I left the bathroom as naked as the day I was born to see Jeff sitting on his bed. “Can I eat something?” I asked him. I noticed my clothes were gone. The hum of the washing machine could be heard in the otherwise silent house.

“Your payment first. You know how this works.”

Even though I wasn’t in the mood for him, I nodded. Jeff wasn’t bad in bed. He gave me as close to what I liked as he could manage without killing his own boner. The man treated me like a real lover sometimes outside of the bedroom. I figured that was why he was either really gentle or unwilling to mess me up the way I wanted to be when we got down to it.

I didn’t want to be treated like a porcelain doll. Despite my appearance, I could handle rough play. In fact, I loved what little I had tried. I hadn’t tried much, but it was the best way for me to get off. I had even grown out my hair that I usually kept short just so there wouldn’t be any hesitation from whoever was topping me to pull and pull hard.

“Can I get a hit first?” I asked him, getting on the bed. I could feel his eyes watching my every move. If I had to sleep with him, especially now when I wasn’t in the mood for his dick specifically, I needed something to help me out or it wasn’t going to be good for either of us. I couldn’t always immediately get horny when I needed to.

Jeff kissed his teeth. “You have a bad habit.”

“You’ve never had a problem feeding my bad habits before,” I reminded him.

Whenever life got a bit too real and I needed to escape for a while, Jeff was the man I would go to. He had everything in stock, though he claimed he was quitting. He’d been saying that for three years but every now and again I’d see the needles he used in the bathroom bin when I came over. I stayed the hell away from those. Needles freaked me out.

I watched as he got his things and even prepped two lines for me. Such a gentleman. I didn’t do drugs often. I dabbled once or twice a month at most, and I was trying to quit completely. If I did it any more than that, I’d have to deal with withdrawals. I could deal with a few muscle aches and chills, but it got harder to stay away if they were any worse than that. Withdrawals were a bitch.

I barely had time to wipe the white powder from my nose when I felt his lips on my neck. It would kick in soon. All I had to do was get to work getting him off. It was what I’d done dozens of times before. Nothing new. He wanted my body, and if I didn’t want to get kicked to the sidewalk, I had to give it to him. Nothing new at all.

Jeff was a bit rougher this time around. I figured it was because he was a bit upset with me for not coming to him sooner, but he must have forgotten that I preferred it that way. He entered me without nearly as much preparation as I’d need to painlessly take him in. If he was any bigger, I would have torn.

The drugs made it easier to do what I needed to do. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I’d forget the entire ordeal and pass out afterwards. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but it wasn’t something I had much choice in doing.

“If you lose any more weight, I’m not going to be attracted to you anymore,” Jeff said, stepping out of the bathroom post receiving his payment. “Go eat something.”

The last hour was a blur. I’d been staring at the ceiling fan for so long that I hadn’t even noticed when he left the bed. I was still reeling from the high of the orgasm. The effect of the drugs had almost worn off.

“You know, I’m surprised you don’t out me to Peter. What do you think he would say if he knew about this?”

“Are you planning on telling him? Because you might be too high to think clearly, but it wouldn’t end very well for either of us.”

“I’m not stupid,” I said with a scoff. I knew my father would try to kill us both, probably starting with me. “I’d look for a place to stay first before I use this to piss him off. He might never let me back into the house if he knew.”

“That’s not fucking funny. Why do you love pissing him off so much?”

I shrugged and left the room before he could ask me any more questions. There was no understandable reason why I purposefully did things that pissed Peter off. He’d never raised his hand to me, and I think when I was younger, I took advantage of that. Being hit was the only thing I was afraid of. But I hated the guy. He might have raised me being the only one of my parents who didn’t physically abandon me, but it didn’t mean I felt anything but bitterness towards him.

I rinsed off under the shower for a few minutes, then went to raid his kitchen. Unsurprisingly, there were mostly microwavable meals in the freezer and expired things in the fridge. Upon closer inspection, I found some frozen pizza. I couldn’t cook, but I knew how to read and follow directions. Preparing frozen pizza was as far as my cooking skills went.

