You're, Like, the Patron Saint
At 9:30 Tuesday morning, Jesse's cell vibrates with a new text.
He thumbs it with trepidation; the number it came from is an old burner phone he didn't think Mr. White was using anymore, but he's too scared to ignore it, especially when he sees the content of the text: "Get over here. Now."
When he arrives, heart pounding, the front door's unlocked.
He takes a deep breath, praying he's not about to trigger some kind of fucked up home-made bomb, and tentatively turns the knob.
Mr. White isn't there. His scary wife sits by herself on the couch, feet tucked under her butt, her laptop open. Jesse's eyes stray to the half-empty bottle of Chardonnay on the table beside her.
She looks over at Jesse, no expression on her face.
"Uh, hi, Mrs. White, sorry to… Is Mr. White… around?"
"No, he has a meeting every Tuesday at ten."
"He has a meeting? Since when?"
"I have no idea, but that's where he is."
"It's just, I got this text from him, and… it sounded kind of urgent."
"I'm the one who texted you." She barely looks up from her laptop.
His whole body vibrates with fear. This has to be a trap. "You texted me? Why?"
"Would you relax? He's not here."
She sounds just like her husband did before that god-awful dinner. Jesse knows better than to stick around.
"Yeah, okay, no offense, but that's what your husband said the other night. 'She's not here,' and then you walked in the door, like, right after."
She doesn't respond.
"Why'd you text me?" he asks at last.
"Because I have a question for you."
"You have a question for me?"
"If you repeat everything I say he actually will get home before we're done."
Jesse exhales and shakes his head out. "Okay, fine, can we make it quick? What's the question?"
She doesn't reply, just turns her laptop around so he can see what she's been looking at.
"Oh, God." It's his old website. From a lifetime ago, back when things were fun. His face gets warm and he rubs at his eyes like maybe he can make this all go away. "I, uh, I thought I took that down."
"It's a cache, 'Captain,'" she says, and takes a swig of her wine. When she speaks again, her voice is low. It goes straight to his balls just like it did at dinner the other night. "Why MILFs?"
"Uh, 'cause… they know how to fuck. Right? That's, like, why they're MILFs. They've gotten pregnant and stuff, so they obviously… know… what they're doing."
She raises her eyebrows.
He's already sporting a half-chub, but it doesn't feel good; it's born of nerves and utter terror.
"That's why you like to sleep with… women who are mothers?" she clarifies.
"Yeah, 'cause, uhhhh, they're like 'all woman.' You know? They've done the, uh, most womanly thing you can do, which is, you know, having… kids?" And they got big titties, he thinks but doesn't say.
"They've been around the block," she paraphrases, gesturing with her glass. "In your estimation."
"Yeah. But I mean, not in a bad way. More like, they're experienced."
She takes another swig.
Jesse's pants feel tight and he looks back at the open door, and the outside world beyond it, desperately wanting to escape and desperately wanting to stay. If only he could be sure Mr. White wasn't going to show up…
"Close the door," Mrs. White says and it's like he can't disobey. Should he lock it, too, or is that too forward? What does she want him to do? He needs her to tell him; he can't make these kinds of decisions.
"Sit," she says and he perches on the edge of the couch, the farthest he can possibly be from her.
"Would you say I qualify? For that." She motions to the laptop, which is now on the floor. She seems genuinely curious. Then again, she's drunk, and it's not even ten in the morning.
"As a MILF? Shyeah. You're, like, the patron saint. Maybe even the queen. I never would've pictured Mr. White with you. Like, how did Mr. White even get you?"
"What do you mean?" She looks insulted and he panics.
"Well, he's like, him, and you're like… you."
"That's an amazing analysis," she says dryly.
"Yeah, well, I haven't exactly had to articulate it before. No one's questioned me about it," he snaps.
"Oh, 'articulate,'" she mimics, in what he will come to know as her Dumb Jesse voice. It's mocking but also kind of affectionate. Or so he wants to think.
"Come here. I want to tell you something." She pats the couch.
Jesse slides miserably down to one of the cushions, still staying as far as he possibly can from her. She offers him wine and he accepts.
"Thanks." Much nicer than dinner, when she Bogarted the whole bottle and then took it with her when she left.
