A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 20

***Billy is starting to believe that he was born under a bad sign of something. But it's not all bad. He's starting to glimpse what he always was. But when you ache for something your whole life, it's doubtful that - if by some strange chance it comes to you - that it's what you really wanted, or thought that you did. 0_o

-------------

Book of the Dragon Part 5

It was confusing to Yuan. Billy lived alone, that much was obvious to her, and she found herself really liking him for more than the things that he'd done and was doing for her, but she thought that a male like this would be a little more, ... responsive somehow. He seemed somewhat reserved to her. She thought that she could understand it a little, but though she could tell that he liked her, there was something that he seemed to be holding him back a bit.

She wondered what she had done wrong just when she'd thought that this had been going rather well. She reached out to touch him and he allowed it, even taking her hand in his.

"You have no way to know," she said in Chinese to him softly as she kissed his hand very lightly and held it as she looked up as she spoke, "but I know that I have caused you discomfort and I am sorry. I want to know what I have done."

She opened her eyes to look into his and she wanted to hug him only for what she saw there in the thoughtful way that he returned her gaze, "You are so beautiful to me, Billy. I have never seen one such as you are."

He whispered to her that he hoped that she would be alright and not grow weaker. That was what he knew of this virus and what it did to claim its victims.

They did make strides in their conversation. They got past the quiet hilarity of him trying to teach her "You" and "me" and the way that it is reversed from the other side of it.

He felt the rumble and heard the noises and he looked at her questioningly for a moment. Yuan didn't seem all that sure of it herself, but after a moment, she smiled and gently patted her stomach under the sleeping bag with a nod, before she slid her hand lower down on her belly and patted there with a shake of her head.

To herself, she wished with all of her heart to get better as she looked at him.

Eventually, he got them up and wrapped Yuan in the sleeping bag to go check on the soup. By now, he'd figured out that she wanted to be near him and he liked it as well.

But there were things in this that he'd have told her right away, well, most of them, and what was left he'd hold his tongue over out of respect for her feelings. He guessed that none of them really mattered. She couldn't have understood him anyhow.

Billy had grown up near a cruel old bastard who loved to give something so that he could take it away soon afterward. To a child, it taught the lesson that you can't keep what comes to you. The events in his life only reinforced that. He was used to being laughed at by the Colonel, so he hid his feelings if he had the slightest doubt. He'd come out of his quiet shell in a big way once, saying what he felt to one girl, and it had cost him everything the very next day. Billy would rather be alone than hurt anything like that again.

He knew that it was an unreasonable thing. He didn't care.

The way that he figured it, his fear of drowning was just as unreasonable.

Just like Monnie's fear had been.

He liked Yuan. He really did, and he was fascinated with her. But she had the fever and a part of him was trying to get ready to have to dig a hole in the frozen ground in a day or so.

The soup tasted really good to him and he ladled some into a pair of bowls for them, indicating a place for her to sit on the opposite bench, but she shook her head and motioned for him to sit beside her, so he moved the bowls and she sat up against him as they ate.

He looked at her after she'd made a motion to him, indicating her mouth and then showing him her hand as she opened and closed her fingers like a duck's bill. She ended with a curious look at him.

"Talk," he smiled, getting it.

Yuan nodded emphatically with a smile and pointed to him, "Talk you."

He straightened her out and then he told her of how he lived here, knowing that she didn't understand, but he knew that she wanted to hear his voice, so in between spoonfuls of soup, he talked and she hung on every word, loving the soup as well, but having no way to tell him.

After the meal, Yuan held up her hand, motioning for him to stay, and she left the room, knowing that he'd prepared a bath for her. When she came back from the room with the hole in the floor, he pointed to the old iron bathtub and she wandered over, testing it with her hand and nodding with a grin. She looked at the level of the water and she looked at them both, trying to determine whether their volumes would be too much and cause it to overflow.

