The Jar and Other Stories, page 17
Teddi would’ve been inclined to agree had she been able to talk; instead, she just lay there huffing and puffing. Tiny post-orgasmic twinges flared between her legs like after-notes of some devilish symphony. She was actually drooling.
“Told you I’d tune you up,” Becky chuckled, then she grabbed Teddi’s hand and used it to smear all that still-warm semen all over her front. “Does Jack hose you down like that?”
“Oh, fuck him. You just ruined me for life… But wait a minute. Wasn’t there something we were supposed to do? Oh, yeah, get the bolt cutters from the garage.”
Miles and Jack were both on their backs under the base-frame of the bounce house. The housing for the power coupler was easy enough to find but it seemed that Becky and Teddi were taking their sweet time getting the bolt cutters. Jack, frustrated, was trying and failing to pop the hinges with the screwdriver.
“This ain’t doing it,” Jack said, then he crawled back out and so did Miles.
Where are they? Miles fretted, kind of like a woman might.
“Why don’t you go see what’s taking them so long?” Jack said. But the problem was rendered moot a moment later when the two women appeared.
“What took you so long?” Miles asked with some irritation.
Becky roughly shoved the bolt cutters to him. “They were hidden under a pile of junk because you never clean the damn garage. Good job, Miles.”
“Sorry,” Miles peeped.
Jack took the bolt cutters and got back underneath the bounce house. “I’ll open this thing or else…”
Miles stood between Becky and Teddi, then something subconscious caused him to sniff. It was a pungent and familiar scent that assailed Miles’ nostril. That’s…cum… It seemed to be coming from Teddi’s direction and next he noticed some dark splotches in Teddi’s blouse, like maybe sweat marks. He pulled Becky aside. “Hey, do you smell cum?”
Becky grinned back at him, then shot her eyes quickly to Teddi.
“You-you didn’t!” he whispered. “You didn’t fuck Teddi!”
Becky whispered back, “I fucked her and I came all over her—with your dick, fucker! And I’m gonna do the same to you if you don’t fix this goddamn machine and get all these kids back to normal!”
Oh my God, Miles thought in a lightning bolt of despair. She cheated on me, sort of, and he actually brushed a tear out of his eye.
“Hey, Miles,” Jack called out. “Get down here and check this out.”
Miles slid back under the base. Jack had popped the padlock with no problem and had flipped up the lid to reveal a panel with two buttons on it, each the size of a half-dollar. The first button was red, the second green.
“Like a traffic light?” Miles ventured. He winced, finding it hard to concentrate because his pussy itched and those hot flashes were back.
“Red,” Jack said. “Maybe that means, like, to stop the process, a way of reversing it. What do you think?”
Miles was gritting his teeth, scratching between his legs. And he felt ickier still down there, from all of Becky’s cum dribbling and going tacky. Damn! How do women stand being women? And then the most dreadful thought of all struck him. Am I about to have a period?
“Jack! You listening? You’re in LaLa Land. Come on, man, this is serious.”
“Oh, yeah,” Miles looked at the panel. Red, green. “I think you’re right. The red must mean to stop the process. It’s all we’ve got so we might as well try,” then both men crawled back out. “Girls,” Jack ordered. “We might have it here. Bring all the kids back out.”
In less than a minute, Becky and Teddi were corralling ten whiny disoriented kids back out to the front yard. The bounce house door was flung open and Miles said, “Okay, kids! Everybody back in the bounce house! We think we’ve got a way to get you back to normal!”
The kids all piled back in, all too eager. But Tommy held back and looked up teary eyed at Becky. “Mommy, is this gonna make me back to the way I was before?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” then Becky glared a Miles. “Your daddy says it’ll work and you know Daddy. He’s always right. Now up you go,” and she helped Tommy back into the bounce house.
“What did you tell him that for?” Miles exclaimed. “I don’t know if it’ll work!”
“Well, it better work, because if it doesn’t the poor kid will go through life thinking that his father’s a putz and a loser and can’t get anything right—”
“But that’s not true!” Miles blubbered through a new round of tears.
