Family Tradition

Chapter Six

Back in Seattle, deep in the recesses of The Rococo Seafood House, a slim, debonaire man with dark slicked back hair and a pencil mustache sat anxiously behind the desk in his office. He chain-smoked Gitanes and was on his third snifter of Louis XIII brandy, which cost $500 per bottle.

The man’s name was M. Gerald James, a world-class master chef, three time winner of the James Beard Award, four time-winner of Gourmet magazine’s Five-Star Chef trophy. He’d trained in Brussels, Venice, and Paris, and had once prepared Potage Saint-Germain and Exploding Lobster for the Premier Dung of the People’s Republic of China, and Firecracker Tasmanian Crab Ravioli with Tomally and Buluga Drizzle for Vice-President Al Gore just before he’d been charged with fund-raising fraud. Every Friday night, like clockwork, Governor Gary Locke sent a state police officer to the restaurant to pick up a carry-out order of Deep-Fried Ark Shell Tenders and Cajun Geoduck Fritters. James prepared the order personally.

Does Morrone serve the governor weekly? No! Has the Vice-President of the United Fucking States ever stepped into his restaurant? No! Has Morrone trained the with best chefs of Europe? No!

The source of M. Gerald James’ agitation was an ancient one: professional jealousy. Just as Napoleon was jealous of Hannibal Barca, Lord Byron jealous of Mary Shelley, and Eddie Van Halen jealous of Robert Fripp, M. Gerald James was jealous of Ashton Morrone. For in spite of all of James’ culinary accomplishments, his pride and joy, the Rococo Seafood House, was known as the second-best restaurant in the city.

Goddamn Morrone! The fat pansy! God DAMN him!

It was a professional rivalry, thicker than blood. Every day and every night, his full restaurant notwithstanding, James could barely go minutes without thinking of Morrone, in mental hues painted scarlet by hatred. James had the second-best restaurant in Seattle, but Morrone, with his Emerald Room, had the best.

That critical “assessment” was simply not acceptable.

Rumors had abounded, though, after James’ deepest strike: last summer he’d lucked upon a Thurston County fisherman who’d managed to trap a small supply of the revered Crackjaw eel. When James had served it in his restaurant, the reviews had been out the roof, and Asian investors had been knocking on his door with fists full of dollars.

But, lo, James’ source for the prized mussel-and-clam-eating eel proved to be a fluke. No more Crackjaws were ever caught, and the high James rode on was short-lived.

James was wealthy, but not nearly so as Morrone, who had his Microsoft brother backing him up. Subtle whispers throughout the local culinary community reported back that Morrone was so incensed over James’ small victory that he vowed to find the Crackjaw eel himself, whatever the cost. He’d pay researchers and consultants, recruit zoologists from the college, pay every lake fisherman in the state to go hunting.

And suddenly, James’ sources told him, the ever-corpulent Ashton Morrone was suddenly off on a “fishing” trip, Morrone a man who hadn’t taken a vacation in over a decade.

The bottom of James’ fist ground down against the desk blotter. His face tensed—in hatred. The way he felt now, his ire at high tide, he could’ve stubbed out one of his reeking Gitane cigarettes out in his eye and not feel a thing.

GodDAMN! Where IS she?

After moments, more which seemed like hours, the tiniest rap came at the door.

“Come IN!” M. Gerald James about shouted.

Head bowed and shuffling meekly, in walked the most petite, delectable thing. Short and slim, short-cropped umber hair, and breasts protruding as though ripe Golden Apples had been slipped beneath her blouse. This would be Rochelle, and fine navy stitching over her blouse pocket read: THE EMERALD ROOM

Ministers of war had their spies, but so did ministers of cuisine.

“My dearest Rochelle,” the words etched from James’ mouth like tinders cracking. “I’m told you have some, shall we say, intelligence for me?”

“Yes sir,” the nineteen-year-old girl peeped in response. “Ashton Morrone has gone on a fishing trip with his brother and their two girlfriends.”

James’ fist landed on the desk top as solidly as a twenty-pound railroad hammer. “I already KNOW that! I’m employing you to tell me what I DON’T know!”

The small woman quaked at the sudden uproar. She looked on the verge of tears. James’ had hired her at $250 per week to secure a job as a busgirl at Aston’s restaurant, and to subsequently eavesdrop and snoop around, to keep a close tab on James’ greatest rival.

