An Afternoon on the Basin

*Author's Note: All persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.

*

Ritchie Harris wiggled into the leather seat of the Lincoln Town car. He actually wiggled, enjoying the feel of the plush seat and the butter soft leather. He loved the rich tan color and appreciated how the tan contrasted with the deep black exterior of the luxury automobile.

The black was lacquered several times; under a strong sunlight, the finish seemed to go into a great depth. Ritchie made sure that the car wash staff gave the finish its full attention.

The November sky over Bender, Louisiana threatened rain and Ritchie smirked as he looked through the tinted glass toward the threatening sky.

"Surest way to make it rain is to wash your car," he said out loud, and then searched through his preset functions to pull up his favorite satellite radio broadcast.

Then, he was on Highway 19, cruising toward I-10, on his way out of Bender, out of Louisiana. He would have liked to have made love with Nadia before leaving, but she had steadily rebuffed all of his advances.

The outcome would have been the same, but he still would have liked to have had the attractive blonde woman, with her bulging belly, bent over his desk. Or flat on her back, thin thighs gripping him tightly. Or kneeling, mouth open wide for his...

"Move it, mother fucker," Ritchie hissed under his breath as a slow moving pick up truck pulled right in front of him. "Don't just pull out, and then slow down."

Another pick up truck came behind him and Ritchie looked into the rearview mirror, and then looked again. He knew the driver of the truck; it was a co-worker of his. He puzzled over why Sonny Lambert wasn't at his desk at that particular time. It was nearly two o'clock in the afternoon; Sonny should have been behind his desk, or in court.

Suddenly, a third pick up truck pulled up next to him, and Ritchie felt the first wave of panic set in.

The third pick up truck put its blinker on and began to edge over.

"No, no, no! I'm right here! Stupid mother fucker; you can't just pull over!" Ritchie screamed as the truck edged closer and closer to his immaculate car.

"God damn it!" Ritchie screamed and cut the wheel hard to the right, turning onto Broussard Lane.

He slammed on the brakes; a fourth pick up truck was parked sideways, blocking the street.

Sonny Lambert pulled up right behind Ritchie, blocking him in.

Oscar Coutre got out of the parked pick up truck; Ritchie knew that he knew the young man, but couldn't place him. Then he set his lips tightly.

Oscar Coutre was Elizabeth Baggett's fiancé and Elizabeth Baggett was Nadia Baggett's sister in law.

And the kiss he had seen the two of them share said that they were more than just sisters in law.

He also now recognized the Ford F150 as Nadia's truck.

Oscar smiled widely as he leveled the double barreled shotgun at the driver's door.

"Get out of the car, Ritchie," Oscar called out.

Ritchie hit the automatic door locks, even though the car doors were already locked.

"Ritchie wished his nine millimeter wasn't in his suitcase, securely locked in the trunk of the large car.

"Going to count to three," Oscar called out, putting the stock of the shotgun to his shoulder.

"Why count? Just pull the fucking trigger," Sonny asked, also brandishing a shot gun.

"Nadia would have to pay for any damage; little mother fucker leased it in her name," Oscar said.

"All right, all right," Ritchie called out.

He saw the other two pick up trucks' occupants approaching from the passenger side of his car; the three men also brandished shot guns. He was in a lost position; best to pretend to go along with these low-rent dumb ass Cajuns.

Ritchie stepped out of the automobile, hands held up to shoulder height. He stepped closer to Sonny, figuring if he needed to strike out, Sonny would be the easiest target. He heard two shot guns being pumped and nixed that idea.

"What you want done with the car, Oscar?" one of the unknown men asked.

"Bring it to Nadia's house; she's the one paying for it," Oscar said.

Ritchie was surprised to hear Oscar say this; he thought he had buried the lease under enough paperwork that it would take months for them to figure out that the car was leased in Nadia Baggett's name, and by that time, he'd be hidden once again.

"Here we go," another one of the unknown men said, pulling Ritchie's laptop computer out of the trunk.

"Thanks, Gabriel," Oscar said and casually tossed the laptop into the bed of Nadia's pick up truck.

"Aargh!" Ritchie let out an involuntary strangled cry as his laptop bounced around in the bed of the truck.

"Don't worry, Ritchie; you don't need it any more," Oscar laughed and nodded to one of the men standing behind Ritchie.

"Hey, Ritchie, do me a favor and put them hands behind your back, huh?" one of the men said.

Ritchie did so and swallowed nervously as his wrists were secured into a pair of handcuffs.

