Disarmed (4 page)

The two days since he’d spoken to her were painful. Jessie had been running, working on his father’s old car, playing Texas Hold ‘Em on his iPod, anything and everything to keep his mind off that kiss. He’d been so stupid to think it wouldn’t have the same effect on him as it had on her, but he didn’t regret it. Since that time, his balls had been so heavy with need he could nearly taste it himself.

As he sat in the garage, he drank his fourth cold beer and watched the sunset. He knew that the he shouldn’t have drank that much but tonight he wanted to sleep instead of nearly pulling the skin off his dick to a slideshow of Mavis that played on repeat all fucking night long.

When he saw her walking up the driveway, he thought he was imagining things. Maybe a mirage, or a vivid daydream. But as she moved closer, he was overtaken with the smell of wildflowers. She had on a fresh perfume that intoxicated him.

“Hi,” she said.

For a moment, Jessie just looked at her. He tried to hide his anger with her. He had no right. He’d told her that there were no strings, but in that moment he wanted to wrap her up in them. “Hi, M.” God dammit, he hadn’t meant to call her
M
. That was for different times. When her body was pressed against his and her supple breasts were beneath his fingers. He told himself not to be angry with her. That he wasn’t, and shouldn’t be, pissed.

“May I sit?” she asked.

Jessie didn’t say anything, afraid that each word told a little more than he wanted. He just motioned with the bottle to the lawn chair that sat beside him. She followed his direction.

“You didn’t call.” She spoke before he had to.

“When I left the other day, you seemed to be too tired for talking. I wanted to let you get your rest.”

“Really? I was thinking something else. Like you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“Nah. I haven’t ever been that way toward you.”

She looked at him, leaning forward and staring into his eyes. Mavis seemed to have a hard time digesting his last statement.

“I came because I needed to talk to you,” she said.

“Okay. Talk.”

Mavis stood and walked directly into Jessie’s line of sight.

“I need to know what to do here.” She was shaking. Her hands went to her hips, then folded over her breasts that peeked over the top of her coral-colored halter top.

“What do you want to do?”

Looking off into the distance for a moment, she seemed to turn the question over in her mind, a wrinkle marring her delicate skin. She returned her attention to him, resolve in her eyes. The white, flowing skirt that she wore pressed against her body as the wind blew. Her hair swished to one side, the delicate strands wrapping around her neck and along her shoulderblades. Her hands fell to her sides. She appeared as if she were surrendering.

As he watched the fight fall from her body, his heart broke. He didn’t want to defeat her. He wanted her to accept that he could not give her the things she wanted more than anything from him.

She approached him, the eyelets in her skirt giving tiny glimpses of flesh as she moved. Dusk provided the necessary cover for the lust building between the two of them. He wanted to hold her, but maintained his position as she drew closer and closer. It had to be her decision to come to him, accepting of his choice not to take a wife.

When she reached him, he could see the hard, rapid pulse from her jugular running along her sleek neck. He leaned back into his lounge chair as she came so close to him her knees pressed between his legs. His jeans became constrictive as his erection tightened, throbbing with need.

She leaned closer still, her full lips poised for what he imagined would be a sensual kiss. Her breath, the scent of honey and lemons, fanned on his face and the scent of lilac shampoo from her hair caressed his senses.

She stopped millimeters from his face and gazed into his eyes.

He wanted to taste her lips, to molest them with his tongue.

“I can’t be with you any more, Jessie,” she said softly, the hint of tears apparent in her voice.

As she pulled away from him, he wanted to shove her skirt up, strip her panties from her creamy thighs, and take all that she was denying him.

“M, I can’t change my mind on this.”

She didn’t answer. Not one word left her lips as she spun around and jogged down the driveway, away from his seat in the carport. Her smell lingered in the air. As she turned onto the street, a light wind blew away her floral essence.

Jessie waited for a moment, believing she’d rethink her decision. He thought he should give her some time to realize what she was missing, all that she would never have again. As he waited, he rolled the notion over in his own mind.

What am I missing?

For more than a few minutes, he sat listening to the crickets sing their evening songs and watched the deserted streets for cars that didn’t move. It was a quiet evening and as the moon burned brightly in the sky, Jessie realized he was a foreigner in his hometown. The normal things, all the rules that every other man lived by, did not apply to him. Everyone looked at him as if he was some kind of superhero, never once considering how impossible something like that was to attain.

If he were to consider having a relationship with Mavis, or any woman for that matter, one day, she would look at him with such disappointment. On that day she would discover his fallibility. His shield would fall from his body and
she
would see what he finds staring at him in the mirror every morning. She would see the shell of a man who had long ago reached all the possible potential he could muster. He would die, a little each day afterward, wallowing in her disappointment in him. He would have to live with not just his own ruined life, but Mavis’ as well.

Jessie stood and removed all the beer bottles from the carport, placing them inside the recycling bin in the corner of the garage. He went into the living room, finding his mother in front of the television. Her head dipped as she cat-napped.

