Yapping Mongrels

Inside The Basin, Stan nodded to Captain Englehardt. The captain curtly acknowledged the officer's greeting, then resumed looking at his cards.

Arielle walked over to the police officer. Stanley smiled as a nude nineteen year old African-American girl gave him a seductive leer.

"So, who was in the car?" Arielle asked.

"Hmm? Oh, a couple waiting on a friend," Stan said, leaving out the fact that the passenger had been his daughter, that the passenger was a reporter for Channel 112.

"Okay, thanks for your prompt reply," Arielle said. "Officer, have you met Braxton? She's new here."

"No, no I haven't. Thought she looked new," Stan smiled as Arielle introduced him to the sweet faced African-American girl.

While Stan was thrusting his cock down Braxton's throat, Summer was growing more and more frustrated. Search after search proved fruitless. She could not even uncover who'd purchased the land, who had leased the land, who was paying the utilities, paying the water.

"That building did not just magically appear," Summer told her computer screen. "Someone had to build it."

A search of St. Elizabeth Parish court records did show a permit being pulled by Keith Blanchard of Blanchard Construction.

"Bingo!" Summer whooped.

Her elation was short lived; Keith Blanchard had been shot to death in 2008, by an ex-girlfriend. She rechecked both the name and the permit.

"How the hell does a dead man get a permit?" she growled at the computer screen.

"And what was Paw-paw doing there?" Summer asked herself.

A check of the tax records showed that The Basin paid the taxes for the property that The Basin occupied. The Basin owned and operated the liquor license.

Summer noticed that it had been Judge Harold Monroe that had approved the liquor license.

"And he was killed what, five six years ago," Summer snapped. "This is just some fucked up shit!"

She turned the computer off and sat, staring into nothing. There was a story here, but that wasn't what had captivated her.

She had looked into Jared's eyes and had seen her own eyes reflected back. True, his eyes were deep, luscious brown and hers were a light blue, a cornflower blue.

But there had been a hardness, a coldness in those eyes. There had been absolutely no fear in those eyes.

And in the corners, she had seen the cause of those deep crow's feet. He'd been hurt. He'd been brutally, cruelly hurt.

Summer's shoulder and her hip burned. Melanie Leblanc, her psychologist had told her there was no physical reason behind the constant, chronic burning.

Physical, psychosomatic, Summer didn't know. But the burning was a constant reminder of the horrible morning her sister had been killed and she had very nearly died. At the hand of their delusional, narcissistic mother. Cheryl had taken a handgun and shot her own child, her eldest daughter. Point blank range, in the head.

"I'm so sorry, Sierra," Summer whispered, remembering her beautiful, loving big sister.

She smiled tightly. She had managed to save Skye, her beautiful baby sister, though. And every time Summer was on air, she'd start off with 'Hi-yee' to let Skye know she was thinking of her. Then she's sign off with 'bye-yee,' another reminder to Skye that she was always in Summer's thoughts.

Before the melancholy could overwhelm her, Summer got to her feet and grabbed her helmet. She walked with purpose. The staff and crew that were in the studio and the studio's offices stayed out of the girl's way.

Jared looked up from his crossword puzzle when he heard a motorcycle rumble up. He'd not been doing very well at the puzzle anyway. Most of the people the clues referenced were current TV stars, personalities and he had no idea who they were.

A hard rap sounded on his door. He peered out the peephole and saw Summer Duhon standing, beautiful face hard.

"I uh, yeah?" Jared asked, opening the door.

"All right, Broussard, what's the story behind them eyes?" Summer demanded, entering the house.

"Pardon?" Jared asked.

"And get me a beer," she ordered, flopping down on the couch he'd bought at the salvage shop.

Over three beers each, he told her about growing up in the house, being an average student at Baylor Lake High School, of his disdain for the cheerleaders.

"Careful, buddy, I was a cheerleader," Summer smiled tightly. "In fact, junior and senior year? Was head cheerleader. Went to state finals both times."

Jared smiled and shook his head. Then he told her about going to welding school, working off-shore.

"Come home and my momma tells me Leslie Webb's calling me," Jared said.

"Let me guess. One of them stuck up cheerleaders," Summer smirked. "Got anything better than beer?"

"Think, yeah, got some Jack, oh, and some vodka," Jared said.

"Take the Jack. Never did develop a taste for vodka," Summer said.

"Want a glass? Or should I just bring the bottle in here?" Jared joked.

"Bottle," Summer said.

"Anyway, Leslie and me? That don't go nowhere, but Rochelle calls me next. Next thing you know, she's pregnant and she's calling me Daddy," Jared said, putting the fifth of Jack Daniels on the coffee table.

