Androshorts: Passion and Compassion

She mouthed a soundless 'thank you'.

I stepped into the open plan kitchen, washed my hands for some reason, and made three mugs of tea as Mikey found the remote and started searching for his favourite TV channels. I gave her a mug and she took it gratefully holding it with both hands. She looked at me and I could see that she was still holding back tears, and that was a really big one for her. Nicky hardly ever cried -- ever, she just got angry - and it must have been quite a significant problem for it to result in this.

"Look, why don't you give Mikey his bath; then you have one - relax a bit," I smiled. I knew I was onto a winner as her parents' house and the one she was staying at the moment only had showers, "there's nowhere you have to be, I've got enough food to feed the five thousand, Tesco are still delivering, so please... relax Nick, you've got this."

"Thanks Rick," she said and I could see her shoulders drop as she relaxed just a bit. She returned my smile.

"That's better," I said, "Mikey!? Bath time!" He jumped up from where he'd been sat and we had some chat about why he had to have a bath that early. I explained that plans had changed and both him and Mummy were staying at our house for a while and if he was a good boy, I'd get something nice for tea. That was enough and he ran to the bathroom.

I took her hand and squeezed it,

"It'll be fine I promise."

Nicky smiled at his disappearing form and finished her tea, said another silent 'thank you Rick' and headed to the bathroom and I could hear the water running.

Then to my real but very pleased surprised I could hear her laughing with him as she took off his clothes, then the splashing added to the laughter - not something I'd heard her do before in the bath.

Her son, her teeny-tiny fragile baby boy in gallons of water had always been serious stuff, but there were songs being sung, games going on and a lot of splashing and chuckles.

I peeked my head around the door and saw that she had stripped off her black slacks and silky blouse and was just in her matching bra and panties. In the months that had passed her body was even more impressive and the tiny amount of contentment spread had gone, and she was obviously back at the gym. Her arse looked amazing in the black high cut lacy shorts, especially as she bent forward and played with our boy in a manner I'd certainly never seen before, how I played with him when it was just him and me in fact, when Mum wasn't in the room to be all serious and grown-up.

"Rick! What part of a 3/4 year old, gallons of water in a slippery steel container don't you get!" she would all but screech at me as me and him flung water at each other.

I tried not to ogle her but it was so obvious, and far from Nicky having some insane 'can't you see I'm here in my underwear' control freakery she just rolled her eyes and smiled and nodded to the space next to her and I knelt down and joined in the fun.

The water eventually cooled and this lovely family moment was over, so Nicky pulled the plug, stood him and dried him. I picked him out of the bath, carried him through to his bedroom and I dressed him in his PJ's while she re-filled the bath for herself.

I sat Mikey in front of the TV with a Disney film and opened a bottle of wine; I knew that while she bathed she had always enjoyed a glass and I knocked the door.

"Are you decent?"

"I'm naked in the bath, it depends on your definition of decent?"

"Well scoot down in the bath under the bubbles and I'll bring you in a glass of wine, your choice." I heard the swoosh of water and guessed she had lowered herself and I pushed open the door.

"There aren't any bubbles..." she hadn't slid down into the slightly steamy water at all and her arm was held up for the glass, her great boobs up and out of the water both slightly hidden yet elevated by her other arm under them, those dark nipples I was so well acquainted with previously erect and pointing up at me. She smiled and took the glass.

I backed out of the bathroom, fuck but she still had it.

Somewhere between passion and compassion I dug around under the stairs for the box I chucked all of her scented candles in after she left and finding them put them on a tray and lit them. Pushing the door open with my foot I stepped in, turned off the light and placed them around the tub, glancing down at the just visible groove at the apex of her thighs crowned by a thin Brazillian as she rolled slightly to watch.

"Oh Rick," she sighed, "thank you!"

"You're welcome," I said, "special occasion!" I turned the tap to add some more hot water, switched on my new bathroom Bluetooth speaker and pulled the door closed behind me as started it to play a set list of easy and nice bluesy evening music from my phone and it rolled straight into The Lighthouse Family's version of 'Ain't no sunshine when she's gone'.

Spooky.

