Dancing With Venus Page 4

  By the time she got her charges home, it was after two in the morning, and she wanted to sleep. But she was too wound up. She could still feel the crowd stomping their feet and clapping. While everyone else wandered to the house, she stopped at the garage and opened an old refrigerator her dad kept out there. She grabbed a beer and leaned in the doorway of the garage to have a smoke. Another beer and she had just enough buzz to take the edge off. She wandered inside rubbing Rusty's head.

  When she came out of the bathroom ready for bed, she found the girl named Debbie snoring on a mattress on the floor beside the bed. The Greek goddess was asleep on Jessie's side of the bed.

  “Scoot over, Miss World-Class. This is my side of the bed.”

  Marci tried to move, got tangled in the sheets, and tumbled to the other side half-asleep, drunk, and giggling.

  “You're a mean, mean woman, Jessie.” Marci giggled some more.

  Jessie crawled between the sheets and turned the bedside lamp off. Marci was snoring softly before Jessie could come up with a witty response.

  She rolled away, hugged her pillow, and went to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Jessie stretched and stared at the ceiling. No cracks. No cobwebs. No stained wallpaper. To her right she saw a drooling Marci, mouth open on the pillow in an unflattering gape, still sound asleep. No Jethro. She slid out of bed, got dressed, grabbed one of her sister's big fluffy pink towels from the bathroom, and sneaked out of the bedroom.

  In the hallway she heard her mother making noise in the kitchen and ducked into the living room instead. She went out the front door and turned left on the gravel lane in front of the house.

  The sun was about where it had been when she'd arrived the day before. She walked past the barn and waved at Larry as the kid drove past to leave.

  Her dad came out the door at the side of the barn and waved. Jessie waved back and smiled.

  “Don't stay up there long, Jessie. Your mom's making breakfast.”

  “I won't, Dad.”

  “And be careful.” He wore that exasperated dad look he used to wear when she and Kimmie would go up to the old quarry to swim. She decided no matter how old she got her father would still have that look in reserve somewhere.

  Jessie dug in her jeans pocket and waved her cell phone in the air. “I'll call you if I drown.”

  Her father didn't see the humor and went back inside the barn shaking his head.

  She didn't know what it was about the farm. The country air? The smells? The colors? She'd hardly slept, but she felt great. Refreshed.

  Or maybe it was the crowd at Red's?

  And she'd had the most erotic dream. Something to do with warm skin and gentle hands. She recalled a supple mouth that kissed like a lover, not some faceless name in her little pink book. Wet lips and a tongue that teased her nipples. She still tingled all over.

  The gravel lane turned to a rutted dirt road before it disappeared into a stand of oaks and mulberry trees. The sweet smell reminded her of summers tormenting Kimmie with tales of the one-eyed monster that lived in the woods.

  She felt bad about her sister. She even felt bad about her mother. At times. She felt like the black sheep in an otherwise normal family. Sometimes she wanted to run the show back and fix the glitch. Jessie decided there was no point in feeling bad. If she made a list of everything she felt bad about, she'd have a book. And she didn't believe it would be a best seller.

  The trees gave way to a sunny open spot, and Jessie stripped. She stepped to the rocky ledge and took a deep breath. Her youth rushed back, and she could hear Kimmie yelling from the water ten feet below.

  “Betcha can't catch me,” followed by a giggle. There had always been giggles in Kimmie's life. Sometimes Jessie wanted in on the secret.

  She toed the ledge and dived. The water in the old Butler quarry was ice cold and felt great. She came up in the middle of the watering hole and cleared her face. She hadn't felt this good in a long time. Years. She laughed and watched a raccoon wash something at the edge of the water. She rubbed the water out of her face, and when her hand came away red, she rubbed her nose and mouth a second time. She didn't find any blood. She smelled her palm and realized the red smear on her hand was lipstick. She treaded water and stared wide-eyed at her palm.

  What the…

  There was a loud splash at her back, and Jessie, still staring at her palm, swallowed some water. Marci came up laughing a few feet away.

  “You sneaked out.” A smiling Marci gulped air and disappeared beneath the water's surface.