He chugs a nice dollop down his throat; coughs. She waits.
"I'm not much of a wine drinker." He looks over at her, offers her the bottle back. She shakes her head and he sets the bottle down on the carpet, then worries it'll get knocked over and picks it up again. Sets it on the table.
His half-chub throbs and he prays - even harder than he prayed at the door about the bomb - that she doesn't notice.
"So what'd you want to tell me, Mrs. White?"
She leans closer and looks him dead in the eyes. "He's never going to give you what you want."
Now it's Jesse's turn to feel insulted. "What is it you think I want?"
She shrugs. "His respect. His approval. An honest compliment. All of the above. I'm telling you right now, it's never going to happen."
"Shut up, all right?" Jesse says softly, running a stiff hand through his hair, and instantly regretting his telltale response. He's given himself away completely, and she knows it.
She sets her now-empty wine glass down and when she looks back at Jesse, there's a triumphant a smirk on her lips.
"When I say never, I mean nev-er. How does that make you feel?"
He grips the edge of the couch cushion. "Shut up."
She is loving this. Waggles a finger in his face. "Never, never - "
He grabs her hand in his, tightly, so she'll stop taunting him. "Seriously, shut up."
"Make me."
#
Afterward, Jesse watches her chain-smoke like, half a pack. The windows are all closed, too, which can't be good for Mr. White's – oh.
She sucks 'em back, one after the other, like they're giving her life instead of taking it away. Jesse reaches for a one, and she hands him hers instead, and then lights a new one for herself, like the part she enjoys most is the start of smoking, not the act itself.
"You can take a shower if you want," Mrs. White says, leaning back against the headboard and closing her eyes. "There are clean towels in the left-hand drawer."
Jesse pulls up his jeans, which had never quite come off. Mrs. White snaps the waist band of his boxer shorts appraisingly.
He zips up. "I… I think I better motor. He's gonna come back soon."
She laughs. It goes on longer than it should, and it's not a happy laugh.
He's unnerved. "What? What's so funny?"
"Don't worry," she says, exhaling a stream of smoke right in his face. "He'll knock."
#
There's no text the following Tuesday, but he takes a chance and just shows up.
Mrs. White pulls him into the bedroom, no preamble this time, backing up until the backs of her knees hit the bed. She sits and he stands between her incredible legs, touching and stroking her everywhere he can reach.
"There's only one thing I won't do," she says, tugging his pants off. "Are you listening?"
"Yeah, yeah, of course." In his head he rattles off a list of the nastiest things he can think of, the most likely candidates for her veto. Facials, Spanking, Fisting, Sex Toys, Handcuffs...? He snaps out of it in time to hear her say something weird in its mundanity.
"You don't get behind me."
"No anal." He nods quickly. "That's cool."
She stops tugging at his pants, looks up at him. "That's not what I mean. Well, no anal, that's correct, but what I mean is you can't be behind me. You have to look at me. Even if my eyes are closed, you have to look at my face. Other than that I don't care."
"No doggy style. Got it."
"Do you? Because I get fucked like that every night of the week."
TMI, he thinks, wincing. TM-fucking-I.
"Whether I want it or not," she adds, more to herself than to him, and returns to her task of de-pantsing him.
He puts his hands on hers. "Yo, wait, hold up. Has Mr. White been, like, forcing you?"
"No. Well, he doesn't ask, and I don't say no." She makes her eyes go wide, like something has just occurred to her. "Do you think I have a case?" she asks sarcastically.
She mocks Jesse constantly and a part of him thinks he craves it. He must, or why does he come back? Now that he no longer works with Mr. White, he needs to find debasement somewhere and this is like, close to home. Or whatever. And he gets a messed up thrill from busting a nut inside the same woman as Mr. White. You're not any better than me if we both get her, isn't that right, Mr. Goddamn White?
Skyler kisses him and he hesitates for a second, wondering if he should bolt. This is so completely fucked up, he thinks, then reconsiders: So, basically, no different than the rest of my life. But with orgasms.
The first time she was drunk. This time, she's frighteningly sober.
They start out with her on top, and she presses his hands up behind his head.
