Touch Therapy Ch. 02

Greg looked up at her in shock, registering her fury, as well as the tears standing in the corners of her eyes. Unconsciously, his hands moved to shield his crotch, but Rachel quickly reached down with one hand and smacked his hands away. He froze, uncertain what to do.

"Don't fucking move," she said, harshly. She stepped back for no more than a few seconds, and unceremoniously shucked her T-shirt and sweats. Naked, she stepped back to him without hesitation, locking her grip once more into the hair at the back of his head.

As she had done only days before, Rachel took one of his hands in her own, and brought it to her mouth. There was nothing gentle or suggestive this time, as she thrust his fingers between her lips, slicked them with saliva, and drew them out.

She used her grip on the back of his head then, pulling his face forward until his nose was pressed into her navel, his lips brushing the top of her bush. Her other hand drew his moistened fingers upwards, stroking them across one of her nipples, tracing wet lines along the curving underside of her breast. Her nipple grew hard under tips of his fingers, and her breathing grew heavy and rapid.

Greg moaned. Confused and hurt, he was nevertheless aroused, and could feel himself thickening and moving against his own thigh.

"What," he started to ask, but Rachel just gripped his hair tighter, giving him a rough shake, and Greg, wincing, fell silent.

"Shut up," she hissed. "Just shut up!"

Greg's inner vision flashed on his memory of her, so slim and straight and shy, like a woodland creature, and he realized that that was exactly what she was. A wounded animal. Looking helpless, and soft, with big, brown, liquid eyes. And when you knelt to help it, and accidentally touched a sore spot, it turned on you. Tiny and fierce, it tore at you with savage fury, until it felt its teeth grating on bone.

Rachel stooped over him now, forcing his head back until his spine arched impossibly, and he had to clutch at her naked hips to keep from falling over. He felt her firm breasts pressing into his face, his lips.

"kiss me," Rachel whispered, and Greg could swear that he heard tears in her voice.

Greg clung to her hips, off balance, trying not to fall over, and pressed his lips against the underside of her breasts, kissing them fervidly. Rachel steered his head mercilessly with her grip, moving his lips around the pale contours of her taut curves. Pressing his lips against her breasts, the hard line of her ribs, the crease where the two met.

When she brought his lips to her nipple, Greg, unbidden, sucked it into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue, and gently pinching it between his teeth.

Rachel made a small, high pitched sound. Greg could not tell if it was passion, or despair.

With graceful power, Rachel took two quick steps, bearing Greg even further backward, arching his back painfully and forcing his head between her legs. Greg cried out in pain and, slipping his hands off her hips, reached under her thighs, hooking his arms upward to cling desperately to her ass and relieve the tension on his back.

Arched back like a rainbow, his knees grinding into the tile floor, his palms splayed across Rachel's ass, face clamped between her legs, Greg realized what Rachel wanted.

"Do it," she half-sobbed, half-growled. "Do it!"

Damn, Greg thought, as he pressed his lips against hers. Damn, this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

It hurt like hell, but he didn't flinch. Bent backward, with Rachel's hands fisted in his hair, his palms clenched on the pale globes of her ass cheeks, he tongued her with all the passion and skill he could muster.

Rachel, caught up in the whirlwind of her fury and lust, was oblivious. Head thrown back, teeth bared, panting with the effort, she ground her mons against his lips and tongue with single-minded force. She rode his mouth unrelentingly, urging him on with small, desperate cries. Her pelvic bone flattened his lips against his teeth with bruising force, and her hips bucked forward, driving her clit against his tongue.

Her juices flooded Greg's mouth, the taste of her excitement mingling with his own spit. The warm smell of her, musky and thick, filled his nostrils, swept into his lungs with every breath.

Sweat, and steam from the pots boiling on the range, beaded on Rachel's pale skin, on the underside of her breasts, on the curving slope of her belly. It trickled into her navel, and caught in the wiry hair of her bush, glittering under the kitchen flourescents like tiny gems before being crushed against Greg's cheeks, his nose, his lips, as her hands yanked and pulled frantically at his head, smearing him into herself.

Greg swallowed as fast as he could, as much as he could, fighting for air, but as long moments passed, his chin and chest grew slick from the fluids that ran slowly down them. Occasionally, he would hear the distant slap of his cock as the force of Rachel's grinding thrusts caused his prick to whip through the air and smack against his own belly.

