WIFE FOR A PRICE Read online

  “No, wait—”

  But I’m already walking toward my next customers.

  Chapter Two

  Hound

  “Is that your real name, honey?”

  I don’t really see the woman in front of me, seeing as she’s not the one I’m here following, but a man can’t forget his manners.

  “Of course it is,” I lie. “Was Hound before I was born, even. Parents picked it out of a magazine and said they’d name me that if I was a boy or a girl.”

  I look past her to the other side of the restaurant, to where the lone man sits. Dean Dunham looks like the sort of man you’d expect to see hobbling out of a psychiatric ward, all paranoid and skittish. His eyes are pitted, black holes and his skin is saggy and haggard. His hair is sparse and gray. He looks like a broken man. Part of me even feels for the poor bastard. It can’t be good to go to sleep one day a man and wake up the next a skeleton. His clothes hang on him, loose, way too baggy. I try and imagine waking up one day less than seven feet tall and a few feet wide. I can’t do it.

  “Oh, you’re too much!”

  The woman is called Candy, I think. She’s got big-ass tits and a big-ass ass, but then that’s most of the girls here. She eyes me up and down, pouting, giggling. I can tell I’ve broken through this Lady-Shack horseshit. Part of me even thinks about putting the job off and taking her round back. But then I remind myself that I’m trying to be a better man. Yes ma’am, Henry Roscoe has been doing some reading, two years of it, and he’s finally stowing away some of the money he makes collecting. Has quite the bank forming under his mattress. Maybe one day soon he’ll be able to get out of this life and become some kind of thinking man. I laugh at myself, like I always do, because it’s too close to home.

  “What’s so funny, baby?”

  “Have you ever seen a wolf and thought to yourself, With a little work that could be a dog, a beloved, kind dog, and not a wolf at all? ” I flash a smile at her. I’ve got to admit, charming women is fun. “Or am I just coming across like a freak you can’t wait to get away from?”

  She giggles again. “No, no, honey,” she says seriously. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

  She’s so different to the wide-smiled, wide-eyed woman she was when she first came over here. The performance has stopped. Maybe she imagines she’s on a date.

  As I watch Dean, a waitress comes over to him. And man, if ever there was a woman to make a man question if he’s going to be able to walk the Changed Man Trail, it’s this piece of ass. Around twenty-five, with a slender body but with a full ass and full breasts, all squeezed artfully to give her an hour-glass shape, hair the color of honey, a cute round face, eyelashes longer than my finger, eyes greener than a forest. She has a strong-vulnerable look about her, like she’s both at the same time. I’ve never seen it before and it interests me. I even get a little hard just at the sight of her, something Candy hasn’t managed since she sat down.

  I can tell why the old pervert comes here now. Still, just because we happen to have similar taste in women doesn’t mean Mac won’t want his money. Candy is still talking, but she can’t compare with the woman with the honey-colored hair. I try and think if there’s anything in my books that can relate to this situation. That’s what my online course is always telling me, to try and link what I read with real life, since all books are about life, or some shit. Maybe that old man is like Gatsby without all the money, just a failed husk, and that girl is his Daisy. I shiver. That went creepy way too quick. I know for a fact that Daisy is Dean’s daughter’s name.

  “Honey.” It’s Candy, chirping nearer to me. She’s standing over me now, notepad in hand.

  I squint across the restaurant, listening closely to the woman serving Dean and blocking everything else out. Man, she’s hot, really hot, the sort of hot which makes you forget that cold even exists. There’s something strange about the way they’re talking, Honey Hair and Dean. I look closer, leaning forward, and then I see it, blurry but readable. Daisy, right there on her name tag. Which means the old man isn’t here to grope and leer.

  “Hound?”

  “Sorry, beautiful,” I say, leaning back. “I know this is a cruel thing to ask of a lady, but do you think you could send Daisy over to serve me?”

  Candy takes a step back, as though wounded. “Oh. Sure.”

