To My Senses Ch. 07

I was enjoying Jessie's sensual movements against me, the way she snuggled down against my side, rubbed her leg slowly against mine, the way her hand was playing with my shirt. She was constantly sliding her legs together, probably due to the fact that my hand was resting on her thigh, stroking and massaging her heated skin. I intended to drive my gothic girl wild before taking her back up to the hotel room for some great all-night sex.

I marveled at my ability to fall back into my old habits. Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was the magnetic hold on me that Jessie had. Whatever. We'd spent every minute not outside or sleeping, fucking or basking in the afterglow of fucking.

I wasn't really thinking about when she left next weekend, and I'd be alone again. I was enjoying myself and enjoying the fact that I COULD.

Jessie held up her tumbler Up and smiled cutely at me. "Another?"

"I think you've had enough for one night, don't you?" I was coming to the realization that this girl had several bad habits. Notably, her ability and desire to put away large quantities of alcohol nightly. She'd get a little sloppy, a little loose from three to four large drinks over the course of the night, and that didn't include what she put away during the day.

I'd been there after my parents' death. Downed inhuman quantities of vodka on a weekly basis. Stopped when Nina, James, and Mike died and I realized I needed to be sober for what was coming after me.

Jessie had no such compulsion, and I wondered for not the first time how she remained standing. She had to be a buck ten or twenty on a five foot seven or eight frame, and she put whiskey AWAY. It seemed like she had practice, a tolerance built up over time.

And then there was the smoking. Constantly stepping out on the balcony for a cigarette. Lighting up after we exited a restaurant or walking down the street. I didn't hate the smell, but I hated seeing her inhale poison, and paying for that privilege.

I kept reminding myself that Jessie wasn't Tori, that she was her own person, and I was getting to know her. Comparing her to my former neighbor was counterproductive and an insult to both of them.

"No..." her cute smile turned into a pout.

I sighed. I had to get up and use the restroom anyway. I took her glass and padded across the sand, back to the concrete, weaving between crowds and tables and fires as I made my way back to the building. The bathroom gleamed, black marble counters and stark white walls, and it almost felt too bright.

The light crept up on me unaware, flooding me, surrounding me. When I stepped away from the urinal, my heart was pounding and my head was aching. Why the headache? My arm, yeah, but I didn't have any wounds to my head. I splashed water on my face and gripped the counter like I wanted to rip it off the wall.

Get a grip on yourself, Gary. Get a fucking grip.

My arm ached from the pressure I was exerting on the marble, and I focused on the pain there, welcomed it as a distraction from the thudding in my ears and my inability to breathe. Why couldn't I breathe?

C'mon, Gary, hold it together. Get out of here, away from these lights. Get back to Jessie.

Then Tori walked in. The bathroom door creaked open, and she walked in, and now I wasn't fighting to breathe, I'd stopped all together. Golden skin, lustrous black hair, slight frame. She wore a long flowing skirt and a top that seemed to be little more than a handkerchief tied under her armpits, and she didn't look anything like the Tori that had moved away, who walked with a cane, who hated me, she looked like the Tori I'd known - I'd loved - for years.

My heart beat faster. Could it really be her? Had she changed, healed that much in the months since I'd seen her?

Then the young woman lifted her head and it wasn't Tori after all. She laughed giddily. "Sorry, wrong door."

"Yeah."

She saw me holding onto the counter like it was keeping me upright, and her demeanor changed. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be... I'll be fine."

"Do you need help?"

"I'm good, thanks."

I let go of the counter and didn't fall over. Didn't fall up. Didn't drown. I was kind of surprised. The lights weren't too bright either, and I hurried out into the crowded night, looking for Jessie and blinking afterimages of that gleaming interior away.

I found her at the bar, as I was doing her glass off. She'd found another drink, and was chatting up a very uncomfortable looking blonde woman. I moved towards them and a tall guy with a beard saw me and stepped away from the bar where he was being a drink order. "She your girlfriend?"

"She'd say she is," I said with a chuckle.

He looked uncomfortable. "Can you, like, get her away from my wife? She's been trying to get her to join you guys in a...in a...in a threesome, and I don't know if this is some kinda joke or something, but we're married, and Dana doesn't, you know, she's not into girls..."

I gave him a disarming smile. "I think my girlfriend had a little too much to drink. I'll collect her. Sorry for the trouble."

I walked over to where the two women were seated. Jessie was leaning in rather close to the blonde, a hand rather high on her leg. I winced as I reached out with my right to gently shake the brunette's shoulder. "Hey babe, time to go."

She turned her attention to me. "Dana here was just saying - "

I cut her off. "Dana, your husband was looking for you, something about a call from your sister?"

The blonde gave me a relieved look and scooted off the chair, heading away from the bar.

Jessie glared at me. "I was...I was trying to get her for us. To...tonight."

"Need to learn to read the room better, sweetheart." I took her glass and set it on the bar. "Let's get back up to our suite."