  Jessie stared openmouthed at the top of the water where Marci disappeared. She rubbed her mouth again and pulled another red smudge from one corner.

  Miss World-Class?

  “This is great! Beautiful!” Marci was bobbing on the surface smiling at Jessie.

  Jessie rolled onto her stomach and swam for the edge. She crawled out of the water and toed her way frantically up the bank to her towel. She ran it across her face and rubbed her mouth hard for good measure. She looked at the smudge on the towel, then looked at Marci still swimming around like some dolphin. She looked down at the towel in her hand and caught sight of her nipple. She rubbed the towel across her nipple, and it came away with another red smudge. Then a vivid snippet came back. Marci's smile in the moonlight that crept around the curtains just before their lips met.

  I was drunk. On two beers I got shitfaced…

  She knew better.

  Marci was drunk. She did…

  Another vivid moment lit up in Jessie's mind. Her own hand sliding down the front of Marci's body… A breast was caressed and another kiss stolen. She stared daggers at Marci as the woman came out of the water at the edge of the quarry. Miss World-Class arrived, huffing from the climb.

  “I stopped and asked your dad where you'd…” Marci's words trailed off. She studied Jessie's face, then quickly covered herself with her hands as best she could. “You regret it. I knew you would. I should have known better than to let some straight girl—”

  “What?”

  Marci stepped around Jessie without answering and started picking up her clothes.

  Jessie grabbed Marci's elbow and pulled her up short. “Let some straight girl what? I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.”

  “You don't?” Marci added with a smirk, “Right. You sure did last night.”

  Jessie was furious. Furious at her mother. Furious at Short Stuff for asking someone else to be her bridesmaid. Furious at Marci for being world-class and having some edgy challenge in her voice that Jessie couldn't answer. “That's what you say—”

  Marci hooked her arm over Jessie's shoulder, trapping Jessie's head with her hand, and she pulled them together. She ground her mouth into Jessie's in some vaudevillian stage kiss of exaggerated bawdiness before shoving them apart.

  “I bet you know what I'm talking about now, don't you, Psycho Woman?”

  Jessie rubbed her forearm across her mouth and stared, flabbergasted. “What the hell was—”

  “You liked it. Come on. Admit it, Jessie. You want another one just like it, don't you?”

  Jessie stepped back, her towel slipped, and they stood facing each other almost as naked as the day they were born. “Are you crazy?”

  “Like a psycho woman? What do you think, Jessie? Am I?”

  She couldn't recall being faced with a situation she didn't know how to handle. How to control. How to manipulate to her advantage. The fact she didn't know how to handle this situation was even more confusing. Her mouth gaped, and she couldn't find a thing to say.

  “Forget it, Jessie. Don't worry about it. No big deal.” Marci turned away and pulled her short white shorts on. “Yeah, I'm psycho. Psycho for thinking straight-girl love was more than just some scriptwriter's catchy turn of a phrase.”

  Jessie was determined to win this pissing match.

  “What? That's the best ya got? You don't even live on the same street as psycho. You don't—”

 
Marci was on her before she finished saying the words. She pulled Jessie into an impassioned embrace and kissed her unapologetically, full on the mouth. The vaudevillian act was gone. Marci's lips were warm and slippery, her tongue teasing and inviting. Her hands wandered Jessie's naked back until the towel fell away completely. Jessie was so shocked, so absolutely out of sorts, that she didn't react. At least that was how she would recall things later. It didn't matter that she pulled Marci against her body and trapped her with her own arms. It didn't matter that Jessie's tongue danced the same lubricious dance as Marci's. It didn't matter that all of Jessie's senses were focused on how different the experience was from the faceless names. Or how absolutely marvelous kissing Marci was.

  With an unbidden sigh the kiss ended. Marci shoved away and sorted out her top to pull it on. Jessie blushed and looked away.

  What the hell just happened? And who the hell is this woman that she thinks she can just…

  Marci pulled her top down and stuffed her feet into her sandals. When she spoke Jessie didn't detect any challenge. The tough girl was gone. There was something more than a change of pace. There was a distinct change in tone.

