The Wednesday that Danny began his second week at the Redlite Ranch started out as slow as usual for a weekday morning. After a week on the job, he was getting used to it and what went on around him, although he figured he’d never get all the way used to it. He already had a lot of stories he could tell, but he suspected he’d never get to tell most of them, at least not if he went back to Spearfish Lake.

But, slow meant slow, too, and this morning was slow. Shirley and the two girls on morning duty, Candy and Melissa, were sitting at the big table, desultorily playing gin rummy. The girls – and Danny – were actually listening more to Shirley tell stories about drunken miners up around Ely on Saturday nights back in the bad old days, even before legalization. To Danny it seemed like comparing that to what it was like here, it had to be about the difference between night and day. He wasn’t in the card game; he was filling salt and pepper shakers a couple tables away, partly because it needed to be done and partly to have something to do.

The door to the office was open, partly so Shirley could keep an ear out if anything was happening out front, and nothing was. She was in the middle of a story about a particularly wild and drunken evening half her lifetime before when airstrip radio in her office started blaring with a familiar voice: "Antelope Valley traffic, Lear Five Nine Zero Sierra Hotel is on long final for runway two nine."

"Huh?" Shirley broke off her story and frowned. "That’s Jennlynn! Wonder what she’s doing coming in here on a Wednesday?"

"A special, maybe?" Candy shrugged.

"It’d have to be a damn special special," Shirley shook her head. "Oh, well, it might be a charter. Mike Hanneman flies a planeload up here for her once in a while, but if it’s during the day he usually calls ahead and gives us a heads up. Maybe he’s sick or something and she had to fill in. Guess we’ll find out in a few minutes. So anyway, this big dude says . . . "

Danny went back to filling salt and pepper shakers, then spreading them around the tables. He finished up, then headed back out to the kitchen with the salt and pepper just as they heard the familiar sound of the Learjet taxiing up outside. The lounge didn’t have windows, but the kitchen did have one that looked out on the airstrip. He glanced out the window as the Lear came to a stop, and the engines shut down a hundred yards away. He had a couple things to busy himself with in the kitchen for a minute or so, and as he headed back out into the lounge, he glanced out the window again, and saw the door of the Learjet open. Jennlynn got out, followed by a black woman and a white guy, shorter than the pilot, but that was about all the detail he could see.

He went back into the lounge, poured himself a cup of coffee, and tried to think of something else to do to look busy – a little cleaning and neatening around the bar; Jeanann, the night bartender, sometimes let it get a little disorderly in the wee small hours. He had his back to the office, but could see into it with the reflection from the bar mirror. The buzzer went off twice, and in a minute or so, he could see Jennlynn and the black woman come up to the counter in the office. "Shirley," he heard Jennlynn say, "could you come over here a minute? This is Tonia, the girl I told you about."

"Sure, be right there," Shirley smiled, throwing in her cards and getting up from the table.

Not knowing much about the system, it made sense to Danny – the black girl had to be new, maybe just checking it out, maybe here for the first time. From talking with George, Shirley, and Ruth, he knew that recruiting was always a problem at the Redlite Ranch. It was not that there weren’t interested women out there, but getting the right ones, ones who wanted to do what they were doing, had their heads together, weren’t boozers or dopers or had other problems, girls who could be pleasant without seeming too professional – they weren’t a dime a dozen. The fact that they were always coming and going made it more difficult. Most of the girls worked only extremely part-time, just weekends, or the occasional week or multi-week shift. Peppermint Patty was pretty much an exception, working three weeks out of four for sixteen months, and she knew she was risking burnout to do that. Frenchy, for example, was a lot more typical; she was a veteran of years in the business, and she usually only worked a three-week shift every three months. That meant that there were a lot of girls coming and going on a seemingly unpredictable schedule.

The best recruiters were the girls themselves, introducing friends into the business, giving recommendations. That was how both Patty and Frenchy had wound up here, and he knew by now that they were far from the only examples. If this was a new girl, it wasn’t the first he’d seen in only a week on the job. There had been two new turnouts here for the first time, just for the weekend starting on Saturday – one had been around the block elsewhere, but the other was green as grass and pretty nervous, but she’d seemed to work out all right. But it was only an item of curiosity to Danny, and even after a week here and getting to know several of the women, he still couldn’t quite make the leap of imagination to understand how a woman could get involved in this. If he were a woman, he couldn’t imagine doing it, but knew from the many examples around him that there were women who could and did and liked it.

