Saving Smith's Mountain - 2. Dynasty Fight! Dynasty Fight!

The next day was Tuesday, September 6 and the beginning of the short post-Labor Day workweek. On Wednesday evening, Jack and Brad were having dinner together at their house. Jack was talking about having received yet another letter from the Smithville lawyer about selling the Smith's Mountain property. "They just don't want to take no for an answer," he explained.

The rest of the week went by quickly. It was a routine workweek for Jack, but Brad and Miz Vivian were very busy getting everything ready for the upcoming combination Policeman's Fund Benefit and Open House for the Thomason House Bed and Breakfast and Miz Vivian's Mercantile. That Saturday, September 10, Brad and Jack had been invited to go out to eat at Antonio's Restaurant with Justin and Eric, and Bubba and James, another couple that they were friends with. They all enjoyed a great dinner and lots of friendly conversation.

After dinner, while driving back home, Brad and Jack both said to each other that they felt like Justin and Eric were more than just friends with Bubba and James, and they were very right about that. As hot as the thought of the two couples together admittedly was, Brad and Jack still very much liked the monogamous nature of their own relationship, though – at least for now. Meanwhile, Justin and Eric headed back home after saying their goodnights to Bubba and James, who also left the restaurant.

The next week passed quickly, and before they knew it, it was Saturday afternoon, September 17, the grand opening of the Thomason House Bed & Breakfast and the accompanying Miz Vivian's Mercantile, which was being held that afternoon as a precursor to that evening's Policemen's Benefit Fund Ball to be held in the mansion's ballroom beginning at 8:00 that evening.

Miz Vivian had taken everyone on a tour of the Mercantile, but had informed them that it was not yet open for business, as she did not want Brad having to work on a night that was meant to be enjoyed. Everyone had said they would definitely be back when the unique retro shop was open for business.

The area of the lawn between the Mercantile and the pool and cabana had been transformed. Pots of beautiful flowers surrounded a huge white tent. In under the tent a barbeque buffet was set up by a local caterer. Barney Finkster had decorated and coordinated everything for the entire affair, both inside and out, and was now floating around nervously on his pink cloud.

The plan was for everyone to enjoy the outdoor barbeque, and then head inside. Miz Vivian and Brad would take them on a tour of the now-famous hidden staircase and the tunnel. Then, everyone would head up to the 5000-square foot third floor ballroom of the old mansion for the ball. A silent auction was being held as well, with items displayed gracefully by old Barney on little tables along the mansion's two main first floor halls, and in the two-story foyer at the foot of the grand staircase that led to the second and third floors.

Everything was going fairly well out at the barbeque for the first 45 minutes or so. Then, Avalene Amburgey had arrived. She spotted Bubba and James. She then spotted Justin and Eric. Finally, she spotted Brad and Jack. She loudly, obnoxiously said to one of her equally-slutty friends who was there as the date of one of the Pleasant View City Commissioners, "Well, hell, Shirley, I thought this was the Policeman's Benefit Fund Barbeque and Ball, but from all the damn queens around, you would think it was Gay Pride, instead."

Barney Finkster overheard this, as he was fastidiously adjusting a nearby pot of gardenias. "Excuse me," Barney rasped in his Paul Lynde-like voice. "I heard that!"

"And what the hell are you going to do about it, you old queen?" Avalene challenged.

"Well I never!" Barney exclaimed indignantly.

Avalene proceeded to thrust her hips, and her breasts at Barney and shouted, "Well if you ever HAD anything like THIS maybe you wouldn't be such an old fuckin' faggot!"

Nearly everyone who was trying to eat had stopped to stare now.

"Why that sorry fuckin' little bitch!" James exclaimed to Bubba. James and Bubba, Eric and Justin, and Brad and Jack were all seated around a large round table with each other, having just sat down to eat. Miz Vivian had just come over and joined them, sitting down right between Bubba and Jack.

"Oh, hell no!" Brad exclaimed.

"Now, I know I didn't just hear what I just heard!" Miz Vivian cried aloud, and jumped up from the table.

She marched over nose to nose with Avalene Amburgey. "Just what the hell do you think you are doing!"

"Putting a queen in his place, instead of sitting down at a table full of them to eat barbeque like some damn over-the-hill faghag version of Scarlett O'Hara!" Avalene shouted back.

"Oh, my God!" Jack groaned.

"Oh, LOOKOUT, this is getting GOOD!" Barney rasped excitedly, having now stormed away from Avalene, and gone over to sit down at the table with the guys in the place that Miz Vivian had vacated.

"Well, at least I haven't screwed the whole damn town...the whole damn COUNTY, for that matter!" Miz Vivian cried indignantly.

"Oh, haven't you?" Avalene fired back.

"No, honey, I have two things that you never will: CLASS and STANDARDS," Miz Vivian retorted.

"Oh, you just have a pussy so dried up and filled with cobwebs that no one wants it anymore, and that is why I get all the young and desirable men now!" Avalene shouted.

"Oh, my God!" Jack groaned again.

