Sexuality Lost & Found

"No, I don't think so. Not tonight anyway. I - I have to be going."

Jake cleaned up the bar at two, and wondered about Sharon. For a minute, it seemed as if she was going to loosen up and talk, but she pulled back inside herself as soon as she started enjoying things. Something was going on inside that pretty little head, and he didn't think she liked it much.

At the Lakeside Court, Sharon stared at her face in the bathroom mirror. What's the matter with me? The bartender seems like a nice guy, and he wanted to get to know me. Just when we get started, I get scared and leave. It isn't like I had to sleep with him; I could have just stayed and talked.

Sharon let the robe fall open. The scar was nearly invisible. Doctor Chin had done an expert job of preventing any major scar formation, but he couldn't keep the scars from forming in her mind. Sharon knew she had to eliminate those scars before she could go on with life. She touched the flat side of her chest. The sensations were there, different from the sensations of a touch to her breast, but the feeling was no longer painful. Her hand caressed the underside of her breast and then found the nipple. Sharon closed her eyes and imagined the hand belonged to Jake. If she could just find the courage to talk with him, maybe this tall man with shoulder-length, wavy hair would find her attractive. Maybe..., damn, had she come to this? Was she really looking to discover herself again, or did she just want to be fucked? After feeling the stares at the beach, and after Jake, she wasn't sure anymore. Sharon dropped the robe from her shoulders, turned off the light, and slipped into bed. She would find out tomorrow night, even if it meant using a little liquid courage to keep her from running away from the answer.

Wednesday was a night off, but Jake dropped by Gibbey's about ten anyway. She was sitting on that same stool. The white shorts did wonders for her tight bottom, and he sat down on the stool beside her.

"Hi there, Sharon. How you doin'."

"I'm lonely. I thought you'd be behind the bar tonight."

"Sorry. Tonight's my night off. So, you having any fun?"

"I'm trying."

She held up her glass. Jimmy, the other bartender, liked to put two cherries in his rum punch, and there they were.

"You need to be careful there. Jimmy makes a mean drink, and he likes to give the ladies a little something extra. He thinks if they get drunk enough, they'll give him a little extra too."

"Like a bigger tip?"

"Yeah, something like that. Just don't let him take you home."

"Don't worry, er...Jake, it was Jake, wasn't it? I'm a big girl. I can hold my liquor and take care of myself."

She bought him a beer, and Jake felt obliged to buy the second round. He didn't know why she was drinking tonight, but Sharon was sucking on the straw like this one was water. He excused himself to go to the can, and Karen caught his arm as he walked by her booth. It took five minutes to explain that he barely knew the pretty brunette and that she wasn't his girl. Sharon's drink was gone by the time he returned. She could barely stay on the stool and he had to catch her when she leaned in his direction.

"Whoa there, you're going to fall flat on your face. How many of these have you had?"

"I dunno. Lemme count." Sharon ticked of the numbers on her fingers. Thiz my, one...two...three...four..., my fiveth one. Oops, I mean my fiff - , oh hell, you know wha' I mean. Jimmy makes re-e-e-e-ally, really, really, goo'drinks."

"And I'd say four is about your limit."

"Oh hell, I drunk more'n thiz at t' Christmas party las' year."

"Yeah, well, they weren't Jimmy's rum punches. We better get you home before you fall down."

"Hey! I'll be OK. Jus' don' step on my hands on yer way out." She giggled at her own joke.

Dave winked at him as he helped her through the door. Jake smiled back and waved at him with an extended middle finger.

"My car's ou' here somewhere. Iz a boomer, I mean a bimmer, I mean...oh, fuck. Here'z the keys."

"I think we'll take my car, if you don't mind."

Jake poured her into the passenger seat and she stretched sensuously as he shut the door. Just as he started the engine, Sharon sagged sideways and hit her head on the window.

"Sharon, are you OK."

"Yep, OK over here. You OK over there?" She was rubbing her head.

"Yes. Now where are you staying."

"That li'l place wis all the trees. Iz right by the road."

Jake could see this was going nowhere. "Give me your room key."

Sharon was asleep by the time he parked the car. Waking her up was tough, but Jake didn't want to carry her up the steps. She opened her eyes, threw her arms around his neck and tried to smother him with her mouth.

"Mffft..., Sharon, you're drunk, and you don't know what you're doing. Now let's get you to bed."

"I know wha' I'm doin' an' thank you, I'd love to."