  She leaves, her heels clicking a little louder than they did on her way toward me. I lean back, relaxed, watching Dean out of the corner of my eye just in case he decides to do something stupid. I doubt he will, though. How many times have I done this? Ever since I was a teenager, following people, tooling them up, scaring them, threatening them, and eventually getting their money. All in a day’s work. I try not to feel bitter about it. I think of my books back at my place and cough out another laugh. What a fucking joke. But then a second later I think of them again, and I smile. I don’t know how to feel about it. A man who never finished high school trying to grapple with the greats, and hopefully go on to math, science, maybe even French or whatever…

  I’m glad when Daisy comes over. She’s a welcome distraction from myself.

  She’s even sexier up close, especially when she smiles. She’s got some sharp canine teeth, giving her a vampire look, and her eye makeup is darker than a night’s sky, contrasting the bright green of her eyes. Her smile is fake, because of course it is. I try and write something in my head, like the course says: She smiled at me but it was more like she was smiling at somewhere very far away behind me and she was not smiling at me at all . Shit, shit. Maybe I ought to stick at what I’m good at, like bouncing heads off tables. But still, this piece of ass…

  “Good afternoon,” I say, with my cheesiest grin. “How are you this fine day?”

  She looks me up and down, maybe surprised to hear me speaking like this when I’m seven feet tall with a wild look about me. Most folks seem surprised by that. But I don’t think that a man has to choose between charming and tough, never have.

  “I’m great,” she says shortly. All the while I’m watching her Dad with one eye, the way he just sits there and prods at his slice of pie with his fork, making sure he doesn’t duck out. “What would you like?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be all sexy and flirty and shit?” I say, enjoying myself now. “It seems to me I’ve walked into some backwater truck stop or something, not into this high-class restaurant.”

  I watch her face, watch as a hundred replies rise and fall on her lips, and then as the smile cracks over her like a mask. “Oh, where are my manners!” she beams. “Of course you’re in The Lady Shack! I hope you’re having a swell day. Can I get your name, sweetie?”

  I tell her.

  “Okay…uh, Hound…what would you like?”

  “I would like to live in a world where people can do what they want without being fucked over every step of the way. I would like to live in a world where my knuckles aren’t bloody every night of my life and I haven’t hurt more people than I care to think about. I would like to live in a world where strong men and sexy women can do more than be strong and sexy.”

  I don’t say any of this out loud, because I think that’d give the wrong impression. But I think it, and I get angry thinking it. I’ve been doing that way too much lately, questioning my situation. Questioning your situation is only good when you can get out of it, is the way I see it, and I’m not doing that until I have a smooth exit plan. Instead I say, “What would you recommend?”

  On the table behind us, a group of businessmen are talking about finance and slamming their glasses together like their Vikings after a raid, shouting, “Cheers!”, over and over and leering at every passing waitress. I feel my seat juddering each time some fat bastard jumps up and down. I think about smashing his face into the table like I would’ve done once, just stood up and slammed his head until he was covered in blood. But whereas once the idea made me feel big, now it just leaves me feeling empty. Much better to get a good look at Daisy’s tight body.

  “Th
e pie is great,” she says. “Just great.”

  “Something’s up with you,” I tell her, still keeping my cheesy-ass grin on my face. I’ve learnt that people are less nervous about seven-foot scary-looking giants if I smile. “I don’t blame you, though,” I go on. “Every goddamn day, people pawing at you, trying to get your number, calling you a cock tease and all that shit. And you don’t even get the satisfaction of throwing a drink in their faces or slapping them or telling them to fuck off. You have to smile and nod and thank them for all of it, hoping for a tip.”

  She tries to keep her smile up, like a fighter trying to keep his fists up, but in the end she’s too weary and she lets it falter. “Well done,” she says, no longer the bubbly seducer. “You’ve solved the puzzle. Would you like a ribbon?” She shakes her head bitterly. “I need the money. The whole world needs the money. Are you telling me your one-hundred percent happy with your place in life? If you are, you’re the exception.”

