Book has his meditation, Zoe and Wash have each other, Jayne has his liquor and loose women. What does Mal do to decompress? He used to have a way.
The resilience of youth can only go so far, like the wages of a petty soldier or free time during a war. Precious as these things were, Malcolm Reynolds knew how best to use the latter two to reinvigorate the former. He sent the funds through a secure transfer as instructed. His confirmation number was a coded message telling him what day and time he would be expected. Welcomed, what day and time he would be welcomed. She was always on the porch waiting for him, sometimes lolling in the swing with a tattered old book, sometimes just leaning against the railing with one her funny smiles, sun shining through her curly red hair. It was raining as Mal walked the long road out of town. That was a significant blessing on this planet. More often than not, the dusk would choke a man half to death if a truck went past or the wind kicked up.
She was standing just inside the screen door of the modest but well-loved bungalow as he turned up the walk. The emerald green dress she wore perfectly offset the gentle pallor of her skin and her gorgeous green eyes. Even with the banality of the apron tied around her waist, she looked like some ancient queen, fierce and noble but still soft and loving for her man.
Mal was her man, at least until this time tomorrow. He took the porch steps two at a time and she met him there, throwing her arms around his neck. "I'm soaking wet," he cautioned too late.
"I don't care," she said and kissed his cheek then his lips. "I missed you."
"Me too." Mal held her tightly against his body, basking in the heat of her body flowing through his damp cotton shirt.
"I've got some supper ready, if you're hungry." She slid her hands over his shoulders beneath his ubiquitous coat and helped him shrug it off.
It always started with a meal. While many whispers circulated in town about her, no one could ever impugn her cooking. She would stuff a man to the gills if he gave her the chance. The first time he had gone to her home and wondered over the incongruity of being served a proper meal, she decreed, "A man can do no thing right on an empty stomach."
His belly full and the conversation pleasant with its sounds and silences, she knelt at his feet and pulled off his boots. She seemed to honestly enjoy that, taking off a man's boots.
Once Mal's stomach was settled, she would lead him to bathe. He could clean himself if he chose to, but he never did. He soaked in the tub and let her wash him. Oh, the thoroughness with which she did so. He thought of the way an inch of water had sloshed out of the tub as they stepped under the shower together. Her body was heavenly. Her hips were full, her waist was svelte, and her breasts…his brain ran short on words as he massaged that lovely flesh and she wrapped a slippery hand around his hardness. This would be quick, the first one always was. She drew him to lean against her as his knees trembled and he came.
The bed alone would have been worth half the price Mal paid. He settled himself on the plush mattress as she emerged from the shower. She stood in the doorway in a diaphanous dressing gown and he began to harden almost immediately.
Very little hinting was ever needed, she just seemed to know what he wanted. Sometimes, she would lie beneath him and writhe and moan in a delicate fashion, roaming his body with her hands and lightly scoring his back and buttocks with her red nails. Some nights, she would push him onto the bed, bind his wrists to the headboard, suck him until he was so hard he could barely stand it, and ride him to a furious orgasm.
The Jezebel, his beautiful harlot, very Madonna/whore. Stroking the back of his head with her fingertips, she sang to him sweetly in words that exist only in the bittersweet songs of loss and comfort, in a tongue long disregarded.
Genuinely kind and defiantly strong, she was an individual in her own right, but molded to him as if they had been forged from the same iron, destined to be together forever. Mal told himself not to love her, tried not to love her, but she controlled his heart with the same surety she did his body. He had presented her with a ring, modest in price, but respectable in craftsmanship and chosen with due agony of hesitation and vacillation. It did not elicit the reaction he had intended. Her eyes held a sadness perfuse with disappointment, an over-long blink saying quite clearly "Not again."
"I can't see you anymore," she said in a level voice. "If you'd like, I can give you some names..."
It was business for her, just a transaction. Pain coiled in Mal's chest as the heat of anger born of shame and hurt coursed over his skin. His jaw clenched too tightly to speak, he flung the ring at her and strode out, heavy boots abusing the old wooden boards as he fled.
Mal would never fall for her ilk again. The whore. The no-good, worthless, deceiving whore.
Author's note: This fic was one of several ideas to answer the question "What does Mal have against Inara's profession, anyway?"