Big Girls Are From Venus

The two girls were unlike any streetwalkers they had ever seen, in fact there was a debate over whether they were streetwalkers that should have made the Channel 9 news, live at 11:00. Nobody seemed to know them, they didn’t walk from the projects nor were they dropped off by a driver. The usual gang were standing at the corner behind Mack’s Furniture when one of them said “here she comes”.

Chelsea came trotting around the corner wearing a two-piece outfit that showed about six inches of her stomach, even though she weighed somewhere between 190 and 210 pounds. It was a cut-off sweater and shorts like something Debbie Gibson would wear on stage. They watched her chubby navel jiggle and undulate with every step, and stranger still she always wore something that looked like a little plastic glue gun on her hip, the kind a drywaller might carry. (They speculated it might be a mace dispenser for rich girls.) But at least she wasn’t as big as the taller one who was about 230 pounds, even though they weren’t bad-looking in any other way. College girls was the majority view, fat college girls getting their exercise.

As soon as she passed by the debate was on, and the gang never debated much of anything.

“She’s a spoiled p-i-g who needs to put all that away. Look at her clothes and how much she can afford to eat.”

“Trust me that girl is a prostitute.” the tall one who called herself Sapphire spoke from experience.

“No, I don’t think she even knows what it is.” the girl with the scar pondered. “Did you see how she looks both ways? I think she’s a virgin, probably because she’s so fat.”

They all tried to think if they had ever seen an overweight hooker before. In 1985 a girl like that couldn’t get a guy to look at her even if she was covered up, they hid behind turtleneck sweaters taking diet pills. It was unheard for a girl like that to dress like a tramp. It must have been some kind of “project”, two fat college girls moving in on their turf for some feminism class; maybe they’d be back next year looking like models.

When the night was over the streets were deserted and Chelsea and Cheshire met face-to-face on the sidewalk. They didn’t greet each other in any way they just stood there like two robots, then Chelsea raised one finger and Cheshire gestured back that she had gotten two in one night. The two girls turned toward the brick building and the giant “M” painted on its side seemed to drop its two legs to the ground as if the paint was flowing straight down, and they stepped into the two columns and disappeared.

--

The sharp rise in missing persons cases all over the county was something the police had never seen before. Murder rates yes, but not kidnappings especially not when all the victims were grown men. Most were single, some married, some visiting tourists and some locals. The first thing Detective John Sneed concluded was they probably were murders. So many of them in so short a time suggested an apparatus, a group of strong experienced men probably connected to hustling, organized crime, gambling or prostitution. None of those were a reason for mass-kidnapping however, it would only bring attention to something they want to keep secret. Not one of the victims escaped with his life to provide a single lead.

Only a small minority of them had any history with prostitution, the rest were respected husbands or even students, but it was this possible connection that made them choose Detective Sneed. He was a World War II veteran and as an older man could be trusted to observe prostitution maturely, as somebody’s daughters without scaring them away. He was also perfectly suited to keep watch over Atlantic Avenue and its neighborhoods working the case with his eyes, while the department pursued other leads with pencils and patrol cars.

There was a group of streetwalkers that were very cooperative but when he showed them photos of all the missing persons they didn’t recognize a single one of them. Women of the evening tend to have an excellent recall of men including tattoos and other details of interest, they were a useful asset going back to before some of these younger cops were born, which left him astonished that this was a dead end. He didn’t think there was any way the murderer could be a prostitute, but she might be a frontwoman who entices men into a safehouse (which still left no clue to a motive as some of the men had left their vehicles with the engine running). He asked if there were any other girls they knew about, perhaps ones that made house calls or worked for a suspicious employer.

They all drew a blank but they did share something bizarre that was a great conundrum to them although it meant little to him; two corpulent prep school girls trying their hand at streetwalking to get dates while they were on vacation.

