Swampland, Ch 2
By Kim

Lilah Green watched over her boss’s bar, the Lady Ace, while her boss, Cristina de Luca, recuperated in her bedroom off the back. Cristina had become entangled with some form of nastiness with Brandy Connor, the woman who ran the largest bar in Orlando. Lilah was smart and by general acknowledgment she would be running her own operation one day. She was only 19, though, and she knew that she had a tendency to react before thinking. With auburn hair that spilled from her head in a mess of curls, and a tight athletic body with firm, moderate breasts that she enjoyed showing off and a personality that lit up the entire bar, Lilah was accustomed to being the center of attention from men and women, personal and professional. The previous night she had watched her boss fight in the street with a woman Lilah had allowed into the bar as a customer and who had turned out to be the new employee of Brandy Connor. It had been a fair fight and Brandy’s woman had beaten Cristina, but at the end both women were spent, lying in the street topless and battered. Lilah had the men take Cristina to her bed and Selina, the Chinese woman, to her own boss’s hangout.

Dr. Eason checked on Cristina and declared that she needed a few days of bed rest and solid food. No broken bones, no permanent damage to her face. Eason was a thin old man with a patchy white beard, a doctor who was willing to trade his services for whiskey or gasoline. He brought his wife and nurse Talia with him. Of mixed South Asian and German descent, with a very curvy profile on a 5’4 frame, she was the high point of his visits to the Lady Ace. She was also the woman who controlled the flow of information through Orlando’s slums, the bars and workers’ hovels where they spent most of their lives. The bar’s early customers all said their hellos, asking Talia how she was doing and why she never came when her husband treated heat stroke and missing digits for the workers in the gator farms. She was wearing a white dress that showed the outlines of her stunning features, the fabric wet with sweat, and all of the men in the bar took in her looks. She and the Dr. lived well, too. Few people knew much about medicine any more, and as a young man Eason had restored some old med school tablets and taught himself enough to keep a business together.

Late in the night, Lilah told Ryan to watch the bar and slipped away. She was wearing shorts that showed off her legs and a shirt that put her to good effect. A few men and women both gave her appreciative looks, and she smiled in return. At the wreckage of what had once been a football stadium, she found a handmade shack and, after four sharp knocks on the door, she stepped inside. The air smelled like rot and softness. In the darkness Lilah could see a man lying on a straw mattress. The disgust rose up in her stomach, and she put one hand near the knife in the small of her back as she flicked on her flashlight with the other. Working flashlights were rare, and it marked her as a young woman with connections.

“Turn that fucking light off,” the man on the floor said.

“You tell me what I want to know, and I can be your friend. Don’t tell me what I want to know, and I’ll cut your little peter in half. Longwise.” The shack’s occupant groaned. “Did you to that bar tonight? Did you see anything?”

“Saw that new girl get brought in. Looked like she had been run over by a wagon and drowned. Saw she got some real nice legs, too,” he added with a giggle.

“You need to be respectful, fucknugger.”

“Okay, okay. I did overhear her and Brandy talking. Brandy was pretty pissed off that that girl didn’t bring Cristina back with her, but she seemed pretty happy when the girl told her that she had beaten up your boss.” Lilah could hear his smiling. “Then Brandy told that new girl that when she was healed up she would be sending her to meet with Winter.”

“The fuck you say?”

“That was it, I promise. Now pay me what you owe me. I’ve given you plenty.”

Lilah counted out four pills and tossed them onto the floor and walked back to the Lady Ace. Near dawn, as Ryan was chasing the last drunken customers out the door and the cleaning girl was starting to mop the floors, Lilah went into Cristina’s rooms. The smuggler’s beautiful face was bruised and swollen, and she winced as she sat up on Lilah’s entering the room. Cristina had pushed the sheets down off of her in the heat, and Lilah could see the bruises on her arms, torso, breasts against her olive-colored skin. She gave Cristina a glass of water and sat next to her on the bed.

“How you feelin’, boss?”

