NOTE: If you want to see Parts 1-5 or any of my NC17 fic, please click on the bright yellow "ItsaWash" and look to the right. There's a button at the bottom right that takes you back to all my fics. Thanks for reading.

The Way of Jayne, Part 6

Wood could be heard rummaging around in a closet, even from where Jayne still sat dumbfounded on the couch. The young man registered the noise his boss was making, knew the old reprobate was busily getting ready to go to the whorehouse, knew too, that he, Jayne (or “Bob,” as his cattle-rustling boss knew him by) was to go too.

“Fourteen years old and never even been kissed,” he muttered, staring at but not seeing the map half-drawn laid out on the coffee table, directions for their next heist. “And now I’m fixin’ to go mai bi my first woman with a walkin’cockroach along for the ride.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the ambulatory insect’s suggestion, Hell, his young man’s libido was revving up to full speed the more he dwelt on the possibilities, the ruttin’ certainty of what tonight was gonna mean to him. It was more that he had no in-between. No shy flirting with town girls that would lead to self-assurance, and a way with them.

He’d had lots of attentions from young girls in the past several years, alright, just happened that all of it was bad. He knew he’d never ever forget the early education town girls had given him in school, voices taunting, laughing at him, beating him up inside for having a name that weren’t no way his fault in the first place. He frowned and felt like crying, turned it quickly to anger and hatred as a reflex against the weakness of almost wallowing in self-pity. Weakness of his soul where females was concerned wasn’t gonna be part of his manly make up. He’d make gorram sure of it, starting tonight, cao ni ma.

Today’s work was long done, but tonight, by god, no work. Nothin’ but playin’ in the ripe fields of professional womanhood. This sure knowledge was beginning to sink in, even though his mind wasn’t anywhere near as ready as the stirring in his nethers would have him believe.

“What’s Maeve doing tonight?,” he mused out loud, standing slowly up and looking far away, more or less in the direction her cabin would be…

The words had barely left his lips when his boss blew him out of the water by coming out of the bedroom wearing clean clothes and… women’s perfume? Yeah, it was something fruity-smelling. It didn’t make the filthy man smell any better, exactly, rather it caused his habitual rotten onion smell to take on an apple blossom addition. Jayne’s lip curled involuntarily as Wood’s new rancid vegetable/fruit combo-scent approached where he stood near the settee, heralding the man’s immediate arrival.

“Stay here then, kid, and rot, for all I care! But I’m a-goin’ and ‘m goin’ in almost no time,” he yelled as he stalked into the kitchen to wash his mouth out and his teeth clear with soap, only type of cleaning he’d need for tonight’s pleasures. Jayne pitied the wench he would select, hoped she was a heavy smoker so as to not be as susceptible to the stench of perfume ala Wood Harbinger.

Heading to his bedroom, having decided his mind did want to follow his body’s leading the way to manhood after all, Jayne looked over his boss’s new clothes as the man turned to face him.

They were an improvement over his usual sweaty grime infested duds; he did look worlds better even though the new stuff fit him too snugly about his middle, paunch bulging between the buttons of the white shirt. The tight navy blue pants were belted so far down his hips as to appear to reach only to the tops of his thighs.

Smiling to himself at the combined look and reek of his boss imprinted on his retinas, Jayne walked into his bedroom to find at least a clean shirt out of his kit, but was surprised to find a new pair of trousers, shirt and coat laid out and ready for the evening’s festivities.

He opened his mouth to question Wood about the largesse, decided against thanking him. The clothes were brand new, never worn, and looked to be close to Jayne’s size. Since he’d only known his boss the span of several days, and since he knew no store visits had been made by the man, he knew the clothes to be stolen, perhaps from a neighbor.

He sat down on the bed, kicked off his shoes, and slid out of the dusty but relatively non-odorous clothing he wore. At Wood’s, “BOB, I’m leaving in the time it takes to shake a mule’s tail…” Jayne whipped the clothes onto his long rangy frame, everything fitting fairly well except for the long-sleeved white shirt that seemed to catch and grip his developing biceps. As he buttoned it up, he noted the definition on his chest, muscled courtesy of good hard work done almost constantly during the cattle rustling trade.

The fourteen year old soon-to-be-man craned his neck at an angle, peering at his slurred reflection in an old warped mirror over the bureau. He licked both palms and smeared them briskly down his hair from crown to ears, taming it as best he could.

He bent to put his dusty boots back on, thought better of it, and used his old shirt to wipe them mostly clean. “Ready for action,” he said to his reflection, “Locked and ready to rock.” He smiled and hollered, “I’m ready, Boss!,” and headed out the door to “his” horse, as he’d grown to think of Wood’s bay gelding, tied up outside, ears pricked at the approach of the horse’s favorite person in all the world.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the cattle-rustling partners arrived at Naughty Zute’s Hot Box cathouse. The cacophony of the place could be heard before they even got close enough to see the red lights burning in the windows. Honky-tonk piano and high-pitched girlie laughter wafted out every door and window. Jayne figured so much noise might be a benefit seeing as how it’d mask any horizontal hollerin’ that went on upstairs in private.

