When we traveled to Mexico City, I was in a bad way mentally. I probably should have called the office and stayed behind. Maybe I should have checked into some sort of center. I had a problem. All I wanted to do was to escape the horrors of my day-to-day life. My mind spoke loudly. It screamed at me. Sitting in my hotel room, I just kept telling myself I should have never come here. I stood looking in the mirror, the pills sitting on the sink. I grabbed the bottle and took one of those pills and just swallowed it down. I forced it down my throat. I blinked a few times and then I lost track of where time went. When I woke up the next day, I remembered very little. But what I did remember… it felt like I wasn’t even there. Like I was watching myself from above. What I remembered was…
There is an audible crash just outside of the room.
Ace Marshall just randomly appears from the sky, connecting with the table on the balcony. He grunts and appears to be at a shortness of breath before rolling off of the table and nearly falls to the balcony floor. He keeps his balance with a death grip placed over the railing. Turning to face Jordan who has clearly noticed his arrival he blinks and stares at her briefly unsure of where to begin. Nodding he sighs before opening.
“Soooo, nice balcony! Could have really used one of those.”
“Are you fucking insane?”
Jordan walks past him as she looks up and tries to determine where the man had just come from. She was feeling the effects of her valium, and pondering whether or not Ace had just fallen out of the sky.
“I came from the sky.” He states as a matter of fact. He shakes his head, appearing to feel some of the effects from his apparent fall from grace. Cracking his neck he winces before turning back to the table he landed on. “I swear to God if that thing broke, it’s literally been every week for going on a month now.”
“You realize I’m going to have to pay for that now, right?” She rolled her eyes as she surveyed the table. “With any luck, I’ll just blame the house cleaning ladies. Not like I can understand what the hell they’re saying anyway…” She put a hand to here forehead and let out a sigh.
“Oh come on, what would that amount to being? Twenty pesos?” He mutters in response, his eyes dilating seemingly on the spot.
“With exchange rates, probably like 900 at least!” She shook her head at him.
Ace ignores her protests, beginning to glance around the room just becoming aware of his surroundings. “Does your room have a micro fridge filled with perhaps the standard cheap tequila or…?” He questions, longing to fulfill a newfound purpose.
Jordan walked to the fridge and popped it up to reveal a stored bottle of Patron that she’d clearly put there herself. She pulled the bottle out and opened it up, taking a drink straight from the bottle and apparently forgetting that she had already popped a Valium earlier. The last time she did that she passed out mid-conversation with Bree Lancaster. She sat the bottle on the table near Ace and sighed as she looked out the open balcony doors. Ace grabs the bottle hungrily while peering up for whatever reason.
“There is a Mexican whore upstairs who is probably ransacking my room. I bet she’d be down for anyone’s company at this rate. Just saying,” he mutters while taking the bottle and taking a swig.
“What makes you think I’d want to fuck a Mexican hooker?” She walks back from the doorway and takes the bottle from him to take another shot from the bottle and then holds it at her side.
“It’s shared company, it’s not like you’d actually be, well fucking her. You don’t have a cock!” He proclaims cheerfully while his eyes dart around, now beginning to try and envision the scenario. “How does that work, is it like porn? Is it like oral and scissoring? I don’t know, I get how it works for two men. I assume with Selena it’s all weird.”
“I assume with Selena she has a dick made of ice that she uses until it melts between their legs… just imagine whatever you want and we probably do it if you really need to know.” Jordan rolls her eyes and takes another swig. “Is that what you do, Ace? Sit around imagining how the lesbians are fucking each other? You think I think at all about how you’re railing that Lexy chick? Is she hot? Totally… ok…” Jordan laughs to herself. “Maybe I do think about what she’d be like to fuck. But that’s not the point!”
Ace nods awkwardly while beckoning, almost pleading for the bottle. He begins to think better of it as she cradles it to herself like some sort of small child. “No worries, I’ll think about it long and hard. This would be far less awkward now if we’d been in contact with each other at any point since Rise to Greatness, you know?” Reaching into his pocket he turns and pulls something out. Shrugging he raises one hand above his head and while Jordan can’t make it out entirely, it’s apparent he’s likely ingesting a pill or two, a handful for all she knows and swallowing it dry.
“Nice room,” he continues afterward, peering around further. He glances down at some underwear on the bed and Jordan rolls her eyes as he turns away before taking two more awkward glances at it trying to capture it in mind entirely.
Jordan reaches out and snatches the panties away and tosses them toward her suitcase. “Ok, first, it’s not my fault that you turned into a total dickwad after Rise to Greatness. You opened my eyes on that boat trip, but then you changed. You changed, man! What the fuck was I supposed to do?” She pushes the bottle out toward his hands. “I hope you’re not taking a load of Viagra right now because you ain’t using that tool in here, bud.” At that moment Jordan remembered that she had taken Valium. Looking at the bottle, she took a deep breath and hoped she didn’t pass out in front of Ace.