Rachel's hands roamed through his hair, sometimes stroking gently along the nape of his neck while she rocked and cooed at him, urging him on with low murmurs. At other moments, her fingers would lace at the back of his head, and she would pull him violently into her, her cries growing louder.

Then she'd release him, letting him slip his tongue up and down the length of her crack, probing deeply into her, spreading her with his tongue and worrying at the nub of her clit. Her hands would slide behind her, reaching down to cover his own, where they cupped her ass. Her hands traveled across her own flesh, and his, while he worked. Her short nails dug into his traps, his shoulders. Now and again, she'd wrap her fingers in his hair, yanking his lips away from her tender flesh while she stood over him, trembling and panting.

Greg clung to her in those moments, his arched back aching under the strain, relying on her trembling legs to support them both. Held that way, inches from her secret core, he gazed up at her, his breath coming fast and hard, hot against the soft, shiny folds, spread and exposed only inches from his lips.

Then she would sigh, a short sharp hiss of breath, and draw his face back into herself, her rolling hips smushing the wet softness of herself against his lips and tongue.

Greg felt Rachel's imminent climax in her thigh muscles, trembling against his cheeks. He pushed his lips into her harder, then. He crushed her mons against his upper lip and the hard ridge of his teeth. He sucked her clit into his mouth, rolling his tongue over it with strokes that built, gradually, in speed and force.

Rachel's long pale thighs shook uncontrollably. He could feel the jerking spasms of her butt muscles under his palms as she hunched her hips forward, desperately grinding into him, her fingers laced around the back of his head, urging him on. Her cries grew sharper, higher, more throaty. Finally her calves tightened, and she went up on the balls of her feet, her toes splayed out against the tile floor, digging for purchase as she convulsed.

She gushed into Greg's mouth. He swam in the rich salt and spice tang of her, gulping her in. He clutched her closer, hands clenched on her ass, pulling her hot core onto his lips and tongue. He drove his tongue into her, his jaw working, swallowing her nectar and rubbing his lips over her clit as she cried out, and cried out, and then hissed a whispery, screaming obscenity.

Then there was only the hissing and spattering of the pots on the range, and the incipient smell of smoke as onions blackened in too hot oil.

Rachel held Greg pressed into her for long moments after she had finished. Her breathing slowed, became more regular. The juddery twitches of her thighs quieted, and she relaxed back down off of her toes.

She held him there, his lips pressed into heated wetness, still grazing lightly across her clit. Greg was finally able to take a deep breath, and he relaxed his grip on her ass. He cradled her butt, now gently but firmly, and breathed in the heady, sweaty reek of her. His cock bobbed wildly with his pulse, his mind quiet and focused while his back howled with pain.

Rachel stepped back, releasing the tension on Greg, but as he straightened, his back screaming in protest, she drew his face tightly against her belly, forcing him to remain on his knees, unable to see her face. Again, Greg remained motionless, his hands still cradling Rachel's ass, his cheek pressed into the warm, soft curve of her belly, his breath huffing warmly into her pubic thatch.

When she finally released him and stepped back, long moments later, her face was cold and passive. Greg, on his knees, his cock jutting absurdly from between his thighs, studied her desperately, trying to decipher her intent, struggling to understand what had just happened.

He looked up at her, raising his hand to gingerly touch one bruised cheek, and brush a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, where his teeth had torn his lips.

Rachel looked down at him coldly, waiting.

This was it, he realized. He was filled by a rising awareness that this was a crucial moment. The idea swelled in him, and burst. What he did now would shape his life. And hers.

He smelled the burning onion and garlic on the stove behind him, felt the steam and humidity from the boiling rice curling against his naked flesh, the warm and unyeilding tile bruising his knees. He heard the high pitched hum of the flourescents. He tasted the blood in his mouth, and the ache of his balls, as his cock leapt and pulsed in front of him.

This was it, he thought. This was where he begged. Crawled. Abased himself in the obscene and desperate hope that she would touch him. That she would deign to watch, lips curled in a contemptuous smile of disgust, while he wept, and begged, and finally jerked himself, spilling his seed, shamefaced, on the tile floor.

