Larry opened up Zoom at the appointed time. He'd gotten a series of text messages from his mother, but they had all just said Laurentius or Laurentius, I need to talk to you and didn't elaborate on what they said - and he was a busy man, managing his father's restaurants in Moscow. Finally his mother had given him a time to chat on Zoom, and so, reluctantly, he was here.
Jane Hortler appeared on the screen in a faded lavender bathrobe. Her black hair - dyed, at this age - hung limply around a face that had aged at least a decade since the last time Larry had seen her, and it wasn't terribly long ago. Her skin was sallow and there were dark circles under her eyes. She was usually immaculate and well-dressed so the change was startling to Larry.
Jane managed a tight smile that did not meet her eyes. "Hello, dearest."
"Helloeth." Larry wondered what was wrong - not out of any care or concern for her, but how it was going to affect him, especially with her texting him incessantly. "Thou lookest unwell."
"Oh yes." Jane nodded solemnly. "I had COVID-20 -"
"COVID-19," Larry muttered under his breath.
"- and I was sick for weeks. Goodness." Jane put her hand on her heart. "It was terrible."
"I'm sorryeth, Motherest." He wasn't really.
"Yes, thank you. I do hope you and your father are safe and well." Jane clasped her hands together as if in prayer.
Just like Larry didn't actually care, he knew Jane also didn't care - he recognized that syrupy sweet tone in her voice. Whoever was on the receiving end of that tone was being used and manipulated for something, whether attention or something more sinister - and that confirmed the incessant slew of text messages meant this was not a check-in on his well being. "Whateth dost thou wantest, Mothereth."
"The very worst part about COVID-23 was not being able to get into the salon to get waxed. It's been six weeks and... I can't go in there like this. I really let it go, Laurentius, it's shameful." Jane clasped her hands together again. "Can you help your poor mother?"
As degrading as it was to work at Uncle Vanya's, wearing a track suit with clown makeup, a clown wig, and a fake handlebar mustache, the only thing Laurentius Hortler wanted to do less than play "Uncle Vanya" in his managerial role, was shave his mother's back and ass. He'd done it enough times that he couldn't unsee it. Sometimes he had nightmares about it.
"I artest in Moscoweth," Larry said. "I cannoteth flyest back to the States with the traveleth bans -"
"But you and your father found a way to get there from the States, and I think you and I both know how you did." Jane knew about the portal Sauron owned. "Ask your father to let you borrow the thing -" She wasn't going to mention the portal over Zoom, for security reasons. "- and tell him it's an emergency. Tell him I had COVID-28."
Larry doubted that Sauron would let him use the portal even if Jane was dying - unless perhaps Sauron wanted to go with him to laugh at her - but he also knew she wasn't going to leave him alone until he found his way back to Indiana to shave her. Jane had a way of being obsessive and downright stalkerish, if the hundred texts on his phone over the last seven days weren't already proof of that, and he knew it would escalate from here, right down to Jane getting his co-workers involved.
Larry's shoulders heaved with a deep sigh. "I wilt doeth what I canst."
Jane clasped her hands together again and beamed. It reminded Larry of a snake "grinning", about to eat a rat whole. "Excellent. I knew I could count on you. Thank you so much, you're so wonderful."
The only time Jane ever called him "wonderful" was when he did things for her... like the indignity of shaving her back and ass.
Larry left the chat and buried his face in his hands. Now he had to deal with his father. That was almost worse than the potential task ahead.
Almost.
"Fatherest." Larry cleared his throat and quickly corrected himself, remembering the way Sauron had shaken him and yelled You will speak proper English to me, nit. "Father." Larry hated sounding like such a peasant, using such common language instead of the older, prettier form of English his mother had taught him, but he would not give his father yet another way to humiliate him. Just asking him for the portal would be humiliation enough. "I have a favor to ask of you."
"Oh?"
"Mother needs me to go back to America. She's been ill."
"Has she?" Sauron sniffed. "Weakling."
"Yes," Larry agreed.
