Saving Grace

"See? Told ya. Everything's gonna be fine. Now, let's get Pocahontas out of the closet and go find some available vampires to hook up with."

Jessica laughed, feeling both a release of tension and a swell of excitement. She missed the days of carefree hedonism more than she thought she had. "Sure," she agreed with a firm nod. "Just give me a minute."

*****

Grace's absorption in an On Demand episode of Backyardigans made it easier for Jessica to slip through the door. She knew from experience that to say good-night to her daughter would only result in a bout of crying which Kelly's mother would then have to deal with. Grace was not yet at the age that separation anxiety would come into play on its own. Better to step out quietly and let her child be distracted by the wonders of instructional TV and the doting attentions of a woman whom Jessica could almost consider a mother figure herself.

Heading down to the car, Jessica felt more than a little revealed in the skimpy mini-dress of beige, taupe, and ecru that was the foundation of her Pocahontas costume. Even with the leather frill hanging from the crotch-level skirt, Jessica felt exposed. Her hair in twin braids hanging down over her breasts, face made up to look young and "sluttishly innocent" as Kelly had put it, Jessica was beginning to feel if a night of adult Halloween revelry was such a good idea.

"God damn you look hot!" Kelly exclaimed, stepping back to drink in her best friend's appearance. "Shit, girl, you almost make me wish I was lesbo!"

Jessica blushed, rolling her eyes. "I don't wanna stay out late," she insisted.

Kelly sighed, the very movement nearly exposing her breasts from beneath the black fabric of her costume. "Look, relax, okay? Mom's gonna take care of Ellie, I promise. The only thing you gotta worry about is the one that might be pushing up between your legs, got it?"

Jessica frowned. "What, is this only about getting me laid?"

Kelly stepped close and let her eyes smolder into her best friend's. "Got a problem with that?"

A weary laugh escaped Jessica's throat. "Don't take pity on me, okay?"

Kelly scoffed. "Pity? Fuck that. Just call me your fairy fuckmother."

Jessica arched a dubious brow. "'Fairy fuckmother?'"

"Yep. Okay, time for inspection. Breath mints?"

Jessica sighed, then tapped the little leather clutch she carried. "Check."

"Keys?"

"Check."

"Cell-phone?"

An inner groan. "Check."

Kelly smiled cattily. "Condoms?"

Jessica huffed, fixing her friend with a stare. "Check. Can we go now?"

The redhead only laughed, then grasped her friend's hand. "Sounds like you're ready to get your frontier plundered, Poke-a-hontas."

"After you, Whore-vira," Jessica shot back.

Kelly narrowed her eyes. "Ooo. Good one."

*****

The music started pummeling the two ladies as they made their way from the parking lot of the club to the front entrance. Gaudy glowing signs advertised drink specials and a Halloween prize for "sexiest male and female costume" above the marquee of the nightclub. Dozens of costumed patrons waited in line for their chance to get in as Kelly led Jessica by the hand, blatantly bypassing the line to head straight for the front. The bouncer at the door was a huge, burly man with a black shirt stretched across his thick chest and belly, beneath a bald head sporting a braided blonde beard.

"Hey, Tim," Kelly spoke in a flirtatious tone, sidling close to the bouncer. "I'm on the list. Elvira and friend."

Tim's thin brow arched for a moment as his eyes roamed over Kelly's impressive features. "There's a special cover charge," he said.

Kelly licked her lips seductively. "I'll pay you later, promise," she said.

Tim chuckled, shaking his head. "Go on, you horny bitch," he growled, giving Kelly's ass a smack with his meaty hand. He briefly glanced over Jessica, his eyes betraying interest. Soon, both women were through the doors and heading down a dark-painted hall toward the club proper. Behind them, the jealous protests of patrons waiting to be let in died away.

"What the hell was that all about?" Jessica yelled to her friend above the pounding bass shuddering in the air.

Kelly rolled her shoulders casually. "Nothing. Just a blowjob between friends," she said with a wink "Now, come on! Let's get loose! First round's on me, and if we do it right, we won't have to pay for another drink all night!"

Jessica took a breath as her best friend cast aside the dark curtain that revealed the chaotic, multicolored pandemonium of the nightclub beyond. A techno version of "Monster Mash" resounded in the air above a writhing mass of bodies upon the dance floor. Taking a breath to steel her nerves, Jessica stepped through the curtain.

