40. Jane
40
JANE
I walked to the station in a trance.
Jackson was an online stripper.
My boyfriend was an internet porn star.
I was still trying to get my head around this bombshell.
To say that pretending I was fine in the pub was difficult would be an understatement.
When I realised that it was Jackson in the video, I knew I couldn’t leave straight away. Everyone would’ve guessed it was him or at least known something suspicious was going on.
So I’d sat there, pretending to enjoy the sight of my so-called boyfriend thrusting his hips back and forth, grinding in front of the camera, then flashing his dick for the whole world to see, whilst my heart was breaking as I struggled to understand what would lead him to do that and, most importantly, why he hadn’t told me.
Whilst my friends ogled Jackson’s cock, I’d made a mental note of the website so I could look at his profile in more detail later, and I’d also noticed that the video was recent.
Did that mean this was something he’d only started recently too?
How long had he been stripping?
Years? Months?
It was clear that he was still doing the videos now, though. Celeste had said so. They’d been speaking privately and he’d told her the video of her request was going up this weekend. Did that mean tonight or tomorrow?
Was that what he was doing this evening? Filming more videos for other women?
And how far did he go with his subscribers?
Celeste had said that she’d like to pay for him to spend the night with her. Would he fuck her too if she paid him enough?
Bile rose in my throat. I felt sick.
I should’ve known that someone as sexually gifted as Jackson would never be satisfied with sleeping with a woman as inexperienced as me. I wasn’t enough for him, so he had to get his kicks from wanking online.
How many hundreds or thousands of people had seen my boyfriend’s dick?
My head was swimming. A million different thoughts clouding my head at once. It didn’t take long for the tears to start falling.
I pulled off my glasses. God. I felt like I’d cried more this past month than I had in years.
So this was what heartbreak felt like.
All of those love songs were right. This hurt like hell. It was as if someone had got a machete and slashed my insides, then scooped out any signs of remaining organs slowly with a knife wrapped in barbed wire.
My chest ached.
It was like a thousand elephants were trampling all over my heart whilst wearing spiky ten-inch heels.
How could Jackson do this to me?
I’d begged him not to break my heart.
He’d promised me that he wouldn’t, but he’d lied.
I tucked myself away in a seat at the back of the train carriage away from the handful of other passengers so that they couldn’t see me crying my eyes out.
It was no big surprise that I nearly missed my stop. The last thing I was thinking of was keeping track of the stations.
As I stormed towards Jackson’s house, all I could think about was how mortifying it was to watch him gripping his cock in that video as Celeste gushed about how huge he was and how much she wanted him to ‘ruin’ her with his ‘monster dick’.
By the time I rang the bell, my blood was boiling. I didn’t know if I’d ever been so upset.
If anyone had asked me several hours ago, I would’ve said my outburst with Dad was the angriest I’d ever been, but now I felt like if I opened my mouth, fire would shoot out.
I expected crap from my dad, but Jackson? I’d trusted him. I’d defended him to my parents. Told them he was a good, honest man.
I’d told them they were wrong to believe he wasn’t good enough for me. And now look. He’d humiliated me. Just like my ex at the bookshop had done. Except this was a million times worse .
‘Hey! You’re back early!’ Jackson smiled as he opened the door and leant forward to give me a kiss.
I hated the way that my stomach did that annoying flip-flopping. I was angry at Jackson. I couldn’t be happy to see him.
‘Did I interrupt your filming?’ I spat as I pushed past him and stepped into the house. ‘Need to get back in front of the camera to flash your dick to some more strangers online?’
Jackson’s face fell.
‘Jane…’ He shut the door. ‘It’s not…’
‘Please don’t insult me by saying it’s not what I think!’ I shouted. ‘I saw the video! Celeste took great pleasure in showing me a video of my boyfriend, wanking online!’
‘She knows?’ His eyes bulged.
‘No, I don’t think she knows it’s you , but she knows all about your videos, that’s for sure. Do you know how embarrassing it was to sit there listening to my friends talking about my boyfriend’s dick and how much they’d like to have a ride on it?’ My voice shook with a combination of embarrassment and rage.
It was only then that I thought that I hadn’t checked whether or not Jackson’s mum was home. I couldn’t imagine she knew about the videos either.
I knew how shocked I’d been to find out, so the last thing I wanted was to upset her too.
‘Please.’ Jackson took my hand and attempted to lead me into the living room. I snatched my hand away. ‘Jane. Let me explain.’
When I looked up at him, his eyes were watering and that made my heart break all over again .
I hated that I felt my resolve weakening so quickly. I was supposed to be furious.