She took the sleeping bag from her slender shoulders and walked to lay it on the bench after folding it. When she turned around, she found him with his mouth open and she liked it, smiling as she walked to him, but he stopped her and she watched him sink to his knees to look at something which she'd forgotten about completely – the tiny patterns of scales over her mound and outer lips.

Yuan wanted to groan and hide, but before she could do much about it, he took her hips in his hands and he smiled at what he saw. He looked up, "I've never seen anything so lovely."

Yuan stared and she felt herself ache to see him lean forward to kiss her mound very softly for a few moments. She couldn't help it.

But he didn't do that. He only stood up with a soft smile. She groaned to herself.

When he got to his feet, Yuan put her arms around his neck as she kissed him before she turned to get into the tub. As she sank slowly into the delicious heat of the water, Billy reached for something and he held up an ancient paper-wrapped bar of soap. Yuan didn't know what it was until he unwrapped it and handed it to her. It was cracked and faded, but it was still soap.

Yuan's nose didn't quite work as well anymore with what coursed through her at the moment, but she did smell the floral scent and she grinned in happiness, "This male cares for me as though I was the finest queen," she said to herself in amazement before she added the second part, "and yet he does not seem to want me." She looked at him quizzically and motioned as though she was washing her arm with the soap.

"Wash," Billy grinned, and she said it as a question to see if she was saying it correctly. Once she was sure, she smiled softly to him, "Wash, .. me? Wash Yuan?"

She held out the soap to Billy with a small and hopeful smile.

Yuan was more than a little surprised to find herself asking him, but then she reasoned, he'd already been cleaning her. He may as well get her smelling nice as well. She found that she wanted him to do this. She only hoped that this worked out. Her motions told him that she was absolutely adamant that he get into the tub with her. To her delight and his slight amazement at himself, he did.

Billy gave her the best bath that any girl could surely have as he washed her, even going as far as always looking to be sure that her hair wasn't about to get wet. He held up her arms one at a time to wash her armpits and he looked at her curiously when he noted that she had no hair there. She shrugged, pointing to her head and then at her armpit, but shaking her head. She made the same motions again as she pointed down. He nodded and smiled.

When his methodical washing began to approach her waist, Billy expected Yuan to want to take over and he paused, but she smiled and nodded, and by her motions, he understood that he was not to get soap inside her.

He was glad to know it, since he'd been wondering just how he was going to do that, not knowing any better, deciding instead to wash her bottom really well, considering what it had been through up to now from the fever. Yuan was on her knees, leaning on his shoulders with her forearms and moaning in a little quiet pleasure as he did it. It surprised him, but he kept at it, careful about this orifice in the same way as the other one, and washing the soap off meticulously.

Yuan smiled down at him as he ran his fingers against her there very softly and she pulled his head to bring his face to her small breasts to get his kisses there.

"You do more than care for me," she sighed, "I surely desire to know love once in my life. I am always alone now." She looked away for a moment, "Why can I not have this one? What is wrong?"

He liked the sound of whatever she'd just said to him in Chinese, not even knowing that it was that tongue for certain. "I don't know anything about you, Yuan," he said quietly, "I don't know why you came here or how long you'll stay, but please don't die. I know you can't understand me, but if you like this, well, ... as stupid as this sounds to me to say it, I'm gonna need some time to make sure that you don't disappear or die like everything and everyone else has."

He looked up at her as his fingers stroked the inside of her flanks and softly brushed her anus, "I've never taken care of somebody before. I think that I've always been the one who needed to be reassured – at least while Hank was around. Right now though, all I know is that I want you to get better."

When it seemed to him that she'd had enough for the moment, Billy took her weight off his shoulders and he sat forward a little. Yuan surprised them both by not being the least bit nervous as she allowed it. She suddenly had a thought that she'd allow him anything. He maneuvered her so that she could sit on the edge of the tub and lean back against the wall, and he got to his knees between her feet.

"I don't know much about what I'm doing," he said to her quietly, "I've only ever been with one girl one time before, and I had to share her with my brother then."

