Author’s note: about the character Angus. First off, an apology for the shabby job writing in a dialect. The point was not to make Angus sound Scottish, but to remind the reader that Angus has a particular manner of speaking that identifies him immediately. Second, I wish to make it clear I do not hold the Scots in disparagement nor wish to cast shade upon them. The thing is the Devil (if you believe) is an ethereal being who would have to assume a mortal form. That is to say, he has to sound like somebody. Please do not take Angus as an insult, but as a tribute to the band and the song that inspired this tale.
Anything for a Price.
Chapter 1
Necessity maybe the mother of invention, but boredom begets brilliance. After 4 a.m. Jeremy Barnhart downed his last beer and stared numbly at his blank browser when inspiration struck. “Anything for a price,” he said, typing in the keywords. One click and he was certain the result was pure bullshit.
The site’s wallpaper was solid black, no drop-down menus, no site navigation, just one simple line: ANYTHING FOR A PRICE and a phone number in black on black outlined in dark grey. Why not cold-call this jackass up in the middle of the night? It’s probably just some time share franchise.
“Hullo Jeremy,” said the deep voice with more than a hint of a Scottish accent on the phone.
“How’d the fuck do you know my name?” Jeremy said, slurring his words just a little louder than was called for.
“Relax, laddie, I got Caller ID and facial recognition software.”
“Oh, okay, um, facial recognition software?”
“It’s not magic, laddie. I am looking at yew through yer phone and yer PC. The only thing I need to know is what do yew want to have done?”
“What was I calling about? Yeah, you say anything for a price, anything?”
“(sigh) Aye, that’s what it says. That’ll be five dollars.”
“What the fuck, man?”
“Anything for a price, and the cost of answering dumb shit questions is five dollars, don’t ye know? Yer up to ten dollars, by the way.”
“I ain’t paying no ten damned dollars!”
“Laddie, we could quibble up a tidy wee sum, but yew called me for a reason. Just name the deed, and I’ll name the price.”
“Um…”
“Well?”
“Um… it’s, well, it’s just that I have never said this out loud before. Ah, this is harder than I thought. Uh, I, I want to fuck my mom. There, I said it.”
“Look, laddie, go talk to the wench and tell her your true feelings.”
“Yeah right, are you fucking crazy? She’d have me put in a mental hospital. Have you seen my mother? She is fucking hot! Everybody, and I mean everybody, wants to get into her pants. I can’t remember the last time I saw her buy a drink.”
“Yew go drinking with yer maw a lot?”
“Not really.”
“Laddie, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m looking at your maw right now.”
“Holy fuck you can do that?”
“I’m on her FaceSpace page, Jeremy. Yew now owe me fifteen dollars. Hmm, she’s not married and not in a relationship. As I was saying, lad yew should talk to her. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper than doing business with me.”
“I’m not a lad.”
“Oh, me apologies, Mr. Barnhart. Since yew be living in her basement, I assumed yew a wee bit younger. So tell me, Mr. Barnhart, what about yer mother makes yew crave her so much?”
“Um, just everything”
“Be specific, please.”
“Well, I like her boobs. She runs around the house without a bra on, and she has no clue what that does to me. A couple times she walked through the house without a top on at all. I pretended not to notice, but it makes me hard just thinking about it.”
“So yew have a boob fetish? Is it really worth losing yer mother over?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, things will never be the same between yew two again after this. Lovers break up. They hate each other and never want to see each other ever again. My suggestion remains. If yew want to have sex with the wench, yew ought to be man enough to at least talk to her before hiring a professional.”
“A professional what?”
“Just a professional and that’s twenty dollars to yew, Mr. Barnhart.”
“How is that! What? Wait a minute, that’s not a dumb-ass question! Besides, I don’t want to have sex with mom. I wanna own her.” The sound of his own voice spooked Jeremy as he said the word ‘own.’ It crackled more like some demonic hiss than an actual word a human would say.
“Ahh, now we be getting somewhere, Mr. Barnhart.”
