..... "WHERE DO YOU KEEP THE BUTT PLUGS?!?"
..... Denny dropped the dry, piss poor excuse for a drumstick when he locked eyes with the meth-mouthed lot lizard who trolled the truckstop his side of the interstate. He had so many plans dancing behind his crow's feet and bare forehead, gout riddled feet propped up on Pleasure's counter, he never heard the motion sensor. Going deaf.
..... Pleasure's sat off a 70 east exit halfway between KC and Jeff City. Folks rolling past assumed the sign's apostrophe was a typo, but Sam Pleasure himself founded the first adult novelty outlet in the county. Mr. Pleasure took a trip to the correctional facility; spent three months as Denny's cellmate for escorting a fourteen year old girl to the shop basement to have intercourse with twenty men at a shot. Denny couldn't grasp the allure. Ever since his twelfth birthday, when a twenty-three year old cornered him in The Old Man's office, Denny'd had a taste for grownass women. Besides, who the hell's got nineteen friends that'll help you fuck an eighth grader?
..... When that last arrest left his family business by Kansas City shut down by the sheriff, and as a parolee with a forty plus year gap in legal employment history, Denny bought the scandalized building on the cheap to spend his days being his own boss and nights sleeping in the upstairs bachelor unit.
..... Despite being an old dog, he'd learned volumes. Like, they say you couldn't judge a book by its cover, but Denny was pretty sure you could judge a movie. Especially if that movie was Anal Invasion 42.
..... "Maryanne, whatta you need with a buttplug?"
..... "Lost my bathtub stopper. The fuck you think I'm gonna do?" Maryanne clacked teeth that could be counted on a hand without a thumb. An ass two drinks away from an awkward breakfast, but a voice as sexy as a rape whistle and a face to match. "Figured you'd be focusing more on customer service with that new place opening across the highway."

***

..... "Hey! Hey! Dalton I'm doing an impression! Guess who!"
..... Dalton's lower lumbar strained with the heft of the cardboard box. Glanced over a wide shoulder to find his younger brother, Dale, faux popsicle-licking a genuine replica of Lexington Steele's manly bits. Ebony veins like Mr. Olympia. Size of a T-ball bat.
..... BZZZZZZZZ….
..... Wasting batteries.
..... "Guess !" Dale waited for his brother response.
..... Nothing.
..... "I'm your mom!"
..... Dalton's left cowboy boot glanced off Dale's shin. "That's your momma, too, you dumb prick!"
..... Dale wasn't a bad kid. Sure he'd been in and out of the pen since he was thirteen and got out last month in time for his first legal drink. But he wouldn't steal from family. Or at least had the common courtesy to not get caught doing it. So Dalton dropped his collection route that NFL season and gambled on going into business with the boy, far from temptations of East St. Louis.
..... They signed the deed on Thursday and by Friday transformed it into a Noah's Ark of debauchery -- two of anything to make a trucker stain a steering wheel. Good traffic, and their only competition, an ex-con across the road, had more hair on his upper lip than his head.
..... The one who just walked in, coat hugging old bones, despite the triple digits outside.
..... "Help you, mister?" Dalton didn't tip his hand. Wanted that next van into the lot to surprise the prick.
..... "Eh, just browsing." Denny limped down the first aisle, then the second. Almost fell backwards when he got a peek at the crotch of a big titted blonde standee on aisle three.
..... Dale wagged Lexington Steele. "If that's what ya like... Cut you a deal, but no test rides."
..... Denny gave his first sermon to The Old Man's congregation when he was eight and still thought people gave a shit about words coming from a pulpit. For the first time in his life, he stuttered. "No, I, no, wrong turn."
..... When van wheels crunched parking lot gravel, Dalton and Dale stood tall, gave the old man a peek at the hours of gym and yard time behind their smiles. "Nosir, Denny, I think you're a man at the exact right place at the exact right time."
..... Their biggest assets click clacked their high heels through the door. Three teased blonde hairdos perched atop six d-cups. Ages couldn't have totaled the speed limit, even before they raised it to sixty-five. Wafting hairspray, bubble gum and tragic upbringings.
..... "Girls, we'd like you to meet what is soon to be our former competitor."

***

..... Denny swallowed half a cup of tepid coffee and the last bite of half-assed truck stop fried chicken like an aspirin. He'd use the recipe he stole from Gus's old restaurant to cook his own if the gas company deposit didn't keep his stove cold. Almost as disturbing as the fried chicken was the fact that these cocksuckers were stealing his westbound folks. How the fuck was his DVD and magazine aisle going to compete with the kind of live women eastbound customers didn't know existed without staples across their tits. Probably community college girls from Joplin or high school girls sprinting from touchy-feely step-dads. Pretty now, but a couple years of biker crank'd turn them middle aged before they outgrew a fake ID.
..... He stared past the rig of the only two customer's he'd had all day, a couple tag team drivers watching DVD's back in the stroke tanks, at the party across the exit. Heard the goddamn music over the interstate's roar. This morning, he hadn't thought he could hate The Eagles an ounce more.
..... The motion sensor buzzed. Papa John's kid's acne at the door. Denny hopped the counter and blocked the way. "Ain't old enough to be in this place." Scanned his brain for a pizza order. Panicked, recalling The Old Man's Alzheimer's. Figured if he could remember that much, he was in working order.
..... His eyes were shit without the bifocals, but he made out a body in the parking lot across the way waving a foam "We're #1" finger.
..... State trooper's cruiser slowed, peeked at Denny and the pizza boy on legal terra firma. Hit the gas.
..... Denny paid up for the pies, and the breadsticks, and the wings, and the cinnamon bread, and the extra banana peppers, too. Looked at his empty wallet twice more for a tip, like money grew there. Hell, it used to. "Don't come back 'til you can vote."
..... Stomped back inside with the boxes, imagining the TV: "State Patrol Finds Underaged Pizza Driver in Smut Shop. News at eleven, Tom." Gulped a breadstick. No, he couldn't use a gun for this one. Felony parole turned that into a twenty dollar solution to a nickel problem.
..... That's when he heard moans from the back.
..... Found an extra pair of cowboy boots under a stall door.