The girl with the scar led him to the beach the next day and pointed them out to him. Detective Sneed observed them from a café table for several hours with his binoculars, a much more seasoned observer of human nature than the gang was. A couple of things were plain to him right away; they were not “prep school girls” as the gang supposed, they were simply projecting their attitude on two ordinary college-age girls. Also the word “overweight” had led him to think they were ugly which was not the case; the taller blonde was exceptionally beautiful despite having quite a few rolls which a gentleman could conceivably overlook. He had imagined the kind of square-bodied, multi-chinned women who are ostracized from childhood but these two had been relatively slimmer in high school perhaps even enough to be envied. Was that what this was, a hint of jealousy? This made him think back to WW2 when he was stationed in Italy and the “war prostitutes”, of which the chunkiest one was the most in demand. It was something that had always existed people today just weren’t accustomed to seeing it.

He watched them splash around in the water, sunbathe and do silly things like feed each other hot dogs and play “rock paper scissors”. The gang was mistaken; prostitution is an all-night profession where they sleep during the day, not act like tourists on vacation let alone overpower a grown man. And they were mistaken about them being tramps or well-off just because they showed too much skin. People aren’t the same wherever you go, they just came from some other place.

--

That night a young college boy fresh from pledging fraternity at a friend’s house came walking out of the dark down the sidewalk to a bus stop, his hair hanging in his face. To his surprise there was a short girl with black hair sitting by herself on the bench who was as fat as the kid they used to harass in the 8^th grade. His first thought was that she was a runaway. Her black sweater didn’t come down far enough to cover the roll of flesh that was like a white streak around her midsection as if she’d rushed out of the house not fully dressed, and she didn’t have a suitcase or even a purse. He absentmindedly reached up and pushed the hair out of his eyes.

“You have a nice face.” she said. “Do you live around here?”

“Um, no.” he looked at the ground not knowing what to make of this situation.

“Don’t you have any family?” she asked next, looking him in the eyes.

“Naw they’re on the other side of the navel… I mean nation.” the gaff was so bad he covered his face with his hand.

“Did you just say navel?” a chuckle erupted from her painted mouth. “Why, were you thinking about my belly?”

He was too embarrassed to answer.

“Do you like this outfit?” she pressed on. “I mean do you think it looks good on me?”

“Yeah I uh…” he struggled to think of a compliment. “I think it’s really brave of you, to be so forward I mean…”

“Well do you want to go someplace?” she didn’t miss a beat. “My house is just two blocks from here, no one will know.”

He didn’t have to think about it for very long, and soon they were walking a short distance to the back of a brick building.

“My apartment’s upstairs.” she said as she opened the door for him.

The moment he stepped inside Chelsea raised her plastic weapon that was loaded with some kind of clear liquid and injected it into the back of his head directly into his hypothalamus. He collapsed to the floor like kindling. She stepped around his body and reached down to a nondescript place on the hardwood floor, lifting a handle that caused a long metal hatch to rise up on hydraulic pistons. Underneath it was something that looked like a meat press, the kind that seals ground beef in cellophane. She dragged him by the arms, placing his body into it and closed the hatch again as the sound of a conveyor belt carried him down and out of sight. Then she dusted off her chubby hands, whistling.

Cheshire was walking around the corner, her high heels causing her body to jiggle when she bumped into an old man with a sweeping gray mustache standing right in her path. He wore a light-colored summer suit, a pair of sunglasses and a fedora.

“I’m sorry I was in your way.” he flashed his card. “I’m not a cop, I’m just looking for a missing person. May I ask what happened to your friend? The one I saw you with earlier.”

“I’m meeting her in a few minutes.” she answered curiously.

He pulled out a series of enlarged photos asking if she had seen any of these men, turning them slowly. To his surprise she said that she had seen one of them, pointing with her painted finger, saying she saw him during the day horsing around with his friends cruising for girls. Sneed didn’t know why she would say this unless it was the truth.

“One more question and then I’ll bother you no more.” he said graciously. “I mean no offense I’m just curious why you go out in the middle of the night dressed like this.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she smirked. “We’re out looking for dates. We’re prostituting.”

“Real prostitutes don’t use the word ‘prostitute’.” he corrected her. “That’s what the police call them.”

She blinked for a moment, then he said “May I ask what usually happens on these dates?”.

“Don’t you already know that?” she smiled as if it was foolish for him to ask.

“What kind of protection do you use?” he fired off an ungentlemanly question.

Her search for an answer told him she honestly didn’t know what he meant, but she recovered quickly.

