So you-all wanna know where he went, you do? How come ain’t nobody even answered his e-mail for the longest time, and considerin’ how regular he was and all?

Why are y’all now stuck talkin’ to me?

I’ll tell ya where he went. You just be patient here, and I’ll spill ya the story.  No, I ain’t gonna tell you my name.  And Muckster Mike, unless you’re a total doof, you already guessed wasn’t ever his.

I’d say it goes back about six months ago -- July -- when he gone off and left me here again. I s’pose it happens in every marriage after some years pass. We didn’t never have no kids, and I don’t know if was my parts that wasn’t workin’ or his, but anyways, maybe five years back, he started it...this goin’ off on trips without me. Figured, I did, that the bloom was off the rose of romance, and he just wanted some time out with the boys.

I didn’t make no fuss over it.

Love a man a woman might, but you make no mistake about it, men suck time. And Mike was home more than most. I ain’t gonna tell you what he did for a living, but he was what you’d call an independent contractor. Did pretty good, he did, ’nuff so I didn’t have to work myself...on this computer all day was where he sat and did his thing, and I tell you, it sure is a mean machine.

Anyways, it just so happened that maybe a couple times a summer, my Mike would take a hike. For a few days, here and there, or maybe a week. And I hate sports. Goin’ outta town just to see some dumb old ballgame don’t trip my trigger. In fact, I got a name for sports in general. I call ’em basketbore and basebore, and the crownin’ glory of all bores is (could you ever guess?) The Super Bore.

When he’s home he always wants stuff. It’s get me this or get me that, make my coffee, bring me a sandwich! He does like to keep his den door closed when he’s workin’, but seems like every half hour he’s out, and he’s talkin’ at me...and he’s got me runnin’.

Since now I got him out of the house, it was time to clean house! I started down in the basement, and I got rid of all them dead bugs that land in the corners.

I wouldn’t say he was terribly messy in the house in general, but Mike’s den was another story. My God, the paperclips and gum wrappers on the floor! Had to pick ’em all up, or they’d have wrecked the vacuum! He sure did like to chow down while he was workin’, and I don’t think he turned his head if he sneezed neither...well, I got me the Windex and washed his monitor all nice and shiny-like.

Anyways, I figured to clean out the drawers in his desk when I was at it. Mind you, I wouldn’t of snooped. I’d of just looked in there, quick-like, and maybe got rid of stuff that I knew he really didn’t need. Like, say, junk mail he hadn’t opened, or scraps of paper that wasn’t attached to nothin’...that kind of thing.

I only got a little curious when the big drawer on the bottom wouldn’t open.

I hadn’t thought we had secrets from each other.

But that danged drawer was locked!

I pulled on it and tugged on it, ’cause I couldn’t quite believe he’d actually gone and locked me outta his desk, but it really wouldn’t open. I figured, at first, that I’d just let it go, that a man was entitled to a little privacy. Like maybe he was writing himself a journal or something...and I didn’t figure, no way, that Mike’s life was that exciting anyway.

I went on and wiped the windows...but you know, folks, after awhile, it kinda got to me.

How come he gone and locked that drawer against his own wife?

I got me a hammer and a screwdriver. I don’t know what I was thinkin’, because I just busted that bugger open, and I wasn’t real delicate about it, so he’d be sure to see the damage when he got back. It just bugged me. Figured, I guess, I’d just yell at him when he got home about how much it bugged me.

I guess he didn’t never see the damage after all.

It didn’t look like much at first! Seemed like he had a lotta folders in there, which was pretty much what his whole den looked like anyway...shelves and shelves of ’em, stuffed with papers, but the other stuff in there, he didn’t have much of anywhere else at all...it was a lot of videotapes. Next thing I thought was, hot dang, I got a man who’s into porn. And it rankled me, yes it did, ’cause I ain’t never turned him down.

Not that he’d asked me for much for a few years.

But these tapes didn’t have no titles on ’em.

Guess I shoved that drawer back shut, and I took the curtains off his windows to wash, but while they was goin’ in the dryer, I got me just a little curious, and bein’ tired and sore anyway from all that cleanin’, figured maybe I’d just take me a rest break, grab one and shove it in just to see what it was.