“Please, you might as well be a dude as far as I am concerned,” he grumbles while taking careful considerations in how to respond. He’s usually quick to answer, regardless of how witty or stupid that may be for him. “And everyone changes. Not sure how I have, at most I am just the guy who dresses as a pirate and eggs on lube based wrestling contests. Or I take people out in the woods to get high. Great fun I am sure. Not like anyone ever calls me otherwise, just randomness at the tip of your fingers. I’d cry but that would be counteractive, I took Xanax if you must know. It’s like happiness in a bottle!”
Jordan sat and thought about Cookie for a moment. Maybe Ace was a little like her. Miserable. Truly lonely. She walked to her suitcase and pulled out a bottle and shook it at Ace. “Valium…” She looked at it and dropped it back in the suitcase and then walked toward the man where he sat on her bed. “I could smoke a whole bowl right now. At least it would make me happy.” She absolutely plopped down next to him as she sat down.
“I don’t even know who you are at this point. Does anyone in this business really know anyone though?” He shrugs. “Did that statement even make a lick of sense? I don’t know, wrestlers are weird. I never knew you and Peyton had become such amazing friends since the boating trip. You’re raging a crusade in her name and that’s different.”
Jordan rolled her eyes. “Fuck Peyton Rice…” She looked down at the floor in front of her and then sighed. “I don’t owe her anything. And I don’t…” She sighed and then looked over at Ace. “I don’t even have a clue why I’m doing this. It isn’t for her. It just isn’t.”
He nodded, at least pretending to understand. “Just something to do then?” He takes a long drink this time, his eyes seemingly further dilating. He begins tapping his feet to the floor, oddly enough seeming more energized. “Why do people do half of what they do in this soap box of a profession? Attention? A means to an end? No other directions? Hell, I almost miss the people who act like destiny was behind the wheel or their imaginary God was behind the madness.”
“I don’t have a good reason.” Jordan looked around the room and sighed. “Cookie left. I was, I don’t know, heartbroken? Dead inside? Just, torn up like I’d eaten Taco Bell for lunch and now I was paying for it later. You know?” She shook her head and then looked at him again. “And David fucking Helms-” Ace scoffs at the mention of him. “-comes to me and he’s all ‘help me, it will help you!’ Just on his self righteous bullshit, you know? The man has fed me so much that he thinks will help me and yet none of it works.”
“David Helms is a great guy and he will help you with the same message he uses to help himself. Because everyone is identical apparently in his world. Nevermind his son is a few screws short, his wife is some sort of raging thundercunt- Huh, I am really starting to hang around too many Brits- The point is nobody is wired the same way! What helps him isn’t a guide for life or something. What works for Jordan? I don’t even know who she is apart from the britches she wears at some point during the day. I guess that’s something?” He stands up now, fidgeting a bit.
“Jesus, man? You take something else? You’re shaking around and shit.” Jordan peered at Ace as he stood up. His whole message was lost on her because of the way he was moving around.
“Jordan, I snorted cocaine from a hooker’s tits and fell out a window, okay? I am not okay. I am half great but the other half is trying to calm down,” he mutters while beginning to pace the room. “What were we talking about? Regan Helms? God I hate her. I hate using hate as a word to describe your relationship with someone but she tried to throw my girlfriend off a cliff. Isn’t this supposed to be a sport?”
“I’ll tell you this about what I’ve learned here. There are some crazy ass people.” She shook her head when thinking about all the stuff she knew had happened in just her time. “Did you say something about cocaine? I’ve never tried cocaine…” She put a finger to her chin like she was thinking about it.
He blinks and raises a finger as if to object or make a statement of fact. He turns toward her and nods. “Well, you’re in Mexico and the effects are pretty short lived. I’ve never met anyone who hated their experience with cocaine.”
“The way I feel tonight, I probably would have snorted a line off her myself…” She stands up and walks to the bottle of tequila and takes a drink of. She sits the bottle back down and stares at it. “You think she’s still up there?” Jordan ran a hand through her hair and then bit her lip. She knew it was a bad idea to even ask the question. Ace nearly stumbles a bit before shaking his head and seemingly gathering his composure not helping her confidence on the matter. To be fair there was no telling what he had just taken along with it and he wasn’t telling unless it really was Xanax.
“It’s worth checking, I mean for all I know her male associate and her ransacked the place. Always worth checking,” he says, justifying a gander in that direction. He heads out of sight toward the door before poking his head back around the corner eying her inquizedly. “Are you coming?”
This wasn’t a good idea. At the moment those were in high demand but small in number. Ace whistled along with the elevator music, Ace having beckoned for her to come along over go up the steps. He expressed a fear of more falling.
“When was the last time you were in Mexico?” He asks nonchalantly, clearly deep in his own mind.
“Didn’t we have a show here before? I don’t even remember…” Jordan hated that kind of small talk. She wondered what must be in Ace’s head for him to even ask a question. It was awkward between them for some reason. This man once made her wrestle in lube in a bikini and now it was awkward for him. “When we get in your room, stay away from the windows. By the way, where is your girlfriend?”
