Jessie Ch. 01

Author's note:

Welcome to the third novel in the life of Gary Galloway. Prior knowledge of my previous works is recommended, particularly Three Weeks On The Road. This story is a direct continuation of that one, picking up moments after its end. It also resumes plot threads left unfinished at the end of Messy. While you can enjoy this installment on its own, it'll make a lot more sense having read at least the previous book, if not both of them.

As with Messy and Three Weeks On The Road, there may be sequences or topics or behaviors that are disturbing for some readers. Several chapters contain scenes of violence, either described as occurring previously or happening "on-camera," and several others contain actual or implied threats to the main characters or others. The language used by or towards the characters may similarly offend or disturb some readers. Some chapters may not contain any sexual activity and may exist only to forward the story. I will call these out for readers who do not wish to bother with the plot and simply wish to read for the erotic sequences.

While several chapters can be read as standalone fantasies, there are threads between each chapter that usually only make sense of you have read from the beginning. This novel is far more serialized than 3 Weeks On The Road.

The "short description" text is the name of a song that 1) I imagine Jessie's band playing and 2) fits either the chapter or a scene within the chapter lyrically or musically.

One last note. Every single word of these chapters was written on a large screen phone as I do not possess a computer. I apologize for any spelling/punctuation mistakes or autocorrections that escaped the review process.

As always, all comments public and private are welcome.

Enjoy!

This chapter does not contain any sexual activity. It is written to introduce the characters and plot. If you are reading solely for erotica, please pick up at chapter two.

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August

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Oh.

Dammit.

The little girl looked up at me expectantly, as if saying the word "Papa!" in a high pitched voice would conjure up paternal instincts or, really, any feeling besides abject terror.

Sienna rolled her eyes and stepped forward, bending to detach the child from my thigh. "No Jane, that's not your Papa."

Oh, thank fuck.

"See?"

She picked up the child and held her to her shoulder, looking at me past a head covered in blonde locks. "I need you, Gary."

"See, I...fuck. Oh, sorry. Shit. Sorry. I... Sorry, I'm, See, I'm with somebody. This is our house. I haven't seen you in three years, we're not... Anything... Anymore." I was tripping over my words, worried, confused, out of my element.

I remembered the tears in her eyes and the melting mascara running down her face as she'd accelerated away from the mess surrounding Tori and me three years ago. She'd told me she loved me, that I owed her my life, and that she'd been trying to make me fall in love with her. I'd told her to drive west until she ran out of road, get the fuck away from me and the violence coming towards me.

Then I'd gotten my arm blown nearly off by a bunch of Somalian terrorists, taken a bullet through the abdomen, and given my tourniquet to the neighbor I'd loved so she would live instead of me. Three years later, I was living in a different state, loving a different woman, and... Now I was completely flabbergasted and dragged out of my depth by Sienna's reappearance.

"I know, I've been... Gone. But, Gary, I really need you tonight. Jane and I, we need you. Please." She looked like she was going to cry, her red and wild eyes going even more puffy and red.

Dammit.

"C'mon in."

I held the door for her and she stepped into the living room, looked around at the decorations, the widescreen television, the fireplace, the thick, deep furniture, the lighted dining room ahead on the other side of the doorway.

"Jessie. Mickey. We have...guests."

They'd been conversing at the table, and now they approached, pulling satin robes tight around themselves. "Gary?" Jessie's voice was small and confused. McKenna hung back, unsure of what was transpiring in front of her. I couldn't blame her. I didn't know what the fuck was going on either.

"This is Sienna. And, uh, Jane. Her...daughter?"

"My daughter."

"Sienna, this is Jessie. She's, um, she's my... She's mine. That's McKenna. She's a friend."

Sienna's exhausted eyes rolled as if to say "Gary, you slut." She shook hands around her daughter, clutched protectively to her chest. "Jessie, I remember you, Gary...went to see you? Back when he lived in Minneapolis?"

"Yeah. Something like that." Jessie's voice was odd, and she kept glancing from the tall redhead to me, over and over. McKenna was back to eating sandwiches in the dining room.

"Now that we're all introduced, what's up, why are you here? I don't mean to be blunt, but...dammit."

See looked into the dining room at McKenna, at the table, and the sparse but rich furniture and decorations. Her shoulders sank, and something crumbled behind her eyes. "Can I sit? Eat something?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure," Jessie spoke before I could. She was still giving me side-eye, was still weirded out but seemed to be aware that there was something awful going on just out of sight. She headed back into the dining room. "Mike, let's go get dressed."

