Savannah looked at Lorna. “What do you think, Mama?”
“Another idea I had,” Alex said before Lorna could answer. “A college cart. Where half the profit goes directly into a fund for your college expenses. You work the cart, get paid, get the tips, and save for college and grad school and whatever. And I know a great spot right by the campus that we can get to set up shop.
“Wow, Alex, sounds like you have it all worked out. You said there were several reasons?”
“Like I said, we’re going into business and need people we can trust and we can help each other. Plus, I’m in love with your mother and I know how much she would love for you to have the opportunity to get a college education.”
Savannah turned to her mother. They both had eyes like saucers.
“He loves you, Mama, I told you!”
Lorna looked at Alex. “And when were you planning on telling me this, Alex?”
“I’ve been trying to get up the nerve,” he said sheepishly.
Lorna laughed, got up and walked around the table. “I love you too, Slick,” she said, sitting on his lap and planting a hard French kiss on his mouth. She turned to Savannah and said, “You’re going to college, girl.”
Savannah started laughing and hooting and hollering and dancing around the room. Then she broke into tears and hugged Lorna and Alex and covered them with kisses.
Alex pulled his wallet out of his pocket and took out a check and handed it to Savannah.
“Here, just fill in the payee and the amount. And don’t rip me off.”
Savannah got a fearful look on her face. Alex grinned and kissed her on her forehead.
—-
Over the next few days Alex was a whirlwind of activity as he prepared to open for business. He took delivery of their first cart and placed an order for another. He priced and stocked up on canned drinks, bottled water, chips, cakes, hot dogs, sausages and buns and all the ingredients on Lorna’s shopping list. He rented a small commercial space with a kitchen and equipped it with storage racks and an extra used freezer, fridge and electric stove. When Lorna wasn’t working at the restaurant she made soups in large pots and put them in containers to be frozen.
“What should we call ourselves?” Lorna asked Alex. “Business needs a name, right?”
“Yes, Lorna’s Chiligumbo.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, why not? It’s your food, people should know that. You don’t like it?”
“I was thinking Redbone’s Chiligumbo. Sounds like food…soulful…funky.”
“You want to use the nickname that asshole George gave you?”
“Yes, it will piss him off, don’t you think?”
Alex laughed and said, “Yep, I bet it would. Redbone’s it is, you talked me into. I’ll get the cart painted.”
—-
By the time Lorna’s last two weeks at the restaurant were up the first cart was in business. Lorna and Alex worked it together the first few days to learn the drill. Savannah observed when she could—she had scheduled her classes early and late in the day leaving middays open. Alex played clarinet sometimes to attract the attention of passersby.
Their first site was near the post office. The first day, a Monday, they started at 10:30 a.m. and stayed until two p.m. After costs, their profit was $208 plus $22 in tips. The next day they ran out of soups at 1:15 and hot dogs a few minutes after that; their profit was just over $300 and $32 in tips. They started bringing an extra cooler of food in the following days so they wouldn’t run out.
“This is amazing!” Lorna said on Friday afternoon when they were tallying the receipts. For the week they’d made almost $1200 in profit and over $100 in tips. “And to think how hard I had to work at Bertha’s just to make sixty or seventy dollars in tips!”
“And this is just one cart,” Alex said. “Wait until we have a whole fleet! Although this is a prime location, I’m not sure we can expect them all to do this well.”
The next week the take increased by over fifteen percent, as weather was good and more people discovered them. Some people inquired if they could buy the Chiligumbo, chili or gumbo in bulk so soon Lorna was taking orders for premade containers.
Three weeks later their second cart was delivered. Alex had it painted with their new ‘Redbone’s Chiligumbo’ logo in bright red and ‘College Cart’ in small block letters, and he spent a few hours training Savannah. With her class schedule she would be able to work the cart from about 11:15 until 1:45. Alex would stock it, deliver and pick it up.
“You know Alex, you and Mama are working so much together, you should be sleeping with her every night,” Savannah said casually as Alex was showing her how to slip bills into the built-in safe.
“Huh?” Alex said, stunned.
“Yeah, you should move in. You guys work hard and I know you two are having sex all the time, no reason you should have to sneak around to get down.”
“That wouldn’t bother you? It’s a pretty small house and it’s just been the two of you for so long.”
“Nah and I’m out a lot anyway with school and everything else. And I’ll get a pair of earplugs for when you all are doing it.” She grinned.
Alex laughed and said, “You know Savannah, you are one cool young lady,” and hugged her.
—-
Savannah’s cart made money from the start, although the gains were more gradual. Within two months a third cart was ordered. Alex’s goal was to have six carts in operation after one year, and twelve after two years. He started hiring part-timers, preferably students or senior citizens, but he needed to find people who were honest and could work fast to maximize sales during what were very short business days.
Lorna noticed that as business grew and the income and challenges increased, Alex’s sex drive became even greater, and more intense. It was like a need he had like food or water or air. Lorna was sore most of the time from fucking, orgasms and cocksucking. Her pussy had never seen such action, Alex’s cock stabbing her, filling her up over and over until he shot his seed, and him eating her and sucking her sauces until she exploded in his face. And her asshole was getting a workout too; Alex never missed a chance to slide his widebody in and out of her butt. But she wasn’t complaining; she’d never had such incredible sex in her life and she planned to keep on pleasing her man. Lorna was the most-fucked woman in the city outside of a hooker, she was sure of it. The more she fucked Alex, the more energy he seemed to have.
Over the next eighteen months they added seven more carts and had ten operating around the local area. All were profitable, some moreso than others, but the money was rolling in. The business was definitely working. They had a number of part-time employees selling and preparing the food and stocking the carts. Lorna oversaw all the cooking.
Lorna had been bugging Alex for them to take a vacation. No soups, no dogs, no carts, just the two of them. It was the dog days of summer so they made reservations at an island resort. The plan was simple: relax, lie around the pool, take long happy hours and casual dinners, and make love.
—-
They flew in at around 2:30 p.m. local time. After a death-defying cab ride they got to the hotel at around three, which was check-in time. They had a deluxe room overlooking the blue ocean, equipped with a stocked bar, Jacuzzi, kitchenette and champagne on ice.