Swampland, Ch 4
By Kim

The day after her fight with Cristina de Luca, Brandy Connor lay in bed. Upstairs, in the back rooms of the bar/whorehouse she ran, was her office and a bed she used to tease and hint with the right customers. The bed she slept in in the morning was in the basement, nearly twenty feet underground. As she lay still, staring up at the concrete ceiling, she listened to the sputter of the fans that drew in fresh air, pumped out the water, and ran the ice machine that provided the cold packs she had on her face, her breasts, her stomach, her ribs. It would be days before she went out in public. It was the only ice machine here in the slums, and one of only a few in the entire city. Cristina did not have one; Brandy imagined the brunette suffering in her own bed and smiled with her swollen lips. The ceiling fan clicked as it spun. She hated being in this cellar and the heat that drove her down here. Her family was from Edmonton, Alberta, where you could take a walk outside in the summer without passing out. And now this bitch Cristina was forcing her to lie in this makeshift bed and had malformed her face, exposed her body to the gawking hicks who had watched them fight. She had worked too hard for too long to be dragged down into the mud by the trashy daughter of a smuggler.

Her family owned a great deal of Edmonton. As the temperature rose in the US, and the economy and then the political structures collapsed, many people moved to Canada before that country built a wall along the border and tripled the size of its army. Brandy’s grandmother made a fortune selling or renting land to these displaced people, and she used a lot of that wealth to build an estate, protected by a private army of her own. Brandy had grown up there, running through the halls as a little girl, chasing butterflies. Her father was an idiot and a drunk, and he and her mother were thrown out by her grandmother when she was nine. The old woman would tolerate no fools in her household, she told Brandy many times, and no disgrace brought on the family. And then when Brandy began developing at an early age, and gaining the attention of the wrong sort of men in town—the sort of men who made eyes at a teenage girl who looked like she was twenty-five—her grandmother sent her off to a boarding school on Lake Claire in northern Alberta. It was there Brandy had her first fight real catfight against another grown woman.

The school was isolated, with its own supplies brought up by truck through the muck and the snow those few days they still had snow. The hallways were adorned with winter pictures, young ladies of generations past throwing snowballs and singing Christmas carols in fur coats. What had been trails for cross-country skiing excursions were now cross country courses for their summer physical education. The girls there came from some of the richest and most prominent families in the country, the opulence of their childhoods evident in their faces and bodies. But even among them Brandy had stood out. Her first days there, both the male faculty and the female students had stared at her. Although eighteen , she was still without the lived experiences even these sheltered girls from Toronto and Vancouver had gotten, and she was enrolled as a Post-Graduate at the school even though she had barely gotten an education at her grandmother’s estate. She was hardly a student, so far as the other girls and the faculty thought of her, and too much yet too little a woman. Brandy had not known how to carry herself when heads turned as she walked down the hall to her dorm room, one of the staff dragging her trunks behind her and leering at her ass. Her first roommate had been a silly, gossipy redhead from Ottawa, and after she moved out they gave her a quiet, nerdy girl from somewhere Brandy never learned to pronounce. By the end of her first semester there, she had learned to ignore the girls who did not matter and to evidence her disdain for the girls who did.

In the fall of her first full year there, her dorm received a new Dorm Mom and her husband, Dr. Stacy Pound-Coleman and Mr. Coleman. Mr. Coleman was their new phys ed teacher and basketball coach, a lean and sharp-featured man who always smiled and goofed around with the girls. Stacy, or Dr. P-C as the girls called her, was from Vancouver, where she had gotten her PhD in French Literature, but she looked more South Pacific than Pacific Coast. She was a few inches shorter than Brandy, and more pretty than striking, but she had very nice black hair and a curvaceous body that would have stood out on a co-ed campus, or one that Brandy was not living on. The girls soon discovered that Dr. P-C was pleasant to the girls who were quiet or subservient to her, and unpleasant to the girls her husband liked to joke around with before gym class or practice started. She wore low-cut and tight dresses, and when she was talking with a group of girls during study time or at dinner, many of her own stories began with another woman taking too much interest in her husband. The P-C-Cs, as some of the girls took to calling them, presented themselves as the new power couple at the school, and over the course of their first year it was stamped more and more prominently on their handsome faces, the new clothes they bought for themselves, the trips to Vancouver and Toronto they planned with their favorite students.

