Androshorts: Passion and Compassion

We sat and watched as the presenter expanded on what the PM had said and what the impact of that was going to be.

I stood and walked across to the kitchen and made tea instead of the hot chocolate like I'd thought about before.

I handed one across to her,

"Thank you."

All of that cheeky warmth we'd had was gone and she picked up her phone, fuck.

"Hi Mum," she said, "yes... yes, I'm fine -- how are you?"

The usual polite introduction she always had with any discussion, 'Good manners Nicola, they cost nothing!'

There was some chatter from the other end and I could hear the nasal, high-pitched whine that went for speech whenever that fucking witch ever opened her mouth. Nicky had phoned her, but it was essential that Mother spoke first, obviousl; because she was so much wiser, cleverer and generally more important than... well, everyone really.

"So... Mum listen... yes, I know... yes..." She sipped her tea and looked across at me and shook her head, "yes... what now?" she narrowed her eyes as her Mother probably gave her the benefit of her years of experience in fighting global pandemics. "No, Mikey and... all right MICHEAL and I are... we're staying with Eric at his place. YES! Because..." I guessed she stopped while her Mother gave forth on how the global pandemic she was such an expert on was probably my fault, "Sophia and her family have gone into voluntary isolation because they're just back from... because... Mum! Because this is his home that's why!... He's not allowed to play at your house... because he's a bloody four-year old that's why! He is NOT badly behaved... Yeah and I'm a schoolteacher too... I know Rick only has a small garden, but you won't even let him in yours... Mother! Will you..."

Bloody hell! She was arguing with the font of all knowledge and wisdom! Those two weeks she'd lived there when she first moved out had seen a real sea-change - this was huge... this was class three's teacher arguing with Einstein, this was the Sunday league player telling Alex Fergusson where he'd gone wrong for all those years, Moses saying to God that didn't he think that eight would be a better amount of commandments, particularly that whole 'coveting' thing, no one really covets like they used to.

"Alright, yes... I know you can get your own shopping..." despite Nicky's Herculean efforts, her offers of support were doomed by sheer intransigence, in fact the witch felt she was the one that should be taking care of everyone else -- probably not me I expect, "sorry to have bothered you."

She all but punched the front of the phone to disconnect the call. I could see that her pretty face was halfway between rage and tears, perhaps we'd need the hot chocolate after all.

She went to bed about half an hour later, despite my efforts to try and talk to her about it, I really didn't want her to lose it with me again.

I made the hot chocolate, switched everything off and walked to the bedroom to find her laying down and staring at her phone, nightdress on, towel over the radiator. I turned off the passage light and handed her the steaming mug.

"Thought you might need that." I said and stripped down to my boxers and slid in next to her, but still some distance away, my nice clean and fresh sheets unnoticed.

I took my mug and turned on my bedside lamp, looking at Nicky who seemed very grateful for the tiny luxury, one that I hadn't made since she'd left.

"Thanks Rick," she said and sipped with eyes closed against the badness. She took a second sip and her eyes sprung open again, "that bloody woman!" she almost screeched; excellent, at last we could talk about it and get it off her mind, "I just wanted to make sure she was alright you know?" She sipped some more chocolate, "but noooo... what the bloody hell does the government know, she was more concerned about having to cancel the Townswomen's Guild flower show than she was about Mikey! She was even more pissed to know we were both here though," she gave that half-closed eye flutter that her mother did when annoyed and imparting wisdom, "She doesn't like him being there but It's much better that Michael comes to stay with her rather than HIM!" she snapped in the squeaky pulpit voice her mother used, "Oh yeah, much better that he be cooped up in something like a fourteenth century monastery with a vow of silence and a thousand hail Mary's for breaking into a trot! COW!"

I'd never seen her this cross with her mother, but I stayed quiet of course; the last time I'd suggested something unpleasant about Mummy dearest, she left me.

She sipped some more of her hot chocolate and looked at me, getting it straight away.

"OK Rick," she said with as much of a grin as she could manage, "I'll give you that one."

I so desperately wanted to come in with the Dad joke, 'you'll give me one?' but guessed that this wasn't the time.

I took a deep breath,

"The world begins and ends with her Nicky," I said, "everything else - you, me, our son even - is just another little troubling irritation stopping her from getting on with making sure the world understands it's all about her... mate."

