A Helping Hand
- 1 -My whole body hurts. Pain throbs through my ribs from one arm to the other. I gasp for breath, then cringe as I feel my chest ready to crack open like a walnut. I try to open my eyes but I can't. It's like the lids are stuck shut. Oh, Lord. I must be blind.
What happened? I don't remember. The last thing I seem to recall is leaving the reservation. I was riding along, alone, and everything was fine.
I try to speak. My lips move but there's no sound.
I sink into the thickening darkness. Perhaps I'm dying. So be it. I'm as ready to meet my maker as I'll ever be.
- 2 -
My hands are on fire. I try to flex my fingers but they're bound tight. I want to fight against the bonds but the skin smarts and pain shoots up my arm. I lift it, barely off its resting place, but my shoulder screams in agony. Maybe I'll just lie still.
- 3 -
I don't know how much time has passed. I come to for a few seconds here and there but I soon drift off again. My eyes are still sealed shut. I seem to be lying on something soft but I can't move - am I bound? If this is a prison, it's like none I've known. The sheets smell of washing soda and I catch a hint of sweetpeas in the air.
If only I could remember how I got here. Oh, Lord, do not forsake me. Deliver me from evil.
- 4 -
Something woke me. I listen. Horses in the street. I listen harder. Distant voices outside, footsteps somewhere below me. Then I notice the smell of freshly brewed coffee. So this is no hell. But where is it? Why am I bound? Why am I blindfolded? What did I do?
I try to lift my arm. It moves easier this time but hurts more than I knew anything could so I give up. Still, now I know I'm not bound after all. So why can't I move?
I try to speak but it's just a puff of air over my dry lips.
'Josiah? You with me Josiah?'
Praise the Lord. A familiar voice: Nathan. I try again.
'Don't talk, Josiah. Your throat's raw. Gotta rest.'
I feel my muscles unclench. I still can't move and everything hurts but I'll be okay if Nathan's with me.
- 5 -
I wake in a sweat from a dream I used to have when I was a kid. I'd be using the outhouse then come to and find I'd wet my bed. No, please God, not now with me a grown man. I feel the damp warmth, cooling fast, and catch the tang of my own pee. My face flushes with the humiliation.
A hand slips under the covers, slides across the sheet and then turns the quilt back.
Sorry. That's what I mean to say but I can't. My lips move without a sound.
'Back with me? Good. Let's get you cleaned up.' Nathan again.
Sorry. Just the faintest rasp.
'Hey, it happens. I'm all fixed up here. Got a groundsheet under you. We'll just switch the sheet and towel. Don't you worry none.'
He keeps talking as he lifts and turns me. The pain tears right through my body but he's so smooth, so practiced. Don't see anyone could do better. I manage to stay with him while he changes the bed but I'm drifting away by the time he pulls the quilt over my chest.
- 6 -
A cool cloth caresses my cheeks, bringing me back from sleep.
Nathan? Still no sound but my lips move well enough now.
'Yeah, it's me Josiah. You're doing better this mornin'.'
What…?
I feel him lean close, listening for my words, even though there's no sound to hear. He smells good - eggs and bacon. My belly growls loud enough to wake the dead. There's a smile in his voice when he says, 'Yeah, lot better. We'll get some more soup into you soon.'
I try again. What happened?
'You remember anythin'?'
I manage to move my head just a shade. No.
'There was a fire out at the Petersen place. You saved their two girls.' The smile's back in his voice. 'You're a hero, Josiah. Mary done a piece in the paper and everythin'.'
Am I… blind?
He doesn't answer straight away. I guess it's not good news. Or maybe he just didn't see me mouth the words. I start to try again but he rests a hand on my arm.
'No, you ain't blind. Too soon to be sure but I think your eyes're gonna be okay.'
I try to lift a heavy fist to feel my head but his hand's back on my arm to stop me.
'You got some bad burns. I dressed 'em with a poultice an' I'm hopin' they'll heal up pretty good. Gonna be some scarrin' though.'
I want to laugh. Scarring! It isn't as though I was ever any oil painting anyhow. If I get my eyes back to read with and my hands back to work with, I'll thank the Lord and call myself a lucky man.
