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He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Todd had touched his face. Part of him, Jesse liked to think most of him, had hated it. The pat made Jesse feel like a dog, and the way the hand lingered on him sent shudders down his spine. The worst part, however, was that some part of Jesse liked it. Todd was the only person left in the world who touched him without meaning to hurt him, and he was tired of hurting.
Jesse loathed the part of himself that wanted to be touched by Todd. So much so that he buried it deep inside and instead concentrated on the part of himself that hated it. Almost like a punishment, he forced himself to feel the revulsion until his empty stomach roiled. There, that was the correct response to Todd’s touch.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but Todd’s apartment was the strangest place he’d ever seen. The odd decor added to his already immense discomfort. He felt slightly light-headed, probably from the exertion of lifting the roof of the Camino combined with the shock of the dead body and the struggle to roll it into the carpet. Death still shocked him, Jesse figured that was a good thing. He was hungry and tired. He couldn’t quite recall a time when he wasn’t tired and hungry. Standing uncomfortably in the strange living room, he swayed slightly, unsure of what to do with himself.
“Now we just have to wait until Mr. Schnazer goes bowling, should be an hour or so,” Todd may as well have been talking about waiting for his neighbor to leave so he could turn his music up louder. “But hey, Jesse, I have a surprise for you.”
Jesse felt as if the floor had dropped completely out from under him. He didn’t need any surprises from this murderer. A dopey smile plastered across his face, Todd seemed eager for Jesse’s reaction. Jesse knew that he was expected to reply, could feel the pressure build as he struggled to think of anything to say. In another part of his life, Jesse had struggled to keep his thoughts to himself. If he concentrated, he could still remember that more verbose version of himself and how he chattered and swore seemingly nonstop. When he did though, Mr. White’s disapproving scowl flashed in his mind; he always suspected that Mr. White would rather Jesse keep his mouth shut at all times. Now though, words came to him only with great effort.
“Y-yeah?” was the only answer he could muster, even that sticking part way in his throat. Todd’s hand on the small of his back was a known idiom between them, a way to usher Jesse from location to location. It might have been considered kinder than yanking on his shackles the way the others did, but Jesse still flinched away like it had burned him before allowing Todd’s hand to rest just above his waist and start to push. For a moment, Jesse resisted. His feet were so tired and the looming hallway so frightening, that it took a good amount of pressure on Todd’s part to get Jesse’s body in motion.
For a minute, time slowed and Jesse was afraid he was being pushed back into Todd’s creepy bedroom. Instead, they turned and Todd clicked on a light. The bathroom was pink from top to bottom, complete with one of those fuzzy toilet lid covers that matched the fuzzy pink bathmat. Combined with the seashell decor, Jesse would have sworn that a woman in her 70s lived here. The lights above the mirror buzzed slightly. What the hell was he supposed to be looking at?
“Is this, uh, the surprise?” immediately after saying this, Jesse regretted it. He was afraid it would come across as sarcastic, maybe it had been. Jesse swallowed hard and his fingers started to drum against his leg nervously. He knew he needed to stop them. Jesse ached to fidget. His old self, the one who also talked endlessly, could never sit still. But now, after months being kept in check by shackles, his limbs felt uncontrollable. Jesse knew that if he gave in, if he let his fingers keep drumming, if he let his legs shake the way they wanted to, he would never stop. It would grow and grow and he would vibrate and convulse and sob until he fell apart piece by piece onto a heap on the floor.
In rehab, Jesse had been taught a handful of mindfulness exercises. At the time he had rolled his eyes and daydreamed about his next cigarette break. The only meaningful detail he could pick out from these lessons while he began to panic in Todd’s bathroom was the importance of breathing. Several deep breaths and his fingers stilled.
Todd’s face was often inscrutable, as was most everything about him. What could be a frown passed over his face, “Remember? I promised to do a better job keeping you clean?” Jesse was tired of everything Todd said being a question he was expected to answer. It felt like an exam from high school that he’d neglected to study for and had no hope of passing. Since there were no right answers, Jesse decided to not try his shaky voice, and instead continued concentrating on not falling apart.