“Which one? You may be surprised to learn just as I was, I didn’t know what true love was until this week and how truly, madly, deeply I would find myself falling for Autumn Valentine. It’s all over the internet now, makes for great reading.” He says, winking as the elevator door opens. “Just don’t tell my wife. She still goes by Marshall on twitter. I don’t have a clue what has meaning anymore, I am terrified I’ll just be Asher Hayes or Adam Allocco in five years, desperately clinging on to the idea of a twenty year old bachelor at fifty.”
“Hold on… I’m confused. I thought you were with Lexy for some reason. I knew about your shoe-obsessed wife. Just throw a pair of Louboutins near her and she’ll be distracted for weeks. But Autumn, too?” Jordan chuckles to herself and shakes her head. “Shit, people have a lot to say about me. I’ve dated four women in three years. I’m in my mid-20s. Everyone has a fucking opinion about me. Asher especially. And Adam thinks he’s my dad or something with this weird stuff he keeps posting on Twitter.”
“It’s 2021. They would be hypocrites too, promiscuity is the new standard. Whatever standard they are referring to, it’s a bit dated.” Ace notes, almost bored as the elevator reaches the next floor. He steps forward and with an air of mockness bows and raises his arms up toward the hallway. “Chivalry is still alive though!”
“Even my girlfriend is expecting me to have my shit together. To have all the answers.” Jordan smirks and looks at Ace. “Everyone has expectations of who you’re supposed to be. What if I don’t know? Maybe I don’t care about Dave’s war over morality. Maybe I don’t know what I want to be and I’m trying to figure it out. My life has been this series of tragedies and I’m trying to figure shit out.”
Ace stands up and drops his arms, looking at her with what could have been construed as sympathy. Shrugging he takes a step out from the elevator, making a direct line down the main hall. “Whoever has the answers is either crazy or lying. It’s why I always wished I could in some way be religious. They at least think they have all the answers and it gives them a more significant purpose in life, a sense of meaning! But I am not, so you have to find your own purpose, if there is such a thing. Create your own meaning if at all feasible. You’re in a good place maybe to look for an answer, who knows? Mexico and other South American countries are great for soul searching!” stops before his door, Jordan in her mind seeing where it’s legitimately right over her own. He knocks on the door a couple times before stopping himself, clarity returning he reaches into his pocket for a key.
“Really? I’ve never heard anyone say anything about exploring South American countries to find yourself. That is a new one for me.” Jordan runs a hand through her hair.
“Oh reeeally? Maybe that was doing drugs with the Native Americans,” he shrugs. “We can always pretend and hope to find answers nonetheless!” He pulls out his key and slides it into the door. He opens it and stops at the sight of a man sitting on his couch watching television while who Jordan assumes is the hooker is standing by the refrigeration unit seemingly making herself lunch. “Seriously?” Ace mutters at the sight of it.
Jordan had a certain smile on her face as she surveyed the room. She looked at Ace and pointed at the girl. “This her?” She walked over and looked at the beautiful Mexican woman that Ace had apparently paid to come to his room and looked at the slightest hint of residue on her chest. She was coming off as excited about the prospect of what was to come. “So… did you have her come here for the drugs or the ass?”
The woman in question looks in quizzingly. “No. He joto. Just want less fun. Do you want more fun?”
Ace shakes his head appearing annoyed. “I am not Asher, I refuse to pay for sexual release directly unless it’s far more expensive in the form of dinner, a hotel room, possibly a concert and with the tagline of maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t.”
“I’ve never paid for anything like this before… except for when I paid Vihaan 2k to sit and talk with me for awhile. But that was different!” Jordan looked the girl up and down and then looked at Ace. “Ok, what kind of fun are we having here? Where are we gonna do this?” Again she knew she was coming off too excited. Like that kid taking their first drag on a joint. Or a kid taking their first sip of liquor. The mix of booze and pills had her feeling a certain kind of way though. She wasn’t sure that she actually would do cocaine if it was offered to her. But it was an option. She wanted options.
Ace steps over to the woman and begins talking in a lower voice with her while reaching into his pocket to pull out a wad of cash. Jordan leans in to listen but is distracted by the man watching television who calls out to her.
“Hey… Hey! You like Dr. Phil?” He asks, welcoming her to join him. Awkwardly, she declines shaking her head. She turns back toward Ace and the so far unnamed woman, both now turned toward Jordan apparently having reached some sort of agreement in quick order.
“Okay,” Ace does the math before beginning to count out bills. “To give you room, you get the right one, I get the left one where I was priorly engaged, we do this preferably far, far away from a window. If we do this by that window-” he points toward the main one that’s open in the living room, “At best it’s a quick way back down stairs? Not as fun though, I promise.”
Jordan took a deep breath as she looked at Ace and then smiled at him. She seemed to be shaking herself free of nerves as the seconds passed. She rolls her neck around to pop it and then looks at the girl. “Let’s do this then!”
