Charlie jumped up and grabbed the wool blazer from the back of his chair. Hesitantly, Jane followed. Two or three steps were all Charlie covered before he turned back, reaching into the breast pocket of the jacket.
He pulled out the ragged postcard Arnie had given him, held it high, and then set it firmly before Dee. Grimly he said to all of them, “At least as of March this past year, she was alive. Merry Christmas, everybody.”
Charlie swung around then and stormed out of the room, to the astonishment of everyone present. They heard the front door slam as Jane spoke softly.
“He was given the postcard a few months ago by a man from the Downtown Eastside named Arnold Sylvester. We went to see him afterwards. He only ever received the one card from her.”
She wasn’t sure what else she should say and so she stood there pondering, wondering which way to turn.
Charles broke the ice. Shocked, almost unable to think, he managed, “Why…hasn’t he told us before this?” He sat back in his chair and gaped at Jack and Lydia, Sue-Lyn and Stephen. By the dazed expressions on their faces he discerned that the postcard was a surprise to them as well.
Jane spoke slowly. “I think because…because he was afraid to get anyone’s hopes up.”
With trepidation Steve said, “Or maybe he wanted to keep her to himself.”
Sue-Lyn responded quickly, “Steve, no,” as if she could not believe Charlie still cared that much for Jessie. But then, they were all trying to be brave. They were all still afraid to show anyone else how much she still meant to them.
“Who…is Arnold Sylvester…to Jessie?” Charles intoned dully.
Unsure of her place because she was the new girl on the block, Jane hesitated before responding.
“Arnie, as she knows him, is the man who set her free.”
***
Chapter Eight
Edinburgh’s citizens were long absorbed in whimsical dreams of mystical sugarplums and capricious fairies by the time Jessie got around to deciding she had enough to drink. The sun would be up in a few hours, but she didn’t concern herself with that. She and her florid tresses were swaying alone in the center of Jacob’s flat - oblivious, fluid, alive. A few others still remained, floating around her in the same altered state, but Jessie was in her own space, doing her own thing. She loved the freedom of dance and, although she tried not to use any particular moves learned over her years in classes and on stage, it was apparent she was an accomplished and skilled dancer.
She moved to the music, woozy, mind shut off as her body did the work, the dance music reverberating in her head; unmindful of anything but how the music was making her feel. Observing from across the room, not nearly as wasted, Katrine was enamored by this girl with the purple hair, short white flouncy western style skirt, and brown cowboy boots. Jessie pulled off her sea-blue cotton blouse; underneath was a lace-trimmed white tank top pulled down over the waist of the skirt. The elaborate hair was bouncing in time to the tune, the diaphanous eyes distant.
Katrine wanted to know this exquisite girl whom Jacob called sorrowful and troubled. Weaving through the last few remaining couples over to Jessie she rested her small hands on the slender oscillating hips in the same firm way Jacob did with her earlier in the evening. She danced with Jessie for a verse or two before it seemed Jessie even became aware of her presence. Then Jessie responded, placing her arms around Katrine, the girl she had watched party with Jacob all night. The French girl was slightly out of focus, but Jessie didn’t care. All that concerned her was the moment, each moment, one at a time. As long as those moments were emptied of thought and remembrance, nothing else in the world mattered to Jessie – then.
Smoking a cigarette from his comfortable perch on the kitchen table across the room behind Jessie was Jacob, watching intently. Annie had intrigued him from the instant he spotted her in the pub that first night. Even then he figured she knew something about music, judging by the way she intently watched his fingers on the chords. He was slightly sorry she hooked up with John Paul that night. But then JP said she was troubled, and Jacob backed away, as had John Paul. In Stirling, at the outdoor music festival, she astonished Jacob with her ability to figure out the difficult bridge in the tune he was writing. She had sat there shyly, unsure. But she was right on the money. After that, Jacob discovered that he loved to play music with this strange, distant girl. But sleep with her? Get involved with her? He just wasn’t sure. There was something sacred about Annie he didn’t want to hurt by touching her in the wrong way. Besides, she wore that fecking diamond ring around her neck all the time. She had a history he figured was recent. He didn’t need that shit.