***

..... "Did you see the look on that submitch's face?" Dale giggled until he almost dropped the binoculars. Did drop them when Dalton's open palm landed against his rat tail.
..... "Hey, those were my good ones for spotting deer!" Dale rubbed the back of his head. Didn't have to for long, as Suzie, the youngest blonde, planted a breast on each side of his thick neck, fingering scalp.
..... "Well, genius, that pizza boy trick of yours didn't work, and now that old fucker knows we're gunning for him." Dalton rubbed the legs of blondes number two and three. Still didn't know their names. Pretty enough, in a Cracker Barrel hot way, but if he was going to camp out in the country, he needed to find a church girl with loose morals and a big cookbook.
..... "He knew that when he walked into the shop. Just have to be more imaginative."
..... Suzie flipped bangs. "Maybe something involving arsenic. My uncle's good at burning houses."
..... Before Dalton could correct public school vocabulary, POP! POP! POP!
..... Shots echoed.
..... Dalton ducked behind the counter, ceiling tile dusting eyelids. Six shooters. No shells hitting tile.
..... Dale got the balls up to peek over the counter as a twelve gauge turned the smutrack over his head into a snowstorm of tits and ass.

***

..... Denny remembered a phrase the old man used to say. "Never hesitate to exert your will upon others." Opened the big rig's glove box. Found the first set of logs. Felt underneath the driver's seat and found the second set of logs, a set a D.O.T officer would find enthralling toilet reading.
..... So he didn't have to do much persuading when he kicked the stall door open and found Jake hip deep inside Billy Joe. Truth be told, it wasn't the first time Jake and Billy Joe'd been blackmailed. In fact, it'd happened so many times they considered it overhead.
..... They got the idea quick. Walk across the street. Fire a couple shots into a ceiling. Nobody inside wanted to be a witness. Owners didn't want to draw legal attention to stains on dancers' sequins or white trails under their noses.
..... Hit the place twice in one week. A third on the eighth day for good luck.

***

..... Suzie sucked a rail up her nose half the size of Colombia. Dalton figured she had plenty of room to store it behind those eyes. So did his brother, or else he would've listened about dope in the business place of a recently released felon.
..... Dale paced so fast Dalton knew Suzie was the sharing type. "We call Bedford, he sends down a case of them Israeli pistols like Snake Eyes from the G.I. Joe used, cut them fuckers in half before the door opens."
..... Dalton had more grey matter between his ears. Didn't get to his age with only one trip upstate by pulling triggers. "Let 'em come. I got a better idea."

***

..... Billy Joe dumped a sea of quarter-sized tokens onto Denny's counter. "They take the cash in, put it in a time safe. Hand these out to the dancers for credits. Dancers turn 'em in at the end of every two weeks. Keeps girls on the company store, keeps us out of the company cashbox."
..... Jake hugged his partner. "Look Mr. Mustache, I think we got this debt pretty much square."
..... "You boys up for running that rig on a D.O.T. up and up gig?" Gears cranked behind Denny's caterpillar eyebrows for his impending retirement from the smut business.
..... Jake and Billy Joe shrugged. "Always happy to do business with a friend."
..... Denny stroked his mustache, wiggled it back and forth. Thought about tokens. Great idea. That is if cousin Jimmy didn't run every arcade between Columbia and Tulsa.

***

..... The two blondes Dalton still didn't know the names of stood hands out, waiting for cash. He looked at the empty time safe again. He'd had to wade through truckers just to get to the pisser.
..... "How?" He counted in his head. Thousands of dollars. The kind of thousands starting with teens and twenties.
..... "I'll tell you how." Dale snorted, turned red eyes on the girls. "Somebody's got potbellied eyes, taking cash for dances instead of tokens."
..... Dalton bumped Dale's chest. Not as much bulk. But fifteen years of picking up bet money taught him the best place to jab a fist. "That, or going up a nose."
..... Dale wiped his own nostrils, then saw a snowy outline on his desk the size of a baggie. "Where's Suzie?"
..... "Just saw her walking across to the truck stop. Probably getting a cup of coffee." Blonde number two eating an eyeful of ground.
..... "Oh, I bet she is. Maybe she's moonlighting, selling something more concentrated than coffee."
..... Dale was out the door.

***