"Yes, I do. But I' m also good at making up for it," she says with a smirk. "If I feel so inclined," she adds.

"How do you feel tonight?" asks Ken, one finger in his drink chasing an ice cube around the glass' s rim.

"I feel willing."

They made love in his place, on the rented couch, listening to Chuck Mangione' s Feels so good in the rented stereo. Rent to own. Pay now, don' t need to buy later. Everything is for rent for a price. Her dark and hirsute pubis intrigues Ken the most, rising like shadowy smoke up her navel. Her dark and huge nipples stand like hubcaps over her breasts, quite a mouthful of flesh, of woman.

After doing it twice, she returns from the bathroom and gets dressed in silence.

"Where’ re you going?" asks Ken from the floor, lying between the couch and the coffee table where he had landed after his last orgasm.

"Have to go, honey," she says and smiles.

She picks her Newman-Marcus purse up and leaves, turning before going out of the door to say "Will see you again; it was good."

"Yeah, right," says Ken sitting on the floor naked, his hard on still up, and confused about how things happened so fast. Expensive women, and plenty of money, and a new truck – paid for – for his dad. And flying big iron between Colombia and Florida. Money coming out of his ass like farts after a chili and beer dinner. Damn.

Ken reclines his head on the couch and laughs. He connects the"honey" to Debbie, like if his mind were a pinball machine and the little ball had finally made it all the way to the bottom. Debbie, that cute whore from Daytona Beach, and he thinks that he knows what she felt when he used to slip a twenty dollar bill up her dress and into her panties, if she happened to be wearing any.

Debbie Does Dallas

Traffic on LBJ became the customary four-lane parking lot at rush hour. Hordes of commuters inched out of downtown Dallas on their way home to fan into the northern suburbia like ants leaving their nest, and Debbie got caught in the middle of it. But she didn' t mind it too much; the minivan had a nice stereo and the A/C worked real well, so well she had goose bumps and her nipples had turned hard.

The child seat behind her had been a clever touch. John had bought it at a pawnshop to give the van that wholesome mom look. She smoked with great panache, blowing the smoke out through the small slit between the door' s frame and the window glass, the stereo playing Stevie Ray Vaughan' s Life by the Drop. Another easy few grand. No more whoring. She only had to screw John, her boss, which wouldn' t be so bad if it wasn' t for his fetishism for anal sex. Debbie shifted in her seat. It felt like hemorrhoids, she thought. Why do men like that more than pussy? She couldn' t figure it out. Maybe it is because they cannot do it with nice girls, so here comes Dee, all greased up like a fair pig – and they want her to squeal like one too.

Good money anyway, each trip, plus free coke. Sometimes more if the load was good. The traffic along the Loop unplugged itself and now hundreds of cars moved in a loose formation over the asphalt. The I-20 Shreveport exit sign appeared across the windshield, and Debbie smiled. She was on her way to Atlanta to pick a load; sometimes it was a kilo, sometimes as much as five, neat little bundles wrapped in shiny tape full of bitter dust. She would drive all day and night, straight. A couple of lines would keep her going strong. She felt like a million bucks, and she knew she could drive to New York if she wanted; well, maybe with the help of a couple of more lines along the way, just in case.

Cuban Hospitality

Cuba ' s Eastern tip sneaked under the golden clouds that half hid the sinking sun. After circumventing Guantá namo base' s radar, the old Twin Beech followed the surf towards the yet invisible airstrip planted somewhere past the palm trees, right at the foot of the sierra. An open map laid spread on Ken' s lap and his eyes bounced back and forth between the coast and the paper, looking for the turn, the curve, the landmark that would give him his bearings.

Tony sat in the copilot' s seat, attired like Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, minus the whip. He had pleaded, like a little brat, with Ortega and Ken to come in this trip, just for the kicks of it. Dead weight is the last thing an overloaded smuggling plane needs, but both Ortega and Ken had agreed to let him have his way, poor big child.

"What the hell is that?" had asked Ken when he saw Tony getting ready to climb into the door less plane in Colombia with a black and boxy looking gun in his hand.

"I' m a sucker for these things, you know," had said Tony with a mischievous smile, like a kid trying to sneak a pet armadillo into the house. "It' s a MAC10."

"You ain' t taking that. All I need is you blowing a hole in my plane."

"Shit, man, don' t be such a party pooper," had pleaded Tony, all droopy eyes. Ken could have sworn he was ready to burst crying.

"O.K., but I don' t want you horsing around with that thing."

Now the end of their first leg of the trip appeared in sight over the nose. The Twin Beech had followed the coast line almost at coconut tree level until meeting a finger of land that showed the way to the airstrip, three clicks inland. Two parallel lines of sparse lights -homemade runway markers – titillated ahead against the background of darkening hills.

Mixture full rich, props forward, throttle back, flaps down, gear down, Ken greased a three point landing on the dirt strip, all done in a steady, coordinated ballet of pulling, twisting, reaching and manipulating of what looked like gizmos to Tony, who just sat with his toy on his lap, his fingers tapping its lock in nervous expectation. Cuban soldiers should be waiting.

A light flashed on one side of the runway. The black hills blocked the last flare of sunlight coming from the west, and neither Ken nor Tony could make out who was behind the light.

As the Beech taxied towards the light, Ken said to Tony," I' m gonna hit the landing light when we get closer. Keep an eye open for anything strange."

"What' s not supposed to be strange, anyway? Said Tony. "This is god damned Cuba."

"You know, something like the McDonald' s clown."

"Or Ed McMahon."

They both laughed until the landing light came on. It bathed in white halogen light a fatigue clad figure holding a flashlight in one hand, a rifle in the other. The figure brought one arm against its face to block the light.

"You blinded him," said Tony.

"And probably pissed him off," said Ken shaking his head.

The Beech came to a stop and the engines cut with a couple of pops. The runway lights, oil fires burning inside cans, shone against the unfathomable darkness of the sierra crowned by the scarlet remnants of the sunset to the west. A dark, inky blue sky suffused itself with the sea to the east.

Ken got up from his seat and squeezed past the bales of coke that formed a narrow corridor along the sides of the fuselage. Tony came behind, barely fitting through. First outside, Ken greeted the soldier, a young kid, eighteen at the most. Tony followed him, gun in his hand. Ken noticed Tony' s gun, and almost shit his pants.

The soldier and Tony sized each other up, and their guns. Tony walked to the soldier and said "buenos dí as" in a bad Spanish.

"Buenas noches," responded the soldier.

Tony reached into his front pocket and pulled a pack of Winstons and offered one to the soldier, who took one with a smile. Now Ken started breathing again.

The soldier stood at a distance, AK-47 shouldered and smoking Tony' s American cigarette without any trace of socialist remorse. Tony gave him the whole pack," hell, the poor kid probably is smoking some shitty Russian stuff." While Tony pumped gas by hand into the Beech from a drum, Ken added oil to the oil tanks. Standing on the wing, Ken saw headlights approaching the runway.