Bargain With The Devil

Erin rose to her knees and pushed me backwards, expelling me from her ass. I lost my balance and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over the coffee table. My chest heaved and I struggled to catch my breath as she adjusted her robe and resumed her seat on the couch.

“Wait! What are you doing?” I asked, my voice high-pitched and whiney.

“I’m done,” she said. “You can pull up your pants now.”

I stood, gasping like a fish, and gawked at her. Was she kidding? Was that really it? I mopped my face with my hand and shook my head as she tugged at her lapels and tightened the bow on her sash.

I guess that was it.

I hitched my pants back up, carefully tucking my aching cock back into its cage, and buttoned the fly. Then I plopped down onto the couch next to her.

“Well, that was fun,” I said after a deep breath, unable to disguise my frustration and disappointment. I’d been so close. Just a few more seconds.

Erin appraised me with a neutral expression, neither annoyed nor sympathetic. Just a blank, emotionless stare. She’d gotten what she’d wanted, and apparently nothing else mattered. Which is what I’d hoped to do to her, only she’d beaten me to it. Perhaps feeling somewhat charitable, she tossed me a bone.

“You did good,” she said.

Gee, thanks. I tossed my head in acknowledgement as if to say ‘whatever’.

I was done with this shit. Done with her, done with Clay, done with all of it. The evening had spiraled into a Thompsonesque nightmare of drug-fueled surreality that I desperately wanted to wake from. I felt weary and just wanted to go home and crawl into bed, even knowing that any chance for sleep lay far over the horizon.

“You want something to drink?” she offered.

I slicked my damp hair back and glared at her from the corner of my eye, scoffing. “No, thanks. Just give me back my keys and I’ll be on my way.”

Erin clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I don’t want you to go.”

I fixed her with a hard stare. “Look, no offense but fuck you, okay?” If she wouldn’t give me my keys, I’d call an Uber.

She snickered and leaned forward to put her hand on my knee, but I moved it away, just out of reach. She leaned back again and laughed.

“So sensitive.”

“What the fuck do you want from me, Erin?” I snapped.

She studied my face and her expression softened. “I want us to be friends,” she said. “Don’t you want to be my friend?”

I almost said no but said nothing instead. I’d be lying if I said she didn’t intrigue me. I mean, she was a horrible person, the absolute worst, but the past thirty minutes had been exhilarating. Erin, with her completely unabashed attitude, challenged and frustrated me like few women had.

What the hell was wrong with me? It had to be the coke. I felt so high I couldn’t think straight, like my brain had caught fire. I shook my head to clear the smoke.

“I don’t see how we can be friends,” I said. “Not after tonight.”

“Why not? I had fun. Didn’t you have fun?”

“Not that,” I said. “I mean the other thing.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, that.” she said, emphasizing the final t. She tugged absently at her hair and shrugged, a smile creeping over her lips. “I don’t see why that should be a problem. In fact, maybe it can be an opportunity.”

My heartrate quickened when she’d said that. “An opportunity for what?” I asked.

She sat up and drew her foot underneath herself. “I know what you must think. That I’m a horrible mother, right?” She laughed before turning serious again. “Don’t answer that. But you’re wrong. I do love my daughter very much and I want every good thing in the world for her.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.” She sighed. “Ashley’s different than most girls her age. She doesn’t take things seriously the way you and I do. She lives in a world of make believe. Everything for her is fantasy and fairy tales. I mean, for god’s sake, she still eats cereal and watches cartoons after school. She’s sixteen, but she refuses to grow the fuck up and it’s going to ruin her life!”

“What are you talking about? Ashley seems perfectly normal to me.”

Anger flashed in Erin’s eyes. “Normal?” she snapped. “There’s nothing normal about Ashley! She’s one of the least popular girls at school. She barely has any friends, and the few she does have are even bigger losers than she is. She’s never been on a date, never even been asked. Everyone at school picks on her. She’s a complete and utter failure at life.”

She leaned forward, her eyes locked to mine.

“I realize it’s been a while, so let me remind you about how things work. There’s an order to things. To be popular in school, there are certain thing you’re expected to do. You have to dress a certain way and look a certain way and act a certain way. You have to hang out with the right groups at the right parties and date the right boys.

“Ashley doesn’t do any of those things! She’s a loser and it’s going to destroy any chance she has to be successful and live a normal, happy life!”

I stared, dumbstruck. Erin didn’t seem to know a thing about Ashley, which was ironic because she clearly lived vicariously through her daughters, measuring her self-worth by how popular or successful she believed them to be.

Maybe Ashley was picked on, but that certainly didn’t reflect on her character or whether she should be considered normal or not. Just a bunch of mean people being assholes to a sweet girl. And what did it even mean to be normal, anyway? What the hell was normal?

“You know, it’s strange. I’ve never had to compete with Ashley for the attention of a man before,” Erin continued. “Chelsea, sure. But Ashley? That’s a new one for me.

“At first, I thought you were just toying with me, playing hard to get, and I liked it. I’m always game for a good challenge. Most guys are way too eager to get their hands on my tits, but not you. No, no, not you. But then I saw you in the pool with her and I said, fuck, I guess he’s not so hard to get after all.”

I stared intently at Erin, hardly breathing and not daring to move or make a sound. Where was she going with this?

“I’ve never seen her show an interest in someone before tonight. Then you show up out of nowhere and within a few hours you have not just her, but all of her friends naked in the pool with you. I have to know. How did you do that?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but hesitated. I wasn’t sure what to say. Then I shrugged and said, “She asked, and I said yes.”

Erin tossed her head back and laughed. “She asked you? Ha! That’s incredible. You must be like the Pied Piper of pussy or something. You play your little tune, and all the girls drop their panties and come running.”

I caught the resentment in her voice. “Are you jealous of her or something?” I asked.

Erin scoffed. Then her eyes blazed, and her tone became acidic. “Jealous of Ashley? No. She may have stolen a kiss from you, but I’m the one who got to have your big cock in her ass tonight.”

I blanched. Such a vile, narcissistic, and utterly contemptable woman. She disgusted me almost as much as she enthralled me. Why couldn’t I just walk away from this conversation? What hold did Erin have over me? Why was I being so fucking weak?

“Let me be crystal clear about something,” she added. “I don’t see any kind of future for the two of you. You’re not the type of man she needs to be getting into a relationship with. But that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to play a role in her development.”

My scalp prickled. What did she mean by that?

“I want you to train Ashley to be a woman,” she said, answering my unspoken question.

She was insane. I scoffed and asked, “How, exactly, am I supposed to do that?”

“Ashley needs to find herself a boyfriend. Someone her own age,” she added quickly. “But she couldn’t attract a boy to save her life. I want you to help me fix that. I want you to teach her what she needs to know to attract a hot, popular boy and, to do that, she needs to know how to seduce one. So, I want you to instruct her.”

“You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying.”

Erin held my gaze for a long beat. “You know exactly what I’m saying. I want you to teach my daughter how to fuck,” she said, obliterating any possible doubt or confusion as to her meaning.