The young man’s eyes went saucer-wide as he looked at the place where he was due to leave his boyhood at last. The front entrance was open to the town, excepting for two wooden swinging doors like those found in the pioneeer towns on Earth That Was. The doors only partially masked what went on inside, although even if the place was boarded up you could probably guess its goings-on from the sign that swung nearby. It showed the face of a lady of queenly proportions winking her eye while holding up a big silvery drinking cup of some kind.

In the two feet of space below the door fishnet-clad legs ending in shiny red high heels could be seen, coin-bright blonde hair above, ribbons and bows rustling as the head was thrown back laughing. Dusty male boots planted on the floor led up to wooden swinging doors blocking the body of the man they belonged to. Atop the doors he saw the rest of the man, a tall dark hat tilted downward and toward a feminine ear decorated with dangling earbobs. Scene after scene similar enough to that one as to be almost indistinguishable met Jayne’s eyes under and over the door, broken occasionally by folks passing back and forth inside. Dancing, standing or rocking on their heels, people were surely having a good old time.

Frozen outside, mouth completely dry of any trace of moisture, Jayne simply gawked at the place, at what he saw inside. Wood grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up the single step onto the porch. Not saying a word, he proceeded toward and through the doorway, pulling Jayne along without bothering to look back.

The place should have gone silent as Jayne entered, he figured, like a moving picture as the hero or villain comes in. Not a single head turned to mark the newcomers’ presence, however, so he had time to look his fill at the building’s celebrants as they flirted, caroused and canoodled their hearts out.

The floor was covered with oriental carpeting in deep reds and blues. The pile was so thick it had the look of short grass under the patrons’ feet standing, dancing or scuffing at it nervously with booted or high heeled toes. The walls were festooned with transparent scarves interspersed with ornate gilded frames around large breasted nudes, some frolicking with satyrs and fauns, others reclining alone on gorgeous couches. Gaslights flickered and wavered atop a rickety piano in the corner and on any other furniture’s surface that didn’t immediately present a fire hazard at the hand of tipsy customers.

Leaning against a column near the center of the room stood a tall drink of water with a curling red beard. The man nudged the brim of his dark hat up by flicking it with a thumb and middle finger the better to see the coquette he was flirting with. As the cowboy spoke a silver stud winked in his chin through the red-gold beard. Jayne thought he heard the man say his name was ‘Elemdee’ as he thrust hands deep into the pockets of a long dark brown duster that swirled round his ankles as he bent toward the woman a little, the better to hear her give her own name over the room’s din. Jayne marked the guy’s mannerisms, figuring to copy them for his own in a minute or five, howsomever long it took a likely looking working lass to seek his attentions.

Wood let go of his employee’s shirt collar, got behind the boy and shoved him toward the bar where he was heading. When they arrived Wood ordered two whiskeys, plunking down shiny coin to pay. Jayne had tasted strong drink before but was in no wise used to it, still, he manfully saluted his boss with the small glass, tipped back his head till his face was nearly parallel with the ceiling and shot the burning liquid down his throat. His eyes nearly crossed and his gullet burned with the fire of it, but he managed to mask most of the effects by wiping the back of one hand across his eyes, sweeping away a lock of thick hair in the process.

In the split second his eyes took toward the ceiling while downing the alcohol, Jayne had time to view completely bare legs, breasts and bellies playfully dangling from the upper story’s banisters. While Wood was ordering another round of drinks, but only for himself, figuring Jayne’s single shot should do him for the duration of the night, our hero looked again at the upper story’s delectation of naked jutting female flesh.

Breasts tipped with pink, some more of a dusty brown, pale cream with strawberry bites, darkened globes topped with darker points. Some nipples were adorned with sparkling jewels, pierced rings or swirling tattoos. Below the bosums were bellies largish, convex and fecund as well as some that were small and sucked-in. And beneath the tummies…nothing that looked whatsoever like his swinging cod.

Jayne weren’t ignorant of the differences in the male and female form. He had sisters he’d diapered, knew that farm animals mated, knew what went where when they did. But at 14 years old and upon his first time seeing so much nubile nekkidness, he could only gape in debilitating awe that was very close kin to fright.

As he jerked his gaze about, his ears pricked at the sounds of tinkling or braying laughter, every feminine voice belling out or whispering sly tones of seduction to all males within earshot. Smells, both winsome and mind-frelling assaulted him, pleasured him, musky or sweet, something vaguely foreign that he nonetheless recognized as recently pleasured womanhood, the odors pulled at his nostrils, and from there, his groin.

In a supreme effort to make the current sensory input more tolerable, he looked around the outside of the naughty bits, gaze jumping from woman to woman, flicking back and forth like the carriage of a typewriter. He thanked buddha that no girl actually propositioned him as yet, not yet, please. Not until he’d had his fill of sensory reconnoitering.

On the stairway leading up, peeking through the bannisters he found legs, short and muscled or long and supple that went up till they disappeared into triangles of hair or narrow arrows of curls perched on pubic bones.

Skipping away from that dangerous zone, he shot his eyes up to messily or hautely coiffed hair. Blonde locks piled haphazardly high, sleek jet black bowl-cut hair atop a lovely Asian face, rich brown hair long and straight reaching to brush and fondle pale buttocks as the owner tossed back her head to laugh gaily.

