Beginning Again Ch. 01

"Anything you want. Any time you want," she whispered, "you make the rules and I'll obey."

And then he was inside her mouth again, deep inside. He reached down, held her still-damp hair between his fingers. She responded by taking up a slow rhythm, pushing her lips all the way down the length of his shaft, then pulling back. Down, and back. A little faster each time. He could feel the pressure building, building.

His orgasm hit hard and the pleasure seemed to echo and diffuse through his body. The muscles in his abdomen clenched and spasmed as he emptied his lust into Nadja's mouth. He heard and felt her moan around his cock as she continued a gentle sucking, swallowing, keeping him inside her until he was completely spent. Finally she pressed a slow, loving kiss to the tip of his cock and gently tucked it back inside his underwear again.

Only then did he regain his powers of speech, but he couldn't find the words to evict her from his apartment.

**

It was a strangely vulnerable feeling to leave Nadja alone in his when he left later that day for his anger management counseling. He'd known her less than a day and had no reason to trust her alone with his possessions. He consoled himself with the fact that he didn't have a single thing worth stealing. All his clothes were second-hand, his worn-out furniture had come with the apartment and he hadn't had the time or inclination to purchase a cell phone or a computer. Slim pickings for any would-be thief.

She'd been acting differently in the few hours since she'd sucked him. For one thing, she'd stopped wearing the track pants he'd given her and now wore just his t-shirt, giving him tantalizing glimpses of her bare legs and thighs and even her pussy and ass if she moved just right. This occurred too frequently to be an accident. It was a clear invitation. Nadja had gone from fearful and reserved to brazen and sexy in the time it had taken him to run to the drugstore for Tylenol. He knew it was an act; a blatant attempt to manipulate him into letting her stay. It galled him that her ploy had been so successful; he'd been pussy-whipped like a goddamn teenager. Even knowing it was an illusion, it remained a powerful one.

With his lust muted temporarily he'd done his floor routine; push-ups, sit-ups, squats and lunges. Prison had given him the time, opportunity and incentive to put on muscle and he didn't want to let it atrophy now that he was out. He planned to join a gym once he got a job. Nadja had sat cross-legged on the couch and looked on with apparent interest even though she probably couldn't see him. Then he took a quick shower and was out the door.

She'd pledged to be waiting for him when he returned.

He took anger counseling at St. Peter's Church six blocks from his apartment. The old nun who ran the session seemed so gentle and grandmotherly that Mac wondered if she'd ever been angry in her whole life. Still, he dutifully listened, took notes, and forced himself to participate in the role-playing activities with the eight men who attended the same session. He practiced how to respond if someone insulted him. How to respond if someone cut ahead of him in line. How to respond if someone was talking too loud on the bus. In each case he applied the techniques the old nun had taught. No yelling, no swearing, no kicking chairs, no punching holes in the drywall. Breathe. Count. Use his 'calming word'. Relax his muscles. Picture himself in the shoes of the other person.

If it helped him stay on top of his temper, he'd do anything. He'd tried medications but they made him feel dopey and disconnected. The counseling helped, although he found the techniques were easier to apply in the classroom than in the real world. But wasn't that true of everything? Regardless, the counseling was one of the conditions of his parole and he had no intention of going back to prison. So he breathed and counted and chanted for the full ninety minutes.

He took the long way home, hoping the exercise and cold air would help clear his head. He had to get his mind right.

He had a plan, a plan he'd worked out before leaving prison. A plan that ensured he'd never end up back inside. Keep everything simple, that was the main part. Work, sleep, do his anger therapy. Repeat. Get that stuff right, lay a foundation for a New Life. Then slowly build on that. One piece at a time.

Adding a woman to the mix right at the start wasn't smart. He cursed himself for his weakness and stupidity. Why couldn't he get out of his own way? Why did he make it so hard to keep things simple? Life was brutal enough without taking on a homeless blind girl and all of her problems in addition to his own.

He stopped by the drug store and bought more bread, eggs, coffee and canned soup. At least for the immediate future he needed to start shopping for two.

**

"Why were you in prison?" Nadja asked, breaking a long silence.