Yuan didn't know what Billy was saying, she only knew that the words were important to him to say and she bent forward a little in the steam of the hot water to hold his sweet face in her hands as she listened, dying to be able to comprehend it.

She only knew that he was gorgeous to her and right now, he was so serious as he spoke to her quietly. She knew that she could sit spellbound and listen to him opine over the best ways to manage a cesspool and she wouldn't care a fig and feel just as fortunate to have had the chance to hear it.

"At least that time, I had Hank to ask about things that I didn't know – not that he knew much himself. I just know that I want to do everything right for you, Yuan. I know that I must sound like a fool to you and, ... well I guess that I'm not all that far away from being one, really. I just wanted to tell you that I care and I'll try to do my best for you."

He leaned forward and began to kiss her labia, putting as much into it as he could while still being gentle and soft about it.

Yuan's head went back to rest against the wall and she sighed as her fingers found his hair. A tear ran from her eye as she began to pray to the mother spirit of the dragons. She didn't know if there even was such an entity anymore, but she recalled her mother's words and she did it anyway to the best of her ability in a halting manner as he licked her.

She stopped now and then if he sucked one of her lips into his mouth for a time, or most especially whenever he concentrated on her little bean, but she picked it up at just the right place when she had the chance again, asking that this not end soon and though she began by making her gentle request, by the time that she felt that she was losing her ability to follow the train of her thoughts from the way that he was taking her up the slope of her pleasure, Yuan was flat-out begging that she be granted her wish that she might have this one male for her heart and that it last between them.

She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there on the edge of the tub like that. She only know that she wasn't cold anymore and that she'd already had three of the sweetest orgasms of her life, even though for one of them, she'd had to depend on Billy to hold her up as she'd done the only thing that she could do and just held onto him tightly as she cried out. She'd ached to buck against him, but it wasn't possible, so she'd just hung on as he'd done his best for her. She loved the way that his hand felt then against the middle of her chest to make sure that she didn't fall forward.

Yuan had said just what she'd felt then, calling out his name and crying that she wanted his love as she hung on to his muscled arm while he held her up. She'd even gone on after it had almost subsided, holding his head with one hand then and whimpering that she knew that this was just passion between them, but she couldn't help herself. The farther that she got from her climax, the more she felt surprised and amazed to feel that she still felt that way toward him.

"I want you to know," she whispered as she felt the last tremors of her orgasm fading, "that I will never forget the things that you have done for me today."

She sighed, "Ahh Billy. I love your name and I begin to love you. I only wish that I could tell you. I would give anything to know what I do wrong."

She looked a little different to him now as she smiled at him a little dazed. He moved her hands to his shoulders and he picked her up to let her sit on his lap as she hugged him tightly. When she pulled back to look at him, there wasn't really anything to say, they just smiled at each other.

Billy was ready to get out of the tub, but Yuan was adamant about bathing him now and she was astounded at just how many square miles of him there were to wash, but she did it, even holding his foot up out of the water to wash each toe, grinning as he laughed. She was pretty dogged about it, right down to his ears before she hugged him tightly. Right down to the very careful way that she retracted his foreskin and washed him so very carefully there.

They dried each other and she pulled him by the hand until she had him with her between the sleeping bags. She pulled herself up on the only pillow and she pulled his head to her breast.

"Yuan talk," she said, and she did as he began to love her breasts. She caressed his flanks as she told him everything about herself. She knew that he couldn't understand, but that wasn't important to her. If they ever found a way to speak to each other easily, she'd tell him again and beg him to tell her everything about himself to her.

"Do you like me, Billy?" she asked softly.

He stopped and looked at her with a smile and she had her answer, though there was no comprehension of her words in his face. She saw the comprehension of her questioning and her touch rather plainly and she kissed him as she ran her other hand over his shoulder, so much larger than hers and so strong to her eyes.