"She can afford to hire a nursemaid. She doesn't need you to go out there -"
"It's about..." Larry didn't want to bring this up - not out of any concern for his mother's dignity, but he hated the mental image. "She was too ill to... attend to certain parts of her hygiene. Like body hair growth. In places she can't reach."
"Oh, yes, the hair on her back and backside."
"...You knew about that."
"How do you think you got here, you idiot? Do you think the stork brought you?" Sauron sniffed again. "I bet she wants to pretty herself up to seduce that Jeff boytoy of hers. He's an even bigger idiot than you are."
Larry was not especially close to his mother's boyfriend, but his opinion of Jeff was that he wasn't that bright - more of a jock than a scholar, more muscle than brain. He was using the much older Jane Hortler for money, and it seemed obvious to everyone but Jane, so perhaps Jane was the biggest idiot of them all.
In any case, Larry didn't want to think about his mother's sex life. It was bad enough that Juniper wanted to be his "mommy". Not for the first time was he relieved to be away from Juniper, even though he hated working in Moscow. He hoped he could avoid Juniper on his short trip back to Indiana.
Presuming he even got what he needed to go.
"The sanctions. The travel bans. I can't fly there. I need the portal." Larry frowned.
"You could fly to China, and from China to the US -"
"That would be much more money than you're paying me, Father."
"Use of the portal isn't going to be free either."
"How much?"
"Fifty dollars."
Larry huffed. That was more than he had on hand right now, with the cost of everything being what it was thanks to sanctions. "I am your son. She won't leave me alone. This will interfere with my job, your business. Consider it a business expenditure -"
"Just for reminding me of that unfortunate fact that I spawned your moronic self, it's one hundred dollars. Two hundred, if you don't have the cash now - I'm sure you could get your mother to give you two hundred dollars to take back with you."
Larry held out his hand. "Two hundred." He wasn't so sure he could get Jane to give him money - Jane loved money almost as much as he did, and Jane complained about Jeff's allowance enough. But he'd think of something.
Sauron rolled his eyes, reached into his pocket, and put the portal in Larry's hand. "If anything happens to this -"
"I will guard it with my life, Father."
"Duly noted, you'll be paying with your life if you lose it, and when I resurrect you I might not heal everything, do you understand?"
"Quite."
"One more thing." Sauron put his hands on his hips. "The hair that grows on your mother's back and backside... is of supernatural origin, and has magical properties. Collect it in a bag and bring it to me when you return. I have a purpose for it."
That sounded absolutely revolting - Larry really didn't want to have to carry a reminder of that horrific sight - but he knew better than to argue. He just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
When Larry arrived at Jane Hortler's mansion in the Indiana countryside, it was not Jane who answered the door, but Jane's best friend, Bev Debussy. Jane and Bev were both in their fifties, and Bev tried to fight the aging process even more than Jane did - she had gotten Botox, a facelift, an obvious nose job and was still sporting "fun" hair colors, this time it was fuchsia.
"Hi Laurentius," Bev said, giving him a hug.
"Thou art not social distancing?" Larry raised an eyebrow, hoping he wouldn't get COVID now.
"Pooh." Bev waved a hand. "The pandemic is just the gods' judgment on humanity. Jane survived because she's one of the righteous ones. I'm not worried."
Larry stepped in and Bev shut the door behind him. Jane was sitting on the couch in a black pantsuit with a white camisole and strand of Akoya pearls, her hair in a bun. She still looked haggard from her bout with COVID, but much more put together than when Larry had seen her in the Zoom chat. Bev was also dressed in all black, and wore a silver triangle pendant, which had been given to her by Sauron as one of his priestesses. They were having tea and champagne and little finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off. While Larry had some concerns about lingering germs, he hadn't been eating well since he'd come to Moscow and he was grateful for the food.
"Thank you so much for coming, dear," Jane said, clasping her hands together.
"Thou art welcome," Larry said, though he really didn't mean it.
"Oh!" Jane put a hand on her heart. "I've missed your beautiful language so much, Laurentius. You sound like a lord. And now you have the most wonderful, magnificent accent."
That would have stroked his ego if Larry did not despise Jane so much, knowing her for the manipulator she was.