However…sometimes when he looked at her he saw a fire in those captivating eyes. Annie was a mystery, yes, she was different from all the other girls…well, maybe not from Katrine, he said to himself, smiling, as he watched his diminutive and always surprising (sometimes shocking) French friend lean forward and kiss Jessie tenderly on the lips. He raised his eyebrows at Jessie’s response, which he half expected to be a slap across the face. But it wasn’t. He sensed intrigue in the air tonight, and freedom…nothing mattered now except touch and love. The Canadian girl was lonely; he could see that, hell any damn fool could. But then, wasn’t everybody, on some level? He sure as hell was. Lonely and tired of feeling so damned disconnected all the time.
Jacob extinguished his smoke by dropping it down the neck of a half empty beer bottle, then he took a healthy swig out of another freshly opened bottle. He felt something stir inside himself as he watched Katrine seduce the solemn girl. Katrine was kissing her still – long and slow, her slight hands inside the gauzy white lace tank top at the waist, her eyes pleading please don’t stop me at Jessie’s brief hesitation.
Jessie stumbled, and then laughed distractedly. But she seemed willing to play this game with Katrine who, Jacob knew from experience, was like him – willing to move in the moment, to capture time in its brevity, to steal from the hearts and bodies of others.
Captivated, he set the bottle down. The urge to touch that girl, to become a part of this otherworldly dance, was overpowering, intoxicating. He wanted in.
Unsure at first what was happening to her, Jessie soon reveled in the heady feel of a body pressing itself against her from behind. She reached a hand around to feel hips against her, recognizing that it was Jacob from the feel of his jeans and the long curls against her neck. And his smell – Jacob, like most people, had his own smell. His was woody cigarettes and Guinness infused with green apple shampoo. When his lips brushed her shoulder she shivered and rested her hands on his strong forearms, which he placed around her waist to envelop Katrine’s hands as well.
Katrine - now there was a quandary. Jessie had no experience with women who liked women the way it seemed Katrine wanted to like Jessie. Yet this feeling of being kissed by the small girl, and held close against her body that way…it was borne of comfort and yet…desire, which was starting to build, surprisingly, within Jessie’s solitary soul. With Jacob’s body pressing in close behind her, Jessie felt an abiding consolation and relief. She was in a place of refuge there between them, the object of their delicate and certain touches. Trembling, Jessie’s dance slowed and turned into an age-old fete of the human experience.
The French girl, swiftly lost in the anticipation and passion she longed for all evening, decisively moved her hands up Jessie’s body, over the lace and onto her breasts. She fondled her gently, then kissed downwards on her belly and below until it was time to move back upright; on the upward move she took Jessie’s top with her, slipping it over the bobbed hair as Jacob raised Jessie’s arms and held them above her head. Jessie let herself fall back against Jacob and then, the white lace on the floor beneath their feet, she almost begged for him to push against her. She kept her hands tightly over his as he moved, waltzing slowly now, his hands achingly soft on her bare belly, their callouses – a reminder of his own buried agonies - long forgotten.
He was kissing her neck n
ow and so Jessie turned her face to meet him. As Katrine lovingly, erotically, hummed a French love song against her thighs, creating a distinct vibration that tantalized her with anticipation, Jessie met Jacob’s lips for the first time. She lifted her hand and let it fall against the back of his head, buried in the scraggly curls, and then she pulled him hard towards her so his tongue could touch hers and pore deep into her, unburying months of solitude and fear. Her legs melted when Katrine’s tongue found that special place between her thighs and Jessie, although dulled by drink and smoke, could feel a deep, deep fire burning within her belly, within the ghost of her soul. She moaned softly, and Jacob pushed himself harder against her, longing to go where he often wanted to but didn’t have the courage to acknowledge.