So, he didn’t think anything of it when Shirley and Jennlynn led Tonia out toward the back somewhere, presumably for an interview and orientation. When you got right down to it, it was none of his business, but he figured he’d find out sooner or later. He noticed Jennlynn come back up to the office and make a phone call, but he couldn’t hear what it was about while he stood behind the bar polishing glasses. Jennlynn soon disappeared, and was gone for half an hour or more. Yep, an indoctrination, he thought.

He was standing behind the bar setting up silverware when he saw Jennlynn come back into the lounge, look around, and head over to him. "Danny, I need you to do something for me," she said without preamble.

"Sure," he replied. "I’m not doing much of anything, anyway. What do you need?"

"Lose the tie and the apron," Jennlynn told him. "And head out into the kitchen. Tonia, the girl I brought with me, should be back up here in a couple minutes, and I don’t want her to see you. I should be getting a call from the Inn in a few minutes. I’ll give you the high sign, and you hustle out the back and around the front, then act like a customer. There’ll be a guy walking over here from the Inn, about five-foot-five, blue jacket, short brown hair, probably pretty nervous."

"That’s the guy on the Learjet with you?"

"Yeah," she smiled. "Get a little friendly with him, bring him up to the gate, and buzz once. When you get inside for the lineup, hit on Tonia pretty hard, tease her a bit, but then take Candy or Melissa out back. You can circle around through the kitchen to bring her back up to the lounge."

"I can do that," Danny nodded. "What’s this all about, anyway?"

"It’s a setup," Jennlynn explained. "I haven’t got the time to tell you now, but I’ll explain later. I’ve got to go explain to Melissa and Candy what’s going on before she gets back out here. She should be here any second, so get out to the kitchen. I’ll keep an eye on the bar for you."

"OK, will do," he smiled, wondering himself what was happening as he headed for the kitchen. He hadn’t talked to Jennlynn much over the weekend – she’d been pretty busy – but he knew that she had some interesting ideas about what fun was, and she had a pretty exciting and exotic reputation.

Out in the kitchen, he spent a couple minutes talking to Sarah. Though she didn’t strike him as being particularly bright, she was an interesting woman in her own way: a Mormon, very straight, very churchy, and Danny often wondered what she really thought about working here and what went on around her. He never heard a real straight answer out of her about it either, but he figured that she had to be pretty much a realist about what the real world was like.

He’d only been there two or three minutes when Candy stuck her head around the corner. "Jennlynn says go," she said.

It was a fair hustle out the back gate and around the building, but he was just coming out on the highway when he saw the guy coming his way. He slowed down a little to time it so he’d arrive at the front gate about the same time. "Hey, man, you here to party?" he said as he got close.

"Yeah, I guess," he said, a little nervously. "How do you do this, anyway?"

"Easy," Danny smiled, remembering the guy coming in as he’d headed out the first night. "Like the sign says, ‘Ring buzzer – Push gate – Have fun!’ You ever do this before?"

"Never," the guy shook his head.

"Well, come on, I’ll show you," Danny grinned, pushing the buzzer. The gate cracked open; he pushed it to the side, and held it for the new guy to walk on through.

Inside the lobby, the three women were waiting, and introduced themselves like normal, with Shirley looking on. Candy and Melissa were dressed as they had been before, but Tonia was in a cream colored silk camisole and lacy panties. This was Danny’s first good chance to get a look at her – she was on the short side, and a little solid. Generally speaking, the girls around the Redlite Ranch ran to the slender side, but not all; this woman wasn’t exactly as pretty as Candy or Melissa, but not bad. She had a pretty good chest on her, better than the two white girls, and Danny could tell that there probably wasn’t any silicone involved. "Hey, babe!" he said to her, "You must be new here. You want to head out back and party?"

If the woman hadn’t been so black he would have seen her blush. She did giggle quite a bit, but just couldn’t bring herself to speak. Danny smiled and went on, "It’s good to see they’ve got a real woman in here now, not like these skinny fence posts."

"Fence posts, my ass," Candy snorted.

