I paid off Aaron in three sessions, each a week apart. At the end of the last session, while he was still hard inside me, he asked if he could take me out to dinner. I laughed and told him I’d love to, but I didn’t need a boyfriend and I wasn’t looking for a husband. I needed a job. A steady income.
He proposed something that at first struck me as insane. No. Insulting. My mouth was open to refuse in the most blistering way when it struck me. I’d already been doing what he was suggesting and I hadn’t been bothered by it.
He offered to pay me for my time.
Twice the hourly wage he charged for plumbing. That was a whole lot more than I was making at Feldon’s and buckets more than I made giving children, who didn’t practice, piano lessons. I agreed and we set up the terms. He would come to me every Tuesday at four-thirty in the afternoon. He winked and called it his piano lesson.
My Tuesday afternoons with Aaron helped my finances a good deal, but I was still coming up short. The property taxes on the house were due soon and I didn’t have the money. If I didn’t pay, I’d lose my home. I mentioned my problem to Aaron one afternoon when he caught me staring off into space.
“My husband didn’t pay them last year and I owe for this year,” I told Aaron. “I could lose the house.”
“If I had it to give to you, I would,” he said in earnest.
I believed him. He was a good man, a ferocious lover, and a solid presence in my life that I’d come to rely on.
“Maybe you could give piano lessons to others like me.” His voice was low and cautious, his gaze downcast as he played with a strand of my hair. “Not sure I’d like sharing you though.”
I considered his notion. Our arrangement was special. I wasn’t sure how I’d even go about doing what he suggested.
“I know a fella,” he continued in the same careful manner. “The brother of a friend. Broken like me. Almost died fighting for our country. Been real down. Maybe you could do for him what you’ve done for me. He could more than afford you.”
And that was how I came to meet Jack.
He knocked on my door a week later on Wednesday morning at nine AM sharp. I didn’t know what Aaron had told him about our arrangement or what Jack expected from me, but he looked at me with defiance and anger in his eyes, daring me to make a comment.
Jack was broken all right. He was about my age, maybe a little younger, and styled his hair like Errol Flynn’s, letting a lock of it fall forward. On Errol it was rakish and dashing. On Jack it was meant to try to camouflage his eye patch. He balanced on one leg with a crutch tucked up under one arm. His good arm. The limbs on his left side were missing. He wasn’t scarred like Aaron, but it was clear he’d been very terribly wounded.
“I’m here for my piano lesson.” He rolled his eyes at the euphemism Aaron had come up with for what would seem to be my new occupation.
The cut of Jack’s jaw and the shape of his mouth reminded me a bit of my Johnny. I melted at the sight of him, which he appeared to take for pity.
“What are you staring at?” he sneered.
“You.” I tentatively reached out to smooth the lock of blond hair off his patch.
He jerked back and nearly tumbled down the steps before regaining his balance. “What are you doing?”
“Seeing if your hair feels as soft as it looks.”
“I don’t want your sympathy. I came here for a fuck.” He pushed past me into the house, knocking me into the doorjamb.
I shouldn’t have been shocked at his language. He was only telling the truth. But the base crudeness of his words struck a chord deep within me, bringing the sharp pang of shame. I knew I was prostituting myself to him, but he didn’t need to make me feel like a whore.
I followed him down the hall to the bedroom, my cheeks hot and tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I found him in the process of stripping off his shirt.
“Put your shirt back on and get out of my house.”
He blinked at me in surprise. “I’m here for a piano lesson,” he annunciated as though I was dim, then shoved his hand in his front pocket and pulled out a stack of bills and waved them at me. “I have money.”
“I know what you’re here for. If your way of doing this is to insult me in the cruelest manner possible, then get out. I don’t want or need money from someone who hurts others to make himself feel better.”
His laugh was bitter and filled with irony. “Honey, if it’s flowers and sweet talk you want, I’m not your man.”
“Politeness and decorum go a lot further than flowers.”
“I’m sorry.” His gaze dropped to the floor and he sounded genuinely remorseful. “I don’t like being touched.”
“That’s going to make what we propose to do rather difficult then, don’t you think?”
A corner of his mouth twisted up into a wry grin. “I suppose so.”
“Shall we start over?”
He nodded, looking rather chagrined, and stuffed his money back into his pocket.
I held out my hand. “Hello. I’m Ruby Rose.”
“Hello, Ruby Rose.” He took my hand. “I’m Jack.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jack. Please, call me Ruby.”
“Can I ask why a pretty lady like you would have to resort to something like…” He gestured toward the bed. “This?”
“No. You may not. That’s a very rude and impertinent question.”
“I’d’ve thought it was a perfectly appropriate question in light of what we intend to do.”
I sighed. He was rough around the edges, but he was cute and there was something well-meaning in his question.
“Why would any woman do what we’re proposing to do?”