Jayne swallowed and blindly grasped at the bartop behind him for much-needed support, suddenly feeling in danger of falling, but instead of polished wood, his hand fell on warmth and softness.

His head whipped around with body quickly following like a pirouetting dancer at the sensation of flesh on flesh. The flesh in his grip turned out to be the thin arm of a lovely Asian lass of about 17 years old, by the look of her. But there was nothing of youth in the look she turned on Jayne Cobb.

Nor was there anything of girlhood in the words she uttered sideways out of a lovely red pair of carefully outlined lips, “You want mai bi, Bao bei? Got coin to buy sweet ji bai, Big Boy?” She stroked his hand still on her arm, loosening his fingers’ grip as she smoothed her fingers over him.

When she had his fingers pried loose, she drew the hand toward her mouth, separating his digits in mid-air without taking her eyes from his own darkened blue deer-in-the-headlights gaze.

By braile alone since her eyes were locked on his, she selected his long middle finger and took it into her small tight fist. When the tip of his fingernail met the plush cherry red of her lips, she smiled and slightly bowed her lovely head, sharp pink tongue slipping out to touch his sensitive fingertip.

Jayne closed his eyes, the better to focus his attention on his other senses running riot. The feel of his flesh inside the female mouth, suction, sensation of her little tongue stroking him, all along him, it was…ruttin’ wonderful beyond all reckoning. It was kinda funny, he figured, but from the first second she put his finger in her mouth he coulda sworn it was his Jayne Thomas she was mouthing instead of part of his hand.

With his eyes closed, the feel of her mouth not just on his finger but on his privates all at once was even stronger, making him downright UPright. He smiled at the pleasure, then groaned deep in his throat and wide chest. His mind whirled with a world of nonsensical thoughts, body mostly in control over everything, but one clarified thought winning through, ‘Son of a chou san ba, if a woman on my finger feels this good, what the hell is the rest of me gonna feel like when we really get down to business?’

Jayne’s staff was hard, harder than he’d ever known it to get. The woman wasn’t (was?) helping by pressing up against him with her small frame as she continued to nurse on his finger. He opened his eyes, saw hers closed, caught sight of the tip of his finger almost escaping her lips only to be drawn hard, sucked hard back into the warm soft wetness of her and he slammed his eyes closed against the vision. His cock pulsed and careened in his pants. The garment had fit him just fine when he’d left Inga’s place but it was all seven hells worth of too tight now.

The raging wanting in him made him begin to pant and moan with need now, helpless and uncaring of what kind of scene he was a part of, still keeping the noise to a minimum, much as he could, outta fear that his lover would stop the torture if he distracted her too much with sound.

At that thought, he realized that he’d never dreamed it’d be like this, small dark thought quietly mentioned that maybe he wasn’t all that ready for it to be like this. Him standing in a crowded room and being taken for a ride on his own finger, amazing though it was, hotter than Hades though it was.

His breathless gasps drew in the smell of her hair so close to his nose, some flowery something or other she musta washed it with mixed with sweat that smelled sweet and salty. She moaned then, maybe in reaction to similar sounds from him.

And he came.

Hard and shooting, right in his newly tight pants, whole body shaking with the force of it.

He yelped and drew his lower body back from her gown, afraid he’d stain the front of her. Ordering his body to calm down, please all ye gods of fornicating monkeys, let it calm down, but the gorram thing kept pulsing, kept spreading a large wet telling stain the size of his palm on the material of his trousers.

Jayne yanked his hand from the woman’s mouth, although only an instant before she went to thrust it from her. She’d known what he was about, of course she had, he saw it in her face when he dared to look up at her from his own horrified stare at his pants’ front.

She was smiling, eyes squeezed nearly shut with glee. Reminded him more than was good of the mouthy girls at school, making big fun of things Jayne couldn’t help. Back then it was his feminine name, now it was something much more masculine a girl was making public fun of, irresistible to this woman when the chance came for laughing.

His current tormenter’s face began to take on a faint bluish shade and she slowly doubled over, clutching her middle tightly with both arms. Her shoulders shook and, even in his agitated state, he became a touch more concerned for her than for himself. He reached out a hand to take her arm, help her up, but just before contact she raised up, reared her head back and let go with the loudest, brashest barking laughter Jayne had ever heard in his life, aside from Wood Harbinger’s cackling out in the cold pond water on bathing day.

Her outburst drew the rapt attention of bystanders, including the beard-studded cowboy near the pillar who took a step forward, removing his hat so as to un-shade his eyes in order to see better what was going on. Jayne’s eyes met his, then slid away in despair as the man’s own eyes dipped downward to Jayne’s lower front. If the boy had taken a chance and looked back at the man again, he’d have seen understanding and sympathy in the bearded cowboy’s face, not derision at all. Might have helped some, but not as much as Jayne needed. Having only one advocate on the whole cathouse floor wouldn’t have been nearly enough to make him feel one whit better.

