Swampland, Ch 1
By Kim

The flat-bottom boat slid between the buildings. Overhead the sky was empty except for the sun. Vines hung down from the dead facades of office buildings, the signage of cable companies and law firms baked off under the relentless heat. The woman sitting in the boat’s only chair felt every ray of light, even through her sunglasses and hat and clothing. She sat unmoving, her cool brown eyes gliding from building to building behind the glasses. No one else would be out under the heat of the day, on the water downtown where the wind never brought its slight relief. The men alongside her rowed the boat under what had been Interstate 4. The woman stared at the exit signs for the Orlando airport and then flicked her eyes on. The airports had been shut down for regular flights before she had been born. The last smuggler had entered Orlando by plane when she had been a child. He had been the woman’s father, and on his last flight he misjudged what had looked like a light storm and put his plane into the control tower. The woman had not been to the airport since.

A snake eased past their boat, and on her direction her man shoved it away with the paddle. It was the year 2235, and Orlando was now the southernmost point of the United Southern States. In the same year the woman had been born, the United States of America divided itself into five separate countries; the travel requirements alone of one government stretching across an entire continent had been crippling. The political divisions that had come with the full weight of global warming crushed it. The USS was the poorest of these nations, and the smallest. The few people still living in Orlando were nearly on their own, living under the limited scrutiny of their Mayor and the gator farms he controlled. The city was partially underwater, the seawalls that had been built to hold back the Atlantic having been under designed, poorly built, and then completely abandoned once the USA came to an end. The city’s citizens either worked for the sprawling gator farms that claimed what had once been the city’s theme parks or sold their limited goods or themselves to those workers and the workers’ owners.

The woman wiped the sweat from her forehead. According to the phone she kept in her satchel, it was over 125 degrees and as humid as people could withstand. Too much of her money went to the bribes to get her the satellite connection to keep the phone running, but it was an absolute requirement for the work. She was wearing a cap, with her black hair hanging out the back, and long sleeves and pants. From a distance, she and her men would be as non-descript as could make themselves, but they were relying on the fact that few people would even come to a window during the day in May. At night, the people currently sleeping inside would be at their windows and on top of the buildings, working, partying, fighting. During the daytime, the boat had the city nearly to itself. In the bottom of the boat were a crate of batteries, boxes of little white pills, and a package containing a teddy bear for some little rich girl’s birthday. Build into the underside of the boat was a special compartment for their most precious commodity, 100 gallons of gasoline. Although the gasoline was technically hidden, the woman knew that anyone who stopped them would not be fooled. The compartment was mostly for their safety in case of any shooting and a false sense of security. The fact that made their smuggling operation most secure was that during the day the people most likely to spot them would either be in their pay, working for the people who paid them, or too smart to interfere with what was obviously a serious threesome. In the city of Orlando, fully clothed people, on a boat with tarps over its bottom in the middle of the day—these were people not to be taken lightly.

When they reached the storage bay, the woman was the first one off the boat. She nodded to the man guarding the entrance, and they all pulled the boat out of sight and into the dock they had fashioned. When they were done, the guard brought them fresh water and food and they ate inside, as far into the interior as they could get. The recipients of the property would come at night to retrieve it. None of them spoke in the two hours they rested. When dusk came, the woman called for them to awaken and they prepped the boat to leave. As the men pumped the gasoline into the tanks, the woman tipped a metal figurine of a soldier in her fingers. Her father had been a pilot in a world running short of gasoline and the money to pay for things worth flying, and he risked the Atlantic crossing to run drugs from Brazil to New York. On the flight over the ocean, as they tried to ride the edge of one of the many hurricanes, the girl had found the toy left over from another world as she huddled in a luggage rack at the rear of the plane. Even as a little girl, begging for soup from her father’s former contacts in Orlando, where she had been stranded, she had seen that there was little future in the air or in transcontinental travel.

As the boat slid out of the storage bay, she took off her hat and sunglasses and washed her face and splashed water on her front of her shirt. Her name was Cristina de Luca, and at 27 she had been in charge of her own operation for four years. She was a stunning beauty with a gorgeous figure. Her large, firm breasts strained at the material of her shirt without any bra, and her hips were just wider than being called athletic. Her tight jeans showed off her strong, impressive lower body. At 5-foot-7, with her body, she was on the boundary between being strong and powerful and being deeply feminine and alluring. Her hair was long, black, and of loose curls, along with her skin like a very dark tan part of her heritage from the Mediterranean where she had been born. The strap of her satchel cut a line between her breasts that would have caught the attention of anyone watching her. She always carried on her face a look of intense concentration, and men and women both had learned to shield themselves against her intentions. As the sun set and the first people were emerging onto the roofs of the tall buildings around them, she pulled her cap low over her face and resumed her captain’s seat.

