Family Tradition

by Edward Lee

  Ashton winced. “Sheree!” he barked. “Don’t you understand that everything’s not about sex! My career’s going down the drain! I’ve got more important things to worry about than getting it on!”

  It was everything she could do not a wrap a tourniquet around his fat neck and twist and twist and twist until his head popped off. But she had to be tactical, didn’t she? Here, she had a beautiful place to live, all the spending money she needed, her own little BMW 318, and this big fat sugar-daddy dolt. That sure as hell beat the daily colon inspections by the likes of Joey Silvera and Peter Fucking North. If she’d kept that up, by now, her anus would be bigger than her mouth, and it would be filled with just as much cum. She thought back to her very last gig; when a bulbous borsh-filled Ron Jeremy had walked in, she knew her career was over.

  “I understand, baby,” she assured in a silken whisper, still rubbing his back. “I’m sorry for being so selfish. I know you have a lot on your mind.”

  He errantly patted her hand, still riled up. “I gotta get that fucking eel.”

  “Well, we’re going tomorrow. I’m sure you and your brother will catch so much eel, you won’t know what to do with it all.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ashton said…and Sheree was getting damn sick of being told by this limp-dick fat putz that she didn’t “understand.” But she swallowed the insult as well as her pride, and then remembered that if it weren’t for Ashton she’d still be swallowing a lot of something else.

  Ashton stood up from the desk, turned, and took Sheree by the shoulders. “Honey, it’s not just eel. It’s the freshwater Crackjaw eel, the most delectable and the rarest eel in the world. The A. Anguilla Mytilus. It only lives in old deep lakes with variant-low temperatures, and it only eats freshwater mussels and clams. Finding a stockpile of these things could mean an extra hundred grand per year in restaurant profits and a million a year in exports. The Japanese will buy this stuff till their eyes go round.” He sat back down, pointed to the book. “The secret is right here…”

  It was a small leather-bound book printed in the late-1950's called Delectable Edibles Of The Pacific Northwest. “Only a hundred copies of this book were ever printed, and look!”

  He pointed again, first to a black-and-white photograph of an eel lain out on a cutting board. It was perhaps the most hideous living creature Sheree had ever seen (Ron Jeremy being the only possible exception): the fat, long, snakelike body, with edgy fins running top and bottom. Far worse, though, was the protruded head, with big button eyes and the low-hanging vise-like jaw with which it evidently cracked open the exclusive shells of its prey.

  “It’s…beautiful, isn’t it?” Ashton commented, drawing a slow finger across the surface of the old photograph. The next old photo showed a bearded fisherman grinning as he held one of the hideous things up in his arms, and the caption below the photo read: Local fisherman R. B. Brown, displays a rare Crackjaw eel that he caught on the southeast side of Sutherland Lake. Brown contends that the rather unappealing serpent is delicious and running rampant at this corner of the obscure and rarely fished Sutherland.

  “See that?” Ashton hotly questioned. “‘The obscure and rarely fished Sutherland?’ Nobody ever goes to that sinkhole—it’s too cold for any decent fishing—and who’s seen this small-press book? No one!”

  Sheree ran her hands down the front of Ashton’s fat-layered chest. “Well, we’re going there tomorrow, sugar. And we’re going to catch so much eel—”

  “Not just any eel,” Ashton accentuated. His finger tapped the book. “The Crackjaw eel—”

  “Yes, sugar, you bet.” Sheree kept running her hands up and down his body, then took a glance to see if anything was happening at his crotch.

  Nada.

  Eunuch. What’s a girl got to do to get some dick around here! “We’re gonna catch enough eel to fill a warehouse. Then you can just throw your head back and laugh at the mean, nasty M. Gerald James.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ashton said in a hate-filed daze. “I’ll bury that skinny motherfucker like he never was born. Then I’ll buy him out!”

  “There ya go!” Sheree squealed. She dared reach down to Ashton’s crotch. “Baby, you sure you don’t want any—”

  He patted her hand. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m just too distracted right now. But I promise…we’ll have a good time once we get to the lake.”

  Sheree had little else to do but accept it. “Okay, baby. I’m going to bed now.”

  “I’ll be in in a while. Goodnight.”

  Sheree walked off naked for the bedroom. That big bucket of lard’s more interested in eel than in me. Oh, well, at least she still had a nice luxurious life, and at least she could still masturbate.

