The 'Cousins'

Part Ten : Jess's Other Choice

Part Ten : Jess's Other Choice

A/N: This is another layer in a complex story dealing with several themes. Stay with it folks as they all come together at the climax. 

Jess’s mind was turning cartwheels with conflicting thoughts when he crossed the sidewalk and strolled towards the motel. 

It had all seemed too good to be true meeting Greg the way he had, losing the job at McKendrick’s through his bump with Greg and then this complete stranger seeking him out to offer him another job and make it all right.  Life wasn’t like that for Jess and like Felix said; it looked as if Greg had his own reasons for what he was doing.  It hurt Jess deeply to think Greg was doing this just for his own lustful purposes. But what Felix had said made sense.  Of course it did!  No man would go out of his way to help a perfect stranger unless there was something in it for him. The thought that this was just another elaborate and novel way for a man to approach him for sexual favours upset Jess. He didn’t want to believe Greg was grooming him, but it gnawed away at him that what Felix said had the ring of truth about it and the evidence was all there, plain for him to see.

The expiry of Greg’s visa would prove it. He’d given a lot of thought to Greg during the day and still didn’t want to believe that he was just  the same as the others, people like Felix, who only wanted him for what they could get out of him. The thought sickened him and he spat into the road to clear the bad taste from his mouth. Jess badly wanted Greg to be genuine. For that reason alone he resisted the urge to turn around and go back to the School House, deciding to keep his appointment with Greg and check out for himself if what Felix had told him was true.

Jess pushed open the door and walked into the motel reception. The clerk looked up from his desk and asked through a wide mouthed yawn

‘Are you Jess White?

‘Uh-Huh’ Jess responded to his name without thinking.

The clerk looked him up and down and then waved toward the back door. ‘He’s waiting for you in 196, through there, down the decking, last on the left.’

Jess nodded and walked out the back of the building onto the covered verandah decking that ran from the office and  which separated the ten cabins from their car parking spaces. 

Jess  still wrestled with his dilemma as he walked and ran yet again over the substance of his conversation with Felix – was Felix right or is Greg the real deal?  One of them was wrong?  Which one? More questions fed on this for Jess’s  overloaded mind to ponder.

‘Why should Greg break his journey here and put up money and spend his time here just to help me?’  ‘He don’t even know me and why is he here on his own?’

A cold shiver ran through his body from his knees to his chest when he thought again about Greg deceiving him about this visa. Jess didn’t want Felix to be in the right. He was happiest when Felix was the bad guy, but if he was right. It made Greg worse than Felix.

‘How do I check that out with him? ‘Jess didn’t know, but if it was right then it proved Greg was a phoney. That meant the job and everything Greg had said was just lies and there’d be no money to pay his school bills. That remained his major problem and if there was no proper work with Greg, his only chance of earning enough in the next month was going with Felix next Sunday for this studio photo session. 

He tossed his head to rid it of these thoughts and rubbed sweat from his neck as he walked along the decking reading the cabin numbers ‘106; 116… 126, and pondered. “ Why does this place number its rooms this way? They’ve only got 10 not hundreds”