Chapter 13 - Taking Out The Trash

Chapter 13: Chapter 13 - Taking Out The Trash

Jesse stood in front of the closet mirror and buttoned up a suit he’d only worn twice.

Charcoal gray. Single-breasted. Slim through the waist, the way his mother said suited his height. She’d bought it for him five years ago, the week he finally got the job at Standard & Silk after eleven months of rejection letters.

He remembered her standing in the doorway, beaming like he’d been accepted into Harvard.

"A man should look like he belongs where he’s going," she’d said. "Even if nobody else thinks he does."

Jesse straightened the lapels. He slid his hands into the pockets out of habit and felt paper crinkle against his fingers.

He pulled it out. A fifty-dollar bill, folded into a neat little square.

He hadn’t put it there. He’d never had a spare fifty in his life.

She must have tucked it in when she bought the suit, the same way she used to slip lunch money into his backpack when he was a kid, and he’d just never found it.

Jesse stared at it for a long moment. Then he folded it back up and slipped it into his inside pocket.

He walked into the bedroom.

Tatiana was sprawled across the bed on her stomach, the sheet tangled around her legs, dead to the world. She’d stumbled in there after the shower and passed out within minutes.

Jesse smacked her bare ass. Hard.

She yelped and jerked upright, hair everywhere.

"Get up," Jesse said. "You’re coming with me."

Tatiana groaned and flopped back down, dragging the pillow over her head. "Jesse, I’m tired. I just want to sleep."

Jesse chuckled.

"Tired from what? For two years, you’ve done nothing in this house but eat, work out and sleep. You’ve rested enough. Get up and follow me."

She peeked out from under the pillow, saw his face, and seemed to realize he wasn’t going to let it go.

With a heavy, theatrical sigh, she rolled out of bed and started digging through the few clothes she had left in the room. She pulled on a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie and shoved her feet into sneakers.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Don’t be so curious. Just follow me."

Tatiana froze with one sneaker half on. Her eyes darted to him, then away.

"Please tell me it’s nothing sexual," she said quietly. "I can’t do it anymore today, Jesse. I’m so sore. You fucked me five times."

Jesse laughed. He stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at him.

"And all those five times," he said, "didn’t you enjoy it?"

Tatiana turned her face away from his gaze.

Jesse didn’t let her off that easily.

"If you weren’t into it, you could have told me and I would’ve stopped. I asked you, Tati. I got your consent. Twice."

"Like I had a choice," she muttered.

"Of course you had a choice." Jesse’s voice stayed calm. "You could’ve packed your bags and walked out that door. Instead, you chose to get on your knees. You chose to be fucked."

She didn’t say anything to that.

There was nothing to say. He was right, and they both knew it. And somewhere underneath the soreness and the embarrassment, she knew she’d cum more times this morning than in her whole life. That was the part she’d never admit.

Jesse gave her a once-over, taking in the hoodie, the messy hair, the puffy eyes.

"Let’s go."

---

He locked the front door behind them.

Tatiana followed him down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk, arms crossed against the morning chill, still trying to figure out what he was up to.

Jesse didn’t say a word. He just walked.

Then he stopped next to the black Porsche Panamera parked at the curb.

Tatiana stopped too, but for a completely different reason.

A car like that didn’t belong on this street, she thought. Nobody in this building could afford the insurance on a car like that, let alone the car itself. She’d assumed some rich guy was hooking up with someone nearby.

Jesse pulled a key fob from his pocket and pressed a button.

The Porsche chirped. Its lights flashed.

He opened the driver’s door, leaned in and hit the ignition. The engine purred to life, low and expensive.

Tatiana’s mouth fell open.

"Is... is that your car?"

"Yes," Jesse said. "It’s mine."

She looked at the car. Then at Jesse in his sharp charcoal suit. Then at the car again.

Her mind raced.

How did Jesse, broke-ass, basement-dwelling, can’t-afford-new-work-shirts Jesse, get his hands on a car like this? Overnight?

Had he always had money? Had he been hiding it this whole time? Was this some kind of test? Was his father sending him money? Was he selling drugs?

