Indulgence
Jack had done a pretty good job of sticking to Sarah. For a whole week he had stayed away from the brothel and visited the Jacobs' apartment nearly every night, in spite of the unspoken tension between him and David. Except David seemed in a better mood lately, which was strange because he seemed awfully uptight about Jenny the other day, but Jack sure as hell wasn't complaining. If David wanted to be friendly then it only made life simpler for Jack, except for where Sarah was concerned.
Sticking to Sarah was pretty easy most of the time, except when it was afternoon and nobody else was in the apartment, leaving Jack and Sarah to see each other without worrying about the family watching them or interrupting. Jack liked being free to kiss Sarah as long as he liked, but it gradually became a problem when he sat on her bed with her, one hand on her waist, while she grabbed onto one of his suspenders as she kissed him back. And hell, that faint little noise she made each time Jack worked his lips a certain way did something to him that made it real hard to keep things chaste.
And taking things further was something Jack simply couldn't do.
"Say, I gotta get back to work," said Jack, pulling himself away from Sarah with difficulty. He wanted her something terrible, but he couldn't admit it, and for once he was grateful for the stack of papers that kept a hold on his life.
"So soon?" asked Sarah, looking puzzled.
"Yeah. News don't sell itself, ya know." Jack got off the bed and grabbed his papers, trying not to look at Sarah as he did so. If he let himself gaze at her, he might not leave the room, and Jack did have some sense of right and wrong even if he didn't think about it much.
He left the Jacobs' apartment and stepped out onto the busy streets, but he couldn't sell his papers. An uncontrollable fire had been lit inside him, a fire that consumed his every thought and action, and the only way he could put it out was to seek solace in someone he knew he would encounter again, sooner or later. It was like Jenny had control of one of those lassos the cowboys out west used. She had that lasso wrapped around Jack's neck loosely enough so he could breathe and walk around and do as he pleased, but it didn't change the fact that she had a hold on him, and he could try to escape her but the lasso wouldn't let him. He would get tugged back to Jenny no matter what, and when the urge took hold of him he couldn't ignore it.
Mrs. Johnson's house looked the same as ever, plain on the outside but tempting within, and Jack headed right up to Jenny's room so he could knock on her door just like he did the last time he saw her. There was no answer, so he knocked again, and at last he turned the doorknob to see if it was unlocked. The door gave way and Jack peeked inside, but he saw nothing but the neatly made bed, the dresser, and the window with the curtains drawn over it.
It figured that Jenny wasn't home when Jack needed her. He would have to go back onto the streets and forget about that fire, which wouldn't be easy when it had been days since he last had a girl to relieve him. Sighing, Jack turned away from Jenny's room and found himself face-to-face with a dark-haired girl who looked familiar, though he couldn't place her name.
"Hello there, cowboy," said the girl. "What brings ya here at this hour?"
"Nothin'," said Jack. "I'm on my way out."
"Well it can't be nothin', or else you wouldn't be here. What do ya want with Jenny?"
"Who says I'm here to see Jenny, huh?"
The girl smiled, and suddenly Jack remembered her as the whore who approached him the second time he came to the brothel. "There's quite a bit of talk 'round here concernin' you and Jenny. She's been actin' real suspicious lately and I think you got somethin' to do with it."
"You got the wrong fella, dollface," said Jack. "I ain't seen Jenny in a week, and that's the truth."
"It ain't dollface," she said. "It's Kitty, and I wanna know what kinda game you think you're playin' with Jenny. We're real close, ya know, like sisters, and I'd hate to see any fella, 'specially one like you, try and break her heart with this game of yours."
"You oughtta be a newsie," said Jack. " 'Cause you obviously got a real gift for makin' things up."
"Do I?" said Kitty. "Well lemme tell ya somethin', cowboy. You might think you can see Jenny whenever ya please and pretend you and her can be happy together, but she's a whore, same as me, and your little dalliance with her ain't gonna change that."