"Thanks, Jack," Oscar said, and motioned with his head toward Nadia's pick up truck.

"You; you're getting in the back," he said.

"But, don't want you trying anything stupid, like jumping out or anything," Sonny said, and Ritchie felt something slam into the back of his head, then nothing.

XxXxX

Richard Andrew Harrisen felt gentle rocking. That was the first sensation. The second sensation was how cold he was. His third sensation was that he could not move his arms and legs and his fourth sensation was that he was nude, laying on his belly, in the bow of an aluminum boat.

"Oh good, I was afraid you'd miss it," Oscar laughed and zipped up his pants.

The boat rocked some more as Oscar sat back down on his bench. "Was going to give you another ten minutes, then I was going to piss on you to get you going."

"Hard to get back here in anything but an air boat or a pirogue," Oscar said as Ritchie strained to look around. "And I just didn't feel like paddling your ass out here, so..."

Oscar picked up Ritchie's laptop computer.

"No, don't..." Ritchie said then screamed as Oscar tossed it into the brackish waters of the Atchafalaya Basin.

"Don't worry, Ritchie; you don't need it anymore, Oscar said as the vinyl bag let out a few air bubbles, and then the water was still again.

"God damn it; all my stuff was on that!" Ritchie screamed, face a comical mask of rage.

"Ritchie, Ritchie, Ritchie," Oscar laughed, shaking his head in amusement. "Baby! You don't need it any more! They don't have Internet in Hell!"

Oscar sat up and nodded with his head to their surroundings.

Ritchie, you see all these cypress trees? They're all less than twenty five years old. Know why? Twenty six years ago? In Nineteen Eighty Six? A DC Ten veered off course for a landing in Lafayette and plowed right through here. The water here is only about five or six feet deep, but the mud goes down for hundreds of feet. They never did find that plane. And let me tell you, a DC Ten ain't no itty bitty plane," Oscar said.

"So fucking what?" Ritchie screamed.

"So?" Oscar asked and leaned forward.

He picked up a thick chain and gave it a tug. Ritchie felt his arms and legs jerk with Oscar pulled the chain.

"My dad bought a Nineteen Sixty five Corvette; man was totally blind, but he loved the feel of that car," Oscar laughed, dropping the chain. "He had it in his mind that he and I would rebuild that car, then he and I would drive it down to Jazz Beach, pick up a couple of girls, bang them, then drive around some more and find us a couple more girls to bang and just do that until we got tired of it. Like we'd ever get tired of pussy, huh?"

Ritchie now saw a large automobile engine sitting to his left. There was a thick chain wrapped around it.

"We pulled the old engine out of it; it was completely shot. That's what happens when you never change the oil in it. But, we found out a new engine, if we were going to go all vintage, would cost nearly twenty thousand dollars or more, so we put a stock three sixty in it. We never did drive down to Jazz Beach; he found my step mother and married her before we could do all of that, Oscar smiled.

"Really fucking fascinating," Ritchie snarled.

He looked at Oscar more carefully. The guy, he knew, was twenty three years old, but looked to be much younger. His golden eyes were almost obscured by black plastic frame glasses and thick lenses. His nose was too small, so the glasses kept slipping down. His lips were full and when he smiled, Oscar's teeth were white, straight teeth.

Oscar's chest was sunk in, his belly protruded slightly; his arms and legs were toothpicks. If Ritchie had not been hog tied, he could have very easily overpowered Oscar.

He had met Elizabeth, Nadia's sister in law, and Oscar's fiancé and marveled at how Oscar Coutre had managed to win the heart of such an attractive woman. Elizabeth Baggett had lush, curly dark hair, deep dark eyes, full, luscious lips. Her breasts were very generous, as was her rear end and hips. Her thighs, from what Ritchie had surmised, also seemed to be full, even plump, but no one would label Elizabeth as 'fat.'

He had overheard Elizabeth and Nadia joking about the size of Oscar's feet; he looked now at the canvas tennis shoes Oscar wore and nodded to himself. Oscar's tattered shoes would have been appropriate on a circus clown, His hands, too, were enormous, especially on such thin arms.

"But I got tired of that old engine just sitting in my garage and thought I'd take it out here and dump it," Oscar continued and stepped over Ritchie. "Yeah, I know, not very environmentally friendly of me; don't tell Al Gore, all right?"

He put a two by four chunk of wood underneath the engine, and wedged another two by four under the first piece of wood.

"There's about a hundred feet of chain there, Ritchie. "How long you think it'll take for this engine to pull all of it down?" Oscar asked and pushed down on the fulcrum.

