Do You Still Hold Me

Do You Still Hold Me In Your Heart?

It was that dream.

It was always that dream.

Every morning – that dream...or was it just a memory?

God I loved fucking Jolene in the morning. The sun streaming in would light her hair on fire –a golden glow surrounding auburn tresses. Her hair would be flat here, full there, a riot of individuality...you knew Jolene by her hair; wild, free, exciting – take your breath away sexy, beautiful or controlled, pulled back intense...prowling. (She pulled it back into a tight bun once...that memory alone makes me tremble.)

The palest green eyes - scary with flames dancing through them when her blood was up or she was pissed. Intoxicatingly alluring when her lust was on – God she could get me to do any damn thing she wanted – anything...damn that woman.

I liked her eyes best in the morning when they were heavy lidded and soft...when she was soft...and warm...and yielding. She was drier in the morning, hotter too – internally I mean. At night she'd get real wet and wild, fucking Jolene after the sun went down seemed to be as much a contest, or a battle, as a coupling. At night she was demanding, insistent – she knew what she wanted (hell she knew what I wanted too) and she got it...more often then not.

But damn, in the morning, pretty much every morning...man, that was the best. Sometimes she'd just throw a leg over me all casual-like, reach down between her legs take hold of old Howard (Ok, let me explain – I met Jolene at a bar across the street from a Howard Johnson's. I was pretty drunk at the time and kept slurring her name from Jo –lene to Joel – lene, finally she said "Jo like Ho Jo, ya know, across the street." I told her I did know and escorted right across the street to the front desk, got a room. We just about broke the bed until check-out the next day. So she named my johnson "Howard" – well Howard when erect, Howie when she wanted to play "Can Howie come out and play?" or play some more "I think Howie's napped long enough." And once, just once, when I'd drank to excess "How" as "How is that supposed to help me?" I never got that drunk again.) and slide down on top of him.

I was foolish enough that first-time together to think that it was just a one night stand. I had a full piss hard on that morning and she used it with relish to get off twice. I can't come like that in the morning, which didn't seem to concern her one bit. She just laughed and said that every time I took a piss that day I'd be smelling her. Then she kind of laser-beamed me with those eyes of hers and said that if I were to drop by her place after work and her smell was still on me, she'd be inclined to freshen it up – as long as it was always her smell. Which was how this old tomcat became famously monogamous for the first time in my life – damn that woman.

Sometimes though in the morning I'd get my AM piss taken care of and then slide back into bed. I'd either spoon her and take her from the rear (this was fraught with a certain amount of danger in that, old Howard would tend to rub a spot in Jolene that turned her on tremendously, only her arousal would be delayed for about an hour or so. I'd be getting settled in at work and get a call from some lust crazed cum banshee screaming at me and telling me just was going to happen to me that night. The more calls I got during the day, the greater my service required at night – I always felt it was for the greater good.) Or I'd crawl between her thighs and plow her good and proper.

We were made for each other. We were exclusive to each other. Except once, I guess. I had done the spoon thing to her in the morning, for a long time, and I must have gotten close to a dozen lust crazed cum banshee calls throughout the day. I was walking with a steel pipe in my jeans all fucking daylong. I usually got home between 5:30 and 6:15. She kept reminding me not to be late a she had some old college roommates coming by around 7 and she wanted to get a good fuck in before they arrived. I purposely didn't get home until 7:20 that evening. I'm telling you if her eyes were fire my goose would have been cooked. She made some quick introductions and then dragged me into the kitchen.

She had my belt unbuckled and my jeans around my knees before I knew what was happening. She hitched her dress up over her hips and leaned against the counter. She looked back over her shoulder and said, "heart attack fast you bastard", which meant that I was supposed to fuck her as hard and as deep and as fast as I could until I felt I was about to have a heart attack. Normally I would be more then up (meaning me, Howard was more than just up, he was drooling with anticipation) for a good heart attack fuck except that they were real noisy and her friends weren't but on the other side on the door. I did what I was required to do and emptied a couple of days worth into her. She straightened her dress and went back to her friends as if nothing had happened.