Peals of laughter followed Jayne as he turned and fled Naughty Zute’s like a bat out of hell. The lovely young Asian woman’s eager pointing out his shame, her red red lips telling the story at the same time quickly spread to all those within eye range of the spreading stain on his pants or within earshot of the growing number of hooting pointing bystanders. The flush on his face mirrored the warmth below him as he ran, head down, both hands cupping himself, fruitlessly trying to hide.

Where Wood was, or leaving word for Wood, Jayne had no time nor inclination to worry about. His single goal in life was to put as much space between himself and the scene of his horror as he and the Bay horse could make in the shortest amount of time.

The Bay had no objections to the hard riding as they ate up ground underfoot heading out of town. Jayne shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, using one hand to tug at his crotch where the material stuck to him wetly. Jerking his hand away in disgust, he turned his mind toward riding the horse dangerously fast in the darkness as they reached the outskirts of town.

Not caring where they rode, he let the animal have his head, Jayne along for the ride, body engaged in hanging on, mind trying desparately to let go of the looping shameful scene it played.

Riding. He had figured on more of a different sort of riding during the tonight’s activities. Shaking his head, he tried to stop his thoughts from wending their way back to what had happened, but it was no use. The night, quiet except for pounding hooves and his own heavy breathing catching on an occasional sob weren’t providing nearly enough distraction.

Women. They weren’t much different from girls, it turned out. Girls had always been evil toward him, small tormenters, pointing out the shame of his girlified name. Didn’t know why he weren’t smart enough to realize earlier that women were the same, but wait. Hell no, they were worse, goddamn bitching worse.

The nameless chou san ba had been fully to blame for what had happened to him tonight. What she’d done was zi wei him, working him to a fever pitch. Anybody should know that doing that to a man untried, first time touched in any way by a woman, wouldn’t fail to cause his reaction. Wasn’t she supposed to be a professional? If she’d-a been a typical whore, one of them types he’d heard about what had a heart o’ gold, mayhap she’d-a found a kinder way to deal with her inexperienced young customer.

What woulda been wrong with takin’ him aside quiet-like and leading him upstairs once she’d seen what she’d wrought on him? How about grasping him tightly to her and whispering in his ear that it was okay, all her fault and then sliding him around her full skirts till he was nestled against her, behind her? In that wise she coulda held his arms around her waist from behind, and walked them up the stairs with nobody the wiser as to the state of the front of his pants.

Nobody hadta know but them two. Who knew what such considerate treatment coulda led to for her and him up in some little private room at the top of the stairs? He had good coin to pay and his virginity to give her. But he’d never know now. All he did know was a kind of terror and an all-absorbing doubt at himself.

Failure was dry and bitter in his mouth. Weak and a failure, that’s what he was. No use to anybody, might as well just keep riding into the night till the horse keeled over, hopefully on top of him, maybe somewhere desolate and arid where he could die alone and nobody who knew him would ever hear how he’d ended, nor what he’d done that night.

Nah, people depended on him. His family depended on him, couldn’t make it on their own without him earning their living. Wood said he’d pay him twice each month what the Cobb farm would have netted in six. Jayne’d see that the coin turned up mysteriously in credit at Lucky’s store in an account under the name of Marie Cobb. She might not see her boy in a long time, but she’d know the mark of his love for the family in every item she was able to buy with his largesse. Everybody would stay well fed and clothed and his mother’d know who they could thank for it. If’n he ever came back home to accept gratitude, that is.

Sitting upright in the saddle, he wiped an angry tear of self-pity off his face and slowed the horse a little, finally noticing the labored whuffing of the Bay, realizing that his ride might just about be worn out. He got off the horse and spoke soothingly, “Easy boy, god, I’m sorry for that ride, didn’t mean to take it out on you…” Running a hand down the sweat-soaked neck, “We’ll take it slow now, walk awhile, you and me. Good boy, good friend, we’ll walk now.”

The horse nickered with head lowered and leaned his own head into Jayne’s as the manchild leaned his own forehead into the Bay’s neck. Jayne turned to walk forward, picking up a thick, sturdy shoulder high stick he nearly stepped on. He was going to toss it out of the way, then decided to keep it as a walking stick.

Horse and rider smelled crackling ozone in the air, rain was coming. Hard rain, by the feel of things. Sure enough, it began to rain, rained harder after they’d been walking for about an hour. There was no protection in sight which was bad when the first rolling thunder slammed through the atmosphere. The guttural roar of sound careened through Jayne Cobb who’d always had an irrational fear of storms. The horse seemed to share his fear, or else was absorbing it where it rolled off of his master, as the animal shied and side-stepped crazily, head raised, eyes rolling.

Calming the animal wasn’t easy since the young man at his side couldn’t rightly calm his own self, so Jayne simply held the bridle tightly and tugged the Bay onward, boots and hooves whanging down into puddles now ankle and near-fetlock deep as they continued plodding through the wet. ‘Leastwise the rain’ll cool down the horse quick enough,’ he thought as he pulled up the collar of his coat against the extreme cold and wet.

Lightning flashed, lit up the night, spooking horse and man further. As if the lightning was a firey can opener and the sky was a tin full of fluids fit to burst, new waterfalls bore down on the two lone figures and the landscape they walked through.

