“Willa.”
“Can you blame me?”
I never know what to say when she hints at sex, because on the one hand I’m flattered, and on the other I’m scared shitless.
Willa changes the subject. “I have some things planned for us tomorrow.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Let me surprise you.” I’m not opposed to that. Willa’s last surprise has already been transferred to my iPod…and has an embarrassingly high play count.
“Okay. But be gentle.” Willa kisses the corner of my ear-to-ear grin.
“I’ll take good care of you.”
Saturday
I wake up early to see Elise off, ignoring Mom’s nagging to get back into bed and rest. Eventually she concludes that I’m either too stubborn to move or temporarily deaf, because she quits harping on me. Elise sits on my lap during breakfast, crunching on Cheerios. She doesn’t have a choice in the matter; I pulled her onto my lap and there she stays. Dad gives her a hug and a kiss goodbye before he leaves for work.
“Be safe, honey,” he tells her. I get a look of concern over Elise’s shoulder. What’s his problem? Everyone has been looking at me weird since Elise told me she was working at that stupid camp. I don’t like it that she’s leaving, but we’ve been separated before—every time I went to music camp. The difference is that this time she’s the one going away, and I can’t protect her there.
“Relax,” Eric tells me as they climb into the car. “She’ll be fine. You were.” What the hell does he know? He never went to sleep-away camp. My mind is a blur of memories that now seem like horror stories—homesickness, injuries, weed, blowjobs behind the cabin after hours…. I hope they never let my sister out of the kitchen.
“Willa called, she’s on her way,” Mom says, and kisses me on the cheek. “Cheer up. The summer will be over before you know it.”
Yeah, right.
They pull out of the driveway and I sit there on the porch like an abandoned dog, waiting for them to come back. I miss her already. I shouldn’t have put that toy wand in her backpack—condoms would have been more appropriate. What’s the spell for preventing teen pregnancy?
I’m still sitting on the porch swing, stewing in misery and panicking inside, when Willa pulls up. She comes up to the porch with her backpack slung over one shoulder and a full trash bag in the other hand. I ask her what it’s for and she says, “You’ll see.”
I’m fine with spending our day together in the regular living space instead of holed up in my room. Willa has seen me in bed enough this month.
“Do you have the breath to do stairs?” she asks.
“I’d need you to walk with me.”
“Okay. Wait here.” Willa takes her bags inside. I can hear her walking around in there for a few minutes, and when she comes back to get me she’s carrying Adolph.
“So I don’t have to explain to your dad how you passed out and fell down the stairs.” Willa holds the bag out to me. I take it with a sigh and unwind the tubing. Once I get the stupid thing fitted and turned on, Willa holds out a hand to help me up.
“We don’t have to spend the day upstairs,” I tell her as we cross the porch. “I’m not so sick anymore that I need to be in bed all the time.”
“Your dad said you’d say that.” Willa smirks and kisses my shoulder. I move my arm so she is no longer supporting my elbow and put it around her shoulders. This feels less like an invalid being guided and more like a couple strolling.
Willa works fast. My bed is made up with about six additional pillows—the contents of her mystery trash bag—and a TV dinner tray is set up with fresh sliced fruit and juice. Another short table has been set up near the foot of the bed with a laptop and a stack of DVDs. The window is open to let in the warm breeze.
“I thought it would be nice to spend the day in bed together,” she says. “Brought the living room and kitchen in, too.”
I kiss her temple. “You’re wonderful.” We get comfortable on the bed, propped up by pillows. There are four movies to choose from: 300; Anchorman; Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels; and Ocean’s Eleven. I take back whatever I said about Willa having lousy taste in movies.
We start with Anchorman, cuddled close and without risk of interruption. I put aside my oxygen for the time being. I can breathe just fine while resting and I want to be able to smell her. Willa pulls the container of fruit closer and calls it our movie popcorn. She even cut the fruit into kernel-sized chunks and used only what I can eat without hurting: kiwis, raspberries, banana, grapes, and peaches.
