Chapter 6: Hercules Unbound

Once they left the small café, Ruby urged Jimmy to walk a little faster toward their car. "Honey, I want to do some dastardly deeds on you and make you too weak to walk. I love you, man of mine."

Jimmy was deep in thought and didn't hear her. "Ruby honey, you got to stop making me hard in public. It's embarrassing."

"Jimmy, the crack of dawn or a knot hole in a tree makes you horny. You are so much man it takes an extra big body to hold it all."

Jimmy snorted and grinned in spite of himself. Damn, but he liked it when she said such things. "Aw," he said and stopped.

They were a block from the newspaper. They heard people yelling. "Oh god, help him!" a woman's voice cried. Then Jimmy saw a crowd gathered around a man pinned under his car. It had fallen off the jack while he had begun to change a tire. The running board of his old Dodge was tight across the man's upper chest.

Ruby spied two scared looking small children, a boy and a girl, inside the car. Wally was right there with his camera taking pictures. "Oh lordy, someone do something!" another woman in the crowd yelled.

There were murmurs of agreement that something had to be done but nobody made a move to help the trapped man. His face had begun to darken from oxygen starvation. His mouth gaped open as he strained to breathe.

Jimmy hurried over to the trapped man, squatted down and grabbed the running board. He gave a mighty heave and lifted the side of the car off the man. "Get him out!" he grunted. "I can't hold it for very long. It's heavy." Still nobody moved. The people all looked at one another and waited for someone else to help.

"God damn it, pull him out!" Jimmy roared. As he strained to hold the car up off the man, Jimmy's shirt ripped down the back. The crowd oohed, but still nobody made a move to help him.

Ruby squatted down and grabbed hold of the man's shoulder and pulled. She strained hard as she rolled him away from under the car. Her own injured ankle hurt from the exertion. Ruby's skirt hiked up and split high enough to show her upper thigh. She pulled harder and put her own pain out of her mind. She never noticed Wally as he took pictures of her bare almost to the hip left leg.

Just as the man was rolled free, Jimmy let out a growl of defeat, stepped back and dropped the car. It fell with a crash back down to the pavement.

Wally got it in his last shot; the last exposure in the camera was of Ruby and Jimmy in a close embrace, her thigh showed through the ripped skirt. Wally changed rolls of film as fast as he could and took pictures of the ambulance driver and his helper when they loaded the man into the ambulance.

Ruby opened the car door and began to comfort the two small children. After the excitement was over, the crowd drifted apart. Ruby hugged the two children close to her and whispered comforting words to them. Jimmy stood next to her and watched with pride while one hand rested on her shoulder. Jimmy looked every bit the hero as he stood straight, proud and tall. The camera angle made him look prouder and taller in the picture the paper printed in its extra edition thrown together in haste.

Ruby cajoled the children as she comforted them. "You got to tell me where you live so we can get you to your mama," she told them. Finally, the little girl told her their last name. They were listed in the Tulsa telephone book.

Jimmy reset the jack under the car and changed the tire. Wally followed them in his car as Jimmy drove across town to the address the children's mother gave her over the telephone. She ran to Jimmy and kissed him on the mouth. His eyes opened wide as he stepped back from the grateful mother.

"Oh thank you, thank you. My Walter is goin' to be all right thanks to you, Jimmy Haggard." She began to sob. "God bless you both. God bless you," she cried.

Then she turned and hugged Ruby and kissed her on the cheek. "Oh Miss Skye, my next baby is goin' to be named Ruby if she is a girl child."

She sobbed her thanks while Wally took his pictures and murmured over and over, "Every picture a masterpiece. Jimmy, you and your redhead make my work easy."

After an hour long thank you from the grateful mother, they were able to say their goodbyes and go home. Once inside the house Jimmy lay face down on the bed. "Ruby honey, I think I pulled something in my back. Would you get that bottle of liniment out of the medicine chest and rub a little on me?"