“Tell me what you’ve found out tonight.”

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

A week after her boss’s fight against Selina Hu, Lilah set out by herself. Cristina had learned from a man who owed them favors that someone was bringing a canoe of whiskey and knives across the swamp. Lilah was to find the load and discover who was in charge of it. She left the bar as the sun went down. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt to protect her arms and legs, her curly red hair pulled back in a ponytail. Strands of loose hair stuck to her face and neck in her sweat. In the small of her back was a pistol with one clip and on the waist of her jeans was a knife. Before she left the camp, she stopped to say good-bye to Tara, the woman who owned the store down the street from the Lady Ace. Lilah had started seeing her about a month previous.

Tara was leaning on the counter. She wore a loose dress, her light brown hair on her shoulders and in front of her face. She was very pretty, a few years older than Lilah, and curvy under her dress in a way that Lilah enjoyed. Lilah walked up and kissed her before saying hello. “You look like you’re on your way to work,” Tara told her.

“And you look beautiful enough that I don’t want to go.”

“But you have to.”

“These snorts are trying to double fuck us,” Lilah said. She let her shoulder lean into Tara’s. No one else was in the store. The shelves were half-empty if she were being generous. “And I’m to make sure that we double fuck them first.”

“You go have fun with that, honey. And you tell them that no one but me gets to double fuck you.”

With another kiss and a grab on her ass, Lilah left Tara’s store. She hiked through the swamp, rats scurrying away from her and branches poking her arms, legs, torso. It felt as if the hot air was pressing down on her chest from above. She had been running with Cristina for nearly a year. On her first job, they had gone out on the open water in all three of their flatboats to meet a ship that had come up down from Charleston with what had promised to be a major load of antibiotics. Lilah had been the first to see the con coming and the one who got their boats out from under the ship’s guns and safely back into the swamp. From that point she had been Cristina’s tenente. Lilah’s parents ran a store of their own up in Tallahassee, but she had left them when she turned 17 without a look back. If they wanted to sit in an empty room and get high all day, they could do so just as easily without her.

Her source had given her two possible routes the crew might use. After some thinking, Lilah chose the one that seemed the less likely and climbed up into an oak tree. The moss dangling low from its limbs would hide her well enough. The sky was clear, and she sat staring up into the stars as she ate from a bag of carrots and bit of chicken she had brought with her. They had money set aside to last a decent bit, but it was the goods that would be a problem, not running out of money. If they weren’t the ones bringing stuff in, then they were at the mercy of fucking chance just as bad as their customers. As she sat in the crook of the tree waiting a boa came sliding down. She waited until the snake was on the limb near her foot and then with her boot sent it down into the muck below. After another two hours, she hopped down out of the tree. There was a cabin not far off this route, and upon adjusting her ponytail she began her walk.

The cabin was a one room shack at the edge of one of the interconnected lakes. There were lights in the windows. Lilah snuck up under it and saw inside four Black men with rifles and shotguns, standing around a large pile of crates. Their run, Lilah knew, and bigger than anything she had run with Cristina. It was unusual for Winter’s men to bring a run this far toward Orlando. Their new business partner must have more pull and more muscle. And not a lot of trust, judging from the number of guns. Lilah pivoted on her heels to move away to find a Black woman standing in front of her. “Hello there, Lilah,” Casey said to her. She was Winter’s young, very capable daughter. She was taller than Lilah, with strong arms and legs and a deep, firm chest under her white t-shirt.

Casey took her gun and knife and directed Lilah into. “Seems like you all have decided to expand your horizons. Moved on to some exciting new ventures.”

“I don’t think that I’d call it exciting, particularly. It’s just more work for me.”

“Too bad I can’t say the same.”

“Yeah, too bad,” Casey replied. “Suppose that’s why you’re out here. Redheads, always gotta make things complicated.”

“You didn’t have to cut us out like this.”

“No, we didn’t. But then from another way of looking at it, we did. It’s the way of fucking things.”