The questions piled up so fast she didn’t notice him standing right in front of her until he snapped his fingers an inch from her face.

She blinked.

"You with me?" Jesse asked.

He pointed across the street.

Tatiana followed his finger, and her stomach dropped.

Sitting on the opposite sidewalk, lined up beside a fire hydrant, were her two suitcases, a duffel bag, three overstuffed trash bags and her ring light, its stand bent at an angle.

"I moved your bags and the rest of your belongings over there while you were sleeping," Jesse said. "If I find anything else that belongs to you, I’ll have it sent to you. Oh, and I took your key to the apartment."

He held it up between two fingers, then dropped it into his pocket.

Tatiana stared at the bags. Then at him.

"You can’t be doing this to me, Jesse." Her voice rose. "You just can’t. After everything I did for you this morning, you can’t just kick me out!"

A man walking his dog slowed down to watch. Jesse didn’t care.

"Yes, I can," he said, perfectly calm. "And I have. And if you refuse to get off my property, I’ll call the police and report you for trespassing."

Her face crumpled.

Then the tears came. Big, fat, shaking tears.

"Please, Jesse. Why are you doing this to me? I thought..."

"You thought what?" Jesse cut her off. "That because you finally let me fuck you, I should just let you stay in my house after what you did? Is that what you thought?"

She sniffled and said nothing.

"You know what I keep thinking about?" Jesse leaned against the car. "When Andrew was standing in my bedroom calling me his slave, I looked at you. And you were smiling. You were blushing, Tati. You liked hearing him say it."

Her eyes went wide.

"Yeah. You thought I didn’t see that, huh? I saw it."

Tatiana’s composure collapsed completely. She stepped forward and grabbed his sleeve with both hands.

"Please forgive me, Jesse. Please. I can’t go back home. My mom hates me. She won’t let me back in the house. I have nowhere to go. Please!"

Jesse looked down at her hands on his mother’s suit.

He gently peeled her fingers off, one at a time.

Then he smiled.

"That’s your problem. You figure it out." He opened the driver’s door. "You belong in the streets anyway."

He got in and shut the door.

Tatiana stood frozen on the sidewalk as the Porsche rolled forward, pulling out of the parking spot with a smooth, effortless turn.

Then it stopped right in front of her.

The window slid down.

Jesse reached into his inside pocket, pulled out the folded fifty-dollar bill and flicked it at her. It bounced off her hoodie and fluttered to the pavement at her feet.

"That’s for your services, slut."

The window rolled up.

The Porsche growled and pulled away down the street, leaving Tatiana standing beside a fire hydrant with three trash bags, two suitcases, a bent ring light and fifty dollars.

---

Jesse watched her shrink in the rearview mirror until he turned the corner.

He didn’t feel guilty. He waited for it, half-expecting the old Jesse to come crawling back and make him turn the car around.

It never came.

He drove past the front of his building one last time, pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed.

It rang four times before a groggy, irritated voice answered.

"Dude. You know I don’t like calls. You could’ve just texted. I could’ve been in the middle of something, and you just ruined it."

Jesse chuckled. Knowing Nolan, he very much had been in the middle of something.

"Good morning to you too, my friend."

"Fuck you very much. What’s up?"

"I have a job for you."

Nolan snorted. "Dude, you can’t afford me."

Jesse glanced at the dashboard of the Porsche. At the leather. At the six hundred and fifty thousand dollars sitting in an account nobody else could see.

"I can afford you," he said. "Just trust me. I need you to do a deep search on someone."

"Really? I can do that for you, easy peasy." There was a pause, then Nolan’s voice got a little more careful. "I hope it’s not your father again."

Jesse’s grip tightened on the wheel for half a second.

Percy’s voice echoed in his head. Your father was at your mother’s funeral.

He pushed it away. That was a problem for another day.

"No," he said. "It’s not my father."

"Then who?"

Jesse turned onto the main road, toward the bridge and Manhattan.

"I want you to give me everything you can find on Carrie Morton."