Darque Wants (10 page)

“Oh Godddd!” she screamed, as Jaroth clenched her fingers with his, letting her spasm out of control.  Watching her glorious orgasm finally got to him and he watched red-faced as his own body shook hard back and forth, forcing him to come inside of her, filling her up with every last bolt he had in his body. 

He groaned loud and rough, like he’d just been shot in the stomach, and could barely lift her from the counter to the floor with those wobbly arms.  They kissed once last time—hearty and wet, satiated like spring water in the desert. 

Spent and needing a breather, Marionne finally showed the troublemaker to her bedroom.  Looked as good as any Jaroth figured, but he still had the hots for the kitchen. 

“Why do you like the kitchen so much?” Marionne asked with a giggle.  The two lounged on the bed, Jaroth naked and comfy as can be, and Marionne still hot and bothered by her torn blouse which was too shredded to cover anything.

“Dunno.  “Everybody does it in the bedroom.  And I hate when people expect me to do something, you know?  Life should be full of surprises?”

“Such a rebel, aren’t ya?”

“That’s what gets me laid, I hear.”

“Nah.  I don’t go for any of that macho bullshit.”

“Oh really?  You say with my nasty seed still floating around looking for a home?”

“Let’s just say, looks are never underrated in my book.”

“Whaaat?” Jaroth replied with a grin.  “Wait just a damn minute.  Are you telling me that you seduced me?  That you wanted to bump and grind as soon as we met eyes?”

“Why do you think I was playing so shy and hard to get?”

“Ohhhh fuck me,” he said with a pout.  “And here I thought I was Jesse James.  All bad ass.  Only to find out the lady was playing me all along.”

“You’re good, but maybe I’m Calamity Jane.”

They kissed again.

“Naw, the truth is, you were a good thing for me,” Marionne said.  “Been kind of down and out lately.  Nothing wrong with a woman feeling better about herself, right?”

“Damn, what is wrong with these people?  A beautiful woman like you and everybody just ignores her needs?  I oughta horsewhip everyone in town.”

“Well…more like they’re a bit afraid.”

“Pretty lady ain’t nothing to be afraid of.”

“Yeah…but…”  She looked at him in uncertainty.  “But married seems to scare a lot of them away.”

“What?” Jaroth asked, wide-eyed and finally taking a step back from his prize.  “You’re kidding?”

“Well…”

“Played and played,” Jaroth laughed.  “I honestly had no idea.  You didn’t say nothing about it.”

“Well, the truth is they’re all afraid to approach me because I WAS married.  I was a married woman just last week.  But I just lost my husband on Saturday.”

“What the everlasting fuck?” Jaroth said, slithering back away from Marionne in judgment.  “It took you a week to get over him?”

She laughed.  “Yeah, if only women acted like men and could get away with that stuff, right?”  She seemed a bit pensive when describing the old man.  “I honestly don’t know if he’s dead or not.  He could be dead.  Might still be alive.  I sure as hell never saw a body.”

“He’s probably dead?”

“Probably.  Or not.”

“Well…”  Jaroth shifted a little nervously on the bed.  “I mean, what are the odds the man’s going to come home to find me ass naked in his bedroom and seek vengeance with his rifle?  Probably good odds?”

“Probably good odds,” Marionne said, followed by a laugh.  “No, no, don’t stress over it.”

Marionne had a closed lip and apprehensive smile as she confessed the truth.  “Truth is, Mister John Brown isn’t like other guys.  And since he purposely intended to die this time, whether he faked it or really did something stupid, it’s just about high time I stopped letting him get to me.”

“You think he faked his own death?”

“Could have been.  He goes into what you might call depressive moods.  He hibernates a few months, then comes back home.  Broods mostly, talks about all kinds of darkness in his head.  If married life with me is making him so miserable, why worry myself about it?”

“Well…I can’t speak for that.  I just never really heard of a man faking his own death.  Doesn’t sound like a fella with all oars in the water if you know what I mean.  No offense.”

