Chapter Sixteen

Dire Circumstances Call For Desperate Measures

I should have been disgusted with myself.

I should have been embarrassed with what I had on.

I should have been scared about what I might have to do today.

I wasn’t.

I had convinced myself that Savannah and Crystal were looking out for me. They knew how to follow rules but bend them just enough so they wouldn’t break. That gave me a lot of confidence we could act with relative impunity.

I felt like I knew this place a little now and as it became more familiar it became easier for me to adapt to it.

In Cherry Lawn Estates they would have probably called the police if girls wore swimsuits as skimpy as mine. Here, I received mostly horny smiles and the occasional odd look or question.

I would have looked more out of place if I had kept my conservative one piece swimming suit that we’d packed than what I had on today. I didn’t think I truly fit in, but I didn’t feel like I was in danger.

I remembered the first full day here at Buckman. I had been ambushed by some boys when my cousin’s took me to play cowboys and Indians at the quarry. They tied me up and I felt this abject terror that there was a possibility they might force themselves on me or hurt me.

I think if I played that game again I would be afraid but not nearly as intensely – I’d just scream and run away like Savannah did.

I was proud of myself for doing this today in a weird way. I know I was not saving lives or studying Chaucer here – but it was pleasing some guys and making some money for my family.

I was having these thoughts and at the same time there was a part of me that was screaming “Wake up Ellen!”

The good girl inside of me felt trapped – she was banging on my conscious to make me feel guilty and worried. She didn’t even want to look down at my chest and believe I was willing to wear a top I was popping out of in public. There had to be an easier, more wholesome way, to make money – sell cookies door to door, actually wash cars – dig ditches with the boys!

Odd-Jobs had offered ten dollars an hour to Conner to go do some construction – I could lift more than my pipsqueak brother. I was thinking I would probably make more doing that after we split what little we were making. I wasn’t going to quit today but I was going to bring it up to Odd-jobs as soon as I saw him.

I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed the sobs and tears coming from the pregnant teenager I had seen outside by the pool. Black mascara was running down her eyes as she tried to fix her make up in the bathroom mirror and contain her weeping.

“What’s wrong?” I instinctively asked. I did not know her, but the sight of her sad face and sobs tugged my heart strings.

She considered me for a moment and seemed surprised I had even asked her that question. Her slightly tanned face was so beautiful that it seemed a pity to ever see it twisted up in anguish. She had the same deeply blue eyes that Savannah had; and just looking at her blonde-all-around healthy good looks made me think of baseball, America and apple-pie.

She told me it was nothing but then after sobbing a little more said that she had a fight with her boyfriend, “He is cheating on me.”

“That is so awful,” I told her she should definitely leave him.

“I can’t,” she said, “He is the baby’s daddy!” She rested her hand on her stomach to emphasize the baby was in her belly. There was so much regret in her eyes as tears welled up – but I did not know what to say that might comfort her.

I had no experience with anything as serious as teen pregnancy – something I assumed was a lot more common at the Buckman. In Cherry Lawn we’d hear about a girl going to a party, getting drunk and everyone would say what a slut she was. A few weeks later she’d have to transfer to a school for pregnant girls and we’d all erase her from our collective memories and no one ever talked about her again.

“I can’t work,” she lamented that her pregnancy prevented her from earning a living. “I am dependent on him for this baby and I don’t know what to do.”

I was surprised when the pretty pregnant teenager bent over and rested her head on my shoulder but I let her sniffle and cry.

“What am I doing?” she stood up and tried to compose herself “You must think I am a hot mess.”

“No, I understand,” that sounded like a reassuring thing for me to say even if I did not really understand her situation.

“You do?” she sniffed again.

“I think you can do better than that guy,” I told her that if he cheated on her once then he would cheat on her again.

“He told me that he loved me!” she stomped her foot at how unfair it was and I could sense this feeling of betrayal in her voice that she knew he did not. “I just don’t know how to be better for him. What does he want me to do?” she whined and closed her eyes.