Summer nodded in understanding when Jared told of the heartbreak upon finding out that neither girl was actually his. She smiled sadly as he talked about Gloria's accident.

"She's still got the scars on her leg," Jared said.

"Remind me some time show you mine," Summer said.

"Take Rochelle back, then come to find out, she's still screwing around," Jared sighed.

"Rochelle Esposito. Rochelle Esposito and Chad Theriot," Summer suddenly said. "My step-mother covered your trial."

"Chelsea Duhon," Jared nodded. "Remember her. One of the few didn't just assume I done it."

"Thing I remember most about that?" Summer said quietly. "Way you kept saying you loved your girls too much ever take their momma from them."

He told her about prison life. She glanced at his arms and chest when he mentioned taking three members down when one of them made the mistake of calling him 'bitch.'

"Prison? Let one of them punk ass mother fuckers call you 'bitch' and get away with it? Might as well just put the Welcome Mat in front of your ass hole; there'll be a line forming. They call you 'pussy' and you better do your best kill them," Jared quietly explained.

Summer stood to leave. Jared smiled softly as she gently touched his arm.

"And you still love them," she thought to herself. "Those two little girls just laughed in your face, ripped your heart out, and you still love them."

At the door, she grabbed him and jammed her tongue down his throat. It was a ferocious, savage kiss, a feral kiss.

"Doing us a shrimp creole tomorrow," Jared ordered.

"I'll bring the beer," Summer said.

Their second kiss was just as forceful. Then Summer swung her leg over the saddle and roared away.

Cris Fontenot, Jared's boss at Fontenot Welding let Jared know he'd scheduled him for off-shore work starting Thursday. Jared looked at the calendar pinned to the man's office wall and nodded his head.

"Need be back next Saturday," Jared said.

"Why? Got a hot date?" Cris joked.

"No. That's tonight. Next Saturday's first day Gloria's available for a day pass," Jared said. "Going take her out for a good catfish po-boy, maybe do some go-carts."

Cris stared at his employee for a moment. Then he somberly nodded his head.

That evening, Summer roared up on her Harley. Her knock was as harsh as the previous evening. Her kiss was just as forceful.

They ate in quiet, only punctuating scrapes of the plate with demands for another beer or another piece of bread.

"Might have noticed, you and me a lot alike," Summer said as they sat in the living room, bottle of Jack sitting on the coffee table.

"Yeah, got the same eyes," Jared agreed.

"Was about twelve, my momma tells my daddy he ain't my daddy," Summer started. "Tells him she been fucking my father since before they ever got together."

"Know how that feels," Jared nodded.

"Anyway, my daddy decides, okay, Stanley Monroe's fucking her, Stanley Monroe can pay all them bills," Summer continued.

"The, that was that police man," Jared said, nodding.

Summer actually smiled with some pride as she described Milt Duhon's cutting the phone, the electricity, the water. She shook her head as she recounted how enraged her mother had been to discover that Milt wasn't just going to roll over and let his wife make him a cuckold.

"Anyway, Sierra's giving her all kind of shit, that was my big sister," Summer grimaced and took a gulp of Jack. "We even out toilet paper and Sierra's riding my momma 'bout that bad."

Jared didn't say anything. He'd done the same thing the first time he'd found out about Rochelle's unfaithfulness. He'd just driven his car away. Then, he'd taken a job in Alaska. By the time he'd returned, he was a free man. Free, other than the baggage of failure he had to carry with him wherever he ran to.

"So, my momma takes my Daddy's gun..." Summer continued.

"Wait a minute; why'd your daddy leave a gun around?" Jared asked.

"Stan's in the room with him, looking for a reason, any fucking reason kill him," Summer snarled. "Daddy knew, pulled that gun out, he'd been dead yeah."

Summer allowed the first tear to fall. She angrily wiped at the tear then took another hefty gulp of Jack.

"And what kind of mother shoots her own kids anyway, huh?" she barked at Jared. "You tell me that? Who would ever expect a momma do that shit? Of course he left the gun. He ain't had no choice."

Jared said nothing. He just held out his hand for the bottle. Summer took another hefty gulp before handing it to him.

"Heard that bang? Come out my room, seen my momma heading right for me," Summer said, hand out for the bottle.

She giggled.

"Hit that fat bitch so God damned hard knocked her on her big old ass," Summer said. "Grabbed up Skye and man! Hauled ass. Wasn't 'bout let her hurt my baby sister me."