They plodded for what seemed like forever when Jayne finally smelled faint smoke on the air and looked up. Ahead was a lighted window, just visible far away. He called to the horse, soothing and urging at the same time, moving them in the direction of the light and protection, whatever was offered there.

She felt him coming before he’d made half the walk ahead of him, a good few miles away. A tall trudging figure bent forward, head down into the pounding wind and rain, feet in farmer’s boots slopping, clopping through fields of mud and rock. ‘Lords! It’s a toad-strangler out there,’ she thought, ‘The boy’ll be wet to the bone.’ Sensing he was still far away but gaining ground, Maeve pulled up out of her comfortable chair near the fire and laid a thick blanket over the seat and back in readiness for a wet Jayne to sit on.

The kettle on the hot plate was still fairly percolating, steam wafted from the spout and she could smell the good cinnamon flavor of it. Smiled to herself, ‘He’ll like it.’ He had liked the smell of the spice on her when they’d worked alongside each other cleaning the triplets the night they’d been born. Was that a year ago? Yeah, just over. He’d been thirteen summers’ old when his tiny siblings came to be. “Jayne’s birthday was this past May,” she said aloud to Red Dwarf, the multi-colored cat on the kitchen rug. The fur-bearing familiar blinked golden saucer eyes at her mistress. “Fourteen and a half now,” Maeve went on, thoughtfuly.

The time had flown. He’d seemed to want to avoid her since that night, and she’d been more than happy to stay away from an object like the manchild who affected her wants the way he did. He was sure enough on his way to her now, tonight, her desire to avoid him useless in the face of him. She didn’t know whether to be afraid or joyful.

Examining the woman inside her skin, checking her emotions, she found she was both. She knew all too well what it meant when one was both excited and scared at the same time. Her herbal arts mentor and confidante had told her that when fear and excitement are felt strongly, simultaneously, the best times in one’s life were the cause.

“Think about it,” he’d said. “Losing your first tooth, going to your first day of school, your first kiss, first job interview, first large purchase (her buying the cabin). Hell, everybody is both fearful and ecstatic to the point of bursting at any of those landmarks.” She’d had plenty of examples of her own since her training days to attest to the validity of the truism.

So here was Maeve Phillipa Burlee, giddy with excitement and shivery with fear as Jayne approached. As she stood in the kitchen staring out at nothing her physical eyes could see in the night, she saw him coming with her third eye.

Saw his head tucked down against horizontal blowing rain, jerking a little at each nuclear lightning flash, exploding thunderous roar. She could see him cleverly turning slightly this way and that, angling his walk so as to be best protected, but still making a good unerring pace toward his destination. Toward Maeve’s house.

He had a stick in one hand, a bridle gathered close in his other fist. The horse showed a healthy dose of storm-fear too, shaking as it walked-fetlock deep in rolling puddles of water. Moving her searching thoughts back to Jayne, she felt something hurt in him, something different than fear of the weather that he shared with the horse. Peeling back layers of his mind, she could almost see…

She didn’t dare go that far. Reading his mind when she was in such a far gone state of want was not good for him or her. Maeve rolled back off of Jayne and took her consciousness to further preparation for his arrival.

She had made honey anise bao rolls earlier that day. A lucky coincidence which gave her a fresh treat for him in case he wanted a bite to eat. She didn’t dare remote-probe to find if he was hungry.

Preparations for the impromptu feast for her fast-moving visitor almost complete, she only lacked a couple of good absorbent linen towels to dry him, and a small log nudged into the glowing fireplace ashes to keep the room nice and toasty. “November rain, by the purple hells, he had to walk across four acres in cold November rain.” Maeve sighed. All in readiness, she let her mind’s eye return to Jayne, saw him look for her window light, difficult since his eyes were blurry with constant driving icy rain. She heard his mild curse as he jumped at the next lightning flash too close for comfort now, saw his lips count 1, 2 till the thunder rolled, saw him quicken his pace and she felt his pleasure when the next flash faded to let him see at last the gaslight glowing in her front cabin window. Shiny glow at the windowpane called warm welcome to a boy in a storm akin to the welcome she’d have for him herself when he arrived on her threshold.

As she watched his fear, she basked in her joy at nature’s loosed fury. For her part, the midwife loved a good storm. The crash and slam, the shock and glow of it, the wind whipping, sighing, shrieking, moaning, it all reminded her of nothing but sex. No oddness about the connection.

Storms and sex were all electric, magnetic, moist and slewing. Both were a part of nature. The best part, to be plain about it. Maeve detested sunny skies. Blue was so unrelieved, so—ordinary. But a sky rent with wrathful striking flaming light and the weft and weave of windy rains was like a face with character written all over it. Was like the difference between celebate Shakers on Earth-that-was and hedonistic pleasure seekers like herself and the off-shoot Companion Guild that had trained her, then abandoned her.

Maeve had been born during a thunderstorm, her mom had told her so, and she was destined to love them ever after. Mayhap Jayne Cobb could be brought to understand how she felt about harsh weather and not to fear it himself. She’d see what she and this night could do about that.