Mr. Coleman began paying special attention to Brandy after Christmas break, and Brandy did nothing to discourage him. She let her school blouse hang open as she bent forward for a tablet pen and positioned herself in front of him if he was crossing campus. And then as she slid past him after the Easter concert, Brandy gave him a good long pat on the dick. She had no desire for a gym teacher who had sought out a miserable parvenu for a wife. The next weekend, she was summoned by email to Dr. P-C’s rooms. The girls who lived close enough had gone home for Easter, and her husband a few other faculty had taken a busload of girls to town to go shopping. Stacy was standing in their living room, wearing tight-fitting sweatpants and a spaghetti top that showed off a great deal of her impressive chest. She dressed like that often. She was at least three inches shorter than Brandy and twenty pounds lighter, and she was able to carry the same type of figure Brandy did without risking being categorized a large woman, as Brandy might be as she aged. Dr. P-C’s hair was done in pigtails, as if she were the teenager and Brandy the adult. Brandy had been playing basketball with a few of the other girls still on campus, and she was wearing the school’s gym outfit a size too small, as most of the girls did.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Sit down, Brandy, I was hoping that we could talk for a bit.”

“I think I’m okay standing.”

Stacy looked at her for a long instant and then said, “Then I guess we can directly to it.” She put her hands on her hips and turned herself slightly so that she was facing Brandy directly. The girl and the teacher were about ten feet from each other. “I want you to leave my husband alone.”

“Why would I be interested in your husband? He’s old, and he’s a teacher. He’s poor. Yuck.”

“You spoiled little bitch. I saw what you did after the Easter show, and I see how you parade yourself around here. I know what you, and I know that you’re after my husband. You’re no different than the other stupid women around here. I’ve seen the way you all leer at him, and I know how you talk to him when I’m not around. I’m not going to put up with it.”

“Maybe if you didn’t walk around with an icicle up your cunt, he wouldn’t be so keen to talk to other women. You’re just some short girl with a big ass who doesn’t have any money, and you’re jealous that I have everything you never will.” Both women were breathing hard now, their arms and legs tense, and as the conversation went along their voices had been rising.

Carefully, without taking her eyes off of Brandy, the teacher went around her to the door of the apartment. Throwing the deadbolt, she said, “I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Brandy replied.

The two threw themselves at each other, the woman and the teenage girl. She had never been in a catfight before, though, and she soon learned that her rival had. Brandy grabbed two handfuls of Stacy’s black hair and pulled, but rather than pull hair in return Stacy hit her in the stomach and then in the breast. Brandy yelled in pain and let go of the hair, holding herself and stepping back. Stacy then slapped her across the face, a series of blows from both hands, and Brandy was driven back into the wall. Her head was spinning, and she slumped against the wall with her hands in front of her face, turtling. Instantly Stacy was on her again. The older, shorter woman was hitting her from every direction, open hands and fists to her head, stomach, breasts. Brandy suddenly felt a rush of panic and with her arms open launched herself at her attacker. She pushed her backward, but Stacy took hold of her hair and slung her to the side. Brandy fell against the back of the couch and Stacy was on her immediately.

On the ground Stacy was just as much a force as she had been on her feet. The two women grappled together, rolling back and forth. Brandy felt like she was chained at the waist with a wolverine, all claws and strength, and despite her trying to fight back she felt herself being overwhelmed. She soon found herself lying on her stomach, her head pressed down in the carpet as the older woman hit and scratched her on every exposed piece of flesh she could find. Desperate, she pressed herself up to her hands and knees, but for Stacy it was only a new opportunity. She threw her legs in between Brandy’s and rolled over so that she was lying on her back, with Brandy on top of her, with her hips against the small of her back and her legs holding open the teen’s. Brandy thrashed her arms and tried to roll, but Stacy held her tight. Stacy then reached both of her hands under Brandy’s shirt and grabbed her breasts, squeezing through her bra. Brandy had never felt anything like it, and she howled in pain. In response Stacy just squeezed harder, digging in her fingers. Brandy stared down at the two hands as they worked under her shirt.

At first Brandy felt herself withdrawing inside, as she had when her grandmother had yelled at her. And then when Stacy said into her ear, their faces pressed together, that she was going to teach her to be respectful, Brandy felt some change take place within her and she was no longer the girl chastised by her domineering grandmother. She made a fist and jabbed back at the pretty face that had pressed itself against hers and then tore the hands off of her breasts. She got free of the other woman and then forced herself to rise to her feet at the same time she did. Stacy slapped her across the face, but Brandy took it and hit her back harder. The blow turned Stacy halfway around, stunning her, and Brandy took hold of her with both hands and flung her over the couch. Stacy was getting to her feet as Brandy came around to meet her, a dazed expression on her, her dark hair hanging over her face, and Brandy slapped her across the face again. The blow put her on her back, but she scrambled away before Brandy could abuse her further.