"Uh, sure." McKenna pulled her robe tighter around herself and the two of them headed for the stairs. I pulled out a chair for Sienna, and another for Jane. She gave me a weird, crooked half-smile. "I've got a booster seat in the hotel room, I'll just hold her on my lap for now."

"Ok." I left to go get another glass and sandwich fixings, made a few more at the table. I had a feeling if I turned my back, Sienna would steal the candle-holders and silverware. "So, uh, what's up?" I asked finally. Jessie and McKenna had returned, dressed in yoga pants and t-shirts. Jessie was seated next to me, watching the redhead like a hawk. McKenna was alternately fucking around on her phone and making faces at Jane.

"What do you want to know?"

"Uh, why you need my help? Why you knocked on my door at zero dark thirty on Saturday morning? Where the f - where you been for three years?"

She held a glass of orange juice up and Jane sucked it down until Sienna took it away. "I can answer your questions in reverse order and give you the big picture faster."

"I'm not picky. Shoot."

"Long story short? I drove. Ended up in North Dakota the next day, spent some time in a hotel. Like a day or two later, the news was reporting that you and Tori were dead, that there'd been this big terrorist attack at your cabin and everybody had died."

"Close enough," I muttered.

"Where's Tori these days? I would've thought, yknow..."

I looked over at Jessie, saw her jaw tightening. "Tori is a super for a resort in Colorado. Got her leg fu - messed up by a rifle bullet, moved out of state. I think the climate is better there or something." That had been a one hundred percent bullshit lie. Tori had moved away from the memories of her dead friends.

And from me.

"Is she happy? Do you keep in touch?"

"No, I...we...I know enough to know she doesn't want to talk to me. She needed a fresh start."

"Shit, Gary, I'm sorry."

"Please keep going," Jessie said tightly.

Sienna sighed, set Jane down on the floor. The little girl took off running and I restrained my urge to stop her. Sienna was her mother. Sienna was responsible for her.

Wow. What a fucked up thought that was. See was a MOM.

"I kicked around for a couple of days in North Dakota. Spent most of it drunk out of my mind, thinking you were dead. By the time I learned you weren't, well, I didn't want to go back. You didn't want me back, and everything there hurt to look at. Reminded me of...of us."

Jessie gripped my hand under the table.

"I didn't want to come back home. Not to school, not to my parents and friends, I didn't want to see Minneapolis or drive past that hotel downtown or think about the garden by the river...I wanted a fresh start. Away from you. Because you didn't love me."

Jane sprinted out of the darkness of the kitchen and grabbed McKenna's leg. "Cmere, you have to see."

The tiny programmer rolled her eyes at us and headed to the kitchen.

"I got a job there. Two of them actually. Waitress and working in a department store. Found a roommate, lived in a shitty little apartment. Spent every moment I wasn't working drunk and trying not to think about you. And then I found someone." Sienna's eyes - red and electrically awake - drifted away, beyond this table and the confines of the room, the house, the state. "I didn't have my pills, they were back in Minneapolis. He... We were stupid. I got pregnant pretty quick. After Jane was born, he got abusive. Violent. I mean, like violent to me, he's a violent man, but not like you Gary."

"I'm violent?"

"You can be. You could be. I'm guessing that gun isn't a toy."

Oh yeah. I was still shirtless, with the Sig Three Twenty holstered at my side. "You'd guess right."

"You're violent but protective, he's violent and predatory. You protect people with violence, if you have to. He's violent with a whole bunch of other bad qualities added on. And he finally started showing me that side of him. I got away while we were out in California, and I started driving east."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" Jessie asked. "Or a women's shelter. There's resources for women who are being abused. Hell, get a restraining order." She sounded pissed. Probably that my old...sub...had decided to rejoin my life and fuck it up instead of seeking professional help.

"No one would believe me."

"Bull, if he was violent, you'd have bruises, scars, whatever."

"They wouldn't believe me cuz he's dead."

The temperature in the room dropped about fifty degrees, and time gelled like we'd gotten shoved into a slow-motion movie action sequence. McKenna broke the spell by peeking into the dining room. "Um, I guess we're making cookies now. Just thought you should know." A small voice sounded in the kitchen, and she hurried back.

"See, did you kill him?"