Jayne and the Bay were almost at Maeve’s house. He had known it was hers they were approaching almost from his first sight of the light in the windows. The horse must have remembered the way to the Cobb place, perhaps fancying a comforting currying by Maddie, Jayne’s brother, akin to the one he’d given the Bay last time. Maeve’s was on the way to the Cobb house, and here they were, finally sheltering against the side of Maeve’s home, thankfully on the side that was in the lee of the storm.

The horse neighed softly and leaned his big body against the house. Jayne led him forward just enough to be able to tie the reins loosely on the porch railing, still enabling the animal to be protected from the sideways blowing rain blocked by the house.

For his part, Jayne stalked around to the front porch and mounted the three steps to approach the front door. Which opened to a vision of lovely womanhood right there in front of his eyes.

Maeve Burlee was clad in a forest green wrapper embroidered with peach and pale yellow flowers of some sort, a gift from a companion in training who had graduated the same year as she from medical school. The woman’s eyes shown brilliant green where the light from inside the house lit the side of her face. The glow of her gaze was all Jayne could make out since she was backlit strongly by the fireplace.

Saying nothing, only smiling in welcome, Maeve stepped forward on bare feet and tugged the boy into her home, him struggling to wipe his boots on the straw mat at her doorstep. Realizing the wet mud adhered like glue, he toed off first one boot, then the other, stripped off the sopping wet socks, too, and left them on the mat.

He had a moment to worry about her seeing the front of his pants but realized immediately that the rain had blessedly covered any trace with all-consuming wetness on every inch of his clothes. He moved his hands from his crotch and doffed his hat, smiling at his family’s long-time saviour, midwife and herb-woman extraordinaire.

“’M sorry, Maeve, ta bother ya like this, me gettin’ caught out in weather like a sheep escaped from a corral somewheres…” His voice stopped as his eyes caught and held at the autumn fire of her lovely soft hair gathered and pinned in a loose pile atop her head, softer unruly tendrils stroking along her rosy cheeks and jawline.

“Tsk, Jayne, don’t you even dare apologize, Honey,” she tugged him closer to the fireplace and the blanketed chair she had ready there. “Here, sit right here, no, wait and let me get you out of this sopping coat first. Lords, you’re like ice!” Standing in front of him with the blazing heat warming the side of him facing the fireplace, she pushed his shoulders back a little and worked the nearly frozen garment down his arms, uncaring that the front of her robe was getting wet from him.

His useless jacket removed now, she held it by two fingers and laid it in a more or less straight line in front of the fire on the hearth for drying.

Coming back to stand before him, she ran a critical eye along the rest of his icy wet clothes, nodded and began, “These’ll have to come offa you right now, Jayne, you’re shaking like a leaf and you don’t need to take sick.”

She unbuttoned the top of his white shirt and moved down along the front closures. He tried to help, but his fingers shook and teeth chattered so much that she just moved his hands out of her way. When she had the bottom button freed, she tugged the wet material out of his trousers and slid the garment off his shoulders like she’d done the coat. It went on the hearth too.

Snatching up a linen towel laid on the arm of the chair in readiness, she ran it hard up and down one of his arms, then the other, then his strong back and chest, lightly furred with dark brown hair. His belly was muscled and ridged on the sides by his ribs, centered by a faint line of dark hair that led downward.

Maeve took a breath, looked up at his eyes just in time to see him flinch mightily, his blue eyes squeezing shut as the boom and clatter of the worst thunder he’d ever heard shook the little cabin. Taking that moment of his disassociation, she unbuckled his belt, unsnapped his pants and took them down to his knees, bending to cup the back of one of his knees in her hand, urging the leg up as his hand went to her back for support.

In this wise, Maeve stripped him of his pants, laid them out to dry, then she straightened up to see him standing helpless but strong and manly for his age, his eyes staring outside at the lightning that lit the darkened night like it was day. He seemed almost not to notice he was nude as the day she’d helped bring him into the world.

She reached her hands up to cup his shoulders and pushed him down and back into the blanketed chair. She knelt at his feet then and wrapped him up in the large blanket upon which he sat, folding the sides of it around him like wings warming and comforting him.

She’d had a moment to stare at his naked manhood before she’d sat him down and was finding it more difficult to breathe regular since the sight. The cold wouldn’t be kind to a man’s nethers, of course, she’d known that, but sweet Buddha, what he had down there was half as thick as her wrist and long as her foot, she reckoned, even cold and limp now as he was.

Grateful he was covered up now so she wouldn’t get noticed staring at his nethers, she raised up on her haunches and began rubbing his arms briskly on top of the blanket while he shivered and shook by the fireplace. He shrank deeply into the chair as the light and sound show continued outside.

Maeve wordlessly crooned comfort to him, smoothing back his wet hair before running a half-dry towel over his head, ruffing up the hair to partially dry it. He had sense enough to pull a hand outta the blankets and finger comb it back down, causing her to smile.

‘Even scared and wet, he’s still aware that he wants to look handsome, not ridiculous in front of a woman,’ she knew that was a good sign.

Maeve started to stand up and turn toward the kitchen, but his hand stayed in messing with his hair and shot out snake-quick to grab her hand that she was supporting herself with on the arm of the chair as she stood.

