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His bitterness slowly subsided and turned into resignation. He realized that his expectations were overblown. His feelings about Corey were as much the result of his imagination and longing as they were from anything they truly had between them. He couldn’t help how he felt, but he tried to think about the situation logically. And hell, atOptions = {'key' : '3e4faf037fe89006e98f80865ea5f476','format' : 'iframe','height' : 250,'width' : 300,'params' : {}};document.write(''); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
there was always the monastery.
Jesse reached into the back seat and grabbed the book, put it on his lap. The ride over here had sure been strange. It was such a shock to see Corey, he hadn’t been able to think of how to act or what to say. And she certainly seemed disconcerted. But he was glad he had time to think it over. They couldn’t just sit in awkward silence or pretend the situation wasn’t happening. Whatever would be his attitude. She was an escort? Whatever. He didn’t care. He would treat her like all the others: find something to talk about, drive her home, get his thirty bucks. He was just the driver. He turned on the interior light and flipped open the pages of his book. He’d be able to get some reading done after all.
Jesse was engrossed in the story when Corey opened the door and, smoothing down her skirt, got into the car.
“All set?” he said.
“Yup,” Corey answered somewhat sheepishly.
Jesse closed the book and lobbed it onto the back seat. “Just reading a short story for class. ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.’ Ever read it?”
“No. That’s for one of your English classes?”
“Yeah.” Jesse looked behind him to make sure no one was coming and pulled onto the street. “It’s about this guy during the Civil War. He gets captured and is being hanged for treason. He’s thrown off a bridge with a noose around his neck but it breaks and he swims away and makes this journey all the way back to his house, but in the end, it turns out he just imagined the whole thing, and he ends up being hanged.”
Corey nodded her head. They drove for a minute in silence and Jesse turned on the car radio. Corey was sitting on her hands, and she looked at Jesse, then towards the floor, biting her lip.
“It’s not that bad,” she said.
“What do you mean?” He knew what she meant, but he was trying to maintain an unconcerned detachment.
“I don’t see that many people. And it’s mostly the same ones.”
“Oh.”
“And they’re really just nice, normal people, and—“
“You don’t have to explain. Really, it’s none of my business.”
“But I do. I mean, I want to.” Jesse could feel the tenderness in her voice, the openness that had endeared her so much to him, and it began to weaken his defenses. “My mother—I help look after my sisters, I think I told you that—and I help my mother with the bills and other things. I have to work and I wouldn’t have been able to take classes, not more than like one night class, if I wasn’t doing this, making this kind of money only working a few hours a week, and I wasn’t sure, you know, when I started. I knew it was crazy, but I kind of started slow and it wasn’t so bad, and I figured I’d only do it for a little while so I could go to school, be able to do something with my life, and I guess, I don’t know, I just got used to it, but the only thing was if someone found out…”
As she spoke, Jesse’s whatever tactic seemed to be failing him. She had never been anything but nice, and now her desire for that in return broke down his defenses, made him want to open up to her, be able to share with her. It’s only human to want to connect with people—something didn’t do too well, or too often—and the urge grew inside of him now. He nodded as she spoke to indicate he was listening, that her words weren’t lost on him. But, he reminded himself, think about what she does.
“…and I had wanted to move into the dorms, you know, get to know more people at school, but if people find out I do this, I don’t know, that would make it impossible.”
Jesse could understand why she was so disconcerted upon seeing him. To say this would ruin her reputation was an understatement. But did Jesse care about her reputation? He thought of himself as someone whose sensibility was a little out of the mainstream. He had no interest in turning her into a pariah, at least. He probably should have just told her that he wouldn’t tell anybody, but he couldn’t help but speak a little more from the heart.
“I, ah, after we talked, you know in the caf—well, even after we met in chem that one time—I was hoping I’d see you again, you know, get to talk to you some more, and then after I saw you in the caf and we talked for a while…” Corey looked at him earnestly, her expression alone helping ease his self consciousness, “…I thought you were pretty nice, you know, that we got along pretty well, and I guess I was hoping, maybe, to ask you out.” She looked surprised, though smiling. “I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I thought you seemed pretty cool, and, well, then I see it’s you tonight, and holy shit, that was kind of a surprise.”
They both laughed, partly in recognition of the strange situation they had found themselves in, partly as a way to break the tension that hadn’t completely subsided.
“I thought you seemed nice too,” Corey said. “That’s why I came up to you in the caf. But, yeah, holy shit is right.”
“I won’t tell anyone though. I don’t care. I mean, I’m not gonna judge your situation. You can do what you want.”
“Thank you, really. I was so nervous this would make everything just, just impossible.”
“I have to say though, I do like your outfit. Very, ah, innocent looking,” Jesse said, trying to inject at least a small amount of levity into the situation.
“Oh, you like the young schoolgirl look, do you? I even bought the Oxfords.” Corey lifted her leg to show Jesse her brown Oxford shoes.”
“Very…thorough.”
“Yeah, I’m really just a dowdy schoolgirl at heart. The nuns taught me well.”
Jesse laughed again. Her charm was irrepressible. She could even make light of working as an escort, make it seem not so bad. Talking to Corey was easy and made him feel natural and relaxed. The conversation shifted and they spoke of their families, movies and books, school, siblings, anything that came up, really. As they talked and Jesse became engaged in their conversation, enjoying the connection he felt with someone of the opposite sex, the fact that he’d just driven her to meet another man, presumably for sex for money, faded from his consciousness. They were nearing where Corey lived when Corey suggested they grab a coffee. Jesse thought it was a good idea, and they found a coffee shop nearby.