Avalene took off toward the house then, intending to go around to the end down by the new garage, where the cars had been valet parked in a large, flat adjoining part of the lawn.

"Get your scrawny ass back here, you sorry little two-bit bitch!" Miz Vivian shouted, now having totally forgotten herself and lost her temper. She charged, remarkably fast, after the thirty-some year younger woman.

They stopped on the concrete edge of the pool, with everyone under the tent still taking in the spectacle.

"I have you know that, yes, I enjoy the company of a man. But, I was faithful always for YEARS to my Joe. And I never broke up another home, even before I met and married him. All of that is MORE than I can say for the likes of YOU!" Miz Vivian said.

Avalene then made her big mistake. She shoved Miz Vivian in the lower chest and shouted, "Oh, you are nothing but a high-falutin', faggot lovin' old BITCH!!!"

Jack looked at Justin, and they both were about to intervene. But, before they could even get up from the table, Miz Vivian handled the problem perfectly well herself.

"And you, missy, are a foul-mouthed little tramp that needs to cool her hot ass off!" Miz Vivian shouted. She then charged Avalene, and knocked her squarely off balance and right into the big swimming pool!

"OHMIGAWD, DYNASTY FIGHT! DYNASTY FIGHT!" Barney Finkster rasped, laughing and clapping his hands together like an excited schoolgirl.

Meanwhile, Miz Vivian had straightened her dress, dusted her hands together, and marched back in under the tent. "Well, go on and eat, y'all, don't just sit there staring!" She exclaimed with a grin. The jazz ensemble resumed playing, and a buzz of conversation stirred through the crowd.

"Jack honey," Miz Vivian said, walking back over to the table. "Would you and Justin kindly see to it that Miz Amburgey leaves the premises at once?"

"I'll take care of that, personally," came the stern voice of Chief Morganfield himself. The chief marched over to the cabana, grabbed a towel, and then marched poolside. By now, Avalene, looking like a drowned rat, was stumbling up the pool ladder and out of the water. He threw her the towel.

"I know, I know, I'm going!" Avalene exclaimed. Avalene soon retreated away in shame towards the parking lot.

The "Dynasty Fight" was the talk of the ball that night, of course, and no one blamed Miz Vivian for shoving the trashy little tramp into the pool. But, an audible gasp filled the large ballroom when at 8:30pm, in strode Avalene, this time on the arm of a very handsome older man, none other than the heretofore married banker from Smithville, Tom Hartford!

Miz Vivian immediately strode up to the couple. "I cannot believe after this afternoon that you have the audacity to show up here tonight!" She exclaimed angrily, right in Avalene's overly-made-up face. "And, with a MARRIED man, at that!" Miz Vivian finished with a huff.

"He's SEPARATED and we BOUGHT tickets to this affair just like everyone else!" Avalene retorted angrily, as now all of the dozens of people in the large room were taking in another scene between the two women.

"AFFAIR is the right word for it!" Miz Vivian exclaimed, by this point thoroughly pissed off. "I don't care who you screw, you trashy little two bit whore, but you are NOT coming back in my house to cause more trouble!"

"FINE!" Avalene said. "I will have you to know, though, that Tom is separated from his wife and we will be MARRIED just as soon as his divorce is final! And, I just came here tonight to deliver a message anyway." She paused, then looked around and added, "And just what the hell is this, yet another gay pride rally?" She said evilly, looking around at Eric, Justin, Brad, Jack, James, Bubba, and Barney, among the several other LGBT folks who were in the crowd, which of course obviously also included many straight couples.

"No, but just exactly what in the hell would be wrong with that if it were!" Miz Vivian replied indignantly.

"Well, THAT little queer bastard I had the pleasure of firing!" She said, motioning to James, whom she had managed to get fired from the bank on a technicality.

"Oh, FUCK YOU, you trashy tramp!" James said, stomping up and getting in Avalene's face along with Miz Vivian now. "You're just jealous that my Bubba is way the hell hotter than this old stuffed shirt bastard you're with, and I've never been as glad of anything in my life as when you fired me from that stupid bank!"

The part about her jealousy was very much was true, though Avalene would have died before she would have admitted it. She certainly coveted both Brad's and James's big, dark, handsome men!

Jack had strode up, looking both devastatingly handsome and very official in his police dress uniform, and said diplomatically, "OK folks, we don't want this situation to get any more out of control than it already has. I think you and Tom should just go on and leave now," he said to Avalene.

"GLADLY!" Avalene said. "But, first, the message I came to deliver to YOU!"

"What message could you possibly have for me?" Jack retorted.

"Just this," said Avalene with a triumphant little grin. "You had best just go ahead and sell the top of Smith's Mountain to me and Tom now."

"Look, I've told the people who are mining and logging the bottom of the mountain that the top of the mountain, which I own, is NOT for sale," Jack said, getting angry himself now. "Besides, I'd sell it to them before I'd sell it to a homophobe like you, anyway!"

"You may reconsider that," Avalene replied coolly, "Once they've strip mined the top of the mountain clean and all that is left is a great big level place for Tom and I to build our new home and the resort hotel that we have in mind for it!"