“Sure it is, numbskull. Because it’s all your fault…”
“Are we ready out there?” Jack called out.
“Yep,” Becky replied. “Let ’er rip.”
“Maybe they should jump around,” Miles speculated, wiping more tears. “That’s what we were doing when we changed.”
“Finally!” Becky said, “Something useful comes out of your mouth. Okay, kids! Start jumping around in the bounce house! It’s fun!”
“Here goes nothing,” Jack said. There was a loud click sound. “I just pushed the red button.”
Miles, Becky, and Teddi stood and watched the kids bouncing up and down through the screen. For a bunch of kids who’d just had their genitals switched, they looked to be having a good time. The balloons and beach balls bounced around them alternately. Each time the kids sprang up, the balloons and balls plummeted down.
Miles pulled on Becky’s sleeve. He was still crying. “I can’t believe you cheated on me,” he whispered. “You broke my heart—”
smack!
Becky gave him a good one across the face. “Stop acting like a blubbering little candy-ass! Be a man, damn it!”
“What?” Teddi looked over and inquired.
“Oh, nothing…”
“How long do we do it for?” Jack asked.
Becky smacked Miles’ arm. Hard. “You heard the man! How long?”
Miles voice quavered. “I-I don’t know! Stop being mean!”
“Tits on a bull,” Becky muttered. “I guess that’s enough time.” She opened the side door. “Okay, kids, everybody out!”
When all the kids were standing back in the front yard, Teddi said, “Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…”
At first the kids didn’t realize something was wrong, but then they started looking around at each other…
Then they started squealing in mind-prolapsing terror.
This time, all their heads had been switched. Tommy’s head was now on Sherri McCoy’s body.
“Mommy!" Tommy wailed. “Why’s my head on Sherri’s body?”
“I don’t know, honey. Looks like your father screwed up again.”
Cathy Wheeler’s head was now firmly attached to Mike Newberry’s body, and vice-versa, and Jimmy Grimaldi’s head sat atop Debbie Ross’s body, and it went on from there.
“You gotta be shitting me!” Jack said when he stood back up and saw the damage.
“What do we do now?” fretted Teddi.
“But there’s still the green button,” Miles said. Did he scratch his pussy again? Yes!
“I guess that’s the last resort,” Jack moaned. “Okay, kids! One more time! Everybody back into the bounce house!”
Most of the kids did as they were told and were back in the bounce house jumping around. But not Tommy. He hugged Becky around her legs. “Mommy! I don’t wanna go back in! Please don’t make me!”
Little mamby-pamby fat fairy, Becky thought, then she hoisted Tommy up, heaved him into the bounce house, and slammed the door. Can’t believe I gave birth to that little tinklerbell…
“They’re all in, Jack!”
“Keep your fingers crossed,” Jack suggested. Then he pushed the green button.
Becky, Teddi, and Miles stood anxiously aside, eyes fixed on the frenetic movement in the bounce house. The kids bounced up, the balloons fell down. The balloons bounced up, the kids fell down. If anything, it sounded like the kids were squealing in glee.
But in a few moments, those squeals of glee converted to ear-piercing, blood-curdling screams of horror.
“What the fuck?” Becky yelled.
“Something’s happening!” Teddi observed. “Get ’em out of there!”
And Miles…well, he scratched his pussy.
It was a pandemonic melee; the kids didn’t even wait, they banged the door open and began clamoring over one another to get out of the bounce house and back onto the yard. But when all of them had managed to escape, they all seemed to lay on the grass, kind of twitching and grunting, some still screaming. Becky noted with some disappointment that the highest-pitched scream came from Tommy, and there Tommy lay, arms and legs rowing in the air. “Mommy! Daddy! Help me!”
But no help was forthcoming, it seemed. Miles and Becky both stood frozen as statues, staring at the wriggling mass of eight-year-olds, while Jake and Teddi did the same. Then someone broke the dreadful silence and muttered, “This HAS to be the most FUCKED-UP thing to ever happen in all of human history…”
And that was probably an accurate assessment.