I needed to get to the toilet before I had an accident and excused myself as politely as I could to go into one of the stalls. She nodded that she understood and I noticed someone had removed all the doors to the stalls.

“Why are there no doors to the stalls?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she turned to consider me as if the thought had never occurred to her, “it has always been this way I guess.”

“My name is Ellen,” I picked one of the stalls furthest from her and pulled my bikini down – careful to hold the five dollar bill. She continued to sob and ignored me. There was an awkward silence and I hate to admit but I talked to cover the sound of my pee hitting the water in the toilet. “You are Angel I take it?”

“Yeah,” she struck me as someone who looked pure and beautiful but who was very shallow and not much of a deep thinker.

I tried to use the bathroom as stealthily as I could. It was intensely embarrassing how sound seemed to echo and magnify the smallest sound in this concrete room. The concrete felt cool to the touch even though it was hot outside. I would need some suntan lotion soon – I made a mental note to try to sucker someone into rubbing it on my back when I got back to work washing cars.

'Get back to work,' I thought about those words but didn’t say them out loud. I was starting to think about the last two days as a ‘job’. Someday an interviewer is going to ask me to tell them about my first job and I am going to smile and tell them about the one after this one – I am sure of that.

She was still talking about her problems. He said this and she said that and then this happened and every one of them sounded like a lot of drama and that red-flags should be shooting off all the time that this guy was bad news.

“I caught him at the Landing Strip spending the money from my baby shower,” I heard her sob when I paid attention again to her story. I assumed the Landing Strip was a bar.

I regretted having spoken to her when I first saw her now. “Maybe you should leave him,” I repeated the advice that seemed obvious to me. She did not seem to want rational advice. I think she just wanted me to agree with her but because she didn’t know what she wanted – the circular logic loop in her brain was just going in circles and making her panic.

“He said he went because I am not attractive anymore,” she explained that she felt it was her fault that he had to seek someone else. She said she wasn’t pretty enough to work at the Landing Strip. I wanted to tell her she was pretty enough to work anywhere in the world –even modeling in Paris. She was really that pretty in the face and her tall lanky body was perfect. She was just pregnant and it actually gave her a surprisingly erotically obscene beauty as if her tits, ass, and stomach had been magnified but the rest of her stayed exactly the same.

I didn’t say any of that.

“He can’t find a prettier girl than you,” is what I did say - I didn’t feel that was in any way untruthful. She was crying over someone who seemed entirely forgettable to someone like her.

“You really mean that?” the compliment had perked her ears up and she popped her head into my stall.

I was holding some toilet paper and getting ready to wipe, “Do you mind?”

“Oh sorry,” she popped out of my stall just as quickly. I think Savannah and her don’t have the same barriers and personal boundaries that I do about bathroom time. “It’s just that I love him so much and I don’t think it will ever be the same with anyone else.”

At this point I was tired of telling her to leave him so I decided to say, “Then you should try to make it work.”

“Really?” once again she popped her head into the stall and I had to ask her politely to stop. “It’s just that he wants me to have a threesome with another girl,” she sounded reluctant.

“That is not something you want to do?” I knew a threesome was three people having sex. I had never spoken to anyone about actually doing something like that until now.

“I try to experiment and do things he likes.” She didn’t give me a straight answer to my question, “I guess I’d do one if he really wanted it.”

“Then you should probably do it,” I was so over this conversation. I didn’t seem to be helping her or even playing devil’s advocate. I know she wanted someone to listen to her problems but I had my own to worry about.

“But he wants me to do it with the girl he cheated on me with!” She was back to crying now and added that this was one of the girls who worked at the Landing Strip.

I wanted to tell her that she should obviously conclude if he was at the Landing Strip spending money it was probably on the girl he cheated on her with and that she didn’t have to speculate but it seemed like it should be obvious.

I was wiping as fast as I could to get out of here – this guy sounded like a real bastard. “He is just rubbing your nose in his betrayal,” I wondered how this could not be obvious to her. I guess we can’t see our own problems as easily as we can an outsider’s.