“I love you,” I tell her, and slip a cut grape past her lips.
“Keep grazing on this,” she says of the fruit. “It’ll keep your energy up and your stomach from hurting.” Brilliant as that plan is, I enjoy this setup for other reasons. For every piece of fruit I eat, at least one is sacrificed to food play with my Willa. I trace bits of kiwi around her lips and kiss the juice away. Some peach juice drips onto her peaches, and she lets me lick it off. “Can’t have you being undernourished, can we?”
Only half my attention is on the movie, and that’s fine, because I missed this holding and touching and teasing. We cuddle as close as possible, twining our legs together and nibbling fruit from each other’s fingers. The movie provides humor, and I missed laughing with her about simple things.
Willa is generous with her patience. She holds me when I cough, and every time I have to shift positions because of joint pain she helps me rearrange the pillows and snuggles up to me again. I love how she doesn’t fuss.
At the end of the first movie, Willa makes me sit up. I’ve been coughing more often since the beginning of the third act, and now it’s time to hack up as much mucus as I can.
“I can’t believe you want to watch this.”
Willa just kisses my cheek and pats my back with cupped hands to help loosen the phlegm. “If I was sick, you’d take care of me.” She does do a good job of that, I have to say. She stays with me until I’ve coughed up all I can, and then brings me my noon medication from the bathroom.
“You want a hit?” she says after I’m done swallowing pills, and extends the oxygen tube to me like a stoner offering a bong. I take it from her and give my lungs some rest.
Ocean’s Eleven is next, but I’m getting tired. I fall asleep with my head on Willa’s shoulder before Ocean has his full team.
Waking up is heaven.
Willa: June 24
Saturday
I turn off the movie when it seems Jem is really and truly asleep. He doesn’t stir when I slip away from him, or when I tuck a blanket over his legs. While he sleeps I take the opportunity to get up and stretch; use the washroom; put the fruit in the fridge for later; and when all that is done, I sit against the headboard and watch Jem nap. He looks deceptively innocent in sleep—earnest and soft like a baby lamb. I take his hat off and his hair sticks up in all directions. It only enhances his overall cuteness.
Jem stretches his arm and leg to the side, looking for me, and ends up sprawled like a starfish. The position displaces his nasal cannula. I adjust it and he smiles.
“Looking for me?” I take his outstretched hand and Jem hums contentedly. “You awake?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” I run a hand down his back and he hums encouragingly. He’s only awake so long as I love on him and let him lie there. I pat his bum and his smile grows.
“You’ve got a cute butt.” The goof teasingly lifts his hips, pressing his cheek further against my palm. “Like that, is it?”
Jem nods against his pillow. He hasn’t even bothered to open his eyes yet. I think a little fun is in order, so I slip my hand down from the curve of his cheek, between his thighs. That wakes him up. Jem’s eyes snap open and his fingers dig into the blanket as I run my fingers around his balls.
“Cool, it’s an On button,” I tease him, and tug gently. Jem lies there like he’s afraid to move and end the moment.
“Kiss me?” he says. That shouldn’t be
a question. I lie down to kiss him and Jem wraps an arm around me. I can’t quite reach between his legs from this angle, but I can touch elsewhere.
“You want to play?” he murmurs against my lips. He sounds nervous, and I don’t blame him.
“I’d love to play.”
“Can we keep clothes on?” By ‘we’ he means himself.
“I’d rather not.”
“But—”
“Relax, love. You don’t have to say yes or no to everything up front. We’ll go slow. Keep your oxygen on—I have to give you back to your parents in mint condition.”
“Give me a minute.” He leans toward the washroom and I unwrap my arms to let him go. Jem is gone for a few minutes, and from the bedroom I hear the faint sounds of the medicine cabinet opening and closing. When he comes back the buttons on his pajama shirt are undone, but it’s such a loose garment that I can’t see much between the gap.
Jem crawls across the bed to me and I immediately slip my hands under his shirt to trace his bare skin. “I knew you’d go straight for that,” he mutters against my lips.
