The Courier Bandit and Other Tales (Part II)
By Pete Moss
THE COURIER BANDIT (Part II)
Amanda Carolina sits with her legs spread.Fluffy is down there.
Amanda tries to get her squirt on.
That is what the customer is paying for.
But Amanda is bored and cranky. Finally she closes her legs and stands up.
Fluffy gives a little yelp and cowers on the floor. Looking like a flesh pretzel with her ankles and wrists bound.
Amanda walks across the room and gets a smoke and lights up.
She turns and looks at Fluffy. Fluffy barely dares to turn her head, return the look.
Amanda returns, heels clacking, and sits.
She puts her foot on Fluffy's head and pushes down so that Fluffy's face meets the floor.
"Please Goddess. Please give me another chance. I can make your divine essence flow, I beg for it," grovels Fluffy.
"I doubt it. I'm bored with you." says Amanda Carolina.
Amanda Carolina has blue eyes and black hair and pale pale skin, natural. She has a wild untamed auburn bush. Amanda's clientele are wild for just that.
"In fact I'm going to cancel next weeks session." adds Amanda,
Fluffy gives an agonized moan.
"No, pleeeease, I'll double my tribute."
"Stupid little whore. Did I give you permission to speak?"
Fluffy bites her tongue until it bleeds. Missing a session with divine domina Amanda Carolina would be worse than death.
Amanda sits. She smokes. She gets the remote and clicks the TV. She flips through until she finds porn. Up goes the volume.
Amanda opens her legs and fluffs her muffin to the images on the screen, ignoring Fluffy.
"Please, goddess, maybe I have something beyond the usual tribute."
"What could a worthless slut like you have to offer at all out of the ordinary?"
"Information?" says Fluffy, timid and respectful.
"Crap," says Amanda, but she hits the mute.
For a minute there is no sound. Then Amanda stands and takes a step and kicks Fluffy.
"Well...out with it, cum dumpster."
"I've been tracking someone, on the web? Bank robber. He's pulled 22 jobs in the last 4 years, netted half a mill."
"No shit?"
"Probably more."
"And this impacts me how?" says Amanda.
"He's recently relocated to Frisco."
"I see."
"And well, all that money, he's gotta be spending it on something, perhaps someone in your community....?"
"Uhm...Not bad. You may resume your former position," says Amanda.
Amanda leaves the TV on, turns up the sound, and smokes, sitting with her legs spread on the special chair.
Fluffy wriggles her tied up self and buries her face between Amanda's thighs.
######
Fluffy looks at her screen and feels hate.
Tyke barges into the house.
Fluffy closes her eyes.
Few minutes later Fluffy smells hamburger beginning to fry.
"I'm going out," says Fluffy.
Tyke barely responds, focused on assembling the ingredients for her burger. Onions, Horseradish dressing, lettuce etc., making a godawful stink.
Fluffy goes to the corner store for Vodka and Juice.
Does she need Vodka and Juice to sluice out her throat after a 3 day speed run and Tykes thing for greasy burgers?
Fluffy takes her supplies and sits in her doorway.
Across the street, 3 doors down, a fairly well-dressed Caucasian male about 45, minds his own business.
Further down the street are a pair of streetsters.
The shopping cart people pull up by the white guy.
Damn if he doesn't hand them money.
Normally, Fluffy pounds her drink and goes for more.
But now she's on a stake out. She sips and watches.
Over the next hour shopping cart people keep pulling up and getting handed money by White Dude.
Not spare change, green bills.
One thing about the guy handing out the money. He's overdressed.
Like he's not used to the damp and cold of Frisco air.
####
Amanda Carolina unlocks her door.
She picks her way through her garbage strewn apartment.
Feeds her cat.
She looks around and nowhere to sit.
She digs through a pile of clothes and puts on a sweater.
She leaves the apartment, walks up 24th.
At the coffee shop she sees him.
He sits alone, bundled up.
Amanda Carolina goes in the coffee shop and gets a Cappuccino.
She carries it out.
She sits and watches the stranger.
He finishes his coffee, stands, pats his pockets, leaves.
Amanda Carolina follows him.
He walks around the corner onto Bryant.
He unlocks a bicycle and rides off.
Amanda watches him go.
(Click here for part III of this story.)
FAMILY (Part II)
"What about my dad?" I said.