She'd been sitting cross-legged on the old couch as he scrambled the eggs and cut slices of cheese for dinner. Every so often she would change the position of her legs, and if he happened to be looking he'd catch a glimpse of her naked sex. He forced himself to focus on dinner – it would be just his luck to cut off his goddamn finger while trying to catch a glimpse of pussy. He wanted her...badly. But they still had to eat.

"Long story. Don't want to bore you with it," he said, hoping it would suffice.

It did, for a short while.

"Seven years?" she said, obviously unwilling to drop the subject altogether.

"It was supposed to be three."

"What happened?"

"You've heard of getting time off for good behaviour? I did the opposite of that," he said.

It had been one prison fight after another, with months and years being tacked on to his sentence for each one. The fact that he won more fights than he lost was no consolation; seven years had been taken from him.

She didn't reply, but stood and approached the kitchenette, feeling her way forward carefully until she was standing opposite the counter from him as he diced half an onion. She wore an inquisitive expression.

"What happened to your sight?" he asked, figuring if she got to ask personal questions then he could get in some of his own. Her gray-blue eyes looked normal; there didn't seem to be any injury.

"RP," she said.

"That's some kind of disease?"

She nodded.

"So it's pitch black for you?"

"I have a vague sense of brightness and darkness, but not colours or shapes," she said simply. It didn't seem to bother her to talk about it.

He grunted his understanding, then turned and scraped the diced onion into the scrambled eggs.

"Why do you get headaches?" she asked. It felt like a tennis match, each of them lobbing questions at the other. Mac found he preferred it to the silence.

"Don't know. I've had them since I was twelve or so. Four or five times per week, usually. They hurt like hell. Sometimes Tylenol helps, if I take enough of it, but most times it doesn't do much," he said.

No point telling her the rest; that the headaches had sabotaged his education, ruined his social life at high school, drove him into rages that frightened his mother so much that she hadn't even visited him in prison. Not once.

Better to leave the past in the past.

He pushed two slices of bread down in the toaster. The welcome scent of fried onion and egg filled the room. He switched off the stove element, then tuned to face Nadja.

"What happened last night?" he asked.

"You don't know?"

"I get blackouts," he said.

Her expression became nervous. Guarded.

"Smells like it's almost ready. I'll wash my hands," she said, then turned and felt her way to the bathroom, shutting the door gently behind her.

He watched her go, content to drop the subject for now but not for good. He wanted to know what had happened last night, to fill in the gap in his memory. If she was staying then he felt he should know the whole story.

Five minutes later they sat across from one other at the tiny table. She was quiet for most of the meal, and he left her to her thoughts. Whatever happened last night obviously hadn't been a lot of fun.

"If you start frying the onions before you add the egg, the onions will be softer and the flavour will be more spread around," Nadja said out of the blue. Her tone was conversational; it didn't sound critical of his cooking skills.

"Yeah? Good to know," he replied, "you're a cook, then?"

She shrugged. "I used to love cooking. It's kind of hard to do it when you can't see anything."

"When did you lose your sight?"

"It happened gradually over time. It's just in the last two years or so that it's become really bad," she said.

"There's no treatment?"

She shook her head. They ate without talking for another few minutes.

"I didn't do anything really bad, just so you know," he said, "I got into a fight in a shopping mall. Beat up a couple of mall security guards. Punched a cop. Just stupid, really,"

"You punched a cop?" She sounded surprised.

"Yeah. I mean, I don't remember doing it. I never remember when I'm really angry like that. But they had security cameras and...there I was."

"So you just black out?"

"Yup. Can't remember anything afterward. Like last night. I went out for some pills, next thing I know I'm carrying you up the stairs instead of the pills." He gave a humourless laugh. "Keeps life interesting, anyway."

He hoped she'd take the bait and open up about the night before, but she lapsed into silence again.

They both finished their toast and scrambled eggs and he gathered the plates and cutlery and took them to the sink.

"I can do that," she said, rising and navigating to the sink, "I should do something."

He stepped back and leaned against the counter and she began to rinse the dishes. The pale blue t-shirt she wore covered her only as far as her upper thighs and he admired her legs and longed for what remained hidden.