He blinks at her excitement. “Right, you’ve never done this before.” He smiles, turning toward the woman. “Discount for a first timer?”
She looks at him clearly appearing annoyed. He nods and sighs. “Was worth a shot. Want to watch me first? I mean, it’s not rocket science naturally. But this is one of those occasions where you’re making memories!” He exclaims cheerfully, his mood and demeanor seemingly changing on a moment’s notice. The woman not waiting casually looks down before removing her shirt. She tries reaching behind her back before looking up at Ace. He nods and she turns, assisting her in quickly unlatching her bra. She drops it in front of an audience like it’s the most basic interaction in the world. She could be getting a bite to eat somewhere or checking the mail. She acted much the same. She reaches into her skin tight short jeans and pulls out a bag of a sugary white substance. Jordan was at least putting her faith into Ace to know it was the real thing.
“Imagine,” he continues. “The greatest rush of energy and excitement you’ve ever experienced in your life. Imagine, that multiplied to a degree you can’t even comprehend. And then imagine what you could do, what you could discover about yourself without the doubts, the worries, the shame and everything else that may drag you down at any given moment. Just imagine that as a fun thought experiment and then admire the platform to experience what brings about this thought experiment into becoming a reality.”
The woman, clearly bored with him, has already begun rationing out servings from the bag. She places a mound of cocaine along her left breast and uses her hand to hold it up for more support, despite honestly not really needing it. It was a lovely image in any case. Ace, not wanting to wait, takes one last look at Jordan before reaching up, cupping her breast with his hands and taking a nose dive down. With one finger he presses down on one nostril while snorting up every bit of what was there in quick succession. He takes a step back with his head held high in the air, taking it all in. He gasps as what may have been the most legitimate smile he posed that day spread across his face, as the saying goes practically ear to ear.
The woman looks over to Jordan and begins rationing out another dose, this time prepping it along her other breast. Ace takes a step back while turned away. He turns around and steps over to Jordan, putting a hand up over her shoulder. She looks into his eyes and at least it isn’t an exact depiction of Jared Leto in Requiem for a Dream. Wasn’t that heroin? These weren’t the questions someone needed to ask themselves before taking that last step. Or maybe they were the most important ones.
Jordan looked down at the cocaine on the breast in front of her and then over at Ace in the state he was in. He seemed like a proud relative. But that was weird. Maybe a mentor. A drug mentor. That was also kind of a drastic thought. Following Ace’s lead she placed her nose down against the girl’s breast, cupped it with one hand and placed a finger on the other nostril and snorted up everything she could.
She let go of the breast, letting the little bit of powder left fall off to the side as she threw her head back and looked into the air. She didn’t smile, but went blank in her expression. She slowly tilts her head back down and looks at Ace. He smiles at her for a moment before she suddenly slumps forward and falls to the floor in a heap.
Ace looks around dumbfounded for a bit, unsure of how to take that. “Everything okay down there?” He asks before looking at the other woman and shrugging. He leans down and wraps one arm around Jordan’s shoulder before using the other one to scoop her up by her legs. “Earth to Majors, we’ve still got the rest of the day to go… Maybe?”
Jordan’s eyes shoot open and she looks around the room and then at Ace. “The fuck are you holding me for?” She pushes away from him and he puts her down as she stands up. She brushes herself off and surveys the room. Everyone was looking at her. She had a new energy about her as she bounced in place and smiled. “What now!?”
Ace’s eyes darted up and to the side, the processes in his mind possibly kicking into a new gear for the first time that day. He reached up to his chin with one hand and scratched it briefly before snapping his hands. “When in Rome, Jordan! Your brother really likes that phase for some reason.”
She focuses on that briefly with confusion but dispels her interest in the thought quickly. The overwhelming burst in energy and the dopamine hit made stringing along too much in that moment impossible. She vaguely remembered taking the valium, the drinks and now this. Time itself felt like it was bending to her will and it was questionable if it was speeding up or slowing down, it was overwhelming to say the least. One moment they were in the room, Ace seemingly trying to piece together a plan, the next they were getting off the elevator down in the main lobby of the hotel, Ace’s words running a mile per second. She heard the word fun and that sounded great, she cheered on the thought without a concern in the world.
As they pass the front desk she waves estactically at the clerk. “Hello!”
“Hi?” He responds impassionately.
“Good day, Sir, good day I say!” Ace practically shouts in passing. The clerk’s eyes tell the story of long grueling evenings and exhaustion in dealing with an ever maddening public.
It was fairly early in the day and walking out into the streets of Mexico City it felt like a whole new experience from arriving there days before. The feeling was overwhelming and even liberating to a point. It felt…
“There.” Jordan breaks out of her thoughts and turns to Ace confused. “We go there. Um. Isn’t it in Spain where they just have this festival where they throw tomatoes at each other? Why couldn’t we be in Spain, damn it?! But Mexico is all about Tequila- Spain wine… Gah!”