- 7 -
When I come to again, I know I'm not alone although, to start with, I couldn't tell you how I know. I listen hard and realize I can hear breathing, slow and steady, a man at rest but not asleep. When I sniff, I catch a hint of cheroot smoke, old but still there. Chris. A second or two later, he shifts in his chair. When he speaks, he's close, leaning forward, smoky scent stronger with a trace of whiskey underneath it.
'Josiah?' That soft 's' hisses when he says my name. No one else says it quite that way.
Chris.
'Good to have you back.' Simple words but they catch in his throat. He's as glad I'm still alive as I am. It takes me by surprise how pleased I am to know that.
I try a nod. I can still hardly move but Chris'll pick it up.
Fire? I still can't remember a thing. I need to know what happened.
'Yeah. They were damned lucky you were passin'. Woulda been way too late by the time we saw it from town. We figure the girls were already in bed and maybe their mother dozed off. Chimney caught fire and they musta slept right through it.'
They okay?
He hesitates so I know they didn't all make it. That hits me hard - it seems like it wouldn't matter what state I was in if they were safe and sound.
'The girls're fine, Josiah. Petersen too - he was in town.'
Lydia?
That pause again. 'You got her out but it was too late. Smoke. You took a hell of a chance - house was comin' down by then. Beam fell 'cross your shoulder and caught your head quite a blow.' I hear the emotion in his voice again. 'You got two broken legs an' a busted shoulder, on top o' the burns. You're lucky t'be alive.'
I can't even mouth any words. Lydia dead. Maybe if I'd done something different… faster…
'Nothin' more you coulda done.' Chris's voice cuts through my thoughts as if he heard them. 'You gave Petersen a body to bury.' He pauses again. 'I saw her in the coffin. She looked… beautiful.' Pause. 'That's worth somethin'.'
I don't need him to tell me where that comes from. Sarah didn't look beautiful when he buried her. It can't be easy for him to comfort me when he must be wishing someone had been passing his place that night. We share a few minutes of silence before I hear the rustle of paper.
'Petersen took the girls to their grandparents in Julestown but he left a note for you. Want me to read it out?'
I don't know whether I want him to or not. Whatever I did, it wasn't enough. He starts anyway and I've never heard his voice as soft as it is now.
'Dear Josiah. Thanks for saving my girls. Losing them would have killed me. Sorry I'm not there but I need my folks. Please take this money for the church. Praise the Lord you was passing. God bless you. Tom Petersen.' Chris clears his throat. 'There's ten dollars in the envelope.'
I'm glad Chris read it out. It makes the pain a bit easier to bear, knowing I saved Tilly and Meg, sweet little things that they are. If only the Lord had seen fit to spare Adam for Chris. It's a relief to know how I got here, and why. I'm slipping away again but this time it's a good feeling, tired but calm.
- 8 -
I come to with a start, more alert than before but with that comes more pain. I think my way around my body. The ache in my left leg pulses through to the marrow of my thigh bone in time with my heartbeat. The right shin is almost as bad. My chest burns at even the lightest breath and there's a searing pain through the left side of it, from collarbone to shoulder blade. That's why I can't lift the arm - now I'm with it enough to feel it, I don't dare try. My head stings across my eyes and forehead. I still can't open my eyelids and even the movements of my eyeballs make them burn.
But all that pales into insignificance next to my hands. They feel as if someone's peeled them like potatoes. It makes me sick to wonder what the fire's left of them. I'm not sure I wouldn't be crying if my eyes weren't bandaged shut.
What I'm going through takes me back to San Francisco. While my father was trying to convert the Chinese, I was listening to them and all the other folk that were pouring in from across the ocean. I remember an old holy man from India telling me that his people think fire's a divine presence - souls are released by sacrificing their impurities to the fire of awareness. I'm not sure I can believe that when the fire kills innocent children: I feel a kind of triumph at cheating it this time.
Nathan? I've still got no voice.
Someone gets up quickly and hurries over. The movement's too fast for Nathan, eager to help.