Jessie walked over and nudged her shoulder for her to wake up.

“Oh, Lord. I must have dozed off. Well . . . where’s Mavis? I heard her outside a little while ago.” She smiled up him.

“It’s late, Mom. You should get into the bed before you wake up with a crook in your neck tomorrow.”

“Oh, you’re right about that. I’ll be sore in the morning for sure, if I don’t get up from here.”

Jessie gave her a hand out of the comfy recliner. It was just about as old as he was. She would have to struggle to free herself from the recessed bottom of the chair. She stood, rubbing his forearm, then gave him a reassuring squeeze.

“Good night, Jessie Boy.”

His mother hadn’t called him that in at least fifteen years.

“Goodnight, Momma Jewell.”

His mother walked toward her room near the back of the house. Jessie slept on the other side of the house in a room that used to be two. His mother had it redone as her sewing room. He didn’t mind the dress form and sewing table in the middle of the room, though.

When he arrived to his room, it was almost painful to remove his pants and underwear. He hadn’t needed to see Mavis that night. Especially if she wasn’t going to relieve any of the pressure that had been building in his loins for the last few days.

Sitting on the bed, he handled his tightly wound cock. He needed to release some of the seed that filled his heavy testicles and threatened to implode if he didn’t tap the drum. One stroke, imagining her heated canal as it collapsed around his cock, then he stopped. The sensation wasn’t remotely similar. The two did not even come close; his hands were too big and there was no honey-coated slickness that drizzled down his shaft and onto his balls.

Grabbing the lotion from his dresser, he squeezed some of the cool lubrication onto the palm of his hands, then rubbed them together. He left much of it on the surface. The need was so great that he was sure it would take an eternity to find some relief.

The first vision of Mavis was of the way her naked body looked under the sun. The rays shining through the trees creating bars of light that seemed to kiss her succulent nipples. He was stroking faster, his mind vividly replaying the reel featuring the bareness of her juicy mound and the bud of her clitoris, puckered and erect for him, as he licked and coerced a screaming orgasm from her, her thighs tight around his neck. The pinkness contorted around his fingers as he fingered the magnificent rings of muscles that ran the length of her creamy canal.

He stifled a moan inside his throat, the pictures flashing vividly in his mind. He imagined dipping into her pussy until the sensitive tip of his dick touched the spot deep inside which signaled that he’d hit her full capacity.

She would quake, tiny eruptions, her thighs wiggling on his shoulders. Her tits would shake from her convulsions and she would scream his name to the heavens, begging him to end her suffering.

A sticky sputter reminded Jessie that it wasn’t real. It was the equivalent of the mirage that had stood before him that afternoon, teasing him with her feminine wiles. He lay back on the bed, relaxing his flexed muscles, his dick still half-erect. The dull ache for her touch had not receded, even if a tiny bit of tension had been released from his testicles.

He wondered who’d won in this little game they were playing. Had he? Had she reversed the ultimatum, leaving him lying across his bed pulling himself with such ferocity that his shoulder strained from the force? When had she switched their roles?

Jessie thought about the day he had gone to her house. He’d kissed her, and she had responded with such sensuality he knew she could resist no more. She came by earlier that afternoon and left him in the same heap she had been in just a couple of days prior.

He couldn’t help but smile at her obvious intentions.
Payback is a motherfucker.
He remembered those words from his brother in battle, Antoine. He would always say when setting out for each mission where they were exacting revenge for a hit or strike that had left the squadron crippled.

Mavis had paid him back.

“One good turn deserves another,” he muttered as he closed his eyes, the comfort of slumber soothing his agitation as sleep came to claim him.

Jessie glowered more with each passing day. Every second, minute, and hour was a painful experience, his agony growing with each waking moment. By Sunday, it was all he could stand not to barge over to Mavis’ house and kick the door in. He didn’t. He waited. And waited.

When he could take anymore, he went to Bee’s Street Bar to let loose a little. Bee’s was a hole in the wall that he and his friends had frequented before he went off to the Marines. They’d had many good times in Bee’s, the shotgun style brick building just off the highway. It had served as a second home, and the moment that he entered, a light in the darkness of his soul flickered.

He was in better spirits by the time his cousin Marcus arrived. Marcus had always been a shade taller than him. He dressed in jeans and gym shoes that gave him a youthful appearance. His invisible set diamond necklace gave him a whole different vibe. No one would look at him and know he worked as a bank manager. He joined Jessie at the pool table, giving him a big slap on the back.

“What’s up, cuz?”

“Hey, Marcus. How you doing, man?”

“I’m good. Tryin’ to find somebody to do something strange for some change.” A laugh rolled from his throat with a toothy grin.

“I didn’t know people really talked like that.”

Another laugh roared through the air. “Well, you’re just not as cool as I am.”

“Whatever, man. I’ll rack ‘em?”

“Yeah, I’ll take your money. You ain’t said nothing but a word.”

