The front door to the apartment opened, letting in a nice breeze and the warm air. Kelly and Jason stood in the doorway for a moment, just taking it in, before walking inside, Kelly shutting the door behind them. Jason turned around, almost in awe, as he looked at every inch of the place. Kelly walked into the nearby kitchen area and admired the cabinets and their handles.
"This is...can you do this?" Jason asked. "Don't worry about what I can and cannot do," Kelly said, smiling, "You can't stay in my dads love nest forever, nor should you be living in your car. I said I'd repay you handsomely for your help, and this is just a part of that." Jason stopped, hands on his hips, nodding. "This is....wonderful," he said, "Hell, this is better than the place I was living before everything in my life went to shit. Do your parents know you're-" "They know what I want them to know," Kelly said, walking away from the kitchen and back into the living room, putting her hands on the walls and feeling the dried paint job, continuing, "but no, they are not aware that I've done this. My father gave my access to his bank account a few years ago, on the off chance I needed money to fix my car or for school related purchases. He has so much money he won't even notice some missing monthly." "This feels wrong...I feel like I can't accept this," Jason said. "Oh, you don't have a choice," Kelly replied, laughing, "I need to know where you are and you need a place to stay. This is what's best for both of us." Jason couldn't really argue with someone giving him free room and board, especially fancy free room and board such as this in a high class apartment complex. God, he thought, he'd be able to do his laundry for the first time in weeks without having to beg for change first. He walked over to the deck door, pulled it open and stepped onto the balcony, looking out over the tenants sitting in the pool area. Maybe he'd go for a swim. He noticed Kelly walked up to the rail beside him and they glanced at one another. "You got a swimsuit?" he asked, and she smirked. *** What did it mean to be a good person? Well, that's the question. A question Jason Tulridge often struggled with. Standing in front of his class, he pulled his glasses off and sighed, rubbing his face. "Morality isn't decided by your actions, but rather the decision to act upon those actions," he said, "To make the choice, not fulfill it, that's what decides your morality. Acting upon it is superfluous, you've already made the decision to do so and now you're just following through. It's making the decision at all that renders you moral or immoral. Contrary to popular belief in this field, there's no such thing as a grey area. You're either moral or you're not. Some are less moral than others, certainly, but there's no grey area. Your decisions define you and your morality." He scratched the back of his head just as the bell rang, releasing the class of college students. Jason waved them all goodbye, and stood by his desk, organizing some papers for his next class in a few hours. He thought about going to get some coffee first, fuel back up for the remainder of the day, but before he could do that, he heard her voice behind him. "The hypocrite in you is off the charts," Emily said, "you know that, right? To stand up here and preach about morality when you yourself are immoral." Jason smirked and turned back around, looking into her eyes. "I do know," he said, "That's why I'm working so hard to ensure you and your fellow classmates don't follow in my footsteps. Gotta pretend to be a good role model at least, right?" Within minutes, Jason and Emily - his brightest student - were in his office, fucking on his desk. Jason knew it was wrong, even though she was of legal age at 21, because not only was he taking advantage of his position as her educator but also because he was married. And yet...he couldn't help himself. Emily had far more interest in him than his wife had had lately, not to mention how young and beautiful she was. Her amber hair and her chocolate brown eyes and her perfect skin, and her figure, god her figure, the kind of figure you only get between the ages of 16 and 23, without even having to try. He just couldn't resist. Men were sick creatures, he knew of that, he know of his genders immorality, and that he himself had fallen prey to it. But when he had her bent over his table, pulling her hair, fucking her from behind, he didn't care about morality anymore. All he cared about was feeling good. He reached up and put a hand over her mouth so she wouldn't alert any other teachers in nearby offices with her wild moans. She grinned at this gesture, which only made him like her all the more. Morality be damned. You only live once. *** "What's it like to be spoiled rich and get everything you ever wanted from the youngest age imaginable?" Jason asked, treading water in the pool rim, looking up at Kelly as she sat in a lounge chair in her two piece with her sunhat and large sunglasses over her eyes. "It's pretty great," she said, laughing, "people say money makes you a bad person, but I don't that's true. Money doesn't make you inherently evil. You're evil with or without the financial inclination. Some of us are just born bad, all there is to it. Money only helps further those ambitions." "Certainly seems to help further yours," Jason said, making her laugh again. "You're benefiting from it as well, don't forget," she said. "How could I," he mumbled to himself, before asking, "So...got any work coming up?" Kelly lowered her sunglasses ever so slightly, raising an eyebrow. "Are you starting to enjoy what we do?" she asked, sounding surprised, "I may have something on the horizon, but I need some more time to figure things out. Can't go in half cocked. Always need to have everything planned to a tee before executing these sorts of plans." "I get it," Jason said. Jason swam away from the poolside and dunked under the water. When he came back up, he slicked his hair back and looked back towards Kelly, who was finishing putting sunscreen on her legs before picking up a book she'd brought with her and opening it, reading. Jason couldn't lie, at first this whole situation had seemed sickening and reprehensible, but now he couldn't imagine going back to his car. Money sure does change people, whether Kelly admitted it or not. *** Lying in bed, Jason couldn't help but listen to his wife snore quietly. He rolled his head on his pillow to look at her, and could see the moonlight peaking in through the window dancing on across her face. Her eyelashes, they seemed to sparkle. He still loved her, so why was he doing what he was doing? He sighed, climbed out of bed and grabbed his cell phone off the table, walking into the living room. He dialed a number, and was surprised when she