Talk about one busty blonde.  Hair flyin’ around all billowy, like a cloud. And that woman had tits fallin’ outta her eyeballs. Or maybe stuffed up to her nose. I don’t know. Bein’ a girl myself, I kinda suspect a push-up bra, but she sure looked to have a good figure. Like a moron, though, she was tryin’ to run in a pair of high heels. I guess she sorta stumbled along lookin’ none too coordinated and yellin’ stuff like, "Please go away! Just leave me alone!" until she got outta the woods and then I saw a river and a beach and suddenly she was runnin’ along the sand which, in two seconds flat, turned out not to be too solid!

I didn’t think too much of it, I guess. They got quicksand on TV now and then. Like all them doofy Tarzan movies.

I was just kinda happy that it looked like Mike was collecting off-the-wall and unknown drama, and not porn! Anyways, this chick was, like, knee-deep in sandy slushy goop right away. And she started wigglin’ her legs around and yelling, "Oh, my God, it’s QUICKSAND!" and then this unknown assailant comes, and you can’t really see him, but he says stuff like, "You sure are sinking, aren’t you?" and "How does it feel, Maria?"

And Maria’s suddenly up to her thighs. She’s holding out her arms and begging him to get her out. He don’t do it, though, you just see, I guess, a pair of man’s legs, and I shoulda looked more closely at them legs (although he got somebody else to do the voice) but I didn’t notice, because I was too wrapped up in poor Maria. The sand just crept up her thighs until it hit the bottom of that white dress, which, I guess, ended about two inches below her crotch. Stained it all dark in splotches. Then, the quicksand started pushin’ that dress up. They don’t show that kind of thing in the movies. It was all kinda weird and sensual at once and poor Maria sank to her belly and started thrashing her hips around and all the quicksand wiggled and jiggled.

And then he says something like, "You sure are giving me a show. You look better sinking here than you did in the back seat of my car!" and Maria sinks a little farther and begs and pleads to be taken out, but he don’t do it, no sirree, and then the quicksand is up to her tits. It pushes them up a little, and I thought they was shoved up enough anyway, but from what the guy says, you can tell he likes the way it looks. Before you know it, Maria’s arms are going in and out and making little splashes and getting all muddy, and then the quicksand closes over her shoulders and she kinda tilts her head back and the quicksand creeps up her neck until she’s just this head, almost like she’s had it chopped off, except stuff is still moving underneath.

And her hair is all lying flat on the surface. The guy says, "Well, Maria, you are going to join the others now!" and Maria moans a little and says all soft-like, "Please, let me out, I’m going to sink under and die!" then the quicksand creeps up her cheeks and her nose goes under and before you can say, "HELP ME, I’M SINKING!" all you see is a bunch of hair trailing after her head as the quicksand goes SLURP!

And that was the end of Maria.

I recognized Tonia. Guess you would too! She’s attractive enough, I guess, she’s got reddish yellow hair about to the shoulders and I guess, a good figure, but she ain’t all titty like the other one. I don’t know her so good, though. She’s just this girl who’s one of Mike’s clients. She used to come by now and then, but I didn’t hardly remember her until she came up on the video.

She was wearin’ this funky slinky long dark blue satin princess dress that looked kinda dumb on her, ’cause she isn’t quite skinny enough to pull it off. Anyways, she was walking along the same beach. First thing I think is, they sure don’t change locales at this film company much, do they? She was carrying a magic wand that looked like it might be made of tinfoil and glitter, and saying, "I wonder where my prince is?" And before you know it, Tonia’s little gold slippers have disappeared. The long dress bunches up a bit as it floats on the top of the quicksand.

I thought the whole thing was an interesting visual effect, to go sink a dress like that. It was so much material! Tonia kept goin’ down steady, but that dress stubbornly stayed on top. In fact, she’s about up to the waist and all you can see is this mass of blue shiny satin just meanderin’ about on the surface. When her waist goes under, that billowy skirt just stays there...and shimmers around...as she yells and screams, "Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo!" and she waves the wand around...and then her ribs go under but pieces of the dress don’t, and wouldn’t you know it, the tit thing happened again. I guess if you got breasts...they like stay on top as long as they can until they just get sucked down!

She gets in pretty deep, just like the other one, but by the time she’s up to her neck, you can’t see much quicksand. It’s more like her head’s just floating in satin. ’Cept where her arms pushed it down.