  I let my fake smile drop and give her a real one instead. “Hello, Daisy. It’s nice to meet you.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’m not supposed to talk to customers like this.”

  “Sorry. Late me make it easier for you.” I sit up, and start looking at her beautiful legs and ass and breasts, up and down, up and down, for around a minute. “That better?” Even though I’m doing it as a joke, or to make a point, I can’t deny that looking Daisy up and down is a goddamn treat.

  She smiles and I’m pretty sure it’s a real smile. This is the part where I get her into bed and fuck her face and pound her into the mattress until she’s begging for more. This is the part where I give into every animal instinct and just fucking take her. And I want to. I want to badly. Even if I just as badly don’t want to be the same old Hound anymore.

  “You’re funny,” she says. “Now, are you going to order or not? You’ll get me in trouble.”

  “Maybe trouble’s what you need,” I say, unable to look away from those forest-green eyes. They’re the brightest eyes I’ve ever seen, by far. “Maybe playing the good girl gets boring after a while.”

  “Good girl, at The Lady Shack?”

  “Good, honest, hardworking Texan girl, yes, ma’am, howdy, ya’ll.”

  She giggles, which is the sweetest sound I’ve heard all week. “Right.” Rolling her eyes again, she shakes the pen at me. Even now, it’s like there are two men in me. One who wants to bend her over the table and drive deeply into her until she comes all over my prick, and the other who wants to take her on some kind of date. “I said are you going to order—”

  “Fucking asshole!” one of the businessmen roars.

  Then the security is running over and everyone at the next table is shouting and jostling. I could go over there and end it quickly, but I take this chance to lean across and wrap my hands around Daisy’s waist, dragging her into my lap.

  “What’re you doing!” she squeals.

  “Keeping you safe,” I reply. “I don’t want you getting hurt in the fight.”

  She wriggles in my lap. Her dress is so tight I can feel her ass cheeks rubbing against my cock, and looking at the way she pauses, her lips pursed for a second, I can see she feels it too. Feels it and likes it more than she cares to admit. She even lets out a sighing breath.

  “Let me up,” she says, when the fighters have been thrown out.

  “Alright.”

  She stands up and stares down at me, lips all twisted like she can’t decide what to think.

  “I should report you,” she says after a pause. “That’s not okay.”

  “Unless you liked it.” I smile. “Which you did. I’ll take a beer, Daisy. Now turn around and let me watch you walk away.”

  I can tell she likes this by the way she bites her lip. She likes that I want her. That’s good to know.

  She leaves, and I watch her ass. My blood’s up now, all my ideas of being a nice guy seeming silly and pointless. Why be a nice guy when there’s a tight piece of ass like this up for grabs? But then I watch as Dean stands up and makes his way toward the exit. Damn the man. Reluctantly, I stand up and make toward the exit, too.

  I can’t forget why I’m here, even if it would be a relief to forget who I am just once.

  Chapter Three

  Daisy

  As I take Hound’s order to the bar, I look over to check on Dad, but his table is empty now. I go to Marsha and ask her if he paid. “No,” she says. “I thought maybe he went to the bathroom? Do you know him, Daisy?”

  “No,” I lie. “I just don’t want The Lady Shack losing business. I care greatly about the continued success of the company.”

  Marsha looks at me like I’ve gone mad, and then is swept away by another waitress. I don’t think. I just head for the exit, staring at the floor, trying to make it as clear as possible that I’m not in the mood for any, “Hey, honey,” or, “Nice ass, baby.” Except from the man called Hound, I reflect, thinking of the way he pulled me into his lap. The biggest, toughest-looking man I’ve ever seen in my life. Seven feet tall, wearing a plain blood-red T-shirt and scuffed jeans, muscled all over, bursting out of his clothes, looking oversized at the Shack’s table. Black locks of curly hair spilling over his head, a shadow of stubble, and a wolfish grin. All of it offset with dark ice-blue eyes. No, except for him…which I have to admit, kind of got me off…maybe just a little…