The steps were a struggle because she kept trying to inhale his face, but they finally made it. Getting through the door took a lot of coordination on Jake's part; Sharon didn't have any coordination left. He walked her to the bed and sat her down. She immediately laid back and gave him a drunken, "come here and fuck me" look. When Jake didn't move, she oozed off the edge, tried to stand up, and then grabbed her stomach.

"Oh, God. I'm gonna puke."

Worshipping the great white throne was no fun, and Jake felt for her. He'd have to talk to Jimmy about the pure grain alcohol he'd used in her drinks. After the first productive cleansing efforts, the dry heaves took over, and Sharon was shaking like a leaf when he finally got her to her feet and back in the bed. She was passed out cold by the time Jake pulled the blanket up to her chin. He wrote a note telling her that her car was still at the restaurant, said he'd pick her up to get it if she wanted, and left his phone number.

Jake's phone rang at eleven the next morning. The voice that answered his "Hello" tried to sound casual, but the words came slowly and carefully as if every word was an effort.

"Jake?"

"Yes, this is Jake."

"This is Sharon, from last night."

"Hi, Sharon. How you doing?"

"You really don't wanna know.... Your note said you'd take me to get my car?"

"It'll only take me about twenty minutes to get there."

She answered the third knock, and if he hadn't seen her the night before, he would have laughed. Her brown hair was wadded into a topknot, and the eyes that looked at him were full of tiny red lines. She was dressed in clean clothes, but the blouse buttons were one hole off, and the tail was hanging out of her jean shorts. Her bare legs were as white as a perch belly, and she flop-flopped out the door in loose sandals. When the sunshine hit her, she fumbled in her purse, produced a pair of sunglasses, and stabbed herself in the eye in her haste to get them on.

"I take it you're a little under the weather this morning?"

"What the hell did I drink last night? I haven't been this hungover since college."

"Jimmy's rum punch, and I tried to warn you."

"If the elephants pounding my head and stomping my stomach ever quit, I'll try to remember to thank you."

She was quiet for the next couple of miles, and had that same far away look that he'd seen the first night.

"Jake, what did I do last night?"

"You got smashed at the bar, and I took you home. You spent some quality time hugging the toilet bowl, and then you passed out. That's all."

"No, I mean...did we do anything?"

"You don't remember? Damn, you really were drunk. You were yelling your head off, and that was just from the foreplay."

"I was not. I'd remember that..., I think."

"Nothing happened."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

Jake pulled the car into the restaurant parking lot, and turned to face her.

"I'm not in the habit of taking advantage of drunk women. If you'd been sober, and invited me to your cabin, things might have been different, but I just put you on the bed, covered you up, and left. Satisfied?"

"Yeah, if we had, you wouldn't have left me the note. You probably would have gone out of your way to never see me again."

"Why, if I may ask, would you think that. You're a little frazzled looking this morning, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with you last night."

"I just want this headache to go away."

Jake shrugged off the dodge to his question.

"If you'll come inside, I'll fix up something that might help. It always worked for me."

She watched as Jake poured the tall glass full of bloody mary mix, added a teaspoon of sugar, and some lemon juice. He covered the surface with a layer of black pepper, and then stirred it vigorously.

"They haven't brought the celery yet, so you'll have to take it without veggies."

"You really expect me to drink that, don't you?"

"You'll be surprised, I promise."

Sharon tipped the glass and took a sip. "I guess it's not all that bad." She tipped the glass again and swallowed twice.

"I thought bartenders didn't drink."

"I don't drink that much anymore."

"You said this crap always worked for you."

"It did. A lot of years ago, I tried to hide in a bottle of bourbon. It didn't work, so I stopped."

"And now I get the AA success story, I suppose."

"Nope, never went there; I wasn't an alcoholic. I knew exactly what I was doing. It just didn't help, and I got tired of feeling like crap every morning, so I quit."

"You're not going to tell me why, are you?"

"You wouldn't understand. Anyway, I'm over it now, for the most part."

Sharon took another big drink.

"I don't know if it's this stuff, or what, but I'm feeling hungry. I owe you for last night; how 'bout if I buy lunch?"

"OK, but you better fix that blouse first. It's not too bad, considering how you must have felt this morning, but it's a little tacky."

The teenage waitress sat the baskets of chicken fingers and fries on the table and asked if they wanted anything else. Sharon bit into the slender piece of batter encrusted chicken breast, closed her lips around it, and said "mmmmmmm".

"So, what does Sharon do when she's not passing out in southwest Michigan?"

