But Manson had told me even before we showed up here that I needed to stay. For her. To look after her. Care for her. Do all the nice, compassionate, gentle things I was supposed to be able to do but couldn’t.

“Look, I’m fine,” I said, stubbing out my cigarette against the sole of my shoe and looking around aimlessly for an ashtray. Apparently no one in this household smoked.

Manson plucked the cigarette out of my fingers, nodding his head back toward the house. “Come on. I wanna show you something.”

It was a trap to get me to come back inside, but whatever. If he wanted me to sit around like a baboon with his thumb up his ass, sure, I’d stay.

Jess was showering, the sound of running water coming from the closed bathroom door. Our cum had been all over her face, her chest, her hair. She could wash it away, but I hoped the scent of us would linger. I wanted to leave her with something tangible, something she couldn’t easily forget and others couldn’t deny.

Fuck, if I was a dog, I probably would have pissed on her to stake my claim. Maybe I really would, eventually, if she stuck around that long.

Manson was sitting on the edge of the couch when I came to his side, staring down at a piece of paper in his hands. It was a half-completed sketch showing the front of a house with a wraparound porch. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until I realized how familiar the house was.

“Is that our place?” I said.

“Pretty sure it is. She’s taken some aesthetic liberties.” He traced his finger lightly along the intricate woodwork designs she’d drawn along the windows.

“Did you know she could draw?” I said as he carefully put the paper back down on the coffee table. The water in the bathroom had turned off, and it made my heart speed up a little.

“Not until now,” he said. “She must have drawn all this from memory.”

She had even drawn flowers and bushes along the front porch. The new features were small, but the effect was drastic. It made the house look more like a home, like someone had put love and care into it.

“Should we plant flowers?” I blurted out. The dirt yard was so damn barren.

“It does look nice…I guess we could.” He didn’t sound entirely pleased about the idea, but I couldn’t blame him. Living in that house at all was a challenge for him, even with all the changes we’d made.