It was night by the time they reached Cristina’s bar, the Lady Ace. The bar, with her house on the back, was north of the city where the land was still dry, what had been called Winter Park. She and her men arrived on horseback, the horses’ hooves sloshing through the muck that was the permanent state of the land. At some point in the past, as the ocean crept up to the city from the south, men had filled in the hundreds of small lakes to the north. The result was that all of the ground was wet, loose soil. Her customers arrived on foot or hitched rides on the sleds that ran workers back and forth to the gator farms and the swamps. It was a small bar with a desperate customer base. Most of her income came from running goods and services for the Mayor and his allies. Still, the brunette felt pride as she walked under the sign they had appropriated from an abandoned bar in the city, a slutty blonde holding a fan of playing cards in front of her enormous breasts. Cristina returned the blonde’s flirtatious wink, as she always did entering the Lady Ace.

A tall, muscular man in his early 20’s was behind the bar. His name was Ryan Pope, and he had taken over as bartender and bouncer a year ago, when an older man had reacted to Ryan’s accusation of cheating at poker with a knife, and left with the knife sticking out of his eye. Ryan was pouring moonshine—the only drink most of her customers could afford—for a hopeless drunk. From where he was standing, Cristina knew, he had within reach a scattergun and the last six shotgun shells they had for security at the bar. Standing next to him was Lilah Green, Cristina’s assistant. She was only 19, but she had proven herself a more than capable young woman. She was in charge when Cristina was gone, but Cristina still worried about the teenager’s temper and her tendency to let her emotions govern her behavior. She was a classic redhead, all fire and lust. She was two inches shorter than Cristina, with a more moderate build, but she was athletic, fit and firm with strong arms and legs and nicely upturned breasts that Cristina admired in the girl’s skin-tight shirt. She was wearing shorts that barely reached below her hips and the tight cheeks of her ass, and Cristina felt a burning desire for the redhead nearly as strong as her need for sleep.

Rather than head off for bed, with or without Lilah, Cristina sat at the bar. Ryan poured her a glass of real whiskey, and she felt better as the warmth spread through her chest. “Glad to have you back, boss.”

Cristina tipped the glass toward him. “Anything happen while I was away?”

“Threw Jebediah out again for trying to bum drinks. We’ll need more ‘shine before the end of the week.”

“I don’t want that fucknugger in here again,” Cristina said. “He’s costing us more business than he’s worth. I’ll talk with Winter about getting some more ‘shine to hold us until the next shipment.” Winter Sommerson was the Black man who controlled the flooded plains and islands to the north and the long wooden bridge that connected Orlando to solid land. Cristina needed to talk with him about the next shipment.

“And Brandy Connor sent word with one of her girls that she wants to talk to you,” Ryan added.

Cristina sighed and finished her whiskey. Brandy Connor managed The Swampland, the largest bar in Orlando. It was on the road to the gator farms, and it catered to the farms’ foremen and bosses and the dreams of the field workers. The Swampland had two rows of card tables and an entire wing of rooms for its professional women. Brandy was a very curvy blonde, loud and showy, and she had been a thorn in Cristina’s side since she arrived in town six months ago.

“What did she want?”

“Didn’t say. Just said you were to report to her tonight.” When Cristina looked up at him sharply, Ryan put his hands in front of his chest and added, “Her words, boss.”

Lilah sat down next to her. “How are you feeling?” she asked, putting her hand on top of Cristina’s.

“Fucking tired,” she whispered. Cristina wanted to rest her head on Lilah’s shoulder, but she couldn’t afford to look weak with strangers watching. “I’m heading to bed. You two are in charge for the night.”

*********************************

Cristina awoke late in the afternoon. She was naked and drenched in sweat despite the fan whirling above their bed. Ryan and Lilah both begged her not to waste the gasoline on the fan, but Cristina refused to give it up. Ryan was naked beside her, with his arm draped across Cristina and his face pressed against the swell of her breast. The boy was so handsome in the light coming in through the slats in the window. Cristina watched him sleep and then she sent a direct message to Winter Sommerson asking for a meeting that night. As she put the phone back in her satchel, Ryan stirred next to her. Cristina told him to go back to sleep, but the bartender shook his head and rolled on top of her. They kissed deeply, and then Ryan moved his attention to her breasts, kissing and suckling on her large brown nipples, and then ran his lips down Cristina’s flat stomach and then he was between her legs. Cristina’s black hair was splayed out on the pillow, her back arching and falling in time with the boy’s tongue, and at the end she cried out once.