“Why don’t I just show you everything you want to know?” she offered. “We can go inside, it would be easier than explaining.”

“Inside where?” his eyes narrowed.

She led him behind the furniture building to a door and held it open for him. Sneed suddenly felt a sense of danger and stopped in his tracks.

“What is that?” he pointed to the little plastic gun on her hip.

“Spermicide.” she answered, taking out the transparent cartridge and showing him. “Listen, you seem like a gentleman and someone I can talk to. I need to confess something, some things I’ve seen… I promise it will help your search if you just step through this door…”

He backed away slowly, overcome with a sudden and inexplicable dose of fear and common sense. He turned away from her and retreated down the street.

--

Detective Sneed rushed to get his binoculars, not wanting her out of his sight for a moment and called in a team to search the premises. When he returned the girls had already left; he watched them saunter up the street before dawn past the closed storefronts. Over the next five hours he saw them walk the entire length of town and back again, returning in daylight and going right back to the beach and sunbathing. Meanwhile the forensic unit got back to him that the building was just an empty warehouse with an upstairs loft that hadn’t been slept in.

At midday the two girls were sitting at an outdoor café when he approached them.

“I’m sorry to disturb you again.” he said warily, taking a seat. “It’s just that I didn’t get to meet your friend and show her these pictures.”

“Well I’m Cheshire and this is Chelsea.” the tall one smiled as if they found him amusing.

He spread out the photos of the missing men on the table. The girls glanced at each other as Chelsea tried to make up her mind, which he read as someone playing a strange game with him.

“May I ask what the two of you do for a living? Are you students or…”

“Actually we work for a food export business.” Cheshire answered. “There’s a kind of animal here that’s considered a delicacy.”

“Some kind of fish?” Sneed responded. “I take it you send them overseas?”

“You could say that.”

“I was just wondering where you got the idea of dressing down and walking the streets after dark to get dates.” he stated.

“We heard the men here like a certain kind of woman.” Chelsea answered. “We wanted to blend in, after all who doesn’t want to be popular?”

Sneed blinked trying to absorb this answer.

“Someone told you this town prefers women like yourselves?” he repeated in disbelief. “Explain this to me. You expected to be treated like… the most popular girls?”

“Yes that’s why we chose this appearance.” Chelsea took a sip from her milkshake. “It’s working better than we imagined.”

“And who told you such a thing?” he demanded.

“We knew it from reading men’s minds.” Cheshire gave an unexpected answer.

Sneed was a reader of people himself and their forthrightness had him baffled. They had absolutely no fear of him. There was an extreme cockiness going on here that made him think of a very different kind of case, the Leopold and Loeb murder where a couple of Ivy League intellectuals killed their classmate to demonstrate superior intellect. But it made no difference.

“If you can read minds then tell me what I’m thinking right now.” he said finally, putting his fingers together.

The two girls exchanged a glance and then stood up in unison.

“You’d like us to come with you.” Cheshire replied with a smile.

This blew out of the water what Sneed was about to say, but he said it anyway.

“I don’t usually make arrests or read people their rights, I offer them to come with me voluntarily.” he rose and spoke solemnly. “It works better for you that way. We’re going to the station, if you request a lawyer you will have to remain in custody until questioning. My car is waiting.”

He gestured in the direction of the street corner. The girls followed obediently as he kept a constant eye on them. When they reached his tan-colored sedan he found their eagerness to ride with him unsettling and said “I’ll need to confiscate those”, pointing to their unidentified plastic sidearms which they handed over, still smiling and glancing at each other.

Sneed felt a cold sweat on his forehead as he watched their willingness to get into the car even without their weapons, thinking as he made his way slowly to the driver’s side. They wanted to be in an enclosed space with him. His hand let go of the wheel and he took a wary step backward out of the vehicle.

“Where are you going?” Chelsea demanded as they both giggled. “Don’t you want to ride with us?”

Not knowing what else to do he walked slowly away from the car, trusting his instincts. The girls exited either side and approached him, following him down the sidewalk. Sneed quickened his pace in unexplainable fear of them, as they marched straight toward him with their bodies jiggling as if they were indestructible.

“Don’t you want to take us to the station?” Cheshire asked in her sweet voice, and he ran until he was out of sight of them.