“Hey, I get it. I’m not in much of a position to judge considering I’m paying for your time. I guess my real question is why—even for the money—would you want to be with me? I’m not exactly throwing off female advances.”
I took a measured step closer, wondering if he realized our hands were still clasped. “I think you’re very dashing actually.” Raising my hand slowly, I swept aside his lock of hair. “Like Errol Flynn.” I lowered my hand to his shoulder and moved closer. “I was right.”
He watched me with a wary look on his face. “About what?”
“Your hair is as soft as it looks.”
His laugh held no mirth. “You’re good. Very good. I almost believed…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
I leaned closer, focusing my attention on his mouth and those lips that reminded me so much of my Johnny’s. “Believe, Jack.”
He didn’t back away when our lips met. His mouth gave under mine and he tilted his head, taking the kiss deeper and tangling his tongue with mine. He wasn’t as skilled as my Johnny had been, or as rough yet tender as Aaron. There was sorrow in his kiss, but there was hope too. It tasted like honey, melting on my tongue.
I sifted my fingers through the baby-soft hair at his nape. He groaned into my mouth and became more urgent, more demanding.
His arm banded around me. I don’t know if it was for support or so that I could feel his member hard and insistent between us. Maybe it was both. I worked open the buttons of his shirt. It was of a finer material than Aaron’s, but then Jack wasn’t a workingman like Aaron. Not because of his injuries, no. This man came from nice things and gentile manners. The war had worn the shine off of him and left him pitted and chipped. He didn’t fit in my new world and I got the feeling he no longer fit in the world he came from before the war.
Had I not married my Johnny and run off with him, my father might’ve introduced me to a man just like Jack with matrimony in mind.
Jack grew frustrated in my embrace and pulled away with a curse. He overbalanced and fell onto the bed sideways. His crutch clattered to the floor.
“This isn’t going to work,” he growled. “It was a stupid idea.”
He started to reach for his crutch, but I shoved him onto his back. “This works better on the bed.” I hiked up my skirt and straddled him, then started to undo the buttons that ran down the front of my dress.
He watched, his eye wide and focused on the progress my hands made. Beneath me, his member grew harder. I tilted my pelvis, rubbing against him. He let out a low, hungry sound, his fingers digging into my thigh. I let the garment gap open as it would. I didn’t have the money for fancy underclothing so I’d taken some notions I had found at the five and dime and sewed them to my brazier and underpants. Aaron had approved, but now I worried that my efforts would seem cheap to Jack. He came from a world of silk and lace—French lingerie, not basic white cotton with stitched-on, inexpensive lace.
I pushed my dress off my shoulders and let it fall. Jack licked his lips, his gaze darting between my breasts and where I straddled him. I unhooked my brazier and tossed it aside. I wasn’t well endowed. My breasts were a little on the small side and out of proportion for how wide my hips were. My Johnny had always said that more than a handful was a waste anyway, and Aaron hadn’t said anything at all about them, just looked hungrily at them right before he worshiped them with his mouth.
I cupped my meager breasts and pinched my nipples, moaning as though I was enjoying it. I’d done this once before for Aaron, trying to play the coquette. It had worked, and it looked as though it was working for Jack too. He flexed his hips up into me, hitting that sensitive spot. I really did enjoy myself then. Rocking against his stiffened member, I rolled my nipples harder between my fingers and thumbs. The sensations built and I was close to my pleasure when Jack let out a strangled cry and bucked under me.
His face flushed red from his collar to his hairline. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.” He looked down to the placket of his trousers, where a telltale wet spot bloomed.
I gave him a delighted grin and went to work undoing his trousers. He tried to wave me off, but I captured his hand and put it on my breast.
“Let me taste you,” I told him.
He didn’t try to stop me after that, but he wouldn’t look at me either. Especially after I got him naked from the waist down. His one socked leg hung limply over the side of the bed. My movements had dislodged his hand and he now looked away from me, his gaze fixed somewhere on the other side of the room. He didn’t have a prosthetic leg like Aaron. His exposed mid-thigh stump had bright red scars that would eventually fade to pink.
I placed the flat of my palms on his thighs, avoiding his injury, and slid them up to clasp his fading member in both hands.
He lurched upward at my first lick. I was too busy sucking him clean to see, but I knew he watched me. I could feel his gaze on the top of my head. It tingled, tiny pinpricks of knowing sensation. Being young, he quickly rebounded, growing hard once again. He touched the top of my head, drawing my attention.
“I want…” He cleared his throat. “I want to be inside you next time.” His timid voice sounded nothing like the Jack who had crudely insisted he was only here for a fuck. Nor did the vulnerable look on his face. This was the real Jack, and he looked nothing like the man who’d waved cash at me, all but calling me a whore.