“I know he’s gone on a FUCKING fishing trip, you stupid girl! I need to know WHERE!”

Rochelle blinked mist from her eyes. “Mr. James…he, I mean, er—”

“WHAT?” James exploded.

“I had to do…some bad things…to get into Morrone’s office…”

James jerked upright behind his desk. “You got into his office? At the restaurant?”

“Yes sir. And I had to—” She sniffled, more tears flowing. “I had to do some bad things.”

James couldn’t have cared less about the bad things. “WHAT WAS IN HIS OFFICE?” he rocketed.

“There was a notepad. He’d written ‘Crackjaw eel’ on it, and ‘Delectable Edibles, page 23.’ I’m assuming it was a reference to some book.”

“Let ME do the assuming! What ELSE?”

The girl seemed to shrink at each further rant. “At the bottom of the pad, he’d written the word ‘Sutherland.’”

“Sutherland? What the FUCK is that?”

“I didn’t know,” the girl sobbed. “But then I noticed on the wall was a map of Washington state.”

“You paltry ridiculous BITCH!” James screamed. “So what!”

By now the sensitive girl had nearly backed up into the corner of James’ office and curled up into a fetal position. Her words choked out through more sobs. “On the map I saw a red circle, you know, like it was written in Magic Marker.”

“YES?”

“The circle was drawn around a lake, about thirty miles south of Port Angeles.” The girl wiped her wet eyes. “Sutherland Lake.”

James sat behind the desk as though he were cast in molten iron. Sutherland Lake, the words played in his mind. He stared at little Rochelle. “My girl. My dear, dear girl. You may well have solved the greatest crux of my life.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a handful of $100 bills, then slipped them across the desk to her.

“Here’s a little extra something…to help you out.”

“Thuh-thank you,” and she picked up the bills.

“Sometimes I can be…quite caustic and belligerent,” he confessed. “But that doesn’t mean anything, that’s just me. Do you understand, my dear?”

“I-I think so.”

“You’ve done much for me, and I’m very grateful. And if your intelligence data proves to be true, I will fulfill my promise to you. You do…trust me, don’t you?”

“I… Yes,” she said.

James’ mouth went dry at the excitement. “You know how much I detest Ashton Morrone. He’s a gormandizing faggot. He’s an egotistical globose slob who revels in my total embarrassment and probably voids more shit from his bowels than a typical school of sea cows. If what you’ve done for me leads to his dethroning amongst the city restaurant critics, then I will do for you as I’ve said. I will make you assistant general manager here at a salary of $35,000 per year.”

Rochelle blanched.

Sutherland Lake, Sutherland Lake, James thought. Now—now he knew. The sudden excitement filled his penis with blood, stiffened it out like a ripe tuber.

“And I’ve been fair to you thus far, have I not?” he continued. “I’ve employed you when no others would, yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“I’ve said nothing of your past history of cocaine abuse, which surely would preclude you from respectable employment, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve said nothing of your past criminal activities, your multiple shop-lifting arrests, your check kiting, and then there’s always that old boyfriend of yours who went to prison for car-jacking, right? And that innocent family he murdered? I’ve kept that to myself, have I not?”

“Yes, you have, and I’m very grate—”

James’ held up a hushing hand. “You’ve, uh, you’ve seen to my satisfaction in the past…and now I have to ask you to do so again. You do receive my meaning, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Rochelle groaned. She kicked off her shoes, slipped off her panties, and hiked up her skirt. She walked around James’ desk and immediately slapped him hard across the face.

“Get on the floor, bitch!” she shouted. “Now!”

James pushed his chair out from under the desk. He wore no pants, and his penis was charged up, a furious erection. Oh, God, he whimpered to himself.

“Get on the fucking floor, you fucking piece of shit!”

James flopped out of the chair and lay on the floor.

Rochelle stepped over him, her long white legs spiring upward. Where the legs joined, he could se the precious slit and the muff of hair.

Right over his face.

“You’re a bad boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes!” the respectable M. Gerald James pleaded.

“And bad boys get—what?”

“They get, they get…pissed on by mad mommies!”

“That’s right,” Rochelle said.

She placed her hands on her hips, and her legs and stomach tensed. Then she began to urinate directly into James’ face.

The abundant cascade roved across his forehead, his eyes, and then fell directly into his mouth.

James masturbated frenetically as he cried, “Piss on me, Mommy! Piss on me!”