Not falling apart became exponentially harder when Todd announced, “You get to take a bath.” He had the grin of someone watching a friend unwrap a present. Jesse’s instinct was to match Todd’s energy, and the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Inside, Jesse was screaming. Like a car slipping on the ice, he could see the collision coming, but felt powerless to stop it. Could he convince Todd he didn’t need to bathe? Not likely, he could smell his own ripe odor even over the lingering decay of the poor cleaning lady.
“Oh, do you need some help?” Todd said in that horrible, expectant tone again. Casually, he started to pull the bulky jacket off of Jesse’s shoulders. Jesse wrapped his arms around himself and glued his chin to his chest; he held onto the jacket as if it was the most important thing to him in all the world. “You can’t take a bath with your clothes on,” Todd nearly giggled. The tears were very close now, Jesse could feel them. Todd grabbed his chin, his hand a good deal more rough then it had been on his back, and made Jesse look in his eyes, “Good behavior, right?”
Todd’s fingers smelled like cigarettes, and his grin had left his face. Jesse’s heart raced like a rabbit. He had to clear his throat to say, “Uh, it's just, I can do it myself.” He hated how unsteady his voice sounded, hated having to look so directly at Todd’s face, “Can’t I get some, like, privacy?” He tried his best to sound reasonable. To enter into this delusion Todd had that they were friends, that Jesse liked him and wanted to be here.
“Yeah, about that,” Todd said as he released Jesse’s chin, his tone changing. He could tell that Todd was trying to break bad news gently, Jesse didn’t know if he could take any more bad news, “I thought about taking out all the razors and pills and stuff so you could be by yourself. But then I thought, well, there was still the mirror and probably other things I was forgetting. And I know how smart you and Mr. White are, so I think it would be best if I just stay here.”
The mixture of emotions that churned inside Jesse made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Only dumb, insane Todd could think he was anywhere as smart as Mr. White. If he were really that smart, why was he here disposing of bodies in Todd’s house of horrors while Mr. White was off somewhere with 8 million dollars? Jesse took back up his deep breathing as he tried to come to terms with the fact that there was nothing he could do. He was at Todd’s mercy.
Jesse’s fingers still gripped tightly to the jacket that was not even his, it suddenly felt like the only thing between him and everything that meant him harm. Slowly, he dragged it down his shoulders until it fell onto the floor, mostly so that Todd would not have the excuse to do it himself. Anything to keep Todd’s hands off of him. He was stalling. The wheels in his brain just couldn’t seem to get traction. Mr. White would have a plan, Mr. White would talk his way out. How many times had Mr. White talked him into doing something he didn’t want to?
Jesse opened his mouth to protest, or to scream, or to beg. But nothing came out. His eyes searched Todd’s face for some sign of humanity, finding none, they swept the bathroom for something, anything to help him. Jesse noticed his own reflection for the first time. The terrified, disheveled man looked like no one he’d ever seen before. His face was etched with scars he didn’t recall being there before. The man in the mirror made Jesse so uncomfortable, he concentrated on the pink seashell-shaped soap dish on the counter instead. Since the little seashell shaped soaps prompted no genius ideas, he tried to turn off the part of him that cared what happened next. This would be so much easier with the help of a controlled substance.
Jesse attempted to pinpoint the last action he took that seemed like a real choice. Maybe escaping? Maybe trying to light Mr. White’s house on fire? Maybe it had been a lot longer than he’d like to think. Had anything he’d done since agreeing to work with Mr. White been of his own free will? Choice was a luxury Jesse didn’t have anymore. It was ironic because he had rarely wanted it when he had it. He ran from choices, and he hated the choices he had made; he took every drug he could get his hands on to feel out of control, to forget his past choices. Everything he faced now though, Jesse faced sober. Only the light-headedness of hunger to cushion the edges.
“I’ll get the water going,” Todd continued back in his cheery tone, “you finish undressing.” With Todd’s back turned and the rush of water soothing him slightly, Jesse turned his back to the man in the mirror and continued taking off his clothes. Everything he wore, even the things that had originally been his, were several sizes too big and sloughed off of him easily. They seemed too dirty to place on the immaculate counter, so he left them on the floor. How long had it been since the last time he was naked? Or even barefoot? How long since he’d last seen so much of his own skin? His body was a map of tragedies, raw in places, dry and dirty and chaffed all over. A ring of bruises circled his waist from his waist chain.