I returned to room after pulling up my pants and tucking in my shirt. The girls, Jolene's friends, were looking at me like a cat looks at a canary. Much to my surprise Howard came roaring back to life – I noticed, they noticed, unfortunately Jolene noticed too. The two girls (damned if I can remember their names now) kept looking at Howard's current place of confinement, licking their lips and shifting their thighs back and forth and such. I was digging the attention and indulging in many variations of standard male fantasies involving three sexy woman when I began to feel a heat on the side of my face. I turned just enough to see Jolene attempting to give a permanent tan.

Like a fool I said something stupid, you know, like "have you ever been with more then one person" or maybe something stupider. The girls smiled as their eyes got a little glazed, then Jolene whispered to me.

"Sugar britches (I immediately knew I was in deep, deep shit) the only way these two sluts are ever going to taste you is by eating it out of me." I shut up.

Then Jolene invited them to stay for dinner and asked me to go get some bar-b-q at this place we really like. I told her it would be about an hour by car and she said fine, and that I'd better be going. The door was locked behind me before I was even off the porch

When I got back, the girls announced that they weren't hungry after all and left. I kept my mouth shut as Jolene and I ate. I put the remains in the frig and began to make my late night moves. Jolene said she was too tired and was going to bed. I sat there watching TV until way too late wondering just what had happened while I was away. I never asked, Jolene never said – but I never did anything stupid like that again.

Did I mention that Jolene was a singer? That's why she was in the bar that night we met. She sang and played guitar, wrote most of her stuff. She did some covers of Patsy Kline songs that would leave you weak in the knees. She was always trying to breakthrough into the business by sending tapes to other singers, other writers, producers, record companies – that girl sent out a shit load of tapes.

I guess one finally got through...she got her break...it broke my heart.

It was an August morning – and looked like it was going to be a damn hot day. She had straddled me and gotten her two orgasms. On a normal day she would have gotten up to make me breakfast leaving me to smell her on me all day long. But she told me to go drain Howard and then come back to bed, she wanted me to come inside her. I'm no fool – except that I didn't see it coming.

I got back into bed and she made love to me as she never had before. She took me into her heat and just drew me out. I didn't just pour my seed into her that morning...I poured my heart. We whispered the things that lovers do. We both had tears in our eyes, only it turned out to be for very different reasons. She made me cum twice.

I was thinking that this was the time. This was that moment when two people decide to live as one. I had my grandma's engagement ring in my sock drawer, been there for a while. I was thinking this was how I would remember the beginning of our life together – I didn't know that she was thinking this was how we'd remember the end.

We were just lying together – spent, but fulfilled. I got up to get dressed for work and she just laid there in bed. The covers were pushed down past her thighs and her naked body was posed like she'd been poured into place. I don't think that she ever looked more beautiful, more pure. I suggested we go out to a fancy restaurant that night – she didn't answer. Tears began to spill down her cheeks.

"The record company called me yesterday; I'm flying out this afternoon."

I pushed the cold sinking feeling in my stomach aside, "OK, we'll make it tomorrow night. We can..." But there was really nothing more to say, through my own tears even I could see that the end was in her eyes.

Damned if she didn't make it. She had it all, the headlining tours, the records - everything. I read about her marriage to her producer...their divorce...then she kind of faded from sight. Which I guess made her comeback so incredible.

I'd always been surprised she sang other people's songs. On her comeback CD they were all her, every one. Their titles were really interesting. A place name or a date – that's all. The title song was a date, August 16, 1982.

With that song and that CD she swept the Country Music Awards that year. Every one was happy for her; all the critics praised her songwriting, the depth of emotion, the bittersweet-ness of love. The first tine I heard I had to pull over – I cried. She even made a video - I saw it once.

A young couple, lovers actually...she's stretched out across a bed that he's just gotten out of...he dresses...and then leaves with guitar in hand. The scene is shot in real time, it's over in three minutes.

And over it, through it, like lovers limbs entangled in it...was Jolene. Singing just above a whisper, as if she was right there beside your ear. Singing words of love sought, love found, of choices and regrets.

I had forgotten those words, but now I remembered them all too well – now I can't escape them. She must have written them down as she was flying away from me – moving on from one love to another. That last line of the chorus was new though, she could have been thinking it.

"...am I etched inside your mind? Do you still hold me in your heart?"

Yeah...damn woman.