"Well, hey," Danny grinned, "it’s just good to see a woman who looks like a woman for once. Like I said, babe, you want to party?"

The black woman couldn’t have looked more embarrassed, and could only giggle. "Hey, if you want to party so hearty," Melissa replied, "Candy and I can show you what a party is all about."

"It’d take the both of you to add up to this babe," Danny laughed. "But I’m up for it if you are."

"Come on, dude," Candy grinned, taking him by the hand and heading for the door to the back.

"Hey, guy," Shirley said to the short guy that had just stood there jaw agape at the last few exchanges. "You must be new here, but Tonia here can break you in real gentle. Tonia, take him out back and show him a good time."

"I can do that," she grinned, the first time she’d actually been able to say something, other than introducing herself in a small voice.

The five of them headed out back, the two girls leading Danny. He noticed Tonia taking the guy into Jennlynn’s room, which was near the front – being a headliner, it stayed set up for her while she was gone. The girls led him on down the hall, stifling giggles. They opened a hallway door, and the three of them circled around through the kitchen, laughing out loud, now.

Jennlynn was waiting out in the lounge for their return, laughing herself. "Perfect, Danny!" she said. "I thought she was going to just die! And he didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Candy, Melissa, you did good, too."

"I could see she was more than a little embarrassed," Danny said, heading back over to the bar for his tie and apron. "But can you tell me what that was all about?"

"Yeah, sure," Jennlynn said, keeping her voice down. "He’s her husband."

"You’re kidding," Danny said. "It was a setup on him?"

"No, on both of them," she replied. "Keep it down. She’ll be coming up to the office in a couple minutes to settle with Shirley, and I don’t want her to hear us. I work with those two in Phoenix. I’ve known them for years. It’s no secret where I work that I come up here some weekends, and they’ve been, well, a little curious about what I do, what it’s like, and they do like their fun. A few months ago, they sort of hemmed and hawed around and said it would be neat if they could sort of experience what it would be like, under controlled conditions so to speak. You know, sort of playing out the fantasy. We had a systems test this morning, it went real good and everybody was feeling a little frisky afterward. Since we were pretty close to here, I said it would be a good time to try it out. I thought it would be fun to inject a little reality into it, just for giggles."

"Oh, God!" Danny laughed. "No wonder she couldn’t say anything."

"Like I said, you did it perfect," Jennlynn said. "You hit on her just hard enough to make her wonder if she was going to have to say yes, with her husband watching."

"Jennlynn told us to not let it get too far," Melissa grinned.

The door to the office opened, and Shirley came over to join them. "They’re doing an hour, open session," she grinned. "You want me to set the timer?"

"Hell, yes," Jennlynn said. "Keep it real. Besides, they’re about the two horniest married people with each other I’ve ever met. If we let them just rock and roll they could be partying all day."

Danny shook his head. "Well, that’s a different one."

"Not really," Shirley grinned. "It happens every now and then, although usually we don’t have one of our own girls setting it up like this."

"The house still gets the cut, I take it?" Danny asked.

"Oh yeah, it’s real," Shirley grinned. "Makes it a more exciting fantasy that way. We had one a little different a while back. A guy and his wife set up a deal like that, and she got a huge charge out of it. She even went to the trouble of getting carded. As it turned out she got such a huge charge out of it that she called us up later and asked if she could come up and do it for real."

"And she did?" Danny grinned.

"Oh, yeah," Shirley smiled. "In fact, she worked a couple weekends – I don’t know what excuse she used to get away from her husband. Well, one weekend she was up here working, and he decided that since she was gone for the weekend, he might as well come up here and party."

"Oh, shit!" Melissa laughed. "I can just imagine!"

"No shit," Shirley shook her head. "So, he’s out in the back with some girl, and she’s out there with some guy, and they came out of the rooms at the same time. I happened to be out back and I thought we were going to have blood running in the hall for a few seconds there. Well, they both went back to her room for a few minutes, they had a little talk, and the next thing you know she’s out in the lineup again, and he’s out in the lobby picking some other girl to party with."

"Damn!" Danny said, shaking his head. "I sure would like to know what happened after that."

"So would I," Shirley smiled. "We never saw either one of them again after that night, but I’ve often wondered about it. There sure are a lot of stories around this place, though."