Bev was just as bad. "Yes. So lovely. Like music." Bev's eyes raked Larry up and down and she licked her lips. "You're looking very well, Moscow has been good to you."
Larry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. If Jane noticed Bev's lust, she wasn't discouraging it, and that made his skin crawl. He desperately wanted to be out of here. "I can'test stayeth long. Fathereth wants me to returnest swiftly to the restaurantsest I am managingeth."
"We understand," Jane said.
Bev nodded. "It's kind of you to even come out here, and help your mother with her little problem."
"Waiteth." Larry dropped his sandwich and sat back in his chair. "She toldeth thou?"
"Of course!" Bev smiled.
Larry folded his arms, indignant, and turned to his mother. "If Bev knowseth about thine condition, whyeth couldn'test Bev helpeth thee with shaving? Thou calledest me away from my jobbeth in Moscowest, thee kneweth Fatherest wouldst be angryeth -"
"I told Jane she should embrace her body hair," Bev said. "It's only in modern times that we think women have to shave their bodies to be attractive, and that's an example of what's wrong with society. Medieval people were happier because they didn't shave. They rarely even bathed! All that soap gives you disease, scrubbing away your skin. And they baked their own bread. Good, organic, natural food. Everyone should be natural and all-organic." Bev twirled a fuchsia strand of hair around her finger as a couple gnats circled over her crotch. "I offered to dye Jane's hair teal. All of it -"
"You're such a wonderful person, Bev," Jane said, clasping her hands together. "So lovely. But unfortunately, I do find it unsightly and it's also quite uncomfortable."
"You're an adult," Bev said, and then she narrowed her eyes at Larry and her nostrils flared like a pig smelling something delicious. "And so are you," she muttered.
The sandwich went dry in Larry's mouth.
The minute Larry was done shaving Jane's back and ass, he ran to the bathroom, feeling an intense wave of nausea. He didn't make it in time, projectile vomiting all over the rug outside the bathroom door.
"Shitteth," he muttered. He was going to have to pay for that, on top of figuring out how to pay his father for use of the portal.
Larry still walked into the bathroom, knowing he might get sick again. He couldn't unsee it. After six weeks, it looked like a growth of chest hair or pubic hair, all over her back and ass. And he was now holding a ziploc bag full of that hair, as Sauron had ordered. He cringed looking at the bag and the tufts of coarse, wiry hair.
It was bad enough to shave her back and ass - and then have to look at her back and bare ass afterwards - and save the hair. It was even more humiliating as he'd been shaving and Jane micromanaged him. "Not so hard!" "Is it done yet?" "Why is it taking so long?" "Faster!" "That hurts! Slow down!"
Once again, Larry found himself looking at the hair in the bag, even as it repulsed him. It was like the compulsion to watch a car wreck.
Larry sat on top of the closed toilet seat, still wearing his pants, and waited to see if the urge to vomit would come back. He had the desperate urge to burn the bag of hair. Even holding it with his eyes closed, it felt like a cold, slimy energy was covering his hand. The bag seemed to pulse like it was becoming its own kind of portal, one right to the mouth of Hell.
Sauron had told him Jane's back and ass hair had magical properties and Larry could feel that now, the unholy eldritch contamination of it. And then, Larry had an idea.
Though Juniper was mostly useless, except as a way to drain energy, he recalled something she'd mentioned about using personal affects in witchcraft - that if you had a bit of hair, or fingernails, or bodily fluid, you could control a person. She had bragged about controlling her ex Sören in such a manner while they were living together, so she could better take advantage of him.
Sauron seemed to act like Jane was a pawn of his, and yet he was much kinder to her than any of his other minions, almost as if he had a soft spot for her, as if such a thing was possible. Indeed, it had been Jane's idea for Sauron to start the carnival to launder money and as a safe place to sell his meth. Larry stroked his chin with one hand and studied the bag of hair with the other. Perhaps if he kept some of the hair himself, he would have a way to control Jane... and would compel her to manipulate Sauron. No more of this charging money for using the portal business. No more humiliating jobs. A larger stipend.
Money. Power.
Revenge.
Sauron would be the pawn now.