Was it right, accepting sex in return for allowing her to stay? Holding the threat of eviction over her head unless she satisfied his needs? When he thought about it that way it didn't feel right at all.

On the other hand, the arrangement had been her idea – he hadn't made any demands, hadn't made any threats. She'd named her own terms. In the end, it was just a matter of give-and-take. A fair trade in an unfair world.

"Nadja," the lust in his voice was obvious even to him.

"Mmm?"

"You did say 'anything', right? Any time?"

She froze for a moment, then nodded slowly and stopped her washing. "Anything, any time," she said with no hint of uncertainty. She flicked the water off her hands and fumbled for a towel.

"No, keep washing, but take off the shirt," he said. He was pleased by how confident his own voice sounded, considering he hadn't been with a woman in the better part of a decade.

Nadja reached down, grasped the hem of the shirt and slowly pulled it up over her head, then let it fall to the floor before resuming her dish washing.

Mac moved to stand behind her, allowing his eyes to roam appreciatively over her tight backside. He couldn't decide what he wanted to do first; his hands wanted to be everywhere at once.

He leaned forward and gently tapped the inside of her left thigh. Nadja understood and widened her stance. He slid his hand between her thighs, loving the smoothness and softness of her skin. He could feel the heat of her sex even without touching it. His cock was painfully hard.

When he finally stroked his fingers over her pussy lips he found them mostly smooth with only a trace of stubble. He let his middle finger slide between her folds; she was hot and slightly moist. Her intimate flesh seemed to cling to his dry finger as he dragged it through the core of her sex, then up between the cheeks of her ass. She moaned as his finger went back for a second stroke.

"Please, let me suck you now," she said in a pleading whisper.

"Legs wider," he grunted as he quickly shed his jeans and underwear, freeing his rigid erection.

Nadja obediently opened herself further. "Mac, I want you in my mouth. Please let me taste you," she whined, and her desire for him sent his arousal to new heights. He'd never imagined that a woman would beg for his cock. He'd only been out of prison for two weeks! Deep down, he knew her desire for him was exaggerated, but chose to believe it. Everyone had illusions, after all – surely he was entitled to his own?

He stepped behind her, gripped her ass cheeks and spread them wide, delighting in the feel of the warm, yielding flesh. He groaned with desire as her rear hole and inviting sex were exposed. He took his time lining his cock up with the pink opening. He didn't want to rush, he wanted to savour his first stroke into her waiting pussy. She reached back and grasped his rigid shaft to guide him. He closed his eyes and pushed forward...

Nadja's firm, gentle grip on his cock prevented him from entering her. He gave another thrust and she denied him entry again. He felt an irrational surge of anger. Was she toying with him? Trying to humiliate him?

"You should use protection," she said in an urgent whisper.

"Just one stroke. I need to feel my cock inside you."

She turned to face him, and stroked his cock gently in both of her hands. She lowered her head until he couldn't see her eyes.

"Mac...it might not be...safe," she said in a quiet, serious tone.

"You're afraid I'm going to give you something?" he said in disbelief and growing outrage. Did she think he'd been fucking his cell-mate for the last seven years?

"No, no," she said quickly, "It might not be safe...for you."

"For me?" The meaning of her words took a moment to sink in. "What makes you think that?"

There was a long pause. Nadja continued to gently stroke him for a moment but then became still. Her shoulders slumped. The silence stretched to several moments.

"I'm...," her voice had gone quiet, barely audible, "I mean...I was...a prostitute."

It was his turn to lapse into silence as he tried to find something to say. His thoughts, so recently consumed with lust, then anger, were now a jumble of different feelings. Should he be upset? How upset? Repulsed? Sympathetic? Should he play it cool? Did this change anything that had come before it? What was the right way to react?

"When?" he asked.

"Up until last night."

Last night, when he'd blacked out then regained his senses while carrying her to his apartment. What had happened during the missing time? One possibility seemed to rise above the others.

"Does that mean...last night...did I hire you?"

Her laugh was so sudden and so out of place that it caused him to take a step back in alarm. As quickly as it erupted, it died off and Nadja covered her face with her hands and shuddered. She took a minute to regain her composure, then raised her unseeing eyes to his face.

"No. Last night you saved me, Mac."

**