Just then the buzzer went off. "Hey, looks like some real action," Candy smiled as she and Melissa got up. "You working today, Jennlynn?"

"No," the tall, dark-haired woman said. "I’m just the charter pilot today. I’m expired, I won’t be current again till the end of next week." Danny knew what that was all about – the medical certificates the girls all had were good for three weeks, and if she timed it right Jennlynn could get two weekends with one weekend apart in on one certificate.

As the two girls headed for the lobby and Shirley headed for the office, he asked Jennlynn if she’d like some coffee. "Yeah, I guess," she told him. "Hey, Danny. Thanks again, you did that just right."

"No big deal," he grinned, going over to get the coffee and getting a cup for himself. "I might not have done it as well if I’d known what was coming off. Can I ask you something, though?"

"Sure," she replied. "Depending on what it is, you might not get a straight answer."

"That may be the straightest answer anyone’s ever given in this building," he laughed. "Seriously, I get the impression that a lot of the girls here, even most of the girls, want the fact that they’re working here kept pretty quiet. I have to wonder about the fact that you don’t keep it a secret on your day job."

"Well, it is a little different," Jennlynn sighed as he delivered her coffee and sat down at the table with her again. "There’s a fair amount that goes into it, but for the purposes of my day job I can’t keep it a secret, anyway, at least if I want to keep the job."

"That doesn’t make any sense."

"You know what I do?" she asked.

"Yeah, some kind of a design engineer."

"Right," she said. "And I can’t say a lot about that, because we do a lot of classified government work, some of which means that I have to hold a Top Secret clearance, which is why we were out at Groom this morning, and you don’t need to tell anybody I said that. Believe me, I’ve had any number of security people just about shit when they find out what my moonlighting job is. But, it’s totally legal, and as long as I’m totally up front about it, don’t try to keep it a secret at all, my boss figures I can’t be blackmailed over it. That, and a little pressure in the right places, keeps the security people off my ass. If I wasn’t up front about it, even if I wasn’t active any more, I could never keep the clearance. That’s why I don’t use a work name. They may call me Learjet Jenn on the sign out front, but I’m Jennlynn Swift to anyone who asks."

"Can I say that sounds a little weird?"

"Can I say that it is a lot weird?" she laughed. "It does add some interesting perspectives to things. Like, down on the job in Phoenix. It’s mostly engineers down there. Engineers tend to be pretty straight people, mostly focused on their computer screens. It gives a lot of people a kick to know that they’re associated with someone as exotic as I am. The two kids in back are on that list."

"I have to say you’re one of the more exotic people I’ve ever met, if not the most," he laughed.

"It does make for an interesting reputation," she laughed. "Danny, there may be things going on under this roof that people consider dirty, but at least they’re honest. You wouldn’t believe how different it is when you’re working with government officials on contracts. You consider me a good-looking woman, don’t you?"

"Well, of course," he shrugged.

"You get to that level, and look like I do, it’s really not uncommon to get hit on for sex to grease the skids for a contract, or something like that. Danny, outside this building I’m a tougher lay than the average nun. But when I do get hit on, I just give them the 800 number here and tell them to bring money and lots of it. I don’t get hit on much anymore like that. People have learned that if they want to be mercenary, I can out mercenary them anytime I want to."

Jennlynn sat there talking with Danny for the rest of the hour the couple was in the back. It continued to be a fascinating conversation – she was easily the most extraordinary woman that he’d ever met, that he could ever imagine meeting. She was brilliant, outspoken, beautiful, flamboyant, exotic, an individual with a very strong personality – totally entrancing, and while she may have had plenty of secrets about what she did on her day job, she had none about who and what she was. But, almost as clear was the fact that she could be a curmudgeon with a violent temper who did not in any way have the capability to suffer fools gladly, a serious hardnose, and intolerant of bullshit. She freely admitted that she was at her happiest and most charming here, where it was expected of her – which was at least part of the reason she’d kept coming back virtually every other weekend for years. In truth, she had few friends; the couple in the back, Jon and Tonia, were as close as she had to real friends outside this building, and it was clear that they were not very close; she admitted that she had serious envy for them, their capability to love each other and make a very close life with each other.