'Hey, Josiah.' JD. 'I was gonna wake you up in a minute. Got some soup here if you're up to it. Casey made it for you.'
I try a nod and this time feel my head move a bit. My belly's hollow, although I know Nathan will have been getting what he can into me.
JD sits on the side of the bed. I feel the pressure of his butt against my side. It hurts but I like the touch. It's so lonely here, in the dark, nothing to do, no eyes to read with and no voice to talk with. It's good to have a friend close by. I get an unexpected thrill from the contact and a twitch in my groin startles me, only lasts for a second but it's there just the same.
I hear JD take a plate off the top of the soup bowl, my ears catching each rattle of the crockery in a way I'd never normally notice. My nose sucks in the appetizing aroma. The spoon taps the bottom of the bowl as he slides it in. He shifts round to face me and plumps up the pillow to support my head better.
'We can't move you, Josiah, so I'll have t'get this in as best I can. Let's do it a little at a time.'
His tone is solicitous - I can hear the concern in every word. I've always known he's a fine kid but I've never really listened to the kindness in his voice. He leans close and I smell his breath, fresh with an apple he must've only just eaten. I've never seen a man put away food like JD does and I know he wouldn't want to be lying here empty now. He trickles a stream of the warm broth into my mouth. I relax, letting my throat decide when to swallow and finding it slips down easily enough. Chicken. My favorite.
JD chatters away while he feeds me. Maybe it's partly to help him - I must look a sight in these bandages - but I think he's got some idea how alone I'm feeling. He tells me everything that's happened in town while I've been here and what the six of them have been doing. He says they've taken turns to sit with me, reading if they thought I could hear, but that I've been too out to know most of the time. Of course, Nathan's taken the brunt of it, setting bones and dressing burns. It's all a bit of a haze but I recall snippets of him feeding or washing me, changing my bandages and reading bits from the newspaper now and then.
When JD's finished, he cleans my lips and chin with a facecloth. Feeling the dampness on my skin, I realize that the bandages only cover the top of my face. As the cloth smoothes my whiskers, I know I've been here a while. I usually reckon to shave every two or three days but the growth's long now, a beard in fact.
How long?
'Since it happened? Bit over two weeks.'
Two weeks? I wonder how long this is going to take. I can't lie here for months, relying on my friends. What if they get fed up with looking after me? Panic rises inside me but JD's hand is there on my good shoulder, steady as a rock. He won't be leaving me. Relieved, I fall back into sleep.
- 9 -
'Good morning, Mr Sanchez.'
Ezra. Bright and breezy as always. For a moment, I'm almost surprised he's here but then I know better. He doesn't encourage folk to think of him as a Good Samaritan but he's shown a hundred times that he's there in a tight corner.
Now I hear a mixture of things in his greetings. Pity for me mostly but gratitude too, that it's not him lying here now. Scarring. Nathan's sad warning comes back to me and I know what that would do to Ezra. It'd be hard for him to lose that handsome face and smooth skin. No wonder he's glad it's not him. Deep down though, I know he'd have helped if it had been him passing. I'm probably more sure of that than he is.
He's tinkering around over the other side of the room, pouring water.
'I thought perhaps you might welcome a shave,' he tells me. 'A gentleman always feels better when his toilet is in order.'
I'm not sure I know what a gentleman feels like, and I can't say the beard's been bothering me, but I know it would trouble him to lie here unshaven, even with things as they are. He'd want someone to keep him presentable and that's why he's offering.
I manage a bit of a nod so he goes on with his preparations. I hear his footsteps as he crosses the room for the first time, slow and steady, concentrating. He's carrying a bowl of water. There's a thud as he sets it down on the nightstand. Another faster circuit and the razor catches the side of the bowl with a ring like a bell.
Ezra sits on the side of the mattress, just like JD did yesterday. Or whenever it was. The way I'm floating in and out, it could have been an hour or a week for all I know. He's heavier than JD. I guess that's the extra height because he doesn't carry any spare. Well built though, now I come to think on it.
He works a towel round the back of my neck, those fingers cradling me as delicately as they caress a deck of cards. As he leans close, my nostrils fill with the scents of soap and haircream. I don't know how he does it out here but he's always clean and groomed. Even on the trail, he stays a notch or two above the rest of us. He breathes to one side but I still pick up the fragrant tea he had at breakfast.
