Spirits

By Michael Jesse

Chapter 26

When Millie left that day, Jack knew he would not see her again until Monday because she was going to visit her sister in another city. They had spent so much time together the past week that Jack found himself at loose ends. He drove to his gym and had a long, satisfying workout. On the way back downtown, he stopped at the antique stores he had discovered and spent the rest of the afternoon browsing. He found a plush upholstered chair that he knew just what to do with. He hauled it back in his convertible, parking at a meter in front of the Roosevelt Building so he could drag it in the front entrance and take it up the elevator.

In his apartment, Jack dragged the chair to a corner of the main room near the hallway leading to the bedroom. In front of one of the big windows, some previous tenant of the office space had built a small carpeted platform about 8 inches off the ground. It looked like a small stage but was right in front of one of the big windows. He had no clue what the original purpose had been, but he positioned the chair on the platform facing the window and plopped down on it. The extra height gave the illusion of being outside, with nothing separating the viewer from the view. Although it was a chair and not a love seat, it was extra wide — either for a very large man or a slender young couple.

Jack's car was still parked out front, but he walked past it because he felt like exploring downtown a little on a Saturday night. The office buildings and most businesses were dark, but there were a few streets that were starting to look almost vibrant. Bars, restaurants and a few gift shops had their lights on and their doors open — a few with outdoor seating. He was glad to see this nascent bloom of what could become a downtown renaissance — if Brayton Centre ever actually got built.

Jack wanted to take a seat and enjoy a couple of drinks outdoors, but he didn't want to show up at an AA meeting with liquor on his breath. He was, of course, skilled at hiding any evidence of alcohol consumption — and he knew that the good folks at AA would welcome him anyway — but because he wasn't an alcoholic, he could just decide not to drink. He walked back to his car and drove away, but this time he headed west instead of south.

The meeting he'd been going to in Edwina was on Friday nights, but he'd skipped the last one because he'd been with Millie for the best 18 hours of his life. He was grinning now at the memory of it. But there were Saturday meetings in his list too, and he had chosen another specifically because it was on the outskirts of town. It was in a little college community called Avery, and the meeting was in the back room of a coffee house. Instead of slinking in guiltily as he had done before, Jack strolled in, making casual conversation with those he came across. He said variations of. "I usually go to a different meeting, but thought I'd try this one out," so they would not assume he was a newcomer forced by the court to attend.

Jack was learning that AA meetings were like church. There were scripture readings from the Big Book, a prayer to the God With A Plan, and then a sermon. Jack thought they should add some singing. Surely there were some country tunes about the consequences of excessive drinking. It reminded him of the old joke: What do you get when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, you get your job back, you get your truck back.

Jack realized he was feeling uncharacteristically happy about everything going on around him, but it had nothing to do with those things. He was happy because of Millie, and that made everything else seem pretty great too.

"My name is Amanda," the main speaker said, "and I am an alcoholic."

"Hi, Amanda," Jack said, smiling and waving along with everyone.

"My story is not the classic drunk-a-log filled with arrests, lost jobs, and car accidents. Those are what we call the ‘yets" in AA. I haven't had a DUI — yet. I haven't lost a job — yet. But if I had kept drinking, all that probably would've caught up with me eventually. I decided I didn't want to hit rock bottom. I decided to have a high bottom, so I stepped off the elevator before it hit the ground floor. Because I knew I was an alcoholic.

"Even though I hadn't had serious consequences — yet — I knew I drank a lot more than normal people, and I hid from them how much I was actually consuming. If I was going to a party or meeting friends at a bar, I would pre-drink and post-drink so that I could seem to be drinking normally while others were watching.

"I kept secrets from my husband and deceived him, so he wouldn't realize how much I was drinking. I was a liar, but I tried very hard not to say my lies out loud, because I thought that way, I wasn't really lying. When my husband found out, he didn't look at it that way."

At the end of the meeting, Jack got his signature and made his escape. On the drive home, he wrestled a little with what Amanda had said, but not in the context of alcohol. Millie had quickly become important to him, and he didn't want to screw up that relationship. Honesty was important, and he tended to keep secrets. For example, he was being secretive about going to AA meetings.