“It’s a novelty.” I run my fingers up both sides of his spine and he arches his back with a sigh. Jem leans down, planting little kisses along my neck and jaw, and whispers in my ear, “I love the way you touch me.”
“You should let me do it more often,” I tell him, only half teasing. Sometimes the touch of another is the only thing that can remind us that we’re alive; I love being able to give him that—to welcome him back to his body after a long dormancy.
As my hands travel across his shoulders the front of his shirt parts and I can see why he needed a minute in the washroom. Jem bundled up the end caps and catheter of his Hickman and taped it all to his chest under a patch of gauze. I pause to look at it and Jem smiles apologetically.
“I didn’t want it to get in the way,” he says quietly. I push back the sides of his shirt to look at his entire chest, fair and slightly freckled. It only takes a moment for his nipples to react to the open air and they withdraw into tight ovals. Just like in the hospital, I want to commit every inch of him to memory—every freckle and scar and ridge of bone and muscle. My scrutiny sets Jem on edge again, and he sits back on his heels and begins to close his shirt.
“Hey.” I grab his hands to stop him from buttoning up. “Stop that.”
“It was stupid,” he says to his lap. “I’ll put on a t-shirt or something.”
“No, you won’t.” It’s ridiculous the lengths to which Jem will go to hide from himself. I’m not done looking at him yet.
Jem glances up at me long enough to see that I’m not going to back down on this. He bows his head again and takes his lip between his teeth. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and avoids looking at me. Intimacy is a careful balancing act with Jem, because even when he wants to touch and be touched, the slightest gesture can make him self-conscious again.
“You wouldn’t let me beat myself up like this if it were the other way around.”
Jem doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He sits there brooding for a few seconds and belatedly tries to cover his chest with his shirt.
“I don’t want to argue anymore about how beautiful you are,” I tell him, and shift to straddle his lap. I push his shoulders back and part his shirt. “Now pipe down and let me appreciate you properly.” And just to level the playing field, I take my shirt off too. Jem tries to continue being irritated with me, but my breasts are quite distracting.
Jem’s chest is full of little surprises. His nipples—which are pleasantly sensitive, for a guy—are firm from the open air and tighten further in response to my touch. They’re asymmetrical, too; the left one is pointing toward his elbow.
“That’s good luck, you know.”
“What?”
“Okay, fine, I just made that up.” I tug his shirt off and Jem lifts his arms obligingly. “Lie back,” I tell him. Jem reclines against the pillows, watching me study him. “Do you remember cuddling with your shirt off when you were high?”
“When was this?”
“In the hospital, that day your painkillers were screwed up.”
“I don’t remember.” I run my hands up his sides and along the undersides of his arms, spreading them as I reach toward his inner elbows. The new hair under Jem’s arms is blond. The hairs on his arms and chest are darker, but only just. I remark on the color and Jem shrugs. “It’ll probably change, you know.” I blow across his underarm, watching the new hair tremble, and Jem recoils with a scolding look. “You tickle me, and I swear to God…”
I take off my bra and the transgression is forgotten. He traces the edges of my breasts with his fingertips, like they’re fragile or fleeting and he wants to memorize their shape. I run my hand through his hair and Jem complains about cowlicks. He tries to flatten it with his hand, but it only makes his hat-head worse. “God damn,” he mutters. “And this thing is only going to get in the way.” He touches his oxygen tube and scowls. “Maybe we should just cuddle.”
I trace the outline of his gauze patch. “You didn’t tape this up so we could cuddle,” I argue, and Jem’s ears turn pink. I ask what he has in mind, but he refuses to tell me. “Did you cover it up just so you could hide it?”
“No. I didn’t want it to get caught, or be in the way. I wanted things to go smoothly with you.” He laughs weakly at himself. “Like I’ll ever manage not to screw that up.”
“Want to know a secret?” I ask. Jem raises an eyebrow at me and I trail little kisses up his jaw to whisper in his ear: “Sex only goes smoothly in the movies. It’s awkward, and messy, and in some positions there’s a high probability that you’ll fall over, but that’s okay because it’s still really fucking fun.”
