Crucifix: Longing Ch. 04

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....................Vicki stepped out of Trey Martin's office, adjusted her collar and glanced down at her engagement ring. {Victoria, what are you doing? You're being crazy.} She looked at the clock on the wall and shook her head. {Damn it! I'm going to be late.} As she passed by one of the windows she took a quick look at her reflection. {Everything in place.} She walked into the PT lobby nearly ten minutes after her appointment with Erin Durant was supposed to have started. {Maybe she's late.}

But Erin was sitting there flipping absentmindedly at a magazine. {Shit!} Vicki put on her 'glad to meet you face' "Hello, you must be Erin Durant." She extended her hand toward Erin and spoke quickly, "My name is Vicki Bardole. I'm going to be your PT for that arm of yours." She watched as Erin rolled her eyes.

Vicki tried to ignore Erin's barefaced rudeness. {Great, she's going to be a bitch, I just know it.} She smiled once more and bent down a bit, leaning toward Erin, "You know Erin; I think you met my fiancée, William yesterday, right?" She stared at Erin with her eyes opened wide and a syrupy smile on her face.

Erin sighed, or rather, huffed. {That's right he said his fiancée was going to work with me, too. Fucking wonderful.} "Oh, yes, that's right. Could you stop hovering? And you know, I'm not five years old, you don't need to be so cheery."

Merle shot his daughter a disappointed look and then smiled at Vicki, "I'm sorry, Erin seems to have forgotten how to be pleasant these past few months." Merle took hold of Vicki's hand and smiled, "I'm Merle Durant, Erin's dad. Nice to meet you, Vicki."

Vicki smiled warmly at the older gentleman and then looked down at Erin. In turn, Erin looked at her watch and dryly asked, "Running late, Vicki?"

Vicki looked at Merle once more and then back down at Erin, "Oh, I just...I was...um...I was just finishing up with a patient. She smiled broadly, too broadly for Erin's liking. "Well, let's go on back to the workout room and get started. See you in an hour and a half, Mr. Durant." She pushed Erin's wheelchair through the heavy double doors.

Erin had to endure the same type of 'touch' test William had given her, only this one was focused on her arm. When she finished taking some notes, Vicki sat down at a table in front of Erin, "We're going to need to get that arm stronger so when we get you up on the bars to walk, you'll have enough muscle to help hold you up." She handed Erin a small pink 'dumbbell' weight. "Let's work on those biceps and triceps."

Erin stared at Vicki, utterly pissed at the 'you're a weakling' tone she was using. She'd never been a weakling...ever. And she'd be damned if some bubble-headed bleached-blonde physical therapist was going to talk to her like that. "Look...Vicki," she said dryly, "You know 'we're' not the one who is paralyzed, 'I' am. And 'I' already told you, I'm not five years old; so, stop fucking treating me like I am, okay?"

Erin grabbed the weight, which she figured must have come from the same factory that made Barbie dolls, and lifted it up and down. {This is so fucking stupid. Christ, just leave me alone.} "Besides, Vicki," Erin said with an utterly callus tone, "I don't think I'll be walking any time soon. So needing to 'bulk up' my arms for something that might not happen for..." she thought about how long she might be trapped in that chair, "for....Good God, is this really necessary?"

Vicki sighed. {Shit, maybe I could ask Trey to switch me. No, wait. I'm not going to let some sour ass bitch get the better of me.} "Erin, you know, with that kind of attitude you're only going to make it more difficult on yourself." Vicki smirked, and then added, "You know, here at the Grayson Center we hope you'll heal not only your body but also your mind and soul."

{Is she fucking serious?} "Right, yeah, sure." Erin rolled her eyes, "Why don't 'we' just stick to 'my' arm, alright?" She said sarcastically and continued to lift the little pink 'Barbie' weight with a smile that tried to say 'this is so stupid', even though her arm was really hurting. It'd been a long time since Erin had 'worked' her arms. Every now and again she'd stare at the clock, praying for the minute hand to go faster.

About forty minutes into their session, Vicki's cell phone went off. She looked at the name on the display and she politely turned herself away from Erin. "Hey, baby. Where are you? ......Bed? ..... Jesus, William, it's almost one o'clock. Your shift starts in an hour. You've gotta take a shower and everything."

Erin rolled her eyes as Vicki talked. For some very odd reason Erin suddenly felt either very pissed with or very jealous of Vicki Bardole. She told herself it was because of Vicki's stupid pink weights and even more inane 'recovery is physical AND mental' crap. But she knew she was lying.

