Hit Woman

By Jim Parks

Priscilla Johnson felt a shiver run down her spine, through the crack of her butt and up into her pubic mound just the moment she heard the key in the door. She had been reclining nude on the cool marble of the massive mantle in the Spanish Colonial mansion now for a half hour, becoming more and more still and focused by the moment on the matter at hand. The look on his face was priceless when he suddenly beheld her nubile nudity, the shaved delta of her sex, her graceful, pointed young woman's toes.

First, he dropped the suit bag, then the shoulder-strapped carry-on, saying "What the..." She gracefully arose to sit balanced on the edge of the ledge, gesturing to him with both hands upraised to come hither.

She was as naked as a woman could be with not a piece of jewelry or a stitch of clothing on her body, her female attributes swelling and swooping to perfection and giving every indication of absolute fecundity. "Mister, I want to do you a job," she said simply. "Come and get me down off this mantle."

Artemis "Artie" Bundeschlager, III, third-generation scion of one of the world's most productive uranium mining families, forgot all about the bitchy wife in Philadelphia, the ridiculous daughter at Stanford and the overdue payments on his Gulf Stream. He crossed that living room with every intention of sweeping the girl into his arms and taking her then and there on one of the huge leather-covered sofas in the darkened great room of the house on the mesa while the gaudy sunset played out over the high desert.

For the first time in years, Artie was totally unfocused on the details. As he stepped off with perfect military school cadence and posture, a petite woman dressed in a black leather jacket and skin tight jeans with her blonde hair stuffed under a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap stepped out of the shadow of a potted plant where she had been waiting. She raised the Berretta .22 automatic in a hand gloved by a plastic bag to catch the spent hull and double-tapped two hollow point rounds into Artie's left temporal lobe.

He collapsed as if he was a suddenly empty suit of clothes that once held a man striding down the sidewalk.

Priscilla gasped in spite of herself, as if she hadn't known all along what would be coming. The hit woman, a seasoned body builder an intelligence operative with survivalist training, helped her down off the mantle. Priscilla could feel her muscles rippling under her leather jacket as she hugged her neck and shoulders.

"Get your clothes on. Let's hope he went out a happy man," the woman said. She chuckled in an unfeeling tone, not at all nervously. She had done this dozens of times.

It never failed. A woman lured a man into a position where he could be quickly shot, stabbed, garrotted or bludgeoned. Priscilla gasped again when she looked down at Artie's head centered in a widening pool of blood on the tile floor. She still had that vacant look on her face as they stepped outside the mansion and got into a Jeep that lurched to a stop under the portico for the quick ride back to the airport.

The disposal team was just wheeling in to clean the premises and get rid of Bundeschlager's body. Their shiny black van screeched to a stop and the four men in coveralls jumped out quickly. No one paid any attention to one another. It was as if they did not exist.

Spring Turned To Winter
By Jim Parks

Spring turned to winter, but not all at once. First, there was summer with its green and gold, the tourists, the hustle giving way to a dead town for the month of August while the three of them, the alto from K.C., the tenor from South Carolina and the tenor from New York, starved and baked amid the stone buildings and cracked sidewalks and ancient paving stones of Montmarte.

Autumn came suddenly with leaves falling and northeast winds blowing gusty promise of freezing temperatures. They stood, still, outside the eateries and bistros blowing traditionals and be bop, their melodies and voicings intertwining jazz chords of indigo and blasting hot red and alternate purple highlights, their pork pie hats and top coats shrouding their faces and bodies in favor of the golden brass of their horns. Occasionally, the owner of a small bistro would invite them in for a quick drink and let them blow some jass hot, but they got no club dates, no offers whatsoever.

It was as if Paris had swallowed them whole, accentuated their negritude, made them anonymous in their American devotion to that which no one wants but everyone can hear like the sound of the underground chains someone mentioned one time in a verse or two.

Lucky died sitting on a park bench while the other two drank brandy from the bottle and argued about baseball alternating with yet more arguments about boxing and basketball.

He leaned forward until his chin was touching the tops of his knees where they were elevated from his putting his feet on the case of the tenor horn. Then he toppled sideways and fell off the bench.

They sat and looked at each other in shock. "Man, it looks like this totally uncool interlude is truly over, brother," the alto said to the remaining tenor. They stood and blew "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" in drag step time while they waited for the ambulance to come and take him away.

He was buried unceremoniously in a potter's field at the end of a Metro line while they blew "Oh, When The Saints..." and "Autumn Leaves."

Their agent in New York wired them money and plane tickets back to Kennedy. They blew themselves to one last good meal in a Left Bank restaurant, everything from oysters to soup and salad, fish, roast beef au jus, cheese and nuts. Then they took the taxi to Orly and settled in for the ride back to New York where they caught a train to downtown and the West Side clubs.

After a few days of sitting in with friends who got them up late in the second set, the cat from South Carolina looked at the New Yorker and said, "I think I'll go spend the winter down home, man."

His partner said, "It's been real, baby. So that's what Paris is all about, huh?"

"For real, brother. That's it, man."