“I can’t do that right now,” he reminds me.
“I know. We’re just going to roll with it and enjoy ourselves. And it’s likely going to be messy and awkward, and you’re not going to get embarrassed because that’s par for the course, right?”
Jem doesn’t make me any promises, but he does try. It eases his anxiety somewhat when I roll off him and we resume the side-by-side position we used this morning, during the movie. Lying like this, with neither one of his being dominant over the other and with no obvious way to segue into naughtier things, we can just hold and touch and make out—and we do. A lot.
There are things about Jem that I get to discover, now that I can touch him skin-to-skin. He likes nails against his back, gently trailing the ridge of his spine. The stretch of skin between his collarbone and shoulder is sensitive to kisses—the long, wet kind that make him turn to mush when applied to his neck.
Jem’s inhibition recedes as we kiss, and his hands begin to explore on their own. One even explores below the waistband of my sweatpants, cupping my ass beneath my underwear.
I return the favor and Jem murmurs against my lips, “Don’t you dare mention bread dough.” I laugh and ask him if he remembers having a face made of bread.
“What?”
“You made me touch your face when you were high. You said it was made of bread.”
“I did not.”
“Yup. And Elise tried to eat your eyebrow.”
“Now you’re just making stuff up.”
“I am not.” I spank him teasingly and Jem bites my lip. “Can I see all of you?” I ask. It’s a long shot, but if I don’t ask there’s no chance at all. Before he can answer I start to shimmy out of my pants. Nudity is a team sport, after all.
“You can keep your underwear on.”
Jem blushes. “Um, maybe?” His eyes are locked on my underwear. I decide to test the limits of a ‘maybe’ by slipping my hands under the back of his pants, touching his bum and thighs over his boxers.
Jem turns shy when I start to remove his pants. First he tries to distract me by making out, and he almost succeeds. I’m waiting for him to say no and tell me to stop, but he doesn’t. When making out fails to put a stop to things, he starts to make excuses for keeping his pants, telling me that
he isn’t aroused yet. That’s still not a ‘no’ or a ‘stop.’
“Neither am I.” Jem shivers as I palm him through the thin layers of cotton and I ask what he wants to do right now.
“Don’t take it personally if I don’t get hard, okay?”
“Of course.”
“I want you to lie down,” he says quietly. I do as he says, but not before I turn up his flow of oxygen—just in case.
It’s his turn to discover. I lie back, exposed except for my underwear, and let him touch and kiss and smell and taste. Jem is fascinated with the curve of my waist and hip. He tastes the skin from my neck to my navel, peppering it with tender kisses. His hands trace the sensitive spots—elbows, collarbones, nipples—testing my reactions. It’s slow and languid, and even when he has to take a breather and lie with his head on my chest, his hands never stop moving.
I enjoy watching him look at me. His unguarded looks of interest and appreciation are a wordless compliment. He loves me, and he likes what he sees. Fingertips trace the curve of my pubic bone and the slope between hip and thigh, exploring my shape. Suddenly it all seems very funny, because if I tried doing this to Jem, he would shut down completely.
“What?” he says, and draws his hand away. I put it right back where it belongs.
“I’m enjoying myself. You?”
Jem smiles timidly. “Yeah, I am too.” I beckon him closer for a kiss and he happily complies. His tongue teases my lips and I chuckle warmly. I missed that wonderful appendage.
“More?” Jem offers with a smirk. I think he’s teasing me. And I think I like it.
“Please…but stop if you can’t breathe.”
He snorts. “Duh.” Jem rests more of his weight against me and cups my neck with his hand, angling our kisses for comfort. I wrap a leg around his hips and pull him in closer. I like feeling him so near.
Jem’s tongue tastes like kiwis and grapes. I can’t be certain if the pounding against my ribs is his heart or mine, so I reach over and turn his oxygen up a little more. I’d rather the fun not end in a blackout.
Wake Page 80