*****

She was surprised to find that it only took a a couple of shots of Bacardi and a single Corona before Jessica gave into hedonistic impulses which had lain dormant for two years. Sashaying out to the dance floor, she no longer cared about the brazenness of her costume and instead gave in to the intoxicating music and the aroma of sweaty, aroused bodies. She danced with no one in particular and with everyone in general. Her movements were fluid but reckless, sensual but chaotic. The primal nature of her dancing was both inspiring and intimidating to others.

Kelly was lost in the crowd in short order. Jessica briefly noticed her carefree friend leaving the main floor, following the burly bouncer toward a dark door. She grinned ruefully, imagining a large-breasted Elvira on her knees servicing the bulky doorman. Bet he won't even last five minutes, Jessica thought. But her cynicism faded swiftly, replaced by sheer base enjoyment of the moment. She realized quickly that Kelly had been right: I do need this, Jessica thought.

Men approached, but she ignored them. Jessica was enraptured by the music, by the simple unadulterated hedonism of being watched and desired. Like a goddess come to Earth, she was aloof and uncaring, reveling in the basic pleasure of dance.

"Hey, sexy, looks like you had too much to drink!"

She barely heard the loud voice above the constant din, and turned to see a pudgy man clad in a black bodysuit, over which he wore a square white carapace emblazoned with the legend "Breathalyzer" and a pair of colorful painted-on dials. Over his crotch was a short length of white pipe. Jessica gave the man a dubious look.

"Get it? I'm a human breathalyzer!" cried the man, laughing. "Go on, blow me."

Jessica's eyes flickered down. "Well, if the pipe was bigger, I might consider it," she said, just loud enough that he could hear, then turned and strutted away. She was grinning as she left the rejected man behind, luxuriating in her cocktease status.

"Hey, Pocahontas! How 'bout a pow-wow?" called another man, this one clad in a Hellboy get-up.

She laughed. "At least you got the name right!"

Heady from all the attention and loosened from the alcohol, Jessica headed for the nearest bar, glowing like the flame within a Jack-O-Lantern. Even if she didn't deign to take up some lucky man on his libidinous offer, the attention was enough to inflate her ego.

"Corona," she announced when the biker-dressed bartender gave her an expectant look. "Dressed." She held out a five when the bottle was handed to her.

"My treat," came a voice, just before a strong, tanned arm came into view, the hand at the end of which covering hers which held the bill. Jessica glanced to her right, momentarily annoyed, but the sight of the arm's owner made her pause. He looked boyish but charming, handsome but not overly so. Clad in a short toga with a laurel rest upon dark curls, he looked like a Roman senator on holiday. His soft green eyes reflected the lights of the club, looking alert and disarming. He smiled upon Jessica, meeting her gaze. "I insist."

Jessica shrugged. "Sure," she agreed, slipping the five back into her tiny clutch. "But I'm not promising anything."

His smile was unwavering. "Neither am I," he retorted, then called to the bartender. "Skyy on the rocks with a twist." He set a twenty on the bar and leaned against the polished brass rail, facing Jessica.

"Let me guess," she said, admiring him briefly. He was well-built, but not obsessively so. The part of his torso which lay exposed revealed a chest just hairy enough to be attractive, but not so much as to invoke comparisons to Austin Powers. She smirked in amusement upon spying the sandals complete with leg straps. "Julius Caesar?"

He narrowed his eyes in bemusement. "Well, ol' Gaius wasn't exactly known as a lover, was he? I was going for Marc Anthony."

"Hmm. Didn't he commit suicide?"

"He died for love," the man said with a wink.

Jessica laughed softly, finding herself warming up to the man. "There are worse reasons, I guess."

The man mocked a frown. "Ouch. Cynical much?"

Jessica tittered. "Maybe," she admitted.

"So, do you just want me to call you Pocahontas all night?" he asked baitingly.

She blushed and offered her hand. "Jessica."

His fingers were strong yet delicate against hers. "Raymond," he introduced, holding her hand just a touch longer than would be considered casual. "Are you here with anyone?"

Jessica glanced around briefly, not really expecting to see Jessica in the sea of more than two thousand partiers. "Came here with a friend," she said. "God knows who she's doing now."

Raymond chuckled, taking his drink from the bartender and leaving a few dollars for a tip. As if it was natural, the two of them moved away from the bar to allow others to crowd in, and found a small table nearby. "Let me guess: she's the wild child, and you're the quiet, mousy librarian type."

Jessica sighed with a smile. "Used to be the other way around," she said wistfully.