It was really pretty sad when you got down to it. It was easy to look at Jennlynn, her beauty and everything else that she was, and imagine trying to make a life with her – and from the instincts that had been well tuned in him over the last several years, he could easily understand that he or any man actually trying to make a life with her would have made life with Marsha look like a bed of roses.

As Jennlynn had predicted, Shirley had to buzz the alarm in back to warn Tonia and her "client" that their time was up – just to help keep things real. Eventually the two reappeared in the lobby, with him dressed for outside, and her in the camisole outfit again – she’d actually borrowed it from Jennlynn. They were very lovey and cuddly, but played it straight – she escorted him to the door, asked him to come back and see her again sometime, and once the door closed came into the dining room.

"Well, how was your first client?" Jennlynn asked, keeping up the façade.

"Not bad," she smiled breathlessly. "Not bad at all."

"Would you like to do this on a regular basis?" Jennlynn smirked.

"I could see how it could be habit forming," the black woman smiled.

Jennlynn turned to Danny. "I think Jon is heading out to the Lear," she said. "Why not go out back and have him come back in? Tell him I’ll buy lunch."

Only now did Tonia take a look at Danny, and let out a little gasp; by now he had his tie back on, and was wearing his apron. "Do you work here?" she asked with a frown.

"Yeah," Danny grinned. "I’m the bartender and day waiter."

"Jennlynn," Tonia shook her head, "that wasn’t nice. When I saw Jon’s face, I thought he was going to shit when this guy hit on me."

"Just to make it feel a little more real for both of you," Jennlynn grinned. "Maybe I’d better be the one to go out and get Jon instead."

"Might not be a bad idea," Danny agreed as she got up. "Tonia, can I get you something? Coffee, or something from the bar?"

"Coffee, I think," Tonia said. "I suppose I’d better head back and change back into a pumpkin."

"Good thinking," Jennlynn teased as she headed for the kitchen. "The gate might buzz and you might be tempted to try the lineup again. See you in a minute."

A few minutes later, Tonia and her husband were sitting in the dining room, with her now in the shirt and slacks she’d been wearing when they came in, while Danny spread around menus and served coffee. By now, Candy and Melissa had also finished up with their clients, and joined them, along with Shirley.

"You get down to it," Jennlynn told them, "that’s about as real as we can make it without it being real."

"That really was a little scary," Tonia smiled. "Especially when Danny here hit on me."

"That was the general idea," Jennlynn said.

"You know," she said, "the thought that really scared me was that my brother might walk in the door instead of Jon."

"Yeah, that would do it," Jennlynn said.

"Wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened," Shirley smiled. "I’ll admit, it hasn’t happened very often, in my experience."

"This would be a little different," Jennlynn smiled. "Shirley, I didn’t explain one thing – this is the infamous Tanisha Blythe."

"Oh, my God!" Shirley shook her head. "Yeah, that would have been an explosion like they used to touch off out on the flats."

Tonia – Tanisha? – smiled. "I know Jennlynn said he called a couple times."

"Yeah, he was a little hyper," Shirley said. "I mean, I’m talking about calling-down-the-avenging-angels-of-the-Lord hyper. I told him I didn’t know any Tanisha Blythe. I told him we did have a Tanya Terrific coming here back then, but she was white. I don’t think he believed me."

"I have to say this sounds like another story," Danny smiled, standing by the table, order pad in hand.

"Yeah," Jennlynn said. "It’s not altogether a happy one, though."

"I think it is," Tonia said. "He got what he deserved, and I’m just sorry that you had to get the brunt of it, Shirley. But thanks."

"No big deal, he’s not the first crazed, angry preacher I’ve had to deal with," Shirley smiled. "But I guess I don’t know the whole story, either."

"It’s fairly straightforward," Tonia explained. "My brother is very political, and he thinks all white people are the devil incarnate. You can imagine how he would feel about Jon if he knew about him. Jon met him briefly, just once, and had to deck him so I could make my escape from St. Louis. At that time my brother thought he was just a ride, not my boyfriend."

"Well, at that time I really was just a ride, not your boyfriend," Jon said quietly. "But it changed right after that."