Jordan turns to where he’s pointing, putting her hands on her hips. “Is that the place where we throw the tomatoes. Because it looks like some sort of club to me. See that!” She points at the sign. “There is a woman dancing there on that neon thing.”
“That’s not dancing, I am a way better dancer. She’s having a seizure!” He looks over between the club and the charreada, whatever that is. “That’s the problem now. No sense in direction, what’s fun? Any number of possibilities- Ha. Ha ha! Look!” She glances over following his laughter to see Adam Allocco being carried by Bison over his shoulder, clearly unconscious.
“Ha!” She grabs Ace by the shoulder and points. “It’s that guy that says he’s my dad! What a weak ass bitch!” The drugs and liquor were clearly steering Jordan in a direction she was not used to. She was freer. She was care free in fact. Even Ace, little as he’d been around her, would know that was out of place. She grabs his hand. “Come on!” Jordan drags Ace toward the charreada and pulls him inside to see what was going on. Inside the small room. It smelled of livestock, or in other words, shit.
“I wish I spoke Spanish, I couldn’t interpret the small plate on the door,” Ace says regretfully.
“Oh man, it smells like shit in here.”
“… Read. I can’t read it. It’s read right? When you have to comprehend the written word? Wow, it’s so noisy.”
Around them you could hear a crowd overhead, a small man just a few inches shorter than Jordan stepped in carrying a bucket. He looks between the two of them who turn to face him, Jordan waving at him, Ace nodding and whistling suspiciously as all hell for seemingly no reason.
“Dis is employees only!”
“It’s okay, I work here,” Jordan responds.
“Where is here?” Ace asks before laughing.
“¡Oye! Trabajamos aquí idiota.” Jordan screams.
“No! Buy a ticket like everyone else!”
Rejected and defeated, Ace’s knees sink as he turns to scamper out. Jordan stands there peering around the room with lighting that was initially hard to see with. There is a sudden large vibration beside her and something primal and angry slams into what appears to be a pin beside her. Ace takes two steps back scared out of his wits briefly before comprehension somewhat returns, as well as it could in his current state of mind.
“It’s a giant shit monster,” Ace whispers. Jordan laughs in a way even she can’t recognize as she realizes where they are.
“This here is a bull, Acey.” She didn’t know where that weird nickname came from. “And this is 100 percent a rodeo. I used to go to these when I was a kid. These people strap themselves to these shit monsters and get bucked around like a dumbass. I bet I could last longer on this sucker than them.” Jordan pats the bull on the back and it bucks against its pen angrily. Like she’s invulnerable to everything, Jordan doesn’t even react.
“I am a proud Texan,” Ace proclaims. “I know damn well what a rodeo is! We’re civilized and prefer having to clean up less, that’s what mechanical bulls are for.”
He turns to the worker that is standing there just looking at them with utter contempt.
“I swear everyone in this city is kind of a dick,” Ace mutters.
“What kind of Texan are you expecting a clean rodeo. It’s just shit. Touch it!”
“Yeah, okay. You touch it!”
“I don’t want to touch it. I’ll get it on my hands. Look at these hands! Do they look like they should have shit on them!?”
Ace smirks before pulling something out of his pocket. It would be alarming if that was a state of mind Jordan felt capable of at the moment. He placed another pill into his mouth, this time not even hiding it, swallowing it dry. He then reaches down and picks up a clump of bull shit, holding it out casually to the worker.
“Here, you touch it then!”
It could have been ten minutes, it could have been ten hours. Time just really did not seem to be functioning properly but the rush she felt initially in Ace’s room was beginning to
fade. She peers around the women’s bathroom they were now in as Ace leaned down into the sink trying to rip the skin from his hand in an effort to clean it. They were still in the charreada, now as apparent legal visitors no longer intruding before the innocent staff.
“Thanks Jordan, I’ve never touched bullshit before,” he shakes his head while still smiling, whatever he was keeping himself doped up with working as a hell of a mood enhancer.
“Who, you? Aren’t you the king of bullshit? That’s what your wife said anyways.” She was roasting Ace from a foot away. Like there were no consequences for being a feisty bitch.
“Everyone is full of shit, some people just sell it better,” he states as a matter of fact. As he rinses his hand off for what could have been the eighth time he raises it up to his nose to smell it and appears content with it but instead of stopping goes back to vigorously cleaning it. “Who knows what you’re selling! I just wear it all on my sleeves. Deep in the pores. God, it feels like it’s under the skin now…”
“It probably is under your skin. Seeping through your pores and into your very essence. Tearing apart your soul and breaking you down until nothing is left. Not even the man you thought you were…” Jordan looks down and then away from Ace. She looks up into the mirror and stares at herself for a long moment. It grows quiet in the bathroom. “Do you think they’ll let us ride the bulls!?”
“Maybe?” He ponders seriously. “How many pesos could it really cost to make that happen?” Ace looks up. “I don’t know, that’s a bad idea. Like, that’s- yeah let’s do it.” He puts his hands down, running quickly out of soap from the dispenser and paper towels anyways. He turns toward the toilet where he had been throwing it all, Jordan couldn’t even see the water from all the towels now clogging it. She feels a rush of excitement and a childlike glee at the thought of riding one, the two leaving the bathroom to find a line of women looking at them frustrated. Jordan practically skips, trying her best not to read the room, would be less awkward that way.