"Yes," she whispered. Ruby looked down at Jimmy and smiled. She went to the medicine cabinet and found the bottle of Doc Smith's Liniment, good for man and beast. She returned to the bedroom, straddled his legs, and began to apply the liniment.

"Oh this feels good," he moaned. She worked in silence as she rubbed the liniment into the muscles in his lower back until her hands were too tired to continue. She kissed him on the back of his neck and quit.

"Will you finish the job tomorrow?" he asked.

"I'll rub it into your butt hole tomorrow."

"Now I don't think I'd like that very much," he told her with a mock serious expression on his face.

Ruby laughed at him, "Jimmy Haggard, you are a fool, but a nice one."

As soon as she got off him, Jimmy rolled over in slow motion. He got up off the bed and put a fresh shirt on, one that was not torn. Ruby held the ripped work shirt and marveled that he could tear it just by flexing his muscles.

There was a knock at the door. "Don't let whoever it is inside." Ruby hissed, "We can't let people know I'm living with you. After we are married it won't matter, but until then nobody needs to know."

Jimmy thought it was foolishness but he agreed to continue the charade. He decided he would never understand women. He went to the door and opened it to find Wally standing there.

"Here!" the reporter yelled. His face was stretched in a big grin. "Here's the galleys for the extra and it's all about you and your beautiful fiancé. You take this set. I'll give you final copies when I see you at the church tomorrow." He thrust the sheets of paper into Jimmy's hand and left.

"He didn't want to come in," Jimmy told her, as he held up the loose handfuls of galley proofs.

"Let's see," she told him and held out her hand. She had heard every word from the bedroom.

She started to read out loud, "Our Home Grown Hercules." Under the headline was a picture of Jimmy's back and the ripped shirt as he lifted the car. Then came Wally's byline and the story of the terror and desperation of the man pinned beneath the car. There were more pictures of the terrified children inside the car and of the people who stood around and did nothing to help the pinned man. Ruby was amazed. How did he manage to write all this stuff? Using every flowery phrase at his command, Wally's pictures, turgid prose and full page ads filled ten pages. The ten pages were stretched to fifteen after all the new advertising was added in to make the story an insert of its own.

"This is pure dee bullshit," Jimmy exclaimed. Then he apologized for swearing in her presence. "I'm no hero," Jimmy told her. "This is not what happened at all. I never said all those things he has me saying."

"You must have said them, sweetie, it says right here in the paper you said them." She laughed at his discomfort as she read to him of the adventures of her reluctant hero. "You have to be the shyest hero in the world, Jimmy, and the most modest one as well." Ruby hugged him and added, "Well, he did get one thing right."

Jimmy looked at her warily, "Like what?"

"You do have big muscles and you are the strongest man in these parts." She reached out and stroked his cock through his pants. "See? This muscle is already getting hard. Let's go to bed. You carry me."

He dropped the papers to the floor and grinned as he picked her up. Then he cradled her in his arms and kissed her neck. He ignored the twinge in his back as he tossed her into the air and caught her twice as he carried her into the bedroom.

As soon as he set her down on the edge of the bed, she motioned him to come closer. "Get your clothes off," she whispered. As soon as he was naked, she took him into her mouth for a couple of minutes, and then lay back on the bed. "Come here," she told him.

He stood and looked down at his bride to be with love and pleasure. "Honey, I do love looking at you. I want to kiss you and hold you and make love to you every way a man can with a woman and maybe invent a few more new ways of my own."

"Invent later, if you feel so inclined. Right now, at this very minute, just do it. I can't get enough of you inside me. So, Baby, get it in me. Come here and shut up." She felt the urgency inside her like she had never felt before. Her nerve endings seemed to literally be on fire.

He crawled across the bed and positioned himself above her. His throbbing passion matched the hungry desire she felt toward him. As he lowered himself down onto her waiting body, he marveled yet again how she had given herself to him in such a complete way with no reservations. The thought crossed his mind that he gave her so little in exchange for what she had given him. Then all thoughts ceased as he slipped his hard cock inside her. She was already well lubricated and anxious for him to begin.