“Ma,” I said, hoping to take her attention away from the cookie.
She looked up. I no longer questioned if she was speaking of the man who fathered me. Her wet eyes gave all the answers I needed.
“Yes?”
“I’ll be honest with them, I promise.” I glanced at my cookie and then met her teary-eyed gaze. “When can we go to the doctor?”
She chuckled as she wiped her eyes. “We’ll go on Monday.”
That Monday I found out I had Chlamydia. A dose of antibiotics cured it but left me forever fearful of having unprotected sex. From that day forward, I never had sex without using protection – or without first explaining to the woman that all we were doing was fucking.
My mother passed away the following year, but her words of wisdom were the fabric that held me together.
I blamed kissing Abby on my altered state of mind. The tumor had undoubtedly caused pressure to build on whatever portion of my brain produced logic. Consequently, it appeared I’d lost my ability to reason.
I was now forced to categorize her. She didn’t fit in the one-night-stand slot, but I struggled to admit it. Nonetheless, she didn’t belong there. That only left one place for her.
Placing her there scared the absolute shit out of me.
11
Abby
Much to my satisfaction, we got stuck in rush hour traffic. By the time we reached San Diego three hours later, I had my doubts that the tingling sensation in my clit would ever subside.
Porter proved me wrong.
He was seated across from me. On the floor in front of him were his boots. His eyes were glued to them. He’d been frozen in that exact position since we walked into the room ten minutes earlier. The magical moment we shared at the pie shop was being dwarfed by the awkward silence.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Glassey-eyed, he continued to stare.
I waited for what seemed like an eternity. I cleared my throat. Snapped my fingers. Hummed. Sang softly. Turned on some music. Drummed my fingers on the end table. Sang louder.
Nothing.
After twenty minutes, I’d reached the breaking point.
“Porter!” I shouted.
He looked up. It wasn’t like I’d startled him. He simply shifted his gaze upward until it met mine. Upon seeing me, his face distorted. Confused, he rubbed his eyes and glanced around the room as if he didn’t remember walking in.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“My mother,” he said. “Something she told me when I was a kid.”
In the amount of time it took to snap one’s fingers, I went from being angry with him to hoping I could do something to comfort him. I tried to imagine losing my entire family to cancer. I couldn’t comprehend it. I doubted anyone could. I wanted to hold him in my arms and tell him everything was going to be alright, but I didn’t know if it was going to be.
“Do you want to talk?” I asked.
He wrung his hands together nervously. “We probably need to.”
What I thought was confusion now appeared to be concern. He laced his fingers together, but it didn’t last. He began to rub his hands along his thighs, and must have found comfort in it, because it was then that he began to speak.
“My mother once explained that there’s two places you can categorize women when it comes to sex. A one-night-stand, or a relationship. I don’t want to have a one-night-stand with you, Abby.” He shifted his eyes to meet mine. “That only leaves one place for you to be.”
His words bounced around in my head until I understood them. Incapable of speaking – at least for that moment – I took every inch of him into view. He was muscular from head to toe. He had a keen sense of humor. He had manners. He was a real biker. He had a big dick. He knew how to kiss a woman. And, he didn’t want to use me for sex.
He was an anomaly.
A glitch in the male population.
“I don’t want to have a one-night-stand with you, either,” I said.
It wasn’t the complete truth. Immediately following that kiss, I would have tossed my belief system aside, have let him screw me bow-legged and be on his way. Now that I knew he had other intentions, I wanted more. I wanted what every woman wants.
I wanted a relationship.
My mind began to assemble the pieces of Porter’s puzzle. In doing so, I got confused. He said he’d never been in love. He’d never allowed himself to be. I couldn’t help but wonder…
“You’re not a uhhm,” I stammered. “You’ve had sex before, right?”
He spit out a laugh. “A couple of times, yeah.”
“Okay.” I wiped my brow. “Me, too.”
“I just. I’ve never,” he muttered. “I’ve never done this.”
I leaned forward. “This being what?”
“I’ve never been in a relationship,” he admitted.
I studied him as I formulated my response. His look morphed to one of innocence. At that instant it came to me. Porter’s hard exterior was his protection. The pursed lips. The muscles. His glare. Since we met, he’d been peeling away his outer layers and setting them aside. During his twenty minutes of silence, he’d removed his last layer of defense. I realized beyond the muscles and tattoos Porter was no different than anyone else. He was vulnerable.
Exposed and unprotected, he waited for me to respond. He may have been thirty years old on the inside, but the person seated across from me was seventeen and without a family.
Seventeen and scared.
“I’ve been in a relationship before,” I said. “But I’ve been single for six years.”
His eyebrows raised. “Six years?”
I nodded. “Uh huh.”
“Holy shit,” he gasped. “Why so long?”
I met Kelvin in college. We began having sex because having sex was fun. The sex changed from fun to freaky. Four years later, I realized all he and I shared was sex. He wanted nothing from me but to screw me at will, and I granted his wish.