“It’s just that she is prettier than me,” she was re-applying her makeup now to compensate for being pregnant. “He’ll leave me for her and then I will lose him for good and then what about our baby?”

“That might be for the best if he moves on,” I could see she was stuck and no answer I gave was going to satisfy her – I probably should have said I had no opinion, but I felt put on the spot. I pulled my bikini bottoms back on and adjusted the five dollar bill so I could hide it. Then I gave the opposite answer – she would ultimately have to pick one or the other, “Or if you want to, do it and see where it goes.”

It seemed that sex was no barrier to her – she was clearly not a virgin. I told her a line from the movie Juno that I always liked, “You are already pregnant. So you might as well have the three-way- what other shenanigans could you get into?”

“What is a shennanininin?” she stumbled over the words. She looked like an adult women even though she was probably Savannah’s age, but she clearly was very naïve and simple.

I smiled as I flushed the toilet, “I think it’s a restaurant like Outback or Bennigins,” I was joking my way out of trying to explain the movie, the quote and the term to her. I’d be here all day trying to explain that and I could see Crystal and Savannah thinking I really DID lollygag in the bathroom the way Odd Jobs had said we would when he was making up silly rules.

“Do you really think I should tell him I will do it?” I was almost out the door of the bathroom and surprisingly glad to be back to washing cars. I felt more put on the spot in the little echo-chamber they called a bathroom than I did washing cars for perverted old men- and that is saying something.

“I think it sounds like you want to do anything you can to save your relationship,” I am no psychologist but anyone who talks this long about anyone is not over him. I had such limited real-world experience that I was completely out of my element giving anyone – even another naïve teenager advice and I knew that; but she kept asking and I felt obliged to give answers.

“Then I will do it,” she made up her mind and offered me a hug. I gave her a hug back and said I was happy she reached a conclusion. She had a wintry smile through her tears now that she reached a conclusion.

I remember opening the heavy bathroom room door to leave and hearing her add, “But she IS my sister.”

I shook my head and laughed quietly to myself. I was thinking I would have to tell Savannah and Crystal what just happened – they would probably find it funny when I saw Odd Jobs talking to Crystal.

My brother and Lloyd were cleaning out the nasty pool. They were waist deep in muck, garbage, and sludge pulling out garbage from the shallow end of the pool. Lloyd seemed to be obliviously scooping out the refuse but Conner looked utterly disgusted by hard work. They had their shirts off and were now the center of attention for the people at the pool.

“You guys earning that ten dollars an hour?” I smiled at the fact they had to do hard work.

“Hardee Har Har,” Conner looked like he regretted fully agreeing to this work. He had sweat rolling down his brow and it looked like he was starting to get a sun burn. He wiped his dirty face with his dirty hand and realized he had only smeared black gook around, “Dammit it.”

I laughed – it was funny.

“Rub it in, Sis” he was being a good sport about it but he wasn’t happy. He told me they had dug holes and filled them in this morning, then they carried heavy equipment all over the place and now they were cleaning out the pool.

“Hey,” I lorded over him that I actually had it better, “I had to wash like two cars this morning.” I might have had to show my boobs but I was glad I hadn’t traded places with him while I watched the two of them toil. I had been through so many awful things the past few days that I was actually glad to see it wasn’t me on the short end of the stick today.

“If the pool gets cleaned up,” Lloyd had been stoically working and didn’t show any sign of complaint as he pointed out, “There will be a lot more tricks down here to wash cars for. The only reason no one comes is there is no pool. These people are regulars, who come every day to see and be seen. We will get this pool spic and span for you and then you can make some real money.”

I saw his point and asked my cousin if he thought he could finish today. He was pulling out a dead fish head as he shook his head no.

“So we are coming back tomorrow then?” I wondered.

Lloyd shook his head and said he didn’t know. He was straining to pull a tire out of the pool that had rusted rims. My brother helped him struggle with it, but it was clear Conner’s strength added very little to the effort. Lloyd high fived him once they dropped it on the edge of the pool and shouted, “Team work!”