"We're getting to that. See....After the parent teacher conference, it was a bit of a wake-up call for your grandpa. In his own way he made an effort. For Carmen's 16th birthday he bought her these beautiful hi-heels and a green dress, satin, from Bullocks, must have cost $500! He showed them to me before. He wanted to take her to the Starlight Room for 16th birthday dinner. I didn't know what to say. I knew it would be a disaster. Carmen was a tomboy, all she wanted to wear was Keds and Dungarees and flannel shirts."
"Uh oh."
"Yes. She opened those shoes, didn't even take them out of the box. Never even opened the dress." Granny sat, looking wistful.
"I bet you still got those shoes and the dress stashed around here somewhere."
"Oh yes. I expect you'll come across them when you clean this place out after I die. Probably still in their boxes too."
I reached across the table and gave granny’s hand a squeeze. "So did they do anything after all...for mom's birthday? Maybe go to Playland at the Beach?"
"No. Your grandpa didn't show it, but he was pretty crushed, I'm certain. He never even asked. And then Carmen started staying out all night."
I looked out the window at the huge old cypress growing in granny's back yard. The trunk was green and the branches hung low, dripping.
"I fought with her some over that, tried to set limits, but I hate confrontation, and Carmen throve on it. And your grandpa more or less washed his hands of the whole thing, threw himself into his work. Not long after Carmen turned 17 she ran away."
"Ran away?"
"Not away away. She stayed in San Francisco. We heard terrible rumors, how she was down in the Tenderloin, doing dope and prostituting herself."
I stared at my grandmother. She went on, deadpan now, determined to get it out, at last.
"It killed your grandfather. He was diagnosed with cancer. You know, some people die with cancer, some people die from it. Your grandfather never fought it, he was dead no more than 6 months after the diagnosis."
"Sounds like a rough year for you, granny."
"I don't know. If he'd lived I might have divorced him, after the '60's rolled in and everything loosened up."
"And you never tried to get mom back?"
"No, honestly? it was kind of a relief with the two of them not going at each other tooth and nail for the first time in 15 years. Finally the house was all mine and peaceful, these two overwhelming.....personalities out of the picture. You think that's selfish?"
"It makes sense."
"Anyway, I figured Carmen would show up sooner or later, once she heard her father was dead. She didn't show for the funeral, but I figured she'd come around eventually."
"Yeah, she must have, I'm here after all."
"She did, couple months after your grandpa died. Only reason she came around was to see if she had any money coming."
"Ouch."
"I threw myself into my art. Carmen would pop up now and then, when she needed a respite from the life she led. Not very often, mind you, she'd stay a few days, she would trash the house, I couldn't believe what a mess she made in only 24 hours. But I always let her come home. Maybe cause I knew she'd be leaving soon enough. I suppose the first time she showed up I hoped that, with your grandfather out of the way, she and I could have a proper mother daughter relationship, at last. But she was just like your granpa; cold critical, bossy, mean."
"Her name was Carmen?"
"She was named after your granpa's mother. Anyway.....Not long after her 19th birthday she showed up, and I hadn't seen her half a year, and she's 4 months pregnant."
"With me."
"Yes. I had one final hope now she would settle down, fall in love with her baby, like moms do, the craziness would taper off, burn itself out."
"......but no...."
"No. If she was moody and quick tempered before, now she was pregnant.....whew...I couldn't do anything right. If I made coffee she wanted tea, if I made tea she wanted coffee, if I made both she wanted neither, if I didn't make anything she'd have a tantrum and accuse me of not loving her. I still had a faint hope that once the baby came she might even out.....settle down, oh dear, I keep using that phrase....settle down. But you know, Carmen was like that: she was one of those people who are permanently agitated. I wish I could have gotten to her somehow, just held her and made her see everything could be all right. I guess that's what dope did for her. Settled the roiling going on inside, even if it is an artificial solution and temporary, and expensive."
For the 1st time Granny cried. Not allot, but there. How she must feel, such painful emotions getting rechurned inside her.
"But she didn't stay this time either?"
"No. She was gone barely a week after you were born. Took $200 out of my purse on her way out."
"So what about my dad?"
"Never said a word about who he might have been," said Granny. "I'm sorry."
"It's no biggie. I've gotten used to not having one," I said. Which was true. You can't miss something you never had.