I ordered pizza because it was one of Mikey's all-time favourites and while he was his usual chilled self, I knew that whatever the disruptions of the day might have been, a large pepperoni and a large ham and mushroom with garlic bread and wedges would settle him right down and he'd sleep through the night, and I had a fairly good idea it would work on his Mum too. She appeared in one of her T-shirt nightdresses and sat in the large recliner armchair looking gorgeous but for some reason not making eye contact with me.

We ate our pizza and everything was rather nice. Mikey was pleased to be home with both Mum and Dad, eating pizza just made it even better. She didn't even complain when I poured him a glass of Coke which was most unlike her. She looked at me, smiled and shook her head again.

Once he'd finished his dinner she pulled him onto her lap and hugged him for a while, not something she had done since he was quite small; she 'didn't want to hold him back' she'd insisted. I did of course and she really hadn't approved.

He started to yawn, so she plonked him back on his feet,

"Give Daddy a kiss night-night Mikey!" she said and he trotted across to me and did so, giving me a big hug with his tiny arms that I loved so much. She called him Mikey; She NEVER called him Mikey?

After Nicky put him to bed, she came back into the sitting room but looked quite wasted and was looking sidelong at the sofa and the sleeping bag she had brought with her.

"Nick," I said as I tidied away the cardboard boxes and the glasses, "go sleep in my bed."

"It's fine Rick, honestly, I don't want to impose..."

"Don't be daft Nicky, you're hanging on by your chin strap look, please - just until I come in if you want."

I saw her shoulders drop, and she eventually gave up the struggle with my logic.

"Thanks Rick," she said with a smile and she headed into the kitchen. Watching her bend to put the empty Coke bottle into the recycling bin it was obvious that she wasn't wearing panties under the nightdress - she had only started to wear a nightdress after Mikey was old enough to walk around the flat. She stopped by my chair and I thought for a moment she was going to bend down and kiss me like she had when we'd lived together but stopped herself instead picking up the wrapped sleeping bag and dropping it on the sofa, "just give me a shake Rick," she said, "I'll sleep here, it'll be fine."

An hour and a half later I went to bed and there she was, asleep on what had been her side of the bed looking more comfortable than I'd seen her in years. She'd asked that I wake her so she could sleep on the sofa, but damn it she looked so peaceful and rested that only the worst kind of bastard would have done that.

I thought about going down and sleeping on the sofa; fuck that, why should I. The bed was huge, and almost brand new - instead I raised the duvet and slid in next to her. I normally slept naked but left my boxers on just in case.

The passage door was open and the small nightlight was on just in case Mikey woke up, it was just enough to illuminate her pretty face and gently closed eyes crowned by her perfectly shaped eyebrows. Her perfume smelled really nice this close, it was HER smell; I had stripped the bed the night after she insisted she wasn't coming home anymore because that gentle floral fragrance I could still smell was torture.

I lay on my side happy that there was plenty of room for us both in the king-size that I'd bought a month or so back. I slid the tiniest bit closer to her in the way that I had before almost without thinking about it, Nicky responded to the slight shift in the mattress and huge duvet and scootched inches closer to me like she always had, her warm hand lying on my shoulder.

I lay there and thought about having her back in my bed if not exactly my life, at least not how she'd used to be. I'd seen her naked and semi-naked and like it or not as I felt her warmth next to me there was nothing I could do about the throbbing erection in my pants.

Nicky had been an amazing lover, extremely sexy and very responsive and in our almost six years together our bed time experiences were the very best. It's just a crying shame that she was such a crazy psycho-control-beast for the last year.

Our son Michael was unplanned and the result of a weekend wedding we'd gone to in Italy, but wholly welcome and we didn't think twice when Nicky noticed that she had missed a second period.

She was always a bit of a control freak and a natural schoolteacher, trouble is after Mikey's birth she became much more of a grown-up and had started to treat everyone like a pupil and was constantly telling people, well me really, what to do next even though they were adults and knew as well if not better than her.

As Mikey's grew up this had slowly increased, for instance every time I cooked she would be checking what I was doing, asking what she thought were rational points but I figured unnecessary interfering and often quite insulting nagging.

