The Minotauress

Dean started the engine back up, then pulled out of the parking lot. "They all look real good," he said, "sure. But after a couple of pops, they ain't nothing but wet slits. Upside down in the snow, it all looks the same. It's just a hot hole attached to a yammering mouth that won't shut up. Fuck it. Who needs the headache?" Dean paused to spit out the window. "Here's a question: What's the best way to make a woman have an orgasm?"

"What?"

"Who cares?" Dean laughed aloud. He tromped the gas and spun wheels out of the lot.

««—»»

The first tints of dusk were touching the sky when Dean turned off onto the long familiar service road lined by perfect endless hedge-rows. The grasslands beyond shimmered a deep, fecund green, wavering in breezes which skimmed up the rolling hills. The road wound upward, and soon the perfect hedge-rows gave over to perfectly spaced sassafras trees a hundred feet high.

"This is some scenery," Ajax remarked, gazing out past the road. By now his gawp had practically become a permanent facial feature.

"It's beautiful land, and about forty thousand acres of it belong to us."

"Jesus. That's a shitload of real estate."

Eventually the road led up to the highest hill and Dean was pulling around a plush cul-de-sac appointed with statues, a fountain, and more meticulously trimmed hedges.

"Here's my old digs," Dean said and parked.

Before them loomed the Lohan mansion.

"Digs?" Ajax remarked. "It looks like something on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. You never told me you were a millionaire's kid."

They got out and carried their luggage to the house, passing the gushing marble fountain. "The Lohan Ranch is the biggest and most productive ranch in the entire state," Dean said. "My father had the mansion built in 1980. He made five million in net profit that year."

Ajax just gasped.

Great stone columns, like those of a southern plantation house, fronted the wide three-story edifice whose outer brick walls were now almost festooned completely with sheets of ivy. Higher, cement verandas jutted from the mansion's face, and warm light glowed behind high casement windows. Slate-topped steps led to the wide double doors sided by polished-granite blocks which gave perch for lazing stone lions.

When Dean opened the ornate front doors, he was at once greeted by a bosomy, well-rounded woman of indeterminate age wearing a bland housedress and with long ink-black hair streaked with gray.

"Oh, Dean, it's so wonderful to have you back!" she gushed and hugged him unmercifully.

"Hi, Shirley," Dean hugged back. "We've just come from the hospital—"

"How is he?"

"In and out, I guess," came Dean's dispirited reply. "Oh, this is Ajax, my friend from Seattle. Ajax, Shirley. She keeps the house in order."

"Nice to meet you," Ajax said, his eyes struggling away from the woman's packed bosom. Her big tits wobbled beneath her top when she shook Ajax' hand.

Did the woman wink? "Very nice to meet you. Such fine boys, both of you. Why don't you get yourselves settled, while I tend to dinner."

They parted in the sumptuous foyer, Ajax carrying the suitcases behind Dean. Dark cherrywood paneling, genuine Persian carpets, and antique furniture filled the mansion's interior. A high chandelier threw sparkles of warm light as Dean led Ajax up the wide, curving stairwell.

"Did you catch that?" Ajax whispered.

"Catch what?"

"Shirley winked at me. She thinks I'm hot."

Dean winced. "Ajax, she's in her sixties. It would be like fucking your grandmother."

"If my grandmother had tits like that... I'd fuck her."

"You've got to be the most perverted person I've ever known," Dean commented on the second-floor landing.

"Perverted? Me?" Ajax countered.

"You want to fuck an old lady, you want to pee on girls' backs, and the other night you stuck a pair of my wife's panties into your pants."

Ajax scratched his chin in genuine contemplation. "Yeah? So what's the perverted part?"

"Here's your room." Dean showed him in. A four-posted bed, framed oil paintings hundreds of years old, dormer doors which opened to a high veranda.

"Jesus. It's the Lincoln Bedroom. Do I gotta give you campaign funds to sleep here?"

"My room's right next door. Let's get cleaned up for dinner."

"Great, I'm starving. I could eat a—well, I could eat your housekeeper if you want to know the truth."

"In that case, I don't want to know the truth."

"Hey—" Suddenly Ajax looked quizzical as he prepared to pass Dean his suitcase. "You got cinderblocks in here? This suitcase is heavy as a motherfucker."

"All I packed was some clothes." Dean hefted the suitcase with a look of dismay. "You're right, it is heavy," he concurred. Then he shook it and heard a heavy clack. "What the... " He opened the suitcase on the bed, fished through his clothes, then slowly pulled out—

"What the hell did you bring that for?" Ajax asked.

Dean was holding his old pair of horn-crankers. He looked wide-eyed to Ajax and admitted in a slow drone, "I honestly don't remember putting them in the suitcase."