He cocked his head in interest. "So, what happened? Or is that too personal a question for a first date?"

She arched a speculative brow. "First date?" she asked.

Raymond's eyes darted down. "Sorry. Getting ahead of myself. Must be my overly optimistic nature."

Jessica tilted back her bottle, regarding Raymond with a wary, yet appraising, eye. "Must be," she said guardedly. "We don't even know each other yet."

He smiled cattily. "'Yet,'" he repeated over the rim of his glass. "Key word."

Now it was Jessica who blushed. "Oh, so you want to get to know me," she said, unconsciously moving closer to Raymond along the edge of the small elevated table. "Or do you just want to see what's under my dress?"

He fixed her with a level look. "Yes."

She laughed, rolling her eyes and looking away, if only to hide her rapidly-growing attraction to Raymond. "You're pretty smooth, aren't you?"

He shrugged. "Not for me to decide," he said simple, then sipped his drink again. "See, one of three things happens when I meet a beautiful woman. One, she remains nothing more than a sex object. Two, she opens her mouth and says entirely the wrong thing and suddenly, she's not so hot anymore. Or three . . . ." His eyes sparkled briefly beneath the flashing strobes of the club. "I follow her to a table in the middle of a crowded bar and forget about the rest of the world."

Jessica bit her lip, betraying at least a hint of the arousal that was beginning to make her tiny beige thong darken with moisture. "So, am I just a sex object, or have you forgotten about the rest of the world?"

He blinked for effect. "The rest of the what?"

Her cheeks darkened even more, and she cast her eyes down, feeling a warmth spreading out from her lower abdomen, making her nipples stiffen beneath the flimsy fabric of the dress. "Okay, you're being just a little too smooth."

He smiled and leaned back slightly. "I could always switch to crude locker room jokes," he said. "I'd hate for you to think I'm perfect."

Jessica said nothing for a long moment, content to study her suitor's face and admire his soft and exceedingly kissable lips.

"So, you didn't answer my question," he prompted after a moment.

"Which was?"

"Why you aren't the wild child anymore."

Jessica's enjoyment faded, if only just. "Life changes," she said. "Good job, more responsibility, got a little older, had a baby. You know. Life changes."

Raymond's eyes didn't lose their lustre as he read her face. "Boy or girl?" he asked at last.

She smiled with parental fondness. "A girl. She's a little over a year old now."

"And . . . the father?" Raymond asked probingly.

Jessica sighed. "Elsewhere," she said.

He nodded with dark sageness. "Seems to be the case more and more these days."

She shrugged with a hint of discomfort, but she also felt an almost cathartic need to share her feelings with this man. "Yeah. Funny. Never thought I'd be one of those girls."

"And what girls are they?"

She met his eyes with a momentarily harsh look. "Accidental single mothers."

He nodded, regarding his drink thoughtfully. "Not a person on this planet who hasn't made a life-changing mistake," he said. "But I've always found that chance favors the outcome."

"Meaning what?"

He looked up again, eyes piercing into hers. "Meaning," he said pointedly. "That some accidents aren't accidents at all. They're events that are supposed to happen, leading to outcomes that, overall, are for the better."

Jessica's fingers fidgeted along her bottle. "This is an awfully serious discussion for a first date," she said.

Raymond smiled broadly. "So let's dance."

*****

There was something about him that drew out a maelstrom of reactions from Jessica, from pure arousal to guarded wariness. Raymond was the sort of man she had longed to meet, not just since the arrival of her daughter into the world, but since Jessica had been a teenager pining for Mr. Right. Raymond was an intelligent man, of that there was no doubt, and intelligent men, in Jessica's experience, came in one of two varieties: arrogant and manipulative, or, rarely, understanding and patient. She wondered from which mold her seductive beau had been cast.

The instinctual decision had been made in Jessica's mind by the second song on the dance floor; whatever the events of the evening yet to unfold, she wanted it to end naked and sweaty in bed with Raymond. Near-desperate yearning, aggravated by her aural voyeurism of Casey and Vic's sex life, buffeted like a battering ram against an increasingly quelled inner scream that urged restraint.

By the third song, Raymond had drawn her close, swaying against her to the slow but primal beat of some industrial house music. His breath was warm and sensuous in her ear, just before she felt his lips and talented tongue trail slowly down the side of her neck. She did not protest when his arms encircled her, one hand sliding up along her belly toward the sensitive undersides of her breasts, the other slipping between her thighs. A gasp flew from her lips, lost in the hazy air when his fingers pressed up against her sex, massaging with gentle surety. The single layer of fabric was sticky with moisture, a sure sign of her arousal which Raymond had no trouble reading.