She laughed bitterly. "I wish. That'd solve a whole lot of problems. No, he's actually legally dead. He died in Afghanistan about five years ago, set up this elaborate...ruse...I guess so he could desert. He's really smart, and really good at his job. He was a Marine whatcha-call-it. Sounds like it's from Star Wars."

I thought for a moment. "Force Recon."

"Yeah."

"So he's really good at being violent."

Sienna nodded. "Yeah. Very. And he's smart. Like I said, faked his own death. He was working for cash on the North Dakota oil fields when I met him, trying to organize people. He's magnetic. Charismatic. He can..." She drifted away again, into some memory, good or bad or a mix of the two, I couldn't tell from her face. Unconsciously, she started itching her arm.

"Who is this guy? What does he look like? Where does he live?" Beside me, Jessie was starting to sound impatient.

"His name is Morgan Skolnich. He's a few years older than Gary. About the same size, maybe a little taller, a little thinner, leaner. Gary, you've bulked up since I saw you last."

"I've tried."

"Honestly, I don't know what he looks like, like normally. He changed his hair color and length regularly, wears different colored contacts. I know he likes to keep his hair medium length and wear a goatee. That way he can grow his hair out or cut it shorter, go clean-shaven or fill in a beard or trim it into a mustache. In the time I was with him he was a brunette, blonde, redhead, and bald."

"What color are his pubes?" Jessie asked, a hint of a smirk in her voice.

"Huh?" Sienna seemed distracted. If she wasn't talking, she was itching.

"Pubic hair. Most people don't dye that when they change hair color."

"Umm, bald."

Jessie stood up. "I don't believe you. This is bullshit. You're really going to sit there and expect us to believe that you were with a man for three years, had a child with him, and you don't know what he fucking looks like? Give me a break. Why are you really here? And why are you dressed like that fucking mob that tried to kill me and Gary and Mike just three weeks ago?"

Sienna sighed and seemed to deflate, the massive weight sitting invisibly on her shoulders crushing the air out of her. "Morgan Skolnich didn't create the Brotherhood of the Red Flag, but he is definitely the brains behind it. He's the one teaching them how to build bombs. How to fight."

"Oh dammit." The thought was truly horrifying to me - a group of violent political extremists getting training from an elite warrior built by the Marine Corps.

"Yeah. I was... With... Him. Participated in a, um, rally, in California. This is the only set of clothes I have. While he was at a meeting, I threw some stuff in a car and started driving with Jane. I literally have no money, no support system. I've got nothing, no one. I don't even have enough to pay for another night in the hotel. Maybe another tank of gas."

"What about your parents, your friends?"

"You were part of The Brotherhood?" Jessie interjected.

"I was along for the ride."

"So you beat people, planted bombs?"

"I had a psychotic boyfriend, a daughter under three years old, and zero help coming from anyone. I did what I had to stay alive and keep her safe."

"So why are you talking me this story instead of your parents, or, hell, Hazel?"

Tears welled in the worn-out redhead's eyes and her jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as she fought to master emotion. "Hazel moved to Hawaii. My family... That was one of the first strings he cut, one of the first ways he made me...dependent...on him. My parents are pretty liberal, but there's a limit. He sent them a fucking photo album of...me...and a bunch of guys. Doing drugs...having sex. While I was pregnant. He sent it from my phone too, the burner he made me get, the one I'd been using to talk to them. They wouldn't open the door to me if I was freezing to death. My mom literally told me that."

I looked up at Jessie, saw her expression softening. There was still steel in her posture, still anger at Sienna showing on her face, but I knew she was thinking about her own family - dead father and asshole mother. I took her hand, squeezed it, and she gave me a sad smile.

"Gary was - is - my last shot. There's nobody else."

"What do you need?" I asked. "Money? What?"

"If you want. Honestly, if you have a tent to set up, I'd be happy to stay in your backyard. I just..." her eyes closed and she put her head down. Two sobs wracked her, and then she sniffed and looked up. "I've been driving for days. Maybe a couple hours sleep in McDonald's parking lots. I haven't eaten anything but gas station or fast food shit for like a week. I just need a place to... Stop running. I need...I need to sleep and know that my daughter is safe. Please. If you've got a sleeping bag, I'll give it to Jane and we can sleep in the garage." Desperation ramped up in her voice and she looked truly needy, truly pitiful.

"We need to talk about it," Jessie told her. She pulled on my hand. "C'mon."