I could see the look of pride in my brother’s eyes when Lloyd gave him an acknowledgment. I admit that made me smile and I was happy for Conner. It might be good for him to do some hard work instead of playing video games. I could identify with the satisfaction he had when my aunt or cousin praised me and treated me like one of them.

I started to walk over to the curb so I could return to washing cars. “I just saw two rednecks in a low-rider pickup with gangster rims and a Confederate flag license plate,” I laughed and shrugged at what kind of mixed message that was.

“Hey sis,” Conner called for me to turn around.

I did and he joked “Your booby is popping out.”

I made a sour face and stuck my tongue out at him the way Savannah would if Lloyd teased her the same way. “Take a Polaroid picture,” I had heard Savannah teasingly say something like this before, “It will last longer!”

Then I turned and wiggled my butt the same way she did, as if I was walking a victory lap for winning the contest of wit. I thought about turning around and telling them they looked hunky while they worked like real men to encourage them – but I didn’t want to seem like I had been taking too long of a break and I assumed Conner knew I was proud he was sticking with the hard work without patronizing him.

I could hear Crystal and Odd Jobs discussing something when I walked up. I knew that it was something of a heated discussion, but the music from the boom box had muffled it.

“You girls look like you are posing for a 1980s movie poster out here. You aren’t even moving around. You are just lying there!” Odd Jobs admonished my Aunt for remaining perched on the lawn chair he provided. I knew she was inherently lazy, but she was also charging guys to give her back rubs and rub lotion on her – she just hadn’t had much business today.

“And this one?” Odd Jobs saw me and tapped his finger on his wrist like a watch “She is off smoking a doobie or in la-la land wherever while you should be washing cars.”

“I am sorry,” I apologized. “There was a girl in the bathroom crying and I didn’t know what to tell her.”

I noticed a very intimidating looking man standing next to Odd Jobs. He was wearing a tank top and jeans and his muscled arms revealed several Nazi and racist looking tattoos. He had the same haircut as Ted – cut close and cropped short.

He looked like someone even Bad, Bad Leroy Brown didn’t want to mess with.

(Yes, I played that song on my brother’s Guitar Hero game too!)

“You never want to talk to any woman who is crying in the bathroom,” the big man’s voice was so deep that it scared me – he sounded like what I always thought the boogeyman sounded like when I was a little girl.

He saw that I was scared and introduced himself with a smile, “My name is S.S. and it means what you probably think it means.” It sounded like he had been used to being asked what it meant long enough that he offered that explanation as a matter of habit.

“I used to go by O.J.,” Odd-Jobs sounded proud that was his nickname at one time, “until O.J. Simpson went and murdered a bunch of people and messed that all up.”

Savannah was washing down a car and looked over at him with a smart-alecky grin, “I would think it might improve your reputation, O.J.”

I offered to help with the car but Savannah was almost done. “He already got what he came for,” she explained with a wink before joining us.

I quickly learned what the discussion was about. We had not made very much money and we had immediately ignored the rules and advice O.J. had given us.

Crystal’s position was that we were new to this part of the trailer park and not everyone knew what a good job they did yet – give her time and she would make some money.

“The one guy you did this morning was one of my maintenance men,” Odd Jobs stated, revealing that the guy who fingered me earlier was someone he sent up to check up on us.

“Steve asked you several times if you were being punished and even hinted he would like to see that didn’t he?” O.J. asked me directly.

“Yes, I guess he did,” I answered. I felt caught in the middle between the two of them. Steve had told the truth and I knew that was a fact.

“You aren’t even saying Sir,” his voice was scratchy and cantankerous instead of jovial like usual. He berated me for a devilish liar. “You act all innocent but in the end you lied to Steve and you lied to me that you were going to follow the rules!” That hurt – I had not thought about you in exactly that way.

“How much would it cost you to say Sir?” he asked – and I presumed he wanted an answer.

“Well,” I started to explain that not every trick seemed to want that but he cut me off. He didn’t want to discuss this with me – he just wanted me to back up his argument towards the real decision maker and that was Crystal.