I figured she was a goner, but I guess nobody had the guts to kill a princess, because this other chick (I got no clue who, so please write to me care of Muckster Mike if you know her name) shows up wearing fairy wings, and she says, "I am your fairy godmother!" and she grabs the other end of Princess Tonia’s wand and Princess Tonia struggles and squirms and pushes and she manages to crawl out, and I figure they must of put steel in that wand, not cardboard, for it to work so good, but I tell you, that dress was a mess.

(I promise, I’ll do what I can with it, but this sucks.)

And maybe some day, I’ll find you-all a new location. ’Cause now it was the third go-around at the same lake.

She was a little bitty teeny creature with no breasts and straight brown hair, and it looked liked what was next on the tape was pretty raw. In fact, she didn’t sink hardly at all. She looked like she was faking it. She was sticking her arms in and moving them some as if she was sinking, but if you ask me, she landed in the quicksand and sank down about chest-deep, but the tit thing hardly happened. Maybe she didn’t have enough for it to happen, or maybe she chose a bra that was made of iron. I bet it’s the last. She looked like the kind of girl who’d try to foil ’em.

By the time she was up to her armpits, she was done already. Her teeth chattered and she complained a lot and forgot her lines or muffed ’em, so I think I have to cut a lot of stuff out. I’ll, ah, get back to it. Sometime soon.

I was pretty tired by then and confess that my eyeballs were closing. I was wondering what was up with all this quicksand when...I guess...he must have gotten a friend to help out, because suddenly --

OH, MY GOD, THAT’S MIKE!!!

Forgive me if I don’t include his pictures on the final version. I’ll just tell ya, flat-out, that I guess somebody else was shooting film of Mike as he was shooting film of that girl, and yes, indeedy, that was my Mike, and he had to go kneeling into the quicksand to get shots, and he was sitting on that girl’s legs to push her down, because she just kept popping out! And he put his hands on her shoulders to push her in some more. And then she got to wipe the mud off her eyelid on his T-shirt!

My eyeballs flew right open.

First thing I knew was, I didn’t like him touching that girl so much!

Second thing I knew was, I bet he never went to one single basebore game.

I got back into the drawer I busted open, and there was all kinds of papers and official stuff for "Muckster Mike". Seems he was runnin’ quite a business here. That I didn’t know about.

I don’t think I’ll tell you what-all I found in there, ’cause it ain’t really interesting to nobody ’cept me, and that’s only ’cause I never knew it was there before. It’s boring stuff like bank statements (though it ain’t boring to me that he hid this money from me!) and certificates and invoices and cancelled checks and mailing lists...stuff like that.

You’ll get to see the pictures, though! I’m gonna put up right here whatever he never got around to.

My God, the pictures and pictures and more pictures that was in there! I think he musta shanghaied himself every girl in the country who looked half-decent and stuffed her into some bog or another. Girls was sinkin’ in their full clothes, sinkin’ in bikinis and halter tops and crazy outfits like maybe you’d wear to a costume party. Girls was all muddy from head to toe, even their hair hangin’ in slimy strings, or all clean and made-up...what parts of ’em that weren’t under quicksand, anyway.

They was all real photos, too, not stuff you’d get from a magazine. He musta taken ’em. All of ’em.

I ask you -- what was I to think?

I think these are too many girls for me and I wanna know what he’s been up to with ’em all. I think I suddenly wonder if my Mike has been faithful to me. I think, no, I know, that he ain’t hit me up for much lovin’ for a real long time now, and I figure I got an idea why.

I think he’s too busy doin’ this, thinking about this, working on this, to think a whole lot about me; and I also wonder if he’s really workin’ on that regular job of his so much, or if his den door is closed so much because he’s workin’ on this instead.

I think maybe I don’t really have a marriage. I think maybe I’m just the cleanin’ lady and the cookin’ lady but when he wants to get his rocks off for real, he’d rather be around these other ladies. And it sure helps a lot if they like it deep -- way deep, if ya get my drift.

I think maybe I got an idea of what I ought to do with Muckster Mike.

He wasn’t due to come home for another whole day. I don’t know where that river he was playin’ at is yet, but there’s rivers enough around here.