“Maeve, don’t go, stay here, will ya?” His eyes pleaded, something smokey and needful in there.

She smiled wider and said, “You need warmed up from the inside out, Honey. Let me go get you some hot tea, got it all ready so it won’t take but a minute, okay?,” He gripped her tighter, almost painfully so for a second before releasing his grip and nodding, lashes hiding the look in his blue eyes.

“I’m not going far, Babe. Be right back.”

She went to the kitchen and poured a good big cup of hot cinnamon flavored tea for him, adding some Cobb honey to the mug, stirring it round. She picked up a honey bun for him, still warm from the oven, placed it on a cloth napkin and turned back toward the front room where he waited in the large chair.

Looking at the full mug she carried carefully in her hands she unexpectedly bumped into his blanketed frame standing in her kitchen entryway, his blue-grey eyes full of something new, something wanting and hot and needing something from her.

She was all too sure what that something was.

His strong hand was stretched out to steady her own that held the cup of hot tea which he took from her grasp with a murmured thanks. The blanket on one side had slipped away with his hand’s reaching, giving her a long view of his body from broad shoulder, chest and masculine hip, down along the flank of him, buttock and thigh and corded muscled leg all the way to the floor as he walked back away toward the fireplace.

Maeve’s eyelashes swept down, her green eyes dark with want, but closed tightly now as her hands unconsciously pulled her damp robe tightly closed almost enough to hurt, saying in that action that she knew she should be the one to keep herself from the young man she had almost naked in her front room.

Whom she had neatly disrobed and had just seen with eyes full of naked need of her, broadcasting from those swai orbs and radiating from his mind twelve kinds of desire for whatever she was willing to give him.

He’d had fear of the storm and she’d thought that would be the saving of him and her both tonight. But need had seemed to replace fear, and that was bad and good at the same time.

For his part, Jayne had been afraid, was still afraid. Fear of the lightning and thunder, abject certainty that heavenly fire would come slamming down on them even in the house, that had always been his failing, long as he could remember. But he’d seen Maeve staring at his parts before she’d made him sit down, had seen her face’s expression, lust there that matched his own. What he’d felt when he’d gone into the cathouse not so very long ago rose up in him doubly strong.

They had a night here together, a whole night just for him and her. He wasn’t going nowhere, she wasn’t going nowhere, and the wetness offa him had soaked through the front of her robe, chilling her breasts, outlining her nipples, melding like a second skin to her belly below. He knew she wanted him, had wanted him last year when they’d had a moment in the shed with the honey he’d paid her. It hadn’t left her, the wanting, he knew it now, had seen it already.

It was a gorram mercy she hadn’t seen the rearing state of his diao, his cod under the swaddled blanket. She’d seen him limp, but she hadn’t yet noticed the enhanced condition he was in now. His raging hard-on was on account of seeing how she looked, how her own body looked to his needful eye and how she looked at him with want after she’d stripped him.

Jayne didn’t want to move too fast, didn't want to spook her so he stood facing the fireplace, blowing on his tea with his blanket-covered back to Maeve. Tea was still too hot to drink so he let the cinnamon heat of it fill his nostrils, bathe his face with the heady aroma. He smiled, remembering that Maeve had smelled of cinnamon the first time he’d been near enough to scent her, that night she’d delivered his mom of the triplets, a year ago and more now.

He turned to find her behind him, about three feet behind him, much too far away for his body’s need of her, but probably for the good, for now at least. Good for going slow, yeah, that was the way of it.

She had been staring at the lower back of him, eyelashes hiding the look in her eyes, but the rest of her face speaking aloud that she liked what she saw.

Maeve saw a man’s form lit through the blanket by the fireplace’s glow. Her hands clenched at her sides with a sudden need to trace the outline of him under the blanket. Instead, she scooped up Red Dwarf and padded barefooted to a chair across from where Jayne stood and she sat down hard, apologizing to the little furbaby for the abrupt action.

Jayne gathered his blanket cloak around him with one hand, tea mug in the other and sat in the chair across from him.

Maeve gestured to the honey bun at his elbow. He put down the cup after taking his first good slightly less hot sip. He murmured appreciatively, then moaned in earnest at his first bite of the soft warm honey-scented baked treat. Three more bites had it finished, and he licked his fingers in joyful satisfaction.

Maeve envied his fingers, shook her head slightly to clear the notion.

Jayne stopped when his mouth began cleaning off his middle finger of sticky sweetness, the same finger the hoochie woman had taken into her own mouth. He wiped it self-consciously on his arm instead, blushing at the memory of what recent events had led him here in the first place.

Maeve cleared her throat, crossed her long legs and asked, “What brings you out on a night like this, Jayne? I heard from Timmie that you’re working at a small ranch way out of town. It’s honorable of you to support your family like that, and I’m proud of you for taking on the man of the house job like that, ‘specially since you’re the only man they’ve got.”

He smiled, thankful for the praise, the first he’d gotten, Maeve being the first to understand what he was about. She was also the first one not to scold him for not staying in school. He’d begun to wonder if he was the only one smart enough to realize there weren’t no way to NOT work without leaving his family to starve. Weren’t no coin to be had in going to school nohow.