He tried not to look closely, tried not to remember. He pretended the cuts and scrapes and wasting body weren’t his own. It was a difficult illusion to maintain when he could so clearly see his own tattoos on this stranger’s skin. So he chose instead to concentrate on the feeling of his sweaty feet on the cool linoleum, it felt soothing even though they stuck slightly as he awkwardly shifted his weight. The pattern on the floor was made up of diamonds inside of other diamonds, Jesse allowed his eyes to get lost in it.
Roused from his reverie by the faucet turning off, Jesse turned and looked at Todd who was sitting on the edge of the tub and skimming the water with his fingers, “I think that’s a good temperature, but let me know, OK?” Jesse was done answering Todd’s questions, so he ignored it, and attempted to ignore Todd’s wandering eyes on his body. He recalled when Mr. White had told his family that he’d gone into a fugue state and sort of wished he’d fall into one himself. If he could get through this in a stupor, if he could turn his brain off, maybe he’d survive it.
Unsteadily, Jesse stumbled forward and reached out to balance himself only to grab at the shower curtain, mistaking it for something more stable. The curtain wrenched at the rod and everything threatened to fall before Todd steadied Jesse with a hand on his side. The feeling of Todd’s skin against his own nearly toppled him over again, but Todd had stood quickly and hooked his other hand around his waist to prevent him from tripping into the bath.
“Woah, careful there,” Todd held fast despite the fact that Jesse was actively pushing away from him, slightly frantic. “Hey, hey,” his voice was low and steady, in a hushing tone that Jesse felt no comfort from, “It’s OK, I’m right here.” The arms around him seemed inhumanly strong, and being so close to Todd was unbearable. Realizing that it was the only way to get the unwanted hands off of him, Jesse stilled himself. The sooner he got into the tub, the sooner Todd’s eyes and hands would be off of him. He grasped Todd’s shirt for balance as he stepped one leg over the edge of the tub. Todd loosened his grasp. The water was too hot. Jesse stepped the other foot inside and slowly let go of Todd. At last, Todd took his hands away as Jesse sank into the water, gritting his teeth as the roasting water hit his skin. Jesse brought his legs to his chest protectively and hugged them.
Todd, unperturbed, collected some items from the counter before once again perching himself on the side of the tub. He rolled up his sleeves like a mechanic getting to work. Jesse stared at the line on his leg where the water undulated slightly up and down. His dry knee was nearly brown with filth, while his thigh was red from the too hot water. The tub was already murky, Jesse wasn’t sure there was enough water anywhere to get him clean again. Without warning, Todd placed a hand on Jesse’s knee. Jesse was determined not to react again, was tired of startling like an abused animal. The hand dadawled there, waited for a response. Jesse hugged his knees tighter but otherwise stayed still, stopped even breathing. The hand started with little circles, then kneaded the skin gently. Jesse rushed to remind himself that he hated Todd’s touch. It didn’t matter how lonely he was, he refused to find anything pleasant about this.
Despite his resolution to stay still, the shaking began now in earnest. Jesse ground his fingers into his legs in an attempt to stop the tremors. He hadn’t taken his eyes from that rippling line on his leg; he refused to look at Todd. The water now lapped erratically up and down his thigh in tiny waves. Todd’s hand started to move down Jesse’s thigh, but it was stymied by Jesse’s tight embrace of his legs against his body. He didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to give access to his most vulnerable parts. The hand became more insistent, attempting to squirm closer to Jesse’s stomach, to find any opening and weasel its way in. Jesse weighed his options. He was terribly aware of what Todd was capable of. That Todd’s calm demeanor hid a man accomplished in horrendous acts. Todd had tortured him, had killed Andrea in cold blood. Here, alone, with only the dead body as witness, Jesse understood the amount of danger he was in. The amount of danger Brock was in.
Jesse’s train of thought was interrupted by Todd’s hand moving unexpectedly to his shoulder and pushing him backwards towards the water. Jesse was certain Todd meant to push his head under and drown him. Without thinking, he let go of his knees and desperately flailed for something to grab on to. One hand found the pink side of the tub and the other desperately grabbed the inset soap dish. The force on his shoulder stopped and the hand snaked down to his chest. Jesse let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding in as he realized that Todd’s plan had been to get Jesse to let go of his legs. Jesse continued to grip at the edge of the tub, but there was no point in curling back up now; he let go of the soap dish and relaxed his legs into the water. The faucet was dripping slightly.