"That’s true," Tonia added. "I won’t go into the ins and outs of it, but it was pretty paranoid there, and still is. When we graduated from Georgia Tech, I got a letter from my brother saying that he was coming down to graduation to drag me back to the church and my people since he couldn’t allow me to run around unsupervised and risk ruining his reputation. I thought he was full of racist and sexist shit and didn’t think much of his reputation, anyway. But Jon and I decided to get out of Atlanta before the ceremonies, just to avoid a confrontation. That led to the question of my actually getting my diploma."

"Her brother had gotten her address through the college," Jon explained. "We figured he’d find out where she was again by the address she gave them to send her diploma."

"It was Jon’s idea," Tonia protested, "although I thought it was a good one. He suggested we talk to Jennlynn, to have my diploma sent here."

"Oh, God!" Melissa shook her head. "That was dirty!"

"I thought so," Tonia grinned. "It was what he deserved, though, for thinking he could run my life for the sake of his reputation, like I didn’t count for anything."

"I picked up her diploma here a couple months later," Jennlynn smiled. "We had a little presentation for her at the office."

"It’s still my mailing address, as far as Georgia Tech is concerned," Tonia grinned. "Jennlynn brings me stuff from the Alumni office once in a while. I sometimes wonder what they must think. Now that I’ve actually seen the inside of this place, and actually sort of worked here once, I think it’s even cuter."

"He hasn’t called for a while," Shirley laughed. "If he should happen to, do you want me to tell him you worked here for a while?"

"I’m tempted," Tonia laughed. "But maybe you’d better not. I need to settle things with him some time, but I’ll do it when the time is right, and I’m not quite ready yet. The way it is now, he ought to realize that I’m yanking his leg and don’t want him in my life."

"I can do that," Shirley said. "Like I said, I think he realized that you weren’t here."

"That’ll be fine," Tonia said. "I wish I could be civil with him, but if I can’t have that, I’ll settle for him being so pissed off that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. But after having been here, if push comes to shove some time, I can tell him some stories about what it’s like. And, if I have to do that, I’ll send my address here to my high school Alumni secretary, and she’s a huge gossip. What’ll happen to his precious reputation then?"

"You know," Danny smiled. "I don’t think I’d want to have to cross swords with you if you get pissed. I mean, I thought I did a number on my wife when I left her, but Tonia, you go for the throat. Is anybody ready to order, or do you just want to sit here and talk some more?"

"I’d love to sit and talk," Jennlynn said. "But maybe we ought to eat. I called the office and said we were going to stop off here for lunch, and maybe we’d better not give them the idea that both of us decided to work a shift."

"Can’t stand the competition?" Jon smiled.

"I can get away with it," Jennlynn smiled. "It’d be harder if there were two of us from the same department."

There were several more stories over lunch, and a lot of laughter. Both Shirley and Jennlynn had a lot of good ones, and it was a happy time. Not long after they were finished, though, Jennlynn and Tonia and Jon headed out to the Learjet, and in few moments they could hear the engines spooling up. The place seemed emptier and quieter with them gone.

"You know," Candy said as she stood at the window in the kitchen and watched the Learjet taxi out to the runway. "That’s the thing that both excites me and scares me about this place."

"What’s that?" Danny asked.

"Whenever the buzzer goes off, you never know what’s going to happen."

"Boy, that’s the truth, isn’t it?" Danny smiled. "That was a pretty good one, though."

"Yeah, it was," she nodded. "Tonia thinks she knows what it’s like now. Maybe she does know, at least a little. But it’s not real until it’s real, and you know, I don’t think she’d have it in her to really do it."

"You might be surprised," Danny said. "She might surprise herself in the process. But, you’re right, I don’t think she’ll ever really find out. Hell, it was hard enough for me to go out and hit on her and the two of you, even knowing it was a fake." He let out a sigh. "I’ll tell you what. I told Patty the other day, and I’ll tell you and not be ashamed about it. If I was a woman, I don’t think I’d have the guts to do what you do."

"You’re not the first guy to tell me that," Candy told him. "And I’ll bet you’re not the last. Women really are different from men, you know."

"Yeah," he nodded. "I think I may finally be starting to learn that."

They stood there watching as the Learjet turned onto the runway. They heard the engines spool up fully, and the little white business jet raced down the old bomber runway. "I do have to say this much, though," Danny smiled, "that did spruce up a pretty dull morning."

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