In the morning I shook him awake and said I had a really nice idea. I says I thought me and Mike hadn’t spent no quality time together for quite a stretch, and I thought it’d be real cozy to go have a picnic out by the river. Just the two of us. He was a might surprised to hear that, but allowed that it sounded good to take a day and go enjoy the nice weather. So I fixed us a nice lunch of liver sausage with strawberry jam sandwiches with fudge bars ’n’ that yellow banana frosting for dessert and filled up the big pitcher with pink lemonade. I put it all in the cutest yellow wicker picnic basket.

I said I have just the prettiest place for a warm marital snuggly-fest so if he didn’t mind, I’d do the drivin’. We got into Volkswagen and I turned outta the driveway and down the road and out onto the freeway where the speed limit is about seventy. It was kinda quiet on the way, which made me realize that I not only hadn’t been all alone with him for ever-so-long at a single stretch in quite a long time now, but we didn’t seem to have a lot to talk about anyways. I guess we kinda drifted apart over the years. The silence got a little long, so I tried to make some small talk, like, how’s that big job goin’ and had he heard anything from Tonia lately?

He stammered around a little bit and said Tonia was fine, just fine. Then he said it sure was nice to be with me, which made me feel just a little sorry for what I planned to do, but before you know it, we was already at the river. I got out and grabbed the picnic basket and he followed me outta the car and down the path. He got a little puzzled when I got off the path and started goin’ right into the woods, and he says, do you know where you’re goin’, honey? He follows me, though, but says the ground seems like it’s getting a little squishy.

I says sure I do, not to worry none, and just wait ’til you see that pretty little place I found! My gosh, it’s so lovely, you ain’t never seen the like of it! I tells him it’s got a tiny little waterfall and a pool with a lotta water lilies with these really delicate pink flowers growin’ all around the shore.

I says not to worry about them shoes, dear! I says they’ll probably wipe down just fine. Then I made like I tripped and yelped, "Ouch!" and fell down in the bushes and he come to grab me and I says, don’t worry, I’m fine, just fine, I just think I’ll rest up here for a bit, but why don’t you just go on ahead and wait for me?

He says, is it okay to just leave you here?

And I says, oh, yeah, it ain’t far now at all. And I was startin’ to get worried, ’cause I could see the river behind the trees, and it sure wasn’t gonna be long before he knew there wasn’t no waterfall. So I figured, go for broke! I pointed my finger toward the river and yelled real urgent-like:

"Hey, it’s the white squirrel! He’s sittin’ on the shore of the river! If you run over there real quick, you can see him!"

"Whoahhh!" he yells. "Stay back where you are, honey! It’s mighty gooshy over here!"

Well, yeah, I knowed how gooshy it was! ’Course I wasn’t really hurt, so I just got up and kinda watched my own footin’ as I went over to see. Now I know what you-all are expectin’ here. What you’d really like me to do here is describe my Mike in exact detail, like, what color is his hair and what his body was like and stuff like that so’s you can all imagine the sinking better.

Well, I ain’t gonna tell you what he looked like, exactly. Wouldn’t be a good idea, would it, seein’ what I did to him! I’d say he was good-lookin’ enough, though, not that I was too moved by that any more, but I’ll tell ya he was wearin’ a light blue long-sleeve shirt that buttoned in front and jeans. And when I got over there I saw that the quicksand was up around the knees of his jeans. He was sinkin’ pretty steady, but there was a nice wet line on the denim gettin’ chased upward by the mud.

"Don’t come too close!" he yells. "Get me a branch, honey. I think it’s a little deep around here!"

"Yeah, darlin’, it sure is, ain’t it? I think you found yourself a little patch of quicksand!"

"Quicksand!" he gasps. And I knowed from the way he said it that this wasn’t no little thing.

He wiggles his legs around a little and they’re stuck pretty good. Pretty thick-lookin’ stuff it was, all shiny and slick on top. "Well, I sure hope this isn’t too deep! Hurry up with that branch, will you?"

"Oh, sweetums, I’d say it’s fifteen feet if it’s an inch. Leastways the branch I stuck way down in it yesterday was about that long."

And he quits wigglin’ around in there to stare at me and his jaw just drops wide open like, well, a big rock ploppin’ right into quicksand!