The Union of One Thousand Breaths
By Jim Parks

When the dude with Massachusetts plates on his Mercedes keeled over dead while screwing the blonde who blew in that morning for the first time, her hair in a pony tail and declaring a preference for, a desire for "a really big dick," it was a delicate matter, but nothing unmanageable. I've seen worse scrapes in a dozen states. This isn't really a brothel, nor is it a bordello, cat house or house of ill repute.

Call me Louise.

I operate a club for people who like to get it on with other normal people in - well, let's say - interesting ways. After all, there are plenty of motels available.

I'm not really a Madame; think of me as a social director on a dude ranch for sport fucking. My place is the typical four-bedroom ranch house on an acre lot out in the Florida boonies. There's a screened outdoor in-ground pool, a hot tub, and lots of privacy provided by bougainvillea hedges with hearts of barbed wire and tops of razor concertina. Just because the pretty hedge has grown up around it doesn't mean it's not there.

Anyway, that's how I manage. You know, prostitution is a felony in this state. Why not have some fun with that, give them what they want. So, they're sex addicts? Give me a break. I should be such a victim.

The rules?

No means no. It's got to be safe, sane and consensual. Condoms are a must. No one gets hurt unless they're cruising for it. Other than that, I'm insured. It's like I've got a twenty-four hour a day party going three hundred sixty-five days a year.

Besides, everything is leased in the name of a closely held shell corporation with headquarters in a post office box in the Caymans. Of course, it's expensive. I pay off the local gendarmes, the state police, the sheriff's department, each individual county commissioner and my checkbook is open to all the well-known, and some not so well known charities.

So there. Go figure.

The dude got in early, way before any women had arrived for play time. He had a couple of drinks to unwind, got naked and hit the pool, then he boiled out the poison in the hot tub. He was there when the blonde drove up in her little Japanese roadster dressed in an extreme bikini, an Australian straw hat and a smile. I showed her the play room, the bedrooms, the public space - clothing optional - and let her wander out to the pool and spa area on her own.

What happened next is on videotape. It happened in the play room. You see, I've got eye in the sky just like any other casino. No way I'm going to let some sex maniac come along and put me in a jackpot.

She knew how to play, all right. She got him sitting down on padded bench, his back against the wall, put a gas mask with hose attached so she could control his breathing and screwed a nine-inch dildo on the end. Unless she blew air into the dildo while she sucked it, he couldn't get any air unless, of course, he chose to rip the mask off and spoil the mood. I won't say she showed any class; she was all flash. Diamonds to die for. A killer tan, boob job, perfect abs - you know, a yoga chick on a high protein diet - lean, mean, a racehorse fuck machine.

She donned a sleeping mask in black leather. Then she blew that big dick of his until it was standing up as proud as any flag pole you ever saw. I think she must have been a pro at some point. She put the Trojan in her mouth and slipped it on down with a quick thrust of her head, then it was all head and hand action.

He just leaned back and sighed. Then he got frantic for air, which she supplied him at the last possible moment.

It was on.

I was especially enjoying the play of muscles across her back and ass. I was thinking maybe tennis, maybe swimming, for sure aerobics. The pony tail kept bouncing up and down as she sucked on the dildo mouthpiece. The dude kept on heaving and breathing and screwing his brains out with her sitting reversed on his lap against the wall. She had him pinned. But then something really curious happened. She held a little vial up to her mouth and took a deep breath from it. It looked like poppers.

Then she blew it into the mouth piece. The dude turned forty colors, weakened after a surge of frantic screwing, then fought her for breath and to get away from under her weight. In his condition, he was unable to make the getaway. He couldn't even pull the mask off his head because of the way she was holding his arms. He slumped over dead.

I saw her when she came out of the playroom naked. She stepped into her sandals, grabbed her purse and her bikini out of the locker and threw the key on my desk, saying, "Bye, honey. You got a nice place here."

Then she stepped into the little sports car without opening the door and left the lot slinging oyster shell dust in the air, the nasty little engine growling like a bitch in heat with only one bone left to her name.

I thought, "What was that all about?" When he didn't come out for more than an hour, I went to check up on him and found him dead, slumped over and about to fall to the floor. I called my guy who fixes things. We watched the tape and agreed it was bad juju. Who knows what was in the vial?

This wasn't your garden variety spanking or face sitting. This was hardball. We erased it and put in another one. We would tell the dicks he was dead when we found him - alone - and something must be wrong with the video recorder.

Who knows? I know this. I found it out just yesterday and I'm moving quickly now. First stop, the Caymans, then on to Brazil. I'm sure I'll have to pay the pussy posse off, but, hey, it ain't no crime to scratch that itch for people in a place like that.

The private investigator who came in from Boston had news for me. The dude was a big shot in an insurance company who had absconded with a lot of cash.

Cash.

Come to think of it, the chick who did him paid with cash. That's what I'm talking about. I've got a half dozen passports and major credit in all those names. I'm going to use one of them for the last time and just disappear if I can.

I'm sick and tired of living in mickey mouse-ville, you know.