Character Profile: Jessy Button

This character profile was written by my player, my wife, my immortal enemy: Larissa Kratz. She also provided the art.

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Jessy Button was born as Jessica Buckle to Victor Buckle and Marie Ericson-Buckle in rural Saskatchewan. She is the eldest of three daughters that Victor and Marie went on to have. Jessica’s early years were filled with a loving, connected family, at least on her father’s side. They spent plenty time with their cousin, Memphis, who was the only son of Victor’s brother, Stephen, and his wife, Jennifer. Jessica and Memphis, being born around the same time,were fast friends, her sisters going only when their parents needed a cheap babysitter. Jessica hung out with Memphis and his stay-at-home dad almost every weekend. Stephen loved having Jessica around, and treated her like his own until the summer she turned eight, when her parents left her and her sisters with their uncle to go on an anniversary vacation.

It was the height of July, and Stephen had filled up the small, faded plastic children’s pool in the backyard. As the other three children played, Stephen brought Jessica into the house with the promise of a present. In his room, on the bed, was a plastic bag containing a small bikini. Jessica’s mother had only ever let her wear one piece bathing suits. It was exciting to get something she had very vocally coveted for a long time, and maybe a little more exciting to know she wasn’t allowed to have it. Her uncle told her than she was only allowed to wear it at his house and that he would keep it hidden for her. But, he let her put it on. Before Jessica was allowed to go outside, though, she had to model it for him, just so he could make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Jessica wasn’t sure, but with the promise of ten dollars, she did it while he took photos. She spent the ten dollars the next day on snacks at the convenience store.

This happened with increasing regularity, Jessica resisting at first, but relenting with the promise of larger rewards. She latched onto his idea and, when she wanted something, would start to offer to model for him. It wasn’t until her uncle asked her to model without any clothes on did Jessica resist again. But, with the promise of a whole fifty dollars, she relented. She was saving up for a new bike, afterall.

The arrangement lasted for years, until, suddenly, they just stopped going to her uncle’s. No matter how many times Jessica asked, her parents offered no explanation, and she eventually just stopped asking. Jessica moved onto other boys. The schoolyard boys never paid as much as her uncle, but she could get a few dollars or a chocolate bar by taking a boy around the corner of the school and lifting her skirt for them. That was a pretty decent profit for an eleven year old girl, or at least that’s what Jessica thought. And this grew, once she realized that as long as she looked pretty, desperate teenage boys would do anything for her. Her favourites were nerds and rich boys. The former because of their sheer desperation for contact with any girl, the latter because she could ask them for more unreasonable things. When the two intersected, though, that was perfection.

In her teens, Jessica started using social media, several direct message conversations open, all bartering for nudes. A unique message blipped onto her screen. Jennifer Buckle, her aunt, sending paragraphs of insults, calling Jessica a slut and a homewrecker. This was how she found out what happened with her uncle, otherwise she might have never known. Her aunt had found the folders upon folders of photographs Stephen had taken of young Jessica, which caused screaming from both sets of parents. Most of her aunt’s screaming hadn’t been at her husband, though, but at Jessica’s parents. Her aunt denied her husband ever communicating with his brother again. But, that had apparently not been enough, even if Jessica’s dad refused to turn his brother in. Jennifer was now attacking Jessica personally because she was older and could understand the repercussions of her actions. She sought to hurt Jessica and make her feel guilty. But, Jessica only found it funny. Hilarious, even. She responded only by apologizing that her aunt was too old for her husband before blocking her. When she told her mother about it, her mother spent the night screaming into the phone receiver at her sister-in-law.

Jessica’s mother was always her biggest defender; whether it be her aunt, or a boy who had hurt her, Marie was there for her daughter. This was, of course, in spite of her prematurely deteriorating mind. Marie never seemed to be able to keep her children’s names straight, would forget she’d placed her glasses on her head, and would often walk into a room and forget what she was doing. Jessica and her sisters always chided her for it, and Marie laughed along with them.

When her mother died, Jessica felt nothing, and she wasn’t sure if that was a lack of feeling emotions, or lack of wanting to feel them. Everything passed in a blur. Police men at the door telling her father of the vehicle accident that took Marie’s life, the people who brought their condolences, the funeral. It all passed as though Jessica was in a stupor. Her mother left her a jewelry box, full of her favourite pieces, most of it junk metal and fake stones, but there was one that caught Jessica’s eye. It was beautifully crafted silver, taking ornate, organic shapes surrounding a large, marquise cut white diamond. The light took to the diamond, dancing around inside it at the slightest movement and Jessica found herself completely captivated by it. That was the first time she’d cried since her mother passed.

Knowing life could never return to how it was, Jessica left home. She’d always wanted to live in the city, the thought of all the lights and glitz and glamour captivated her, and she sought to live that city life she coveted. Her Instagram, having previously been filled with bad selfies and photos from her small town, was quickly overrun to look like the lives of the other girls she’d been following for years. With this came offers from brands and partnerships and Jessica Buckle, now Jessy Button, watched her follower count rise. She began relationships with people in her DMs on Instagram, none of which she was serious about, but all of whom thought they were special to be noticed by her. Jessy sold pictures of herself, nothing too lewd, and prices depending on who she was speaking to. Very rarely did she meet anyone.

Jessy never considered what she did to be dangerous, she felt invincible to harm. Truly, everyone seemed to love her. A few months after her Instagram really started to get notoriety, Jessy was attacked while returning to her apartment, a place she had been a little too open about living at. The oddity in the attack was that they focused on her ring, grabbing her hand and trying to pry it off. For Jessy, though, they would have to pry it from her cold, dead hands. Jessy slipping away and, knowing she couldn’t very well run from men who were taller and wearing more functionable shoes, she took the nearest exit: a window. Jessy spent the next week in the hospital, and another several weeks to be fully recovered. She did garner quite a bit of sympathy from her admirers, though.

Why the men were trying to take her ring, Jessy had no idea, but she no longer felt invincible.