“But the two of you can’t coexist together.”
“And why the hell not? We’ve been coexisting all this time.”
“Because that’s not healthy.”
“So what are you saying?” I asked, getting pissed off all over again. The bitch had lost her mind and I told her, “If you think I’m going someplace, you need a psychiatrist your damn self.”
She was determined to try to bond with me. The slut. “Jude, tell me about yourself.”
I shrugged and said, “There’s nothing to tell. I put foot to ass when need be, protect Jon from people that try to fuck her over without grease, and I love to have fun from time to time.”
“What kind of fun?” she asked.
“I’ll be honest. I love fucking. Fucking is the only thing worth doing in this life.”
Marcella seemed bewildered. Good, I’d finally stumped her. “Do you honestly believe that?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Men are such wimps. They always fold under the pressure of the pussy. I like controlling them like the little puppy dogs that they are.”
“That’s the word I was looking for,” she said.
“What word?” I inquired with disdain.
“Control. You want to control things.”
I stood up and leaned over the desk. “Don’t get it twisted. I do control things. I’m always around. I just let Jon deal with normal day-to-day bullshit so I don’t have to. If I wanted to, I could take over for good and never, ever let Jon come back. That’s how dominant I am.”
Marcella smiled at me. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“Excuse me, bitch?”
“If you could truly take over for good, you would’ve done it years ago.”
“You’re beginning to bore me.” I didn’t like the way the conversation was headed. She didn’t know shit about anything and to top it off, she wasn’t shit to me so I announced, “I’m leaving.”
I had made it to the door and opened it when she jumped in front of me.
“No, don’t leave yet.”
I poked her in the shoulder. “If you don’t move out of my way, I will give you a beatdown you’ll never forget.”
“Jude, we really need to continue this conversation.”
“I’m going to count to three and then I’m swinging,” I told her. “One.”
“Jude, please stay,” she pleaded.
I balled my right hand into a fist. “Two.”
“When can we talk again?” she asked.
“Three,” I said and lifted my fist to steal her one in the face.
She must have known that I was serious because she moved to the side and said, “Okay, okay.”
I damn near tore off her arm as I stormed past her out of the office.
There was no way I was going home. I headed straight to a bar to get my drink on. When I walked into a pub, it was boring as shit and there were only a bunch of losers hanging around. I decided I needed to do something more adventurous.
How dare that bitch doctor imply that I wasn’t in control? Huh, she was a complete idiot. Everything I had said in her office was the truth. If I really wanted to, I could make Jonquinette disappear altogether and just be Jude. But I didn’t feel like working a full-time job to pay bills and I had no work experience of my own. None whatsoever.
A lightbulb went off in my head. If I could devise a way to make my own money, fuck Jon and her boring lifestyle.
I left the pub, got back into the car, and headed for “the seedy part of town.” The part of town where there were liquor stores on every corner, pawn shops on every other block and most importantly, a shitload of strip clubs.
I spotted one that seemed to have heavy traffic, even for a Monday evening. A lot of desperate-looking businessmen and blue-collar workers were flooding into the joint. The name on the awning was The Bedroom. Not very creative, I thought.
The shitty name didn’t matter to me. I only cared about the place’s potential as a moneymaker.
When I got to the door, some idiot tried to tell me I had to pay a ten-dollar cover charge to come in. I informed him that I was there to apply for a job. He looked me up and down and grinned. Even with the homely looking outfit Jon had selected for the day, he could still tell my body was banging.
“Go on in,” he said, moving aside to allow me to gain entry.
“When you get in, ask for the owner. His name’s Skippy.”
“Skippy? What the hell kind of name is that?” I asked.
“Hey, it is what it is,” the bouncer at the door replied. “As long as I get paid, I don’t care what his name is.”
I couldn’t fault him for that one so I said, “True enough.”