"You knew about this!" he shrieks. And he starts pumpin’ his legs around and of course he just sank down to the middle of his thighs! "You -- you! What kind of lousy joke is this? This isn’t funny, honey."

I edged my way a little closer to him and sat me down on a big fat ol’ log. I set down the picnic basket. "I think it’s a scream, darlin’. I can’t think of no way more fittin’ to get me rid of one Muckster Mike."

"You know about that!" He kinda moved in a half-circle and the mud just squished and slathered around him. He waved his arms around lookin’ for somethin’ to grab, but there wasn’t nothin’ close enough. He sank down a little farther. Of course in a place like this, you gotta mention it when the quicksand hits the privates! I’d say the little wet line hit him in the crotch first, and then the mud just sorta slid in a big slab right over the, ah, well, believe it or not (and you probably do!) that man actually had a bit of a bulge there. Not for long, though, ’cause the quicksand ate it!

"I kinda sorta got into your lower desk drawer, darlin’."

"You did this over that!" he shouted, and the quicksand inched real smooth-like over his buns. He reached his arms out at me, tryin’ to make me sorry for him. And he sank another inch. "The Muckster thing’s just a big joke, honey. You didn’t take that seriously, did you?"

"Well, I don’t know as I took the mucky parts so serious, but I kinda got a problem with you hidin’ bank accounts and lyin’ to me about where you are, and I guess I found all them other women a bit of a sore spot -- dearie."

He sank a little more. I was kickin’ back, puttin’ my feet up, and enjoyin’ the show. I figure the quicksand was about up to his belly button by now. The little wet line was travelin’ up his shirt, gettin’ chased higher by quicksand. He was lookin’ around kinda wild-like, seein’ as he figured by now that I wasn’t gonna get him no branch. "I’m going to get out of here, you know. I got bad news for you, sweetie-buns -- people don’t really die in quicksand. I am going to sink only so far, and then I am going to find a way to crawl out of here, when I do, you are going to be one sorry little wifey. Unless you get me that branch and help me out of here now."

OOPS. I didn’t know that! Dagnabbit, it seemed like such a surefire way to get rid of a guy, and no pesky body lyin’ around neither! Come to think of it, though, I guess none of them girls he was messin’ with ended up dead meat either. Leastways, Tonia’s still kickin’ around!

But right now, he was still sinkin’. He was lookin’ around kinda desperate-like with quicksand goin’ up his ribs and his hands were startin’ to splat in and out of the mud. Just like Maria! He was lookin’ down at his own body parts goin’ under, and wrigglin’ around makin’ big long folds in his shirt, then he was lookin’ at me, tryin’ to look mad enough to scare me, but I do think he was the one who was gettin’ real scared. ’Cause it didn’t look like he was comin’ to a stop.  His ribs sank down and then the quicksand was up to his chest and his arms were gettin’ all muddy as they went in and out, in and out. The top of the mud all moved around in fat ol’ bulges as he struggled and struggled and sank down a little more.

I guess he finally came to a stop when the quicksand was startin’ to go over his shoulders. I could see that he was right after all, that he was really done goin’ down, and wasn’t gonna sink no farther, but was just gonna be hangin’ around the surface forever like some kinda pesky mold that you just can’t get off your basement wall, but he couldn’t seem to figure a way to get out either. He kinda hung there in the mud, with thick stuff movin’ and slidin’ all around him, and he looked up at me and said:

"Time for the branch, honey-bunny."

"Okay, sweetie-pie. You gonna stay away from them other girls from now on?" I got off my log and found me a real long thick branch. It was pretty heavy, but I could manage.

"Me being Muckster Mike isn’t so bad for you, loveydoll. Didn’t you even think about all the extra income that brings in?"

"I think maybe you was never gonna share it with me," I says to him. I’m holdin’ out the branch now, and he’s reachin’ for it. But once he got his muddy hands on it, I didn’t start pullin’.

I started pushin’.

He screamed, "No! No! Don’t do it! Help me out of here! I’ll share the money! I’ll be so honest, you can just call me Abe Lincoln! I’ll tell you where I’m going and what I’m doing every minute of the day! NO! Don’t push me under, pleeeease don’t -- oh, I’m sinking! I’m going under!"