“I gave you a real plan,” he explained. “People here compare notes. The grapevine is strong in the Buckman as you know. The fucking rubes on Glory Hill want to be fooled and you fool them, but it is amateur hour when you do it.”

Crystal was taken aback by that. I found it somewhat funny she took offense to being told she wasn’t very good at lying and manipulating people for money in con games.

“The people here can get a whore and fuck her for twenty bucks just by walking down J street.” He looked frustrated that what he was explaining wasn’t sinking in – that he was giving her a real opportunity and she was being too stubborn to play by his rules.

“Yeah, but those fucking crack heads aren’t nearly as hot as us,” Crystal offered me a hand for a high five and I returned it with a smile. I felt like I was expected to turn against her when I had to admit what Steve wanted. I was elated to be back on team Crystal!

“That is true,” he let my aunt preen and feed off the compliment before continuing. “That is why I gave you and your sexy ass daughter and niece a chance to make some real cash. You want to stick with your small time cons; and as you can see they just aren’t making me any money.”

He explained that the people wanted spectacle – they wanted to see something funny and sexy and they wanted to believe it. He compared it to real life Springer TV, except the live studio audience is paying for the privilege.

Crystal shot him down and said he didn’t know shit about what people want. “They want tits and ass and just girls having fun.” She did agree on one point, “Except for some of the perverts who want weird shit.”

Then she laughed and admitted there did seem to be an awful lot of perverts since the Internet.

He tried giving her an ultimatum and told her he would charge the full two hundred dollars and send us home.

She told him good luck getting blood from a tampon when she isn’t on her period. I could have gone without hearing that particular idiom and so could the men from the looks on their faces - I think that is why Crystal said it.

She was not going to budge and she was just as happy to go back home and “lay on her happy ass while she watched TV”.

He looked like he was ready to tell us all to pack up and go back home when I spoke up. He was talking about not only our little car-wash enterprise but firing my brother and cousin from what they were doing and garnishing them for the 200 dollars he felt he was owed.

“What is it for my Aunt to do it your way?” I blurted that out without really thinking about what I was asking. I had meant to ask him why we had to use the backstory that he came up with and couldn’t my Aunt come up with one just as easily.

What he actually heard was what he answered. He stopped for a moment and considered me like he gained a new respect for me. He called “Shrewd” and thought for a long moment.

“Here is what I will do,” he said with that tone of voice, that suggested there was no room for negotiation and this had already been decided, he used at times. “I will waive the two hundred dollars you owe me tonight – gone.”

“Good because I wasn’t going to pay that anyway,” Crystal giggled at him. She was taking away his power to have leverage over him. I remembered thinking about how Ted had negotiated with my brother earlier that morning and it had gone much differently.

“You will pay it one way or the other I think,” Odd Jobs looked at S.S with a very subtle indicator that he might call him in. I think Crystal got his message, but she didn’t want to let on that it scared her.

“We can be good partners here,” O.J. smiled magnanimously, “I want you to make some money and I want to make some money. I am trying to reach halfway here,” he went back to his jovial tone of voice that made him sound like the kind of guy that was going to come fix all your problems for you.

He told her that all we have to do is make one thousand dollars today.

“How the fuck are we going to make that?” Crystal pointed out it was almost 1 P.M and that they were already hungry and needed to take a pit-stop to eat and freshen up.

“If you will trust me I will get you lunch while you are on the job – my treat!” He smiled gregariously. He also said that he would throw in a ride to Outback Steakhouse and a trip to the mall to spend all that loot.

“There is a mall here?” I shouldn’t have sounded so surprised. The expression on everyone else’s face told me that the city-girl just insulted them for thinking they don’t have the basics of civilization like a shopping mall.

“Yes we have a fucking mall,” Savannah curled her lip at me like an Elvis impersonator might and added quietly, “It’s one town over.”

I let it drop and quietly nodded that I understood. Technically I had been right – this town didn’t have a mall but I didn’t want to make matters worse. This deal sounded like a win/win and I was ready to wash cars!