  “Is that psycho enough for you, Jessie?”

  Defeat?

  Jessie didn't let up. She couldn't. She pursued Marci the three steps she'd taken away and quipped, “Must not be. Didn't do a thing for me. Was it good for you, sweetie?”

  Marci leaned closer, her voice an intimate whisper laced with renewed challenge. “Hell. You loved every second of it. I can smell it on you.”

  Jessie was so mad she felt dizzy. “How the fuck—”

  Marci didn't let her speak. “You can fool yourself, Jessie. But not me. Not someone who…” Marci leaned even closer, and their lips brushed. “That's right. You can't fool another lesbian. And right now there's nothing you want more than for me to kiss you again.”

  Eyes defiant, Jessie stood her ground even as it crumbled beneath her feet.

  “Yeah. I thought so.” Marci pulled away and sashayed off. Just as she disappeared into the stand of mulberry trees, she yelled over her shoulder, “You didn't flinch, did you, Psycho Woman? Not an inch. Just now. All I had to do was kiss you again.”

  “But—”

  “You could have had me. You could have known what real love is all about. Too bad. Your loss.”

  Marci was gone.

  Fuck! What the hell just happened?

  The only thing Jessie knew for sure was that she'd done it again. Maybe not a boyfriend, but she had done…something she shouldn't have with her sister's friend.

  What kind of a freak am I?

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  * * *

  Jessie dropped the kickstand on her Harley. She hadn't bothered going in the house. She wasn't up for the disapproving stares and whispered comments around the kitchen table. Her father had come out on the back stoop and yelled something as she'd roared off in a cloud of dust and gravel. Three miles from the house, page thirty-seven of her little pink notepad clouded her vision. Two miles later she shook it off.

  After leaving in a cloud of dust she'd headed over to Little Rock. She'd spent a little time with a couple of musicians she hadn't seen in a long time, shot the shit, and had some lunch at Corky's. She'd blown the day tooling around county roads trying not to think too much and finally landed in Greenville. Then she'd headed north along the river until she came to Whitt's Roadhouse along the county line.

  The old joint looked about as dilapidated as it always had. It had always looked bad. In daylight it looked even worse. The PABST BLUE RIBBON sign was lit in one of the windows, and she could see some guys walking around an old pool table that, if she remembered right, always played to the same corner pocket.

  It was just that once. A lark. It was supposed to be a twofer. One guy enjoying two women. One at a time. A ménage à trois… By the time Jessie realized it had become a full-on lezfest and that some drunk guy was off in a corner of the bed jerking himself, there was no turning back.

  Jessie shivered in shame at the recollection.

  She pulled the door of the roadhouse open, stepped inside, and waited for her eyes to adjust. Nothing had changed. Whitt's wasn't a place she'd frequented much. No live music. And she hoped today no one would recognize her. She stepped up to the bar and ordered a longneck.

  Not that I wanted it to end. Not that I really wanted it to stop.

  Jessie blushed even as she pushed the thought from her mind.

  I was drunk! Sure! And they're still faceless names in a little pink book.

  She grabbed her beer and walked over to the pool table. She sized up the warm bodies and picked her mark. Army boots, camouflage pants with a torn pocket, a grease-stained T-shirt that was more dingy yellow than white, and a buzz cut.

  Yep, you'll do just fine.

  Three games and two beers later, she smiled when Roger finally dropped the eight ball in the corner pocket.

  Took you long enough. Idiot.

  “Ya gotta pay up, sweet thang. You said ya would.”

  “Hold on there, cowboy. Sweet thang's gonna treatcha right. Let's just get us a couple of beers first.”

  And she was going to. But she wanted another beer or maybe something stronger. She was entirely too sober to put a name in her little pink notepad. And she was still trying to shake page thirty-seven. Roger wasn't having any of it. He shoved her toward the door, and his eyes got wild and scary. She went all submissive and doe-eyed and let Roger pull her out to the parking lot.

  The sun was gone, and she could hear crickets off in the woods behind the juke joint.

  This one's for you, Miss World-Class. Just watch. I'll show you psycho.