I climbed off of him and hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my underpants. Giving him a flirty over-the-shoulder look, I took my time drawing them down my hips, bending to keep them from falling to the floor.
Coming up on his elbow, he whistled. “You’re a real-life pinup, you know that?”
I wasn’t, but I wiggled my bottom suggestively at him, then turned to present myself to him fully nude. His gaze roamed my body. He looked younger than when he’d stormed past me into the house, more handsome.
“You’re really beautiful.” His tone was soft, like the look in his eye.
I climbed on top of him and helped him out of his shirt. Lying down on him, I covered his body with mine. I knew he needed this skin-on-skin connection the same way Aaron had needed it.
Aaron spoke often of having only been touched by doctors and nurses in only the most practical and professional ways since his accident. Until he and I were together that first time, he said he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that basic human connection and had been overwhelmed with the realization that he’d stopped thinking of himself as a human being. All he’d been was a patient, not a man.
So I gave the same to Jack, stroking and kissing as much of his bare skin as I could reach. I spent a long time just touching him and connecting with him. Tears leaked out of his eye in a never-ending river. His mouth never stopped moving, murmuring praise and at other times incoherent nonsense. He gave me unfettered access to his body. I kissed his scars and stroked his skin. Besides the patch over his eye and his missing leg, his arm had been amputated just above the elbow and he had a long, thin gash that ran from his rib cage to the opposite hip.
Where Aaron was dark and swarthy, Jack was blond and bright, as though he’d been sprinkled with glitter dust. The room wasn’t overly warm, but a fine sheen of sweat made his body glisten, giving off an earthy masculine scent that pooled moisture between my legs. He was an active participant in our lovemaking. It amazed me what he could do to me with only one hand and the little experience I’d rightly guessed he possessed.
I grew needy and desperate from wanting him. When I finally rose over him and sank down onto his member, he let out a deep, strangled sigh that said finally.
Yes, finally.
He filled me completely. I rode him, rocking my hips to grind against him. My breasts bounced as I drove up and down on him. The scent of our sex filled the room. He thrust his hips up to meet mine. His breathing grew ragged and I knew he was close so I stroked myself between my legs. Throwing his head back, he drove deep into me and cried out, his fingers digging into my hip.
My climax hit with the force of a bomb. A long low moan ripped through me. I collapsed beside him. Our breath mingled as we gazed at each other. There was so much emotion in his expression that I had to swallow to hold back the feelings he might mistake for pity. I didn’t feel at all sorry for this man, this brave, strong warrior. Only joy and a new tender connection that I hoped we could build on. He was good inside, despite all the bad that had happened to him.
I smoothed his sweet lock of hair back and smiled at him. For the first time I got to see a glimpse of what he might have been like before the war.
“I think I love you,” he whispered, tears making his eye shine.
“I think I might love you too.”
“Marry me?”
I giggled and gave him a hard kiss. “If only I’d met you before my Johnny. I might’ve taken you up on your offer.”
His brows drew together. “You’re married?”
“No, no, not anymore.” I told him all about my Johnny and how I loved him so much I would never marry again.
Sadness crept over Jack’s face for a moment and then he gave a brief shake of his head, dislodging it. In its place was a wicked smile.
“I can have you whenever I want then? This doesn’t ever have to end?”
“It’s up to you when our arrangement ends. You can come to me as often as you’d like.”
“As often as I can afford, you mean.” I couldn’t read his expression.
“It’s all I have to give,” I said sadly.
“Then it will have to be enough.”
He pushed off the bed with his remaining arm and leg, rolling us so that he was on top. His member still inside me, he thrust deep. It took him some time to get the movements down and coordinate his two remaining limbs to do what he used to do with four. Soon he was dripping with sweat and close to climax. I clung to him, my own desire a living, breathing, demanding beast. Rolling his hips, he hit my pleasure spot with every lunge. He focused on my face, his gaze cataloging my expressions as though they were math problems he had to memorize and recite back.
He was still weak in his recovery, but he championed on, giving me a glimpse of the old him before his injuries. He struggled to keep up the pace and I knew he was waiting for me to take my pleasure before he’d take his own. That knowledge sent me tumbling over the edge. His seed poured into me soon after and he collapsed midway, unable to keep himself over me a second longer.
I smoothed his hair back, my heart twisting at the sight of his lips turned up in a small smile. His eye was closed, his face relaxed, which gave me even more pleasure than the physical act we’d shared.
He drifted off to sleep almost immediately. I slipped out from under him and covered him with the bed sheet. In the mid-morning sun he looked so sweet and peaceful I didn’t dare disturb him. He slept until it was nearly nightfall. I fed him and then took him to bed again.
When I woke in the morning, he was gone. On my nightstand was more money than we’d agreed to and a note that said he’d come ’round the same time next week.
Jack would prove to be a most faithful and ardent student.