His stomach quivered at the joy the unknown voice took in his confession. He was too terrified to speak, and too curious to hang up.
“There be a favorite photo of her, not on yer phone and not on yer computer. Tell me, Mr. Barnhart, where do you keep it? I bet she’s not even naked in it, is she? But there be a photograph that yew drool over, the one yew ham-shank yer whalluper to. Where do yew keep it?”
Jeremy could hear his own breathing. His alcohol addled brain could sense his racing heart.
“It’s a Polaroid I took on our trip to Arizona. I keep it in the bathroom behind a box of tissues.”
“Let me guess, it was the first time you saw the wench as a whore?”
“Yes,” said Jeremy, barely above a whisper.
“So Mr. Barnhart, yew saw her, and yew thought she fucks everyone else. Why not yew?”
“Yes.”
“And did ye try?”
“She got wasted at the hotel bar and I, I grabbed one of her tits. She went crazy screaming at me, ‘who do you think you are?’ and ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ Then she just started calling me names and talking about calling the cops. She didn’t remember it the next morning. I guess I should be grateful.”
Jeremy felt hollow, like admitting his secret to this stranger had sucked his soul out of his body.
“Yew said, yew wanted to own the wench Mr. Barnhart. Do yew still feel that way?”
Jeremy trembled as he licked his dry lips.
“Yes! She fucking calls me a pervert. When she’s the one giving that shit out like cotton candy. That is the kind of woman you own. You said it. My mom is a fucking whore.”
“Done and done, that will be five thousand and twenty dollars, Mr. Barnhart.”
“What the hell for?”
“For making yer mother yer property and it’s now five thousand and twenty-five dollars.”
“I’m not paying you five cents, let alone five thousand dollars.”
“Mr. Barnhart, I’m not the man yew want to swindle. Remember yew called me. I told yew the price of answers to dumb questions and yew kept asking, anyway. Yew made the request, and I accepted. Payment will be due when service is rendered.”
“What service? Dude, I don’t even know your name! Let alone have a contract!”
“Making yer mother yer property, me name is Angus, and if yew really want a contract, I’d be most happy to have you sign, but for now it’s not needed. The price is five thousand and forty.”
“Fuck you, man!”
Morning came and went. Jeremy crawled out from the basement just before the evening meal. He looked like hell and didn’t smell much better.
“Hey there, sleepyhead.”
“Hi, mom,” said Jeremy, followed by a yawn and loud smacking noises as he licked the inside of his mouth.
“Thank you so much for the chocolates. I just got them and they look delicious,” said Tawny as she popped a truffle into her mouth. “mmmmm, mmmmm… HHHMMMMM!!!!!!”
Tawny’s face twisted in horror. She had enough time to pound her fist on the table before she fell onto the floor.
Shock and surprise jolted Jeremy out of his haze, and he rushed to his mother’s side. There on the box of chocolates was a phone number on a sticky note. Picking up his phone, Jeremy noticed he had dialed the same number the night before.
“Hello laddie,” said a deep voice. “I wondered when yew would call.”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Angus, remember? We have a deal and yew now owe me five thousand and forty-five dollars.”
“You just poisoned my mother, asshole. I’m calling the fucking cops!”
“Okay, but the wench will die before ye get any help, laddie. I told yew, I am not the man you want to swindle. Whether the rest of yer days are a nightmare or a daydream is up to yew.”
“Alright, alright, alright, what the fuck do you want?”
“My money, which is now five thousand fifty dollars.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Yew know CPR laddie? Save the wench’s life. Yew can even play with those titties yer so mad about, and she’ll ne’er mind. All yew have to do is keep her alive. Oh, try not to break any of her ribs. She won’t thank ye for that. The price is now five thousand and fifty-five.”
“Fuck you, man!”
Jeremy put down his phone and began chest compressions. His mom’s boobs were right there, but Jeremy was too busy to take advantage. All he could do was watch them undulate as he worked feverishly to keep Tawny alive.