Abruptly, however, Jessica spun around, facing her imminent lover, face slack and flushed. "I wanna go," she said, voice hot and needy.

His eyes searched hers for a moment. He nodded in understanding. "It's late. Baby girl needs you."

Jessica smiled, smoldering with her urgent sexuality. "Baby girl's asleep," she said, her voice audible only to him. "And my bedroom's on the other side of the apartment."

It took him a moment to understand. "Oh," he said, then smiled. "Should, um, should I follow you?"

She cupped his face, then leaned in, brushing her damp lips against his. The kiss was brief but sensuous. "Yes, you should," she whispered.

*****

Finding Kelly was surprisingly easy, Jessica discovered, once she realized that the reason a crowd had gathered around one of the dance floors was because everyone was watching Elvira "getting down." Jessica rolled her eyes once she broke through the crowd, witnessing the stripper moves of her best friend upon the floor. The Elvira costume did little to conceal her rolling breasts as the redhead moved about, and contrasted with the flashes of intimate pink flesh which Kelly displayed.

The crowd applauded Kelly's efforts once she was finished, and the busty woman bowed effusively, face and cleavage flushed. Upon seeing Jessica, she squealed loudly and assaulted her best friend with a tight hug and numerous kisses.

"Hey, pokey-girl, where ya' been?" she asked drunkenly.

Jessica sputtered against the outpouring of toxic fumes from Kelly's lips. "You're trashed," she commented with more than a hint of annoyance.

"Bet'cher ass," Kelly drawled, then laughed again. She noticed Raymond standing patiently in wait, and murmured approvingly. "Ooo. Hey there, stud."

"Uh-uh," Jessica said, supporting her best friend. "He's with me."

Kelly breathed out. "Fucky luckin' you," she bumbled. "Gotta friend?"

"I'm thinking more about getting you home," Jessica said, worried.

"Fu' that," she sputtered. "Ain' goin' home. Wanna party."

Jessica huffed in annoyance. Leave it to Kel to ruin my night, she thought, glancing toward Raymond with an apologetic look. He seemed to understand, for he nodded and raised spread hands, as if to ask, "what can you do?"

"Coming through!"

The commanding voice compelled those still in control of their senses to part before the bulky bouncer as he waded through the sea of bodies. Others were shoved aside. Tim looked upon Kelly with a tired but knowing look, then shifted his attention to Jessica.

"Let me take her home," he suggested, then read Jessica's protective expression. "Look. I've known Kelly for a couple years. You can trust me. I ain't gonna do nothing but get her some coffee and hold her hair back when she decides to sing to the porcelain microphone, okay?"

Jessica struggled with an internal dilemma for a moment, glancing from Kelly to Tim to Raymond. For over an hour, she had been anticipating being alone with her new admirer. But now, she faced the dilemma of taking care of her friend -- as she had done many times before when Kelly was in such a state -- or remanding her over to a man who was as much a stranger as Raymond . . . but from whom she felt similarly trusting vibes.

"My number's in her phone," Jessica said at last, guiding Kelly into Tim's strong arms. He lifted her with ease, curling the drunken, now incoherent girl against him as easily as lifting an infant. "Call me if anything happens, okay?"

Tim smiled and nodded. "I don't take advantage of women," he said matter-of-factly. "Don't worry about her. Go on, enjoy yourself. Let me worry about Kelly."

Jessica smiled reluctantly and nodded. She pushed up on her toes to plant a kiss on Tim's cheek. "Thanks."

*****

It surprised Jessica how swiftly she let go of her worry for her best friend, but something told her Kelly was going to be fine. For whatever reason, she trusted Tim the bouncer to watch over her friend. With that decision firmly in place, she looked forward to time alone with Raymond, feeling both a sense of wonderment and incredulity at the the idea that, of all places, she might have met the sort of man she had been searching for at a nightclub on Halloween night.

Stranger things have happened, she thought as she drove home, feeling only a pleasant buzz from the alcohol she had consumed. She had given Raymond her address and phone number, just in case he lost her on the way.

She pulled into her assigned space before the apartment building and ambled up the stairs. Kelly's mother was awake, seated on the couch, watching vintage reruns on TV Land. She gave Jessica a crooked smile.

"I'm gonna bet Kelly ain't with you."

Jessica shook her head sadly. "No, but she's in good hands."