She stood suddenly. Jared tensed, ready to either knock her on her ass or tackle her. Even if he wasn't in prison, sudden movements made him nervous.

"One of them bullets hit me in the shoulder," Summer said, shrugging her blouse to the side.

Jared stared at the puckered scar. She pulled her blouse back up.

Then she unbuttoned her jeans and pulled jeans and panties down. Jared was looking at the second pussy he'd seen since being released from prison.

But just as when he'd looked at Gloria's pussy, there was no stirring in his cock. Summer Duhon's pussy was a pretty pussy, capped with a tuft of blonde curls. But there was nothing erotic about this moment.

She swiveled and he saw another dark, angry looking scar on her hip. She then pulled panties and jeans up again.

"That was the first one. Took two of them bring me down," Summer bragged. "Put Skye down and screamed at her to run."

She sat down and grabbed the bottle out of Jared's hand.

"Knew I was fixing die," she said harshly. "After that? What you can get scared of?"

"Living," Jared suggested after a heartbeat.

Summer stared at Jared for a long moment. Jared watched as something changed in her eyes.

"Fuck you," she hissed, teeth bared. "Fuck you, old man."

She ran for the door. Jared took the final sip from the bottle. Then he sighed and closed the front door. Her Harley roared away at a high rate of speed.

Summer did not call Jared on Wednesday. He did leave a message with the station that he would be off-shore. Cheramie Arnaud, the daytime receptionist passed him to Summer Duhon's voice mail and Jared left the message on Summer's voice mail.

"Bye-yee," he said after leaving the message.

"Oh, fuck you, just fuck you," Summer thundered as she listened to his cheerful 'bye-yee.'

"Summer, God! What's gotten into you?" John Guidry asked, shocked at the girl's emotional outburst.

"Nothing, Paw-paw," Summer snarled bitterly. "Just some old ass hole thinks he can fuck with me."

"And? Like this is the first one?" John asked, not comprehending. "Summer. We get hate mail, hate messages all the time."

"Yeah, but this one making it all personal yeah," Summer snarled bitterly.

John walked away, shaking his head. Even a smile from a sweet faced intern did not shake him from his musing.

While Summer was cursing him, Jared was sealing a hairline crack. It was a hairline today. But if left unattended, the currents, the shifting of the rig's floor, the salinity would soon have the hairline crack spewing crude into the water. He finished the bead then looked around before making his ascent.

He especially kept an eye on the squid nearby. Squid attracted other predators. Another predator might get hit with a squirt of squid ink and decided to go after an easier prey. Particularly an underwater welder.

Jared did not feel safe again until his flippered feet slapped onto the rig's floor.

"Any problems?" David Benoit, the floor supervisor asked.

"Nope. Took me a few minutes find the crack, but after that? Piece of cake," Jared said.

"Ass hole," David smiled.

"A piece of thick, gooey chocolate cake, still warm, with way too much frosting," Jared continued. "Oh, and can't forget that ice cream, big old scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. By the way, how's the diet going?"

"Lost another three pounds," David laughed as Jared dropped his weight belt to the floor.

"You're looking good," Jared complimented.

Cris sent out a message that another rig needed him. Jared sent back a message that Saturday morning, his ass had better be in DeGarde, Louisiana. This was non-negotiable.

"Daddy!" Gloria cried out when Jared did enter the lobby of the DeGarde CDU on Saturday morning.

"Hi Sweetheart," Jared laughed happily as the girl slammed into him.

Julie Chamblee, Gloria's counselor smiled as she greeted Jared Broussard, Gloria's daddy. The three sat in Julie's cramped office and Julie filled Jared in on Gloria's progress so far.

"She is not cured. She will never be cured," Julie cautioned as father and daughter prepared to sign out for the eight hour pass.

"One is too many and a thousand is never enough?" Jared asked. "We had NA and AA meetings in Mumphrey."

"Oh! Are you..." Julie asked.

"Nope, but Eppy and Kid were," Jared said. "Had to listen to their shit all day long."

Father and daughter have a catfish po-boy at Tommy's Po-Boys. They walked around the Courtyard Mall in Pinoak, then went to the go-cart track. Right across the asphalt road from the go-carts was the Pinoak Drag Strip. Jared did look across as a team was testing a funny car.

He remembered the vitriol, the rabid animosity he'd endured at the hands of those fans. He also wondered if any of those fans still remembered the name of Chad Theriot.

He had to slow down, to let Gloria 'beat' him. He smiled as she taunted him about her victory.

"Uh huh, and one day, you'll be old too, Sweetheart," Jared said, hugging her.

