Between her generous hips and the shelf that held the body wash, conditioners, moisturizers and toners that were the tools of her trade, there wasn't actually enough room in the stall to close the door unless she turned at an awkward forty-five degree angle between the door and the shower head.
So she usually just left the stall door open instead. Sometimes that gave Daddy's friends or lady callers a sight, and that was a nice bonus.
The shower's major redeeming quality was that it had one of those detachable massaging heads on a hose, and that shower head had a lot of qualities she wished the men of Elk County would learn from: it got her off regularly and reliably, it was clean, and it didn't fucking talk so much. Employing it with her left hand and using her right to heave a nipple up into her own mouth to suck on and worry at, she teased herself into a couple of the satisfying screamers she didn't get to have when family was around.
After drying off - a process that took almost a full washload of towels, depending on how indulgent she decided to be about it - Madison rooted through the fridge for some leftovers and snacks, curled up on the couch with her phone, and got ready for an afternoon of utter, heavenly sloth.
There was only one problem, she realized as she withdrew a sad, limp little plastic baggie from her purse. She was completely out of weed.
"Oh my
fucking
God," she moaned.
==========
Chapter 3
If you were to leave the Blue Pines trailer court the way Madison had come in, down the old state road, and kept following its jittery curves about fifteen incrementally-downhill miles toward Elk Creek, you'd come to Waterside, an unincorporated community of about a dozen buildings - eight of which were actually in use - that represented what had once passed for the county's Black neighborhood.
The creek was wide, lazy, and prone to flooding, so the modest and ramshackle but brightly-colored residences were perched on stilts, or cantilevered out over the bank; from those porches, bales of rice grown in the alluvial fields were once lowered onto flat-bottomed boats that would carry the produce down to Waverly.
Now, though, the little township's commercial ventures of note amounted to Smokey's Bait Shack and the sun-faded Coke machine on its front porch.
And one other. A tiny house, slightly better-maintained than the rest, its clapboard walls painted a vivid blue and decorated with mural art. The home of Darnell Green, entrepreneur, procurer of rare herbs and spices.
"Uuggh," Madison groaned as she pulled Mrs. Oakley's old borrowed Dodge into the dirt drive. An Econoline van, its back festooned with political bumper stickers she didn't really bother to process, sat in front of her. That meant Denise was home.
As she picked her way up the uncomfortably creaky steps, waving off gnats and no-see-ums, Madison noted that a few new flags had been daubed on the house's walls. She already recognized that Rasta one, and the gay rainbow whatever, but they'd been joined by a couple of new contenders: a stripey flag with a pointy red triangle on one side, and another in these kind of odd pastel-y colors. She really hoped she wasn't going to be quizzed on what they meant.
She knocked on the aluminum screen door. Please let it be Darnell,
please
let it be Darnell...
"The fuck do
you
want?"
Well, it had been nice to hope. Madison was briefly grateful for her sunglasses; they concealed the reflexive narrowing of her eyes, and she didn't want to make a shitty start worse. "Hey, Denise," she chirped as briskly and pleasantly as she could while craning to look through the door. "Is D home?"
"Why." The deeply unimpressed woman standing in the doorway made no move to admit Madison. Her rich brown skin was glossy with sweat, her cornrowed hair hung lank under a rag, and the loose overalls she wore over a utilitarian gray sports bra were spattered with paint, which at least explained part of her impatience; she wanted to return to whatever the unwelcome visitor had interrupted.
Being stared at, whispered about, objectified and sexualized since she was twelve years old had taught Madison at least a few things, and one of them was how to instantly size up a potential competitor - or prey. Denise was objectively beautiful: big expressive eyes and plush lips on a lean face, body compact and marbled with muscle from manual labor, wide-hipped, with a hard spherical ass that even the baggy men's overalls couldn't conceal. Madison had sometimes caught herself wondering what it would be like to smack that ass, hard, and not even always in anger...
But none of that chiseled sexuality mattered, because Denise would never
use
any of it. She'd rather just leave that Porsche of a body in the garage forever than wear something nice or practice saying things with a spoonful of honey instead of a bottle of vinegar. She was going to college and called herself some kind of whatever-wavey feminist and thought she was better than girls like Madison.
