Traffic Girl - Juliet Ch. 17

Author's Note: This is a rare almost no-sex chapter. There's a lot going on, and John needs to get his head around it. There is a significant amount of table setting here, and things are going to ramp up, with new challenges, risks, and excitement. Please keep the feedback coming. I hope you enjoy it.

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The first order of business for my new "spread happiness" mission was to talk to Jess. We had been lazy about addressing the Tommy thing. Katie's accident and the resulting pressure and risk to Infinity was a convenient excuse to avoid it. But I knew we couldn't anymore. I sensed Kat and Rita knew that, too, so when I touched down from LA again, Jess had come to pick me up. Alone.

She hugged me long and tight when I arrived. I knew she had a mixture of nerves and anxiety. I could feel it in her body. Jess could never have been much of a poker player. When confronted with something she didn't want to do -- and once avoidance was no longer an option -- she would put on her big girl panties and get it done, although sometimes it took a little help to get over the nerves. And today was one of those days. She had given me the key to the G-Wagon, so I climbed into the driver's seat and saw she had two huge lines of cocaine on a mirror sitting on the center console. I could see from the residue that there had been four lines. She slid into the passenger seat and made short work of the coke. She inhaled long and hard a couple extra times, then rubbed her nose with her head held back. With her eyes still closed, Jess finally spoke.

"I know we have to talk about it, John," she said.

"We do, babe," I said, sliding a hand over hers.

With her free hand, she gathered up the remnants of the coke on the mirror and swirled it around her tongue.

"How long have you been seeing Tommy again?" I asked, deciding to just dive right in.

My hand started to shake, so I pulled it back. I worried that might give the impression I was pulling away from her, but I had a sense of dread crawling inside me.

"It's nothing regular," Jess said. "Maybe a half-dozen times over the last year? Only when I'm back here alone, and the rest of you are in LA."

"Have you come back just to visit him?" I asked.

"Yes," Jess admitted. "Last month. But there was actually a business reason for it."

I rolled my eyes and gave a snort of disbelief.

"It's true," she said. "It's kind of complicated, John."

"Not so complicated when it's the guy who tried to destroy Kat," I snapped.

"That's a good point," she said. "A great point. That's totally true. But Tommy is different. He's been through some shit."

"Forgive me for not caring," I said callously.

"I know this is hard to talk about," she said. Then she added, almost as if to herself in an aside, "I knew this would be so hard to get you to understand."

"What?" I said in a tone more sharp than I had intended.

"We need to get Daydream movies into production," Jess said.

"Okay," I said, confused, "but let's stay on topic."

"This is the topic," Jess said. "All right, I admit it. After I hooked up with that guy Patrick in LA? There have been a few times that I just wanted that monster, monster dick experience like I used to get from Dr. V. And Tommy is the only readily available guy I know who can give me that."

My silence was her cue to continue.

"So I've indulged it a few times," she admitted. "You know what? I'm not going to apologize. Because this is a part of me. I like when a guy with a huge dick dominates me. I need it. Not very often. But I need it. I want a scumbag pretty boy with a donkey dick to use me like I'm disposable. Like I'm trash. I can't tell you why. But I love it. On occasion."

"You always have been that nasty slut," I said, the chill still in my voice.

"But there really is something else," Jess said. "Tommy has changed."

I snorted again.

"He has," she insisted. "That girl he dated for so long? Finally left him. He lost his job. He's been really struggling. And that's when I realized we may have some use for Tommy."

"And what's that?" I said.

"Well, I think I've talked him into it," Jess said. "I can be very convincing, you know."

She shot me a flirtatious look to see if I had thawed at all.

"Go on," I said icily.

"I want him to work for Daydream," she said. "As one of the male performers."

"Are you kidding me?" I said reflexively, but as only a few seconds passed, I realized it made sense.

"I talked to Kim and the other girls about it," Jess said. "They think that because we're starting with established female talent, it could be a good idea to inject a couple fresh male faces. The fact that Tommy is packing eleven inches makes it an easy decision."

"Tommy as a pornstar," I said.

I glanced at Jess. She could tell I was coming around.

"So, okay, I'm super sorry I did it again, John," Jess said. "I know I shouldn't do it. But with all the work stress and life stress and family stress, this was an outlet at a moment of weakness."

"He tried to take Kat away from us," I reminded her.

"I know," Jess said. "But he's not that guy anymore."

"Forgive me if I refuse to believe it," I said.

"You know people can change, John," Jess said, using my name again probably because she knew it could get under my skin.