But I was pokin’ him down there just as hard as I could! The quicksand turned into this big ol’ heavy roll all around his face and then his screams just got cut off, and then GLUG, he was under!

They ain’t never found him. Let this be a lesson to any of ya who think you’re gonna run around pullin’ the same sneaky stuff -- Muckster Mike covered himself, so to say, so very well that he covered his own tracks! The story around here goes, well, after awhile I called the cops to say he was missin’. And I told ’em just what Mike told me. I said he went off to an outta-state basebore game with his buddy Lloyd, and just didn’t seem to ever come home. We do live a bit ways outta town, so, lucky for me I guess, ain’t nobody really did see Mike come home in his taxi, and ain’t nobody saw that we drove off the next day.

So, the cops go callin’ on Lloyd, and Lloyd, bless his soul, he don’t know a thing about it! Mike never went nowhere with Lloyd, and yup, the one cop did find out what I did -- that there wasn’t no basebore played that day in that town anyway! So ain’t nobody, not the cops and not me, really knows where he went at all.

I got pictures of the place, though. Wherever it is.

And one of the last folks to see Mike alive would be this busty brunette. Yep, she’s stark naked. My, wasn’t he gettin’ brazen!

Yup, he did dump his little suitcase by the back door when he got home, and right after I stuffed him down in the quicksand, I gone through it. He sure does own a little camcorder thingie. I never saw it before. And there’s a new tape in there.

That brunette is just walkin’ along the beach sayin’ stuff like she just feels like goin’ out for a little skinny dippin’, and before you know it, the ground underneath her feet just opens up like a great big ol’ Venus flytrap and she starts slidin’ down into the quicksand pit, yellin’ and screamin’ and kickin’ up the most humongous fuss until the ground just swallows her whole. She blows out a bunch of air under there and POP! It all breaks the surface which then wiggles a little bit and then a little less and then it’s still, so you KNOW she’s a goner.

After awhile they quit lookin’ for him.

I don’t know as I’ve missed him so much, but after a stretch passed, I figured out that Mike’s passin’ did leave me with a problem. Basically, since I never did have to work a job when I had Mike, seems that his bein’ gone left me with, shall I say, finite financial resources. I still gotta make the house payment and all.

It ain’t desperate yet. But I gotta get my butt crackin’ on a career.

It’s been a learnin’ curve, but I took me some computer courses and I hacked into this baby I’m workin’ on right now.

So that’s how he done it! You know, I just couldn’t figure out, for the dangedest-long time, what was up with all this quicksand. I mean, obviously he had himself a thing about it, I guess you’d call it a fetish, but tryin’ to imagine what kinda business he was runnin’ here...

Well, HELLO to you-all! What a quirky, hidden bunch of mucksters you-all are, ain’t you? It’s a whole wacky little subculture! Who’d of thunk, for a stone cold minute here, that there were so many of you, and all so very into your quicksand -- and whatta lucrative market you were for him!

I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your loyal support of Mike.

I hope you will continue to purchase videotapes from MUCKSTER MIKE’S NOTORIOUS ALL-QUICKSAND WEB-SITE!!! I promise to regularly update this site with the unreleased quicksand photos, of which I have inherited five hundred and eighty-eight. I am tryin’ real hard to learn the video-editing software and do think that the list of titles will expand in the near future.

And, ya know, doin’ this ain’t half-bad! In the way of research, I wound my way back out to the quicksand at the river and took a dip. I don’t know as I’m so very into this as Mike was, but it really did feel soooo nice! I was just relaxin’, right there under the sun, all my parts gettin’ gently hugged by the heavy and thick sludgy mud, lettin’ my tits float on top, and I tell you, it was like sittin’ in a big ol’ easy chair or lyin’ on a water bed all covered with blankets.

Mike was right about one thing. QUICKSAND ROCKS!

You know, maybe he died a happy man.

To carry on Mike’s work and legacy properly, though, I am gonna have to eventually enter your muddy subterranean world under a new name. Learnin’ that camcorder wasn’t too tough, not compared to learnin’ this computer, and I been out trollin’ model web-sites checkin’ out their prices, and lookin’ through what papers Mike left behind, seein’ what stuff costs.

So keep your eyeballs peeled, folks. I’m gonna come out and join you in the mud...real soon.