The hand on his chest moved down towards the surface of the water. He needed to get Todd to stop, but he couldn’t demand anything from him without risking escalating a situation that was doing a perfectly good job of escalating itself. Jesse squeezed his eyes shut and said the safest thing he could think to say. “Please, Todd,” Jesse decided to take the onus onto himself, “Please, I don’t want this.”
“It's Ok, I don’t mind,” Jesse didn’t need to open his eyes to know Todd was still smiling at him, “Really.” Jesse pressed his eyes shut tighter, as if to clear the mental image of Todd’s smile and felt tears slip out. The hand breached the water and found Jesse’s flaccid penis. He struggled to think of something, anything else. Maybe if it hadn’t been so long since someone had touched him there, maybe if he hadn’t been so goddamn tired. But Jesse quickly found himself approaching orgasm. A sudden ringing started in Jesse’s ears that grew with intensity.
Every previous time he’d come, Jesse had felt the familiar build-up and release of pressure. Whether he’d been alone, with a partner, rushed or taking his time, there was always a calm afterwards. This time he ejaculated and felt no relief whatsoever. The buzzing in his ears drowned out everything else. Todd was saying something, but he couldn’t hear it. The deep tension in his gut remained.
Slowly, Jesse opened his eyes. Todd brought his hand out of the tub and shook the water from it before grabbing a washcloth and pushing it into Jesse’s clenched hand. “Here,” he said cheerily, “wash up.” Breathing deeply wasn’t working anymore. Instead, Jesse’s air came in gasps and stifled sobs and his whole body continued to shake. Jesse’s numb fingers struggled to hold onto the washcloth. Todd leaned forward to take it back, to wash Jesse himself. That was enough to spring Jesse into action. He willed his heavy limbs to pull the washcloth along his body. He even leaned back in the water to wet his hair. Jesse imagined that it should feel warm, pleasant, to wipe the months of grime off of him. But he wasn’t feeling anything at all.
Some amount of time passed, it could have been minutes or hours. Jesse couldn’t tell. The water felt cold. Someone gently grabbed his arm and lifted him out of the tub. A towel dried him. Then he felt the familiar hand on the small of his back. He was being led somewhere. Jesse didn’t particularly want to go anywhere, but the hand on his back may as well have been an order from god.
There was a blur of doorways. It went from light to dark to light, and then Jesse vaguely noticed a bed. All his life, Jesse had sought the feeling of having no sovereignty over his body. Being in charge of his life had always felt so daunting, so immense. Every hit he’d ever taken, every beer he’d ever had, every time he’d shot up, was in search of this feeling. His limbs weren’t his own, his thoughts weren’t his own, his actions weren’t his own. Something that may have been the side of the bed met what could have been his legs, and Jesse fell onto his stomach. It was soft. How long had it been since he’d been in an actual bed?
Somewhere, Todd was fumbling with something. But that wasn’t any of Jesse’s concern. Nothing was of Jesse’s concern anymore. A bright, dull burn bloomed behind him. His limbs, which didn’t seem to care what instructions he sent them, grappled and pulled away from the burn. There were sheets, it seemed, and pillows to pull at, but they didn’t gain him any traction. There was a weight on him. Suddenly, a hand covered his mouth, and Jesse realized he had been screaming. With the hand over his mouth, he found it hard to breathe. More than the pain, the lack of oxygen panicked Jesse.
“Shhh, shhh,” Jesse was hushed from somewhere. He didn’t feel particularly soothed. But a rhythmic rocking grounded him. Jesse realized he was being fucked. Of course. What had he been expecting? His hands were now numbly grasping and pulling at the obstruction over his face. He could hear his rapist panting and gasping. The thing Jesse wanted most in this world was to not feel what was happening. However, the thing Jesse needed most was to breathe. He could think of only one way to get rid of the hand. His scrambling hands, his kicking legs, stilled. He tried to concentrate, tried to breathe through his nose. Tried to come back to himself. As his thoughts came back into focus, the image of Sonia with the belt around her purpling neck flashed before him. He didn’t want to be another dead body in a rug.