No bandages? It's such an effort to frame a word or two that I leave it to my friends to work out my meaning.
'Thanks to your foresight in wrapping wet cloths around your face, the burns were restricted to a band across your eyes, between your hat and the improvised mask. Your cheeks and jaw escaped almost unscathed.' I hear bristles churning foam as he lathers the soap. 'Likewise, your hands would have been irreparably damaged had you not bound them in rags for protection.'
How bad?
'Mr Jackson is optimistic that the permanent effects of your adventure will be merely cosmetic.' There's a deep, palpable regret in his tone. For him, cosmetic is far from merely anything.
He shifts closer and touches the brush to my face. The soft bristles float over my skin as he works the lather deep into the growth. I couldn't count the number of times I've sat in a barber's chair to be shaved but I've never paid it any mind - just a shave. Now it brings a new presence into my bleak, solitary world. Something else for me to feel apart from my aching legs and throbbing chest.
His fingers hold my face against the pressure, keeping it from moving and causing me pain. The pads of his fingertips are smooth, not soft exactly but uncallused and manicured. His skin is cool next to mine, still flushed as it is from the traces of a fever. I find myself enjoying his touch, his proximity, his concern for me.
No sooner do I recognize the pleasure than I feel that stirring in my loins again. I tell myself that it's just because I've been lying here so long with nothing to do, that it's only natural, but it doesn't feel natural. These are my friends, nursing me 'cause I'm injured, and I shouldn't be getting hard every time they're near. The shame makes my skin burn and I hope the color's hidden by the bandages and the foam. I hope the rest is hidden by the bedclothes.
The shaving brush taps on the nightstand and the razor unfolds. Ezra presses on my chin again to align my face, then draws the bare blade across my cheek. I haven't shaved another man since my father was dying all those years back. I don't know if Ezra's done it before but he's good: confident, positive, scraping me clean with long, firm strokes. As those fingers dance around the contours of my face, I feel my cock swell and my balls strain.
Lying here, blind and bored, every sound is amplified and every touch intensified. A shave, part of my routine for thirtysome years, becomes something tantalizing. I flex my fingers, wondering how I'm going to take care of this. The bandages hold them tight and even the slightest movement brings pain. There's nothing I can do.
Still in Ezra's capable hands, I drift back to when I was thirteen or fourteen, lying in the dark just like this, my body full of the need for release and my mind full of my father's warnings of hell and damnation. Don't give in to Satan, boy. Don't let him triumph. Only the pure in heart shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Going to sleep aching, waking with half-dried semen sticking sheets and flesh together. I doubt I'll even get that release now. It's been a long time since my old body ran hot enough to take care of its needs without a helping hand.
- 10 -
My bed's weighed down somewhere near my legs. The mattress slopes to the side and my foot has rolled outwards. I listen and breathe in slowly through my nose. It takes away some of the helplessness to know who's with me before they tell me. Boots on the bed and a whiff of fragrance. Buck. Not long left one of his conquests either, unless he's taken to wearing lavender water.
Hey, Buck. This time I manage just the tiniest whisper.
'Josiah! How you doin' there?'
Better.
'Yeah. First time I seen you come round. Ezra said you was doing good, day before yesterday.'
Day before yesterday? It only seems like an hour or two since he shaved me. They must be working hard to keep me cleaned and fed. Mostly down to Nathan I don't doubt.
What time?
''Bout six in the evenin'. Tuesday.'
He holds a cup to my lips. Milk. I guess they're doing whatever they can to get some goodness into me. I haven't drunk milk since I was a kid but it surely tastes good now. The lavender's strong, tempered by a note of beer, and it makes me smile. Maybe I am feeling more like my old self.
You smell good, friend.
My faint words must be close to his ear 'cause I feel him pull away, taken aback for an instant. I imagine the look on his face, hear him sniff and picture him holding his sleeve up to his nose. Then that laugh we hear so often.