"Some people can," I said. "Just count me as a skeptic when it comes to Tommy. You know how protective I am of my girls. You can understand that."

"It's not an unfair position," Jess conceded. "But let me just say Kat and Rita are on board with my assessment."

"Oh, have you all been seeing him?" I said sarcastically.

"Come on, babe," Jess said. "I've talked to them about it. A lot. We've had a lot of time."

"All right," I said, glancing over to her. She had a hopeful look on her face that confused me. "I'll listen to all of you. And I'll really consider it."

"At least think about the money, darling," Jess said, seeing an opening and dropping into her seductive voice. "And all the fun we could have running a porn company."

"We have enough money," I said.

Jess made me squirm by putting her hand in my crotch and running it over the area skillfully.

"We'll talk about it more when we get home," Jess said. "I'll fill you in on all the details because there are a few things I've held back. But why don't you just go ahead and fill my mouth, baby."

She was putting on the full court press. She had climbed onto her knees in her seat and pulled her hair back into a ponytail before leaning over the gear shifter.

"Fuck, Jess," I said.

"No, my love," she said with an intentional giggle, "this is a blow job."

Next thing I knew, I could barely concentrate on the road as Jess's warm, loving, and experienced mouth enveloped my cock.

"You aren't going to convince me with a blow job," I said resolutely.

"I'm not trying to convince you, darling," she said between swirls around the tip of my cock. "I love sucking dick, and I love sucking your dick the most. All I want is a big load of cum in my stomach."

What Jess wanted, she usually got. And this time was no different. She got the cum in her mouth, and she got Tommy as one of the male leads for her porn company, Daydream Pictures. She got the former a lot more easily than she got the latter. It took the girls two days to convince me. In the end, it was Kat who pushed me over the edge of acquiescence. Jess had made it clear that she would let me have veto power over the inclusion of Tommy at the porn company. Two things gave me peace of mind. First, Jess gave me hiring and firing power over Daydream, which also meant I had to be involved to an extent that could be a lot of fun. Second, Kat made an argument I respected enough that I relented.

Kat's main point was that including Tommy in Daydream really had nothing to do with us. It had to do with the business. We had no qualifications with porn movie production. The whole idea, Kat reminded me, was to create a way to re-route Infinity's cash. It might be Jess's company on paper, but if they ceded me hiring and firing authority, what was the biggest risk? It wasn't that Tommy would be hanging around with my girls. That, on its own, was a decent case. But Kat went further.

An additional kicker, she argued, was that we had changed. I couldn't deny that there was a lot of merit to that. It had been years since the Tommy issue had intruded upon us. Kat was a very different person. She had proved that time and again. The stakes also were so much greater than before, which meant that mistakes would cost us immeasurably more. All four of us, Jess's recent behavior aside, had grown in different ways since Tommy had nearly destroyed Kat.

Kat put it succinctly in a way that resonated with me. "Obviously, Kitty Kat thinks it's a good idea daddy," she had said. "But Good Kat thinks it's got a lot of potential, too."

Rita also drove home the point that after Tommy's personal struggles, he would be wholly dependent on us for his well-being. He was single, unemployed, and genuinely at a loss on how to move forward with his life.

"We would own him," Rita said, putting it bluntly. "So the incentives for him would align for him to get on board, or he'd be out on his ass."

That appealed to my sense of power. I wouldn't mind making a former rival subservient. There was an aspect of danger, like a thrill ride, that appealed to all of us, too. That went unspoken, but I knew it all too well. The girls liked the rush of it. I liked it, too, especially if I believed I could triumph over Tommy. And I believed it. Besides, if he'd be making porn movies, and we would make money off of it, it didn't mean we had to cross paths.

Maybe that was a naive perspective, but all three girls being persistent and confident about it gave me a certain degree of ease in going along. We had vetted the issue thoroughly. We had discussed it. We made a decision. If we weren't in a place where I could trust them, it might have been different. But we were in a good, stable, happy place in our foursome.

The next significant question was timing. Katie was out of the hospital and convalescing. She was doing very well, actually, and it appeared she could be back to working and playing in another four-to-six weeks. But there was still the lingering cloud from her cocaine possession charge. There were about three grams in the baggie, so in theory Katie was looking at up to ten years in prison on a third-degree felony charge.

Her criminal lawyer was one of the best. He was confident that given Katie's clean record and the police's skepticism that the coke was hers and not Jamie's would help leverage a light plea deal. The suspicion that centered on Jamie helped incentivize the football team -- which had rallied around him -- to use its revered position in the city to quietly push for the issue to go away. If that weren't enough, the driver who had t-boned Jamie's Bentley was drunk and a four-time DWI offender. So we had a certain degree of optimism that the legal issues would resolve favorably.

