The Interview
Rated TEEN
"That do scratch a man's itch," Mal said happily as he came out of one of the back rooms and dropped into a chair next to Jayne.
"Yep," Jayne agreed, his hand on his whore's leg as he took another drink of whiskey. Whitefall was looking a good sight better with the addition of a whorehouse. Of course, any rock in the 'verse looked better with a whorehouse sitting on it.
Jayne's tart giggled and squirmed on his lap, and Jayne let his hand slide up her thigh and between her legs. Just because his John Thomas was already happy didn't mean he didn't enjoy watching his pretty little thing wiggling on his lap.
"Ain't you finished with her yet?" Mal asked as he grabbed the empty glass Jayne had asked the girl to set out on the table between their two chairs.
"Figure I ain't," Jayne commented as his fingers worked their way north. Girl giggled and wrapped her arms around Jayne's neck and leaned in so that the whiskey bottle she was holding ended up resting on Jayne's shoulder.
"Pass the whiskey," Mal said as he held out his glass. The girl gave Jayne a right lustful look and then reached over to fill Mal's empty glass.
"Don't go drinking too fast. When the whiskey's gone, I got to give up the girl," Jayne said. Mal gave him a look and then tossed the whiskey back in one gulp.
"We got cargo to see to."
Jayne's whore made and unhappy noise and wiggled in his lap. "Can wait," Jayne said, and then she gave him a smile and tightened her arms around his neck and commenced to kissing his neck.
Mal sighed. "Ain't never known a man so fond of whores."
A disturbance kept Jayne from answering. A couple of the women hurried away from the door, spooking the bartender so he stepped out from behind the bar, shotgun in hand. Jayne stood up, pushing the whore off to the side as gentle as he could while getting a hand on his gun. Mal were up too, and then the door opened. River pranced in through the doors big as life, peering around in curiosity and looking mighty out of place when the only other people in the room were rough men and painted girls.
"I think you're lost," one of the whores offered as River stopped with the sunlight flowing in behind her.
"Nope. Found my boys," River said as she drifted into room. A couple of tarts came out of the back of the house, probably called by some silent alarm when the doors came open.
"Ai-ya. What the gorram hell you doin' here, moonbrain?" Jayne demanded. Bad enough he had to put up with her strangeness on the ship, but now she was going and interrupting his gettin' sexed.
"Mei mei, maybe you should go back to the ship," Mal said, giving Jayne a dirty look. Weren't Jayne's fault that the girl were off her rocker, even now that she'd found enough sense to put whole sentences together.
"You found women with whom to engage in sexual congress," she announced as she looked around the room. The bartender retreated back behind the bar.
"Fucked 'em 'til they were wet in the pants and dripping for more," Jayne said with some satisfaction as he dropped back down into his seat. His pretty little whore sat back down in his lap and wrapped her arms around him.
Mal just stared at him. "That were truly horrific. Try just not talking for a mite," he ordered.
Jayne rolled his eyes. Ain't like the girls were offended, and Crazy were just looking at him more interested than anything else. He'd tried offending the girl often enough, but she were just too dumb or too crazy to get offended.
"If you have the coin, I don't mind sexing on a woman," one of the whores offered, an older woman with tiny lines starting at the edges of her eyes and a dark blue dress. She put an extra wiggle in her swing. "I really wouldn't mind sexing you." River considered her for a long minute, and the woman sashayed closer.
"I had not considered engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman, but the boys find it much simpler than pursuing long-term relationships. Would you care that I have not yet engaged in sexual intercourse?"
The woman started to answer, but Mal stood up quickly, abandoning his drink and taking River by the arm. "River, what about you and me head on back," Mal said. Jayne smiled. That were just about perfect because he could drink his whiskey and feel up his whore without the captain makin' comments on Jayne's choice of words.
River twirled out of his grip, leaving Mal looking mighty foolish as he tried to corral the girl while she closed in on a whore in a pink dress. "You serviced the captain." The woman just blinked at River for a second before answering.
"Um, yeah."
"Was he any good?"
Jayne just about snorted his drink, which were a waste of good liquor, but he couldn't rightly help it. "Think she's grading you," Jayne offered, and Mal just glared at him.
"River, we really need to be getting," Mal said firmly. River gave the whore a good long stare before turning to the captain and uttering a single word. "Adequate."
"Lao tyen yeh," Mal muttered, but Jayne were too busy laughing to pay him much mind. He stopped laughing the minute River turned and looked at him.
"Don't even think about it, Moonbrain. I ain't the captain, and I won't put up with you sayin' gou shi like that about me."