answered. "What's up, it's really late," Emily said. "I didn't wake you, did I?" Jason asked, sitting on the couch and speaking softly. "Naw, I'm fine, I was up," Emily said, "Everything okay?" "...can we meet somewhere?" Jason asked, "Not...not for anything, ya know, like that. Just to talk." A pause, and then Emily said okay. They agreed to meet at an abandoned drive in nearby. They parked side by side and both laid on their cars respective hoods, looking up at the night sky overhead. Lying there with Emily, Jason felt so much more comfortable than he did lying in bed with his wife at home, and that only made him feel all the more sick. "...maybe I'm wrong," Jason said, "Maybe morality doesn't matter. I mean, we all wind up dead and gone at the end of the day, so what really makes something right or wrong when we inevitably don't face consequences after a certain point?" "You're looking at this far too broadly. Morality is a human creation, dictating how we define one another or ourselves. It has nothing to do with the afterlife or anything like that," Emily said, "some of may believe it does, believe that Heaven and God play a part, but it's not true. It's simply a way for us to gauge one another and thus judge ourselves against those who do things we either like or don't like so we can feel superior in our own decisions." "I just...I refuse to believe that you can believe in morality but not partake in immoral things," Jason said, "So many religious people, for example, perform the most horrible atrocities. You can do both. You can believe and still do the opposite. I still don't believe there's that area of grey, but I also don't believe it's black and white." "What do you believe then?" Emily asked, sitting up and looking at him. "...I don't really know," Jason said, "All I know is that, for some reason, being moral hasn't made me feel like a better person, nor has it made me any happier by extension. Ethics are...they're just like laws or commandments. Shit we made up to try and control one another. There is no right and wrong because everyone has a different viewpoint. Okay, sure, there's right and wrong on the level of 'don't hurt others' like being racist, but like what we're doing...you're of legal age, so nobody is actually doing anything technically wrong here." "I bet your wife would differ on that," Emily said, chuckling. "Well, what she doesn't know won't hurt her, right?" Jason asked, the both of them laughing. Emily crawled across the hood of the car and rested her head on his chest. He reached down and stroked her hair. It was nice, having someone understand him like this. His wife certainly didn't. But the thing is...that's what all men facing down the barrel of eventual middle age think. They think nobody understands them when in reality they aren't complex in the slightest, and everyone understands them all too well. They simply use that way of thinking to justify their actions. If only he'd known then what she would do to his life, maybe it all could've been avoided. *** Kelly pulled into the driveway and parked, stepping out of the car and heading up the walk to the front door. She loved coming home. She'd always loved coming home, because home was the only place she ever felt safe, like nothing could touch her there. As she entered the foyer, she didn't hear anyone, and just assumed that her mom and dad were still working, so she got herself a yogurt from the fridge, ate it while watching a reality show on mute and then finally headed upstairs to her bedroom. She took her clothes off, got into the shower and bathed. Afterwards, now in her silk robe, she sat on her bed and thought about her situation with Jason. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and he knew it, which only made her feel better about it. She was glad to have an accomplice, because doing what she had been doing by herself had begun to get difficult. She put on some music and sat on the bed cross legged as she pulled a bottle of mint green nail polish from the bedside table and started doing her fingers. Her phone rang and she put it on speaker. "Hello?" she asked. "It's me," Jason said, "Sorry to call, I just...I feel like I never properly thanked you for getting me this place and whatnot. Today was a nice much needed break from hell." "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," Kelly said, tossing her hair from her face as she continued to paint her nails, "but you know, I don't want you to think you're on easy street as a result. Sure, I'm giving you a place to live, but I do still want you to try and get on your own feet again while we do what we do, you understand?" "Of course," Jason said, "Can't go back to what I was doing before, so I'll have to find a new line of work, but still, be good to get my life back on track in some capacity." "Exactly," Kelly said, "My dad's always said that our future is our most valuable asset, and we need to prepare for it even if it's difficult." "Your dad sounds like a smart man," Jason said, "Anyway I'll see you tomorrow, sleep good." "You too, goodbye," Kelly said, hanging up, thinking about her father and her future. She hated parroting what her father had told her, mostly because she didn't believe it herself. She didn't see a future for herself. In all honesty, she didn't see much of a future at all. She sighed and kept on painting. When she was done, and her nails were dried, she laid on her back and looked up at the ceiling, at the pretty cloud in the dark stars her dad had helped her put up when she was a little girl. She reached over and pulled her stuffed bunny closer to her, squeezing it tightly. She'd never been able to imagine a future. Even as a child, she'd never been able to think about herself growing up, and now that she was about grown up, she had trouble thinking about herself being even older. She didn't want to do anything with her life except hurt people, but unless you joined the military that wasn't a viable career choice. She sighed and shut her eyes. At least she had a friend in Jason. Maybe, she thought, if she could get Jasons life back on track, then she could feel a bit better about her own life eventually flaming out. At least perhaps one of them would get a chance at redemption. At good living. Because, as far as she was concerned, she never would. For someone who acted so resilient, so in charge and decisive, underneath this facade, Kelly Baker was still just a child. A very, very angry child.
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A rich teenage girl befriends a desperate man in his thirties to kill people that get in the way of her or her family happiness and fortune. Slowly, the mans guilt eats away at him, while the girl ego rises to dangerous heights. Archives
July 2023
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