  Who knew? Maybe tonight she’d think about getting her asshole cored by Peter North…

  — | — | —

  Chapter Three

  “The crack of dawn for the Crackjaw eel,” Ashton celebrated, rubbing his hands together in the early morning light.

  “Hell,” Bob said, rubbing his hands similarly, “even if we don’t catch any, it’ll be great to just get out and see some of God’s Green Earth. The mountains, the trees, the fresh air.” Then he lit a cigarette and coughed. “Plus, I’m dying to break in my new house on wheels. What do you think?”

  Ashton put a comradely arm around his brother’s shoulder, and whispered, “Don’t jive me, Bobby. What you’re really dying to break in is that new blonde of yours.”

  “Shit, I did that a month ago…and she’s been walking funny ever since!”

  Both men brayed laughter, eee-hawing like a couple of…jackasses. Ashton and Bob were twin brothers, forty-three years old, and both looked alike: fat. Close to three hundred pounds apiece. Trimmed beards, long hair pulled back to short stylish ponytails. The only telling them apart was the streak of gray Ashton deliberately dyed into his hair because he thought it looked “entrepreneurial.” And though Ashton was a wealthy man indeed, brother Bobby was wealthier; he was Microsoft’s executive chairman for advanced research projects, and he pulled down low seven figures per annum. Ashton made up for this inequity by reminding Bob that he, Ashton, had had sex with more women in his life. Ashton’s grand total was five, while Bob could boast a tally of four.

  So here were the Morrone brothers in a rather large nutshell. Both were unsocialized, both were obese, and both carried egos larger than their belt size. Both, too, were intolerable snobs. But they were rich…so they must be doing something right.

  “Yeah, she’s a beaut, all right,” Ashton commented of Bob’s brand new thirty-foot zinc-white Winnebago. The vanity license plate read #4 AT MS, while a glittery bumper sticker read THE LOVE WAGON. “You dog, you,” Ashton added, chuckling. “Hey, let me ask you something. How many times did you stick it to Sheryl last night?”

  “It’s Carol,” Bob corrected, “and I gotta admit, even stud-muffins like me can’t be a machine every night. I only bagged her twice. Usually it’s three or four.”

  “You dog, you!” Ashton chuckled. “My problem is I wear Sheree out on the first go-round. Gets so she just can’t come anymore.”

  “Wow,” Bob said in a hush, impressed.

  “Big men like us, we gotta give our bitches a break sometimes, right?”

  Bob slapped Ashton on the back. “Damn straight, brother.”

  “But I’ll tell ya—last night? I gave her two more pops…just because I felt like it!”

  Both men brayed laughter as they meandered toward the Winnebago’s rear. There, hooked via ball hitch, was a brand-new sixteen-foot outboard SeaRay. “Hell, we’re rich men,” Bob pointed out. “We don’t rent boats to go fishing; that would be…” He flicked a pinkie. “…low class. And since I couldn’t fit my sixty-foot yacht on the trailer, I bought this.”

  Ashton’s fat face beamed in glee. “This is great! We’ll be hauling those Crackjaw eels in one after another.”

  “You sure this lake’s got ’em?”

  “Well,,,yeah.” Ashton
had previously explained not only his recent embarrassment at the hands of rival restauranteur M. Gerald James but also the overseas marketing potential. “It says so in an old book I found printed in the ’50s.”

  Bob didn’t seem as convinced but why be a spoilsport? “Well, hell, even if we don’t find a treasure trove of eel waiting for us…just think of all the poontang we’re gonna have!”

  A hard slap to bother Bobby’s back. “Damn straight, brother!”

  “We’ll be dippin’ our willies!”

  Both men brayed laughter in front of Ashton’s condo building. “Speaking of poontang,” Ashton said, looking at his Cartier diamond-studded watch, “where are the girls?”

  Scuffing sounds could be heard, then, as Sheree and Carol lugged heavy suitcases down the steps at the front of the building. “Oh, that’s okay, guys,” Sheree said sarcastically. “We don’t need any help.”

  “Yeah,” Carol added. “We’re not really human beings—we’re fucking forklifts!”

  Ashton and Bob brayed laughter. “We’ll take it from here, girls,” Bob offered. The men took the heavy suitcases and walked them the remaining three feet to the Winnebago.