But I knew that if I didn’t find out why he’d done this, it’d keep spinning around in my head.
‘You’ve got five minutes,’ I snapped.
As I heard the words fall from my mouth, I almost gasped. A couple of months ago, I never would’ve had the strength to be so direct.
The old me probably wouldn’t have said anything at all. I would’ve just been so grateful that Jackson had paid any attention to me in the first place. But I’d had enough of people treating me like a meek little doormat. All of these years of bottling up my feelings had caused me to explode. I couldn’t stay silent anymore. I deserved to be treated with respect.
‘Okay.’ Jackson sat on the sofa.
I deliberately plonked myself on the armchair at the other side of the room. The last thing I needed was to be close to him. When he’d leant down to kiss me, he’d smelt of his delicious body wash, so I knew he’d just had a shower. Was it because he’d just wanked in front of the camera and had to clean himself up?
I’d drive myself mad if I didn’t talk about this soon.
‘Come on, then. Why did you lie to me?’
‘I did it for my mum.’
‘Your mum ? Please.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Are you going to tell me that your mum is some kind of evil madam who forced her son to make sex videos on the internet? I know a lot of time has passed, but I remember your mum, Yolanda. She was always sweet and lovely, so if you think you can blame her for this, you’ve got?—’
‘She’s sick,’ Jackson jumped in .
I froze and my stomach instantly plummeted.
‘What?’
‘She’s… she had to go into care and I couldn’t afford to pay the fees. They were going to kick her out if I didn’t settle the invoices. So I needed to find a way to make money, fast. At first I tried escorting, but they wanted me to sleep with the customers and I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to do the videos. I tried to do some with my clothes on, but it didn’t work. So Marcus suggested I try showing my dick, which I didn’t want to do either, but I was desperate. So I did it and, well, it worked. And I was able to pay Mum’s bills.’
My jaw was on the floor.
I hadn’t even thought too deeply about what would lead him to do the videos. I was so shocked and humiliated that I just thought about how I was feeling.
Never in a million years would I have thought that this was the reason.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘I know.’ He blew out a breath.
Now so much made sense. Why she was never at home. Why I never saw any of her clothes or shoes out anywhere. And why there was no sign of any female toiletries in the bathroom. At the time I’d reasoned that she was just ultra tidy and liked to keep stuff packed away in cupboards, but now I understood.
‘What’s wrong with your mum?’
‘Alzheimer’s.’
‘Shit.’ I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘I’m so, so, sorry. How bad is it?’
‘Not great. Most days she doesn’t even remember who I am. ’
My heart broke again. But this time for Jackson and his mum, not for me.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said. ‘I could’ve helped.’
‘You had your own shit to deal with. I couldn’t expect you to take on my burdens too. Marcus has helped me out, but I couldn’t keep relying on him or ask other people. She’s my mum. She took care of me. Now it’s my time to take care of her.’
He rubbed the back of his head and I could tell this was difficult for him to talk about. I didn’t fill the silence, though. I knew he needed time to talk about it at his own pace.
‘I didn’t find out about her condition until after I’d left my job,’ he continued. ‘And I thought I’d be okay with my savings until I found something else, but I just couldn’t. The work stuff hit me harder than I thought and then finding out about Mum and seeing more and more of her slip away each day, it just all got on top of me and I knew going back into another high-pressured environment like I was in before would destroy me.’
‘And that’s why you applied for the job at the library?’
‘Yeah. Everything I told you before was true. I needed something that wouldn’t stress me out, that wasn’t going to affect my mental health like my last job did. I wanted a fresh start. I knew that if I told people about Mum, they’d treat me differently. They’d ask me how she was. How I was doing. And there’d be nothing wrong with that. It’s good that people care. But before I discovered the library, her illness consumed me so much. When I wasn’t visiting her, I’d be worrying about her. How bad it was going to get. How I’d cope when…’ His voice trailed off. ‘I knew it wasn’t healthy. I needed to occupy my time. I needed so mething to take my mind off my problems. And I needed to earn money to pay for her care. It’s so expensive.’
When Jackson explained the costs I almost fell off my chair. He’d tried to get support, but was told his mum wasn’t eligible. And with no one interested in buying the house, despite it being on the market for ages, his options for finding the money every month were limited.
‘I can’t believe how much it costs!’ I said.
‘Me neither.’ He blew out a breath. ‘So, yeah. The library became my refuge. When I walked through those doors, I was able to forget about my real life outside of those four walls. I could just be me. I wasn’t expecting that you’d be working there. Obviously that turned out to be a blessing, but with everything that was going on, I just needed that safe bubble, y’know? I needed to keep my family stuff with Mum separate.’