What was it that had made her feel so uptight? Erin didn't want to admit it, but knowing that Vicki was talking to William with her 'lovey dovey' voice is really what put her on edge. It made her want to throw up. {Christ, Durant, people probably felt that way about you and James. Don't be a fucking idiot. You don't even know the guy.}

Vicki giggled, glanced quickly at Erin then tried to lower her voice to where she thought Erin couldn't hear., "I mean it! .... Oh, of course I'm sorry about last night. I was just...so tired. Me? Oh, I'm here with that new patient, Erin." She shot Erin a broad grin filled with what Erin knew to be love soaked joy, "William? Hey, baby, are you there?" Erin watched as Vicki stared into some unseen vast nothingness for a second, "William?" She closed the thin cell phone, "Hmm, must have been disconnected."

She turned back to Erin. "Now, where were we?"

Erin rolled her eyes and honestly tried to keep her mouth shut but an overwhelming urge to hurt Vicki's feelings overtook her. Why? She wasn't sure. Maybe it was because she hated the fact that Vicki was so fucking perky and had everything. Maybe it was because she looked at Vicki and realized she would never have the happiness she'd once had. Either way, she wanted to make someone feel as horrible as she was feeling. "You know, you ought to keep your personal calls personal. I don't really care to hear about what you did or didn't do last night."

Vick just stared at Erin, somewhat flabbergasted. "I...sorry...I didn't mean...I mean, I usually don't take calls but it was my fiancée"

"Yes, I gathered that much. Unless you're sleeping with more than one man." Erin grinned when she saw a look of shock cross her therapist's face. Vicki didn't say a word she just stared at Erin. {Change the subject, Erin.} "Christ, why in the hell do I have to have two therapists anyway?"

Vicki's quietly responded as she wrote down a few things on Erin's chart. "Well, arms are my specialty. William has a thing for legs, you know." She laughed, thinking that Erin knew that William was an amputee. But when she got no reaction from her little quip she added, "William deals mainly with legs. Who knows, maybe one day we'll open our own rehab center. I've got arms, he's got legs!"

Erin tried to smile but couldn't seem to get her facial muscles to work like she knew they should. "Well, isn't that special." {Great, just great...he's going to marry fucking Barbie with her fucking pink weights. Christ, he's probably just as fucking 'happy' as this dip-shit is.} "Are we done yet?"

"No, we just have..." Vicki started but was stopped when Erin dropped the weight on the table.

"That wasn't really a question...Vicki. I'm done. You took ten minutes of my time...now, I'm going to leave early. Just showing you the same courtesy you showed me." Erin turned her wheelchair and rolled it to the 'door open' plate on the wall. "I'm leaving now."

Vicki couldn't believe it. {God Almighty, she's a bitch.} Erin hardly waited for the doors to open before she wheeled herself out of the room. Vicki didn't really know what to do. She looked down at the chart and then shook her head. "Bye. See you on Wednesday."

"Right...yeah." Erin disappeared through the opening.

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....................William sat straight up when Vicki mentioned Erin's name and dropped the phone into the blankets. {That's right, we're tag teaming again.} The woman with the angelic face, silky smooth skin and amazing golden eyes was sitting right beside his fiancée. He felt his heart race. {This is stupid. For Christ's sake Fitzpatrick, get a hold of yourself. HAHAHA...get a hold of myself, that's the problem. Fuck it, that girl is so damn good looking.} He searched through the thick blankets trying to retrieve the phone only to find that Vicki had hung up before he was able to get to it. William shook his head, "Stop it, William...just stop it." The sound of his voice startled him.

William took a fast, cool shower that hovered amazingly close to a cold shower. {Last thing I need now is to get worked up again.} He dressed quickly and set out towards the Grayson Center. He stared out at the city as he drove and watched it rise in the horizon like some huge behemoth from the depths of the deepest darkest ocean. A quick look up at the early afternoon sky told him a storm was brewing. He looked up into the darkening sky and suddenly felt very small and...insignificant.