Gently, he pulled her backwards so that he could collapse into a welcoming chair. Nudging Jessie with him so that she half sat, half lay with her back on top of him, he leaned into the back of the chair and pushed his hips forward, eliciting another pleasurable soft cry. Katrine fell to her knees in front of them and pushed Jessie’s skirt up over her hips and her panties down as Jacob placed first one knee, and then the other, inside Jessie’s so that he could gently, erotically, coax her legs wider for Katrine.
Arching her back, lost in an exquisite pleasure unlike any she’d ever known, even with Josh, Jessie gave in fully and completely to these two people she intuitively trusted to take away her hurts in this so natural, so human, way. Jacob was holding her arms above her head now, urgently kissing her neck, and then his hands slipped downwards and he undid her bra. Tossing it aside, she felt and heard him groan as he slipped his hands over both breasts to fondle her. She placed her hands over his once again, coaxing him on, and then Katrine’s job was complete as Jessie felt the beginning of the most intense orgasm she had experienced to date. Then Katrine moved away, for Jacob, and Jessie found herself on the floor underneath the man who had intrigued her since late September; the man with the deep eyes of blue that could undress your spirit with a look; the only man she ever desired apart from Josh; the only man who she was terrified could begin to erode her love for Josh, who – perhaps – had the power to replace Josh.
As her body let go entirely, Jessie lay there bathed in alternating pools of crimson and jade lights, and the music enveloped and rocked her as Jacob knelt before her and whispered is this okay, and at her desperate nod pulled his jeans down over his hips, ripped open a condom, and soon pushed his way inside. He rode the wave with her, lifting Jessie’s head, holding her close, and driving himself into her, and then he groaned profoundly from a hiding place somewhere deep inside that he didn’t even know existed. Jessie cried out from the overwhelming exhilaration of having been touched, connected, and set free; and then it was over and they lay panting, together there on his floor, as the last few stoned partygoers stumbled around them gathering coats and mittens and scarves, oblivious.
Jessie knew Jacob well enough by now to speculate that this was a one time occurrence, but she cherished him for taking a chance on her, and when he finally got up she was humbled that he took her by the hand and led her into his bedroom, where they fell asleep in each other’s arms. This time in Jacob’s flat, she didn’t cry herself to sleep. Instead, she held him as he lay his head on her chest, and she reached up and grasped Josh’s ring on its leather thong and pulled it downwards alongside her neck, so Jacob wouldn’t have to see or feel its presence there. And so she pushed aside her past once again, to a place of pleasure and pain, and let it rest.
***
Chapter Nine
A late morning gossamer grey light drifted past delicate snowflakes and into Jacob’s bedroom, creating a dismal, lazy ambiance the dozing inhabitants savored and took advantage of. Jessie rolled over to find Jacob on one side of her, sleeping in jeans with the zipper undone. On the other side was Katrine, fully dressed, snoring peacefully with her back to Jessie. Even if she wanted to, Jessie couldn’t pull the blankets up over her naked body – the covers were encumbered by slumbering bodies.
Shivering, her nostrils wrinkling at the stench of stale smoke and the foul remains of half-empty abandoned beer bottles, she paused before getting up for a pee. Fascinated by the Celtic cross artistically inked across Jacob’s shoulder blades, Jessie reached out and with a tentative forefinger delicately traced its curlicues and circles. Underneath the gentle touch her lover stirred and peeked up through drowsy eyes. He was as fascinated with the crosses she was bearing as she was with the one splayed across his back. When she noticed him looking at her, Jessie timidly withdrew. Lying on his belly next to her, where he drifted overnight, Jacob reached for her fingers and entwined his in and around them. Jessie settled herself lower and lay on her side watching him. He was one of those people who flowed through lives for the briefest flicker. She wanted to remember him, to savor this moment with a man whom she felt was but an island to float on for a while. Jessie was starting to accumulate islands. They were spotting her life like the glimmers of candles, there to illuminate, and then gone.