'Laura. You haven't met her - she's new in town. Hell, she's a looker. But it's not jus' that. She really knows how to do for a man. I tell you, if I ever settle on a woman, it'll be one like Laura.'
In my mind's eye, I see the satisfaction on that grinning face. Only Buck would think that telling a bedridden man about his latest romance was a kindness. Funny thing is, I don't resent it. I'm hard just listening to him but it's good to know that life's going on around me, waiting for me to join in when I'm ready. I'm starting to feel more sure I will be ready eventually. Maybe even soon.
The chair creaks as Buck settles himself. A leg squeals against the floor as he shunts it back and the rail hits the wall with a crack. A second later, the boots are back on my bed. His voice is dreamy when he speaks again.
'It's so good with her. I feel like every muscle is taut to bustin'. Her fingers move over me so fast that I hardly feel 'em before they're somewhere else. Hell, I…'
Words fail him and I smile again. I can't claim to be an authority on the carnal. I drift back to Emma - not the Emma I found with Guy Royal but the way she was back in San Francisco - and remember what that felt like. Yeah, my body was calling for her but it was more than lust. The yearning came from somewhere deeper. My heart? My soul? I don't know but it only ever happened that way the once.
Not that I don't think of it these days. Ezra's Ma - now there's a woman. I reckon she could do for me as good as this Laura does for Buck. Maybe she would too… if I had a few thousand dollars to my name. We all know where Maude stands, though I reckon there's a softer side to her just like there is to Ezra, if she would but let it show.
'Must be tough lyin' there, trussed up like a turkey.' Buck's words drag me back to my sickroom with a jolt. 'Nothin' to do. Even your hands…'
His voice trails off again but I know what he means. Yeah, it's tough. I don't see him standing it for a day - he's always on the move and he doesn't go too many days without a woman either.
'I could get someone to come in,' he offers. 'Any of 'em'd be happy to look after you. They're all real taken with what you did for those littl'uns. Want me to see to it?'
He means one of the saloon girls. Oh, Lord, I'm tempted. I've never paid for a woman and never thought I would but the desire's so strong. It seems like all my thoughts and all my feelings have pooled in my groin and the craving preys on my mind, giving me no peace. When I finally shake my head, I wish I could say it's my principles stopping me but it isn't. I'm just too embarrassed to have a woman see me helpless like this, milking me out of pity. The thought shrivels my cock back into passivity. Maybe that's the answer: keep thinking about what a pathetic wreck I am.
Hot tears sting my sealed eyes. I know Buck was trying to cheer me up but he's made me feel more wretched than I have since I first came round. I settle back a bit, as if I want to sleep, and he doesn't say any more.
- 11 -
I wake to find my cock aching again. Is this some sort of divine torture? The Lord saw fit to let me be burned - isn't that enough? Does he need to see me suffer more?
Even as I put the question, I'm ashamed. A quotation from the book of Job comes to me: Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou has strengthened the feeble knees. But now, it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee and thou art troubled. Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth. But then it also asks: shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker? There's no danger of that right now.
I listen and scent the air like a dog. Nothing. Am I alone? I haven't woken by myself since this started. I lie quiet for a few minutes, wondering if I can do something with my hands. I flex my left thumb. The pain starts as a sting in the hand and then turns to fire in my shoulder. The skin's too sore to let me move and the busted shoulder wouldn't let me get it near my cock anyhow. I try the right hand. This time it's just the stinging. Can I do for myself, right-handed with a fistful of bandage? As I start to try, I hear someone move. Only one person leaves a trace as light as that.
'Y'okay Josiah?' Soft husky voice. Vin.
Is he speaking now 'cause he sees I'm awake or is he stopping me from embarrassing myself? Too late for that - a blush burns in my cheeks and spreads down my neck like ink through blotting paper. Before I pull myself together enough to reply, I know I've got something else to worry about. Just as the hardness eases, I realize I'm bursting for a pee.
Nathan. I had some voice for Buck but now I'm back to dry air again.
'He's gone for some grub.' Vin shifts closer and I get the smell of him: woodsmoke, leather, saddlesoap. A lock of that long hair tickles my face as he leans over me. 'What ya need?'