“Ok, maybe fuck the rodeo then. Let’s hit the club. Maybe it has your mechanical bull being so close to this place?” Jordan shrugs at Ace for a moment and then giggles before sprinting away to the club next door. When she enters she realizes that it was not the club she was thinking of. It was something else. “Oh holy tits and ass and… everything. These chicks are naked.”
Ace steps into the bar, past the metal detectors only to get stopped by a gorilla of a man. He blinks awkwardly as the man says something in Spanish before beginning to pat him down. Ace winks at the man as he finishes his job. “I like you too, big guy.” Making his way over to Jordan they are approached by another large fellow, motioning them to follow.
Jordan glances over at Ace who just adjusts his shirt and steps toward the man as he begins to lead them toward the stage. “Lots of big guys here. Is this a front for something?” She said it loud enough that anyone could hear it. One of the large men stopped and stared at her as they walked by. She took a seat at the stage and looked at Ace. “I don’t even have any money with me…”
“Don’t worry,” he cheerfully states assuredly while reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a bundle of $100 pesos, glancing around awkwardly while trying to split it up and push it toward Jordan under the table. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to end up going to one of these this week anyway and planned accordingly.”
“This isn’t exactly my typical scene. But neither was lube wrestling. I trusted you there, for some reason. I’ll try the same here.” Jordan shrugs and takes the money and counts it. The foreign bills in her hand looked odd, but she looked up and saw a dancer already eyeing her and quickly brought the cash back under the table.
Ace nods despite clearly now not paying any particular attention to her, looking around with his knuckles pressed to his chin. “Live a little, whatever bad that could happen in the process, you’ll regret not otherwise. Because blah, blah, blah, stuff you’ve seen and heard before, yada, yada. Maybe.”
He reaches up a hand at the guy who directed them over, deciding to tip him before making a request for drinks. He asks for a buckle of beers, smiling and peering over at the girls on stage.
“I don’t recall ever drinking beer with you. We’re in Mexico, not living hard enough to stomach anything that comes in a bottle here otherwise.”
“You don’t recall us drinking while throwing darts at hands? It was a real eye-opening experience.” Jordan smirks as she surveys the club and focuses on a dark-haired girl in the corner. Her eyes linger there for a moment before she turns back to look at her companion. “The scenery is fantastic though. Especially that one.” She turns her head back to look at the girl in the corner.
“You know, people do come here and treat it the same as you would an experience in Vegas. They come to forget about their daily lives, their problems. What happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico!” He peers over where she had been staring off into the distance.
“Not sure why Vegas gets called Sin City to be honest with you. Depending on how morally ambiguous you are, there is absolutely nothing you cannot do here outside of perhaps pulling a Xander or a James in murdering and raping innocent civilians. Thankfully there’s a lot in between there giving you wiggle room to have fun. Although technically you really don’t want to know what the punishment is for what we’ve already done.”
“I’m trying to be at least a little careful so our heads don’t end up on a pike in cartel land. Yeah, I watch the news. But even as fucked up as I am right now, on pills, booze, and just my brain…” Jordan looks at the bottle in front of her and takes a sip. “I can’t bring myself to be that morally ambiguous. Like this Minerva bitch. What is her deal? She’s fucking insane. The stuff with Konrad… it doesn’t make much sense.” She turns back to look at her favorite dancer.
“I don’t know, clearly her vagina has the ability to turn seventy-year-old men into bloodthirsty psychopaths. Otherwise she seems like any other thot on the internet. I know she considers herself smart or something. Like everyone wants to be a grand manipulator. To prove herself in this way, she is really knocking the socks off of someone’s senile grandpa. Wasn’t she tweeting at a bunch of other guys before trying to get their attention? Cannon, Helms? Seems like any other attention starved onlyfans star I’ve ever seen. Has a camera she uses to spy on people like anyone in possession of a smartphone.”
“I don’t know. That’s just not my idea of a fun time. Her whole thing. She’s a sociopathic liar. We’re all fucking nuts to be in this business. But who the hell left the door open and let that in?” Jordan takes another swig of her beer and let’s out a sigh. “Maybe that’s why despite everything I feel about Peyton, I’m helping anyway. Is the alternative being one of them? Being… whatever the hell that is? No, I want to be reckless in my own ways. I’m entitled to that no matter what they all think of me. But I couldn’t be like those idiots. Like Minerva. They stand for nothing.”
“That’s the nice thing about the business though, ain’t it? No matter how personal it is, no matter how much one wishes to get under your skin, you’re always afforded the luxury to get back at them. One day, given a long enough time line, you’ll get the opportunity to set things right, whatever that means to you. I’d be lying if I said I was following everything with her. Sometimes, it really does feel like a revolving door when it comes to the people that want to convince you they are that much larger or that much scarier or that much smarter than everyone else around. I’m- Well, I am sorry for questioning you about Peyton. Obviously you two never got along but things here are never really that simple, are they?”