"I wouldn't," she said. She cocked her head and looked at Jayne's whore. "Jayne ranks excellent. Excess touching, even after he reaches ejaculation and..."
"Cao," Jayne swore, "Captain, shut her up."
"Would love to," Mal quickly agreed. "You're givin' Jayne a higher score than me? I ain't the one offending all the womenfolk with my truly disgustifying comments."
River shrugged. "I just objectively applied criterion: touching, sucking, penetrating, stroking, orgasming." Jayne's whore giggled and he pinched the inside of her leg to warn her to stay out of this. She just giggled more and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
"Your brother know you're talking like that?" Mal demanded.
"Simon's a boob. I'll be ninety and he won't want me talking like that."
"Can't argue that. It were mighty disturbing hearing words like that out of you," Mal said quietly.
"You're a boob too," River told Mal before she turned to Jayne's whore. "You find satisfaction in Jayne's sexual performance."
"Ignore her." Jayne tightened his arm around his girl as he glared at River.
His whore giggled. Jayne was starting to think that giggling was not an attractive trait in a whore. "He's real special in bed, all liking to see me happy and squirming. Ain't many men like him," she agreed as she smiled at Jayne. Jayne just gave a satisfied grunt and slipped his hand back under the girl's skirt as she spread her legs for him. With his other hand, he retrieved his forgotten drink.
"Jayne, stop that. Ain't right doin' that in proper company," Mal ordered.
"I bought me a whore, and part of the enjoyment is feelin' them up after, so you enjoy your whore your way, and I'm enjoyin' mine," Jayne said, ignoring his captain, at least until the man punched him on the arm hard enough to make him slop his whiskey over the side of the glass.
"Hey!" Jayne complained as his whore skedaddled. "Ain't like Mal will actually start a fight. Get back here," Jayne called to his tart, but she had retreated to the wall near the other whores. Damn it. "Least give me my gorram whiskey," he complained. She darted forward and handed him the bottle before giving him a sheepish look and retreating back to the wall.
"Had a real good time," she offered him apologetically from the safety of far wall. Jayne just got a sour look and sat in the chair again.
"Jayne, it appears it's time for us to go," Mal said in one of those suggestions that was more of an order than anything else.
"I paid and I'm staying," Jayne said, perfectly willing to be just as stubborn as the gorram captain. He was too busy being cross with the captain and his high-handed orders to pay attention to Crazy, at least until she plopped down in his lap.
"Ai-ya, get offa me!" he snapped. He tried to stand up and dump her off, but the little octopus just sort of clung to him. All the whores giggled then and Jayne made a mental note to avoid any whores who giggled in the future. "Ain't funny," Jayne snapped.
"Seems like you might not exactly know the definition of funny if you're thinking that," Mal pointed out. He wasn't laughing, but he was close.
"I'm going to have sexual intercourse with Jayne," River proudly announced. That took the smile right off Mal's face. Jayne was too busy smirking at the captain's sudden discomfort to completely register what she were saying right off.
"What?" he finally demanded. "No you ain't." Jayne was still complaining when River somehow twisted, her foot catching him behind his knee so that he lost his balance and sat heavily in the chair, River still in his lap.
"Okay, time for playing on Jayne is over. Let's get back to Serenity," Mal ordered. River wrapped her arms around Jayne's neck in an imitation of the whore from just a few minutes earlier.
"Ain't funny," Jayne growled.
"Not funning," River calmly replied. "I am tired of boobish brother making happy sounds through all the hallways when I'm frustrated, so I either have to have happy sounds of my own or cut off brother's penis."
"I'm real okay with the cutting off suggestion," Jayne pointed out as he tried peeling her hands off him, but every time he succeeded in freeing himself of one grip, she just shifted to a new hold, which left her doing a pretty good wiggle in his lap.
"I'd rather have sex. It's time." This time she wiggled on purpose.
"Sometimes I do think the 'verse hate me," Mal sighed as he sat down in the chair next to Jayne and grabbed the whiskey.
"You aint the one with a crazy girl hanging on you. Ain't you going to say something?" Jayne demanded.
"I really ain't. I got a firm policy of staying out of it when my pilot goes and beds some member of my crew. Got precedent on that." Mal threw back a shot of whiskey and immediately poured another one. "Sides, she is a woman, and I ain't so addle pated in the brain to think I ever have a shot at telling one of them what to do."
"She ain't no woman, she's a kid," Jayne argued. River pinched him on the arm. "Ow!"
