New Year's Eve 1968: Jake, Scene 8 "Take Me Higher"

Jake saw the door open and Jukie disappear through it, replaced instantly by raucous music from the other room, a loud horn section, a driving beat, and the unmistakable vocals of Sly and the Family Stone. Jake smiled, as slowly his mind began to clear. “Oh yeah,” he thought. “I want to get higher and my man Jukie’s gonna’ take me there.”

Soundtrack: I Want to Take You Higher----Sly and the Family Stone

He closed his eyes and listened as the music and loud voices from the other room poured in. Sly sang and the U-crowd joined in, shouting: "I wanna' take you higher!"

Then someone must have closed the door because the sounds of the music faded and over them he heard Joanie's trembling voice, coming from somewhere across the room toward him. "Jake, are you OK? Do you really want to smoke here or should we go back to my place and... uh... maybe ball. I mean for old time's sake. That might get you feeling better. Huh?"

Jake opened his eyes slowly; his vision was blurred, so at first, he couldn’t see anyone or anything, but as his vision began to clear, he could make out a vague form just off to his left. It was Joanie, standing beside him now, a deeply troubled look, forming a gash in her otherwise unblemished face. She bent over to kiss him on the forehead and he found himself looking down her loose-fitting sweater? There he saw Joanie’s small, nubile breasts, hanging straight down — or were they sticking up? He couldn’t tell. His orientation in space was all fucked up. He was amused at the sight, though. Joanie’s breasts looked just like two small udders hanging down ever so slightly from a heifer back at the farm.

The singing shouts from the other room broke through his musings, penetrating the walls of the room he was in: "Higher! I want to take you higher!"

He could see Joanie clearly now. She was wearing a long, soft, purple velvet skirt and when Jake reached out his arms to grab her ass, he could feel that she had nothing on underneath. Growing excited, he pulled her feather-weight body down towards him and buried his head in her stomach. At the same time, he bunched up her dress in the rear, slid his large hand up the back of her sinewy legs to her naked crotch and, parting the moist lips beneath her pubic hair, slipped two fingers into what he felt to be her hungrily waiting opening.

"Jake," Joanie sighed with what he took to be her evident pleasure. "Let's go back to my place."

But Jake was content to be where he was. Head pressed against stomach and tits, one hand firmly grasping Joanie's tight little ass and two big fingers sloshing around inside her.

Suddenly the door opened and the overwhelming sounds of the party poured in. Jake felt himself drowning in a tidal wave of riotous music and the accompanying yells of overly-enthusiastic revelers, crying out: "Higher!"

The door must have closed again because now what he heard was mostly the more subdued chatter of just a few, familiar, voices: Joanie's friends, Donna and Annie, and this new guy, Jukie, the pusher man.

Jake pulled his head away from Joanie's body, let his fingers slip out of their warm and wet resting place, sat up, and said, in his best ghetto-speak: "Well, let's do it brothers and sisters!"

Higher!

Jukie smiled, reached into his jacket, and took out an elegant gold cigarette case filled with perfectly rolled joints. The girls’ eyes all widened as he did so, especially Donna who, Jake thought, was creaming in her pants before she’d even taken a toke. Cool, Jake thought. This is one cool cat! He dug Jukie’s act. Not his own style of course, but he dug it, nonetheless.

Then, in one continuous motion, Jukie lit up and inhaled an enormous lungful of smoke, looked up into Donna’s eager face, reached out his long arm, and ever-so-smoothly held the joint to her lips. It was one of the most sensual moves Jake had ever witnessed and he could see that Donna was eating it up. Her eyelids drooped, as she sucked on the perfect little joint. When she was done, she placed both her small white hands over Jukie’s large black hand and slowly pulled it back, so that the J gradually slipped out of her mouth. She gazed dreamily into Jukie’s eyes, and let the smoke trickle out lazily past her half-parted lips. One toke and Donna was ready to ball this cat she’d never seen before tonight. In Jukie’s able hands, there was no doubt that grass was an aphrodisiac.

You had to hand it to Jukie. He obviously knew chicks. He held Donna’s eyes with his, as he finally exhaled the little bit of smoke his lungs hadn’t absorbed, and without turning away from her, passed the joint past Joanie to Jake.

Still suspicious, Jake regarded the joint warily. But the dreamy looks on Donna's and Jukie's faces told him it was gonna be all right. He took a short, tentative, hit on the J, held the smoke in by tightening his chest, and handed the J carelessly to Joanie.

Once again, Jake could hear the shouts from the other room: "Higher! Higher! Higher!" “Yes” he thought, “this is gonna' be aw-right!”

Now, Jake could see the longing in Joanie’s eyes. She’d caught the action between Jukie and Donna and wanted something like it from Jake. She was probably still dripping from the finger fucking he’d been giving her when they’d been interrupted. Tough shit. Not his style. No, not his style at all. She’d get the real thing from him later at her pad. He’d fuck her ass off.

Out of the corner of one eye, Jake could see Donna inching gradually closer to Jukie. Meanwhile Joanie was standing right in front of Jake staring deep into his face, as she took several shallow hits off the joint. He realized he was pissed as hell at her and at her expectations. That was her trouble: all these expectations. They made Jake sick. That’s why he’d been avoiding her these past months and it was why he just didn’t see any future in their relationship… even if she was “the love of his life.” As his anger rose, he found himself getting hard. What the hell was that about? he wondered, as he closed his eyes to avoid Joanie's longing looks.

Links
J (joint)
Sly and the Family Stone

Follow Jake's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Jake, Scene 9 "No White Boy's Shit"

Go to the previous scene in Jake's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Jake, Scene 7 "H"

Go to a related scene
New Year's Eve 1968: Joanie, Scene 5 "First Love"

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