In no time, Jeremy weakened. The young man’s slothful lifestyle left him without the strength or stamina to be a man of action. His flabby arms were aching, his back was tired, and he realized that if he had called an ambulance, they would have been there by now. Regret and doubt filled Jeremy’s mind as he blamed himself. His mother’s life had been in his hands and he had failed her. Jeremy put the phone on speaker.
“Angus, are you still there?”
“Aye, laddie and that’s five thousand and sixty dollars.”
“Fuck you, man! And fuck your goddamned money, just call an ambulance.”
“Sure, but it will cost you.”
“Yeah, I know, five thousand and sixty-five fucking dollars!”
“No, it will cost you… your mother.”
“What! Is she gonna die?”
“No, but if ye call an ambulance now, yew will ne’er own her and the price is five thousand and seventy dollars.”
“What the fuck, man? Did you think I could just do this all fucking day? I can’t keep going and if I stop, she dies!”
“She’s almost done, laddie, and all she’s going to remember is how hard yew worked to keep her alive. And she’ll be very grateful, Jeremy.”
“Done?”
“Done with the conversion, Jeremy, and you now owe me five thousand and seventy-five dollars. I’m getting’ the feeling I could almost make a living off of yer ignorant questions. Of course, there is a difference between earning a living and living a life, but I seriously doubt ye would recognize it if it smacked yew on the face.”
On cue, Tawny Barnhart slapped her son’s face as hard as she could from her awkward position.
“What the hell?”
“That hurts Jeremy! Get off me!”
“Mom, you’re alive! Oh, thank god I didn’t think I could keep ongoing.”
Jeremy sat with a greasy grin. His smelly sweat was dripping off his spiky hair onto her naked chest. His eyes drifted down to his mother’s tits. He expected a rebuke, some bitter jab about his indiscretion, but Tawny laid there on her kitchen floor and let her son stare at her naked breasts.
“Are you ok?”
“My chest hurts. Can I go to bed?”
“Yeah, sure mom.”
Too inconsiderate to offer his mother any help, Jeremy leered at his mother’s ass, swinging from side to side as she struggled, crawling to her bedroom on her hands and knees.
Then he realized his throbbing cock was rock hard. He had never experienced an erection like this. It was very warm, the skin of his dick felt tight enough to split, and apparently it had been bulging for some time because it soaked the front of his boxers in slimy ooze.
“Dew yew like that?” said the voice from the phone on the floor.
“Fucking ‘A’ I didn’t know it could get this hard.”
“Not yer trouser trout, Mr. Barnhart, the wench, or should I say, yer property?”
“I can fuck her now?”
“If she’ll let yew. Then again, if she would let yew, yew’d ne’er called me.”
“What the fuck?”
“Okay, for another fiver, Mr. Barnhart, allow me to explain. Yew buy a new puppy. Is it ready to pull a dog sled? No, Mr. Barnhart, it is not. Yew have to put in some time and effort into it. I give yew three months. Try out yer new mother. If you are not completely satisfied, yew owe me nothing.”
“What am I supposed to do now?”
“Train her. Too bad ye don’t understand Gaelic. We could have had this all tidied up long ago. Then again, if ye knew Gaelic, ye ne’er need my help to get your wee pecker wet. This day and every day from now on yew will decide what yer mother likes or doesn’t like, what she does and doesn’t eat, what she does and doesn’t do.”
“What the hell does that have to do with… training?”
“Yew are as dense as a post. Okay, yew have to get yer mother to be calm, so she’s open to yer suggestions. Once you calm her, yew can whisper in her ear yer deepest desires. If she agrees, she believes.”
“Believes in what?”
“She believes that what yew want is what she wants.”
“So I whisper in her ear, I want to fuck her up the ass and”
“And yew will get yer ear boxed straight away, Mr. Barnhart, and I’ll be five thousand one hundred and five dollars richer.”
“Ugh!”
Jeremy hung up the phone and knocked on his mother’s bedroom door, before he opened it to put his head inside.
“Are you ok?”
