Every Time I Think of You (22 page)

Sitting there in that little tiled room, the hiss of the water, him naked, his arms flexed, about to rise, he stopped, looking me up and down.

He extended an arm.

“So, pick me up and put me on the seat.”

As we touched, arms and shoulders and water spray and some awkward combination of him toying with my obvious desire, he said, “Somebody’s happy to see me.” The tenderness of scrubbing him, attending to him, brought up a wave of new feelings.

While his legs had thinned a bit, his arms and chest had thickened with muscle. Not only were we making up for lost time, but the combination of intimacy and water in yet another new location made lathering soap along his legs, waist and under his arms almost ecstatic for me. We were touching beyond the abrupt sexual urge; caressing, adoring, rediscovering.

Where was the therapy group for this? Among the many brochures in the lobby and on his desk, I hadn’t noticed any that read,
How to Have Gay Sex With the Disabled.

“Check this out,” Everett turned to remove the low-placed showerhead from a clip-like holder. He gave himself a more thorough rinse before turning it on me. Startled, I jumped back against the tile wall as he hosed me down. I feigned annoyance as he aimed the spray lower. Wiping my eyes, I stood before him, growing harder where it counted, and relaxed everywhere else.

Everett set the showerhead down, turned to shut off the water, and sat before me, glistening wet, his dick pointing up between his legs. I felt a bit ashamed to feel relief at the sight of his excitement. So, he could do that. What would I have done if he couldn’t?

As I got closer to coming, he gestured me closer, until he grasped it, tugged it, then with a growing ferocity, yanked an ejaculation out of me, aiming it onto himself. My legs quivered, buckled. I almost collapsed onto him, relieved that these new variations helped us avoid discussion and clarifications. So much pent up desire had compelled us through these new sensations and positions.

My playful reach for his cock, which had settled down a bit, was politely rebuffed. I figured it was time for us to rinse off again, to wipe him off and help him into his chair with a towel set on the seat. As I hovered near, he deigned a few kisses to parts of my arm and stomach.

Helping him slip on a pair of boxer shorts and a worn T-shirt, he then showed me how he got himself into the low bed, hopping over with minor difficulty, followed by the command, “Come ‘ere. Kissin’ time.”

Not what, I wondered, but how. I knew his legs couldn’t move, but his cock had sprouted up again, tenting his shorts, as if it knew what it wanted. I eased myself toward it, grasping his hand, preventing him from stopping me as I tugged his shorts down below his waist.

“It’s okay,” I soothed. “Just relax,” I said to myself as much as to him.

He pulled off his shirt and asked me to shift the opposite way so we could do the same to each other. Everett wasn’t entirely comfortable, but very determined. We readjusted ourselves a few times until we found a side-to-side position where his leg didn’t fall onto my head.

Although I knew he couldn’t feel my licks and tugs, his body responded. He clutched my hips with more force, signaling that he wanted me deeper in him. I had to look over to see his face, his eyes closed, his lips surrounding me. Before long he was soothingly swallowing my bursts with low appreciative hums.

“You couldn’t wait for me again?” he joked, wiping his mouth.

“Sorry,” I apologized. I grabbed his towel, wiped him off, then flipped around to nestle beside him. His cock had dwindled, but as I attempted to revive it, he took my hand away, brought it up to his stomach. I rubbed, soothed, caressed up around his chest, his neck, and we shared a few light kisses before he nestled close, my arm under his neck.

I continued touching him under his shorts and along his legs, determined to explore his thighs and hips, silently asking with my hands where his sensations began and ended.

“Could you rub my back a little? It’s really tight.”

“Anything you want,” I smiled. Gently helping him roll over onto his stomach, I slowly caressed his back. My fingers found it before I saw it, the surgery scar above his butt. I turned my attention away, delicately straddled him, keeping my weight on my knees, and gave him a slow massage, guiding the tension out as he purred into the pillow.

Lowering myself atop him, my lingering erection nestled at the top cleft of his buttocks, pressing against his scar. We lay for a while, until he adjusted himself, signaling a desire to shift positions and roll onto his back.

Like a sort of erratic thermometer, his penis had thickened again, and I moved my face closer. I licked it, lubricating it, delicately tugging.

“Do you think you can …?”

“Let’s find out.”

As he laid back, his hand lightly rubbing my head and neck, I persisted, until his hips and legs began to spasm in a different and odd way. I didn’t stop, until quite suddenly his dick erupted with a series of pent up volleys that splashed onto my face and hands.

