by Jojo Brown
“Mmmmm…” was my only reply. I was much too comfortable at that particular moment to verbalize anything more.
Lifting my foot out of the warm, bubbly water, Chris continued massaging down my calf muscle, along the edge of my foot, to my toes. I could feel the tension from the day, flowing out of my body. It was almost as if he was forcing it out of me, just is if he were squeezing ointment out of a tube. I quite literally felt myself melting into the warm water surrounding my nakedness.
With my eyes still closed, I asked, “How is it possible that you always know just what I need?”
“That’s easy, I love you so much that I simply do what comes naturally, and it somehow just works out.”
Lifting my other foot, he lowered the one he was finished with gently back into the water. “Just relax and let me take care of you,” he advised gently, as my foot slipped below the surface, along the inside of his thigh, to come to rest against his semi-hard penis.
I finally opened my eyes, feeling his lips pressing onto my toes. I could not believe this wonderful man was actually kissing my foot. This was new territory; I had never experienced someone paying loving attention to that particular part of my anatomy. While it sent an electric thrill of excitement through me, I was very unsure of the whole thing.
“What are you doing?”
With a devilish glint in his eyes, he kept looking into my eyes as he opened his mouth slightly. His tongue darted out between his parted lips, to roll around on the pad of my big toe.
“I love you, every inch of you and nothing about you should ever go un-kissed.”
He was clearly enjoying this.
The feeling of my rough, un-pedicured toes being massaged by his warm, moist tongue, while still slightly unnerving, was admittedly becoming increasingly pleasurable. The sensation was sending tiny sparks up my legs to explode in the pit of my stomach.
With a slight moan and readjustment of my other foot, I was able to carefully press against his growing erection. Running his strong hands up the length of my legs to hold my hips, Chris allowed my thoroughly kissed foot to join its mate in the water.
Sandwiching his hardness between my two feet, I could feel his throbbing pulse as the blood rushed to fill him.
His palms moved to press flat against my churning stomach. Gulping after a few moments, to focus himself and clearly having trouble speaking, he said, “Not only are your feet beautiful, but it seems they are very talented as well.”
Plunging his hands into the water, he closed them around my busy feet. “God, that feels so good, but you have to stop,” he groaned shakily, as he forced my feet to be still.
Slowly I pulled myself up to a sitting position, between his legs. I replaced my feet with searching fingers. “I don’t want to stop, though. I want to show you how much I love and appreciate you. And, it’s pretty clear that you are enjoying this… so why stop?”
“I know how much you love me, darling, you show me with every glance you send in my direction and every touch of your fingers. We don’t need to touch each other sexually to show our love.
“Just washing your back or hair for you is an act of love. When you bring me cup of coffee, you are showing me how much you love me. What we have, is much deeper than just a physical need for sexual release, the physical is simply an expression of that love.
“Now be a good girl, let go, and turn around, so I can wash your back.”
Of course, I did just as told. After all Chris was right, what I felt for him was much more than a physical need for sexual release. I could get that with a box of good chocolates and a dildo.
What we had was something I had never felt with anyone ever before.
He did a very thorough job of making sure that I was clean, starting with my back. Even though there was a good supply of facecloths and bath puffs in the room, he lathered the soap onto my skin with his bare hands.
He soothed the perfumed soap all over my back, massaging the muscles at the same time. It felt like pure heaven to have him releasing the last of the pent-up tension from me. As soon as he was sure that my back was as clean as it could get, he slid his hands around my ribcage, coming to rest just under my breasts.
He ran his fingers across my stomach and up to my shoulders, lathering up my arms, upper chest and all the way down to my fingertips. I was leaning back onto his chest, feeling his heart thudding and his ragged breathing.
His lips were on my shoulder, kissing, licking, gently biting as his hands continued to rub my flesh and hold me close against him. The anticipation and suspense of wanting his fingers on my breasts and between my legs was driving me crazy. Butterflies of excitement were raging a fantastic battle in my stomach. I knew, from the way he was breathing, that he was fighting a similar battle.
I also knew that below the surface of the water, I was wet with a creamier, more intimate wetness than the simple tap water and bubble bath covering our bodies. Chris was holding me at the edge of release, without even touching any of the nerve endings usually associated with sexual tension. It was amazing and frustrating at the same time.
I could feel his immense hardness pressing against my spine. As I wiggled my ass against him, I felt his erection jump at the exact same moment that I felt an electric spasm jolt my clitoris.
Orgasm was so close. I pressed my head back into his shoulder and squeezed my legs together as tightly as I could. My fingernails bit into the skin of his knees, on either side of me.
“Oh God, Chris, touch me.” I begged, “I need you, please.”
“No way,” he whispered against my hot skin. “I am enjoying watching you squirm way too much. I want it to last. You are so hot right now, if I so much as slipped one finger between your lips, you’d explode.”
His words next to my skin had pushed me even closer to the brink. I was moaning and moving against him with such abandon now that the water was splashing over the edge of the tub and wetting our clothes piled there. Neither of us cared.