"Do you know," she says, "The less I move, the more he likes it? He thinks I'm the corpse, I'm the one who's dying, not him. "
He's not sure what to say to that. Offers up a sincere pronouncement: "I like it when you move."
"Do you." Her low, knowing voice gets him crazy-ready every time.
"Hell yeah I want you to move. I want you to do, like, every move you've got."
She grinds him hard for a while, and his whole face tenses with the effort not to come.
"Every night, it's the same," she says. "He gets home late, won't look at me, just starts in on me, pushes me to my side, and… I've tried everything I can to keep him away. I jerk him off all the time. He just says, 'Nice try,' and rolls me over onto my stomach. I've tried pretending to be asleep but honestly I don't think that would even stop him. He'd just knead my arm or my breast, and then lie and say, 'Oh, my mistake, didn't mean to wake you,' right up until the moment he -"
Jesse can't stand listening to this. "Do you ever just tell him 'no'?"
She seems perplexed by the question. "I don't tell him anything."
"Why not?" He's on top now, pushing in and out of her quickly, hands combing through her hair, stroking her collarbone, squeezing her breasts. "You don't think he'll stop if you say 'no'?"
She closes her eyes, holds up a finger, like "hold that thought," and digs her heels into his ass. "Uhhh… fuck… Uh!"
He waits till she finishes and then slides in even deeper. The way she squeezes him sends him right over the edge; she must do those kegel things, she's so tight and slick, and "Oh, God… Mrs. White… Mrs. White." There's no way he'll ever be able to call her anything else when he comes. Hell, maybe she likes it; who the eff knows with her?
He flops beside her, so they're both on their backs, looking at the ceiling. His arms and legs ache.
"I don't know if he'd stop," she says, continuing their conversation as though they hadn't both just had, like, monster cums. "I'm afraid to find out. And I kind of like being afraid."
He stares at her for a moment. "No one likes being afraid."
"It means I'm not completely numb."
"Well I'm afraid all the time. There's got to be better ways not to feel numb."
She looks over at him. "Why do you think you're here?"
#
Sometimes he gets rigid again on the drive home, thinking about the things she's done to him; the things she's let him do to her.
She meant what she'd said, about only having one rule. The list he'd started before, in his head, predicting what she'd rule out? She did all of them. Twice. Three times. Anything. She would do anything. Oddly enough, the thing he wanted most now, the thing that seemed least likely, was to see her smile.
He's dying to tell someone about her. Mr. White's lady is seriously debauched, yo. But who is he going to tell? Saul? Mike? Skinny Pete? No. He has to take this one to the grave.
Aw well, add it to the list.
#
She likes to talk.
Before. After.
During.
I'm not your shrink, he wants to say.
But who else does Mrs. White have? She can't tell anyone else the things she tells Jesse. It makes him feel needed at least, and he likes that.
He asks the same question he always asks. "How do you know he's going to be gone the whole hour?"
"Because it's not about the money. He has more money than his kids could spend in a hundred lifetimes. He's doing it because he can't stop."
Her thighs are pressed to his face and while he uses his tongue to give her some relief from her life, he can't help but wonder if she's showered since Mr. White had his way with her last.
Maybe she can read Jesse's mind, or maybe she was always going to say the next part no matter what.
"He comes hardest after he's killed someone."
Jesse really doesn't want to know this.
She clutches his hair, guides his face to the right spot. He licks dutifully.
"I've looked things up," she explains. "Things in the news. Deaths. I know the timeline now, and I've figured it out… all of those were the nights he was friskiest in bed."
Jesse wants to shut his ears off to this, and maybe puke while he's at it. He pulls her thighs in around his ears to muffle the sound but it doesn't work. Mrs. White grips his shoulders and indicates he should move up her body now and really give it to her.
He thrusts inside her, hoping upon hope she'll stop talking about this. If she doesn't, he's going to lose his hard-on.
"Look at me," she says softly, and waits until he does. "You have to look at me."
"Okay, I am."
"Every time he's killed someone, he shoots me up with it. I figured it out. That's how he gets rid of the guilt. It actually leaves his body because he's shooting it into me, and then I'm the one who has to live with it inside me. He gets off on it, filling me with the things he's done. Absolving himself. And when he's finished, he doesn't think about it anymore. It's gone. At least, for him."