Cristina went to meet Winter by herself, despite the protests of Lilah and Ryan. She had her knife and she also took a long barrel shotgun and three shells. She went on horseback, and after nearly an hour she found Winter and his escort at the shack he used for these meetings. Cristina shook the older man’s hand and nodded at the two guards, both of whom were carrying military-class assault rifles. Winter Sommerson had as much power as anyone in Orlando and as much money, although Mayor Barnwell and the other rich whites who lived in the remains of downtown would never allow someone as dark as Winter to live among them. In his fifties, Winter now carried a decent gut, but one could see under the fat of old age the physically powerful and attractive man he had been in his youth. Cristina doubted that Winter had been a man she would have wanted to tangle with when he was young, and she knew that he was someone she did not want to piss off now.

“Nice of you to come, Cristina. Always nice to see such a pretty face.”

“Thank you, sir. Always a pleasure to see you. I’m sorry to see that Casey isn’t with you, though.”

“I don’t believe that she wanted to see that whitebread slab of beef you’re running with these days,” Winter answered. Cristina and his daughter Casey had been an item in the past, “batches” as people called it, and it had been Winter’s hope that the relationship would lead to Cristina’s taking over for him as he neared retirement. But the relationship had ended as Cristina felt her inclinations shifting, and to Cristina’s great relief, Winter Sommerson was a professional who recognized personal choice.

“I’m glad to be meeting in person like this,” Cristina said. “I’d like to increase the gasoline and the pills we bring in. I think there’s a market for it. I’d also like to make a personal buy from you for some ammo, and maybe an upgrade in stock from whoever it is you’re getting your tools from,” she added, eyeing the gun carried by the man closest to her.
“I’m sorry that I have to be bringin’ you bad news like this,” Winter replied. “You know that I like you, and we’ve had a good run of business here.” He paused and wiped the sweat from his forehead. All of them were suffering in the enclosed space, although it was nearly midnight and they had lived their entire lives in such conditions. Winter took his name from the longstanding rumor that he had actual air conditioning in his heavily defended mansion in the swamp—from the rumor, and from the calculating attitude he brought to his work. “I don’t know how it can keep getting hotter every year. Not enough people can even afford the gas to keep putting more smoke in the air.”

“It’s a feedback loop. We were locked into this decades ago.” Winter gave her a puzzled look, and Cristina said, “After my dad died, they kept me in the library. I found some working data pads and read a lot.”

“Ain’t that a fucking kick in the teeth,” Winter said. “As I was saying, we’re not going to be able to increase our business. In fact, it’s going to be going down. I’m sorry to say that I can’t let you bring any more gasoline or pills across.”

The Italian woman and Black man stood silent. “You’ve made a deal with someone else”

“A certain party wanted to make my relationship with them exclusive. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’m parting with you on much nicer terms than they would have liked.”

That last comment got Cristina’s attention. There was nothing to be done to change her situation with Winter, so they shook hands and departed the cabin. On her ride back to the Lady Ace, Cristina wondered who this new smuggler could be. Always possible for someone with a bigger wallet to want to cut everyone else out of the business, but to want her to be hurt specifically was strange. A lot of people didn’t care for her, but she had always been careful with to maintain relationships with other people in the business. And then she thought of the message Brandy Connor had sent the previous night for her to “report” to her, and it all made sense. Brandy had arrived in town on a boat from Charleston and, by means of her stunning looks and her hard fists, she dealt with the other girls at The Swampland and established herself as the woman in charge. She had never sold her body, at least in this town, and she presented herself as a tough businesswoman in a tough business, one that just happened to rely on her looks as well as her will because it was in customer service. She had gone out of her way to antagonize Cristina, cutting into the business at the Lady Ace and dragging her name through the mud whenever she could. A month ago the two had nearly come to blows after Cristina had heard of Brandy’s saying that the Lady Ace would have done better business had it been run by a “real woman and not some half-batch who dresses like a man and makes her boy toy get his hands dirty for her.” Cristina had gone to The Swampland to settle things, but she had been too angry to throw aside her knife and Brandy refused to meet her using weapons.