"But we're not in a room, we're outside. And I'd rather stay here." She reached unsteadily for the tumbler, nearly tipping it off the back of the bar before latching on to it.

"I think you've had enough."

"I don't." There was fierce venom in her words before she took a long slug.

I took the glass again, and holding her gaze, poured the rest of the whiskey into the sand at our feet. "You have. Time to go."

She spit the drink in my face.

One moment I was fine, the next, my eyes were full of stinging alcohol. "Shit!" I reached my left hand up under my shirt and wiped my face clean, blinking away the burn.

Jessie just gave me that intelligent predator smile.

"Ok," I said. I turned and walked away.

"Gary!" I heard her call out. "Gary!" I kept walking, a calm and rational anger building inside of me. I'd previously mused that if I were a dominant like all the romance novels portray, my temper would be damn near uncontrollable, but outside of a few...strained...moments in my life, I keep calm.

Now I just felt resigned. Depressed. Angry, yes, but more a clear tiredness.

Jessie kept trying to talk to me the whole way to the room, but I stayed stuck inside my head, trying to shape my argument for when we were behind closed doors.

Finally, the lock clicked into place behind us, and I headed for the refrigerator to pour myself some water for the Advil I was about to take. Fuck, did my arm hurt. And my head was pounding like an army of gnomes with sledges were trying to break out through my temples.

Jessie interjected herself between me and the refrigerator, pushing herself back against it, arms spread to the side. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"Not much to say. If you can't see that your behavior tonight was totally out of line, nothing I'm going to tell you will change that."

"I'm sorry for spitting at you. I thought you'd find that funny, cute." Her voice went glum. "I guess you didn't."

"Jess, you spit hundred and one proof alcohol into my eyes. That's not cute. That's like getting pepper-sprayed."

"Sorry."

"And that was, what, your sixth, seventh drink of the night? Eighth or ninth today?"

She looked at the floor.

"If I'd done with Dana what you did, that'd be called sexual harassment, and her husband probably would've had the hotel toss me out. I'm not sure why girls get more of a pass, but..." I shrugged. "The fuck you think I'd want a foursome anyway?"

"Thought it'd be fun, ok?"

"So you got all sloppy over a married woman? Read the fucking room."

"From what you told me, she looked like your former...sub. Sierra or whatever her name was. I thought I'd get her for you again. Or whatever. You know what, fuck it, just quit talking, leave me alone, I don't want to do this." Jessie walked back into the living room, pulled out her phone.

"Yeah, same here." I poured myself some water, threw back my painkillers and other medicines in a handful, then flopped down on the couch, avoiding Jessie on the bed.

The vampiric girl looked up from the harsh light of her phone. "What? You're not coming to bed tonight?"

"Not with you."

"You don't wanna fuck me now?"

"No."

She sighed, exasperated. "So is that it, you're just done with me?"

"Considering it."

She jerked like I'd slapped her, and I sat up and forward to face her. "I was, fuck, I don't even like saying this, a functional alcoholic for years following my parents deaths, and honestly since a lot of the shit I was involved in before. Tori helped drag me back from the brink, but even then..." I ran my hands through my short hair. "I'm not gonna get into a relationship with someone who's like I was. I don't want that. And I definitely don't want someone who, for WHATEVER reason, decides to obliviously creep on married women, and then blows her drink in my face when I call her on it. Fuck no. I like control and order in my life, and that ain't it."

"So you're saying if I'm with you, I can't ever drink again?"

"Didn't say that. There's gonna be times where it's nice to unwind, relax, lower inhibitions, celebrate, whatever with alcohol. You know, maybe even get a little tipsy or beyond that once in a while. That's ok. You've been here three days and you've put back..." I counted on my fingers "twenty-five?"

Jessie blushed and looked at the floor. "I'm a Wisconsin girl, we hold our liquor well."

"Tonight you didn't. First night you were here you got sloppy on the steps outside the hotel."

"I started drinking like that when I learned that you died!" she snapped suddenly. "Come to find out a couple months later, you weren't really dead at all, you just didn't want to talk to me! All last year I thought we had...fucking SOMETHING... and then that literally gets KILLED. Yeah, I started drinking. I thought the only guy I ever loved was dead! That was how I dealt with the fucking pain! And then this winter, it was a tossup between come back here and fucking beg you to take me back, or keep drinking myself to death."

Dammit.

I looked at the floor, at my shaking hands, anywhere except the angry woman who'd gotten caught up in the violent mess that was my life. She carried scars from the bullets too. Invisible ones.

I looked up. "So you love me, huh?"

She smirked. "Ummm..."

"Let me say it. You love the idea of me. You haven't spent enough time with me to love me."

"Thank you." Her voice was soft after her outburst.

"I'm sorry I hurt you. Let you think I was dead. I was hurting too, and focused on...fuck, you know what, that's no excuse and I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Jessie settled into the couch next to me. "What do you want from me? What... What do you see this relationship looking like?"