‘I understand what you mean by creating a bubble and the library being a refuge. Of course, what I went through with my dad doesn’t compare to how hard it is for you to deal with your mum’s illness. I can’t even begin to imagine how you must be feeling. But I get it. For me, the library is the same. Every time I walk through those doors I feel safe. Like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It became a place where I could forget about my crappy family. That’s why I stayed there so much after work. But once we got together, you still could’ve confided in me. I could’ve become your safe bubble. Remember what I said before? That as long as we talked about stuff and were honest with each other, we’d be fine?’
‘Yeah.’ He blew out a breath. ‘Course I do. And you don’t know how bad I felt keeping this from you. I wanted to tell you so many times, but didn’t want to ruin things. Yesterday I was determined to tell you. I tried. But you said you couldn’t take any more bad news. And then today we didn’t get the chance.’
So that was what he wanted to discuss.
‘It’s true. I did ask you to put it off until today. But you still could’ve said something sooner. I would’ve preferred that to being blindsided by Celeste.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. When my parents were working hard to secure my future and helping me succeed at school, they didn’t do that for me to take my clothes off for money. But at the same time, I’m not ashamed of doing what I needed to do to give Mum the care she needs. If I’d taken another job in the City and it’d fucked me up, I’d be in no state to help her. So I did what was necessary,’ he said defiantly.
I understood that. And the logical part of my brain understood his need to take care of his mum.
But at the same time, I still hated the fact that he’d lied.
No, it wouldn’t have been easy to tell me the truth, but I needed to know that if in the future, there was something difficult, he wouldn’t just hide it from me. I needed him to trust me. I needed to be able to trust him too. I might be inexperienced, but I knew that without trust and honest communication, we didn’t have a relationship.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said, then went to the sofa, sat next to Jackson and took his hands in mine. ‘I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I really am. If there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me, okay?’
‘Just… I just need your support.’
‘You have it. Always. But…’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to need some time. I know you’re going through hell right now, so I’m not going to add to that. But I just have to get my head around everything, because although I know you had your reasons, you still lied to me, Jackson. You still didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth and that’s not a good basis for a relationship. Whatever happens, though, I’ll always be here as your friend.’
‘I want to be more than just friends, though,’ Jackson said, his eyes filled with emotion.
It broke me to do this, but I didn’t know if I was able to offer him more than friendship right now.
I was still trying to take in the news about his mum. We hadn’t even spoken about half of the things that we needed to. Like whether he’d continue doing the videos. I doubted he had a choice with the fees he had to pay and I totally understood that.
It was Jackson’s body, so ultimately it was his choice what he did with it. And knowing what I did now, I’d never want to stand in the way of him doing what he had to in order to keep his mum safe. But the truth was, I didn’t know if I’d be able to deal with knowing that so many people were staring at my boyfriend naked.
And what would happen when someone found out? Secrets always had a way of being discovered and I knew that when this became public knowledge, it’d make things messy on so many different levels. With my family, work (especially if Celeste came back during the holidays) and amongst the residents of Sunshine Bay.
I knew I’d find that tough, so I needed to work out how much of a deal-breaker this was.
I meant what I said, though—even if Jackson and I had to break up, I’d still be there to support him. Whatever happened, I didn’t want him to deal with his mum’s illness alone .
‘I want that too. But I’ve spent too many years not respecting my feelings. Keeping them bottled up. So I just need time. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Maybe it’s best if I don’t stay here whilst I work things out.’
‘What? But where will you go?’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s late now. I get why you wouldn’t want us to share a bed, but I can sleep here and you can take the bed upstairs, so I know you’re safe.’
When I looked at my watch, I saw that he had a point. I hadn’t realised the time.
‘Okay. You’re right. It is late. But if I stay here, I’ll take the sofa. You sleep in your bed. No arguments. And I’ll find somewhere else to stay from tomorrow.’
‘You don’t have to leave. Stay. At least until you get the room at Glenda’s next week.’
‘No. I need some space to figure things out. It’ll be harder if we’re working and living together.’
Jackson nodded solemnly.
‘I’ll get you a fresh sheet and a duvet.’
Once he’d left, I dropped my head in my hands.
This whole situation was a nightmare.
I hated that his poor sweet mum was sick.
I hated that Jackson was hurting and going through so much pain.
And I hated that I didn’t know what to do about our relationship.
I wanted to hope that things would work out.
But given all the stuff that we had to deal with, I really couldn’t see how.