There were lights outside the cabin, and Casey met a bearded man at the door. It was one of Brandy Connor’s men. “I see you’ve brought a guest,” he said, looking at Lilah. “Unless your father has changed his hiring practices.”

“She’s our business, not yours.”

“Any chance she could be thrown into the delivery? You could put it on our account,” the bearded man suggested.

As Casey turned to look at Lilah, a flash of lights came on outside the cabin. Over a bullhorn, a man’s voice said, “All you fucknuggers put your guns down and come outside. No need to make this worse than it is.”

It was the Orlando sheriff’s department. They enforced what passed for law in the city, which worked in some combination of what was best for the mayor, what was best for the sheriffs, and what was best for the people. Although most of what they brought into Orlando was not sold to the people who lived in the camps, the vast bulk of the area’s population, Lilah doubted that hijacking the shipment was in their best interest, either.

“Don’t suppose these are friends of yours?” Casey asked.

“Not exactly my type. Is there a secret tunnel out of this cabin?”

“I’ll bring it up at the next meeting.”

Casey, her men, Lilah, and Brandy Connor’s man slowly exited the cabin, hands up. Outside were seven men in brown uniforms, shotguns ready. The man with the bullhorn ordered them to throw their weapons. He was tall and heavy, with a thick beard. Terrell Lane, Sheriff of Orlando. He was chewing on an unlit cigar. He motioned for one of his men to take the weapons. “Sorry to see you caught up with this sorry lot, Lilah,” he said. “Heard you all were gettin’ out of this business.”

“And it looks like you’re getting into it,” the redhead replied.

“Why don’t you keep your fucking white camp mouth shut,” said a female voice. Out from behind Sheriff Lane stepped his chief deputy, Megan Dormer. She was a nasty woman who had what seemed like a personal grudge against Lilah, Cristina, Brandy, and any other woman she considered to be beneath herself. Her face had a stern sort of beauty to it, and she had a sleek, athletic build and light brown hair, and she carried herself with a swagger that seemed directed at every other woman she met. Everyone saw her as the sheriff’s bag handler, a woman who relied on her looks rather than her abilities and who would never be able to run her own crew. There were rumors that she had grown up in a well-off family out West and that she had fled to Florida.

“Why don’t you come over here and make me,” Lilah replied. “If your boss will let you get your ass kicked in front of all your men.”

“Don’t you worry about him. I’d be happy to beat your ass here in front of everyone.”

“Both of you shut the fuck up,” Lane barked. “Get them chained up and get those boxes loaded on the sled. I’m not standing out here all fucking night watching you two swipe at each other.”

As one of the deputies stooped to get the chains, a voice yelled from the trees for all of them to freeze. A deputy fired his shotgun toward the voice, and a series of shots were returned. Lilah dashed around the corner of the cabin and dove into the water. She was across the water and on a slip of land, watching from behind a tree, by the time the two groups had sorted themselves. It was the rest of Brandy Connor’s men who had started the shooting, she knew, trying to free their boss. Their new boss was lying face down next to one of the sheriff’s lanterns, and even if he were still alive, Lilah knew that he would be allowed to bleed out. She could see at least one of Casey’s men down, too, and two of Lane’s men. It looked to her like Brandy’s men had started a fight they couldn’t handle; unless they had a secret supply of bullets, they had no chance of standing up to the sheriffs. Casey and the rest of her men had gotten away, at least. Lilah couldn’t feel any ill over a business decision. She certainly could feel ill for a personal grudge, though, and she waited until the shooting had been settled and saw clearly that Megan had survived unhurt. It was always the worst people who came through in the best shape, she thought as she started her long, hot trek home.