Cristina rode first to the Lady Ace, where she planned to change horses. Even in the middle of the night, the heat and the soft ground had been hard on the big bay she was on. She needed a drink as well. As she threw the door open, though, she found an unusual sight: An Asian woman standing in the middle of the bar, getting ready to arm wrestle with Ryan. The crowd was gathered around them both, betting and cheering, but just as Lilah was going to yell for the start, the Asian woman leaned over kissed Ryan on the lips and then in his surprise and using both of her arms she pinned his down. She leapt into the air with her hands overhead, a big smile on her face until she saw Cristina staring at them. When Ryan saw his boss, he clambered to his feet, wiping the Asian girl’s kiss from his lips.

“We were just playing around, boss,” he stuttered. “She was bragging about how strong she is, and one thing led to another, and you know,” he finished with a shrug.

“Nice of you to keep my employees entertained for me,” Cristina said to the Asian girl. “But I thought that I had trained them better than to let some little girl get them distracted like her obvious theatrics. But when your face is so … typical, I guess theatrics is the way to go.”

The girl was eyeing her hard, and Cristina knew that she was more than some fool’s date for the night or a small-time thief working the camps. The girl was Chinese, she could see now, and extremely pretty too. She was a few inches shorter than Cristina, and smaller in the chest and lower body, but she still had an impressive bust and an athletic figure. Cristina could tell from the way the girl was standing that she had experience in handling herself. Her straight black hair hung down to her shoulders. The girl was wearing jeans and a low cut t-shirt that showed off the inner swell of her breasts well. She wore no bra, like all of the women who lived there. Cristina was also wearing jeans that flattered her legs and her shapely hips and ass, more round and likely more powerful than the Chinese woman’s. Her breasts strained the front of her shirt, the neckline of which she had cut into a deep V with a knife to allow for the space she required. The Chinese woman had softer features than Cristina, charming and pretty to the bar owner’s stark beauty, but in the eyes of both women one could see what people there referred to as “sand.”

“I take it you’re Cristina, owner of this scatpile?”

“I am.”

“My name’s Selina Hu. I’m new around here, and we haven’t met. But I work at The Swampland, for Ms. Connor.”

“Ms. Connor?” Cristina asked with a sharp laugh.

“Yes. She employees me to take care of things for her. Last night, she sent one of her girls here to ask you to meet with her to talk business. You did not, even though you arrived from your little errand with plenty of time left in the evening. So now, Ms. Connor has sent me to bring you back for the meeting.”

“Oh she has, has she?” Cristina asked. The bar’s patrons had by this point stepped to a more cautious distance. Bullets were scarce in Orlando, but both women were wearing long knives stuck in their waistbands.

“Yes. But first I think I’m going to teach you some manners.”

“You’re welcome to try, bitch,” Cristina answered.

“I’m going to do so whether you welcome me or not.” With that, Selina slowly removed the knife from her belt and handed it to Ryan, and Cristina did the same. “If you’ll follow me outside,” she invited, and Cristina and the crowd followed her. In the street, the two women faced off some ten meters apart. The bar’s customers, with Ryan and Lilah among them, were along the wooden sidewalk. “After I beat that smug face of yours for a while, I’ll be taking you back to The Swampland with me. Ms. Connor said that so long as I didn’t permanently damage the goods, I could do as I liked. She still hopes to make a proper working girl out of you, although I suspect the cause might be lost.”

“After I kick this girl’s ass up and down the street, we’ll have drinks on the house to celebrate. And then I might just go do the same to your sorca of a boss, too,” Cristina added.

They came together quickly. Cristina threw a wild right that Selina ducked under, and then the smaller woman hit her in the stomach and the side. As Cristina lowered her elbows to protect herself, Selina slapped her across the face. She pressed Cristina, hitting her in the face and torso with short crisp slaps, and the larger woman grabbed her around the neck and the shoulders. The two women wrestled like that, back and forth across the street, until Selina got her foot between Cristina’s legs and tripped her. But as they fell Cristina wrenched her to the side bodily so that they landed in the muck atop the smaller woman. The two of them fell to rolling back and forth, but the fall had stunned Selina and soon Cristina had her stuck to the ground. She had her arm locked around Selina’s head, and she punched her in the side and in the face. The smaller woman kicked her with her heels in the thighs, but to no effect. Then she grabbed onto Cristina’s enormous bust through her shirt and squeezed. The angle was not good, but the pain still persuaded Cristina to let go of the hold and roll away from her.