"I'm in the commodity market, you know, pork bellies and stuff like that. I buy corn and soybeans for a milling company. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it?"

"It's probably as exciting as most jobs are. How come you're over here in the middle of the week?"

"Oh, I needed to get away and relax, so I drove over on Sunday. I'm going to stay a week or two and sit on the beach. I just needed to get away from the stress."

Sharon knew she didn't lie very well, and was relieved when he asked the waitress to bring some coffee. She added two packets of sugar and three of creamer before taking the first sip. This conversation needed to turn away from her reason for this mid-week stay away from home.

"So, why did you "hide in a bottle" as you put it?"

"Oh..., well, right after I got out of college - "

"What'd you get your degree in?"

Jake smiled. "English. I was going to be the next great American novelist."

"So why are you tending bar instead of writing?"

"Uncle Sam thought I'd be more useful walking through Vietnam with a rifle than sitting at a typewriter in Southern Indiana."

"OK, you went off and played soldier. What happened after that? You could be writing now."

Sharon saw the flash of anger in his eyes when he spoke.

"I think it's time to go get your car."

"Jake, I'm sorry. I've upset you with something I just said. I didn't mean to."

"I'm all right. It's just that..., I didn't play soldier anymore than you play on the markets. I was dead serious and scared every time I walked into the treeline. It was either be dead serious or be dead, so there wasn't much choice. It just pisses me off when people say things like that."

"Well, now that I've pissed you off, I'd like to do something to apologize. Would you have dinner with me, my treat again? You can pick me up at seven."

They sat in a booth in back of the "Captain's Cabin". The decor of old dock timbers and netting was fake, but there was nothing fake about the perch fillets. Sharon pushed her plate back and sighed. "It's going to take about two weeks at the gym to work off everything I've had to eat and drink since I got here, but I feel really great."

"Yeah, I eat here a lot when I'm not working. I like Italian, but it gets old when you have it five nights a week."

"So, what should we do now? It's still early, but I don't think I want anything to drink tonight, and especially not if Jimmy's mixing the drinks." Sharon giggled. "You must take lots of women home when their drunk."

Jake raised his eyebrows, and she blushed.

"I mean, if they get too drunk to drive, you probably have to take them home, don't you."

"Usually I just call them a cab."

"So why me? You could have called a cab for me too."

"I don't know. You just seemed to need help, and I decided to help you. That's all."

"Well how about helping me out of here. I'm too full to get up by myself."

Jake drove quietly for a few minutes, and thought about the woman beside him. He was attracted to her, but whether because he felt sorry for her or because he really liked her, was a question he had yet to answer. She made him feel at ease, and he didn't want to take her home yet.

"Sharon, there's a full moon tonight. Would you like to go for a walk?"

The surf lapped quietly at the sand and the crickets chirped noisily as they walked along the shore. Both were lost in the serenity of the inland sea and in the questions that floated unspoken and unanswered in their minds.

"Jake?"

"Yes."

"Was Vietnam why you drank? I've heard that some of you guys had problems when you came back."

"In a way, I guess, but it wasn't what happened over there. It was what happened when I got back."

Sharon slipped her arm under his. "Would you tell me?"

"I landed at O'Hare, and it was like I landed in a foreign country. Protesters were standing outside the airport yelling I'd killed women and babies. Then I got home, and I didn't know anybody. My old friends had all changed and I didn't like them anymore. My girlfriend decided I was much too serious for her, and took off with another guy. Dad and his buddies thought I'd spent the tour smoking pot instead of fighting a real war like they did. I felt like I was alone, and finally decided I liked it that way. All I needed was something to help me get to sleep. I slept a lot, that first six months, before I realized I was the one who'd changed. I quit drinking, and started tending bar. I've been doing it ever since."

"And why didn't you start writing?"

"You can only write about what you know and feel comfortable with, and I really didn't want to remember anything about that year. After a while, I just forgot about it altogether. Actually, I'm pretty happy with my life, even though it didn't turn out like I'd planned. I like my job, and I like the people."

Sharon felt the tentative touch of his hand as it searched for hers.

"Some of the people I like better than others."

Sharon stopped and turned to face him. Her eyes stared into his for a second before she raised on her toes to kiss him. She felt his arms wrap her into a tight embrace as he kissed back, and the long missed and almost forgotten tingle of sensation raced through her body. The kiss wasn't long, but it was enough to convince her that at least one man still found her desirable.

