Princess Tries To Negotiate Rescue

Jake is shaking his head in disbelief.

Marie looks at him, thinking he doesn't understand what she has said, so she repeats herself. "If I leave with you, you are no longer going to be doing me in the butt."

Jake looks up at her and smiles at her sheer arrogance.

Marie is looking much better after she had showered. Jake is pretty sure it is the first shower she has had in a while, as the water had been turned off to her mobile home for some time.

"So, in your current position, you think you can negotiate the terms of how I bring you out of your mess?" Jake asks, more curious than anything. At this point, he is seriously thinking of leaving his hotel room and returning her to the trailer she is being evicted from in the next week.

"Yes," she responds, with no hesitation.

Jake's confusion is an understatement. Marie has no job, thinking she is going to work as a contractor with an old boyfriend. This old boyfriend from high school can't seem to find any contracting work in a booming local construction industry. Jake found this hilarious during an earlier discussion. Apparently, Marie was unaware of the boom in the contracting industry and now really confused why she has been out of work for the last 6 months. However, Marie would not let go of what Jake sees as an idiotic dream.

Additionally, Marie had recently lost her driver's license, insisting that it was stolen with her wallet, yet refuses to get another one. Now she has no identification.

More than likely she sold her identification to illegals.

Why is Jake trying? He rescued her years before when Marie was newly Sober and her controlling husband had kicked her to the curb. The husband realized he couldn't control her Sober and decided he would go find some other woman he could control.

Jake had stepped up, at first, just to give her a place to live. Marie had turned her life around and in the course of living together, they had fallen in love.

Jake was a Soldier his entire life and when the wars started he was soon overseas. The separation was too much for Marie and she turned back to alcohol.

On Jake's return from his first tour, he found the house in disorder. Marie a complete mess, passed out on the couch, drunk and the bank accounts nearly empty. Jake hated to do it, but he felt his only option was 'tough love'. He kicked Marie out and sent her to her parents. He did not understand at the time that in Marie's mind, this put him in the same category as her ex-husband. Marie's unresolved hate for her ex-husband transferred to Jake.

Jake hoped that after Marie was Sober again, she would return to his loving arms. This was not to be the case.

So here, a few years later, Jake sat in a hotel room in Marie's home town, trying one last time to rescue Marie from her own fate and here she is trying to negotiate the terms of her rescue.

Pride had always been one of Marie's short comings. Beautiful women are often like that, but she had put herself through things that would have taught any other woman some humility. DUI's, losing custody of children, Jail, Prison, homelessness, are among the things she had endured. Marie appears not to have learned from any of it.

So, this was moving weekend out of the mobile home. She had to move anyway. Jake happened to be in town with his truck and heard about her predicament.

He had swung by her trailer the night before, picked her up. Put her up for the night in his hotel room, so she could have electricity to charge her phone and a shower. He had even bought her dinner the night before and the hotel had provided breakfast that morning.

Nothing romantic had happened between them, so the topic being discussed had initially surprised Jake.

It was now getting close to checkout time and Jake had offered to get Marie out of her situation and out of town.

The local economy was somewhat depressed, although houses were being built on speculation. But somehow, for Marie's idiot boyfriend, work as a contractor couldn't be found, Jake laughs again.

"What's so funny?" Marie asks.

"There are plenty of jobs where I live. You know that. The smart thing is to take my offer." Jake reasons.

"You never answered my question." Marie states.

"I couldn't believe you asked it." Jake counters.

"Why?" Marie asks.

"You're in no position to negotiate." Jake says with no emotion.

Marie's face goes blank. Her smile is gone. She always speaks with a smirk, like she knows something whomever she is speaking to doesn't know.

"I'm not looking for a relationship with you anyway. I am trying to give you a hand up." Jake states.

"Oh," she replies and becomes quiet.

From there the negotiations die as the Princess realizes she has nothing to negotiate with anymore. The Knight is not interested in her as a Princess. He is just trying to help her as a friend, so if she went with him, she probably would have to get a job.

The Princess returns to be evicted from her castle, to follow the former boyfriend in his apparently self-inflicted unemployment.

The Knight returns alone to his very nice castle to await his next mission.