Her Mother had also been a teacher and at her best did make Nicky look quite angelic at her worst. For that reason and her only slightly hidden dislike of me meant that I never really had much to do with her outside of holidays and family celebrations. Her father worked for the Department of Transport and I understood from Nicky that he had a study while Mum had the kitchen and sitting room and the pair of them rarely met other than meal times and when they went to bed.

I had an awful notion that this was happening to us, and was brave - or perhaps stupid - enough to ask her how we could deal with it; after all, I was crazy in love with her and didn't want to lose her or what we'd had.

She reacted really badly and stormed out of the flat, calling me all of the F'ing B's and C's that she could lay her pierced tongue to. She went straight to her parents' house and stayed there, but this didn't last long and after a couple of weeks she moved out because of her Mum's constant need to control her daughter's life, point out her shortcomings (including her job and lack of promotion, the fact that she lived in a flat not a house, me and Mikey) and the desire to continually state the fucking obvious. I did hope that this might help Nicky see what I meant and how thoroughly nasty her Mother was.

Now the thing is... while I could barely stand the old cow, she was worth a fortune to me...

Still crashing and burning from both Nicky's leaving and Jan's insults I took a slightly different look at a job I was offered which then became my biggest single contract ever - for a panty-shield and tampon campaign of all things.

I angrily wrote a script, suggested a famous American SNL comedian then talked the rep's through it with a fair amount of attitude.

The premise was that simple one - sanitary supplies would be so much cheaper, easier to use and more talked about if men had periods as well. My comedian, a female, would take a contrary position of course and throw in things about the how lucky women were, how menstruation has happened for millennia and women should shut up and get on with it. As well as telling off all of the viewers (that statistically half of whom were having, would have or have had periods) she talked in veiled terms about the kind of things that never seem to get a mention of outside of the quality Sunday supplements and high-end womens' magazines.

Confession time - the appalling character that nagged and tried to silence the panty-shield and tampon wearing masses? She was actually a straight-up Mid-Atlantic copy of Nicky's Mum. I even showed the reps a short piece of video I'd taken of the real McCoy and they both loved and hated her, and the Ad exec asked if there was a way he could actually meet her because I think they didn't believe she was real. The character was so horrible that the campaign went straight out and was big on both sides of the Atlantic and everyone was talking about it.

The extra money was quite significant and meant that I didn't have to ask Nicky to contribute anything to Mikey's upkeep or towards the mortgage that I'd been able to pay off, I then bought some new stuff and redecorated. The flat was mine and Nicky had never once suggested that I should be the one to move out; her flat was across town and rented out to another teacher friend, but that tenancy still had the best part of six months to run.

I guessed that it had been her mother's insistence that her late twenties daughter follow her 'my house, my rules' shit and with some other banter that had driven her from the virtually free and convenient parental abode to renting a room from a colleague at her school in her three storey townhouse, with the option to put up a small bed for Mikey to sleep on when it was her evening or weekend to have him.

The colleague was flying back from a long weekend in New York and put her entire family into self-isolation just before her weekend and that was that, she's at my place with all of Mikey's things and what looked like most of hers and looking gorgeous, well I thought so.

I woke in the night, to find that I had turned to my side and so had she so we were spooned together, my arm around her and flat on her waist with her hand over top of it. I gave her a squeeze and she purred and I felt her push back into me, nice.

I woke the next morning on my back and she was lying against me with my arm around her, her arm across my belly and hand under the elastic waistband of my boxer shorts, her fingers in my pubic hair and spread either side of my morning wood now resting on the back of her hand, her index and middle fingers just touching my scrotum. This hadn't been uncommon in the old days and I remember waking like that lots of times, it often went waaaaay further. I stayed very still.

Nicky sighed and purred just a bit and I sneaked one of my eyes open and saw that her nightdress had slid down a bit at the front and her great cleavage was very pleasant to look at. I closed my eyes and lay back, pleased to feel female hands on my genitalia again after so long.

She started to stir, and I felt her fingers gently push down either side of my penis and gently scratch at my pubic hair. She whipped her hand out which made me 'wake up'.