Tawny looked up at her goofy son. He was tall, pampered, and pudgy, the spitting image of his father, “Moose” Barnhart, who had abandoned them nineteen years ago. Jeremy was just another dunderhead, but he was her dunderhead, for better or worse.
“I think I just had a heart attack, and you saved my life. I don’t know how I will ever repay you, honey.”
“We should probably go to the doctor, don’t you think?”
“I’m not dressed for it,” said Tawny. She looked at Jeremy’s raging erection. Yep, he is just like his father. “Lay down with me, honey. I don’t want to be alone.”
As he lay beside his mother in her antique bed, she relaxed, cuddling up close and holding him in her arms. He nuzzled her ear and hoarsely whispered, “Show me your tits, mom.”
Tawny pursed her lips, knitted her brow, and glared at her son, but just the same, her fingers pulled her gown apart, careful not to expose more than just her breasts.
She has to be calm, Jeremy thought. Though looking at the hateful expression burning in her eyes, Tawny was anything but calm. “Just lay there and relax, mom. I—”
BR BR BR BRRRNG!
“and I—”
BR BR BR BRRRNG!
“and I will get the door.”
It was an EMT crew with an aide car from the fire dept.
“Sir, my name is Maria Lopez. Is this the Barnhart residence?”
“Yes”
“I understand Ms. Tawny Barnhart suffered a heart attack?”
“Yes, that’s right, but I did CPR. She’s resting in her room,” said Jeremy. His words became more fluid as the shock wore off. The EMT crew pushed by him, to Jeremy’s complete dismay.
“Which way, sir?” Maria demanded. She made a mental note of her surroundings, including the condition of Jeremy’s throbbing erection.
Humiliated, Jeremy led the response crew to Tawny’s room. There they found his mother with her top wide open and her breasts on full display.
“In the future, sir, perform CPR on a firm surface such as the floor,” said the beautiful medic, as she donned her rubber gloves and stethoscope. Maria listened to Tawny’s heart, oblivious to Tawny’s topless condition. “We need to get her to the hospital.”
“But she’s awake.”
“Sir, you just did CPR on your mother,” said Maria. “I am thrilled you did your part, Mr. Barnhart. Now let me do mine.”
Maria pulled Tawny’s gown closed just before they put the older woman on the stretcher. It wasn’t until the aid car pulled from the drive that Jeremy realized, to his great embarrassment, that he still had an erection and a wet spot.
At the suggestion of Ms. Lopez, Jeremy drove to the hospital separately. He sat in the waiting area for two hours before getting to see Tawny. As a coronary patient, they dressed her in a hospital gown that opened to the front.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m fine, but the doctors are worried that they missed something because nothing explains why I had a heart attack.”
Jeremy felt a twinge of guilt, but it passed quickly. He stared at her chest. Tawny’s pained expression acknowledged that she knew what was going on in her son’s mind, and she didn’t approve.
Jeremy took a small amount of satisfaction from her discomfort. She had always been so quick to perturb him, and now the tables were turned. He savored his new position, and silent smile spread across his face.
“Tell me you don’t want to, and I will leave you alone.”
Tawny’s misery was written all over her face, but she didn’t mutter a single word. As he bent down, she could hear her son’s mouth open when it reached her ear. In her mind, an image of a tiger’s toothy maw flashed, and her heart skipped a beat. Tawny could feel Jeremy’s nose brush against her hair. She held her breath as he softly whispered, “Show me your tits.”
Tawny turned away, unable to look at her son as she pulled open her gown. She began panting and bit her lower lip while her nipples gathered into hard knots.
“You like it when I look at you. It turns you on. That’s why you don’t wear a bra at home, that’s why you go topless on wash day. I bet you think about me beating off in the other room because you flashed me your tits.”
She whimpered softly and closed her eyes tight. Jeremy snuck out of the room, leaving his half naked mother all alone.
Tawny was supposed to be released the following morning at noon. That was early for Jeremy. He never got up before noon, so picking her up was putting him out. Jeremy decided his mom was going to have to make it worth his while.
