Page 27 of Smoky Mountain Dreams
“I am!” he’d insisted. He’d made a new piece as anapprentice in every city they’d been in, and he had the photographs of Marcywearing the rings and bracelets to prove it.
“Whatever you say, Jesse. We both know you’ve been partyingand acting like you’ll never have to pay the piper. That neither of us will.”She’d been a blaze of pale fury. “And I never thought I’d say it, but I’m sickof all this uncertainty. Aren’t you? Even a little?”
Jessehadbeen sick of it, buthis pride kept him from admitting it. Marcy, however, was set on going home,and so they’d had one last night of clubbing, drinking, and dancing withEdoardo. After returning to their hotel, the three of them sprawled out on thebed together, and in a burst of absurd laughter, they’d started a very drunkgame of truth or dare.
Ten turns in, Marcy chose dare, and Edoardo pointed betweenthem. “I dare you to fuck.”
It’d been ridiculous, laughable. Jesse was gay. They allknew that. Edoardo had felt the evidence of it just that morning in a rough andtumble screw.
“Yeah, right,” Jesse said.
Marcy had scoffed and rolled her eyes, taking another bigswig from the open bottle of gin they passed between them. “Forget it. I choose‘truth.’”
“No. You said dare.”
Marcy looked at Jesse and, as she licked her lips, thedrunken laughter fell from her expression, and something new and defiant creptup in its place. Jesse had seen that look in the past—just before Marcy wouldsuggest they do something insane, like dive off the cliffs or try a hit ofacid. Jesse’s stomach had flipped in anxiety, and shockingly his cock thickenedand swelled.
“I see how you look,” Edoardo said to Jesse. “You see her breast.You see her hip.”
Jesse couldn’t deny it. He’d noticed Marcy’s body. He’dfound her sexy, there had even been times he’d thought about touching her.But…he’d always wanted men. He loved the feel of strong muscle, and hairy legs.Women had never rocked him sexually the way the thought of a man did.
“We’re best friends,” Jesse had said, rolling his eyes. “Thisis ridiculous.”
“Best friends? You are acouple.And, besides, best friends survive all, yes?”
Jesse remembered how that had made so much drunken sense atthe time. Now, he touched Marcy’s faded hair and her cheek, and lowered hishead down to rest against the side of her hospital bed, breathing in theall-too familiar antiseptic smell of her sheets, as the memory of that nightwashed over him.
Edoardo’s urging had been childish but effective. “Come on.I thought you were daring girl. Jump off a high cliff. Fuck him.” Edoardo’sface had been a weird mix of smug knowing and lustful amusement. “Are youafraid? Are you—how do you say—chicken?”
Marcy’s drunken eyes had hardened, and she’d stood. “Fine.”
She’d reached to untie the string around her neck that heldup her loose dress. As it dropped to the floor, Jesse’s cock had thrummed. Shekicked her underwear off and stood up straight, thrusting her breasts a littleforward, a defiant jut to her chin. Her pubic hair was darker than her hair,and her breasts were small but perky, with nipples the same color as the petalson Jesse’s mother’s favorite pink rose bush.
Jesse had stood and started on his belt, surprised that hewas hard.It’s the liquor and the rush of bad decisions,heremembered thinking. But when he’d lain down on the bed next to Marcy, and they’dleaned toward each other for the first time, his lips coming toward hers inopen-mouthed anticipation of a different kind of kiss than he’d ever given herbefore, he’d found it difficult to hold himself still. He was shaking—tremblingall over.
Even at the time, Jesse hadn’t been able to believe it washappening, and yet it had been like a force of nature, always coming, always onits way, and waiting for just the right reckless moment to make itself known.
They’d kissed and he’d rolled on top of her, their tonguestouching, lips wet and sticky-soft. It’d been a shock to Jesse how he’d fallenbetween her thighs, and she’d hitched her legs up, and just like that he wassliding into her—unprotected, no condom, against all the rules—and the wet,slick, clinging heat of her on his cock had left him shaking against her,breathing kisses against her mouth, terrified of the feelings rocketing throughhim. Something was wrong, something was right, something wasdifferent, and it wasn’t because she was a girl—no, it wasbecause it wasMarcy.
“What are we doing?” she’d whispered, and Jesse had shakenhis head in shock, staring into her brown eyes and moving slowly, slowly,slowly, feeling like his heart was lodged inside her, and that if he pulled outhe might lose it to her entirely.
Jesse vaguely remembered Edoardo crowing that he’d known it,that he’d seen the way they looked at each other. It still pained him toremember that night in some ways, the beauty of it paired with the crasscircumstances. Jesse remembered thinking that her cunt hadn’t felt as tight andaliveas an ass, but it was pretty fucking great. Inthe end, they’d lost all inhibitions and Marcy had come several times,squirming beneath Jesse, taking his slamming cock, while Edoardo jerked offwatching them.
“That night with Edoardo when we found out what we were…”Jesse whispered next to Marcy’s ear, knowing even as he spoke that there was noconsciousness there for his words to pierce. “On the surface it seemed soobvious—what a mistake, right? Such a stupid thing to do. But I wouldn’t changeit. Even though things were rough with us…at the end…” He rubbed a hand overhis eyes. “I wouldn’t change a thing, Marcy. It was real, and messy, but it wasours, right? Who else could have gotten their start like that?”
He touched her lips with a fingertip and remembered whenthey weren’t dry and pale, when they’d been lush and pliable, and how her mouthhad blossomed into smiles. “I wanted so much more of you as soon as I was inyou. Remember how Edoardo cleaned himself up and fell asleep, but I couldn’tstop fucking you?”
Marcy didn’t respond—couldn’t and never would, but Jessestill remembered how he’d stared down at her face that night, screwing herslowly to another orgasm, and then kissing her through it.
Edoardo was dumped on his butt outside the hotel room thenext morning, and Marcy had canceled her flight home. They’d spent the nextthree weeks holed up in a cottage in Sanremo exploring each other’s bodies.Jesse had discovered that sex with someone that you love was pretty amazing,and Marcy had discovered that Jesse was eager to please in bed. They’d bothdiscovered that the word “bisexual” wasn’t just something Tim rambled onembarrassingly about, but something that applied to Jesse, too.
“And then Brigid happened. Another surprise,” Jesse said,thinking of his daughter with her dark hair and eyes. At the time, it’d seemedlike some kind of blessing from on high, like proof that he and Marcy belongedtogether forever.
The fact that their first time had been a threesome withanother guy was something that Jesse and Marcy had sometimes joked about, buthe’d always thought it bothered her. It wasn’t a romantic beginning to theirrelationship, nothing she could look back on with a sense of innocent joy.
On their honeymoon, he’d made sure their first night ofwedded sex was special, intimate, and romantic. Everything a woman might wantwith her lover. As he’d entered her, he’d said, “This is our true first time.Yours and mine. We’re one flesh now.” He’d touched her where they joined, andhe’d thought of the baby in her stomach that literally knit them together. “Rememberit like this forever.”
In the nursing home room, Jesse stroked Marcy’s foreheadwith his fingertips, looking down into her empty eyes. It seemed stupid nowthat he’d ever thought he should replace the memories of how they’d reallygotten together with something more traditional. In the face of their brutalending, he preferred to remember all of it.