He decided he would be honest with Millie about the AA thing — eventually. It would be best to wait until he'd completed the meetings, because then it would just be something that happened in the past. And of course, he did not actually get a DUI. He was basically let off with a warning, but ordered to go to these meetings. So yes, he could picture telling Millie about that eventually . . . but he had other secrets — like Molly.

Back in his apartment, Jack poured a much-delayed first drink of the evening and sat in his new easy chair looking out at the city. Yep, there was definitely room for two people on that chair, especially if they had their arms wrapped around each other. Soon, Millie would be right there beside him -- and she might even be naked. Jesus, Millie Jenkins was his girlfriend! He'd given Millie Jenkins an orgasm! Just a few weeks earlier, he would never have thought any of those things could ever happen outside of his imagination. But they had!

Jack made another drink and returned to his perch. Yes, this completely unexpected new relationship with Millie absolutely had to be his priority. So, if necessary, he would give Molly up. He hated thinking of that because she was so much fun to write -- to be. He still did not understand (or even want to examine too closely) the odd but compelling sense of fulfillment he felt when Molly interacted with her fans. But that was before Millie. Whatever emotional-psychological return he was getting from his "relationship" with fictional Molly . . . that was nothing compared with what had just happened between him and real-life Millie in the past 24 hours. That changed everything.

He could imagine eventually telling Millie that he had written those other stories about entirely fictional women in some alternative universe where they could go casually naked in public. She would probably like those stories. Even the Molly story about Jaye and the roommates might have been okay if not for the earlier entries that came from Millie's diary. Things would be simpler if he could just go in and edit or delete some of those entries, but that wasn't possible. Once it was posted, it was posted, but that put him in a bind. He didn't want Millie to ever know he had invaded her privacy in that way. It hadn't seemed like a big deal when he thought he'd never see her again, but now she was unexpectedly in his life again, and miracle of miracles, they were a couple.

The only solution was to end Molly's story, but he did not want to do so too abruptly. She had a following -- dozens of readers who commented on her site almost every day. It wouldn't be fair to them if Molly just stopped writing without explanation. But she could finish this story about Jaye and the roommates, and then perhaps she could still answer reader questions for a little while. If she didn't post anything new, the comments would stop coming and he could just close things down altogether. Then it would all be in his past, and maybe several months later he could show Millie a paper copy of one of the non-Molly stories. That might not be 100 percent honest, but it was a lot closer than what he was doing now.

First, he needed to work his way to a conclusion of Molly's story, which he felt he could do with a few more entries.

After my little performance for Jaye and her friends, I went to the kitchen and made myself a stiff vodka tonic. I was leaning my bare butt against the cool edge of the countertop when they came through the doorway. Dee and Kay were busy around the stove while Shelly and Elle were making drinks. Jaye deposited Jim and Katie in their care and came over to me.

"Who was THAT girl I just met?"

"Ya mean this one?" I asked in my girly voice.

"What would her name be? Because she's definitely not 'Molly.'"

"I think her name is . . . 'Misti.' With an 'i' at the end? And a heart dotting each 'i?'"

"Misti's is intriguing," Jaye said, putting her hands lightly on my sides and caressing my ribs, "but Molly is who I missed.

"Dinner!" Dee yelled, probably loud enough to be heard on the street over the noise of city traffic at rush hour.

As we sat down to dinner, I noticed for the first time that Shelly and Elle had been in deep conversation with Jim and Katie, and I was the topic. I used my normal voice to apologize for fooling them, but they laughed it off and seemed happy to find themselves in this situation, regardless of the backstory.

As I explained my little joke to the rest of the table, I went into Misti's voice and did a little hop in my chair to demonstrate Misti's perkiness. This made our breasts bounce -- Misti's and mine -- but both of us enjoy getting people to look at our boobs so we have that in common.

Jim and Katie left after dessert, and I hugged them both. Others followed, and by midnight it was just the Actual Roommates and Jaye. I walked ahead of her to the entranceway where her fedora hung on a hook next to my little dresses. I retrieved her hat and put it on her.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" she asked. Instead of answering, I pushed her by the shoulders back to the three-way mirror that was built into the woodwork in the front hall. I turned to face the main mirror and positioned the side mirrors so I could see us in all three. Jaye was directly behind me now, and I brought her hands up to my breasts, her gold cufflinks glinting in the lamplight. I reached my arms up over my head and laced my fingers behind her neck, caressing the stubble on the back of her head.