I'd been working on a term of endearment since she'd moved back in; I dearly wanted to go with the ones I'd used before, particularly 'Baby' which had been her favourite right from when I called her it the first time. Cheesy I know, but that was how we had been.

She let both my 'mate' and my description of her Mum go by, and after finishing her drink, plonked her mug down, she was in 'that' state again -- not just angry but there was something else ticking away there as well.

I saw that she reached for her phone again, stopped, and put it back down which meant she was still upset. I could think of only one thing to do. I finished mine, turned off my light and got lower and rolled to roughly the middle of the bed. She was lying on her back with her arms tightly folded, so I rolled close and gently taking her right shoulder pulled her on to my chest and into a hug.

"Not now Rick, yeah?" she said.

"Just go with me on this Nicky, please?"

"Rick, I'm not in the..."

"You don't have to be in the mood, just lay here quietly - with me."

I pulled the duvet up and over her and she felt deliciously soft and warm against me.

After a few moments I felt her now unfolded arm snake across me and I reciprocated, pulling her into a hug, and as I had done on so many occasions gently stroked her hair and I felt her relax into me. Moments later there was the slight, barely noticeable shoulder heaves as she cried into my shoulder, and I held her tight and let her get it out of her system.

After a few minutes she stopped and reached over to me to my bedside table and a box of tissues. She sat up a bit and wiped her face, blowing her nose at the end.

"Better?" I said.

"Much," she threw her used tissue to the waste bin, "Thanks Rick!" She leaned forward and kissed my cheek, "Oh," she said and reached over me for another tissue and mopped my neck and shoulder and the few tears she'd dropped there. "Sorry, I really don't know why I let her affect me like that, I should be used to her by now."

"Don't worry, she's your Mum," I rolled on to my side looking straight into her face, "Families, they are the reason we get to pick our friends."

"Yeah!" she grinned, laying her head on her pillow just across from me. She wrinkled her nose and there were her freckles just over it, more evident thanks to the early spring sun we'd been enjoying, "thanks Rick, I really mean it."

"Don't worry about it," I said, not wanting her to start crying again.

"You didn't have to take us in."

"I kinda did Nick, Mikey lives here?"

"Alright, you didn't have to take me in."

"And where would you have gone Miss Fraser hmm?" she grinned again, "Yeah, not to your parents, Mikey would have been running home at the end of the first evening!"

"Yeah probably," she let her sad smile fade with a soft sigh, "Chasing after me I expect."

"Come here," I said softly, "I think we both need this."

"Need what?" she said, the faintest grin just visible in the ambient light.

"A cuddle Nicky, nothing more."

"That would be nice Rick," she switched around so I could spoon her and she wriggled her bottom into my groin. I slipped my right arm under her pillow and over her shoulder and my left over her waist to settle my hand over her still flat tummy. A moment later her hands were over mine giving them a squeeze and I felt her rub her cheek against my arm. "did you change the sheets?"

"Yeah..."

"Thanks Rick..." I could just detect a tremble in her whisper and felt her kiss my arm that was around her.

What my bedside clock told me was an hour later both hands were on both of her tits, with her hands over top and giving the very occasional squeeze, which was how we always did it before.

It was very nice.

It got nicer at some strange time in the night when I briefly woke to find she had turned in my arms to face me with her lips pressing against mine and her tongue invading my mouth as I returned her kiss. It lasted no longer than four seconds, four very nice seconds I'll grant you, but that was it and she pushed her delectable body against mine in our cuddle and I could hear her slow steady breathing again. I held her even tighter.

Just as I started to get very comfortable in that first light 'slowly coming around still half-asleep' torpor, feeling that warm body against mine her right arm high on my chest and thinking about risking a hand on the curvaceous bare bottom just sticking out from under the duvet, the piano introduction of The Bangles 'Manic Monday' broke the silence to remind me it was work o'clock.

The hand that was going to so innocently and accidentally rest on her gorgeous bum instead reached across to my bedside table and my phone and I had to use the hand that had previously been around her to swipe the snooze button.

She gave a slightly grumpy sighed 'humph' sound, her face against mine,

"Wassa'time?" she mumbled, her soft lips moving against my cheek.

