The feeling of shame and disgust that washed over Jean was dizzying as she made her way to Jeff’s apartment, the place she had come to know as ‘Home.’ She had moved in with Jeff right after high school because life with her aunt and her perverted husband wasn’t the type of life she would wish on anybody.
Back in high school, Jeff had been her crush turn lover.
He was on the school’s basketball team and was quite popular too.
He was ridiculously good at basketball and had potential to be drafted, until he got dropped for doping.
Knowing that his chances of making it in sports were over, he tried to keep a low profile in school and get his grades up, and that was how he met her.
She helped him with schoolwork even though he was a senior and she was a sophomore.
Sometimes, back then, he let her crash at his place whenever she wanted to stay away from her aunt’s husband, Pete.
Jeff was also without parents, so they sort of just clicked and understood each other, and after she was done with high school, they moved to the city, and though his place was small, he was glad to have her.
It was almost three years now, and they still stayed together in the small apartment.
Neither she nor Jeff had particularly clean jobs.
Jeff shoplifted sometimes with a few friends, and when he wasn’t doing that, he was selling drugs.
It brought in a decent amount of money, but it was a dangerous life.
Jeff had been honest with her from the start and told her that she would need to earn her keep in the apartment by keeping herself busy.
She had agreed and had taken a job bussing tables for about two months before Jeff told her that she would need to do better, which was when he introduced her to what she did now.
What she had done with the stranger from last night.
A cold shudder went through Jane’s body, but she dared not stop as she kept on running.
Back then, Jean had told Jeff that she could not do what he was asking.
She told him that they were dating; he should not want her to go have sex with other people.
She told him it was wrong, but Jeff had subtly threatened to send her back to Pete and her aunt Margaret if she refused, and that had shut her up for a while.
Eventually she got fed up, and Jeff pleaded that she only needed to do it for a little while longer.
He said that he was saving, and when they hit the amount he wanted, she would stop and never have to think about working again.
Truly, the money she made was good on its days, even better when it was the end of the month.
Jean agreed to keep up with it for a while because Jeff had promised that she would never work again afterwards.
He had then gone ahead to create accounts for her on multiple dating platforms where he would text men and ask them to pay for ‘Sessions’ with her.
It was on one of those platforms that he had met fifty-eight-year-old Dave.
Other times, Jeff would get intel from his friends on where a couple of the city’s big boys would be gathering, and she would be there, hoping to score big with one of them, and sometimes, more.
It worked each time, thanks to her extremely pretty face, long legs, and perfect body shape.
She always ended up with a stacked guy whom she’d give a good time to, then drug and take more than her pay.
The same thing she had done with the stranger from last night, except it had been different with him.
He was an unexpected victim, and she regretted it because he had been kind and good, and funny.
She hadn’t drugged him.
For some reason, he had trusted her and had fallen asleep in her arms, knowing fully well that he had what she was sure was over thirty thousand dollars in the pockets of his jacket.
When she had gotten up, barely an hour after they’d both fallen asleep, she had taken the watch from the bedside table and picked up his jacket, looking for some change when she found the bundle of money in the two inside pockets of his jacket.
She hadn’t even thought about it.
She’d just taken the money and the watch and ran out of the room.
She hadn’t stopped running since she left the hotel.
Jean knocked on the door of Jeff’s apartment, which was situated on the top floor of a three-storey building.
She knocked three times before the lock clicked and Jeff opened the door.
Jean hurried into the room and shut the door behind her, locking it before resting her back on the wood and breathing hard.
“You’re back early.
What’s up?” Jeff asked, moving to sit on the small, almost broken sofa in the living room.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he sat.
Jean looked at the clock on the wall and saw that the time read five minutes past two in the morning.
She said nothing, only walked to the small table in front of Jeff, and dumped the contents of the towel she had stolen from the hotel to wrap the money in.
Jean watched as Jeff’s expression slowly shifted from sleepiness to realization, then it settled on surprise.
Open-mouthed, he got to his feet and came to kneel beside Jean in front of the table.
He picked up one of the four bundles and smelled it.
“Fat Dave gave you this?” He whispered.
She shook her head.
“I… I met someone else.” A smile spread across his face as he dropped the money and swept her off her feet.
“Babe, you’re fucking brilliant!
I love you, do you know that?” He held her in a tight embrace and showered her with kisses.
Jean giggled, but deep down she could not help the feeling that it did not feel right, not as right as it could be.
However, Jeff was proud of her, and that was all that mattered to her.