  * * *

  Jessie pushed on the guy's chest and tried to slide away. She wanted to throw up. Roger clamped his big meat hook on her shoulder and didn't let her move.

  “Listen, dude, I changed my mind. I don't want—”

  “That was the bet. Now come on. I'm waitin'.” Roger's words came out in a slur, and she looked down at his wilted cock waiting for her to get started.

  His groping hadn't started the panic. His big rough paws under her T-shirt weren't the hitch either. Jessie twisted and dodged his mouth. That was the problem. The first time he'd kissed her, she'd known. Something beyond the smell of beer and poor dental hygiene. The feel of his lips, the taste of his tongue. Just the way he kissed. All of it.

  “Look.” She barked the word, trying to get Roger's attention. “I said no. You got to feel me up. Now let go of me and we'll call it even.”

  Roger wrapped his big hand around her neck and tried to push her down. She slipped his hold and leaned into his ear.

  “You want a little foreplay, cowboy?”

  Roger grunted and tried to grab her by the neck again. Jessie balled her fist and hit the big lug as hard as she could right on the end of his wilted, unprotected cock. While he was yelling and guarding the family jewels, she slid for the passenger door and got out of the pickup. But not before the man tagged her in the left eye with the back of his hand.

  “You asshole!” Jessie flipped him the bird and walked over to her Harley.

  Three miles down the road, she pulled in behind an old abandoned gas station. She dropped the kickstand and dug for her smokes. Her fingers trembled, and she convinced herself that was all Roger's doing.

  She tried to inspect her face in her bike's mirror, but there wasn't enough light. She finished her smoke and kicked her Harley back to life. An hour later she turned into the gravel lane at the house. The only light still on was the nightlight in the kitchen.

  Jessie pushed the kitchen door open and listened. The house was quiet. She stopped at the sink and had a glass of water. Then she returned to the porch and had a smoke. Back in the kitchen she dug in the refrigerator and found some cold roast beef. She put that away and grabbed an apple out of the bowl on the kitchen counter instead. She dropped that into the bowl and returned to the back porch.

  Fuck.
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  The screen door squeaked when she pushed it open again. In the backyard she found her spot between the oak beside the garage and the poplar behind the house and lay on her back in the grass. The sky was clear and the stars sparkled. A night sky for romance and lovers. The grass smelled cool and fresh. Inviting.

  The skin around her eye throbbed, and she touched gingerly, exploring the damage. Jessie thought about what she was really doing. Looking at stars and exploring her wound had nothing to do with her mind and motive.

  Nameless faces rushed back when she closed her eyes. All of them drunk, harsh, and demanding. All a blur. None were permanent. They all babbled and moaned, filling her head with an endless racket that was the white noise her life floated on. Over the cacophony of voices, one stood out in an intimate whisper.

  “I'm sorry. I—”

  “Shhhhh. It's okay, Jessie. I wanted you to—”

  “I've never—”

  “Don't talk. Here. Let me.”

  Jessie's body came alive with the remembrance of their forbidden kiss. Yes. She remembered what happened last night. All too well.

  All the faceless names were a blur, but not Marci.

  A face she'd tried all day to put out of her mind.

  She fixed a bright star in her gaze, breathed deep, and steeled her courage.

  * * *

  Jessie eased her bedroom door open and took a step. She backed into the hallway and toed her boots off. Her socks followed, and she tried again. She watched the lump in her bed breathe deep, and somewhere in her chest that can't be defined on an anatomy chart, a bird fluttered. At the end of the bed, she shimmied out of her jeans, slipped her T-shirt off, and dropped everything in a pile on the floor. She stared at the dark shadow on her bed and hesitated. With more uncertainty than resolve, she unhooked her bra and dropped it on the floor with the rest of her clothes. She crawled slowly onto the bed and stopped beside Marci. When she leaned close and was about to softly speak Marci's name, a voice off the side of the bed whispered.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jessie froze. The mouth she was about to kiss was somehow different. She pulled back with a jerk, and the sleeping form beside her sighed and rolled away. Blonde hair glimmered in the faint moonlight.