I don't want to ask him but I know I can't wait long and anyhow Nathan's doing more than enough without me dragging him back from a mealbreak. Agitation builds up fast behind the indecision.
'Piss?' Vin guesses.
I give a little nod, still hot with the humiliation.
'No problem.'
I hear him pull something out from under the bed. He rolls the covers back from the side and sets a jar against my thigh. Even through my drawers, the cold glass makes me start.
'Sorry,' he says quickly. 'Reckon Nathan'd think t'warm it up first.'
His fingers unbutton my drawers and slide me out. His touch is firm but gentle as he feeds my cock into the neck of the jar. Lord knows how many times Nathan's done this over the days, sometimes I've been with it, mostly I probably haven't, but I think of Nathan as a doctor - whatever he says about it. This isn't something a man wants his friends doing for him. I can't wait though and so I give in. It surely is a relief when the pee starts to flow.
No sooner have I resigned myself to the indignity than my cock's up to its old tricks. It stiffens and Vin's fingertips press harder to keep it in place. My whole body is blushing now. I'm apologizing before I'm even done peeing.
Sorry.
'Nothing t'be sorry for.' His voice is the same as always.
I'm not… I want to deny what's happening but what good are words when the evidence is there for all to see?
That little sniff of a laugh. 'I know you ain't, Josiah. Wouldn't matter t'me if you was anyhow. Right now, I reckon that's about the only bit of you that ain't hurtin'.'
When I've finished, he shakes the last drop or two before lifting the jar away, I hear him set it down on the nightstand. My cock lies throbbing on my belly. Vin returns to my side, starts to button my drawers and then stops.
'Want me to take care o' that?'
His words shock - no, amaze - me. Vin's so reserved about some things, so matter of fact about others. You can't tell how something'll take him. I never expected him to offer to bring me off by hand though. I'm torn. It's the truth when I say I'm not like that… not that I'm judging them as are but I've never been taken that way myself. Even if I was, I'd never feel right doing anything about it. But, just now, I'd give well nigh anything to feel those firm fingertips relieve this pressure. It's my damned father who stops me. All those lectures about what I shouldn't be doing to myself or with a girl, and I know exactly what he'd think if I let a man touch me like that. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination. So says the book of Leviticus. I'm past fifty and I shouldn't be worrying what a dead man thinks but I can't let Vin do it.
No.
'Okay.'
He fastens the last button and tucks the covers round me. That's Vin: whatever I want is fine by him and he'll say no more about it, to me or anyone else. Sometimes I envy his easy morality, never hurting anyone to benefit himself but burdened with none of the baggage I carry. He just wouldn't see the harm in seeing a friend right.
I drift back to those days of soul-searching in California. Seek and ye shall find. Not always. It didn't seem to matter where I looked, they all said much the same and it wasn't what I wanted to hear as a growing boy with but one thing on my mind most of the time. I remember that old man talking about the desires of the body - Kama he called them - and how you had to control them. I've never had less control than I have right now.
- 12 -
'Mornin' Josiah.'
It's Nathan back again. I don't know how long it is since Vin left. I don't feel so embarrassed about it now. I wasted some time and energy worrying but all I know is that I'd do the same for any of them and it'd be like it was for Vin: a favor, nothing to him and nothing for him. Sometimes I could curse my father still. Who can it hurt for a friend to help a friend like that? No one. That's who.
Nathan.
He's clattering away at the washstand now.
'Gonna get you cleaned up. Been a while since I did you a proper blanket bath.'
I hear him carry the water over, steady like Ezra, then go back, for towels and such like I guess. While he's getting ready, I think about how good they've all been to me in their own ways. Now he folds the covers right back and starts to take off my drawers. I tense up, wanting to stop him but afraid to move for the pain. I lift the right arm a bit to protest.
'Done this a time or two lately, Josiah. You ain't gonna get all shy on me now, are you?'
Defeated, I manage to shake my head. No dignity left.
'Getting more movement back,' he notes with satisfaction.
He's right. I could move my head more than that if it wasn't for the pain it sends though my shoulder.
'Now, I'm gonna shift you onto your right side. It's gonna hurt the left shoulder so let me know if you can't stand it.'
