60 - The Cock Seller

Leroy separated from his sister once again. He came back with two candles, handing one to Latoya. The other he held before him, a strange smile on his lips that gave his features an oddly mottled appearance.

"We've told many tales of the legends of Dagon's Hollow. The Sharecropper's Daughter, the Slit-Mouthed Woman, Cross-Her-Palm-With-Silver down by the railroad track...some of these I heard, growing up, under different names. Yet no one yet has told a story of the Tinker Man, and I have one to tell. I call it...

THE COCK SELLER

Tinker tinker tinker man

Sells you all whatever he can

What's in his bag?

What's in his hand?

Beware beware the tinker man!

The children sang the song, as Meredith Briggs hurried on her way to work. She had sang it herself, in the days past, with her sister playing jump rope and hopscotch. The Briggs sisters had different fathers; Meredith was dark and strong-featured with kinky hair, like her father, while Allison was paler, with long straight hair and the eyes that came from her Japanese father. In those days, biracial women were less favored by any community, and the sisters kept to themselves after graduating high school. Meredith found work as a freelance stenographer, often getting jobs in the local courts and law offices; Allison worked at the Hollow Herald. Together, it was enough money for them to share an apartment and a car.

Yet Meredith wanted more.

Tinker tinker tinker man

An old lamp and frying pan

Oh what wonders!

Oh what treasures!

Beware beware the tinker man!

It was wrong, what games they played in the dark. It had started after their mother had died. There was no one to stop Meredith anymore, when her hands slid up Allison's shirt in the dark, to cup those small, lovely breasts. To rest her chin on her shoulder and hear her loved one gasp and moan with pleaseure. They had discovered so much together, over the last few years. Allison never said a word, always the shy one. Even when Meredith's fingers had sipped down below her panties, to touch that hot, wet cleft.

But that was as far as they could go.

Tinker tinker tinker man

Wilier than old Satan

What's the price?

What's your soul?

Beware beware the tinker man!

The children finished their song and ran away laughing.

"Miss," a voice came from a brick-lined alley, and Meredith Briggs stopped.

The downtown had been wood until the 1930s, when a team of bricklayers had come through and done up Main Street proper. Even twenty years later, when the roads were paved and concrete buildings were going up, there were these narrow brick-lined alleys behind buildings, that led to small courtyards. A stall stood there, at the end of the courtyard, such as Meredith had sometimes seen at county meet-ups and fairs. A figure stood in the shadow of that booth, white-gloved hands visible on the wooden countertop.

"Miss," the voice called her, and something made Meredith turn from her path, down that dark alley, into the secluded courtyard.

"We have goods, miss. Exactly what you desire," the voice was odd, with no accent at all. There was something strangely artificial about that. Nothing of North or South, East or West. Meredith wouldn't even have said it was American. She would barely have called it male, except it didn't seem to be a woman's voice either.

"I don't need anything," she said aloud.

"You want a man's thing," the seller said. "Come, look."

The hands disappeared beneath the counter, and when they came back, it was with a roll of black cloth. This was laid on the counter, unrolled, unfolded, and Meredith's breath caught in her throat.

They were penises. A half-dozen of them.

Vivid, lifelike, of all shapes and colors, each of them erect, complete with hairy testicles, and ending with a kind of weird pinkish taproot, like a sweet potato.

Meredith swallowed. She had heard of such...disgusting toys. Instinctively, her hand reached out to touch the nearest one, a dark one almost black, with a huge glans. Then she jerked it back as though she had touched a rattlesnake.

It twitched. The flesh was warm. It had throbbed like something alive.

"An excellent choice," the seller said. "I really shouldn't sell it to you, but for the right price..."

"How much?" Meredith said. She wasn't really going to buy it. She told herself that. There was no way she could buy such a thing. Even though her pussy clenched, thinking what it would be like, to hear her sister take it.

"What would you pay?" the seller said. "Fully functional. You feel everything. As if you were born with it. And the children, will look exactly like you."

"Children?" Meredith's heart leaped. It was a fantasy she had never dared. A sin she had never imagined. Such things were unnatural, such things were...and Meredith finally understood who she was talking to.

"A soul," she said, simply.

"Give me your hand," the seller said.

Meredith held up her left hand, palm up. One gloved hand took it gently, the other traced the lines on it.

"A soul. Yes, I think so," the seller said. "Please, take it."

A length of butcher's paper was produced, and the long black schlong was wrapped up. It was warm and pulsed in Meredith's hand as she carefully placed it in her purse, turned and left the court. She would be late for work at this rate, and that would not do.

All day long, Meredith Briggs worked, her terrible purchase in her purse. She made so many mistakes that day, and complained of a headache, but finally the work was done, and she hurried home. Pussy clenched the whole way. Her mind set on what she would do with Allison. How she would explain it—oh, but who cared about explanations, as long as it worked?

The apartment was dark, when Meredith arrived. Allison sometimes worked late, that wasn't strange. As long as those bastards at the paper weren't trying to get up her skirt again. It drove Meredith mad, the way they hounded her, not knowing who her sweet little pussy really belonged to.

As Meredith set her purse down on the table, she never heard the soft step behind her. Wasn't aware of anything wrong until the rag was **** over her mouth and nose. Instinctively sucked in a harsh breath, chemicals burning in nose and mouth. She struggled, but the slim figure behind her held on until Meredith went limp.

Consciousness came back slowly, as moonlight spilled through the window of their shared bedroom. Meredith shook her head as the bed shook. Someone was on top of her. Someone was in her. The hard prick seemed to split Meredith in two, and she looked up, with a shock, into Allison's face. Allison, who grinned so wickedly, the vanishing slender flower gone. She pinned her weakened sister to the bed and flexed her hips, driving the stolen cock in for its entire length. When Meredith opened her mouth to scream, her sister bent down and pressed her tongue into her mouth.

When they broke apart, the younger sister grinned.

"You have no idea," she said. "How long I've wanted to to this."

Something broke in Meredith then, as she saw her sister's face transformed in a rictus of ecstasy. Felt the warm, hot sloppiness of her own cunt. It wasn't what she had wanted—but it was exactly what she had bought. The Tinker Man had his due.

Leroy shared a conspiratorial smile with his sister. He blew out his candle. Then he turned expectantly to her.