“Hold your horses,” Crystal was more skeptical. She went over the deal – he didn’t want any money, he was going to buy us lunch and take us to dinner and the mall – what is in this for him.

“When the pool gets drained, this area will be hopping. I can sell refreshments, snacks, car washes. Today is a dry-run. If you can make a grand today then tomorrow you’ll make even more when they hear that you are up here. It is free advertising that the pool is getting cleaned out. I will start getting my cut every day after that.”

“Every day?” Crystal clearly did not like hard work. “I thought this was a one-time thing to get some spending cash.” She did not sound like she was on the hook at all to even nibble on his offer.

He told her he could get any girl to take our places. He was about to call over to Angel and see if she wanted to wash cars just to prove that anybody else would jump at this offer.

I just knew in my heart that the pause he was giving my Aunt to say yes was about to slip by if I didn’t say anything.

“Ma’am,” I said and I cleared my throat.

Crystal, Savannah, Odd Jobs and S.S all gave me their full attention. I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I needed to say what I was going to say but I was also nervous that they would react poorly to it. Crystal was doing all the negotiating and maybe I was about to louse it all up.

There was a lull where I had that fight or flight panic reaction. I knew they would wait just a second longer for me to speak and then ignore me.

“Ma’am,” I repeated. “My family could really use that money. I know Savannah and I were not supposed to be out late last night running the trailer park. It was my idea to wear a skimpy bikini to the pool area to show off my body and I am thankful you made me wear an even smaller one to teach me a lesson about my prideful ways. I accept whatever punishment you are going to give me to teach me a valuable lesson I will just never forget.”

I laid it on pretty thick – thick enough they all started smiling.

I added, “For thirty percent of today’s earnings and that Outback Steak Dinner I was promised,” in the same exact sweet contrite little voice I summoned to submissively ask for punishment.

I looked at O.J and my Aunt and everyone else looked at Savannah for her reaction.

“Why y’all looking at me for?” she asked, as if there was no reason to get her consent. Then confidently declared, “I can do anything Ellen can do.”

“Then you two hug,” Odd Jobs said and instructed us, “and hug each other tight and keep your hands on each other’s butts. That way if your mom isn’t watching, some guy will at least look at your fat asses and make sure you aren’t up to mischief with them. You stand there while I go over your rules.”

I looked at Savannah and she looked back at me with the exact same expression. It was half-snarky smile and half-what have we gotten ourselves into? Then I put my arms around her and squeezed her ass cheeks while she squeezed mine.

We were pressed boob to boob so close that we could smell each other’s breath and that our noses were touching. I was already second-guessing my decision. We needed the money really bad, but I hadn’t fully thought out what I had just agreed to do.

“Walk out here closer to the road,” Odd-Jobs said, “that will remind you to behave if people honk. Now, pay attention to the rules.” We had to shuffle together to maintain the tight hug to move.

“I remember the rules,” Crystal was dismissive. “Say Sir and pretty please, I’ll have some fun with it.”

O.J shook his head. “I am going to stick around for lunch and make sure you have all the rules down pat or you will join them,” he insisted.

“I’d like to see you try,” her playful retort let him know that we were trying his game but we weren’t all the way committed to it yet. She could back out at any time this got weird and she wanted him to know he had no real authority over us.

“This is just play-acting,” she added that she wasn’t afraid of him.

At that point a blue late model sports car pulled up fast. It was a young man with dark hair and he smiled as soon as he saw the two of us. He had gleaming blue eyes and looked as out of place as I did here.

“Sir, can we approach the young man and ask if he wants his car washed?” I asked Odd Jobs.

“No you may not.” I was shocked he didn’t want us to offer our service until he told me that was his nephew Ryan.

He had on an athletic shirt from the Union County Rams – the rival to my high school where I am from.

“Uncle,” he said as he slid out of the car door. “What preposterous thing are you doing now?”

