Breathe 26

The pain brought her to her knees, then pitched her forward, her face to the floor. If she had been in a yoga class, it would have been called Child's Pose and she would have been calm, relaxed, perhaps even in a state of bliss. Instead, she was rigid, either in the grip of a wave of agony, or simply in anticipation of the next horrid spasm.

"Breathe; just breathe," I urged. "Okay? In through your nose, count of four. Out through your mouth, count of four."

She seemed to be listening, but instead of relaxing, she whimpered in a strained, thin voice, "Oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck!" I couldn't be sure, but I think she might have been crying, as well. Softly, though, so softly. "So damn much pain," she moaned.

"C'mon, sweetie, work with me here." I first remonstrated, then demonstrated, counting as I inhaled, by way of example: "One, two, three, four," I intoned. I exhaled, counting, still in a low voice, "One, two, three, four". She began to follow me, tentatively, counting along with me, perhaps relaxing, ever so slightly.

A couple of hours earlier that evening, Vee had called me in a panic. "I'm in deep shit here, buddy. I'm at the hospital and they say I've got kidney stones, and they're not big enough to justify a procedure, but they're big enough that they're going to be a bitch to pass." This had come out in a rush, as if she were racing something. Then the "something" had happened and the line went almost silent, and I could hear her subvocally, in a prolonged expression of quiet desperation.

"Don't move, Vee. I'll be there in..." I had reflexively looked at my watch. "I'll be there in ten minutes! Don't move; I've got you." Without pause, I had hung up and grabbed my jacket. The door had slammed behind me, hard enough to rattle the windows.

Now she was on my floor at the foot of the bed. The bed had proven impossible; she couldn't do it. She was utterly immobilized, wracked by paroxysms of pain.

Look, folks, please don't judge me, but I think there's something terribly wrong with me. "Damsel In Distress Syndrome, perhaps," I thought. No, that was too complimentary to me. I'm clearly,

clearly

one very fucked up human being. Seeing her there on my floor, she was obviously a damsel, and even more obviously in great distress. My heart was swelling with empathy for her. However, to my profound chagrin, that's not all that was swelling! I hated that I was immensely (and perversely) turned on. She was in pain, dammit! What was wrong with me? I put my hand on the small of her pretty back and gently massaged from side to side, across her aching kidneys. Her posture had the effect of making her fulsome backside look bigger than usual. I gaped at it, admiringly. In her yoga pants, it looked like a big, lovely valentine, a perfect visual representation of a perfect heart. My pants grew tighter.

I hated myself! As a distraction, I got up and fetched a couple of hand towels from the master bathroom, and dampening them, nuked them in the microwave I keep in the bedroom for late-night popcorn. I laid the warm towels gently across her lumbar area and was rewarded by her soft sigh.

See, it seemed that we had always been friends,

good

friends, relaxed and easy in each other's company. Yes, she was smart and funny, and

so attractive,

but we had never really crossed any romantic or sexual lines before, not

ever!

It had never even occurred to me. Now I was suddenly seeing her in a new light. She tensed again, as a fresh wave a pain wracked her poor body.

As I knelt by her side, I found one errant hand suddenly and inexplicably on her sweetly rounded buttocks. With my other hand, I held her face. I realized that I had always loved her face! It was even more exciting for me to cradle it now, at least as exciting as cupping her plump bottom. Her ragged breathing stopped and her head slowly turned to one side, looking at me over her shoulder. I felt self-conscious, now, realizing that she was fixing me with an appraising gaze with one wide eye. She wasn't objecting,

per se

, just observing. At least she didn't seem to be in pain in that moment. I moved my hand slowly and made some soothing sounds.

"Don't stop breathing, Vee," I said encouragingly. "In and out, slowly, okay?" My hand moved in what I vainly hoped was not too blatantly sexual. "How are you feeling?" I chirped.

"Not so bad, right now," she said in a very neutral tone. She kept me uncomfortably skewered with that appraising eye. With a mind of its own, my hand seemed to be now moving slowly up and down her soft buttock from top to bottom, for at least a minute. It was a very long minute, marked by her slow breathing. She didn't seem to mind, and I wasn't aware that I did either. My conscience was certainly unconcerned. In fact, my pants felt distinctly just a wee bit sticky. In the same soothing way, I slid my hand lower, stroking her thigh, and almost as if by accident, grazed her crotch, rubbing the outer lip of her vagina through the thin material of her leggings. She sighed and (Did I imagine it?) moved her hips ever so slightly, the pain of her kidneys apparently forgotten for the moment.