There was good news, and there was bad news. The good news was that each kid’s head had been reattached to the right body…only backwards. In other words, the back of his head was now where his face should be. And that’s the good news.
Here’s the bad news: each kid’s arms and legs had transposed. In other words, the arms were where the legs should be, and the legs were sprouting out of the shoulders.
“Oh, man,” Teddi muttered, eyes bugging.
Jack added, “Looks like we’re really in a pickle now…”
Some of the kids were trying to stand up on their feet, which sort of presented a view of someone standing on their head because their head was upside down between their legs. Other kids tried to stand up on their hands because this felt more natural, for their arms branched out of their hips and their heads were right-side up (but backward). But any serious ambulation failed after only a minute or so of effort, for whether they were walking on their feet or walking on their hands, the skewed positions were too much to reckon with, and balance was impossible to keep.
“The neighbors can’t see this shit!” Becky snapped.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “We gotta get ’em back in the house!”
“We’re going in the house now, kids!” Teddi tried to sound enthused. “Who wants some snacks?”
But by now the kids didn’t give a fuck about snacks. They all lay in an apoplectic twitching pile of disarranged arms and legs and backward heads, all sobbing and moaning and blubbering. Especially Tommy.
“Come on!” Jack yelled. “All we can do is grab ’em one at a time and get ’em inside!”
Jack and Miles managed two fucked-up kids apiece, one under each arm, and hobbled them into the house, while Becky grabbed Tommy and Teddi grabbed Kevin. The four kids who remained on the front yard conjured some resourcefulness and walked up to the house on their own on all fours, in a sort of “crab-walk.” It was too bad no one thought to film it on their cellphone because it was one very unusual sight to behold, and would’ve made a splash on YouTube.
Back inside, the kids were all herded back into the living room, and the doors were closed. All four of the adults went immediately to the liquor cabinet and chugged some spirits. The kids were all curled up in weird positions on the floor, like armadillo bugs, still sobbing in their unfathomable trauma. Would they have to spend the rest of their lives like this? Or could some elaborate surgery offer a remedy?
And what was the exact reason for this outrage of physicality?
Tommy falteringly crab-walked over to his parents and looked up at Miles with his backward head. “Daddy? Mommy said you would make us all better but-but-but-but…you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”
Aw, fuck… Miles got down on one knee to personally address the really fucked-up thing that used to be his son. “I haven’t given up yet, Tommy,” he began but, really, what could he say at this point? “You can bet’cha I’ll keep trying. And even…even if I can’t get you back to normal, I want you to know that I’ll always love you…”
Tommy contemplated the words, then his face screwed up, and he started bawling again and crab-walked away.
“Miles does it again,” Becky sniped, arms crossed. “Could you maybe think of a more hopeless thing to tell a little kid, ya fuckin’ empty-headed moron!”
Miles’ face turned red and then he jerked toward Becky as if to pounce. “Get off my back! All you’ve done is give me grief since this whole thing started! It’s not my fault!”
“It is your fault!” she cracked back at him. “You just had to get a bounce house, didn’t you? You just had to get the biggest bounce house they make so you can show off to the fuckin’ neighbors, huh? What a dick! If you hadn’t insisted on getting that fuckin’ bounce house, we wouldn’t be in this mess! No wonder it was so cheap! God damn, I just knew I never should’ve married you—”
“Then why did you?” Miles bellowed back.
“Because you’re rich and I didn’t wanna work. But you can bet your ass I’ll be filing for divorce now!”
With this comment, something in Miles’ psyche snapped, kind of like a pencil might, one could suppose. His right hand tightened into a fist and he raised his arm. “What you need is a good old-fashioned knuckle sandwich!”
Becky leaned back and belly laughed. “Miles, if you even tried to hit me, I would beat your ass black and blue, and you know I could. Then I’d bang your pussy like you were a roofied bar tramp and make you suck your own dick! So go ahead! Hit me!”
Miles stood there with his fist raised and lower lip sticking out. Then…
His face fell into his hands and he started crying again.
