The Trouble with Apples and Trees

The pale yellow moon is waxing crescent in the midnight sky, it's ghostly glow not nearly powerful enough to make a difference in the thick darkness. Even so, Jesse is still aware of his surroundings.

A cool summer breeze sweeping through the opened window flutters the sheer curtains to play with that familiar fragrance swirling around in his bedroom. It's a fruity smell -- sweet and tart and making Jesse long for the things of the past. Despite his current condition, he could still recognize the smell in the kind of way he'd feel a power packed punch to the gut.

A mournful groan gurgles in his chest but he shoves that down along with the anguish that he'd tried to drown tonight. It has been too long. Too long since he's known the touch of a woman and this one, trying to support his weight is supple, her curves inviting, just as he remembers a woman is supposed to feel.

Alcohol ripples like a strong current through his blood stream, inhibiting his coordination. One foot tangles with the other, making him stumble across the hard wood floor. The heavy boots he'd worn to the workshop that day sound like canons going off in this type of quietness. The noise is not a deterrent for him and he's too far gone to wonder if his fumbling is for her.

It takes all of his wonky concentration to get his arms to labour through the heaviness incurred by the liberal amount he'd guzzled throughout the night; just to rise up from his sides to allow his eager, uncoordinated fingers to grab and grope at clothing and skin while she giggles at his clumsiness. Her laughter is pretty, he notes. That's the best word his struggling brain can come up with; and its familiar too. The girlishness behind the sound awakens a sense of awareness in Jesse as well as a niggling sensation that he shouldn't be taking this any further.

"Let me. I'll do it," she says.

Her sultry voice, dripping with the promise of release, makes him stagger closer for more physical contact.

The next time that Jesse puts his hands on her, they are filled with an expanse of warm, soft, naked flesh. His fingers, dragging over peaks and down into valleys are a bit sluggish and awkward but she feels like woman to him.

Her touch when she reaches up to stroke his left cheek and along his neck is tentative -- almost...reverent. And again...familiar; something he's felt before. It makes Jesse pause his exploration to look down at her for a second.

He wills his eyes to function. He squints into the darkness to try and make out the lines and features on her face but aside from the dark, there's a haze clouding his vision -- not to mention the wild, wooly curls loose around her face making it difficult to see anything else.

"Why'd you stop?" she asks.

Through his drunkenness, he perceives the tremor in her small fingers and can hear it in her voice as well. Or it could be the drink. Maybe he is the one actually doing the shaking. Either way, it feels so good to be touched; so good to feel her hands on him. It's been so long since he's been on the receiving end of this kind of affection. He doesn't care that it doesn't mean anything in the moment and will likely mean less in the morning. What he does care about is fulfilling this need coursing through the blood in his veins, so, he leans into the caress before dropping his head to kiss her.

The percentage of alcohol in his system dulls his senses but those lips -- lush and full and soft with a hint of mint and chocolate -- set him on fire.

A heavy strain has been building at the front of his denims since she'd started hefting his heavy weight from the car with her lush curves pressing into his to keep him upright. That strain expands to an ache, testing the limits of the fabric. Being restricted by the rough material grows uncomfortable in that pleasurable sort of way reminding Jesse that he should be getting naked too.

He fights with the buckle of his belt. Hasty, his drive like that of an eager school boy about to scratch an itch for the first time, he grunts and growls when the leather resists his efforts.

Those same small fingers join his frantic ones so he gives up the reins to the mystery woman.

The unsummoned memory of ten years ago -- the first night that he'd had sex -- rises from the crypt in his memory bank to send a shock through his failing grip on his faculties. Jesse squeezes his eyes tightly shut against it; like that might banish the image. When his method fails to do anything for him, he kisses the woman harder to force the thought out of his mind. Her mouth opens under the pressure of his and he's not sure if he's doing it properly but he dives in to duel with her tongue anyway. To be rid of the sliver of regret slinking from his heart to abate the lust exploding inside him, he puts all of his drunken effort into that kiss.

While bringing down his zipper, her knuckles graze the turgid, sensitive mass of muscle alive and kicking inside his boxer briefs. Jesse hisses through his clenched teeth. Just like that, he lets go of the ache he's been trying to bury for the past few years.

He struggles out of his jeans and shoes while ripping through the buttons on his shirt. They ping and clatter in different directions but in his current state, under the influence of alcohol and lust and maybe a bit of desperation, Jesse has little regard for his wardrobe.

Chest bared, he pulls her naked body to him. That too comes as a shock. Through the stupor that comes with this level of inebriation, he notes that her skin is supple, like butter or silk or the smoothest kind of chocolate melting against his.

Together they stumble to the bed, her falling into the soft sheets with him covering her body.

"You feel good beneath me," Jesse slurs because somewhere at the back of his mind is the supposition that it's probably proper bedroom etiquette and that women should maybe to like this sort of talk during sex.

It isn't just talk though. This person fits him really well but it's a fleeting thought obscured by the goal he's set for the evening.