Jesse has lost his erection completely. He's thinking about Gale. This is so not cool. Did she really expect him to be able to keep fucking her when she's talking about this shit?
"Mr. White doesn't kill people," he says, sliding out and laying his head on her breasts. His voice is monotone, on the verge of breaking in half. "He gets other people to do it for him. Most of the time."
She thrums her fingers on his back in a rhythm. "Is that so?"
"Sometimes, yeah."
Mrs. White shifts beneath him and reaches over to the bedside table. She lights a cigarette and exhales a long stream toward the ceiling.
Jesse's eyes fill with tears and he knows this is bad, this is really bad. He tries to hide it all by nuzzling his face in her chest, her warm, safe, soft chest.
"Before you ask for a drink," she says, "I'm not breastfeeding anymore."
He's horrified. "Jesus, I wasn't even thinking about that!" Of course, now he can't think of anything else. "Is that something people even do?" Is that why her breasts feel so full, so heavy, so good in his hands?
He sobs. She pets his hair soothingly, gently, and babies him for a moment. If he's honest with himself, this is why he likes MILFs.
"It's okay," she whispers. "Jesse, look at me. It's okay."
He nods. Slowly tilts his face up to look her in the eyes. She cups his face in her hands, and they kiss, really kiss, not just as a way to get thing started, but as something on its own, something by itself. It's nice. It lasts a good while, until he gets hard again.
She pulls her mouth away. "That's better," she coaxes tenderly, reaching down and palming his dick.
"Much better," he agrees shakily.
"I'm not going to sing you a lullabye and tuck you in," she whispers in his ear.
He looks up at her, hurt and confused. "I know that."
She stares back, all warmth gone. "If you're going to cry again, get the fuck out."
"Jerk me off, bitch," he whispers in retaliation, tears still burning wet on his cheeks.
She smirks, and tightens her fist. They stare at each other the whole time, daring each other to look away. Her hand moves with such joyless efficiency it almost hurts when he comes a minute later.
"Ow," he gasps, looking down. "I think you… I think you chafed it."
"So get it wet," she says, in her best Dumb Jesse voice. "Get it 'like, well-oiled.'"
He thinks about pushing her onto her belly and taking her from behind, but that's still the only rule, and as much as he hates what she just did to him, he won't break her rule. So he pushes her onto her back and climbs on top and they watch each other some more, until Skyler – Mrs. White – Mrs. Cunt – closes her eyes and moans herself off.
He whimpers like a whipped dog and she bites his lip to make him stop.
"God!" He slumps against her. He can't figure her out. "Why are you even doing this?"
"Because you make me feel something I haven't felt in a long time."
He's scared to ask, but he needs to know. "What's that?"
"As though I might actually be here."
#
Was it possible to die from coming too much?
They only see each other once a week but it seems like way more, because the memories of their frantic mornings give him hours of jerk-off material, and how else is he going to spend his time?
Plus thinking about Mrs. White doesn't make him feel guilty the way thinking about Jane or Andrea does.
#
"I called him Heisenberg the other day."
Jesse stops what he's doing to her and grimaces. "Like, in bed?"
"Uh-huh."
"Did he make you?" He thinks of Mr. White in the desert ordering those guys from Arizona to Say my name.
"Nope," she says, popping the "p." "And, he did not like it," she adds matter-of-factly.
As always with the Whites, Jesse doesn't want to know, but that never stops Sky—Mrs. White - from telling him.
"He put his hand over my mouth, like this, until he was done with me."
She demonstrates on Jesse. He feels like he's suffocating. Tries to pry her fingers off. She keeps her hand there. She has more to say, and he's going to hear it. "And the thing that got me, the thing that bothered me, is I have the feeling he's been wanting to do that for years."
She releases him and he sputters, "Oh, I don't know about that."
She runs her tongue around her mouth for a second. "Yeah."
They lie there in bed, not touching, for ages.
Finally, Mrs. White says, "I was going to be a writer."
Jesse looks over at her. "I wasn't going to be anything."
"Huh. At least one of us got his wish."
End.