As soon as I settled down and started nibbling on a slice, a t-shirt came sailing towards my head. I managed to drop the slice in time to catch it and the shorts that followed. “Am I making you uncomfortable with my nakedness?” I asked with my mouth full.

“You’re going to catch a cold if you don’t put some clothes on. Hurry up and eat. I can’t have you wandering around while I’m trying to sleep. I have work in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled and took another bite of pizza before putting his clothes on. The shorts wouldn’t stay up on their own and I had to tie the strings tightly. Filling my mouth with another bite, I went to take my clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer.

I didn’t finish the entire thing. Even though I hadn’t eaten in days, there was only so much my stomach could hold. It didn’t help that I finished an entire bottle of water with my meal. When I crawled into bed next to Jeff, I was so full that sleeping on my stomach was out of the question. I’d probably throw up in my sleep.

“Zed.”

“Hmm?” I answered, pulling my knees up to my chest. The bed was so warm, but most of the said warmth was coming from Jeff.

“Move in with me.”

Fuck. No. “Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s not safe for you to be constantly wandering the streets whenever Peter wants to be a little shit. You’re an adult, you know. He’s not legally tied to you anymore. He can’t get in trouble for kicking you out all the time and you aren’t paying bills, so you have no rights to the house.” He sighed. “Every time you come knocking at my door at some ungodly hour, I worry. I also worry Peter is going to lose his temper and do something worse than kicking you out one of these days.”

“If you have an issue with me coming over, I’ll stop. As for tonight, I’d leave as soon as my clothes dried but I already paid you.”

“That’s not the point.”

I knew it wasn’t. I wasn’t stupid. But I didn’t want to keep talking about Peter. His name always left a bitter taste in my mouth and turned my mood sour whenever he was brought up.

“I know what I’m doing, Jeff. I’ve never had a real parent, and I don’t need one now.”

If I moved in with him, he might get bold and expect me to give it up to him nearly every day. I didn’t want to owe someone like that and I didn’t want Jeff to feel entitled to my body. I didn’t need a saviour. At least not in the form of someone like Jeff.

“Think about it. You’re not working and living with Peter is obviously driving the both of you mad. I’ll get you a job in the hospital’s cafeteria and you can stay here with me until you’re done with school, or you’ve saved up enough money to move out on your own.”

“Jeff, the conversation is over,” I told him with an edge to my voice.

“Think about it.”

Jeff was right. Living with Peter made me miserable. But he wasn’t right about me not working. As unconventional as it was, I was making money. He didn’t need to know how I was doing so. I wasn’t poor or struggling. I had a bank account with tens of thousands of dollars in it that I saved over the past six years. I barely touched it unless I absolutely had to.

I was still living with Peter because I wanted to. While being kicked out for the smallest things was inconvenient, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been dealing with it since I was fourteen. The way I lived didn’t match with what was in my bank account, but I wanted it to stay that way. I starved myself, fucked strangers for money, got paid to get high and show lonely men a good time and lived in a cold house that was never cleaned.

My situation was temporary. I had plans for my future. I was saving everything I had to get out of that house with Peter, out of the shitty town, the shitty country, off the shitty planet. My plan was to go somewhere far away. Somewhere nobody knew who I was and where nobody I knew now could find me. But it meant I needed to hang in there for a while longer.

I didn’t routinely buy food when I could stave off hunger with Peter’s coffee or share lunch with a friend from college. I didn’t stay at a motel for the nights I got kicked out when I could go to Jeff. I didn’t remember the last time I got myself clothes because everything I had fit me just fine. I wasn’t going to move out and get an apartment when I could stay with Peter rent-free. It would be a waste of money.

For what I had planned, meticulous saving was necessary. I didn’t know exactly how much I would need, but when I finally got my degree in a couple months, I would find out. I would already be on my way there. Jeff didn’t need to worry about me. I had everything under control. Even if it didn’t look like it yet.