"Half six," I said, pressing my cheek against hers, "sorry, it's still in non-lockdown mode, It gives me fifteen minutes to come around before I have to shower and then get Mikey up, washed, dressed and breakfasted and to his pre-school."

"Six forty-five to get Mikey to pre-school?" she said with some surprise. With two of us it had been a much simpler deal and we were rarely getting out of bed much before seven fifteen, sometimes seven thirty if one of us had been horny.

"He's like his Daddy," I said, "You can't rush him first thing. And his lunch box has to be a bit special."

She grinned,

"Well he can have a lie in this morning, in fact we can ALL have a lie in." Although she was right up against me, she still made a bit of a wiggle as if she were trying to get even closer, her face warm against mine.

I rolled out of bed at a bit after seven, Nicky still snoozing off the previous nights trials and tribulations with her perfect bottom on display, improved by her raising her right knee high into the space that I had just been laying in and I had a brief glimpse of her bare puss.

Christ but this girl was turning me on and I desperately hoped that she knew just what she was doing!

I filled the kettle and switched it on, got out cups and loaded my four slice toaster before wandering into Mikey's room, picking him up and taking him through to my bed where I laid his still sleeping form next to his Mum, even going so far as to put her hand on his chest.

By the time breakfast was made and loaded onto a tray, I could hear the first stirrings of life from Nicky and the sound of early morning cartoons. She was still a bit snoozy but was hugging our son and he didn't seem to mind at all.

"Rick!" she said stretching in great delight, "I could get used to this breakfast in bed routine!"

I sat down, and folded down the legs on the tray and put it across Nicky's lap. They tray was another new purchase that I had bought, stuck down the size of the fridge and completely forgotten about.

"Oh Wow!" she said, sitting up a bit more, "Hey look Mikey, look how Daddy's treating us to breakfast in bed!"

There was a big pile of toasted fried egg sandwiches and Mikey's grin was almost as big as his Mummy's, which made Mummy's grow even more.

We all tucked in and the pile reduced. Mikey sat up, wiped his eggy mouth on the back of his hand and kissed my cheek.

"They were yummy, thanks Daddy!"

Nicky tutted him, took a tissue from the tray and wiped his face properly, she then kissed his cheek noisily and he giggled and scooted just out of her reach wiping his kissed and now clean cheek with his hand and making for the TV remote, settling just out of kissing distance at least. She handed around the cups of tea I'd made and sipped hers gratefully putting the still hot cup on her bedside table. Next she placed the tray on the floor beside the bed.

She looked at me, kneeling up herself,

"They were reeeeeeally yummy... thanks Daddy!" she leaned forward and I think was going to kiss my cheek but the slightest turn of my head had her soft lips touching mine, and rather than the loud slurp I was expecting it was the soft touch, closed eyes and the gentlest, almost surprised sigh.

"You're very welcome," I said when she pulled back from me, a surprised look on her face, red cheeks and a hint from the low neck line of her nightdress of that red flush she got to her chest when she was getting excited or emotional about anything.

She looked like she wanted to say something but settled instead for putting her hand across the red patch on her chest telling me more about how she felt than she did, guiltily rolling her eyes and pursing her lips.

"I've got to get to my computer," I said breaking the silence, "some of us have got to work for a living!"

Nicky gave me the most delicious look,

"Oh you poor thing!" she purred.

"Whereas you, the public employee, gets to stay home on full pay."

"Yeah," she turned on her hips and lay back down again resting Cleopatra-like against the piled pillows and headboard her T-shirt riding high up those great thighs of hers, "full pay at... what... A sixth of your annual salary?"

"So I'm to be punished for being successful?"

She paused,

"Oh, if only..."

Biting her bottom lip, she pulled up her knees to tuck her feet under the duvet and in doing so exposed her bottom and puss to me yet again, only for a short time but it was enough.

It was my turn to roll my eyes, shake my head and grin. I stood, my erection obvious in the front of my boxers,

"Time for a cold shower I think," I said, not hiding my condition from her as I walked out of the bedroom.

I was able to get my head around my work relatively quickly and was running through ideas for a couple of contracts when there was a tap on my shoulder,

"Sorry Rick, I've got to log my laptop into the Wi-Fi -- where's the password written down?"

"S'alright, give it here," I said, holding out a hand.

"Just tell me," she said, "I don't want to keep you from what you're doing."