I waited, impulsively licked up a few puddles, then adjusted back toward him and lay my head on his chest until his panting slowed.

“Whew!”

As the spasms diminished, I wiped my face and turned to look up to him. He lifted his head to grin at me.

Everett asked for the towel, which I retrieved, wiping myself off first. Before I returned to the bed, he held up his hand. “Wait. Just stand there.”

I returned to the bed, wiping him down, helping him tug his shorts back on before settling next to him, when he joked, “Now that was physical therapy I could get used to.”

“That’s funny should you ask, ‘cause Daya gave me this whole embarrassing talk, part of my ‘sexual counseling,’ about how now that I’ve got some feeling back down there, it’s almost important for me to get my rocks off. Greg gave me some pointers. He’s pretty cool, for a straight guy.”

He playfully elbowed me. “Anyway, speaking of coming, since you asked. It’s like … it starts inside me, and tingles in my bones and arms, like it spreads everywhere else. I can feel my dick, sort if, but like inside only, like pissing after a few beers used to feel. It’s … it’s just different.”

“Oh, no. Have at it. But we have to be careful with, you know, the butt sex, ‘cause I can’t feel it, and you could tear my skin, and I’d get infected. You can poke around with your finger, which is what I have to do for, you know, ‘elimination.’”

I hesitated, considered the varied settings of our prior intimacy. I wanted to say, ‘when that leaf landed on your back in the woods,’ or ‘the taste of your lips after drinking champagne,’ or ‘the glow of your skin with snow light reflecting on it.’ Instead, I hinted, “That thing you did with your tongue.”

Arching his head up to check his alarm clock, Everett said, “Too late. Cafeteria’s closed. I have some turkey and bread and stuff in the mini-fridge.”

I got up and retrieved his catheter, then prepared some food, while still naked, at his command, and served it on his bed with exaggerated flair. He scooted himself up to sitting and we inhaled the sandwiches.

With the plates set aside, we nuzzled and dozed until well after dark. I mentioned a need to return to Holly’s apartment, but Everett assured me that I could stay. He suggested I give his sister a call, which I did. She understood.

Beside him, his back to me after I’d returned to his bed and we’d shifted positions, I slipped one arm under his pillow as I nestled close behind him, my other hand free to graze his skin as his back rose and fell with slowing breaths. My silent tears of joy and relief lost in his still damp hair, I realized I didn’t need that brochure.

Chapter 33

Even though Sundays were considered his day off from physical therapy, there were recreational days where Everett was supposed to work out unsupervised. I didn’t know that would involve watching him face-dive from his braked chair over the edge of the pool.

Submerged below and rising near me, I felt a pang of fear for Everett’s safety. But then I saw his water-blurred arm grab for me, and almost successfully yank my swimsuit down. I ducked back down toward him, and we playfully jostled underwater, until we both rose, gasped, shook the water from our eyes, and held on to each other, floating, grinning and giggling like little kids.

On the other side of the pool, a few senior patients, one in a funny flowered plastic bathing cap, were going through the motions of arm and leg exercises with their physical therapists. One of the younger quadriplegic kids was busily paddling around another adult. Anyone glancing at us would have thought I was simply helping Everett with some therapy. I guess I was.

The weight of his legs forced him to paddle harder, but he didn’t seem to mind. Beneath the water, I saw the blurry image of his limbs, bent in a bobbing seated position. I held him at his waist, our faces inches apart. We performed an intimate aquatic pas de deux, everything beyond us whirling slowly in a blur.

“We should sneak in here at night sometime,” I suggested.

“You learn from the master,” Everett grinned. “But first, I’m hungry.”

Everett swam toward the pool’s edge. I was about to ask if he needed any help, but he hiked himself up to sitting with a wet plop. I followed, parked myself beside him, and realized that it was one of those rare new positions, other than in bed, where we were facing each other at the same level. I wanted to tell him how overwhelmed I was to simply have that moment with him, to just be a pair of guys sitting by a pool, our feet dangling in the water, to just be there, to just be.

Instead, I simply said, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

After changing back in his room, I followed his roll to the elevator and to the cafeteria, where he waved, low-fived or nodded at nearly all the other patients. Understandably, he’d yet again become a popular friend to many. We chose some of the above-average cafeteria food. Everett managed to hold a tray in his lap with ease.