««—»»

Bess, at the very least, had been half-right. She believed it was her destiny to come out here and die. But half-right also meant half wrong, didn’t it?

She’d die out here, all right, but not by her own hand. To girls like Bess, there was solace in suicide. No solace tonight, however. Not for Bess.

As her consciousness returned, she remembered a nightmare. In the nightmare she was drowning in crystal-clear water. Her huge limbs paddled frantically but she simply couldn’t keep her head above the water. Just as her lungs would dispel her final breath, though, someone was saving her. Someone had grabbed her by the hair and was pulling her up. She could breathe again! Was it Mavis who’d saved her? No, it couldn’t be; Mavis couldn’t swim either.

An angel, then. Yes! In the nightmare, it must’ve been an angel who’d saved her from drowning. Once ashore, however, she looked into the angel’s face and thought, Aw, fuck!

It was decidedly not an angel. Instead it was a huge, bearded hillbilly with rotten teeth.

Bess let her memory click back a few more notches.

Aw…fuck…

No, it was not and angel, and it was not a nightmare.

It was all real.

As real as the boat hook from which she hung naked by lashed hands. As real as this long dark barnlike building she now occupied. And as real as—

“Aw, fuck!” she shouted.

Unpleasant scents in the air seemed to meld with other scents that were absolutely savory. Bess heard a crackling: a fire somewhere. High tiny windows afforded the barn’s only light. Among the barn’s bizarre contents (some large metal drums, a large hole in the ground from which fire issued, bushel baskets full of fruit and vegetables, a fireplace bellows, a plastic bucket full of what appeared to be fish filets) was something more bizarre than anything Bess had seen in her life.

A canoe with a man’s head sticking out of it.

The canoe seemed to be covered over with something. Sheets of metal?

“Hey!” Bess shouted to the head. “You there, you…head. What’s going on here?”

The head moved, looked at with an insane glint, and began to babble. But then:

“Bub-buh-Bess?” a voice spoke, and it did not come from the head sticking out of the canoe.

“Mavis!” Bess shouted. “Is that you!”

“Yes!”

“I can’t see you!”

“I’m over here—he tied my hands together and I’m hanging from a hook!”

“Me too,” Bess said. “The redneck who dragged us out of the water.”

A silence ticked by, then, sniffling, she said, “Bess, you’re my best friend! I’m sorry I called you Jabba the Hut!”

“I’m sorry I called you an anorexic nerd,” Bess confessed. “And I’m sorry I said Duchovny sucks. He actually wasn’t bad in Playing God.”

“It’s all my fault! I feel so bad! We would’ve killed ourselves just like we planned if I hadn’t chickened out.”

“No, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t started fighting, we never would’ve fallen out of the damn raft.”

“What are we going to do!” Mavis shrieked. “Who was that man? And what is this place?”

Poor Mavis, Bess thought. The girl was so naive; she couldn’t think past David Duchovny and a fantasy world of alien invasions and government conspiracies. The real world, Bess knew, was full of perverts, rapists, and murderers, and she had a terrible feeling that all of the above applied to the bearded man who’d dragged them from the lake.

“What is this? A barn or something?”

“I think so,” Bess replied.

“And what are all those baskets and things? Apples and vegetables, it looks like. And what’s that fire for in the hole? What are those big metal drums?”

“I don’t know, Mavis. Get a hold of yourself. We have to think of a way to get out of here before that bearded guy with the rotten teeth comes back.”

As the afternoon had drawn on, the light from the high windows moved slowly toward the back of the barn or whatever this place was. Bess squinted, and in the most dolorous increments she noticed something familiar against the rear wall.

An old gas stove.

It was then that the most abhorrent realization occurred to her. This place was more than a barn and more than a psychopath’s den.

It’s a kitchen, she realized, and that’s when the door swung open.

««—»»

“—still cain’t believe it!” Esau enthused as he followed his big brother into the cookery. “Ashton Morrone, the world’s greatest chef! Fishin’ in our lake!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Enoch grumbled. “I hope you charged ’em fer parking and hookups n’ all.”

“Oh, shore! N’fact, Mr. Morrone hisself gave me a brand-new hunnert-dollar bill!”