I shrugged. "Not like tonight, that's for damn sure. I don't know...I don't know how to be in a relationship, honestly. My first girlfriend falsely accused me of rape. I bounced along hooking up for years. I loved Tori from afar, never said it to her until we were dying. And even then, I can't really say what that relationship looked like. We shared each other's lives and we had sex constantly."

Her hand was warm on my shoulder. "That sounds like fun."

"What do you want out of a relationship?" I asked hesitantly.

Jessie laughed bitterly, coughed, laughed some more. "I've got no idea either. My mom drugged me to fuck up my first relationship. Just being together and supporting each other sounds good. The tons of sex sounds pretty awesome too."

"It is."

"Except when I'm on my period. I'll never turn you down, and you'll struggle to keep up with me every other week of the month, but that..." she shuddered.

"I figured."

"There is one other thing though."

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to be... How do I put this?" Jessie rose and started pacing before me. "I don't want to be in charge. I don't want to be the head of the household, or anything close to it. I want YOU to be in charge."

I widened my eyes at her.

"Apparently I suck at making decisions or being responsible. I'm a drunk, I live in a shitty apartment without heat, I've been working for years for a company that barely pays me, on the hope that there's a gigantic pot of gold at the end of the fucking rainbow... I want YOU to be in charge. Don't leave it up to me, I'll fuck it up."

"What do you even mean?" I laughed.

"I mean I want my freedom, I want to keep working, I want to live my life, but my life with you, I want you to take control. Tell me to make dinner. Tell me to help you change the oil in your car. Bend me over when you want some ass. I'll probably be a brat occasionally, like tonight, when that happens, use your belt. You've done that before. I want you to lead. I want a MAN to lead, and I want to follow him, support him, be a dirty little whore for him. Love him. I call you daddy in bed, but seriously, I want to... BELONG... to a strong, commanding MAN. I want him to take care of me, and I'll take care of him. Two sides, one coin. Re - re - " she hunted got the word in alcohol fog. "Reciprocal. Complimentary. But daddy is always in charge."

She was breathing hard when she finished, the words having fallen out in a rush.

"Not exactly what I expect from a graphic designer who attends orgies."

"Yeah well. People don't fit neatly into boxes. People are messy."

"Tell me about it," I muttered.

"If you want me to drink less, tell me, 'Jessie, stop.' Don't let me continue. If I don't, punish me. I'll get the hint." She smirked. "If it's any kind of corporal punishment though, you'll have to go pretty hard. I'm kind of a painslut."

"Why does it always come back to sex with us?" I mused. "Are we so fucked up, that's the only currency that has any meaning in our lives, the only interaction through which we can relate?"

Jessie slid off the couch to kneel in front of me. "I don't know about you, but it's, like, the only time I don't need to hide. Everyone wants to be seen for who they really are. I want to show that to you. And what I am is...fuck, I don't know. I never feel more like myself, more free and open than when I'm naked, giving my body to you. When you're using me for your enjoyment, whether that's physical friction on your cock, or mental enjoyment from giving in to your dark side and hurting me. Fuck, I just said giving in. You hide it too, and sex is where you let it out."

I looked into her wide eyes for a long time. "We're not normal, are we?" I said finally.

"Fuck normal. What do you want for yourself? What do you want from me? I'm yours."

"I wanna...dammit. Dammit." My head hurt like I'd slammed it into a wall. This was all too much to think about. "I honestly don't know what I want." When my voice spoke, it was thick, and I had to inhale sharply to get control of the trembling I felt. "I MISS Tori so FUCKING much. But at the same time, I don't want to...I don't want to throw you away because I know she ain't coming back. And that kills me. And I'm fucked up from being in pain every day and being afraid of my own fucking shadow and I..."

Jessie hugged me, rising up to sit on my lap, legs and arms wrapping around me and pulling my face to her shoulder as I cried.

Eventually I sat back, wiped my eyes. "Bet you don't think I'm so hot now, huh?"

The vampiric brunette rolled her, swayed as the action dislodged the room in her drunken brain, then laughed. "I think you're HUMAN, Gary. And yeah, I think you're as fucked up as you say. Nobody could go through that and NOT be. I'll work through it with you though. Together. If you'll have me."

"One day at a time."

"Ok."

We brushed our teeth together, and then collapsed on the bed as the room flickered with the light of the muted TV. Jessie lay sprawled across my left side, head on my shoulder, one of her legs between mine.

It felt good to rest. I didn't know how I'd go to work tomorrow feeling so exhausted. I just hoped the night would refresh me.

"Gary?" Jessie lifted her head from my shoulder, black hair curtaining her face.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry about tonight. I'll try harder to be better in the future, ok?"

"Yeah. Ok."

"If I cross the line again, stop me, please. I don't want to hurt you. I don't...I don't want to be someone you don't want. Tell me I've had enough. Make it a command. Please. Take control, I'll follow, I promise." She sounded panicked, as if the darkness brought her fears to life around the bed.

I reached over with my aching arm, and pulled her head back down to my shoulder. "It's ok, Jessie. It'll be OK."

She breathed out a shuddering sigh. "Goodnight, daddy."