"That's right, slow breathing," I murmured. I looked down. There was no obvious panty line, and the shape of her vagina was clearly visible. With my thumb and forefinger, I gently pinched it, still stroking. She inhaled sharply and slowly exhaled, rising up from Child's Pose onto her elbows and knees. Her bottom was looking very, very nice, indeed!

"Keep breathing, Vee. One, two, three, four," I said, stupidly.

"One, two, three, four," she repeated, dutifully. "One, two, three, four. One, two, three, fuhhh..." This last was uttered with some contentment. "Fuhhh... FUHHH..."

I had pretty much crossed a line. We were in blatantly sexual territory, now, and we seemed to be "playing doctor" in a way I'd not previously foreseen. My heart was pounding and now it was

my

breathing that had grown ragged. Was a woman's vagina normally this

hot?

With mild surprise, I realized that it was also visibly

damp,

as well. There was a distinctly dark streak there between her pussy pleats. I stroked her right down that moist middle and she hunched, pressing back against the pressure of my hand.

"Oh, my goodness!" Vee groaned, in a husky voice. "Oh, m-m-MY! Oh, jeez; that's so g-guh-GOOD!"

Her sex was really wet, now, and I could feel this even on the outside of her yoga pants, it had grown extraordinarly slippery. My fingers slid easily all the way to the palpable, sensitive little nubbin that had become quite pronounced beneath my probing fingers. She gasped softly each time as the wet, slippery material slid back and forth against it. I took it upon myself to carpé the diem, hooking my thumbs in the waist of her pants and pulling them down over her fanny in one smooth motion. It was my turn to gasp. When I saw her pale, round, soft buttocks gently jiggle free, and I had her wet puss lips exposed, my heart practically stopped. For a minute, I was dreadfully afraid my eyes would fill with tears. She was so damn beautiful down there!

"Is this okay? I husked, suddenly awkward and shy.

"Shut up! You're talking too damn much!"

I almost barked out a nervous laugh at her reaction when she first felt my bare hand in her bare, wet snatch. I'm so glad I didn't! I succeeding instead in turning the laugh into a silently expelled, ambiguous "huff".

It was like I had my hand in Heaven's glove. When I drew it out in order to smear her stickiness up over her stiff little nub, her vagina made a delightful kissy, sucking sound. It was so sweet... just pure, syrupy music to my ears. Plunging my hand back into her hot swampiness rewarded me with yet another deliciously impure sound, like a perfectly executed Bronx cheer, or a big party balloon being released back into the wild.

"Oh, NO-O-O," Vee moaned, mortified by the lewd sounds of her own body's noisy betrayal.

"Shhhh," I reassured her, "I love you, Vee, you're perfect." I smiled. "It's not a flaw; it's a feature!" She was instantly mollified, either by my words or by my hands.

My right one was splishing in her drooling, wet folds, the other was back on her sweet face. It too was again wet... with tears, tears of happiness though, rather than pain. She turned her face into my left hand, kissing my palm. My heart filled as she rocked back and forth on my right hand and hunched up and down in a simulation of another yoga pose, Cat and Cow.

"Fuh. Huh. Huh. Huh. Huck," she blathered.

"Use my hand to come on, Vee, please! I love you so much, right now!"

Her voice rising in both tone and volume, she finally howled piteously, her creamy thighs trembling violently as if locked in a fugue state of ongoing seizure, "HUUUUCK!!"

Then she collapsed, exhausted, relatively still, but periodically jerking spastically in the aftermath of her violent orgasm. Happily, I covered her soft ass in dozens of tender kisses, with an especially tender one on the wee, pink balloon knot of her anus. I was unwilling for the moment to end. I filled my lungs with the rich fragrance of her sex. God, she smelled good!

Odd. It wasn't until that moment that I looked more closely at a tattoo that had been staring me in the face all along, right there on her otherwise perfect, unblemished bottom. It registered on me what it read. It had been drawn in a rather hard-to-read, though very elegant Spencerian script: "With Pain Comes Strength".

Before falling asleep, my little warrior rolled over and looked me in the face. The adoration in her eyes was humbling, and as it further softened my heart, it had an even more stiffening effect on my aching penis. "I love you, Vee." She had one last thing to say. "Don't you realize," she whispered, "I've

always

loved

you

, you idiot!"