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

As Lilah made her way back from the cabin, Cristina was putting on a new dress. She had taken it some months ago from a shipment. The man who had ordered it for his mistress had no longer required it, and Cristina kept it in her trunk rather than toss it for reasons she could not quite have explained. Before his crash, her father had raised her by himself and she had never developed an affinity for feminine trappings. But Brandy’s taunting of her “masculine ways” had run through her head since the fight with Brandy’s woman Selina Hu more than she liked. The dress was black with green lines around the waist and bust, and it was cut very low in the chest so that it showed off Cristina’s impressive build quite well. And she thought that her waist and hips were put to good effect too. One last look in the mirror, and she pushed her hair back over her bare shoulders and left for The Swampland.

The Swampland was large, well lit, and busy. Men were drinking by the bar that dominated the north wall as Brandy’s women encouraged them, and men and women both played poker, craps, and roulette. Professional women leaned against the wall near the doorway to the part of the bar where their “customer” rooms and Brandy’s office and apartment were located. The bar was hot despite the screen-covered windows on both ends, and Cristina could feel the air settling into her lungs. Real candles flickered in the chandeliers overhead and on the walls. Two of Brandy’s women passed by as she came to the bar, giving her scathing looks, neither of them as attractive in the face or body as Cristina or their own boss. Cristina saw one of the security men spot her and go to notify Brandy. She ordered a whiskey from the bartender, who looked her over with an appreciative gaze, and winking at him she took her shot and waited for the boss lady to appear.

“Well look who fell into a change of clothes,” Brandy said in a loud voice as she approached. “Change the clothes, change the woman.” The statuesque blonde seemed to be pouring out of her blue dress. Her breasts seemed even larger than Cristina’s and better presented by the deep cut of her front, and her wide hips and powerful legs were evident under the strained material. Her curly blonde hair spilled down over her shoulder and seemed to cup her face, which was beautiful but with its blue eyes and full cheeks was the opposite type of beauty to Cristina’s. She wore a gold necklace that was draped across the imposing swell of her cleavage. “You like the necklace?” Brandy asked, when Cristina had looked her up and down. “It’s a shame that you don’t have a man who can afford to give you something like that,” she added, giving Cristina’s dress, face, body the same scrutiny the Italian had given her.

“Yes, it’s too bad that you can’t afford to buy your own arrow to get men to stare at your cow tits.”

“Oh my goodness,” Brandy responded. “Listen up everybody, Cristina de Luca here is going to lecture me about having good business sense. Tell us about how your little scatpile of a bar is doing for you, Cristina. Or perhaps you’d like to tell us about your other business ventures?”

Cristina tensed herself, but Brandy checked her with a tilt of her head to the security men by the door. “Now, now,” Brandy cautioned her. “This isn’t the kind of establishment where we settle our disagreements with a mindless brawl. So tacky. Come with me, and we’ll hash this out like proper ladies.”

Brandy turned and walked toward her office, and Cristina followed her. A guard stationed in the hallway checked Brandy for weapons. The room was large and spare, with a large desk stationed across the far corner, facing the door, and chairs arranged before it. A Republic of Texas flag was on the wall behind the desk, its fabric rippling slightly from the two ceiling fans whirling overhead. Brandy poured a whiskey for each of them and the two women drank standing in the center of the room. When the glasses were empty they set them on the desk and stood eyeing each other. Without a knock, Selina Hu entered the room and closing the door behind her blocked the exit. She was wearing a blouse buttoned halfway up and a loose blue skirt that stopped above her knees. Her feminine athleticism showed clearly through the thin material. She smiled at Cristina.

“Whatever you came here to talk about you can say in front of her,” Brandy explained. “She’s involved in all of my operations.”

“Afraid to be alone with me after the shit that you’ve pulled?”

“Hardly. From what I heard of your last meeting with Selina, I don’t have much to fear from you. Disappointing, but that’s the way of the world.”

“If you like, I can kick your ass again. Embarrass you in front of our customers just like I did in front of yours,” Selina offered.

“You’re welcome to try, little girl,” Cristina answered her.

“As enticing a prospect as that fucking is, I have other work to get to tonight. Why did you come here, bitch?”

Cristina turned her attention back to Brandy. “I wanted you to hear this from me. I know you’re trying to muscle me out, and it’s not going to work.”