She continued, “It’s manfulled you up, Jayne, the work. I can see it in your muscles, and in the way you carry yourself. What’s it like? What do you do out there for days on end?”

Between sips of cinnamon tea, he explained. “It ain’t nothing like farming. It’s messing around with branding, roping and herding. And a little bit of cattle-doctoring thrown in. Even used some of that lip salve you gave me, healed up a brand scar festering on my horse out there. Worked real fine.”

“The horse is alright, Jayne, still tied up there, not near as worried about the storm as he was before.”

Startled that she’d read his thoughts, she seemed to do that often and unerringly well where he was concerned, he started to ask, “How…”

“I saw him outside the kitchen window while I was getting the tea. He’s good,” she bit out hurriedly, almost caught in the lie. She’d actually cast her thoughts out to the horse to check on him a time or two since Jayne had entered the house.

“So, you was on your way to visit the family when the storm hit?”

“No ‘M, not exactly. I was…out with my boss in town for the night, spending some of my paycheck at a gentleman’s club, sort of,” he looked down, but felt the need to tell her as much of it as he could, maybe in an effort to exorcise it from his mind, “And I had to leave sudden-like. Rode the horse hard right into the rainstorm and ended up here.” *** She wisely stayed quiescent, let him say what he wanted, how he wanted in his own time.

Jayne looked up, saw understanding patience in her face and realized he could probably tell her anything. Hell, she’d seen man and woman in every stage of physicalilty in her profession, so what the hell.

“Wood, my boss, knew I hadn’t never been with a woman ‘afore, got me dudded up in new clothes and off we went to the Hot Box,” he looked up at her again, to see if she knew the place was talking about, continued the story upon seeing her slow nod.

“Wood bought me a whiskey, then he went upstairs with some women and I just stood around looking, sort of, and sorta taking it all in. Some pretty girl took my hand, took my finger in her mouth, really, and she…” He stopped, reluctant as a shying horse to say any more.

Maeve made an “uh-huh-ing” murmur of understanding which was just enough for Jayne to finish with, “And she sucked on it and pulled on it and I just kinda….lost it. Lost it right there in front of her and everybody. They all laughed at me, screamed with laughing at it and I ran off.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes, “I just ran off like a weak puling baby, slammed onto the horse and beat it out of town,” his voice caught, snared tight in his throat and he swallowed hard.

Maeve quietly got up, took the few steps to his chair and knelt down in front of him. Taking the trembling cup from his hand, she set it down out of the way and leaned into him between his blanket-covered knees.

She took his handsome square-jawed face in her hands, tilted it up a little, enjoining him to open his eyes and look at her. She held him still until he finally did.

The blue swam in tears that he didn’t quite allow to spill over, manfully holding back, wincing a touch with the effort. Maeve leaned forward and kissed each of his eyes, using the pads of her thumbs to wipe the moisture to the outer edges. She whispered to him then, murmured first and then whispered.

“Jayne, honey, that ain’t nothing but nature. Nothing but natural for it to happen like that. A professional woulda treated you better, Honey, wouldn’t have managed it that way, not put you through that, no way in hell.”

She held him by the ears, gently and went on, “The yin yang ren oughta been horse-whipped for it, and I hope if nothing else, the madam beat her senseless for the loss of your coin, if nothing else. Not to mention that she mighta lost a customer for life. What a gorram fool!”

He smiled then, pulled a hand free of the fleecy cocoon, reaching around and through her hands grasp on his head to wipe another threatening tear from one eye. Her hand left his head then and caught his hand to clasp it along the side of her face.

“Jayne, listen. It don’t have to be that way. No way in hell that it shoulda gone that way for you nor for any young man, not your first time, not ever. Any man, any age coulda had the exact same reaction you did, youth don’t necessarily have nothin’ to do with it, but...”

He encouraged her to go on with a “Yeah?”

“But, I mean to say… are ya sure you wanted to lose your virginity tonight? I mean, I’m speaking as an older sister, like a friend of the family here, are you certain you’re ready for that?”

He groaned deep in his chest at how she phrased the question and shook his head slightly. “No, Maeve, don’t talk like that, not like you’re a kindly family shoulder to cry on. Yer right, I wasn’t ready to do nothin’ there, not at the cathouse nohow, but I’m good and ready. Bet on it, I want to, umm…”

She found herself startled into a jetting rush of het-up and banging lust, as the manchild in front of her scooted forward in his chair, moving his lower body closer up against her where she knelt between his covered legs. She could feel the hardness at his groin pushing into her, intentionally pulsing against her belly through the combined blankets and her damp thin robe.

“Mmmmmm,” the muffled exclamation burst through her tight closed lips involuntarily.

cao ni ma: f_ck your mother (or f_ck their mothers) mai bi: to buy p_ssy chou san ba: bitch zi wei: masturbate gorram: goddamn or gosh darn diao: dick yin yang ren: hermaphrodite

End, Part 6 (but more to come, gorram soon, I promise! And yeah, we're going there in the next part, you betcha!)