Greg looked up at her, standing over him, naked and aloof, face frozen in cold hauteur.

He sighed then, scooping his clothes from the floor and into his lap, covering his nakedness. He looked up at her, letting all the tenderness and pity he felt for her fill his eyes.

"Did it help?" He asked her, quietly, his voice freighted with import. "Do you feel. . . better?"

Rachel's facade crumbled with alarming speed. Her eyes filled with a shamed horror as she stared down at his bruised face, his swollen lips, chin smeared with blood and the glistening leavings of her abandon.

Greg said nothing. He watched her in calm, knowing silence.

She fled. She turned, not bothering to collect her clothes, and darted from the room, her pale slender form flashing through the shadowed room beyond. Greg heard the soft, staccato thump of her feet racing up the carpeted stairs, and the slam of her bedroom door.

Collecting himself with a sigh, and several wincing groans, Greg got slowly to his feet, and pulled his clothing on. He turned to the stove, and the burning food.

Filled with a bleak and hollow foreboding, he wondered what could be salvaged: what was beyond repair.

And he started over.

/Break/

Naked but for the terrycloth robe, Rachel lay curled on the bed in her darkened room, crying. The radio played softly, but she barely heard it, her mind wandering.

Both of her hands were clamped between her legs, cupping her aching groin. She throbbed, and yet tingled. Now and again she would tentatively slip one finger between her lips, and touch, with the briefest, lightest touch, the delicate nub that nestled there.

It made her jerk and twitch every time. Jerk with pain, for she was bruised and sore. Twitch with desire, for even now, drowning in shame, she wanted nothing more than to rush back downstairs and demand, once more, that he take off his clothes and press his flesh against hers.

She stroked herself again, and it brought his image swimming up into the forefront of her mind. That knowing gaze, looking up at her as he touched his swelling lips, and brushed the trickle of blood from the edge of his mouth. His cock, engorged, jutting forward, bobbing obscenely, insisting that she acknowledge it, see it, touch it.

She thought of what she had done, and how he had borne it, and she was ashamed. She was amazed at the wreckage she had created in her anger. She wondered how much it had cost him to mask his disgust with her, to hide his contempt for her loss of control, her needy, grasping anger. He could have pushed her away at any time, could have forced her to stop, but he had let her wreak havoc on him. He had let her lower herself, rutting against that boyscout grin like a desperate bitch in heat.

And all the while he had cradled her, held her, tried to give her what she wanted, his hands strong and warm against her skin. His mouth, working against her flesh in willing compliance with her demands.

But then, the cruelest stroke of all. Sweeping his clothes into his lap like that. Refusing, at the end, to give her what she needed most, wanted most of all. If he had crawled, she could have endured it. She would have felt them to be, in some way, the same. But he had simply looked up at her with those calm and pitying eyes, and it had wrecked her.

She hated him for that.

But he was so kind, too. He touched her so gently, there, at the end. Holding her close, cupping her softly against himself, pressing his lips tenderly into the smooth flesh of her belly. It could have been different, she knew, if she had just asked. Or if she had just kept some degree of control over herself. He would have gone with her anywhere she led him, done anything she asked of him.

The certainty of this cut her to the core, unraveling her anger, and leaving her with only her shame, and regret.

She was sorry. So sorry.

A gentle tapping at the door made her stiffen.

"Rachel?" Greg's voice called quietly from outside the door, sounding relaxed, normal, as if nothing had happened. "Hey, I finished making dinner. You gonna come down?"

Rachel held her breath, afraid she would scream. Afraid she would sob.

On the other side of the door, Greg cleared his throat, uncomfortably. "Uh, look," he said, clearly struggling to find the right words, "I'm not really sure what happened down there." He paused, and when he heard nothing from inside, continued. "But it's okay, alright?" He paused, uncertain again. "I mean, you just seemed pretty angry there, and then pretty freaked out. I have to admit, the whole thing kind of caught me by surprise."

Silence, then a slight creaking sound. Rachel realized that Greg was leaning on the outside of her door, his weight pressing into it. His palm? His forehead? That was it, she thought, her mind filling with a sudden vision of him, hunched miserably outside of her door, his forehead pressing into it, his voice filled with calm and caring, as he did his best to make her feel better.