Jack was amused at how Kitty had the wrong idea, though he wondered how she had arrived at this idea in the first place. If anybody was capable of having a "dalliance" with Jenny, it was David, but as far as Jack knew nothing had happened between David and Jenny. He smirked at Kitty, just to show her that her words didn't scare him, and took a step closer so he could place a hand under her chin and tilt her face up towards his own. "Look, sweetheart, if I say you got the wrong idea, then you got the wrong idea. Sure, I like beddin' Jenny as much as the next fella does, but that's all it is, and if you don't believe me than it's too bad for you."
"Well I'm glad to hear that," said Kitty. " 'Cause I would just hate for poor little Jenny to get involved in somethin' that would hurt her."
"Well whatever rumors you mighta heard abour poor little Jenny ain't true. So how 'bout you and me forget this conversation ever happened, all right?" Jack moved past Kitty until he was out of the hall and down the stairs, figuring he could always come back later that night if he wanted Jenny to fix his problem. Kitty was a real pretty dame, one of the prettiest he had ever met, but he could tell she was as mean as the Delancey brothers under all that beauty, and Jack didn't take up with girls who were mean. Let some other poor sucker have her.
No, the only girl in that joint who could relieve Jack was Jenny, and he would just have to wait for her.
"What are you thinking about?" asked David.
"How do ya know I'm thinkin'?" said Jenny.
"I've gotten really good at reading your face, that's how."
They were in a shady corner of Central Park, seated at the base of the largest tree in the vicinity, and Jenny felt strange because she was actually happy. She didn't spend her days feeling thoroughly miserable, of course, but true happiness was an elusive thing for a girl who spent her life catering to the satisfaction of others. "I'm thinkin' of how good it feels to have somethin' nobody knows about," she said.
"You don't feel guilty about keeping secrets?" David asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
Jenny laughed. "Secrets are fun. 'Course I ain't guilty."
They were both playing with fire, sneaking away to meet each other just long enough to talk a few minutes or steal a couple of kisses, but that was just part of the thrill. Jenny never would have guessed that the uprightly moral boy who caught her stealing would have had it in him, and she was glad that he did. She would enjoy David for as long as she could, for as long as it lasted, which wasn't bound to be long considering the sorts of lives they both lived.
She and David were really careful each time they saw one another, just in case they ran into any newsies who might start the wheels of gossip in motion. They avoided Tibby's restaurant like it had the plague and established specific times and places to meet each other, so they didn't have to seek each other out at the brothel or David's apartment. None of the other girls had seen David and Jenny intended to keep it that way.
"I have to go," David said as the afternoon sun shifted up above. "We've sat here long enough already and I have to finish selling."
"Oh, they're just papers," said Jenny.
"Papers that help my family eat."
"Can't ya stay for just a few more minutes?"
"And then a few minutes will turn into an hour, and both of us will be sorry, Jenny. I'll see you again tomorrow, all right?"
Jenny couldn't argue and watched David gather up the papers sitting in a stack upon the grass. He kissed her goodbye, pulled on his cap, and headed off through the park, calling out headlines as he went. Jenny remained beneath the tree and watched him until his figure was too small to make out anymore, wondering what would happen if Mrs. Johnson ever found out how she was spending her free time. She found it funny that most of the girls thought she was involved with Jack, and she did nothing to discourage these rumors because it was better than letting them find out about David. Kitty in particular was suspicious of her doings, and Gina had a grudge against her for stealing upstairs with Spot Conlon.
If David paid her to spend time with him there wouldn't be a problem, since money was everything in the brothel and without it, Jenny was no good to Mrs. Johnson at all.
She was nothing more than a pawn in a business she couldn't escape.
Jack rolled off of Jenny and lit his usual cigarette, feeling her blue eyes on him as he lit the tobacco. "Ya miss me at all?" he asked, sending her a lazy grin. "Afraid I'd stay away from ya for good?"
Jenny lay on her side, the blanket pulled up to her chin, and her eyes followed the puff of smoke that floated up towards the ceiling. "Couldn't believe my eyes when you showed up at my door," she said. "We're givin' everyone the wrong idea, ya know."