Ritchie began wiggling frantically but his arms and feet were shackled tightly. He could feel the chain as it was looped around his binds.

"No, no, please!" Ritchie began to scream. "Look! I've got two, almost two million! I'll tell you where it is! You can have all of it!"

"Ritchie, Ritchie, Ritchie!" Oscar laughed. "Ritchie! I already have it all. And, you lying sack of shit, it was almost four million, not two.

"See, Ritchie, your first mistake? Logging onto the network," Oscar said.

He paused in his efforts to push the engine into the brackish water.

"See, Ritchie, Sophia Coutre? That's my step mom. I'm the one set up her network. The second you logged on, I had everything I needed."

He reached over Ritchie and grabbed the can of beer that was sitting on the bench seat.

"When Nadia, by the way, Nadia is my fiancé's girlfriend. Oh! And her sister in law, too. Anyway, when Nadia comes and tells us that she's got this investment counselor named Ritchie that's got big ideas for her portfolio, I immediately get suspicious," Oscar said after a deep gulp of the beer. "See, Ritchie? I'm real leery of grown men that add 'Ie' or 'y' to the end of their names. I mean, really! Grow the fuck up, huh? Ritchie? Not Rich, or Rick, or just plain Richard. No, fucking grown man running around calling himself 'Ritchie' and I'm thinking I better check this shit out. Then I remember giving my step mom a whole bunch of shit about hiring some stock broker named Ritchie. Coincidence? I think not. So, I check into it, and it turns out to be you. Same guy."

"Please, dude, you got all the money, what more you want from me?" Ritchie began sobbing.

"Oh my God, are you crying? Jeez what a bitch!" Oscar laughed and again tried to push the engine into the water. "Ritchie. Really? I mean, girls do it all the time; friend of my mom, they went to school together so that would make her about forty eight, forty nine? Anyway, her name's Jennifer but she goes by Jennie. And there's this nurse I know, Vicky, you know what? I have never met a Vickie I ever thought was worth a shit. Think it's because Vicky rhymes with Icky? But they're girls so it's kind of okay they do that shit to their names."

He paused to assess again the weight of the engine.

"But I did a little more digging; turns out Ritchie Harris isn't even your real name. Richard Andrew Harrisen is, but Richard Andrew Harrisen is wanted in Illinois; embezzlement, larceny, fraud, and a simple little thing called murder," Oscar continued.

"It was an accident; he wasn't supposed to come home," Ritchie sobbed.

"Oh, so it was his fault?" Oscar laughed and decided to try standing on the lever.

"No, no, please!" Ritchie screamed.

"Doris Dayton, wasn't it?" Oscar asked and wiped at his brow. "After that, you went by the name Ricky Hansen; see, most criminals, even when they change their name, go by one that's kind of sort of close to their own; makes it easier to remember, doesn't it?"

Even in the cold, grey air, Oscar was working up a real sweat.

Ritchie thought back to his first 'conquest,' Doris Dayton.

She was a plump middle aged woman who had been beaten down for years by a loud, domineering husband. They came to the firm Ritchie had been hired by because John had recently inherited one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars.

"My dad said 'rich men don't work for their money; their money works for them,'" John boomed.

"Your dad sounds like my kind of guy," Ritchie complimented the man.

He had four years of college, four years of text books, and absolutely no real world experience, but Ritchie knew how to manipulate people. The cheerleaders, the prom queens, even the goody two shoes all put out for him while holding their boyfriends at bay.

Ritchie had been blessed with bland good looks, curly blonde hair, slightly crooked teeth, and a gift of lying very well. He was average in height, slender weight, and average in cock size. But the gift of lying well and very convincingly was the advantage he had over all other males of the species.

Ritchie turned on the charm with the Daytons, promised to study their best options, drop by their house later that week with his suggestions.

"I drive, but Doris is home most days," John said, standing up.

Ritchie did put together a modest packet, drove out to the Dayton home, and was delighted to find that John was out.

Doris stood at five feet, four inches, and had a thirty eight B breast size (with quite a bit of sag), forty three inch waist, forty inch hips. Her legs were mottled with cellulite and varicose veins and her feet were gnarled looking hooves shoved into dirty slippers. Her hair was a dark mass threaded through with gray, cut severely short; framing a pudgy face and small blew eyes.

Ritchie immediately disarmed, and charmed her, by giving her a quick little peck on the cheek.