Of course, Sauron probably knew exactly how much hair to expect in the bag, having been intimate with Jane - Larry braced himself, that thought made him want to vomit again - so if he saved even a little for his scheme, Sauron would likely know he'd been shorted and that would cause a problem.
"Dammitest," Larry growled; his fist clenched the ziploc bag. "Fucketh."
Larry took some deep breaths to calm down the nausea. Then he heard footsteps up the stairs. He hoped it wasn't Jane, about to see the rug - he didn't need more criticism from her today. But then he heard a familiar voice. "Yooohoooo, Laurentius," Bev singsonged. "Your mother told me you were upstairs -"
Before Larry could close and lock the bathroom door, Bev was right there. She looked down at the vomit-stained rug, then at Larry on the toilet. Larry quickly shoved the bag of hair in his pocket.
"I didst not expecteth thou to returneth so soon," Larry said honestly.
"She texted me to ask if I could zip her into a dress while you were resting. Jeff is taking her out on a date." Bev leaned against the jamb of the bathroom door and her fingers slowly slid up as she gave Larry a little smirk. "I would offer to treat you to dinner for being such a good son, but I see you're not feeling well."
"Nayeth," Larry said.
"Perhaps some tea would settle your stomach. Would you like to come over for... a cup of tea, Laurentius? I can help clean the rug." Bev narrowed her eyes and licked her lips. "I can help you with... a lot of things."
Larry knew what Bev meant, and he didn't like it - he found the woman almost as repulsive as his own mother. Bev was like mutton dressed as lamb - rotten, putrid mutton left out too long, drawing flies. But he didn't want the debt of cleaning the rug hanging over him, and perhaps he could persuade her to pay for use of the portal as well.
With the soiled rug in a plastic shopping bag, Larry followed Bev out to her car, and from there, the estate she owned on the outskirts of Terre Haute. Bev waved to the workers as they stepped out of the car, none of whom waved back at her; Larry got the sense her friendliness was just for show and they didn't like her. Birds of a feather did tend to flock together and Bev was a lot like his mother. A lot like Sauron himself.
Bev's ranch-style house was far from rustic, more of a mansion. Larry admired her taste - inside the walls were black, the floors were black, the furniture was black with violet accents; the greatroom was filled with expensive-looking black marble statues of various goddesses, gods, and demons, and chunks of crystal geodes. In the center of the greatroom was a black marble waterfall carved with hideous gargoyles, flowing with scarlet water that looked like wine; Bev pricked her finger and shook the blood into the waterfall, whispering something in the Black Speech. Larry sat on a black velvet couch while Bev made tea, and after she served it in a tea set made of obsidian, she said, "Please do wait here while I slip into something more comfortable."
"Okayeth," Larry said, leaning back.
The tea tasted bitter and after Larry took a sip, he put the cup down, wondering if she'd drugged it or perhaps enchanted it to make him more receptive to her advances. He desperately wanted to run away, to take the portal and just go, even if it was back to his miserable life in Moscow...
Thou canst doeth this, Larry told himself. Thee needest money.
Suddenly "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye came on the stereo. In the entrance to the greatroom from the hall stood Bev...
...wearing a foot-long studded purple strap-on over black lace crotchless panties that revealed a bush of greying pubic hair, with black lace garters and black fishnet stockings. No bra - large pendulous breasts that sagged and flopped as she walked forward.
Her breasts were covered with moles. Big hairy moles. Larry counted them in horrific fascination. There were fourteen of them, each the size of a dime or a nickel, sprouting hair. He'd seen Lindsey Graham's taint moles and this was somehow still worse.
"Mo-moleth," Larry babbled, staring, not able to help himself. He wanted to pry his eyes away, he wanted to douse them in bleach, but he couldn't stop looking. It was worse than watching a car wreck. He felt as if some eldritch god had come through the portal and he was going mad from the revelation. "Moleth. Molest."
"Yes, Laurentius. Perfectly natural, the way nature intended." Bev's breasts bounced up and down, and the moving dots over her breasts made him dizzy. "Now then..." She came closer and fondled her huge strap-on cock; Larry knew it was going to hurt. "What do you say I give you a little reward for being such a good boy?" She shoved her tits in his face. "Would you like to suck Mummy's tiddies?"