"It's fine mate honest."

"I won't tell anyone!"

"Oh, I know that," I said guiltily.

"Tell me!" she said with a rising inflection, holding her laptop to her chest.

"OK," I said, "easy one to remember, 'nicolasperfectarse'..." I paused for effect, "all lower case," I said and told her which letters were substituted with numbers and the one symbol.

Her mouth fell open,

"Eric!" she almost screeched, "that's... you wicked..."

I raised a restraining hand,

"Now Nicola," I said, "the password instructions with my new router were quite specific, they said pick three words, something memorable, something you won't forget." I rolled my chair back the tiniest bit to look at her shapely bottom now lovingly wrapped in blue faded denim, "and let's be honest, no man in his right mind would forget your perfect arse."

She blushed again, and I could see her chest doing the same; she hugged her laptop to her, confirmed the last few figures, nodded a greatly suppressed grin and walked back to the living room, looking over her shoulder at the last minute to check that I was still watching her wiggle her way back to the sofa.

All day we were on tenterhooks -- she would bring me the occasional mug of coffee, then at lunchtime she brought me a sandwich and a packet of crisps and I swear she had tucked her T-shirt tighter into her jeans to give me the whole curvy picture and it was worth the look.

She never seemed to sit still, she played some games with Mikey, checked her emails from school, sent a few, played with Mikey again, and still would appear at the end of the passage just to look at me, or was it so I could look at her.

After lunch she took Mikey for a walk and they came back with him slightly grumpy because they had arrived find a couple of council men in fluorescent yellow taping off the playground. Fair play to them, they didn't rush and told him which piece they would do next so he could have a go before it was closed. I'm not sure how much of it was municipal good nature and how much of it was because of the gorgeous and curvy yummy-mummy pushing him on the swings, spinning the roundabout or bouncing him on the see-saw.

They came back just gone three and she decided that they would bake some sponge cakes and by the time I was ready to finish for the day, the warm kitchen smelled sweetly of vanilla, almond and chocolate.

I'd never known Nicky to bake, not at all; not for me, not for Nicky, not for anyone. If there was a school bake sale she would buy stuff for it.

But here she was with my Kindle propped up with a BBC webpage, slightly flowery cheeks and our boy stood on a chair next to her even more so, getting all domesticated. A cooling tray with three dozen small sponge cakes, with various amounts of frosting of different colours and amounts of sprinkles on.

"Look Daddy!" said my boy jumping up and down on his chair, buzzing with the pleasure of it.

"I think Daddy should try the first one," Nicky whispered to him, her face as illuminated as his. I'd never seen her like this with him before.

I stepped across and took one with white icing and a few jelly tots stuck on. I took a bite, it was quite lovely and it showed on my face. Nicky hi-fived Mikey and they took a cake each.

OK, we were locked down in our houses to make sure that we didn't spread this illness but I had never felt quite so good as this day, with my gorgeous son more in touch with his Mum than he had ever been and my former girlfriend/partner equally so.

I made tea and loaded the dishwasher while Mikey and Mummy got very serious and cleaned up and put away. She cooked a tea of chicken curry with rice and we all tucked in. By seven Mikey was flagging.

"Bathtime Baby Boy!" she said and Mikey did kind of grumble his way to the bathroom but I heard the hot water running and the cry of 'bubbles!' suggesting that he'd got his way again.

The noise suggested that a good time was being had and again I made some more decaf and popped my head into the bathroom. She was knelt in exactly the same place with that perfect pert arse pointing back at me again, this time with a tiny black lace string that I'd never seen before, Jesus, I would have had her wear it three times a week it looked so fucking sexy. I passed her the mug of coffee I'd made for her, and she sat back to drink it. So intrigued by her fantastic bottom I hadn't seen that she had removed her bra. She held her coffee in both hands, this action doing a great job in supporting her great breasts, her large dark and hardened nipples pointing straight at me again.

"This is lovely Rick," she said with the cutest smile. What WAS she going to do next?!

I figured I'd need to play it a bit carefully. I wanted her back in my arms but that last thing I wanted to do was miss-read the signs and end up driving her away from me again. OK, the message I was getting was pretty clear but I kind of wanted this decision to be hers, and not something that would get thrown back in my face if she had another one of those moments where everything was my fault again.