Jesse was fairly certain he had stopped screaming, but the hand remained. Thankfully, it had shifted slightly and Jesse took in as much air as he could through his nose. The hand pulled at him over and over, forcing him backwards towards the source of his pain, wrenching his neck. A lesson Jesse should have learned already was that detaching himself from his body was always temporary. He would always have to go back. The feelings he was avoiding would still be there, along with all the new pains he accrued by trying to avoid them.
He must have deserved this. Every time he tried, he failed; every time he failed, someone he cared about got hurt. In rehab, he had learned that he needed to stop running from who he was and embrace it. He knew who he was now. He was a fuck-up.
Todd’s thrusts stuttered, and he grunted loudly. One last, long pull, and suddenly Jesse’s face was free. He let his forehead fall forward onto the bed, and he drew in desperate breaths. Tears fell as his body shook. Todd stroked the back of his head, and pressed himself close to Jesse’s ear to whisper, “I like you a lot, Jesse. If I didn’t like you, you’d be dead already.”
Was this a threat? A confession of love? Jesse didn’t have the capacity to think about it. He hated the way he could feel Todd inside of him. Hated the way he was being pushed into the mattress by him. He knew it was true that the only thing standing between him and Jack’s bullet, or hell, even him and extreme, life-ending neglect, was Todd. Was it the meth that Todd wanted from him, or was it more of this?
“Sorry about that,” Todd was also catching his breath, “I know that probably hurt a bit, but Louis might still be here. We gotta be quieter than that.” Jesse realized he was apologizing for the hand and not for the rape. After a few agonizing moments, Todd pulled out of Jesse and stood, placing his hand back in Jesse’s hair. “Can you be quiet on your own now?” Jesse didn’t lift his head, but nodded vigorously. He urgently didn’t want Todd’s hand back on his mouth. Todd pulled his hand away. Jesse heard him slip on his pants, and then footsteps headed out of the room. Since he thought he was alone, Jesse pulled his arms around his head and let out as quiet a sob as he could manage.
Jesse wanted to get up and run, wanted to get up and kill himself, wanted to get up and bash Todd’s head in. But he couldn’t even manage the getting up part. He could barely manage trying to keep his crying quiet enough not bring Todd back in to gag him. He needed to keep it together. He couldn’t lash out, he couldn’t endanger Brock again. He wouldn’t. He reminded himself that he deserved this. Deep breaths seemed to help a little, and his body relaxed a bit. The pain seemed closer now, more like it belonged to him. Jesse had experienced plenty of pain, in terms of sheer physical agony, this was far from the worst he had ever felt. When he thought back to his most painful moments, the persistent trauma he relived wasn’t the pain but the fear. So pain he could stand. He moved his legs experimentally; the pain intensified, but everything seemed to still work. Tears still in his eyes, he braced himself to try and roll over and sit up.
“We’re OK, it looks like he already left,” Todd returned and Jesse froze, “So now we can get loaded up and head out.” He chuckled, “Pretty good timing, right?” Jesse silently gripped at his hair, his anxiety flaring again. His body tensed in preparation for anything. “Did you hear me, Jesse?” Todd asked as he placed a hand on his leg. Jesse yelped, pulled away, and hissed at the pain it flared. Turning towards him, he could really see Todd’s face for the first time since he’d threatened him in the bathroom. Jesse was struck by just how young this psychopath really was. Todd looked almost surprised, like Jesse’s reaction had been out of proportion.
“Um, I must have been dozing off,” Jesse lied, “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a real bed. You know?” He didn’t fully understand why he felt compelled to explain himself, why he needed a reason to have pulled violently away from his rapist. Maybe it was because Jesse could have sworn that Todd looked almost hurt. Unable to stand the eye-contact any longer, he lowered his gaze, and in a small voice added, “Sorry.”
“Yeah, I get pretty sleepy after I fool around too,” Todd extended his arm and grabbed Jesse’s leg again, possessively this time, “But, like Uncle Jack always says, ‘We’re burning daylight.’” He gave Jesse some energetic pats. Is that honestly how Todd would categorize what just happened? He thought they’d fooled around? Words failed him again.
“Come on, your clothes are in the bathroom,” Todd offered him a hand. Jesse swallowed down every instinct he had. He needed to ignore the screaming voice inside of his head and let Todd touch him. He needed to ignore his pain and stand up. He had to push aside his aching heart and help bury that poor woman. The hardest part was placing his hand willingly into Todd’s.