His hips were moving in time with mine as we crushed his hardness between us. I feared that we would damage him, we were gyrating together with that much force.
His hands moved to grasp the tops of my thighs and pulled me even harder against him. His teeth pressed into the flesh of my neck with slightly more pressure as a moan escaped from deep within his throat.
Pulling my thighs apart, his fingers slid to just barely touch my extremely engorged vulva. That was enough! The first, unbelievably powerful spasm broke through me. With more force than I had ever imagined possible, the rhythmic pulsing of absolute release shook me. As my abdominal muscles tensed and relaxed repeatedly, the outward sign of the same spasming taking place deeper in me, I rocked back and forth against Chris’ chest.
I continued to hold onto his legs, afraid to let go, as I had no idea what my body would do if l didn’t have some sort of anchor. Eventually, my heart rate and breathing started to return to normal. Chris closed his one hand over my still shuddering pussy and the other pressed tightly against my trembling stomach.
His kisses were again raining over my shoulders and the back of my neck as he whispered his love for me. That was about the time, I realized that he no longer had a raging hard-on. Without me even noticing, he must have joined me as I crashed through the waves of ecstasy.
Finding my voice, I whispered, “Well, if that wasn’t one unbelievable expression of physical love… then I don’t know what is.”
“You’ve got that right, sweetheart,” Chris whispered against my neck, “It was one hell of an expression.”
After a quick shower together, to remove the bubbles and whatnot left over from the bath, we fell into bed. Naked and happy, we were both completely satisfied. I never would have thought that I could have felt so satisfied without any actual sexual contact. Chris was definitely right, what we had was so much more than purely physical … but the physical was good too.
We lay together in the middle of the queen-sized bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, and fell peacefully to sle
ep.
The next day, our adventure would begin anew, but for that night, we floated away, blissfully unaware of what lay ahead. We stayed tightly within a cocoon constructed of our love and contentment.
Nineteen
I walked into the group-home the next afternoon with a strange mixture of emotions coursing through me. Memories of the night before, as well as this morning’s lovemaking were still fresh in my mind. I had a feeling of contentment and acceptance, which I had never felt before. I could only accredit it to Chris’ love. As long as I knew that he would be there for me, I felt that I could do anything.
Adam had a job at a grocery store, where he was a very diligent stock-boy. He had worked there for almost twenty years. It was a part of a governmentally run program, which helped mentally challenged adults become contributing members of society. It was a wonderful program that has helped many people who would have otherwise been forgotten about.
I knew that it had been a wonder for Adam. He loved working in the store. He loved numbers and as far as he was concerned, there was no better place to count things, than the never-ending rows of packages lining the grocer’s shelves.
His shift was over that day at three o’clock and he would be back home by four. For the last five years, he had been using public transportation to get to and from work, as well as outings to the movie or mall, with his aide.
His bus-pass was by far his most prized possession, at that time. The fact that he was able to make the trip every day for work on his own was a huge deal. Dad and I had gone to the group-home for a celebration dinner the first evening after he had reached this goal. Dad even got his first bus-pass framed and Adam had it hanging on his bedroom wall.
Chris and I had arrived rather early and we had considered driving over to the other side of town to pick Adam up. The administrator advised us against it though. She told us that any time Adam had been picked up in the past, he had reacted very badly. He saw it as a punishment.
Having the freedom to make his own way home was something that he had worked extremely hard to achieve and I admired him for it.
* * * *
In the meantime, Chris and I decided to do some shopping. We had both packed very lightly when we left home and needed to pick up a few things. Chris left me sitting in the food court of the mall with my coffee, saying that there was something else he had forgotten to grab.
As I sat there sipping on my French-Vanilla Cappuccino, I let my gaze stray across the masses of people around me. Most of them moved with a sort of urgency about them. They seemed to all be on a mission and tightly wrapped within their own private ‘bubble’. Interaction with the people around them was avoided, at all costs. At least that was how it appeared for most of them anyway.
Those that did attempt to make eye contact with a smile at passersby were a rarity. One group of teenagers caught my attention in particular. The six of them stood around the food court, each doing the exact same thing as the rest.
They smiled and said ‘Hello, welcome to the mall,” to every person that passed by them. At first, I thought that they were just trying to be annoying, or perhaps they were staging some sort of very quiet protest. I watched them with growing interest trying to figure out just what it was that they were up to.
The teenaged boy who was closest to me looked just like any youth out on the street at that particular time. His blonde-tipped hair was messy and had a glossy sheen to it, a clear indication that it was either firmly gelled or ‘glued’.
His jeans were very faded and frayed and at least three sizes too big. His cotton shirt, while clearly clean and freshly pressed, held a map of wrinkles where it had pulled free from the belt, which was cinched below his hips instead of around his waist. His footwear of choice, even though there was a good covering of snow outside, was running shoes.