He bought her a cinnamon snow cone from the concession stand. He smiled when she showed him how red her tongue was. Then he drove them back to the DeGarde facility.

"Daddy?" Gloria said quietly as he opened the heavy glass door of the CDU. "Daddy, I'm sorry."

Jared didn't ask her what she was sorry for. He just nodded his head and smiled softly. Then he kissed her on her cheek.

"I love you, Baby Girl," Jared said softly. "I loved you from the minute I found out we was having us a baby and I have never ever stopped loving you."

Gloria bolted and ran down the hall of the SDU, sobbing loudly. Jared shrugged to the intern that was manning the lobby. He signed Gloria back in and wished the intern a good evening.

The rumble of the Harley Davidson was almost expected. The hard hammering at the door was also no surprise.

Summer's kiss was savage. Her professionally manicured nails dug into his back. Her eyes blazed furiously at him.

Jared gently stroked her beautiful, angry face. Summer slapped his hand away. He then bent and hefted her, quite easily over his shoulder. He used his foot to slam his front door shut.

"I fucking hate you," Summer Duhon hissed as he threw her onto his bed.

"No you don't," he smiled as he began to strip out of his clothing.

When she made no move to remove her clothing, Jared bent and began to pull her clothing off of her. She did not assist him, but she did not fight him either.

"Oh God!" she screamed out as he sank his hard cock into her wet pussy.

Her legs and arms wound around him. They fucked, it was not making love, they fucked harshly, violently.

"I, I fucking hate you," Summer repeated and jammed her tongue into his mouth.

"No you don't," he snarled, twisting a hard nipple.

"Yes I, oh God! Yes I do, you God damned prison bitch," Summer shrieked in orgasm.

He hammered her with long hard strokes as she shuddered and shook in orgasm. Her eyes continued to glare at him.

"Fucking pussy, fucking bitch, that's all you fucking are," Summer snarled hatefully.

She sook in a second, more powerful orgasm when he bit her nipple, leaving teeth marks on the nub.

"Ah, aw God, oh God," Jared cried out and began pumping his semen deep into her pussy.

He bent his head and gently kissed her lips. She burst into tears and tried to shove him off of her.

He held her pinned to the mattress. He again bent his head and kissed her softly. She returned his soft kiss.

"I fucking hate you," she whispered.

"Look in my eyes and tell me that," he challenged.

Finally, his cock softened and slid from her pussy. He gave her another soft kiss then rolled to the side.

"You eat?" he asked.

"No, well, had me a big old oyster po-boy at that Tommy's Po-Boys," Summer admitted.

"Hey, I just ate there..." Jared said.

"Uh huh, with Gloria," Summer said, lightly stroking his chest.

She kissed him and looked into his eyes. Jared looked at her, waiting.

"Was fixing walk on over there, kick her ass yeah, way she was hanging all over you," Summer admitted.

"So, what stopped you?" Jared asked, amused.

"Seen her leg," Summer said. "Seen them scars, remembered you telling me 'bout them."

Summer giggled, shaking her head at her own foolishness. She then squealed when he lightly slapped her buttock.

They dressed again. Then, hand in hand, they left the house.

After a quick meal at a local hamburger place, they drove past The Basin. From the outside, it looked like any other building in the area. There were only a few cars parked in front; Jared opined that these were probably the vehicles of the four guards that they could see on the outside of the building.

"Need just blow on through that door," Summer said, pointing to the heavy front door.

"Never heard the fable about the wind and the sun?" Jared asked.

"Huh?" Summer asked.

"Wind and the Sun are arguing about who's stronger," Jared said.

"Oh, Daddy, you going tell me a bedtime story?" Summer mocked.

"And they can see this man walking along a road. The wind bets he can blow the man's coat off," Jared said, ignoring Summer's taunt. "So, the sun hides behind a cloud and the wind blows and blows. The harder he blows, the more the man clings onto his coat. Finally, the wind admits he can't do it. Out comes the sun. The sun gently warms the traveler, until the traveler is so hot he takes the coat off."

"And?" Summer asked.

"We want get in that building, blowing it up isn't going get it," Jared said. "Need a soft easy entry. One that won't get both of us arrested or possibly killed."

"I still hate you," Summer said as they pulled into his driveway.

"Staying the night?" Jared asked, gently stroking her beautiful face.

"Can't," she smiled, almost embarrassed. "I still live at home."

"Yeah? Me too," Jared said.

"Yeah, but your daddy ain't Milt Duhon," Summer smiled as she pulled her helmet on. "I don't come home? He going come looking for me yeah, and oo-wee, there going be all kind of trouble he find me here."