The two women were both on their feet. They were breathing hard, sweating, and they stared at each other with hatred. Wordless they clashed again. Stacy hit her across the face, but Brandy took it and slugged her in the stomach and then while Stacy was bent forward she gripped her in a headlock. The statuesque teen blonde held the older brunette by the head and squeezed. Stacy grunted and tried to pull away but she could not. Then reaching up she grabbed Brandy’s breast through her shirt and squeezed. Brandy held on as long as she could and then flung the smaller woman aside. The shirt ripped open as she did, exposing Brandy’s imposing breasts in a white bra. Stacy was sitting up as Brandy crashed into her. This time Brandy was the wolverine. She got on top and hit her back and forth, turning her head with each open hand. Stacy reached up and grabbed hold her breasts, ripping her bra in the process. Rather than howl this time Brandy clasped her hands together and brought them down onto her upper chest. Stacy’s grip on her chest faded. Brandy tore open her shirt and pulled down her bra and took hold of her own breasts.

“See how you like it, bitch,” Brandy told her. “Still firm for their age. Impressive.” She kneaded and twisted then, and now it was Stacy’s turn to howl.

She tried to pull the hands off, but she was too weak and then she tried to buck Brandy off of her but she had too much woman atop her. “Please stop,” she gasped.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that,” Brandy said. She took hold of the end of Stacy’s breast with her right hand in a great pinch of the flesh around her nipple. “What did you say? You’re an old frigid bitch?” Stacy moaned in pain. “Say the words or it gets worse.”

“I’m an old frigid bitch,” Stacy gasped, and with that Brandy’s first catfight was over.

Her grandmother made no effort to prevent the school from expelling her, and when she returned to the family estate she was turned away. Over the next year Brandy floated south. At times she was a mistress or girlfriend, living off of a wealthy man, but the defiance and the temper she had learned from her teacher got in the way eventually and she had to move on. Not long after she had turned twenty, Brandy was working in the nicest whorehouse in Dallas—although even there the competition from other establishments and from other girls was fierce and the profit margins thin. The city was oppressively hot all year, but there was still some money in oil, cattle, and the large army base built one hundred years previous to defend the country against incursions from Mexico. Brandy was the new face, a beautiful face on a beautifully-crafted body, and a favorite of some of the oil men who came there to drink and fuck their way through the last gasps of their businesses. In her travels, she had defended herself against two women whose men she had poached and one woman in a bar whose appearance had aggravated her.

In the Texas whorehouse, Brandy established herself quickly. The house was managed by a woman named Sandra, a sharp and tough-minded woman who kept close control over the girls and the customers. She was of average height and build but flat-chested, and her face was more handsome than beautiful. A dull-looking girl challenged her on her first night when one of her regulars chose Brandy over her, but when Brandy put her through a window and then paid for the doctor, the other girls saw her as fair as well as stern. In the years she had been on her own, Brandy had learned that it was more important to do what would serve her well than to do what she wanted. Doing what she wanted was a privilege of the rich, which she no longer was. And the next night she made a new friend, a tall and curvaceous redhead named Amy. Amy had been in Dallas for six months, and she was able to help Brandy make friends among the other girls and with the men in town who had more money than brains. Not long after her arrival, Brandy had a plan to peel away some of the best of the younger girls and with a stash of money head for territory where the competition was less organized and more tame.

The center of her plan to leave Dallas with money, a cadre of girls and Amy as her assistant involved a man named Richard Stelle, a boring old man who was a sort of private bank for businesses like the whorehouse. Amy got Brandy close to the man, and over a period of weeks she gained his trust and access to his house by fucking him as he had never been fucked before and listening to him talk about how he was paying the interest on investments people had made through him with money from new investments he took from other people. In the house he kept cash enough to make himself feel secure, and enough to give Brandy a new life. On one of her nighttime visits to his house, Stelle told Brandy, his head on her lap as they listened to an indentured servant play the violin, that he wanted to take her to Houston for a special trip. He would be sending his servants away for the vacation, and he wanted to give her money to buy new dresses so that he could properly show her off to the assholes in Houston he had to do business with.

Brandy told Amy to ready the other girls. She would take care of the boring man Stelle and then meet Amy and the girls with a truck and stash of gasoline she had seen in Stelle’s garage. That night Brandy put on her most alluring dress and went to Stelle’s house with his driver. Even in the well-off areas of Dallas few people had cars, and as the dark empty office buildings and apartment towers slid by she stared out the window and wondered if they would ever be full of people again. And then they were in the suburbs that had surrounded the city and where many people still lived, making small farms out of what had been parks and soccer fields. When the car stopped in front of Stelle’s house, with its gate and armed guards and then behind the gate the massive garage and swimming pool and electric generator with its own guards, and she wondered how long it would be until she owned a house like that and what she would have to do to earn it. Then she got out of the car and went inside.