“I must be really fucking out of it. Ace Marshall is making sense to me. Holy hell.” Jordan smiles at him and laughs. “The thing is, we did get along. But I couldn’t forgive her. I felt like she saw me have a minute of glory and then she targeted me out of nowhere. She’s never gif her feelings about me. There’s a rivalry there. It’s not always nasty, you know? But I can’t pretend like I’m ok. But beating her half to death isn’t really cool with me either. None of us need that.”
“Yeah. I guess I just get tired of it when people here become worshipped as some sort of martyr. Everyone gets their shit kicked in here. When you put it like that though, was it really that severe? Shit.” Ace takes a swig from his drink and looks around a bit, thinking on the matter while trying to hide his boredom on the subject. “It’s weird, I swear to God Alistaire thought at one point Peyton and I had a thing for no reason at all.”
“Holy shit man… same here.” She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Just a rumor but yeah, he apparently thought the same about me and Peyton. Very weird.”
Ace smiles and glances around the bar, continuing to occasionally glance at the corner. “Maybe it is easy to read it the wrong way. Maybe you do have a real reason to be in the fight. But you know what? I don’t think we’d be here now if you obviously didn’t need to let loose and have a bit of fun. While Gio may be a guide for an imaginary land, derived from children’s novels, I think I could provide something based more in reality, you know? Hold that thought.”
Ace stands up and winks at her while stepping over toward the girl in the corner who was finishing adjusting herself in the mirror. As Ace got close he was stopped by another guard, who he talked too briefly, waving his arms around over dramatically while giving some sort of story. The girl turns to him and before long Ace returns with her beside him listening intently. He grins and places one hand on the back of Jordan’s chair before raising one hand up to point at his companion.
“JM! I’ve got great news! There is a private room with your name on it!”
“What!?” Jordan suddenly went shy like a lost child.
“Yeah! It’s secluded, dim enough just for two, and no one will be able to listen in and oh, would you look at that?!” Ace places his arm around the girl who is smiling and staring down at Jordan enthusiastically. “I really think she likes you!”
Jordan stands and leans into Ace’s ear. “Is this like to get me laid or?”
He keeps the same smile on his face as he leans over. “At this point she just got enough to cover herself for the month. She’d probably follow you to the moon if you were so inclined to go there.”
Jordan laughs, knowing she’d be in for some serious trouble if she went as far as Ace suggested. “Well, lead the way. Where is this secluded paradise you speak of?”
He turns toward the stripper who immediately points down one side of the club. Ace stays put as Jordan follows. She turns back toward Ace briefly who merely waves her off with four fingers, mock yelling farewell like she was going on a fantastic voyage.
The music is dull in the back area where Jordan sits and watches her new companion dance in front of her. Even in her inebriated state, she feels sober, even numb as she watches the girl. It’s because she looks like someone. She smiles. “You remind me of someone.”
“Que?”
“I said you remind me of someone!”
The dancer simply stares at her. There’s confusion on her face. Jordan sighs. “You look like my ex-fiance. It was a complicated thing. I guess I fucked it up. Kind of my thing.”
“Ok!” The dancer smiles at Jordan as she turns around and grinds into her.
“I guess you don’t understand anything I’m saying. But, I’m not sure if anything has ever been the same since then. I don’t regret any of the decisions I made back then, but I do know it changed things. Probably more for me than for her. I was just in a bad place. A really bad place.”
“You like?”
Jordan looks up at the girl and smiles. The girl grabs her hands and places them on her waist as she dances against Jordan. Jordan looks around at the fairly empty backroom and sees two large men keeping their eyes specifically on her. “I do. I like.”
She looks back at the girl and smiles. “I just wish I had shit figured out back then. I could have saved the hurt I caused Kath. I could have saved Sierra from whatever the hell I’ll do to fuck that up, too! I threw away everything. Left destruction in my path.”
Jordan is interrupted by the girl shoving her chest in her face. She leans back and sighs happily. When Jordan escapes for air she can feel the room spinning. “Damn, you’re good at that. You’ve got me, like, feeling something here.” She laughs and looks up at the dancer. It was remarkable to her just how much she looks like Jaina. “I just wish there was some sort of clarity for me. That I’m doing the right thing. Maybe not the kind of clarity that Gio showed Owen, but something that makes it clear to me. Right now I’m just… just… running on my morals.”
Jordan brings a hand to her head and blinks a few times. “You’ve got my world spinning. Damn! This whole thing has my world spinning though. I can’t decide between what’s wrong and right anymore. I just know… what I’m doing is right. What I’m doing is…”
Jordan’s eyes roll back into her head and she slumps back into the seat. The dancer turns, oblivious for a moment, before she shakes the girl to wake her. Jordan slumps over sideways and the girl lets out a scream. “Muerta! Muerta!”