"Hi, John around? Got some stuff I wanted to show the two of you guys; see if you'd be interested in moving on it," he said, entering the modest home without being given permission.

"Um, no, no, he's um, he's on his Springfield route today; usually doesn't get home until seven, eight o'clock," Doris admitted.

"Um, and the market closes at..." Ritchie checked his faux Rolex watch.

He fought down the grimace; the cheap thing had stopped again.

"Five our time; damn it, was hoping to get his... But your name's on the account too; you could give me authorization," he went on and put some papers on the coffee table.

"Um, I don't really..." Doris hesitated.

"Got any coffee?" Ritchie demanded.

Doris waddled quickly to the kitchen; behind her back, Ritchie shuddered.

She was wearing threadbare shorts, exposing much of her mottled legs to his view, and a matching top that was heavily stained.

"What you take in it?" she asked.

"Stick your finger in it; that ought to sweeten it up enough for me," he called back.

She tittered at the obvious flirt and he rolled his eyes at her gullibility.

Ritchie left with a signature and Doris felt guilty about the passionate kiss she and Ritchie had shared. John didn't ask why Doris cooked his favorite meal, chicken pot pie, or why she was so eager to make love that night.

Ritchie knew that Fridays was John's St. Louis route, so he again paid a visit to Doris.

He finger fucked the middle aged woman to two orgasms, let her suck his cock (she was very inexperienced) and left with another authorization.

On the day of John's Springfield route, Ritchie showed Doris what it was like to have her very hairy pussy eaten and showed her what sex with someone other than her husband felt like.

Ritchie wasn't surprised to hear that John thought that slapping it to Doris should be enough for her to be satisfied. He fucked her to three orgasms, managed to keep a straight face when he told the woman he thought that he was falling in love with her, and left with another set of her signatures transferring more of their money to him.

Friday, John woke up with a slight fever and a headache. But years and years of hard work ethics forced him out of bed and into the cab of his rig.

But after he vomited his lunch, John decided that St. Louis could wait until Monday or Tuesday, and turned his rig around.

Doris was surprised that a second mortgage on their home brought an additional two hundred and four thousand to invest. She was also surprised that anal sex was enjoyable.

"What the fuck?" John thundered from the door of the bedroom.

"John!" Doris shrieked.

Ritchie got out of the bed and grabbed his suit jacket; his .38 snub nose was in the inside pocket.

"John, I can explain," Doris was babbling as John lurched toward Ritchie, meaty paws ready to strike the young man down.

Three slugs knocked John backward. Doris started screaming at Ritchie, then scrambled to pick up the telephone.

Ritchie put two slugs into her head, and then slowly, methodically dressed.

He looked around, made sure that he had left nothing of himself behind, grabbed the four condoms out of the wastebasket, checked the bedroom again, and then left.

Ritchie again slowly, methodically checked the living room, satisfied himself that there was nothing of himself left behind, and left the house.

XxXxX

A Violent rocking of the boat brought Richard Andrew Harrisen back to the present.

"Didn't stay too long in St. Louis, though, did you?" Oscar grunted and stepped around the chain that was slowly beginning to uncoil and slid over the lip of the boat.

"No, no, oh please God!" Ritchie began screaming and thrashing again as he noticed that the heavy engine was no longer sitting on the boat.

"Whew man! That was a heavy mother fucker, huh?" Oscar grunted and sat on the bench seat.

He popped open another can of beer and took a sip.

"St. Louis was next huh? So, what happened there? Oh, yeah, you fucked your way through another couple's assets and marriage," Oscar smirked.

Ritchie glared at him, remembering Allison Hillager.

"Hmm, a Perdue man, eh?" Allison asked as she read Richard Hansen's resume. "Believe it or not, that's where my daddy went."

Richard smiled; any grown woman that still called her father 'Daddy' would be an easy mark.

"Well, Mr. Hansen, let's see what you can do, huh?" Allison smiled and offered her hand.

"Please, call me Ricky," he smiled, shaking her hand.

Donald Hillager, Allison's husband, barely acknowledged the new kid on the block, barely acknowledged Allison, barely acknowledged anyone or anything that did not directly affect him. Ricky noticed a flicker behind Allison's eyes when Don ignored Allison's conversation.

"Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop, but you were talking about Exxon-Mobile and I'm very much interested in what their projections are for this coming quarter," Ricky said as they stepped off of the elevator.

He listened, and lightly touched her hand, her arm. He listened and lightly put his hand on her shoulder. He listened and put his hand on her thigh. He excused himself and put his hand on her thigh again right before leaving her office.