He looked like any young person you would see riding his skateboard dangerously close to traffic.
What really caught my attention though, was what he was holding in his hands. Two identical counters, the type that you press a button with your thumb each time you want to add to your tally. Every time he greeted someone, his thumb would click that little knob on the counter in his left hand. If he got a positive response, the right thumb clicked.
All six of those kids were doing the same thing. They all had those counters, and they were keeping track of something.
My eyes wondered back to my closest ‘clicker’. An adult with a clipboard and pen was talking to him. He was jotting down the numbers from the two clickers onto the paper, in two very concise columns.
Without even realizing that I had left my seat, I found myself standing in front of them. As they turned in unison to look at me, I said, “Thank you.”
The boy just stood there looking confused and rather embarrassed, while his teacher asked if one of his students had done something, which he should be made aware of. As he began to explain that they had permission from the mall authorities to be there, I interrupted him.
“I am thanking you, for those who didn’t or couldn’t. You are out here doing a scientific experiment, to examine the reactions of people to strangers; but you are giving gifts that are much deeper than you could even imagine.”
The other five students had gathered around and I turned to each of them.
“You welcomed a girl, about your own age, all dressed in black with ‘Goth’ make-up. She came to the mall today to buy razor blades and sleeping pills. In her mind, this was a world that neither knew nor cared that she even existed. For the past year, her life has been spiraling out of control; she has not felt that she had a reason to live for a long time. Right now, she is in the toy store carefully choosing the perfect teddy bear for her brand new nephew. She is going to be an awesome aunty.
“The little old lady that clutched her purse to her chest and looked so terrified when you spoke to her, stood a little straighter after she passed by you. Her world has changed so much; her neighborhood has become filled with loud teenagers, who she does not recognize. She has hidden away, in her house, out of fear of them, even though they have never done anything to her. She is old and alone; sometimes that is all it takes.
“She bumped into one of those neighborhood kids, right after you spoke to her and he smiled at her. Now he has a job shoveling her sidewalk, and helping her out with some yard work. He is helping her carry her bags to the car, right now.
“Each and every one of you has made a difference in the world today. You warmed many hearts, showed the world that there are still some out here that care. You did not do anything too strenuous; it did not hurt you or cost you anything, but it was priceless. You have the power to change lives. You have the power to change the world. Hold on to that power, never forget about it and use it wisely … every day!”
Before any of them could even think of anything to say, I turned away to join Chris. He had gathered the packages that I had left at the table. I met him halfway, slipped my arm through his, kissed him on the cheek and we left the mall.
“What was that all about?” he asked on our way to the truck. “Those kids you were talking to all had tears in their eyes.”
“Oh, I was just talking to them about a project that they are doing for school. So, tell me, what did you have to slip off by yourself to buy?”
I changed the subject, after all, how could I explain what had happened in the mall to Chris, when I didn’t understand it myself!
Twenty
Adam was sitting in the living room when we got back to the home. I could hear his housemates in the kitchen, preparing supper. There were six men living in the house, along with the staff. Two staff members were always on hand, day and night and the administrator was present during the day, from Monday to Friday.
The residents share all the household chores. It really was a wonderful set-up; they all worked and ran the house. They were regular members of society, as much as they could be, they just had some extra support, through their aides.
That d
ay was clearly not Adam’s day to help with the preparation of supper, he more than likely had to help with the clean up after the meal. He was watching a program about lions on the television. Adam liked anything to do with nature, almost as much as he liked numbers.
As I walked into the room, he looked up from the flickering screen, smiled and said, “Hi there, Ella. You’re late.”
Sitting down beside him on the couch, I carefully placed my hand on his knee. I knew that he did not like to be touched. In the past, a simple pat on the back had sent him into an uncontrollable rage.
“I know, Adam, and I am sorry, but it couldn’t be helped,” I told him quietly.
“Sixty-four,” he responded.
“Sixty-four? What’s that about, Adam?”
“That’s how many times most people use that excuse in a year, sixty-four, and mosta the time it ain’t true.”
A quick laugh bubbled up from my throat. “You are probably right.”
“Nanny died.”
“I know, Adam. She was old; it was her time to go.”
“I know, you told me that before. You took me to see her, in the box.”
Turning abruptly, he began tapping his finger against my chest. Knowing that this was a normal action of his, I ignored it at first. I ignored it, until he pressed his hand flat against my chest, nearly imbedding the amulet into my skin.
I closed my hand over his. “Adam, that hurts!”
He started to vibrate and looked directly in my eyes. For the first time in more years than I could remember, my brother looked directly into my eyes. When he spoke, his voice was clear and strong. It held none of the hesitation or shakiness that I had grown accustomed to.
“You have the key. She gave it to you and you never told me.
“Learn how to use it, Ella, learn quickly because we do not have much time left. You have to remember. It is time…now!
“I had to remember the numbers, but you have to remember the rest. You know what to do. You know what to say. You know it all. You just do not know the numbers, that was my job.