  I force that from my mind as I push out into the parking lot. Dad can be such a jerk sometimes, and maybe jerk is understating it. He expects me to do everything: keep hope, support him financially, trudge on like a packhorse never once complaining, work two jobs, two shitty jobs because I had to drop out of school before graduation, and all he cares about is his gambling. And then he comes in here and unloads on me and disappears! I feel like leaping back in time and grabbing that sixteen-year-old girl by the shoulders and screaming in her face, “Listen! Don’t even bother with him! All he’s going to do is bring you pain and make you want to tear your hair out by the roots! One day you’ll be twenty-seven and thirty will look way closer than it does now and you’ll get very, very scared about what your life means.”

  I can’t say that I regret helping him completely, otherwise I wouldn’t be pacing between cars right now looking for him. The sun beats down relentlessly, as it always does. Without the relief of the air conditioning I feel my clothes sticking to me. A group of businessmen on lunch stare at me with what I think they think are seductive expressions. I ignore them and make my way around the side of the building, down the alleyway where we throw the trash, pressed up against a big waffle chain on the other side. What am I doing? If he’s not in the parking lot, it means he jumped in his old beat-up car and drove away, leaving me to wonder what’s going on. But I remember when I was younger I would often wake in the middle of the night to find Dad gone from the apartment. This worried me the first few times before I skulked around in the night, walking the streets in my slippers, and found him in an alleyway opposite the building, smoking a cigarette. Maybe he’s had the same brilliant idea this time.

  I think of Mom as I walk, of her sardonic twisting smile, her bright green eyes, her words which came sometimes like blades and sometimes like petals. And I wish she was here. Wish she was here so badly I get an ache in my chest.

  But I can’t spend my life wishing. A Lady Shack girl has to remember to be bouncy, bubbly, beautiful. There’s no time to be human.

  I’m halfway around the alleyway, squeezing between a dumpster and walking between some banana peels as though this is a cartoon, when I hear it. At first I think it’s the whimpering of a kitten. I imagine a tiny cat, patchy fur, limping, whining softly into the empty alleyway. But then I creep closer and hear the unmistakable sound of Dad talking. He’s talking fast, frantically, like he does when he’s nervous. I remember soon after Mom died he talked like that a lot, waving his hands and never letting his eyes settle on one place, as though if he kept talking he didn’t have to acknowledge that she’d never reply, and if he didn’t let hi
s eyes settle, he could pretend she was right there, just out of his periphery vision.

  I creep along the wall, past faded and new graffiti, right to the edge. When I peek my head round, I see Dad, looking as old and broken as ever, standing opposite the huge man named Hound, the man who got my body going a mile a minute back in the Shack. They’re side-on so I can see them clearly, Hound with his hands in his pockets, standing casually, hair wild around his eyes, Dad pacing in a small circle worrying at his knuckles with his teeth.

  “Listen, listen, it’s not that I don’t have the money right,” and here he bites his knuckle before going on, “right now , it’s just that it’s not, you know, physically here with me. That doesn’t mean it’s not mine! That’s like saying that you’re broke because all your money—you know—like all your money’s in the bank so you don’t have any. But that’s not how it works.”

  Hound sighs, but doesn’t move. He reminds me of a lion or a wolf or some other dangerous predator, resting lazily as though finding the idea of moving as erratically as Dad laughable. And yet as I watch him, as I soak in the reality of the situation—this man is here to collect on one of Dad’s many debts—I don’t kid myself by thinking that Hound would be any less dangerous than a wolf or a lion. “I really want to believe you, sir,” he says. “Really, I do. It’d make my day way, way better if I could just nod and smile and accept this story of yours. But the fact is I’ve done my own investigation into your finances and I happen to know that what you’re telling me is a lie…” Hound pauses, strokes his chin, and then speaks like a poet with sudden inspiration. “It’s a complete fabrication .” He seems quite proud of himself as he nods up and down. If he wasn’t shaking down my father, I’m sure I’d smile.