“See what I get?” Becky mocked. “A regular macho man. But—wait! Here’s something we can do!” She grabbed Miles’ shoulders and jolted him to get his attention. “Hey, listen! Where did you first find the bounce house? Was there a rental lot or a place where that old guy did business?”
Miles looked up, sniffling. “Huh?”
smack!
“Where did you rent the fuckin’ bounce house!”
“Oh, yeah.” Miles gulped and wiped his eyes. “Place in Kenneth City, not far. Called Malpert & Son’s.”
Becky took command. “Teddi, Jack! You stay here and watch the kids! Me and Miles are going to Malpert & Son’s!”
They approached Becky’s Cadillac. Miles had a horrible stress headache, and what with everything else… “Honey, could you drive? I think I’m too upset—”
“What are you? Mr. Rogers all of a sudden?” Becky spat on the ground. “You’re the man, so you drive! Get your fuckin’ keys out, put ’em in the goddamn ignition, and fuckin’ drive! If you don’t, I’m gonna bend you over the hood and fuck you in front of everyone! All the neighbors will see your pussy!”
Miles whined, wiped his brow, started the car, and was off.
“How long does it take to get there?” Becky barked. She plucked her nipples subconsciously, then rubbed her fat crotch and smiled. “And step on it! You’re driving like the little old lady from Pasadena!”
“Stop yelling at me!” Miles sobbed. “I-I can’t concentrate! It’s—I don’t know—a ten-minute drive, I guess.”
Becky nodded. “That’s probably enough time,” and then she hitched her jeans down and started playing with her big flaccid cock until it got hard. Then she started beating it.
Miles looked over, aghast. “You—You’re not! You’re not doing that here!”
“I sure as shit am,” she replied, eyes closed, stroking away. “And you can bet your ass I’m not thinking about you…”
“Whuh—why not?” asked a now very agitated Miles.
“’Cos you’re an obnoxious elitist pig—er, at least you were when you had a dick. Besides, that’s just the way it is. Any woman who says she thinks about her husband while she’s masturbating is a liar.”
Miles made a croaking sound deep in his throat. But he couldn’t help side-glancing as his wife gluttonously pursued orgasm with his penis. Becky lifted up her blouse, hitched her pelvis up in the seat, then, “Aw, fuck, shit! Suck my sack, you bitch!” and then she tremored in grips of a raucous orgasm, semen looping onto her belly in thick ropes. When she was done, she just lay back, grinning. “Fuck, that was good. Ten times better than a girl’s orgasm, you bastard.”
“It’s not my fault!” Miles whined.
“So what? It still makes me wanna kill all men.” With the edge of her hand she swiped up most of the semen off her stomach, then wiped her hand off on Miles’ slacks.
“Hey! Don’t do that!”
“Shut up,” Becky said. She stuffed her dick back in her jeans and refastened them. “Are we there yet?”
Miles didn’t think he could take much more. Finally, they’d arrived at the Malpert & Son’s lot, so he pulled right in. Becky jumped right out of the car, but Miles stayed inside, trying to wipe the semen off with a Kleenex, but it wasn’t working very well. Will Woolite get this out?
Becky yanked the door open and pulled Miles out. “Come on, shit-head! Don’t make me break bad on you!”
At the end of the empty lot sat a little building and office. Becky hauled Miles along and banged through the door. A twerpy-looking guy in his thirties looked up from behind a desk with papers spread out. He looked stressed out. “Sorry, we’re closed. All our bounce houses are rented out.”
“Yeah, bub, and we rented one of ’em. We need to see Mr. Malpert, and I mean right now.”
“I’m Pete Malpert,” said the twerp. “The guy you talked to is my father; he got out—”
“Got out?” Miles said. “What do you mean?”
“Did he rent you the big one, the twenty-five-by-twenty-five job?”
“Yeah!” Becky yelled. “What do you mean he got out?”
“Oh, thank God I found it!” Pete said in a gust of relief. “My father didn’t write down the address of the people he rented it to—”