“None taken,” she said, staring up at the ceiling in peace.

“Is he a good man though?” Jaroth said, running his mouth a bit, maybe trying to guilt himself into a state of regret.

“He’s not a great husband.”

“Well I mean…does he cheat?  Does he push you around?”

“Ummm…well, let’s just say he is a violent sort of guy.  But violence to him, well…it’s not like what most men consider violence.”

“Well, if he ever lays a hand on a lady, I’ll set his ass straight,” Jaroth said firmly.

“Now, now…” Marionne said, staring off into space; the only thing scaring her more than a dead husband, a live one.  “Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Jaroth Hudson.”

Marionne bid Jaroth good evening and let the poor boy go, figuring no man good in bed deserved a double sentence of cuddling.  But even more important, was the lingering memory of one John Brown.  Sure, she was pissed at him.  But the worst the old fool was ever going to do was hurt himself. 

She walked over to Eastland to see if John might be in his favorite spot, that goddamned camping spot he always talked about when they discussed a vacation.  John Brown loved the outdoors and anyone who knew him found that out in a minute’s worth of small talk.  She figured if he was still alive then he was probably hiding out near woodlands, as usual, and probably out of town so no one could chase him down.

But she had one conversation left in her, and though John didn’t deserve anything special for being an idiot, she sure did.  She walked through the town at dusk until she found some sign of life.

“Hey,” Marionne yelled to a nearby ranch hand.  “You seen John Brown anywhere around here all week?”

“John Brown?”

“Yeah, you’d know him.  He’s the only guy who walks around talking to the wind and kicking his own hat.”

“Yeah kind of a crazy guy,” the man replied.  “He mentioned something about going to an Indian reservation.  Apparently he’s got Indian in him or something.  Because if a gringo like me tried that, I’d probably get scalped.”

“Probably would,” she said matter-of-factly.  “Okay then, I’ll look for him.”

“The closest one here is probably Barona.  Keep heading out of town till you hit the crossroads.  Be about a dozen signs telling you to stay out.  But maybe they’ll be easier on a lady.”

“Heck, I can charm the jeans off a cowboy.  What can an Indian do to me?”

John Brown didn’t let her get that far, but made his presence known as soon as she passed the unfriendly group of signs.  Thirties and handsome with thick brown hair and brown eyes, John Brown was not a scary-looking man.  He dressed in an open jacket and shorts, always eager to shed his skin and walk as close to naked as possible in natural woodland.  But his face was harsh, stoic and bereft of all human weakness.  When he gritted his teeth, he looked ferocious.  When he frowned he brought a deadly silence to a room. When he laughed or smiled, indeed as rare a sight as that was, he brought energy into a color-deprived go-nowhere-world.  John Brown was less a man than a true force of nature stuck in human form.

“You shouldn’t have come looking for me,” the deep and grumbling voice said to her, seeming to come from above, then below, then behind.

“And when the hell do I ever listen to you, John Brown?”

“Never.  And you’re smarter for it.”

“Jesus.  You really couldn’t tell me?  Your own partner?  You just up and left like a damned five-year-old.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I AM dead.  I don’t want you coming around me no more.  I’m not safe, Marionne.  All those things I promised in our vows, I can’t live up to them.  I’m telling you to go away for your own good.”

“Spare me the brooding act this time, JB.  I don’t care,” she said, raising her voice in spite.  “I’m not crying any more tears for you.  I’m not chasing you down anymore.  I’ve just come to tell you, don’t you dare treat me like an idiot.  I know.  I know everything you do before you do it, okay?”

              “You came all the way out here to tell me that you’re not chasing after me?  Makes sense.”

              “I came to tell you I’m through.  So don’t go waltzing back into your old life, thinking we can pick up where we left off, after you spend a year eating wild berries.   I’m through this time.”

“Sounds fair.”

“And I’m not free anymore either.”

“What?”

“You know what it means.”