“Just quiet down for now and you might learn a thing about how business is done,” Odd Jobs didn’t like his nephew’s tone and unless I missed my guess thought he acted arrogant and too smart for his own good.

He was a handsome young man. He reminded me of a younger version of Robert Pattinson, the actor who plays Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies. There was something dark and brooding about him but at the same time he could seem very likable.

He listened with amusement while he watched the two of us hold each other’s asses in plain view of passing cars that honked and stopped. Savannah told him, “To take a polaroid it will last longer,” which caused me to giggle because I had just said that earlier to my own brother when I was trying to be sassy like her.

“You two talking is a punishment!” Odd Jobs silenced us with a warning that we needed to start playing our characters right now.

He went over the new rules and mixed them with the old rules. He made Crystal write them down in the empty book she pretended to read. He insisted she write them down but after several protests she acquiesced.

“You will find I do not give a god-damned about what you want,” he told her very abruptly. “You tried it your way and it didn’t work,” then he considered us and looked us up and down as if assessing our value, “Now we will do it like this. We will do it right, and we will do it RIGHT NOW!”

CAR WASH RULES:

1. Say Sir and Ma’am to everyone – even non-customers. Everyone is a potential customer except for Ding Dong and Methuselah (Trailer park crazies)

2. The girls hate to have to touch one another. Therefore they will be standing in the corner near you and do it back to back, belly to belly or belly to back touching one another.

3. The girls are to wear bells when standing in the corner – if they jingle or move a muscle they are to be spanked.

4. Act like brats – but hot brats. Don’t let them fall in love with you or feel sorry for you.

5. Don’t trust the girls to go to the bathroom alone – they will waste too much time. Use the men’s bathroom – must be escorted and make sure they wipe.

6. No adjusting the bathing suit once it is on. It is just trying to flash the men.

Prices: 10 dollar hand wash, 20 dollar full wax and 50 dollars Premium service. Tips gladly accepted.

He went over the rules while Crystal giggled sadistically through most of it. It wasn’t that she seemed to really want to do us any ill-will, it was just some of his rules were so outlandish I think she was amused.

“Get your fingers out of my bunghole,” the talk making Savannah nervous, “you dyke!” Then she head-butted me. It wasn’t hard but it stung. I looked over at the adults talking, instinctively assuming they would put a stop to it.

“Ellen is supposed to get those cheeks nice and wide for whoever wants to come take a look because you two wanted to show-off, well now you will,” Odd Jobs made it sound like we were being taught a lesson by this punishment. “Ellen is NOT supposed to be playing with your dirty asshole though,” he looked at me with a serious face and asked Savannah if I was.

“No sir,” she answered reluctantly as if she was disappointed I wasn’t in trouble. I couldn’t be sure if this was part of the act or she was really mad at me.

“I just don’t like...” Savannah continued to speak

“You will find I don’t give a damn about what you like,” Odd Jobs cut her off sharply and she stopped talking. He whispered the next words to us as if he was breaking character to do it “Hell, I am not going to make you lick dog shit off people’s shoes. You just be sassy and contrite but follow the rules. Play the game and we’ll all get what we want.”

I don’t know if Savannah knew what ‘contrite’ even meant but I noticed her ears perk up when he said ‘play the game’ as if she understood what he was saying.

“You two little sluts snuck out last night wearing next to nothing and you will wash cars all day as your punishment and you will help your mom because your family is broke. Is that understood? Or do I need to punish you both right now?” O.J demanded.

“Yes Sir,” Savannah answered enthusiastically. It wasn’t a cheer but she sounded much more pliable than even a few minutes ago.

“I didn’t hear both of you girls and when I ask a question I expect you two to answer. Now, let’s hear you do it together and with feeling. Do you understand that what you like is not relevant until the end of the day, when you count off that one thousand dollars and get whatever portion you are going to spend on nails, new clothes, and whatever the fuck else you two greedy little sluts want to spend it on?”

He smiled.

“YES SIR!” we shouted in unison!

I had begun to suspect Savannah’s reasons might have to do with her uncommon love of games – but I was only second guessing my own reasons.