"It isn't often that women kiss me before I kiss them."

"Uh, I sort of got carried away, I guess."

"I didn't say it was bad; I just said it doesn't happen often."

"So..., what do we do now?"

"Well, for starters, I think I'll kiss you again."

Jake enveloped her in his arms and pulled her to his chest as his lips found hers. Sharon had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be cradled against a man, and sighed against his mouth.. She opened her lips at the tickle of his tongue, and moaned when the soft teasing tip met her own. In moments, she had lost all sense of propriety, and tried to crush herself into Jake's body.

Sharon abandoned the seatbelt to lean on his shoulder as they drove to her cabin. She needed this man's touch and his affection for her. If only he could see her as a woman after...her insecurity returned, and she bit her lip to keep from crying. Only the tear that trickled down her cheek would have betrayed her feelings, but in the dark, Jake couldn't see the shining droplet of fear.

Jake opened the door with her key, and they stepped inside. Sharon reached for the light switch, but he stopped her. He kissed her again, then picked her up and crossed the room. As she lay on her back, she felt his weight settle beside her. A hand gently caressed her thigh and then slipped over the leg of her shorts. The hand slipped under her blouse and began tracing a fingertip over her belly. Sharon instinctively placed her arm under her breast and blocked any movement toward her bra.

Jake didn't try to force her. He wanted her to accept him on her own terms. He slipped his hand down and stroked her smooth inner thigh as he kissed her again. His fingertip eased under the loose leg of the shorts and lightly brushed the soft hair. Sharon's kiss told him she was enjoying his touch.

He found her zipper and eased it down, then fumbled with the button. Once it released, Jake slipped his hand inside to her satin clad lower belly. He found the scrunchy area of her curls and lightly stroked her mound before moving lower. Sharon obliged by opening her thighs. The separation of her lips was the next site of his caress, and Jake lavished the small crease with gentle strokes that became firmer as she reacted.

When the caresses stopped, Sharon opened her eyes. Jake was kneeling beside her and looking into her eyes. In the moonlight that shone through the window, she saw his hands go to her shorts and his questioning look. Her response was to smile back as she lifted her hips from the mattress. She didn't want to stop him, and couldn't have mustered the will even if she had. Jake slid the garment off her legs and then lifted the waistband of her thong. Again, Sharon raised, and the wisp of fabric fell on the floor. Soon, Jake lay again at her side, but this time, no clothing separated his shaft from her thigh.

His touch was exquisite against skin deprived of touch for so many months. When his fingertips slipped down the soft lips swelling with passion, Sharon caught her breath. Jake's touch released her mind from the fears of rejection that had tortured her for so long, and she abandoned herself to the feelings swelling inside her. She pulled him to her and kissed him as she had kissed only one other man, and Jake's response turned her belly to molten desire.

Jake was in awe at the ease with which he was exciting Sharon. It was as if any touch caused waves of sensation to course through her body. Her kisses inhaled him and surged to his loins in a pounding of blood and a throbbing in his erect manhood. He had first feared she might reject his advances, but now feared he might disappoint her. Almost before he was ready, Sharon spread her thighs wide, and pulled him between them. Her hand closed around his shaft and gently pulled him to the portal. She slid the head between her soft lips, wetting it with the moisture that glistened in the moonlight, and then pulled him forward. When he slipped through the velvet clasp, it was Jake who groaned. He tried to go slowly, but Sharon thrust her body up and drove him inside her. He pulled back, and gently pushed in again. His careful control was demolished by her moan and the heave that buried him deep in her belly.

"Oh God, Jake. I need you."

Sharon felt his stiff manhood slowly moving in and out of her passage, and waves of excitement and expectation raced over her skin. Making love had always been nice with Jim, but this was more than making love. This was liberation from uncertainty and fear, and she selfishly allowed herself to float in the reverie of the moment. Her body freed itself from her mind except for the connecting nerve threads that fed the growing need for release with surges of sexual sensation. Her left arm stayed firmly placed to guard her secret, but the other tangled in Jake's hair and pulled him to her lips.. Her tongue sought every niche of his mouth and every texture of his tongue. The feeling of his hard thighs brushing against her satin skin, and the incredible sensation when his cock pushed into her belly forced her to thrust until his balls tightly pressed against her hips. At this instant, her swollen button would brush against the base of his shaft, and a lightning flash of flame would scald through her belly and consume her with the heat of lust. Sharon craved this searing sensation and began to urge Jake to increase his speed.