"I have a wish that you claim me as yours," she admitted, and she knew that she'd have likely said it just the same way if he could understand her, "and if it goes as I now hope, sweet one, I will claim you too. I will need your help again soon, the way that I feel."

She sighed, "And I try not to think of the one who trusted me and lies dead because of me in my pack."

When she was finished her tale of her history, she pushed him over and stroked him to hardness again, a little disappointed as well as astounded that it took so little from her to do that. A moment later, she thought about it and felt a little pride in herself too.

"You're so beautiful, Yuan," he said in a little awe of her as he looked at her.

Yuan smiled back, "I do not know what you say to me, and I do not know how much of a prize I might be to one as wondrous to me as you are, Billy. I only hope that you enjoy me as I enjoy you."

She raised her knees then, wondering what sort of lover that he might be, but she knew that she had a hope for herself. Right now, she was sick and she felt it a little – even though his attentions went a long way toward making her feel a lot better. It was a little tough to get him into her and settled, but when he began, Yuan felt it – what he had to tell her, but couldn't say because of their speech differences.

Their troubles all disappeared for them as they began to make love and she cried before she came the second time, weeping at how he made her feel without pounding her at all. Somehow she knew that he'd be too long for her in this position, but he didn't try to push in as far as he could as though he sensed it, and she knew that he never would unless she showed him that it was what she wanted. For right now, all that she knew was that he was perfect.

The next time, he took her from behind as she lay in front of him on her side. It allowed him to stroke longer and she sighed and mewled to him as he filled her so much. When she tried to show him that she thought that she could handle a little more, she'd listened in a little amazement to him chuckle into her ear as he rolled them so that she lay on her back on top of him and he was a little hard about it until she had to stop him because the way that he caused her to move was a little hard for her to take, since she still had a little trouble with vertigo and opening her eyes only a little would cause her to feel dizzy.

He stopped and she felt herself growing a little weaker as she rearranged herself and brought him to his release into her mouth before she turned around to lie on his chest. She heard his sigh and Yuan sighed herself, amazed that she'd found this male. She kissed his shoulder, "Only one thing could make me happier, Billy, but I think that it is not to be. I can cry for what I have done tomorrow. For this night, I am happy with you."

She watched as he smiled. He was happy but he was also confused as well. He hadn't wanted to do any of this, but Yuan was so different and she'd managed to get him past his cares so easily, he really wasn't sure how it had happened. "I think I know what you're trying to do here," he sighed, "I don't mind. Just give me some time, Yuan. Please get better. I can live all alone, but now I don't want to."

He sensed it when she was about done for the night and he knew that he'd been right when she slid off him. He laid her out so carefully as he moved next to her, but she moved right next to him, molding herself to him and her expression was apologetic for her weakness. Yuan just couldn't help herself and crawled onto him again to hide her face against his throat as she told him that she loved him. Her words surprised her now, but she just accepted it, because now, she knew that it was so.

---------------------------

He'd woken up a couple of times during the night, and he'd stared at her then from inches away, his worry a palpable feeling in his chest. He felt her growing weaker, her breathing turning shallow. It frightened him, but there was nothing that he could do.

By the time that the pale light of dawn began to filter in through the doorway from one of the rooms with no ceiling and down the long hallway, Billy found Yuan to be unresponsive and burning up with fever.

------------------

Far down at the opposite end of the ledge, a demon woke up, wondering where she was, why she seemed to be restrained, and why her limbs felt so cramped. It took a long time for her to sort out her recollections. Her hibernation had left her mind very fogged. Eventually, she noticed the cooler air which came to her when she inhaled and she noticed the way out of her present dilemma.

It took her a good while to work herself to freedom. If she'd been a little more with it, she'd have just torn the pack to shreds in her frustration, and if she'd been a little more awake than that, she'd have regretted it right afterward. But she did manage to get out of the damned bag at last and lay there blinking – or trying to while the pieces seemed to swirl in her mind and try to fit themselves together.