  Ashton winked at Sheree. “Can’t have the two hottest numbers in the city wearing their pretty little selves out, now can we?”

  “We sure can’t, good brother,” Bob accentuated. “Just think of all the red-hot lovin’ they’d miss!”

  The men barked more laughter. Sheree and Carol exchanged weary glances which said, This is going to be a LONG trip…

  ««—»»

  A long trip indeed. Bob drove while Ashton sat up front next to him; the girls sat facing each other in passenger seats mounted on the vehicle’s sidewalls, their long, pretty legs crossed. Each dressed for a road trip: sneakers and tube tops, Sheree in cut-off jeans and Carol in a short denim skirt. It didn’t take long for them to both get the shared gist. Up front, Bob yakked about his grand job at Microsoft, Ashton yakked about his grand restaurant and tv show, and in between yakking, they both laughed uproariously at their own bad jokes.

  “Hey,” Ashton asked. “What do you get when you fuck a bottle of Coke?”

  “What?” Bob asked.

  “Burpees!”

  Ashton and Bob rocked laughter. Bob’s fat face jerked back to Sheree and Carol. “Get it girls? Burpees?”

  “Yeah, we got it,” Carol said, and shot a quick frown to Sheree. Sheree leaned forward and mouthed Fat dicks to Carol. Carol snorted a tiny laugh herself.

  Behind them the luxury Winnebago stretched deep. A full kitchen, a full bath and shower, a double bed built over the cab and another that could be pulled down in the rear. Not to mention a 200-watt Alpine stereo with a dozen satellite speakers mounted in the walls, and a 27-inch television linked to a dish on the roof. Cases of beer—snob beer: Holsten—had been brought along, and so had a full dozen bottles of Clos du Val 1990 Pinot Noir, which Ashton insisted was “pre-eminent” with freshwater fish. At the very least, Sheree could expect to get a good load on during this very peculiar outing. In the back, Bob had an auxiliary refrigerator hooked up, for all this eel they thought they were going to catch.

  They’d taken the ferry from Seattle across to Bainbridge, then cruised up over the Hood Canal, and shortly thereafter found themselves on Route 101, which traced the peninsula around the Olympic Mountain Range. The scenery was beautiful. But as far as Sheree was concerned, better scenery could just as easily be found in National Geographic and it didn’t require her to spend an entire weekend with two overweight nerds. To the left, the mountains loomed, spiring high into dense clouds. To the right: the Strait of San Juan, across which they could see Canada with binoculars after Ashton’s enthused bidding. But then it occurred to Sheree that she had no real reason to want to see Canada. Big deal, she thought. A chunk of land that happens to be another country. Big deal.

  The two fat men up front reveled at the rush of scenery, Ashton snapping picture after picture. Eventually, Sheree and Carol settled into their doldrums, sipping beers from foam-rubber sheaths.

  “So, Carol,” Sheree asked. “What do you do?”

  “I—” She paused over her beer, her breasts thrusting beneath the tight tea-rose-pink tube top. Then she shrugged. “I live off of Bob.”

  “Damn straight,” Bob cackled. “Pig-shit rich and a great lay. What woman in her right mind would turn that down?”

  Ashton cracked similar laughter.

  “What about you?” Carol made the same query to Sheree. “What do you do?”

  Ashton’s fat, bearded face shot back over his shoulder, his grin blaring.

  “I live off of Ashton,” Sheree admitted. “Because he’s pig-shit rich and a great lay.”

  Ashton and Bob, to no surprise, brayed laughter. Sheree and Carol rolled their eyes at each other.

  More bad jokes from up front cursed the trip: “Have you heard about the teacher who was fired for being cross-eyed?” “She couldn’t control her pupils.” “What do you give sick birds?” “Tweetment.”

  Sheree considered suicide as an alternative to this—Ashton, she knew, was a supreme asshole, but in league with his brother? He was ten assholes. At least the “trip” wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she’d be back at the luxury suite, driving her Bimmer, spending Ashton’s cash where and whenever she saw fit, and even copping a stray lay now and again. Sure, she cheated on Ashton; he was too busy braising rosemary racks of lamb and flambeeing Divers Scallops in Gingered Sesame Sauce to keep a total track of her. She remembered the last guy she’d picked up, at the Four Seas bar in Chinatown. Looked like fuckin’ Gary Oldman with long hair and tattoos, and a pound of potatoes in his pants. That pound turned to two or three once she’d gotten him back to the motel. It was so big even Sheree’s porn-seasoned pussy about exploded when he stuck it all in. She came once a minute for an hour, felt damn near retarded when he was finally finished. Sheree was actually blowing spit-bubbles on the last round, then he pulled out, jerked the rest of it off, and whipped her face with lash after lash of hot cum.