Larry knew Bev was loaded, and yet no amount of money in the world would make him want to do that. He felt like he was ready to vomit out his eyeballs before his brain exploded. He needed to get out of here, rug be damned, debt be damned. "Wouldenst thou excuseth me? It wouldst beeth more sanitaryest if I cleanedeth out my bum-bum first."
"Of course. What a good, thoughtful boy. Mummy will be right here." Bev sat in the armchair and began to play with herself.
Larry went down the hall and found the nearest bathroom. He closed the door and locked it. Bev was going to be displeased when she found out he wasn't coming back - he was sure he wouldn't hear the end of it from Jane - but it didn't matter anymore. As he'd shaved Jane's back and ass earlier today, which had turned into something of a jungle, he thought nothing could be worse than that. He was wrong. The hairy moles all over Bev's breasts was the worst thing he'd ever seen. At this point, Cole could show up in a Speedo and he wouldn't want to have sex again for months.
Even the bathroom was done in the same black walls, black floor, with a real black marble sink and counter. Larry ran his fingers over it, enjoying the smooth feel. Then something caught the corner of his eye - a real mahogany toilet seat.
"A-haeth," Larry said, as if a light went off in his head. That kind of toilet seat was expensive. It would fetch a big price in Moscow, where people were trying to put their money into goods as the ruble kept decreasing in value.
Larry pried off the toilet seat and tucked it under his arm, then laughed to himself as his thumb rubbed the portal and he popped out of the luxurious bathroom, back to his own shabby bathroom in Moscow.
Larry couldn't sell the toilet seat before he had to return the portal to Sauron. The ruble had depreciated so much that people were struggling to buy bread, never mind this.
Sauron arrived at his apartment to collect the portal and the money.
"I don'teth have the money," he said, then corrected himself before Sauron threw another tantrum. "I don't. Have the money."
Sauron folded his arms.
"I do have something equivalent in value. An item."
Sauron tapped his foot. "Well? I'm waiting."
It didn't take long for Larry to get it - he'd been hiding it under the couch in case his apartment got sacked while he was at work. He brought the mahogany toilet seat over to Sauron.
Sauron smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. A chill went through Larry and he felt the pit of his stomach rise.
"You are a true Russian now," Sauron said, reaching out to pat Larry on the head. His touch burned like dry ice. Sauron pulled his hand back and took the toilet seat. "You fulfilled the Russian dream - to steal a toilet seat and die." He raised his hand.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOETH," Larry called out. But it was too late. Larry went flying several feet across the one-room apartment and then he began to choke.
When Larry woke up, he was still in his apartment, slumped on the floor. Every bone in his body hurt, and his neck hurt worst of all. Sauron was sitting on the couch with the toilet seat on his lap.
"Took you long enough." Sauron shook his head and clucked his tongue. Then he pointed at the armchair. "Sit."
Larry got up from the floor and staggered over to the armchair. He felt that dizzy, disoriented, floating-just-outside-his-body feeling that he always got within the first hour of a resurrection, but his body ached all over, and deep, like he'd been beaten. Sauron had been particularly cruel this time around.
"I made something for you," Sauron said. He tossed a ziploc bag at Larry. It was the same one that Larry had used to collect Jane's hair - Sauron must have taken it from Larry's pocket while Larry was dead - but instead of laying in the bag in clumps, the hair had been formed into a handlebar mustache, like the one he was required to wear for Uncle Vanya's. "Yes. Go on. Put it on."
While it completely disgusted him to have his mother's ass hair so close to his lips, Larry still smiled as he tried on the mustache. He had hoped to save just a little bit of the hair to use in magic to try to gain control over her... and through her, influence Sauron... and this was all of the hair he'd collected. Every last bit.
That trip hadn't been for nothing, even with the trauma of Bev's hairy moles. This was his salvation. Soon, he would be the one commanding Sauron around.
"What do you say, you ingrate?" Sauron asked, scowling.
Larry clasped his hands just like his mother did. "I'm loving it."