Stelle met her in the entryway, wearing a suit. She kissed him and cupped his dick through his pants, rubbing it as she dragged her lips along his neck. “It’s going to be a great weekend,” she whispered.

“Oh it is indeed,” Stelle replied.

He lead her into the library, where there was gathered a small group of men all in suits similar to Stelle’s. On her entrance the men stopped talking and stared her up and down, taking in her striking figure, her dress, her face. And in the middle of the room was Sandra. Her brown hair hung down in loose curls to the middle of her back and in front of the meager cleavage exposed by the deep plunge of her own dress. The dress was dark green, stopping at mid-thigh, and it showed off her fit, athletic body to great effect. She was staring intently at Brandy, and Brandy began walking directly toward her. Two of the men in suits stepped between the women before anything could happen.

“So glad you could come tonight,” Sandra said. “We’ve prepared something special for you.”

“I doubt that many proper men have ever called you special,” Brandy replied.

“Oh, they have, and they will again after I give them a special treat tonight.”

“And what treat is that?”

“You of course, you upstart little slut. You came here tonight looking to steal and kill enough to make a new life for yourself. Steal from me as well as Richard here, taking away all of my girls.”

“You can’t handle the competition. Everyone here has gotten tired of your show, and you don’t know what to do next. So, because you’re too stupid to plan for your own future, you try to make things hard for a younger, hotter woman like me. Except that not only am I hotter than you, and younger, I’ve also got a better plan.”

“If you thought you were going to get away with this, then you aren’t as smart as you think you are. I’m going to rip your balloon tits off and stick them up your ass.”

“If you think you’re tough enough to do that, you aren’t as smart as you think you are.”

“We aren’t savages here of course,” Stelle said, taking a glass of wine from his servant. “You have a choice, Brandy. You can turn and walk out the door and nothing will happen to you.”

“Except that you leave Dallas, alone, naked and broke, and you don’t come back,” Sandra said.

“Well, yes, excepting that.”

“And if I stay?”

“If you win, you get to leave here with the girls and a sizeable winner’s purse. Not as large as what you had planned to take, but more than you have on hand now. I can’t let you have my truck, which you were probably planning on taking, but I’m sure you understand. I do need it.”

“If I beat you,” Sandra said, smiling, “then you get to spend the weekend with these nice men. I’m sure they’ll have a great time playing with your udders. Almost as much fun as I’m going to have. Except when I’m done with you not many men will be willing to pay for the privilege.”

The men in suits were leering openly at her in her white dress, with its low-cut front and the slit up the side that revealed her very shapely leg and its middle tight around her hips. Fat, smoking, balding, thin, oily, dry, and all of them lecherous. Brandy wondered what they had found to entertain themselves on previous weekends. She kicked off her shoes and told the servant to unzip the back of her dress. When she was standing before them in her white panties, her blonde hair hanging down near the large pink areolae on the front of her melon-sized breasts and just the hint of muscle showing through the skin over her stomach and shoulders, she raised her hands out to her sides, palms up. Still smiling, Sandra removed her own dress. She was near to the same height as Brandy but with a thinner frame. Her breasts were little more than bumps on her chest, her nipples like pink stars, and her jawline was a bit too strong for her to be considered beautiful. The look in her eyes told Brandy that she had done this before, and won, and that she had every confidence of doing so again.

The two women stepped forward slowly, bent forward at the waist, hands out and ready. Brandy slapped her across the face and then when Sandra tried to hit her back she stepped back out of range and circled around her. She got to Sandra’s side and hit her again, and again she got out of the way before Sandra could respond. Both of Sandra’s cheeks were red now. Brandy thought that she had the older woman handled, and she was proven wrong. As she dove in to land another blow on Sandra, the redhead hit her twice in the stomach, stopping her cold, and then gave her a mighty slap across the face. The striking of flesh and the shriek of pain were loud in the room. Brandy was turned all the way around and Sandra grabbed her from behind. But before she could get a good hold on her Brandy elbowed her in the stomach and scrambled away. She turned and brought up her hands but Sandra hit her in the stomach again, and then she tagged her in her breasts with a swarm of slaps and light punches. To end the blows Brandy hit her in the face and then throw both of her arms around her.