When I arrived to the show that Thursday night, I looked like I’d been through hell. All that Ace Marshall had done to make sure I recovered would have never been enough. Dean Black took one look at me and almost cut me out of the show. I pulled it together for the cameras, though. Wearing that same mask I always managed to put on. I wondered if what happened in Mexico was a cry for help or if it was me being who I truly wanted to be. It felt very much like the former. I was breaking down. I needed something. I needed saved from myself. I only knew one place to go. I was hesitating to accept it. But in my mind, I knew the truth. I knew who I needed the most.
Promo
Jordan walks into a room and looks into a mirror. A camera pans around behind her to show her looking at herself in the glass in front of her.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t see anything close to perfect. My flaws shine as bright as any part of me. But they make me who I am. What you see is what you get. It’s genuine. You can bring up my past to try and dispel that, but those moments were the same. Me genuinely pouring my heart out and standing up for what I thought was right. Week after week I am questioned by the same people, even by people outside of this issue. Why are you doing this? Who are you doing this for?
Jordan smirks at herself in the mirror.
I’m doing this for me. I’m doing this because it’s what I believe in. I don’t want to send mixed signals here. I can admit here that Peyton Rice and I have a strange relationship. We’ve been enemies and allies. We’re definitely not best friends. We don’t share opinions. But what Minerva and her crew have done to her, what they continue to do to David’s family and to Chris Cannon… it isn’t right. It doesn’t matter what I think of any of these people. I helped my friends when they needed help. I helped SCW would it needed help. Team BDSM decided to continue making me a part of this. I could have turned a blind eye to this and ignored it, but I couldn’t do it anymore. They pushed me too far. This is their fault.
She shakes her head and lets out a sigh.
I’m tired of people walking into this company and thinking they can grasp control of whatever they want. Tired of people showing up out of nowhere with a solitary goal of causing as much chaos as possible. Unfortunately for this group, Minerva, Tommy, Kandis, and Zipperhead… they got me involved in their problem causing. How have they been rewarded? With very little success. Sure, their demented heads seem to be making something out of nothing at every possible turn. They lose and then they run off like deviant children, proud of the pebbles they threw at a stone house. I’m not saying they aren’t dangerous or talented. I’m just saying they aren’t making much sense anymore.
Jordan runs a hand through her hair and wraps a few strands behind her ear.
What I said at Be Careful What You Wish For is still true to this day. Your message? It’s falling on deaf ears at this point. What else have you really accomplished beside proving you’re good at breaking and entering and running a camera? Turning an old man into a lunatic? He probably had that coming anyway. I’m not scared of the chaos you threaten. I was born out of it when Abigail Lindsay showed me the ropes to this company. But I rose above that, and I rose above the Beauty Factory. Sure, I took my lumps. But look at what I have accomplished? People believe I can win any match on any given day. With Minerva, people just believe she will do something weird. People are watching Minerva to see her bring an old man to the ring by a leash. They are watching me because they are wanting to witness the moment I truly break out. This is freakshow vs. promise and potential.
She shrugs at the mirror and smirks.
I’d honestly been waiting for the moment that Kandis came at me the way things had gone. But this? I’ll take it. I’ll enjoy it. It’s funny, people were talking about my opportunity to soften Minerva up before everyone else gets their hands on her. Have you already forgotten? I beat Dave. I know what it takes. You don’t, hunny. For me, this isn’t about softening her up for Dave or Chris. It’s about reminding her that what she did was wrong. It’s about showing her the perceived power she has is nothing more than an illusion. It’s about charting my path forward to Taking Hold of the Flame with the kind of momentum I had when I proved I was the Ironwoman of last year’s event. For me, this is about tying the bow on a chapter that has followed me for the last few months. We thought we were done after beating them at the ppv, but the swamp rats crawled right back out of the sewers. This is my moment to put the exclamation point on my involvement in this.
Jordan nods to herself and then looks back to the camera from the mirror.
You’ve been running around this roster for the last six months having your fun, but can’t you sense it? It’s coming to an end. Your leash is tightening more than the one you have on your pet. We’ve all let you go as far as we are willing. Now? You have to deal with the repercussions of your actions. You were allowed far too much freedom. You stand for nothing. And now you’re about to fall for nothing. Me? I stand for what’s right. I know what I’m doing is the right thing. I don’t care if it was Peyton or some random bystander on the street. What you did was straight fucked up. And it gave you the feeling that you had power over all of us. You were wrong.
She looks back to the mirror and smirks.
On Breakdown, I will humble you again. But this time, there isn’t anyone else in your pack you can force to take the fall. You can’t run Konnie out there to lay down for you. You can’t make Kandis or Tommy take your place either. I will make you take responsibility for the wrong that you’ve done since you arrived in this company. And I will take more pleasure than I should doing it. Playtime is over, Minnie. You can take that to the bank. Because Jordan Majors is money.
Jordan blows a kiss to the camera and winks before it fades out.
Everything You Wish You Could Be 