McKenna and Jane were baking, Jane sitting on the counter fiddling the controls on my Kitchenaid. The little programmer raised her eyebrows at its as we moved through the room for the stairway. I closed the door behind us and sagged against the wall. "Jess, this is...I didn't... The evening should not have ended like this. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Don't be sorry."

"Really? You're serious."

"I've got one question." Jessie ran her hands through her shoulder-length black hair, stared at the ceiling like she could pull strength from it.

"Shoot."

"Did you love her?"

"What? Huh?"

"Did you love her? Simple question."

I thought back on the relationship I'd had with Sienna. Student and reluctant teacher, then one-third of a triad that worked really fucking well, then a rock of support... Taking advantage of a messed up situation to try and become my partner. The "love" in "lover." "No," I replied. "There was SOMETHING there. No way there couldn't be. But she wasn't...she's not...I never got as close to her as Tori."

Jessie sighed and gave me a tired smirk. "Then I want to help her."

"You do?" That was a shock.

"Yeah. I look at her and I see myself at eighteen, freezing my ass off in that apartment without a furnace. Now add in a kid? I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I know what it is like to have literally nobody and nothing."

Fuck, she was right. I should've seen the correlation. "So what do you want to do?"

"We've got an empty third-floor apartment that we just use for having sex in. Put her in that bedroom, let her sleep until we figure out what to do next."

"Sure?"

"Yeah. That's what I would've wanted. Needed. You disagree?"

I glanced up the stairs, my vision carrying me back to a Minneapolis townhouse, the mascara running down Sienna's face as I told her to scram, that we weren't an "us" anymore. She told me she was trying to control me, trying to make me love her. Who knew how long she'd been manipulating me. "I'm sympathetic but... You ever hear the phrase 'topping from the bottom?'"

"Yeah, I try not to do it. You're my master. I mean, I'll ask for what I want, maybe occasionally set up a scenario or something I want, but you're the head of the household and in charge in bed."

"She admitted she been manipulating me for, hell, I don't know. Looking back, I can see she'd been doing it for months."

"Do you think this is a scam?"

I ran my hands over my face. "I don't know. Maybe? Could be? I don't know how I trust her? Even if what she's saying is true, I still don't know how I can trust her. It's fantastical and ugly. Like, is this Morgan dickhead gonna show up on my porch, bomb my Suburban?"

"It's up to you," Jessie said. She put a gentle hand on my arm. "You knew her. I didn't, I don't. I just...I wish someone would've helped me like we can help her."

DAMMIT!

"Ok. She can stay upstairs. But the first sign of monkey business, the first sign of anything fucky going on, she's out and I'm calling the cops."

Jessie grinned. "Says the anarchist."

"Says the anarchist."

"We made chocolate chip cookies," McKenna announced as we walked back into the kitchen. "With sprinkles. On the inside. Yeah. I don't know how that's gonna turn out. But we did that."

I gave her a wry smile. "Thanks for keeping her distracted."

"No worries. She's kinda cool, I kinda like her. What's going on with her mom?"

"She's gonna stay here for a little bit," Jessie told her friend. "Sorry about our weekend."

The brunette leaned in close to us, stuck out her lower lip and gave us sad eyes. "No more dick?"

"Probably not," I replied.

"Awww..."

I rubbed her head. "Soon, Mickey."

"Okaaaaay."

Jane ran up and tugged on McKenna's pants leg. "Cookie?"

She sighed and turned back to the stove.

"You can stay," Jessie told Sienna when we entered the dining room. "For a little bit."

The redhead heaved a shuddering sigh and looked up at us pitifully. "Thank you so, so much. I..." she swallowed loudly, fought tears. "Can...we go get my stuff? The hotel isn't that far away."

I rolled my neck, shrugged a couple of hard crackles through my shoulders. "Yeah, I'll take you. Let me go get a shirt. Jess, you wanna come?"

"I'll stay here, try those weird-ass cookies once they come out." Jessie pressed her body to mine and gave me a visibly passionate kiss, shifting against me like she couldn't contain her arousal. "Hurry back." She trailed her hand over the crotch of my jeans on her way out.

#####

Flipflops exchanged for boots and a t-shirt on, Sienna and I drove through the warm summer night, windows open, movement blowing a cool breeze through the cab of the truck. I kept glancing over at the nervously fidgeting Sienna. She looked so different, and this situation was so fucked up... I couldn't imagine what she'd been through, what she'd seen and experienced. I'd shared a very intimate year of my life with this woman, knew every inch of her body, and yet it was like I was sitting next to a stranger.