His actions are not nearly as smooth or adept as they should be but he tries to make it a memorable experience for her. Still impeded by the whisky making it seem like he is wading through sludge, he trails his lips down the slim column of her neck, over her chest until he gets to the swells of her breasts. They feel like a generous helping when he palms both mounds. They're perfect as if each had been molded for precisely this purpose -- to fit into his manly hands. If only it was bright enough or he was at least lucid enough to properly admire the craftsmanship.

Her stunned gasp when his tongue circles the distended peak while his fingers tease the other eggs him on. The way she sighs and mewls builds his confidence encouraging him to keep going too. He travels down the length of her torso nipping, sucking and molding her soft curves while she writhes uncontrollably beneath his weight.

"Jesse..." she starts to say in a whisper.

With all of his focus directed towards concentrating enough to perform, he doesn't stop to wonder how it is that she knows his name.

He delves between her legs with his tongue. The sharp gasp filling the silence around them and the way her back bows off the bed inflates his sense of self making him go harder and faster while keeping her breasts in a light hold. He tweaks her hard nipples every now and again whenever he remembers that he should. Just when her muscles start to spasm, Jesse rushes his way back up her body but a wave of vertigo curbs his enthusiasm.

"Do you have a condom?" she asks.

The question comes up like a roadblock. Looking down at her, Jesse blinks but sits back on his haunches to search his foggy memory.

"Nightstand?"

The one word response comes out as a hiccup tinged with all the uncertainty he feels and barely articulate enough to understand.

Still, his bed mate twists around to pull the drawer open so he gets a fuzzy view of her shapely rear end. Blindly, Jesse grasps at the ample globes moaning appreciatively at how fleshy yet firm they feel in his palms. She produces the unopened box that he'd purchased some months ago under the inquisitive inspection of the cashier at the local 7-11 and holds it out to him.

Jesse punches his fist in the air in victory causing her to giggle again. That musical note makes him pause for a second time. Since it's too much work to actively use his thought processes to determine where he's heard that laugh before, he shakes his head and grabs the box gracelessly from her hand. After prying the packaging apart, he pulls one of the packets free; then he tosses the box somewhere over his shoulder. When fumbling to get the foil open with his eager, unsteady hands doesn't work, Jesse resorts to tearing through it with his teeth. In order to aim it at his length, he has to blink a few times until everything stops swimming. Clumsily, he rolls the rubber on in a haphazard way and hopes for the best.

With a careless shrug, he takes his place between a pair of shapely thighs and licks his bottom lip in anticipation.

For just a beat, his vision clears, less than a degree, giving him the chance to acknowledge the radiance of her skin against the darker colored sheets. That moment of clarity doesn't last long as he feels the heat of her woman's flesh beckoning him.

"Now..." he growls.

At first, Jesse tries to go slow. The second he starts sinking into that soft, impossibly tight warmth, what little is left of his ability to reason flies out the window, probably to join the rest where he'd abandoned them at the bar in the earlier hours of the night. Dismissing the initial bit of resistance trying to nudge him back out, he slams his hips upwards in a almighty thrust and grunts at the way her nails dig into his sides and the pleasure making him more lightheaded than it already is.

Most people who know Jesse Caine would describe him as a man of few words and not one prone to the use of foul language, but the one that tears from his throat, he simply can't help. It mingles with her soft whimper; the sound of which is like a standing ovation in his honor.

Her hold on him seems to squeeze all the air out of his lungs as for moment, rapture, like he's never known, shines winking stars in Jesse's eyes. Brain swimming from both inebriation and overstimulation, he drops his forehead to her delicate shoulder with a deep groan, which unlike before, is nothing but a sign of his enjoyment this time. He nuzzles her there with his nose and lips and pulls in a long, shaky breath.

The fragrance wafting into his lungs from her skin makes some indescribable emotion rear up inside him. It's a familiar, lighter, more subtle aroma that conflicts with the one he's used to having in his bedroom. Jesse finds it difficult to ignore; that is until she shifts her hips to help herself adjust to his intrusion into her body.

The movement, though miniscule, clamps her walls a little tighter around him forcing Jesse to move again. A part of him still wants to pull out, curl up into a ball and cry but the feel of being snuggled by warm honey is simply too sweet to leave. Gathering the courage to keep going, he eases onto his elbow and picks up a slow rhythm that grows rapidly in both speed and intensity.

Too soon, way too soon, that tingling in the base of his spine, that he'd all but forgotten during the last four years or so of celibacy, starts to grow and erupts.

Every muscle in Jesse's body locks up and jerks beyond his ability to control them. The spasms are so intense, a hoarse cry gets strangled in his throat. His skin heats and if there had been any light brightening in the room, the red flush would have been noticeable.

Jesse trembles and whimpers, groans and grunts until the last of the shudders quiet.

"Natanya," he mumbles in the end.

Why? he questions himself  like he's done every day. Then rolls onto his back and falls into a dead sleep.