"Touch me," I commanded. "Everywhere."

I watched in the mirrors as Jaye's long, delicate fingers began caressing the entire front of my body, and now nothing was forbidden. I did not want anyone to see us doing this, but I was confident that if someone were to come from either direction, I would hear it in time to step out of her embrace. I imagined the choreography: I would twirl to one side or the other and we'd be facing each other in front of the mirror by the time anyone could see us. That was my plan if I needed it, but I didn't. No one came except for me.

Afterwards, I tried to lead her up the grand front staircase to go to my room, but she wouldn't. "I get home early tomorrow," I said. "I'll be here at 3:30 and the house will be completely empty except for me."

"Good to know," she said, and then she was out the door, her fedora at a cocky tilt in silhouette against the night sky.

The next day, I hurried home after class. The house was quiet, as it usually was on weekday afternoons, but I saw her hat on one of the hooks in the entranceway next to my row of little dresses. I peeled off my dress and hung it from its string strap next to her hat.

She was in the living room, reading the newspaper on one of the couches. She stood as I approached and we embraced. I tried to lead her up the front staircase, but she wouldn't go. "No one is home," I tried to tell her.

"Not here," she said. "Maybe sometime in my apartment?"

I pulled her back into the entranceway where I grabbed my dress and shoved her hat on her head. "It's sometime right now," I insisted, and before she could respond, I had on my dress and was tugging her by the lapels out the front door and to her car.

We said little on the drive, and I could tell she was nervous -- which seemed surprising. I wondered if perhaps she wasn't as experienced as she let on.

Jaye's apartment was expensive and professionally decorated, but I barely looked at it as I tore at her clothing and pushed her towards the open bedroom door. It took a while to get her undressed, but I slapped her hand when she tried to help. I wanted to do it all myself -- all those buttons. She laughed nervously as I pushed her onto the bed and tugged off her shoes and man-pants. When I got her down to her underwear, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that her panties and bra were so feminine compared to her outer clothing.

Although it had crossed my mind that perhaps there was something about her body that she was ashamed or embarrassed about, this was not at all the case. She had a perfect body to go with that perfect face. She didn't shave her legs or underarms, but even her body hair was ultra feminine -- delicate tufts of blonde hair under her arms and tiny wisps of leg hair that I only noticed when they glinted in the light.

I settled in between her legs and began demonstrating my skills in this area, but before I could make much progress, she rolled out of my reach, and before I knew it, she was doing me instead. Two orgasms later, I was panting and sweaty, but Jaye was still cool, her mask intact. I pushed her onto her back and straddled her, our eyes now inches apart.

"I want to do you," I pleaded. "Why won't you let me?"

"Because, Molly," she said, "I'm a stone."

"A stone?" I repeated. "You mean sexually?"

"Yes, sexually."

"But . . . so you never have orgasms?"

"I have them -- when I'm alone. But when I'm with a woman, I just want to give her pleasure -- and I'm satisfied with that."

"But why would you limit yourself that way?"

"Molly, this is who I am. You want people to accept who you are, don't you? Most of us can't relate to why you want to be naked all the time, but that's what you want to do, and we support you. I need you to support me for who I am, too."

"I do. I mean, of course I support you, Jaye. I just … don't understand."

"We're opposites in this way, Molly. You are always in the moment, experiencing -- letting yourself go. But I can't do that. I'm always in my head watching myself do everything, thinking about what's happening instead of just experiencing it. Sex with a partner has always been . . . difficult for me."

I stroked her belly and ran my fingers through her wispy blonde pubic hair. "I'll bet I could make it work for you, if you'd let me try."

"No, you can't, Molly. It's me. I can't turn off my brain. I can't relax and let myself go, and then I start feeling guilty for how long it's taking and . . . it just doesn't work for me."

"But alone you can?"

"Sure. I use a vibrator. I know exactly when I'm hitting the right spot. I know exactly how fast to go. I don't have to worry about whether the other person is getting tired."

"But what if--"

"And that's what works for me, Molly. I'm satisfied this way. Will you please accept that?"

"Okay . . . if that's what you really want."