They turned in circles, grappling. Brandy tried to throw Sandra over her shoulder but the woman sagged down and used her weight to block it. Then Brandy got hold of her hair and pulling with all her strength and taking advantage of her weight advantage she slung her into a bookshelf. Sandra hit against the wooden corner with a grunt and slumped down, stunned. As she came back up Brandy pulled her hair again. Holding her head by the hair she hit her in the face and then yanked her up to her feet. Sandra hit her in the stomach but Brandy was already throwing her. She flung her and the thin woman went crashing into an end table and stuffed chair. The men in suits scattered out of the way of the two fighting women as Brandy threw herself after her with a primal snarl on her face. Sandra met her with open claws and they rolled over each other, pulling hair, their sweaty legs, torsos, faces pressed together.

Brandy got on top of her and banged her head on the ground. Sandra got hold of her face and pushed and twisted, sticking her fingers into Brandy’s eyes and her mouth. Brandy bit down on the fingers, and Sandra howled. With a rush of force Sandra bucked the larger woman off of her and got on top of her. She banged Brandy’s head on the ground and then hit her across the face. Brandy reached up and instinctively tried to grab Sandra’s breasts but there was nothing for her to hold. Sandra hit her across the face again, this time stunning her. While Brandy lay dazed Sandra rotated so that she was holding her down in a crucifix. She had her legs on one of Brandy’s arms and was holding the other with one hand, lying crosswise with her upper body across Brandy’s upper chest and neck. With her free hand she gripped Brandy’s hair and looked directly into her eyes.

“Looks like I’m the smart one after all, bitch.”

Sandra turned her body and took hold of Brandy’s majestic right breast with her left hand. She dug in her fingers at first, pulling and twisting. Brandy moaned and thrashed under her but she could not get loose. Then Sandra pinched and poked around her nipple and then slapped at the feminine globe with all the power she could muster in the short space. Brandy began howling, and then Sandra used her teeth. She bit into her great breast and Brandy screamed. She wrenched her hand free and grabbed Sandra’s ear. She twisted Sandra’s ear as the woman had twisted her breast, and she was rewarded with a scream in return. Sandra began punching her in the stomach but in the thrashing about Brandy got her other hand out from between her legs. She sank her fingernails into Sandra’s ass, scratching at her cheeks and her asshole and what she could get of her lips. As soon as she could Sandra pushed herself off and rolled away.

Holding her hand to her freshly bruised breast, Brandy rose to meet her adversary. The hard look on Sandra’s face told her that the woman had liked being probed as little as Brandy had liked having her chest attacked. The two women came toward each other slowly. Brandy threw a looping punch, too slowly, and Sandra hit her in the chest and then as she backed up slapped her across the face. Brandy managed to get her hands up to block the next slap and she hopped to the side to evade the awkward kick Sandra aimed at her midsection. And then as the flat-chested brunette went sailing by Brandy snapped her elbow up into her face. Sandra fell to the ground in a heap, moaning and with her hands over her face. She was too slow in regaining herself and Brandy was on her. She kicked her in the side and then as she rolled away she kicked her again in the small of the back. Sandra rolled over onto her stomach, hands covering her head, and Brandy kept kicking her in the side. And then she stamped her foot down in the middle of her back and made her whimper.

She was still whimpering when Brandy turned her over onto her back and then she made a wretching sound when Brandy seated herself on her stomach. For some seconds, Brandy sat atop her with her hands on her thighs, breathing hard, her great breast with its bruises rising and falling, like a great queen perched above some lady she had mastered. Blood was flowing from Sandra’s nose, and Brandy wiped it clear and then began hitting her back and forth. One of the men who had been watching called for her to quit but Brandy ordered him to shut the fuck up. She hit her again and again and when she was done both of her eyes were swelling shut and the blood had flowed again.

“Looks like you’re the one who’s out of a job. Tangling with me isn’t very smart,” Brandy had told her that night as she rose from her throne.

Lying on her back in her private bedroom in the basement, Brandy reflected on the trip east. Stelle had been true to his word, and she left Dallas with the girls and the money. She and Amy had met Allison Barnwell in Atlanta and learned of her desire to upgrade the quality of services in Orlando. Replacing Cristina had been a part of their business arrangement, but as Brandy traced her fingers over the bruises on her face she thought of how much pleasure she was going to take in returning the beating she had taken threefold onto Cristina. First, though, she would have to live up to the agreement they had reached the previous night. She would be sending Selina to the Lady Ace and Cristina, for reasons she did not know. It was the price of her keeping her end of the business after being beaten by Cristina in front of everyone.