It wasn't like William to be melancholy especially in matters of love or lust or whatever it was that he was trying to sort out in his mind. {Must be the weather} At a stop light, he looked and noticed the blue marathon course line painted on the road. {Just a few weeks. I can't wait.}

As he pulled his Jeep into the parking lot he chanced to see Erin Durant coming out the front doors with a man pushing her chair. {Gotta be her Dad. Gotta be.} He sat there in his space watching them, intrigued. He stared at them as the pair came to a sleek, silver Mercedes and he watched as Erin's father gently lifted his daughter and placed her inside the car. William was awed at the sight of Erin's devoted father handling his daughter as though she were some piece of fine porcelain.

But Erin was the one he really wanted to see. He held his breath as he watched her father fold the chair and put it in the trunk. William stared, waiting, hoping to see her face just once before they drove off. {Goddamn, fucking turn around so I can see you.}

And, as though she heard his silent plea, Erin turned and stared out the window. William lost his her and tell her not to worry. {Christ, that's it, Fitzy, you feel sorry for her. That's all. Thank breath at the sight of her. {Goddamn, if she's not an angel, I don't know who is.} But then it struck him how very sad she looked. {Alone.} Once again, he had had an intense urge to hug God.}

William felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of him when he came to what he felt to be a plausible reason for his feelings and he smiled thinking that now he wouldn't have to deal with the issue anymore. If he could just tell himself over and over that he was only interested in Erin Durant because he felt sorry for her, maybe deep inside his heart, he'd really believe it.

She was sad. He knew she was sad. She was lonely. He knew she was lonely. She felt defeated. And he knew how it felt to 'feel' defeated. He stared up into the dark, angry looking sky and silently prayed, "Please, she's gotta walk again. Please."

He stepped out of the car and stared down at the unseen 'leg' that lay underneath his slacks. Thoughts of his own long personal battle with the specter of doubt filled his mind as he made his way to the front door of the ornate entrance to the Grayson Center. William pondered those negative thoughts for a minute, maybe two before the last remnant of the sun slipped behind the clouds and the sky opened up just as he was making his way inside. "Jesus H. Christ!"

William wiped the water from his arms. Vicki came up behind him and said, "Good grief, you're soaked."

"No shit, Dick Tracy...tell me something I don't know." William had meant for his words to sound funny, but he knew they sounded harsh from the look on Vicki's face. "Sorry, honey."

Vicki kissed him and said, "It's okay. Let's get you a shirt. There are some in the closet."

They walked into the storage closet and hunted for a dry t-shirt. "Got one." Vicki yelled. "Come here, baby."

William grinned, "Baby? So I'm Baby now?" He leaned and kissed Vicki softly on the lips, "And tell me, Vicki, are you going to be my mommy?"

"Damn William." Vicki looked up at him, stunned. "Can't you just turn it off?"

"No." William took Vicki's arm and pulled her close to him. "I can't. Damn it, Vicki. Do you know how badly I want you?"

Vicki could feel the hot bulge in his pants as he spoke to her. "God, William. You're crazy." She gently pushed him away. "This isn't really the right place. I mean, damn, we're in the storage closet. Anyone could walk in."

"Who?" William knew that no one ever went in that closet. Hell, this was only the third time he'd been in there and he'd worked at the center for almost two years. "Come on, Vicki. You said you were sorry about last night. So, why don't you show me how sorry you." He pulled her close to him and slipped his tongue between her lips. She seemed to quiver under his touch, but not the 'oh, yes, let's fuck right here, right now kind of quiver.' It was a 'please, let's not do this' type of reaction. He let her go, "What is wrong with you?"

She could hear confusion in William's voice. Vicki looked around and shook her head, "Nothing's wrong with me. Nothing really, William. I'm just...well, I guess I'm in a bad mood that's all." {Bad mood? Shit, Victoria, you seriously fucked up. God, what am I going to do?} She looked up into his beautiful eyes and felt a lump in her throat, "I mean, that last case, she was a doozy. I've never seen anyone so pessimistic. It was like pulling teeth just to get her to learn the exercises."

{Last case? She's talking about Erin. Just don't ask about her. That's all William...just don't ask.} "What're you talking about or rather, who? Do you mean Erin Durant?" {Some fucking good will power, Will!}

"Yeah, she's the one. Forgot her last name. Jesus, baby, she's got it in her head that she'll never walk. It felt like she was really saying, 'why live'. I hate cases like that."

He nodded his head in agreement, even though he'd not really heard what she said. All William could do was think about the sad, alone look on Erin's face as she left the parking lot just ten minutes earlier. And Vicki's words simply helped to reiterate the intense desire to hug Erin even more. But he knew that he wouldn't want to stop at hugging her. Erin Durant needed someone to love her.

