“My dear, what’s happened?” murmured Jack, stroking her hair. “Sshh, sshh. It’s all right. There, there.” He drew Aria’s body even closer to his own, enfolding her in his strong embrace.
“I just…I can’t…” Her words were tripping over themselves as she tried to express them. “Oh, Jack…”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” repeated Jack soothingly, continuing to stroke her hair. “I know. This must all be terrifying. But it’s okay. You’re here with me, and you’re safe.”
Hearing this was Aria’s emotional undoing. The sobs wracked her body as it all became too much. Her seduction, her kidnapping, all the ways in which she had tried to keep her dignity intact, to respond appropriately to this impossible situation, all of the emotions she had been keeping carefully in check, all came flooding to the surface, and she cried in a way she had not done since she was a little girl.
Through it all, Jack held and comforted her. The pirate simply let her cry, holding her close and making soothing noises, occasionally rubbing her shoulders or her back.
Finally, Aria said in a very small, stuffed-nose voice, “Can I have some tissues, please?”
“Of course.” Jack hunted around the room until he found a box of tissues and a small wastepaper basket and brought them to her.
“Don’t look at me when I blow my nose.”
Jack dutifully turned away while Aria honked and blew. He jogged over to the bathroom and wet a cool facecloth for her. She accepted it gratefully, first dabbing at her eyes then running the cloth over her cheeks and forehead.
“Thanks,” she sniffled. She straightened up a little bit and brushed her hair back from her face.
“Well, I guess I needed that,” Aria said, a bit ruefully.
“I guess you did,” observed Jack.
“I hope I didn’t look like too much of an idiot,” said Aria.
“Not at all!” protested Jack. “It’s so obvious that you needed to do that, and I was glad to be here to support you while you did.”
Aria eyed him. “Just what the hell kind of pirate are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You lie to me, seduce me, kidnap me, spank me, fuck me nine ways to Sunday, and now here you are being the person on whose shoulder I cry my eyes out? How the hell am I supposed to make sense of you, Jack…Jack what? I don’t even know your last name!”
“Marx,” he said. “Jack Marx.”
“Well, Jack Marx, how the hell am I supposed to make sense of you?”
“I would say take me as I am, but we had a less than ideal start to things, didn’t we? Let’s start again.” Jack stood up, hands clasped together, and said in an oddly formal tone, “Aria Gryffin, from now until the end of my days, I promise that you may take me as I am and that I will not lie to you. Except possibly about things like birthday surprise presents, but that doesn’t really count. I want you by my side for whatever adventures the universe may have in store. I will be faithful to you, unless we decide to have a threesome and we both agree to it because the woman and/or alien is really hot. One dick policy only though. I know that might be unfair, but that’s how I’m made.”
Aria sat and stared at the pirate as he made this extraordinary pronouncement. After a moment of silence, amusement burbled up in her, and before she knew it, she was laughing as hard as she had been crying mere moments before.
“That,” she said, “was ridiculous.”
“That,” Jack responded, “is me, in a nutshell.”
“No, it isn’t,” replied Aria thoughtfully. “You want everyone to think that’s true though.”
While he looked at her, startled, Aria stood up and adopted the same pose and tone that Jack had used during his declaration. “Jack Marx, from now until the end of my days, I promise that I will do the best I can to figure out who the hell I am, but I make no guarantees that I will be successful. I might lie to you occasionally but not about anything huge, and I’m starting to suspect that there’s a part of you that really gets off on punishing me anyway. Pervert. I want you by my side, or possibly on top of me, for whatever adventures the universe may have in store. I will be faithful to you, and if we decide to have a threesome, it had better be a woman that I find super-hot, and, luckily for you, the idea does intrigue me a little bit, but boy oh boy are you gonna have to charm me into that one with a combination of alcohol and jewelry.”
Jack shook his head. “That might be the most remarkable exchange of promises that I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
“It had better be,” retorted Aria. She felt almost giddy, lighter than air. Somehow, she was free, in a way that she had never been in her entire life. Her tears had washed her clean, and she was renewed and purified. All of the fear and panic, guilt and shame, everything, had been let go, and Aria was more certain of who she was and what she wanted than she had ever been before.