"Oh..." I said innocently at the girl with her head on my pillow and her face an inch from mine, "morning Nick!"

"Morning Rick," she said with some admonition, "I thought you were going to wake me up?"

"And what kind of bastard would I have been to do that?" I rolled on my side to face her, "you'd obviously had a really tough day or two, and you looked so amazingly comfortable I couldn't wake you!" she raised her eyebrows in response, "Jesus Nick, I'm a gentleman!" I smiled, wanting desperately to reach out and brush away the stray lock of hair hanging across her cheek.

"This is an extremely comfy Bed Rick," she stretched, "New?"

"Yes," I replied, "had a bit of a result with a big campaign," I didn't mention it was based on her mother, "and lashed out on a few things; this, the TV there, the dishwasher, new kitchen," I smiled again, "when I climbed in you were miles away, I didn't think we'd even get close..."

"I didn't mean to touch you!" she burst out.

"You touched me?" I said with a grin.

"I... I woke up with my hand down your pants this morning, and you were... how do I put it, pleased to see me?"

"Morning wood," I looked down, "Sorry, thing has a mind of its own, especially when a beautiful woman has a hand on it."

She giggled and blushed,

"It wasn't like that!"

"I know," I said, and snapped out of it, "don't worry; you stay where you are, and I'll get the tea."

I rolled out of bed and noticed in the mirror doors on my Ikea wardrobes that she was checking me out, but more than that I saw that as she yawned and stretched, those lovely dark nipples I'd seen cresting through her bath water the night before were hard and poking into the thin cotton of her T-shirt.

Hmmm...

I went to the kitchen and a quick peek around Mikey's bedroom door showed my little boy still half asleep but starting to stir. In the entrance to the kitchen was a pull-up rail I'd had installed and after clicking the on-button on the kettle I did ten reps on the thing, seeing as I was being scrutinised.

I made tea and thought about the beautiful woman in my bedroom with just a T-shirt between her and nakedness. Still nice to look at and the smell of her perfume, it still turned me on outrageously.

As the kettle clicked off and I poured the hot water I heard the sound of a young yawn behind me and there was my baby boy rubbing the sleep from his eyes,

"Where's Mummy?" he said in mid-yawn.

"She's still in bed Buddy," OK, whatever thought I might have had in my head disappeared, I felt mischievous, "why don't you run in and put on the TV and have a cuddle for a few minutes." She was never happy with him being in our bed once he stopped being a baby and became a little person, it was one of things we fell out about, but he would jump in with me in the mornings all of the time now. Worse than that we would watch the TV I'd installed as soon as she'd moved out.

He grinned and ran off and I heard him leap and land with a cry of delight from Nicky.

Now that was strange, like her parents she had never been that tactile, if her playing in the bath with him hadn't been enough of a surprise the sound of her evidently tickling him and rough-housing in my bed certainly was.

I took the three cups of tea I'd made and the box of biscuits under my arm and walked the short distance to my bedroom and as I turned into the room I was greeted by the sight of her gorgeous bare bottom as she bent over him to tuck the duvet around him, she stood and turned.

"Oh! Sorry Rick, I... err," she brushed the material down, "I just need the bathroom, excuse me!" and she slid past actually holding her boobs down so they didn't brush against me. My first glance had showed me she was actually covering her erect nipples so obvious that close up.

I put the tray down and slid in next to Mikey, slipping an arm around him and handing him the plastic box with the biscuits in. He expertly opened it, taking two digestives and reaching over me to dunk one in his Captain America mug.

Mikey was like me and really liked a cup of tea. My parents had started it and always made him one, while Nicky and her mother were most against it. Tea was for adults, children had juices or squash, water even better; they also needed to play quietly and not disturb Grandma or Grandpa Fraser.

Fuck that; when Mikey stayed with my parents he was positively encouraged to play around, get noisy AND messy, eat sweeties, cake and crisps, play around with the dogs and generally tire himself, and his grandparents, out.

Her mother had not taken to grandparenthood at all well, and I remembered biting my tongue when we'd first told her. The snooty bitch had a look on her face like Nicky had contracted a venereal disease, had done something that only the poor and the ignorant did, and we had done it to annoy her.