"I am four months and sixteen days older than the whore who just serviced you," she announced. Jayne looked at River and then over to the girl he'd just been sexing with. They did look mighty close in age, which were kinda disturbing.
"Age ain't everything. She's had a mature life," Jayne cleverly pointed out. "Havin' more experiences makes you older."
River cocked her head and stilled in his lap as she frowned for a second. "I've been chased by feds and fought Reavers and been captured multiple times and helped raid--"
"Whoa, let's not go into all that here," Mal interrupted her. "I think we can stipulate that you've had a full life."
"Well, I ain't stiptipating anything," Jayne complained. "I meant sexually. That one knows what she's doing. I ain't bedding some kid."
That seemed to slow River down some and Jayne congratulated himself on a solid piece of logic there. Then River's arms tightened. "You'll have to teach me a lot so that I'm as experienced as she is," River announced.
"What?" Jayne demanded, but River kept right on talking.
"The other option is for me to take employment in the whore house for a certain period of time. What number of weeks would provide adequate sexual experience?"
Mal slammed his hand down on the bar since that was the nearest flat surface. "Listen up real good. I am not leaving you to work some whore house. We best be seeing eye to eye on that right now," Mal insisted. River looked up at him with a mischievous smile.
"The captain can't order me to not quit. That would constitute slavery, and you are against slavery," she announced. "So I can weave a garland of marigold and posies and make Jayne want me enough to teach me all about sexing or I can work at the whore house." River looked down at Jayne, and the slightly crazy expression she most always wore softened as she leaned in, whispering words just for Jayne. "Want someone who will touch me all the time, slide up against me all hot, sneak a hand under my dress when brother's back is turned, make me scream in the hallways and curl up around me at night. Want the man who talks all rough but always touches a girl like she's this special gift."
River leaned back to again look Jayne in the eye, and Jayne couldn't even rightly find words to answer that bit of madness. She couldn't--. Jayne looked at River again and that look was just entirely too knowing and too damn needing. Ai-ya. It were what he always did want, some girl he could touch any time. Some girl what wanted him. And yeah, he hadn't ever been looking to River before, but the way she stared at him with dark and needing eyes were just about ready to undo him.
"I'll tell you a secret," River offered as she leaned close again. "Want to learn to knit ugly hats."
"Don't be taking shots at Ma Cobb's hats now," Jayne warned her.
River shook her head. "No shots. Do you think she'd teach me how to make 'em?" River asked all sweetness, and Jayne could feel an old fantasy sliding into his mind, one he'd given up back before he'd even met Mal—the idea of ever finding a woman who wanted to go home to meet Ma with him. But River? Jayne stared at the woman-child in his lap. She sure did feel all womanly squirming in his lap and all, but River?
"So captain," River said, her voice playful and strong again and never letting on that she had just rewired Jayne's brain. Girl had once said she could kill him with her brain, but she ain't never mentioned being able to rewire it. "Are you going to come back for me after I've whored for a month or order Jayne to sleep with me?" River asked sweetly. Mal crossed the room in three strides and stared down at River.
Jayne still couldn't quite get his brain started, so he just grabbed the whiskey bottle and took a long drink. As soon as he lowered the bottle, Mal grabbed it from him and took a swig himself.
"Jayne," Mal said real serious. "Bed the girl."
"Mal!"
"I ain't losing a pilot or leaving River here to take up with whoring, so when Simon tries to kill you over this, make sure you don't shoot him nowheres vital and tell him I made it an order."
River smiled wide. "Don't worry, Jayne," she said, her hand coming up to trace the edge of his cheek with soft fingers. "I'll make you a garland of marigolds and posies and teach you to notice that I'm all grown up now before we do the bedding part," she promised.
"I ain't—" Jayne stopped since Mal just walked away and River was looking more moonbrained that usual as she stared at him with this look that were a whole lot the way Ma had looked at his pop before the old man had died. That look did dry up all his words.
"I like marigolds," River said as if that made any sense. Leaning forward, she put a kiss on Jayne's forehead. "Like Jayne too. I'll be waiting at the ship."
Then River was up and gone in a twirl of blue skirts and long, dark hair, and Jayne was left sitting in the whore house wondering just what the hell were waiting for him when he got back to the ship. He glanced at his whiskey, and at the little giggling whore that were inching closer now that the others had left.
Well, Jayne told himself as he stood up and shoved the whiskey bottle he'd bought in a pocket, there weren't no time like the present. Seemed like it was time for him to be getting home.
"Ladies," Jayne offered before he headed out of the whore house and hurried up the dusty street to the docks. If nothing else, this were going to be all kinds of interesting.