“You have a boyfriend?  That was fast.”

“Yeah well, you sure up and died fast, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did.”

“Well then, I’m in
mourning
, asshole.  I’m going to sleep with every guy I meet just to forget about you completely.  I’ll be knee-deep in such bullshit drama that I won’t even think your name.”

“It’s not what you deserve.  It’s not what I want.  But this is the way it has to be.”

John Brown, fighting his own ambivalence, took Marionne’s hands in his own and spoke earnestly.  “You will never hear from me again.  I really mean it, Marionne.  Find happiness.  You deserve someone better than me.”

“I do,” she pouted.  “And all those years together meant nothing!” she said, barely getting through the sentence without choking, and giving John Brown more credit than he deserved right now.

Marionne folded her arms and began walking back to town.  “Don’t come around no more.  Don’t bother my boyfriend either.  You owe me that.”

“I won’t.”

John Brown looked down to the ground in shame.  He couldn’t take his eyes off Marionne, not then, not now, or forever.  “For what it’s worth…”

“It’s not worth anything, JB,” she said quickly.

“I never stopped loving you.”

“Like I don’t know that!” she said, fighting tears and gritting her teeth.

Jaroth fell head over heels for Marionne pretty quickly.  It wasn’t every day a woman he just met took him to bed, after all, and women that pretty usually had a whole lot of drama going on in their lives.  With Marionne, he always wondered, “What’s the catch?  How did I end up with a looker like her?”

Well, Jaroth figured, Marionne may have a possibly-alive husband somewhere, but that’s still better than dating one of those drama queens from Houston. 

Jaroth wasn’t a violent man particularly, able to hold his own, but most of his gruff was show for the ladies.  He was the type of guy who didn’t even hunt, because killing a beautiful animal just didn’t seem like the thrill sport everyone claimed it was. 

Knowing that, it’s fairly understandable why Jaroth became spooked while camping in East Texas the next weekend.

He barely opened his eyes and crawled out of his tent, still feeling nervous from a particularly gruesome nightmare.  “Anyone out here?  Best you tell me now or else we’ll have a problem, hombre,” he said, having sworn he heard some rustling.

Shirtless and in jeans with no weapon to speak of, his rough voice was all he had to ward off an intruder. 

“You hear me, boy?  Come on out and show yourself.  I ain’t going to hurt you.”

He shook his head, shaking off the sleepy and waited a long moment, hands on his hips and trying to wake up to the early morning sky.

Just as he turned his head left he saw the damndest thing: a huge black bear, staring holes through him with those huge eyes, and showing his chompers. 

“Holeeeeee…”  His body went into panic, but he stayed perfectly still.  Wide-eyed and panting, he tried to remain calm.  He stared into the bear’s eyes but the animal seemed provoked.  It took a step forward, and Jaroth sprung a step back—but still trying not to cower and show fear.  Fear, definitely the only thing going through his head.

Since when are bears in Texas?
he thought, feeling his stomach rise into his throat. 

The bear didn’t seem curious, bored or concerned—it seemed downright pissed and looked as if it was about to tear him limb from limb over a personal vendetta.  This was the meanest bear he had ever seen in his life, and that included that Timothy Treadwell documentary, since this bear’s eyes were mad. 

The bear roared, right before lunging towards Jaroth.  But the fierce creature landed inside his tent, tearing and bending the roof every which way, giving Jaroth a running head start out of town.  Jaroth ran like the wind, despite the bear roaring in protest and crumbling the tent to shreds.

Jaroth finally felt safe and stopped running when he reached Marionne’s house.  Still bare-chested and heaving, he could barely speak when he saw her.

“Wow,” Marionne said, raising her eyebrows.  “You are just never satisfied, Mister Sexy.”

“Not funny…bear…chasing me.”

“What?!”

“A bear!  A bear, Marionne!  A freaking bear.  I was camping out in Taluka and out of nowhere a bear comes up to me.  I was one second away from death!”