Okay.
He's right again. It does hurt, worse pain than I've felt in many a long year, but I can stand it… just. Once I'm propped on my side, it lets up and I'm pretty comfortable. It's good to get off my back for a while.
Nathan soaps my right shoulder blade, massaging the muscles and getting the blood flowing again. I relax into his touch, feeling the knots untie themselves and the aches start to fade. I'm just thinking this is the best thing I've felt since this whole nightmare began when my cock wakes up again. It unfolds in seconds to rest on the mattress, mercifully out of Nathan's sight but he'll be turning me over soon enough. He must feel me tense 'cause he draws a slow, thoughtful breath and I know something's on his mind.
'Let it go, Josiah. Ain't nothin' I ain't seen afore. No sense makin' this harder on yourself than it's gotta be.'
Maybe Vin did talk to him after all. Or maybe he didn't have to. I guess I've been hard on and off, awake and asleep, for best part of a week. It's not liable to be a secret.
Nathan's hands are working my left arm now, gentle as you like, easing up the bicep but careful not to disturb the shoulder. His hands are smooth like Ezra's but firm like Vin's, filled with the confidence that comes from tending too many patients over too many years. I wonder how many men he's brought off in that time. I've never even thought of something like that before but then I've never lain on my back, barely able to move a muscle, for weeks on end before either.
He's rubbing my legs now, right thigh, left calf, steering clear of the broken bones. Every inch of me that isn't bandaged gets washed and massaged. It's good to be clean and better still to feel the sensation creep back into my numb skin.
He reaches my butt and kneads the cheeks, harder than he's done the rest. Vin was right: the band around my hips is the only bit of me that doesn't hurt. I slowly unwind, feeling the tension abate. I don't care what my father said. Lord forgive me but I don't even care what the Bible says. I want this yearning gone, to lie in peace without my cock tormenting me. Nathan rolls me onto my back, making me comfortable with a rolled blanket under my knees and fresh pillows under my head. Best city doctor couldn't see me better than Nathan does.
I know where he's going with this. I'm afraid of his touch but I want it too. I'm glad he doesn't ask me because, if he did, I might say no. I hear him lather up the soap on his hands and then he's there, one hand caressing my cock and the other cupping my balls. A whisper in my head: abomination. He smoothes the soap over my skin as if he's just washing me. There it is again: abomination. I tense but only for a second: his touch feels so good that I submit.
I try to imagine it's a woman but that seems dishonest when my friend is doing this for me, eyes wide open. Or is he lying to himself too? Just washing a patient? A lifetime's teaching won't let me think of the hands as Nathan's. It's weird what I settle on and my father'd have a fit. I don't exactly think of them as the hands of God but more like his tools. Disembodied hands delivering relief to a soul in torment.
The pressure builds up until I don't think I can stand it. I begin to wonder if I can make it, as the pain fights with Nathan's rhythmic stroking. Even as I hear the thought, his name pulls me up sharp. Abomination. It's so hard to let go when I know it's a man bringing me this pleasure, for it is pleasure and not merely relief. My skins glows warm with arousal, my unhurt nipple stands proud, my balls are full and tight. Abomination.
But, even as I confess my pleasure, I realize that what I'm feeling isn't guilt. I'm anxious that this isn't allowed, that I don't want people to know, that I don't know how I'll look Nathan in the eye if I ever see again, but I'm not guilty. I need this and I'm suddenly sure my God understands: though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, but I will maintain my own ways before him. It's like an ancient wall crumbling away when I grasp that truth. My balls contract and seconds later warm semen hits my belly. The weakness of release washes through my thighs, bringing brief exhilaration as it floods through me, and then peace.
I'm drifting away before Nathan's even wiped me clean. He slides new bedclothes proficiently into place, that mellifluous voice chatting as if nothing has happened.
'Another day or two and we'll get those bandages off your eyes. Shouldn't be too long afore you're propped up an' reading for yourself.'
Doesn't sound much to you, does it? But you've got no idea what it means to me. For now though, I think I'll just sleep a while. Thanks be to God for my life and my friends.