That perked old Enoch up. Older and wiser, Enoch was bereft of his brother’s youthful enthusiasms. Money’s what they needed. Propane weren’t free, and neither was gas fer the trucks and that blammed server fee for the fancy satellite tv. And considering Grandpa Ab’s appetite, Enoch was drivin’ to town three times a week fer the things Esau needed for the viddles. Spices and flour and condiments, bottle after bottle of olive oil and canola oil and sesame oil, and every other kind of blammed friggin’ oil, couple pounds’a butter’a week, couple pounds’a lard—all on account’a ’cos Grandpa Ab liked Esau’s fancy cookin’. Sure, Grandpa Ab was worth it, and he deserved to have what he wanted. It’s just that it’d be a whole lot cheaper’n simpler if Grandpa could get by on canned store-brand spaghetti like Enoch and Esau generally did.

“Well that’s good about the hunnert, boy,” Enoch approved and closed the door behind him. Esau set down six stacked homemade pie crusts on one’a the tables, then turned on the propane tank fer the stove. He began to boil a large pot of water. “One’a the gals I hauled out’a the lake had a couple hunnert on her too,” Enoch continued. “But that city chef and his friends—just you make sure to squeeze as much cash out of ’em as you can. Fuck, we’se gotta make a livin’ too, ya know. Fancy big city chef, you’d guess he had money.”

“Oh, they’se richer’n shit. You should see the boat they got, and one’a them big Winnebago things like a house on wheels! Dang straight they’se rich. Wouldn’t expect the finest chef in the world ta be poor, now would ya?”

“What’s them there pie crusts for?” Enoch asked.

“It’s been a while since I fixed Grandpa Ab up some cobbler. It’s his favorite.”

“Hmm,” Enoch grunted.

“Gimme a sec,” Esau said, “whiles I pump another bellyful into our friend here.” He approached the canoe and the ludicrous insane head that seemed to sit atop it. The head babbled incoherently as Esau filled the bellows from the bucket of his spicy cornmash. “Shee-it, the fella’s got some spunk. This is his fourth week, ain’t?”

“Yeah,” Enoch grunted.

“Usually they up’n die after three. Bet his liver’s big as a basketball by now—it’ll make the best pate on toast points fer Grandpa Ab. See, Enoch, that’s how the Frenchys do it, they tie a farm-raised goose to a board’n just force-feed it cornmash fer weeks. Makes the liver real big’n sweet. I’se learnt about it on Ashton’s show!”

Enoch frowned. He was sick of listening to Esau’s fancy-cookin’ talk. “Just git on with it, will ya, boy?”

“Here comes lunch, fella,” Esau promised, jamming the nozzle down the canoe-head’s throat. He slowly drained the bellows. “There. That hit the spot?”

The head lolled and babbled, corn mush drooling from his lips.

“See ya fer dinner, buddy!”

“How long’s all this gonna take?” Enoch asked. “Wrasslin’ comes on at 5:05 on TNT, and I don’t wanna miss it. Flair’s grapplin’ DDP fer the title.”

“Aw, not long.” Esau grinned, briskly rubbing his dirty hands together. “Now show me these two splittails ya fetched.”

Enoch walked him over to the first stall.

“Aw, shee-it, Enoch. Ya done brought me another rack’a bones,” Esau complained, appraising the long skinny white thing hanging there. “I seen fatter vanilla beans!”

“Quit’cher belly-achin’ and look in the other stall…”

Esau loped around and stared. “Holy cracklin’ crawdads! That’s what I called a mountain of pork!”

“All that meat’n blubber,” Enoch observed, “I figger she’ll last Grandpa Ab fer a full week.”

“And then some!” Esau elated. “I can do me all kinds of great things with a pig this size!”

The naked girl hung there like a bloated sack full of suet. “And lookit the giant titties on her! Man, I’ll be able to make me the biggest pot-stickers in history!”

But when Esau reached forward and squeezed the dough-white bags of flesh, the girl suddenly kicked out with huge legs. “Don’t touch me, you crazy redneck!”

Esau grinned. “And she’s still got some spark left!” He rammed his fist into her mouth, knocked her out cold. “There, that oughta simmer ya down, Fattie.” He kneaded the great flops of her breasts, plied the enormous coaster-sized nipples. “Enoch,” he called out. “Get that toothpick over to the table and make her start eatin’ the fruit.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Enoch groaned.

“Meantimes, I’se’ll get the fat one dressed.”

Enoch took Mavis off her hook. “Fox, is that you?” she warbled. Enoch flipped her over his back like a long noodle, then flopped her onto the prep table. The slam roused her from her delirium and she was screaming. “Eat this fruit,” he said bluntly, “or’ll carve out yer cunt.” He slapped a meaty, callused hand on her throat, squeezed. “Understand?”

