Can Roberta Be Healed?

But he voted that down, in favor of something that could either help her, or make her drive him away.

"Have we built trust?" he asked her, during a tight nude embrace.

"Totally," she said with a chuckle. "We've gone beyond weird, to salacious."

"Then let's separate. You turn your back, and I touch you. My initiative only."

Her smile vanished.

The expression that replaced it was tense, but also thoughtful.

She asked, "Will you talk while you touch?"

"Sometimes. But you can't look at me."

After a moment, she nodded. But she said, "You don't have to take this chance."

"Maybe not," he said. "But I think I should."

Urgently: "I don't want to hate you!"

"That makes two of us. I hope that doesn't happen."

She seemed to read the determination in his expression. She said quietly, "I suppose this is another meaning of 'you've got my back.'"

"You're in this room," he said. "So am I. Who controlled that?"

Her eyes widened. Her posture calmed, and straightened.

She took a deep breath. Then she lifted her hands away from his body, and stepped back one pace.

He, too, withdrew by one pace. Now with space to see more of her, he shook with fear that what he'd do next might ruin both of their lives.

She set her jaw, then pivoted a half-turn.

He waited for a few seconds.

Then, after an audible footfall, he said, "Roberta, I'm going to undo your ponytail."

She nodded, barely moving it.

He secured the hair where it converged, then pulled the band away. He spread the tresses from shoulder to shoulder.

"I like the way it reaches your back," he said. Then he put both hands not on the hair, but on her shoulder blades. She shivered, with a quick audible gasp, but didn't retreat. He caressed her back. Down, up, and across.

"Those are Evan's hands," she said, to him and herself.

"Yes they are," he said. Then he moved them to her sides.

He moved his hands down her rib cage, to either side of her navel.

"I'd like to feel Evan's body," she said, leaning back towards him.

"You don't control that," he said, arching away from that contact. He knew this might disturb her, with his hands seeming disembodied, but he didn't feel any twitching from her.

The hands ventured as far as her upper thighs, then reversed direction, staying clear of her midline.

She gasped slightly, but her body was still.

His fingertips traced each rib as they rose.

Then, smoothly, without surprise, his hands closed around her breasts.

This was a longer, louder gasp.

"I want you!" she said, gripping his hands with hers. "Bedroom, please!"

"Are you sure--"

"No! But I'm ready to try!"

He let go of her. She trotted towards the bedroom. He snatched his pants from the floor, and followed.

She dismissed all of her reticence, and pushed him towards the bed.

He settled there on his back, elbows bent with hands to either side of his head.

Looking her in the eyes, he said, "I accept your control."

He opened his right hand, and showed a wrapped condom.

She seemed to express both anxiety and relief.

She said, "Put it on."

Between his legs, the firm-to-flexible ratio might have been ten to one. He was accustomed, in his other trysts, to oral foreplay, by both lovers. Yet the latex went on snugly, and Roberta took to the bed, advancing like a jungle cat, on all fours.

Until she stopped, her groin above his. She looked at his spire, then at his face.

He raised his arms, to offer her an embrace. She didn't move.

"No," she said, "I have to be the one to do this. Or decide that I can't."

He knew he had to accept that.

But also, shedding a longtime male habit, he let his face show her what he was feeling.

From her. With her. For her.

He thought he must look like a total goofball, a lovesick puppy. But how else should he look, with beautiful nude Roberta about to make love to him?

She looked at him with wide eyes and parted lips. With a sure grip, she moved his prick to get the glans between her labia.

He felt warmth there. From within the condom, he couldn't tell if she had moistened.

Her brows lifted.

"Ohhhyeeaahhh!" she whispered, with a crooked smile. She descended to enclose half his shaft.

A thrill shook his body.

"Damn, don't you dare!" she yipped. "Sex toy now, human later!"

He laughed, which took him back from the precipice.

With her next move downward, her heat engulfed his prick, and her pubes met his.

"Ohyeah," she huffed, stilled on her mooring, hands now gripping his sides. "Yes. This. Don't care if I have a problem with spooj. I still like Tab P filling up Slot V."

Evan was relieved, and thrilled, and forced to remember that she was still in control. He almost bit his lip to bleeding, banishing the thought of clamping her butt cheeks, slobbering her bosom, and railing her at his chosen speed, balls deep.

She began slow rises and falls, first vertically, then with swivels and grinds. Her eyelids fluttered. Saliva welled at her lips.

He again approached the precipice.

She lifted her left hand, and squeezed her corresponding breast.

Evan moaned, loudly, and clamped his eyes shut against an image he couldn't unsee.

His cock swelled to what he thought was his maximum. Roberta gasped, and swiveled faster.

Clutching the bedspread with both hands, he grunted, "No lake is cold enough!"

"So close!" she wheezed.

Spasms flexed his groin. "I'm gonna--"

"KISS!" she cried, lurching her face at his.

Their lips joined for about two seconds. Then her head snapped back, and she yelled.

He spurted into the condom.

His yell picked up where hers let off.

"Gotta stop," she wailed, rising on one knee.

"Fingers?" he yelped.

"Sure," she said, her back flopping next to his.

He pushed two between her labia. They felt her last few spasms. He saw a wide smile spread to reveal her perfect teeth.

Evan gulped air, and saw Roberta's body go slack. She sighed, and seemed to relish doing that.

Quickly he rose, and dashed to the bathroom. After he'd shed the condom, washed down his groin and hands, and flushed the evidence, he returned to be welcomed by her grin.

"A self-cleaning sex toy!" she exulted. "That's a keeper!"

For an instant, they both laughed.

Then they froze, both wondering how literally she meant 'keeper.'

***

Somehow they settled into bowling as a regular thing. They improved a little, at least to the point of avoiding gutter balls. But spares were rare, and a whole evening might pass without a strike.

Both of them, however, developed a knack for trash talk.

"You're so nice to these pins!" she declared after he felled three of them, on his first ball of the sixth frame. "The pins down there at lane 19 are jealous!"

"At least when I hit them, they scatter," he snarled. "Your ball has to persuade them to fall."

When there were other bowlers nearby, the comedy team of Roberta and Evan got a few laughs. This kept their focus away from becoming better bowlers.

When they had the place nearly to themselves, which was most of the time, they could address more personal matters, while imbibing between games.

She murmured, "You sure you're okay with me never giving you a blowjob?"

He eyed the ceiling, and sing-songed, "We've had this discussion."

"Look, I'm sensitive about what I can't do."

"And I've said my piece, so I'll let this be something you can work on with your shrink." His consideration for her, on this topic, might now be matched by tedium and impatience.

She looked away with an annoyed sigh, then took a swig of her beverage.

She smiled as she again looked at him. "This is what I needed, to limit the effect of how I feel about you. We're getting on each other's nerves. No danger of an immediate, lifelong commitment."

He chuckled. "We still tend to be loners, for different reasons. So maybe there's no danger of that with anyone else."

"Having seen the way you tend to your apartment," she said, "I wouldn't be eager to merge our households."

He nodded in acknowledgment. "While we're in this vague zone of mid-twenties to late twenties, I'm okay with us going with our current flow." He stood, and reached towards the ball return. "Which will include me drubbing you by fifty pins."

"To do that," she returned, "you'd have to get the ball somewhere near the pocket." Then she leaned close, to deliver quietly some trash for him only. "You're very good at finding my pocket, and that's all I care about."

This may have had nothing to do with him hitting only the four- and seven-pins. But Roberta grinned smugly.