William felt a strange pang, an almost stabbing sensation deep in his chest. The thought of 'loving' Erin drove him crazy. And having Vicki there, so close to him and needing to feel the touch of a woman was suddenly overwhelming. "Come here." He grabbed Vicki and pulled her so closely against him, there was no way she could mistake what he wanted from her.

Vicki inhaled sharply as she felt William's hand grasp her arm. "William, wait, stop." But he wasn't listening to her. She felt William's hands tug at the clasp of her shorts. Before she had a chance to argue with him, he'd unfastened her pants and they fell to the floor, revealing her small pink thong.

He spun Vicki around so that her back rested against his rain soaked shirt and slipped his hands between her legs. William wanted her, but he knew she wasn't ready. However, he knew how to remedy that and quite quickly, too. He slid his fingers between the soft folds of skin that sheltered the spot he claimed as his and gently started to move them back and forth against her, feeling her grow hotter, wetter, and more in need with each stroke.

In about a minute, William could feel Vicki relaxing beneath his touch. Whatever it was, whatever it really was that had Vicki so uptight, seemed to melt beneath his fingers. Vicki fell into his chest and let him explore her further. It was something he knew she loved; something that put him in total control of her. And that was what he loved.

William slipped two fingers in and out of her and stroked her engorged clitoris with his thumb in a teasing manner. Pleasing her, then retreating, pleasing her and then pulling away. Vicki's hips started to instinctively rock against him and by default allowed the gentle dip of her ass to ride up and down on William's cock. He grew so hard it was painful for him inside his slacks. He whispered in her ear as he stroked her more intently, "Do you want more, Vicki?"

She spoke not a word, but rather let out a soft, breathy moan. Vicki brought her arm up and wrapped it around William's neck then arched her back against him. She rested her head against his chest and let him have his way with her. It felt so good she wanted to cry, but she knew she had to be quiet. And William knew exactly how to touch her. Exactly how to make her want him even more. Exactly how to make her want to scream.

William took his free hand, slipped it up her shirt and slid it across her breast. A surge of pure lust traveled through him as he felt her nipples harden through the layer of lacy material she wore. She was ready and he couldn't deny how hungry he was and how badly he needed her...or was it simply the feeling of being in a woman? {Stop thinking, William. Stop.}

It's strange the thoughts that flood the mind when one is on the brink of doing of something so intense as coming together in a union as sacred as they were about to partake in. Like the flood gates of the consciousness open and for a very brief second, there is a clarity unlike any other known to man. And then just as quickly as the gates open, they slam shut leaving us swimming in a lake of pure emotion and need.

William double checked that the door was closed, it wouldn't be wise to get caught. {Always thinking, William. Why in God's name are you always thinking?} After all, would he really have stopped if the door weren't completely closed? No. Vicki was there, ready, wanting and his for the taking.

He turned her and looked at the picture-perfect face before him. He felt her grab his belt and expertly loosen it. And when her fingers wrapped around him, William almost fell over. Her hands were cool and he was so hot. William wasn't even sure if it was he who slid Vicki's thong down or if she'd done it.

The next thing he knew, he was inside her, feeling her warmth all around him. William was very aware of her right leg as it rode up his left leg to settle on his thigh allowing her hips to move more freely with his. It was wonderful. But when William looked down at her face, expecting to see the lust that had overtaken him reflected in her eyes, he was a bit shocked that her eyes were closed.

But it was not simply because they were closed. People close their eyes all the time when they are engaged in something so passionate, but it was the intense, serious look that she wore. For an instant he felt like she was willing herself to enjoy what they were doing. {Jesus, William, you're seeing pink elephants where there are none.}

He stared down at Vicki as he pounded into her wondering what could be troubling her. But as her movements became more fervent, the seriousness that had laid itself upon her face disappeared. She had come to the point where all thought, rational and irrational, are purged from the mind and are replaced by a hunger that can only be satisfied through the joy of an orgasm. Yes, Vicki was just as hungry as William and he was more than willing to ease the hunger that consumed the both of them. {See, fucking chill, Will. Chill.}

He slid his hands down her back, took hold of her hips and lifted her leg just a tad more, steadying her. William held her that way and thrust himself into her with great vigor. He was the jack-hammer and she was the sidewalk. He felt her starting to clench around him and looked to see her biting her lip to stay quiet.