Page 33 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“Uh, I mean, I’m still in a towel.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said, and cracked open the door, letting in the cold outer air. He had Bodhi on his chest. She must not have heard him wake up. “I was just thinking, you know, about the OnlyFans stuff. When I was wrestling in Japan—the mafia is really engaged in the wrestling scene there, so all these Japanese mafia guys would be at the matches and sometimes take us out afterward, and one night they took us to this sex club.”

Margo was nodding open-mouthed. The entire situation was so deeply weird.

“Anyway, I remember that night watching the sex show and thinking, That’s a helluva way to make a living. But then I thought, you know, who am I to judge? How is it that different than what I was doing, wrestling? We’re both using our bodies to entertain crowds of people. We’re both doing this real-fake thing. Honestly, even the risk of STDs is nothing compared to the risks I was taking in the ring.”

“Uh-huh,” Margo said.

“And it’s— Wrestlers know that even with us, part of it is about sex. About seeing us half naked up there, and Rick Rude or whatever, sure, but even a guy like me, you know, you get thrown over a stanchion and they’re touching you all over, they’re grabbing you like...” He paused, struggling for how to describe it. “I just... I changed my mind, Margo. I want you to understand, especially if I am living here, that I know you are not a car. That I respect you and the fact that you are trying to raise this child on your own. Whether you post pictures of your body on the internet, it doesn’t matter. I just... really, I was feeling protective of you. People treat sex workers so badly and with such disdain, and I didn’t want that for you, but somehow that just resulted in me treating you with disdain for being a sex worker, and that’s not what I want to do or who I want to be. You’re my daughter. I will love you forever no matter what.”

Margo was stunned.

“Okay, that was it,” he said, and ducked out of the bathroom and closed the door.

Chapter Nine

Margo’s truce with Jinx felt fragile. She hardly had time to think about it. She was too busy trying to manage her sudden influx of fans. Having access to Suzie’s cosplay closet made taking interesting pictures a whole lot easier, though the complaints about Margo’s camera quality on her ancient phone were constant. Did you take these with a potato? Are your nipples blurred out on purpose or are you just poor?

Keeping on top of the dick ratings was challenging too, even if she loved writing them. Congratulations on being the owner of a glorious Parasect! Special attack: Clit Clench. Weirdly, it was how much fun she was having that was hardest for her to process. The small cascade of neurochemicals each time her phone dinged with a new message. The obsessive refreshing of the page to see if anything new had happened. The compliments, the likes, the fire emojis—they were all intoxicating and kind of exciting. It reminded her of the early days of courtship, when her whole life hinged upon the latest text or email. Except she was having this same reaction to crude messages sent by strangers on the internet. She didn’t want it to be true, that these meaningless, highly artificial interactions could create in her the same feelings as the actual relationships she’d had. She knew what she was feeling now wasn’t real, but how real had anything she felt ever been?

Compared with the way she felt for Bodhi, her feelings for any of her former romantic partners were flimsy, like the clothing for paper dolls that attaches with only those tiny folding tabs.

“Listen,” Jinx said one morning as they were eating some new disgusting bran cereal he had bought, “I’ve been thinking, Margo, if you are really going to do this, I want you to do it right.”

Margo was mildly horrified, waiting for whatever he was going to say next.

“Now tell me the truth,” he said. “Are you paying quarterly taxes?”

She burst out laughing.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said.

“I don’t know what quarterly taxes are,” Margo said.

“Well, are you going to file as self-employed or as a corporation?”

“Dad.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“You know, Margo,” he said softly, “now that I’m living here, I could watch Bodhi while you went to work. If you wanted to go back to waitressing.”

Margo nodded, trying to brace herself. Of course he would try again to persuade her. He couldn’t just be offering to help with her taxes. She could not explain how much the idea of returning to waiting tables filled her with dread. As dehumanizing as running an OnlyFans was supposed to be, that was how dehumanizing waitressing actually was.

She was aware Jinx was watching her, and she wasn’t any closer to knowing how to respond. Then he said, “Waitressing sucks.”

“It really, really sucks.”

“I have heard this from many people,” he said, nodding.

“It’s exhausting,” Margo said, “and like, there’s no getting a raise or a promotion, there’s no growing. And that makes it feel like trying to run when you’re facing a wall.” She wanted to share more about Tessa and the penis cake and making the salad boy eat literal dirt and Sean putting parsley around his dick, but none of it seemed bad enough exactly to justify selling nudes. “And being away from Bodhi for that many hours in a row, even if you were watching him...” She faltered, not knowing how to say it or if she was allowed to say something so ridiculous. “But it kind of makes me feel like I’m dying?”

Jinx nodded again. “So you really want to do this,” he said. It reminded Margo of how Shyanne knew she wanted to keep the baby even before Margo had admitted it to herself. She couldn’t explain why she wanted to have Bodhi, and she couldn’t explain how badly she wanted to turn the OnlyFans into a success. Was it bad to want things? To want them as badly as she seemed to want them?

“I do,” she said. And somehow it felt as formal as if she were getting married right there in the dining alcove.

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