"Oh yeah? How's that?"
"The girls 'round here think you ain't just a john. If I was you, I wouldn't come within ten feet of this place."
"Eh, let 'em talk. You and me both know it ain't true."
Jack was so accustomed to lies that a couple of false stories about him here and there didn't faze him in the slightest, as long as he didn't get landed in the Refuge because of them. The girls in the brothel probably got bored during the day anyway, just like the newsies got bored when the headlines were lousy, and spinning tales about people they hardly knew was just a way of passing the time. The only thing that bothered Jack was the question of why exactly these girls decided to single him out, especially when he hadn't showed his face in over a week.
"Let 'em talk?" Jenny echoed, continuing to watch him. "You really want people to think you're courtin' a hooker?"
"No, 'cause I ain't courtin' a hooker. Where are the girls gettin' these ideas from anyway?"
Jenny, who usually had an answer for everything, remained silent.
"You're sneakin' out all the time," Jack pressed. "And it certainly ain't to see me, so it must be some other guy. You still seein' Davey?"
"What do you care?" asked Jenny.
"Who says I care? I'm just askin' a question."
"Well ya seem to ask an awful lotta questions about him. Jealous, maybe?"
Jack put his cigarette out on the bedpost and flicked the butt towards the floor, hoping it would fall into one of the cracks in the boards. It missed, and he grudgingly turned his attention back to Jenny, who looked a lot more wide-awake than she did five minutes ago. "I ain't jealous," he said. "I just wanna know why people 'round here think that I'm your fella."
"One of the girls saw you talkin' to me on the street," Jenny admitted. "And I s'pose once the others learned of it, they understood it all wrong."
"And is that how Davey found out you talked to me? Did ya tell him?"
Jenny looked genuinely surprised. "I never told him nothin' about us. I would never."
Jack was tired of hearing about David. In fact, he wished he had never brought David's name up in the first place, and he slid back under the covers so he could climb back on top of Jenny. "Ya know what?" he said in her ear. "It don't matter. It's just you and me right now, and I'm gettin' my money's worth."
"Well, it ain't like I got a choice," said Jenny, smirking up at him.
Her usual fire had returned, much to Jack's relief, and he erased all thoughts of David from his mind as he lost himself to pleasure. He didn't care if people thought he was seeing Jenny, he didn't care if Jenny was still seeing David, and he certainly didn't care if anyone had their facts wrong because they got him and David mixed up with each other. A distant part of him did care about Sarah, but he silenced that part of his mind with the reminder that Sarah could only find out if she started chatting with Mrs. Johnson's whores, which would never happen in a million years.
Except information had an uncanny way of spreading like wildfire for such a big city, but Jack wouldn't worry about that for now. He rolled off of Jenny a second time, thinking of nothing but the scent of her hair and the softness of her skin, and refrained from lighting up another cigarette. At the rate he was going, he would run out of smokes by the end of the week. "Say, lemme stay the night," he said, making himself comfortable on the mattress. It may have been a bit stiff, but it wasn't nearly as lumpy as the mattresses in the lodging house.
"And why should I do that?" asked Jenny.
" 'Cause I'm tired and ain't in the mood for gettin' up, that's why. And maybe 'cause ya like my company."
"Is that so? And are ya willin' to pay a little extra for spendin' the night in my bed?"
"How 'bout a discount?" Jack asked. "I'll tell ya all about the strike, or Santa Fe, or whatever ya wanna hear. Ain't that better than a few extra pennies?"
Jenny remained where she was, her loosened hair spread across her pillow, and she reached under the blanket to take Jack's hand. "I'll give ya a discount 'cause I like you, Jack. You may be just a john, but I like you all the same."
That was reason enough for Jack, and he didn't bother worrying about what the other newsies would say when they found his empty bed in the morning. None of that mattered at the moment; Jack just wanted an escape from the world and all its burdens, and spending the night with Jenny was the best escape he could ask for.