Realizing it left me feeling foolish. It was my own fault. A relationship that begins for all the wrong reasons never becomes right. So, I left him, vowing to never place myself in the same position again.
I swallowed six years of frustration and let out a long, exhaustive breath. “At first because I was angry about how my last boyfriend treated me. To him, I was someone to screw and nothing more. When the anger faded, I realized no one put me in that relationship but me. I decided the next time I committed myself to someone, it was going to be because I wanted to be in a relationship with them, not because I simply wanted sex. Hopefully, knowing that lets you make some sense of my choice to eat pie instead of jumping in bed.”
“It does,” he said with a nod. “Thanks for explaining it.”
Thirty minutes earlier, my plans were to christen each room in my home, stopping only when we’d completed the task. After verbally admitting what caused the failure of my previous relationship, I now felt a need to remind myself that it wasn’t simply sex that drew me to Porter.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but I needed to exercise sexual restraint for at least one night. Looking at the big picture, I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. In my manner of reasoning, however, it would prove to me that I was in it for all the right reasons.
It a was necessary step in securing my relationship’s future. Ridiculous, but necessary.
“I’m exhausted.” I stretched and did my best to fake a yawn. “I want to take a shower and unwind.”
He reached for his boots. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to leave.” I waved my hands toward the bathroom. “You can take a shower with me, or after me, I don’t care.”
I couldn’t believe the words that were spewing from my mouth.
I swallowed heavily. “We’re uhhm. We’re not having sex, though.”
He returned a blank stare.
I managed a slight smile. “
I can cook something light to eat afterward if you like.”
He tossed his boots aside and stood. “This is crazy.”
“What’s that?”
“Not having sex,” he said.
I studied him, trying to imagine what he’d look like soaking wet. “Does it bother you? Being here and not having sex?”
It bothered me, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I regretted telling him he could take a shower with me. I knew if he chose to accept my offer that it would take every ounce of my willpower not to ride him like a pogo stick.
“It’s just not what I’m accustomed to,” he said. “I guess if I want things to be different, I have to do different things.”
“So, you’re going to stay?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.
“I’ll go downstairs and grab a change of clothes off my bike while you’re in the bathroom.” He turned toward the door. “I’ll shower after you’re done.”
I guessed he felt the same way I did regarding showering together. It was a good thing, because I planned on relieving myself of some serious tension when I was in there.
“Your loss,” I teased. “It’s probably for the best, though. I doubt you’d be able to keep your hands off me. I’m irresistible when I’m wet.”
“That sounds like a challenge.” He turned around and looked me over. “I’ve never been one to back down from a dare.”
“Wait. What?” I stammered.
“Hold on just a minute while I grab my clothes.” His mouth formed a smug little smile. “I’ll go ahead and shower with you.”
Being in the shower with Porter would be a true test.
One I was sure to flunk.
12
Porter
Although I fantasized about having sex with Abby, I didn’t feel the need to act on those desires. The absence of sex left me at a loss for what I should be doing with our time. In the past, if I spent more than an hour with a girl it was because we were having sex. Consequently, the time I spent with women taught me very little about what to do with a woman if we weren’t having sex.
I had zero experience at being romantic but wanted to act in a manner that she found pleasing. More than anything, I wanted whatever Abby and I shared to be in complete contrast to the one-night-stands that defined the sexual experiences of my past.
The trip to Julian drew me even closer to Abby. A ray of hope now shined from her being. A hint that cancer didn’t always consume its victims. Some people beat deadly disease, and she stood as proof. I doubted I could defeat a brain tumor without medical attention, but I could always hope.
Filled with that hope, I began to inch my way into her life.
While Abby poured two glasses of wine, she confirmed my decision was a good one. “Truthfully, I’m glad you decided to let me shower alone.”
“I know me well enough to know I would have made achieving your goal difficult.”
She corked the bottle of wine and handed me a glass. “What goal?”
I lifted my wine glass. “Why’s this stuff pink?”
“It’s pink Moscato.” She sipped the wine. “What goal?”
I tasted the wine. The sweetness was such that I almost spit it out. I gave a taut smile and looked at the glass in disbelief. “Holy shit. This stuff’s sweet.”
“What. Goal?” she asked, her tone demanding.
“Not having sex.”
“Oh.” She gestured toward the living room. “That.”
Her home was along Mission Beach Boulevard on a corner lot that faced the ocean. I had no idea what it cost, but I knew it wasn’t cheap. If Tito’s opinion of her income was correct, I doubted she had any problems paying for it.
The floors were constructed of wide slats of gray hardwood. There weren’t many interior walls, but what was there was painted white. A winding staircase manufactured of steel and contrasting wood planks led to an upstairs loft, and the kitchen was filled with state-of-the-art stainless-steel appliances.
Decorated in a colorful array of yellows, blues, reds, and greens, it looked like what I expected a beachfront condo to look like. Her furniture was a combination of leather and fabrics, all of which were contemporary in design. Personally, I felt most of it would be more suitable in an art studio than a home.