Wide-eyed, Mavis nodded rapidly.

One of the bushel baskets was full of apples, pears, and peaches, cut into crisp, neat wedges. Enoch grabbed a handful of wedges and crammed them into Mavis mouth.

“Chew.”

Mavis chewed, vigorously as a chipmunk scarfing seeds.

“Swaller.”

Mavis gulped the first load down.

Enoch spent the next twenty minutes doing the same, force-feeding fresh fruit into the skinny girl’s yap. She chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed.

When the bushel was depleted by a third, Mavis, exhausted, released a long exhale, fruit pulp smearing her mouth. “Please, please,” she begged. “No more—”

“More,” Enoch informed her and stuffed more and more fruit into her face. While tending to this fairly tedious chore, he looked around and saw Esau fiddling with the big pot on the stove, adding various spices to the boiling water.

“What’choo doin’? I thought you was gonna prep the fat ’un.”

“I am,” Esau assured. “Need the right combo’a white, cayenne, and crushed red pepper.”

“Fer what?”

“Hot links. You know how Grandpa Ab loves hot links.”

««—»»

Sheree had never come so long and so hard in her life. Each repeated orgasm struck her like a physical blow. Her civilized senses spun away, leaving only the bare, sweaty, sex-needing animal cringing in greedy pleasure.

She lay back in the Winnebago’s floor, her legs raised and widely parted. Carol knelt between them, leaning over like an intent gynecologist, gently revolving her fist within the stretched circumference of Sheree’s vaginal barrel. Simultaneously, Carol’s tongue laved Sheree’s olive-sized clitoris.

Each crush of sensation pin-pointed to an avalanche of spasming pleasure; Carol’s subventions had turned Sheree into an orgasm-machine.

Her legs tensed, her toes flexed toward the ceiling, and off went another one, deep demolition in her cunt. Over the fifteen-year career in porn, she’d been fucked, sucked, prodded and probed and licked and skewered by dildos and stuck up the ass thousands of times. But in all of that, she’d never, ever come like this. In fact, until now, she had no idea that the limits of orgasm could stretch this far.

On her swollen clitoris, she could feel Carol’s sultry whisper: “One more time, one more time, baby…”

And one more time it would be. Carol accelerated her devilish expertise, the velvet buzzsaw running on high as her fist continued to revolve to and fro and back and forth. Sheree always wondered if it was hype or if there really was such a thing as a G-Spot. Well…

Now she knew.

Her back arched, her chest heaving. Her nipples felt like hot rivets. This last and best orgasm felt like something actually spewing out of her. At once she imagined herself as a man, with a great big cock, spurting line after line of sperm into the air.

When it was over, Carol carefully removed her hand. “I guess you liked that, huh?” she coyly remarked at the small sink. She washed off the gleaming shellac of K-Y Jelly and vaginal gloss.

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…”

“Don’t tell me that’s the first time you’ve been fisted.”

“This was the first time,” Sheree wheezed. She lay limp on the floor as if beaten down by cudgels. Her pleasure had exhausted her, had wrung all of her energy from her nerves like water from a dishrag. “Christ, that was good.” It was even a major effort just to raise her head and look up.

Carol was drying her hands with a towel, her demin skirt still on but her halter pulled up over her perfect 36 D’s. Once Ashton and Bob had puttered off across the lake in their boat, it had been all of two minutes before Carol had dragged Sheree into the Winnebago, stripped her, and got to sucking her pussy. Carol hadn’t even taken off her own clothes; their lust had lit in an instant. She’d splayed Sheree out and gotten right to work.

Sheree leaned up on her elbows, beads of sweat tickling down her breasts like hot, wet ladybugs. Her hair lay across her face in damp strings. The best orgasms of her life certainly bid reciprocation.

“Let me do you now,” she offered. “Get the K-Y.”

But Carol gave her the strangest expression, a look pregnant with confusion. “I want you to do me, but…”

“But what?”

The expression lengthened. “Jesus Christ. You don’t know—”

Sheree’s forehead creased. “Know what?”

Carol stepped forward. “This,” she said, and then she pulled up her tight denim skirt.

There, staring Sheree in the face, was the very last thing she’d ever expect to find between Carol’s legs: a large uncircumcised cock.

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