“Oh, it already has, honey. You’re just too stupid to notice it,” Selina said.

“Stay out of this,” Brandy said to her. “Cristina, it would be best for everyone if you accept what’s happening. I have more people with me and more money behind me than you’ll ever be able to deal with. And aside from that, the fact is that Selina isn’t wrong. I’ve already outmaneuvered you. I made deals with the right people without your even noticing. Our first shipment has already come in, and it’s more weight than you could ever move. So it would be for the best if you and all of your people if you just peacefully step aside. You’re out of your league with me, in every possible way. Maybe you should go find a less competitive place for you to do business in. I hear that Lower Alabama’s nice this time of year.”

“You’ve overplayed your hand, Texas. You’re incompetent and you can’t be trusted, and people are going to find that out. The reputation you’ve made for yourself running this whorehouse won’t do you any favors in my line of work. It’s going to take more than two oversized heifers and bad hair to get rid of me.”

“No, it’s just going to take me,” Selina said. “Meeting’s over, dusky. Time for you to go,” she added, taking hold of Cristina by the arm and pulling her toward the door.

“No need for violence, Selina. I’m sure that Cristina is a sharp enough woman to know how to find the door out of a whorehouse.”

“I doubt that she could find a bed in a whorehouse with both hands and a flaccid dick in her mouth.”

Selina was still holding Cristina by the arm, and the two women stared into each other’s eyes. In that moment before they went for each other Cristina could see the beads of sweat on Selina’s forehead and down into her chest. It was on her own face and upper body as well. Both women were breathing hard. “Are you going to interfere?” Cristina asked Brandy.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Cristina wrenched her arm free of the other girl’s grasp and shoved her away. Selina took hold of the front of her dress as she did, so that the material ripped loose from her torso. Cristina rushed after her and slapped her across the face, but Selina came back with a fist into her stomach and then taking hold as Cristina bent over she slung her into the wall. Cristina hit the wood face first, her bare breasts flattening out. Selina hit her in the small of her back with quick shots and then pulled back on her head, still holding on to her long, dark hair. “I’m going to run you out in that bar naked. Let everyone get a good look at that body of yours they’re always talking about,” Selina said into her ear. Then she tore away the rest of Cristina’s dress. A thought flashed through Cristina’s mind: The material came off easily for its expense for the intended mistress.

The thought was out of her head as quickly as it came. She whipped her elbow around and caught Selina in the temple. The smaller woman stumbled back and then fell on her ass, dazed. Cristina wanted to throw herself on her, but as she rid herself of the dress and shoes her opponent was already gaining her feet. Cristina was wearing only a pair of black panties. Selina kicked off her shoes, and Cristina made a “come on” motion with her hand. Smirking, Selina slid her blouse off her shoulders and her dress to the floor and threw both aside. She was wearing light blue panties. Cristina stared at her body, lithe and strong except her full breasts, and she thought of their last fight and how she wanted to punish her, throw her around the room, make her insignificant and low.

The two women rushed each other. They collided chest to chest, arms scrabbling at torsos and pulling hair. The two women pirouetted around the room, a beautiful dance of female violence. Brandy stepped out of their path and locked the door. Cristina punched Selina in the side and with a rush of strength propelled her across the room. Selina hit against the desk and Cristina bent her backwards onto it. She had the Chinese woman flat on her back and she tried to climb on top of her but Selina rolled her off. Cristina landed hard on the floor and as she was getting up Selina crashed into her. At first she was underneath the other woman, but before any damage could be done she rolled her off and jammed her in the corner. Selina was on her side, her back to the wall, and working on her knees Cristina pinned her in place. She thudded fists into the young woman’s side, stomach, breasts and held her down by her hair with the other. Selina tried to get free but Cristina got her leg on one of her arms, trapping it. Now Selina started thrashing under her, pushing and hitting at Cristina’s voluptuous breasts and flat stomach. With a snarl Cristina reached between Selina’s legs and pinched her sex.