“Would you stop it already. Do you know
urban
people don’t really talk like that? And you sound like an idiot.” This wasn’t a conversation that was new for the two of them.

“Jessie, how would you know what urban people sound like? Anyway, I get plenty of women with my swag. I see
you
can’t keep one—a woman that is.”

The statement was loaded. Jessie didn’t bite initially. Circling the table, he studied the best angle from which to take his shot.

Jessie broke the colorful triangle, sinking the green solid into the left corner pocket. He moved on to the yellow. The next ball, the purple, didn’t go in. He stepped away from the table. The tension mounted between him and his favorite cousin.

Marcus eyed the pool table. “So, I was in here last night . . .”

Red stripe in the side pocket. The fight was starting. Marcus was going to taunt him with whatever information he’d managed to obtain from his visit last night. The room dimmed a little, as it always did closer to dusk, changing the mood from a lively, daytime environment to something darker, something seamier. In that moment, the lights matched Jessie’s mood. He was darker. He was seedier. He wasn’t sure exactly what Marcus would say next, but he was convinced it would ruin the positive swing of his emotional pendulum.

“Okay, so you were here and what?”

“Well, I was playing pool with Levi and I saw your girl—she is still your girl, right?”

“Mavis? Oh, yeah. We’re still good friends.”

“Oh, that explains it. Never mind then.”

Frustration roiled in Jessie’s stomach. He stared at the red carpet in the billiard room. Rolling his eyes up the wood-paneled wall, he avoided the eyes that surveyed his expression. He refused to allow his mannerisms to provide any solid reference to the internal hell he was suffering.

“We’re good friends, Marcus.”

“Oh, I understand. I was just surprised to see her here with some lame ass dude. I mean, she hasn’t dated anyone since you two hooked up back in high school.”

“Naw, she was dating while I was gone. She told me.”

“She told you a damn lie then. You know everybody knows everything around here. And she’s been pining away for you for the last eighteen years. You’re blind as hell if you can’t see that.”

That statement contained several things that made Jessie both happy and sad. He hadn’t known that Mavis was wasting away waiting for him. For her to start dating after their episode a few days prior made the beer he’d ingested flip inside his stomach.

The burgundy and white ball slammed into the right side pocket. The noise snapped Jessie back into the present.

“Yeah, well, she’s free to do as she wants. I can’t be with her, so she made a decision. I hope she’s happy.”

“She didn’t look it. I mean, she was sexy as hell in that tiny skirt and that tight ass, but she didn’t look anything like she looks when she’s with you.”

“What the fuck are you doing, man? You looking to get me upset? I’m not upset. She can do anything or anyone that she chooses. Period.”

“If you’re not upset, then why are you yelling? We’re talking.”

Jesse scanned the bar to find most of the patrons staring in their direction. Cheeks burning, he leaned his pool stick against the wall and strode toward the bar area. When he reached the counter, he promptly ordered a shot of Petron from the bartender.

The potent elixir burned into his throat, causing him to wince as the fiery liquid went down. Tossing a ten on the bar, he started toward the door. Marcus was on him in seconds.

“Hey, man, where’re you going? I was hoping to chill a little with you. Damn.”

“I gotta go. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Once he was outside in the cool spring air, Jessie felt his breath begin to return to his lungs. For a moment, it was as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule. The thought of another man touching Mavis, or lying beside her in that giant bed, or running his fingers through her hair ate at him. He was pissed at Marcus for telling him. He ran his hands through his buzz cut.

He hated that someone had seen her out with her new mystery man, and he’d been totally caught off guard by the knowledge. Bile rose in the back of his throat like an eruption from his gut. He fought the rising threat of vomit while simultaneously battling the images that flashed through his brain of Mavis in various positions with an unknown intruder.

Angry was exactly what he was. The problem was he didn’t know which direction to aim the fury. Should his wrath fall upon Mavis? After all, she was the one slutting it up around town. Or Marcus? He was all too happy to get a rise out of him and had done so by blindsiding him under the pretense of a friendly game of pool.

The list of people went on and on. He landed on the psychiatrist. Were it not for him, he would have never gone over to her house that day and started this shit.

Deep down, Jessie knew exactly whose fault it was, but he wasn’t ready to face it.

Swinging his leg over the Harley, he took a seat and stared off into the early evening sky. The sea of colors on the horizon in ribbons of gold, blue, and red calmed him, the delicate, warm tones resembled a tapestry. He’d missed the sky of West Memphis. It held a beauty that was irreproachable. Some things in West Memphis were unparalleled, regardless of how far across the globe you traveled.

He was glad that he would see Dr. Orwin the next day. There was lots of shit to sort out, and at the moment, the good doctor was the only person he trusted with his pain. It was indeed pain that sat in the lowest regions of his bowels, festering and behaving like a fast-growing tumor. He wasn’t sure the doc would be able to help, but it was the only glimmer of hope keeping him from confronting Mavis. Then, there was the major point that he had somehow managed to push her away, and there didn’t seem to be a damned thing that he could do to fix it.