The biggest obstacle, however, was just helping Katie get around. A broken ankle and broken wrist were a difficult combination of injuries in any circumstance. But having a broken right wrist and broken left ankle made getting around beyond awkward. It was damn near impossible.

So the girls made a group decision that Katie needed to move into our guest house until she was capable of getting around. Given that her recovery time was longer than we wanted to necessarily stay in Houston, Kat and Rita insisted that at least one of them would remain home for the duration. Things had gotten pretty wild in LA, they said, and it was probably a good idea for them to take a bit more of a break from our frenetic lifestyle out there. Jess and I had business to tend to, they understood, but we would just spend a month or two enduring a lot of travel. It was manageable -- and it was worth it to ensure that Katie had the most comfortable and complete recovery possible.

Bianka and Julie would hold down the fort at the Houston Hooker House, and Crystal and Jen, the other traffic girl, also pledged to spend more time there, too. Everything seemed to be coming together. The main lingering question was whether any blowback would come to Infinity because of the police investigation of the crash. For the time being, it seemed like we were well-insulated on that front. Jamie and Katie had been coming from a private residence and a private gathering. There was no indication the cops had any interest -- or even the resources -- to dig into something that they had no inkling was there anyway.

But there was still stress and lingering anxiety about what had happened. It was a scary event, and I couldn't deny how powerful a fear had shot through me when I heard Katie was hurt. Our relationship was intense, but it had always been somewhat playful. After the accident, I had to confront what deep down I knew was true. Katie was an extremely important person in my life. The thought of losing her -- and the anguish of seeing her in pain -- was a significant reality check.

Kat was the one who forced me to face that reality.

"We all know how much you care about her," Kat told me one day as we cooked dinner together while Jess and Rita played tennis.

"I do," I said. I felt an instinctive need to downplay it.

"It's okay, John," Kat said, her eyes sparkling like only hers could when looking at me. "Our love isn't a pie. Loving Katie doesn't take away from your love of me or our family. Believe me, I understand now more than I ever have that the heart grows to accommodate the love you need to give in life."

"I've never heard it put that way," I said. "I like it. I think it's true."

"It is true," Kat said. "Rita and I know it as well as anyone in the world. And we wouldn't have offered to make sure at least one of us is here to help take care of her if we didn't feel the same way, too."

And so, once more, our lives entered a new and unexpected phase. This time, it was one with unprecedented risks. Those risks created an extreme amount of stress, which I started to feel acutely. All this came on top of our still-new family responsibilities. And, to cap it off, Petey had thrown in two more movie funds he wanted me to get off the ground.

This all danced through my head as I sat in our guest house in a comfortably new arm chair I'd bought a week before. It rested next to the bed, where I watched Katie take an afternoon nap. Her left leg was raised to help blood flow to her broken ankle. Her right arm was flung across her body. The comforter twisted around her midsection and left the straps of her white tank top exposed. I felt a twinge of guilt that I leered at her nipples through the thin fabric as her chest rose and sank steadily, if a bit slowly. She was still on regular doses of painkillers.

She looked as peaceful as one of the babies. I could see her eyes moving beneath the seemingly translucent skin of her eyelids. Her lips parted slightly, and her nostrils flashed softly with each breath. I took off my shoes and stood up, taking the two steps to the bed silently. I kissed her on the forehead. My body shook as a shudder went up my spine. I really, really hoped she was going to get better.

Then a buzz went off in my jeans pocket. I sat down again and fished the phone out. I smiled when I saw it was a text from Juliet.

"Hey, are you coming out when the first Daydream movie films?" she asked.

"That's the plan," I wrote back immediately.

"Will you be on set?" she followed up.

"I don't know about that, but I told Jess I'd come out with her so we could celebrate," I said.

"Are you sure you don't want to make some porn?" Juliet wrote back, again immediately. She punctuated the message with kissy face emojis.

"I'm not sure I have the acting chops!" I replied.

"What if you had the right co-stars?" she sent, pushing the envelope.

And the picture popped up. She was in bed with Melanie. Their respective blonde hair tousled. Melanie rested her chin against one of Juliet's breasts, grinning at the camera. The side of Juliet's face and half her smile was visible. Melanie stuck her tongue out.

"Is that a threat or a promise?" I wrote back.

"Cum find out, daddy," Juliet wrote.

I didn't reply. Jess and I were flying out in two days. Life might be complicated. There might be risks. I might be under a mountain of stress. But LA was calling me again.