With a burst of energy Selina got some space between them and then kicked Cristina away from her. She managed to get to her feet but Cristina was there first. “You’re going to pay that, you fucking slut.”

“Come do something about it.”

Selina ran toward her, burying her shoulder in Cristina’s gut. But Cristina was too large and Selina too weakened for the smaller woman to move, and she drove her elbow down into Selina’s back, again and again, until the other woman was on her knees. Cristina pulled her back by the hair, holding her in place in front of her, and slapped her forehand and backhand. Then she rode the girl onto her back and mounted her, sitting aside her stomach. Selina tried to push herself free, and Cristina enjoyed seeing the panic come into her eyes. She slapped her across the face, Selina’s black hair whipping with the movement and sweat flying off her skin. Both women were sucking air into and out of their bodies; the sound was flat and hard in the room and Cristina’s breasts rose and fell with the effort. She brought her hand back again but before she could strike Selina got her hands up and latched onto her heaving breasts. She sunk her fingers into the mounds of female flesh, squeezing with the energy and strength Cristina had felt on their first fight. In her rush to get the hands off her chest Cristina lost her balance, and Selina got out from under her.

The two topless women, skin shining and beautiful faces half covered in hair were an embodiment of female combative spirit. Each willed herself to her feet. They came together but as Selina charged forward again she was slow and the larger woman punched her in the stomach and then slapped her across the face. Cristina then seized her by the shoulders and ran her into the wall. Her face and bust hit hard against the wood, and Cristina pulled her back by the hair and slammed her forward again and then a third time. After the last, holding her in place by the hair and a firm grip on one arm, Cristina asked, “I thought you were going to make me pay? Kick my ass again? Haul me naked in front of all those ugly men and stupid whores downstairs?” Selina could only gasp for air in response, her face flush against the hard wood. “Didn’t hear you,” Cristina said, and hit her in the back as a prompt. Selina groaned.

With a surge of strength Cristina yanked her away from the wall and sent her stumbling over the desk and to the floor behind it. She followed the Asian woman around the desk, expecting for her to be rising as she did. But instead she found Selina lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. When she saw Cristina coming toward her she moaned and turned her head away. Eager to continue beating on her, Cristina rushed in. But the girl had been shamming, and when Cristina got close both her feet came up and struck her full in the chest. Cristina she fell back into the desk and then to the floor, holding her breasts. She gasped for air and watched as Selina rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled toward her. The sweat was dripping off her torso and breasts and the hair dangling about her face. Their eyes locked again, as they had in that instant before the fight started.

Selina landed on her with a thud. The women took hold of each other’ hair once more, pulling all they could. Cristina rolled to her side but was only on top an instant before Selina regained it. Their shapely thighs, lean torsos, imposing breasts rubbed together bodily in their struggle. With a burst of movement neither would have thought possible at this stage Selina moved to sit on top of her, but Cristina got her hips outside of hers and wrapped her legs around her torso. She squeezed with all that she had. Selina gripped her breasts, pinching down into the flesh, but despite the agony Cristina held on. She yanked Selina’s head back by the hair and began pounding her in the face. After enduring all she could, Selina let go of the breasts and tried to protect herself. But then Cristina slapped her breasts until she exposed her face again. No matter what she did, Selina could not extricate herself from the scissors Cristina had around her torso and the pounding she was giving her.

Selina gasped that she had had enough. Cristina loosened her scissor hold and rolled on top of her. Sitting astride Selina’s chest, she held her head up by the hair and with her fist raised, she demanded that Selina admit that she was beaten. “Fuck you, bitch!” Selina said with all the force she could muster.

Cristina saw Brandy coming toward her, expecting that she would start mashing the helpless woman for her answer. But Cristina laughed and patted the woman she had beaten on the cheek and slowly rose from her. “You gonna be trouble now?” she asked Brandy.

“Not now,” the buxom blonde answered. “For now, I’ll give you a change of clothes and an escort home. And when you’re up to it, we’ll continue our discussion of my taking your business from you.”