I meandered to one end of a pea green fabric sofa. It looked as uncomfortable as a concrete park bench. When I took a seat, I was surprised by the comfort. “Damn.” I pressed my palm against the cushion. “This thing’s comfortable.”
She took a seat at the left end of the same piece of furniture. “I think everything in here is comfortable.”
“That weird-looking chair I sat in earlier was,” I admitted.
She looked at the chair. “It’s not weird-looking, it’s ergonomic.”
While her attention was elsewhere, I admired her. Dressed in a pair of cut-off sweat shorts and a tattered white tee shirt that said mermaid on the front and off-duty on the back, she looked adorable. While she took a drink of her wine, I noticed her nipples were as hard as rocks.
Normally attracted to girls with curvy asses and huge boobs, it seemed strange to be so physically drawn to Abby. She was petite, short, and had boobs that may not have filled a “B” cup bra. Nonetheless, her looks alone sucked me in like a vortex.
Noticing her hard nipples started me on a rapid downslide. Knowing I’d be trying to hide a hard on if I continued to look at her, I shifted my eyes to the white leather chair. It was low in the front, high at the knees, low in the seat, and then curved upward again.
“It’s shaped like a backward ‘S’,” I said. “It’s weird-looking.”
“That’s what makes it comfortable.”
I studied the chair. Upon a closer inspection, it seemed to be designed for fucking. The high spot intended for one’s knees would be perfect for her hips, forcing her ass high in the air. I glanced at her, and then at the chair. In seconds, I was mentally fucking her while she was face-down on the surface of the ergonomic piece of furniture.
I took a shallow drink of my wine. In being reminded of the sweetness, I opted to raise the bottom of the glass and down the contents. With the empty glass dangling loosely from my hand, I shifted my eyes from the chair to Abby.
My cock twitched.
I rested my left arm over my lap and tried to hide my rapidly growing appreciation of Abby’s beauty. Knowing if I didn’t immediately divert my train of thought that she’d soon notice my level of excitement, I decided to change the subject to something that would kill the mood.
“I showed the fellas that picture you sent me,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Which one?”
I pressed my forearm against my cock. “How many pictures have you sent me?”
She tugged against the hem of her shorts and then crossed her athletic legs. “Only one that I can remember.”
Her toned legs all but tossed me off the edge of the celibacy cliff. I pressed my forearm firm against my rigid cock.
I winced in pain. “That’d be the one. You, me, and a rattlesnake.”
“What did they say?”
“They said what were you doing rattlesnake hunting with Uptown Abby?”
The color drained from her face. “They recognized me?”
It wasn’t easy to have a conversation while my cock was standing at attention. I repositioned myself in the seat and pushed against it with my elbow. It pushed back with greater force. The pain made me feel that I might just fucking faint.
She gave me a funny look. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Why?”
She swiveled her upper body to face me, giving me a full view of nipples that were trying to cut their way through the worn fabric of her tee shirt. I tore my eyes away from them and focused on the wall behind her.
“You look like you’re uncomfortable,” she said.
I was uncomfortable. I had a raging hard on and wanted to fuck her so bad I was dizzy. Light-headed and feeling half sick from a lack of sex an
d overindulgence in pink wine, I gazed beyond her, toward the kitchen. “I think I drank that wine too fast.”
“Do you want a glass of water?” she asked.
I didn’t. I wanted her face down in the ergonomic chair with her bare ass in the air and her wet hair balled in my clenched fist. But now wasn’t the time. I needed to honor her desire to be sex-free for one night. I had no idea how an evening of sexual agony was going to solve any problems, but it was what she wanted. Therefore, I intended to give it to her.
In support of her wishes, I pressed my forearm against the head of my rising dick. When I did, the pain caused my back to arch.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
I arched my back even more. “Back spasm.”
“From being on the bike all day?”
“Probably from the gym,” I lied. “Might have pulled a muscle.”
“Want me to rub your back?” She set her glass of wine on the end table. “It might make you feel better.”
She raised her hands and fanned her fingers as if preparing to rub my shoulders. If she touched me, there was no doubt the problem would escalate. I needed to make some space between us. Standing was out of the question. I inched my way to the arm of the sofa, gaining six inches of distance and nothing more.
Pinned against the pea green burlap fabric, my throbbing cock reminded me of each heartbeat. I looked at her with fear in my eyes.
“What?” she asked. “You don’t like being touched?”
The thought of her touching me excited the absolute fuck out of me. Moving my arm away from my cock would lead her to believe I was exactly what she didn’t want me to be. There was no way I could hide my state of arousal if she was giving me a back rub.
“No.” I shook my head. “I like being touched.”
She moved closer. “Let me rub your shoulders.”
If she touched me, I’d probably come in my pants. Before I could blurt out an objection, she came even closer. Her milky smooth thigh brushed against mine.
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