  Few and far between, though; Sheree knew she had to be careful in such ventures. She had a lot to lose. Not just three-hundred pounds of fat jackass but the car, the joint, and the cash.

  She sighed to herself, then flicked a momentary glance at Carol—long tan legs crossed in the tight denim skirt, tits bulging in the skin-sucking tube-top. Carol’s blond hair shimmered almost perfect white over the cherubic naughty-girl face; Sheree recalled the lezzy scenes she’s done with Savannah and Zoe and Rachel Ryan when she’d been a blonde, and it occurred to her just then that she wouldn’t particularly mind parking her pussy firmly over Carol’s mouth. Just a fleeting fantasy. Up front yet another bad joke resounded: “What do you call a rabbit with fleas all over him?” “What?” “Bugs Bunny!”

  The men brayed laughter as Carol and Sheree winced. It was a coincidence, then, when Sheree, after another appraising look at Carol’s impeccable body, thought, I wonder if Carol cheats on Bob… Carol reached forward, tapping Sheree on the knee; she passed Sheree a quickly scrawled note, which read: I cheat on Bob any chance I get. Do you cheat on Ashton?

  Sheree took the pen and piece of paper, and wrote FUCK yes!

  Carol shrieked in response.

  “What’s going on back here?” Ashton asked, his eternally fat face glancing back at them. “You girls having some fun without us?”

  Don’t I wish, dick-wad, Sheree thought. “We were just laughing about your great jokes. Tell us another one, honey.”

  Ashton grinned in sheer pride. “If you insist. What does a dog do that a man steps into?”

  “What?” Carol asked.

  “Pants.”

  Bob brayed laughter so hard the Winnebago rocked. Carol and Sheree wanted to die.

  “I know it’s funny, but don’t laugh too hard, girls,” Ashton said next. “Because, guess what? We’re here.”

  ««—»»

  Bob had taken a narrow and poorly marked road a way
s past Port Angeles—Sheree had spied a badly painted wooden sign, which read Sutherland Lake. It was only minutes later that Bob was maneuvering the girthy Winnebago and its laden trailer through heavily wooded roads that seemed more like hiking trails. Fog sifted through the trees, condensation seeping down from the mountains.

  “No wonder nobody knows about this place,” Sheree commented. “Who’d drive through all this shit just to fish?”

  “And that’s our good fortune, sugarplum,” Ashton replied. (Sheree’s face creased when he said sugarplum.) “The fewer people who know about this spot, the better—for us.”

  Carol’s mammoth breasts swayed when she leaned up between the two men and peered out the windshield. “This looks—this looks…funky,” she articulated. “Are you sure there’s a lake back here?”

  “A big lake, baby,” Bob said. “Why don’t you girls stick with what you know: looking pretty. Let the men do the navigating.”

  Sheree yanked Carol back by her tube top…before she could put her hands around Bob’s fat neck. Another minute, though, a crude wooden sign popped up, its enameled letters informing: GREAT FISHIN’ 1 MILE! BAIT SHOP! TAKE THE PULL-FERRY!

  “See, schnookems?” Bob countered to Carol. “You saw the sign. Good fishing coming right up.”

  “Yeah,” Sheree posed, running a finger across her chin. “But what’s a pull-ferry?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Ashton said. “I hope they’ve got a water hook-up for the Winnebago.”

  “And electric,” Bob added.

  Soon the giant vehicle pulled out onto a long coast road, lining the shore of a broad, spacious lake. “This is it!” Ashton whispered in a hot breath.

  Bob: “Yeah, but where’s this bait shop? Where’s the trailer grounds? We need electric to keep the brew cold.”

  Then another sign popped up: TRAILERS AND RV’S WELCOME. HOOK-UP CHARGE $5 A DAY. COME ACROSS TO THE SHOP TO PAY.