Her eyes swam with sudden tears. She felt even lower than before, if that was possible. "Go away," she husked at the dor, and then, in a shrill crescendo, "go away, go away, GO AWAY!"

Greg cleared his throat again, finally saying, "I'm worried about you, Rachel. I wish you'd come down and talk to me. I just want to talk."

Rachel's eyes spilled over with tears. She couldn't stand how nice he was being. The silence dragged on and on.

The door creaked again as Greg stepped back. "Alright," he said, "I'll go away." He paused, then continued, "I'm going to leave a plate on the counter for you, 'case you get hungry. Just nuke it. And if you want to come down and talk, well," again he fumbled for words, "Well, I'm not going anywhere. I'm here. Whenever."

And he left, finally.

And Rachel wept, wallowing in her grief and shame. Sorry. So sorry.

/Break/

She lurched awake in the darkest, quietest hours of early morning. The radio still droned and murmured softly from her bedstand. The TV and VCRs' glowing LEDs, from atop the armoire, cast the faintest grey light across the contours of her room.

The hum of the heating system kicked in, and Rachel was grateful for the tickle of warmth that pushed out of the registers and fanned through the air. She had been having a horrible dream, and she lay, heart hammering, waiting for her breathing to slow.

She had dreamed she had awakened on a Spring morning and been troubled by silence. No birdsong, no sounds of other people moving about the house. She had risen and gone downstairs to find the house empty. Greg's den had looked untouched, like a family room that had never been used for anything other than watching tv. She had roamed the house, calling for him, but he was nowhere to be found.

She had left the house then, surprised that there were no cars in the driveway. Where was everyone? In growing panic, she had rushed from house to house, hammering on the doors, peering in the darkened windows, calling Greg's name. Everywhere she turned, she was met by empty driveways, and silent, empty homes. Alone, she had finally realized. She was completely alone. Forever.

That was when she had woken, heart pounding.

Rachel rose, pulling the robe tight around herself, despite the warmth of the room, and stumbled to the door, blearily wiping sleep from her eyes as she made her way down the hallway to the upstairs bathroom.

Under the hot glare of the incandescent bulbs, she splashed water on her face, and ran her wet hands through her hair. Her face waspuffy from sleep, her short black hair tufting wildly from her scalp; she eyed herself in the mirror, thinking, 'I look like shit.' She felt like shit, too. Hollow and sad inside. She caught a whiff of herself, an almost meaty aroma of stale sweat, and felt a twinge of disgust as she realized her inner thighs were rimed with dried spit, and sweat, and her own juices.

Hastily, almost frantically, she shucked off the robe and scrambled into the shower. She scrubbed her pale skin until it glowed. Washed her pits and aching groin with foaming, perfumed bodywash, twice, while trying not to think of what she had done that afternoon.

But her mind's eye kept returning to it, like a tongue to a cut lip. She felt guilty, and sad, and disgusted with herself. And in her mind's eye she kept seeing Greg, his face buried between her legs, his body arched back, all the power and grace of his athletic frame bent beneath her touch.

She felt a warm flutter in her lower belly, and it only intensified her self-disgust.

Rachel toweled herself off, debating whether or not to put the robe back on. She could still smell herself on it, the strong, musky scent of sex and sweat, and could not bring herself to wear it. She pushed it down into the hamper instead, and wrapped the towel tightly around herself.

She was starving. Maybe that was part of the reason she felt so low, so fragile.

She remembered Greg hovering outside her room, talking about leaving a plate for her, and she struggled with the idea of going downstairs. She couldn't stay up here forever, she thought. Sooner or later, she would have to speak to him, have to face him. She could wait, she thought, until her mother and Robert returned; their presence would stifle any open discussion, and she could go through the daily routine, relying on the repetition of normality to suppress the confrontation that she feared.

But that was childish. Ridiculous.

Rachel sighed, made sure the robe was securely tucked in, and crept down the stairs in the dark. She would just quietly grab the plate, she thought, and take it back upstairs.

The only light in the kitchen was the hood light on the range. It was enough for Rachel to see that Greg had, indeed, left her a plate on the counter. She peered through the arch that led into the den, and could just dimly make out Greg's shadowy form, sprawled on his back, one arm trailing over the edge of the futon, hand loose, fingers ocassionally twitching in the gentle rhythms of sleep.