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That was what kept drawing me back in, that was what had intrigued all of us. Jessica went through life wearing a mask, but beyond that mask was a wild, twisted woman, aching for a way out. She hid it, and then she made foolish decisions to avoid admitting what she wanted.
I couldn’t make that my problem. I’d made that mistake before.
“I need to get back to my car,” Jess groaned, rubbing her hands over her face. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes a little reddened and swollen. If it was up to me, if she were actually mine, this would have been only the beginning of her punishment. If she were mine, she would have been standing in a corner, bare-bottomed, while she waited for her next spanking.
She wanted that — consequences, order, control, someone to pull her out of her attitude and bring her back down to reality. But unless she chose it, unless she chose us, what more was I supposed to do?
“Where are your keys?” I said. She dug around in her dress’s front pockets, finally pulling out a small set of keys on a pink lanyard. I snatched them from her hand.
“Hey! You can’t —”
“I can smell alcohol on your breath,” I said. “You’re not driving anywhere. Where’s your car?”
She folded her arms, looking off to the side as if that made herdefiant stance any better. “Back at the bridge,” she said.
I sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of my nose as I looked at the cars again. Flat tires. No windows. At least they’d been scared off before they could start fucking around under the hoods. We had one client’s car in there too, but luckily it had been spared.
“I’m too damn tired for this,” I said. “I’m not dealing with it tonight. You can sleep here. We’ll take you back to your car in the morning.”
“What?” Both Jess and Lucas gaped at me in unison. Lucas was trying to keep his anger reined in, but a vein in his neck was throbbing with buried fury as he said, “You want her to stay in our fucking house?”
“I want to get some damn sleep,” I snapped, and his mouth shut. “I’m not driving anywhere tonight, and I’m sure as hell not walking her ass home.”
Lucas grumbled, turning away from me and pacing to the other side of the garage. I didn’t blame him for not wanting her here, but we were all tired. Things probably wouldn’t feel any better in the morning, but at least then, I’d have the energy to deal with it.
Jason, who’d been sitting next to Vincent against the back bumper of the Mustang, said, “She can sleep in my room. I’ll be in the attic anyway.” He took a drag on Vince’s vape as he stood, the cloud of vapor curling from his lips as he told Jess threateningly, “If you touch a damn thing in that room besides the bed, I’ll spank you again.”
Her blush deepened. It drew my attention to the freckles on her nose, and I looked away from her, trying not to stare. How could she make me so angry and then…then make me feel like this? How was it possible to look at someone and feel simultaneously enraged and attracted?
“I won’t touch anything,” she said.
“Come on, then.” I jerked my head toward the house. “I’ll showyou upstairs.”
She followed me quietly, her head down and her arms folded. I snapped my fingers as I opened the door, ordering the dogs to step back. Jojo was already wagging her tail, eager to make friends, but Haribo regarded Jess suspiciously, making small, uncertain barks toward her.
“They won’t bite,” I said as Jess nervously squeezed behind me through the door. “Unless I tell them.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” she said. The dogs stayed in the entryway as we ascended the stairs, her footsteps soft behind me. When I took a glance back at her, her eyes were wandering around, taking in everything she could. I would have been so ashamed if she’d seen this place when we first moved in. It had been filthy, damn near condemned. Now it looked like something worth living in.
I abruptly looked away from her, mentally scolding myself. Sigmund Freud could have developed a whole new complex around me being so obsessed with someone so unreachable. Then he could develop another one around the fact that I didn’t only want Jessica for me, I wanted her forus.
Bringing the woman I wanted into the family we’d built, intermeshing our lives and growing a relationship together, felt natural to me. But to most people, it didn’t. Society wanted things to be labeled, to fit into neat and tidy boxes. Sex was meant to be exclusive, romantic, and flawless. Friends were only friends and never lovers, nothing could grow or change. Who you used to be could never be separated from who you’d become.
I hated it, rejected it. I wanted nothing to do with that outlook, that moral posturing. I’d struggled with it like everyone else. The world was sure to always remind me I didn’t fit. If I hooked up with a girl, I was straight, but if I dated a guy, I was gay. If I wanted sex to be rough, I was violent. If I wanted to choose my own family and build relationships in my own way, I wasperverted. If I wanted to defend myself, to stand up to those who would harm me, I was dangerous.
Reject the boxes you’re offered and people will keep trying to shove you into them. They’ll put their labels on you and demand you adhere to them, and then if you don’t, it becomes your own damn fault that life is difficult.
That was where Jess and I differed. I’d given up on trying to fit in a long time ago and she was still clinging to the dream of societal acceptance.
Jason’s room was at the very end of the hallway. I opened the door and motioned her inside, watching as she stepped in and looked around. His bed was small, but he rarely slept in it, shoved into the corner on the right. His desk and computer took up the rest of the space, three wide-screen monitors stretching from one side of his desk all the way to the other. His window was blocked out with a heavy curtain. Blue LED strips in the corners and along the ceiling bathed the room in a neon glow.
Jess turned to face me, her lips pressed tightly together. The neon made her hair appear almost white, glowing ethereally.
“The bathroom is right next door,” I said. “The dogs won’t bother you. They stay downstairs.”
She nodded in understanding, swallowing hard. I couldn’t blame her for ghosting, or for letting down her guard with me for one night and then retreating the moment the sun rose. Boxes were safe and easy. Leave the shelter of the box and the world becomes significantly less friendly.
She was probably wiser for trying to fit in. She was following the rules the world had handed her, shitty as they were.