The two women came to their feet and were immediately on each other. Selina punched her in the stomach but Cristina hit her across the face with a solid shot, and as her opponent stumbled she seized hold of her by her black hair. She flung the Chinese woman to the ground and kicked her in the back, and then she flung herself upon her. Their flesh smacked together and they lay thigh to thigh, face to face, breast to breast, pulling hair and rolling over each other. Selina got atop her at last and like a minx sat on her waist. She slapped Cristina across the face, twice, stunning her, and then she ripped open her shirt in one quick move. Before she could do anything else Cristina rolled her off. The remains of her shirt swung open, and the crowd could see her breasts swaying freely beneath her as she tried to get astride the smaller woman. Selina got free of her and to her knees, but as she rose Cristina grabbed her by the back of the shirt, tearing the material as the woman wrenched away from her.
The two women were standing and facing each other. The first round was over, and they look each other over. Cristina made a kiss at her and then she pulled her ruined shirt off and tossed it aside. Selina did the same. Cristina’s breasts swung back and forth as they moved, much larger than Selina’s, and she saw the Chinese woman eyeing them. Cristina felt and moved every inch a majestic woman, like a panther, but her opponent was a lynx, stepping lightly over the ground, her smaller, firm breasts reduced in their swaying and her pretty face taking in every bit of Cristina’s feminine power. Both women were breathing hard, and rivers of sweat ran down their faces and their exposed chests. Eyes locked with desire and bitterness, and they rushed each other again.

Selina and Cristina hit each other in the face and the stomach and then grabbed hold of hair with both hands. They bent each other over at the waist, pulling and struggling and turning in circles. They threw uppercuts to the gut and chest. Both women moaned and gasped for air. At some point Selina stumbled to one knee and the Italian smuggler was on her, kicking her in the side and in the thigh, but they were too close and the kicks had little effect. Selina let go of the hair to try to swing a fist at the beautiful dark face, but Cristina saw it coming and hopped back, letting go her own hair pull. Selina tried to get to her feet, but the other woman rushed her and knocked her to the ground. Selina managed to throw the larger woman past her, and before Cristina could get up Selina was on top of her. She put one of her jean-clad thighs and part of her ass across Cristina’s neck and face, and the other leg on Cristina’s arm, trapping it. Cristina reached up for her breast with her free arm, but Selina seized it. Then she started pounding her first into Cristina’s flat stomach, gaining a grunt of pain with each blow. After that she sank her fingers into Cristina’s impressive assets, kneading the female flesh and pinching her brown nipples. Cristina would have howled in pain had she the oxygen. The sweat was running from Selina’s face and arms and torso down onto her. In one last surge the bottom woman used her greater weight to buck the other off of her.

Cristina struggled to her feet, but her opponent was in better shape than she and was there first. Selina struck her across the face, with a right and a left and another right, hard slaps that would have put down most women. Cristina took them and slugged Selina in the stomach with all she had left. The blow landed clean, and it drained Selina. The Chinese brawler fell to her knees, clutching at her stomach, eyes wide, and then Cristina slapped her across the face with a blow that put them both down in the muck. They lay like that for what felt to both fighters an eternity, sucking in oxygen, dreading the sound of the other woman rising. At last they both got to their knees and then threw themselves together. Breast to breast they struggled, pulling hair and beating on each other’s sides and backs. Then Selina hit her in the stomach, weakening Cristina and forcing her onto her back. They rolled in the dirt again, the messy substance now smeared together with their sweat and covering both women as if it were a symbol of their desperation. They pulled hair, slapped faces, squeezed breasts.

When they rolled clear of each other this time, all knew that the end was near. The women staggered toward each other. Selina hit her in the face and in the breast, the fist going in deep. Cristina gasped in pain and threw a punch that missed. Selina hit her in the stomach, and then as Cristina went to grab her the smaller woman sidestepped. As Cristina stumbled forward her opponent threw herself on her back, locking her legs around her waist and her forearm around her neck. Their two faces were frozen in that one instant side by side, alluring as they were locked together in their fight. Cristina was down on her knees and then in the dirt before she could react or think to fall backward onto the other woman. Selina squeezed with everything that she had, scissoring her thighs around Cristina’s flat waist and choking her around the neck. Desperate, she pulled at the arm and at the legs alternately, but to no avail. And then Selina grabbed her breast again. Cristina could not move and could not free herself, and she sobbed out that she yielded. Selina let loose of her and sat up, looking as if she would then take Cristina to The Swampland as she had promised, but then she fell back into the muck alongside her. Winner and loser lay together in the street, gasping for air, the one staring up at the night sky and the other face down.