They lay there together, staring into each other’s eyes, reaching for the souls within until she couldn’t stand the pressure on her bladder any longer. Jessie leaned forward and tenderly kissed Jacob, this nebulous wild spirit with whom she connected through music. He watched her lift her slender body up from the center of the futon mattress, which rested only a foot and a half or so off the floor. She was careful so as not to wake the sleeping Katrine. Jessie’s movements were fluid and graceful, the lavender bobbed hair in the subdued bleached daylight like a beacon, topping a silvery body that quivered in the cool morning air. Silhouetted against the window as she passed it by, she was amorphous, angelic.
Jacob followed her into the shower when he heard the squeak of the taps. Closing the door behind him, he could see Jessie leaning forward against one wall, her right hand resting on the tap as if she forgot she laid it there. Her eyes were closed, shoulders slumped, her other forearm resting above her towards the top of the shower stall. He speculated correctly that she was feeling the ill effects of the party the night before but he had no idea how deeply those repercussions ran. Jacob eyed her as - unaware of his presence, ghostly in the rising steam - she raised a hand to finger the ring around her neck. Ever the observer, he felt a voyeuristic guilt as he watched her lean further into the wall, spent and hurting.
He switched the fan on to make her aware of his presence, and then he took a leak before opening the door to the shower stall and standing behind the mysterious figure that had come to captivate him so fully. Jacob extended his arms around Jessie and encircled her waist, then pulled her close to him and held her, his face tucking into the side of her neck. She let her fingers drop from the ring and stood a little taller with him there holding her up. He raised his hands to her breasts only for a moment, and she leaned back against him as he raised one arm and ran his fingers through her hair under their private waterfall. Moments later Jessie heard him flick open a shampoo bottle; then he started to lather her hair. Jacob’s fingers were deft and sure, his movements as rhythmic as his music, and she noticed that he swayed a little from side to side as he caressed and washed her. It was like being part of a symphony, standing there under the water in the shower with her new lover. The cascading water falling on and around them was the conductor, and they were the instruments. They still had not spoken verbally; yet all they had to say to each other was in their eyes and in their hands.
When he was done Jessie turned and washed Jacob’s hair for him. The familiar feeling that he knew her from somewhere played over his features. Jacob supposed it was from a past life. He’d heard there were connections between people – lovers – that stood the test of time and death, and he wondered where he and Jessie had been, what they shared, before this. Jessie smiled then as she tipped his head back to catch the water, and she couldn’t help but lean into him and let her lips brush over his neck, across his mouth. Jacob laughed back, and wiped her wet hair back from her face as she reflected that th
is was probably the first time she saw him appear happy, content.
Stepping out of the shower afterwards, Jacob wrapped a towel around Jessie. He loved that her eyes were shining brightly, and that somehow his presence seemed to help extinguish the lingering ennui she wore like a mantle.
They spent an hour gathering bottles, ashtrays and remnants of food before they woke Katrine and John Paul. The four of them trudged down the hill past Jessie’s place to the pub for brunch, with Jacob dumping a big bag of garbage in a dumpster along the way. He would deal with the bottles later.
They filed into the pub and managed to snag their regular plum colored booth. Jacob and John Paul ran into the owner on the way in, so Katrine had Jessie all to herself for a few minutes while the boys discussed some scheduling issues for the New Year.
“You know dat he a free spirit, right?” she said, in her liquid French accent. “Jacob not da kind of boy any woman should set eye on. He…how you say? Wild one.”
Blushing, Jessie laughed her off. “I appreciate the warning, Katrine. But I have a pretty good idea of just who Jacob Ryan is. I’ve met his sort before.” She looked down at her fingers as she said that last bit. She was talking about herself and maybe, Josh.
“Well, I see a lot of woman dey try to get him for demselves but so far, no,” Katrine responded with a flourish of her graceful small fingers.
Jessie looked openly up at the girl who pleasured her so surprisingly and erotically the night before, and she wondered if she were perhaps one of those girls. Katrine read her mind.
“Bah,” she said with her elfish grin. “Not me. I play all ways. I no want to be tie down with any man. Or woman,” she added, winking as a deep rose blush blossomed across Jessie’s cheeks.
Just then John Paul hustled himself into the bench seat beside Katrine. “Pretty sure I’m still drunk,” he said, groaning.
No Greater Love Page 9