He wore his sneakers, gym shorts, and a tee shirt as big as a dress. This was Jeremy’s normal ensemble, except today he wore no underwear. This minor change made him feel extra naughty, with his balls swinging in the wafts of cool air. His slimy, unwashed cock throbbed fully erect, hid under his gut by all those loose folds of clothes.
“They tell me you are ready to go home. When did you close your top?”
“I didn’t. The nurse did when she checked in on me,” said Tawny, babbling in a panic.
“Just curious,” he said with a laugh in his voice that made his mother feel so very low. It was a humiliation that hung with her all the way home and for the rest of the day. She avoided Jeremy at all costs, busying herself with the laundry, and being careful to keep her top on at all times. Tawny went as far as putting on a bra.
“In my home!” she said to herself. “How dare he make me feel dirty in my home? That and bras are uncomfortable. It’s bad enough that I gotta wear the damned thing when I go out! Augh!”
“Hi mom.”
Humiliation washed over her and her stomach did flips. Tawny wished she could crawl inside herself and die. That would be so much better than the feelings of repulsion that tickled inside of her.
“Hi…” she said, looking downcast.
“I noticed you’re wearing a bra. You haven’t worn a bra at home before.”
Tawny said nothing. Instead, she fixated on the bulge in Jeremy’s loose fitting shorts. She felt her mouth water as she studied the ridge in the fabric caused by its stiff cockhead. The thin, silky material did a poor job of concealing her son’s excitement.
“I think you should take it off and your gown too,” Jeremy whispered into his mother’s ear.
Tawny wilted before her son. Her arms were nothing more than limp noodles as her numb fingers fumbled at the oversized buttons of her gown moments before it silently fell to the ground. There she stood, in only her panties and her house shoes.
“This is not right, Jeremy.”
“Your nipples disagree.”
“It’s cold in here.”
“This is fucking Florida, mom. It’s seventy-two degrees in here but, you are shivering. Maybe that’s a holdover from nearly dying of a heart attack and having to be saved by your gallant son.”
If Tawny didn’t feel bad, helpless, and vulnerable enough, she knew she owed Jeremy big.
“Yes, you’re right. I think I said, thank you, what (gulp) more do you what from me?”
“Oh, we have a lifetime to figure that out,” Jeremy said, his voice was deep and full of confidence.
Tawny shut her eyes.
Jeremy leaned close and studied the delicate skin that formed his mother’s ear. He noticed the many tiny blood vessels that gave it its blushing hue. He watched the fine hairs that curled down in front of her ear. They fluttered in the breeze when he playfully blew on them. Jeremy delighted in watching her slump down even further in his presence.
“This is how you will dress to do housework from now on,” he whispered.
Tawny nodded her head, and Jeremy took a seat to watch the show. “You know, I played with your titties the whole time I was giving you CPR.”
“You did?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“All I remember is you pushing down on my chest and talking to the 911 operator.”
“So you don’t remember me grabbing a big handful of boob?”
“That’s fucking wrong Jeremy!”
“Who is the one standing here in her underwear with those big old tits just hanging?”
“You told me to,” said Tawny coldly.
Jeremy knew that Tawny would only obey if he whispered to her.
“Okay, put your clothes on.”
Tawny did nothing.
“Still my fault, mother? I command you to put your clothes on,” Jeremy said with a bit more flair.
Again, Tawny did nothing.
“Looks like your argument that I had anything to do with you being topless doesn’t hold up. You’re naked because you want to be naked. I am thinking you’re a big fat slut that just loves to show off in front of her son.”
It mortified her because, for some unknown reason, she couldn’t bring herself to put her gown back on. Jeremy’s barbs made her feel even more helpless and, if it were possible, more guilty.
He leaned close to his mother and whispered, “You like to get naked in front of me because it makes you very horny.”
Jeremy did not know if that worked, but he couldn’t help but laugh at the little yip sound his mother made the moment he said, horny.