Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 03

"I've been thinking," he said as she returned to him, "When we met, both of us were sweltering in the heat - you far more than me, I'd guess. If you want to, I can show you the clothes if you think you'd like to wear something cooler, and I can offer you even better than that if you're only half as wilted as I'm feeling.

She nodded and he took her to the main bathroom upstairs. "This has the same things as the one that you were in downstairs a minute ago, but there's the bathtub there and over there is the shower. I doubt that you've ever used one, but come over here a moment, and I'll show you how to work it. There is real hot water here, so you can have it as hot or as cold as you like."

He had her familiar with it in a minute, so he turned to go, "There are towels on this rack right here, so you just shut off the water when you're done and then step outside to towel off. To the right when you come out into the hall, is Mandy's room. I'll lay the clothes out on the bed and you can decide what you might like to wear. None of it's fancy and there isn't much, I'm afraid, but I'm sure that you'll be more comfortable in anything that you think fits you. We don't have to go anywhere, so you just try on what's there if you like and check out how it looks in the mirror there.

I'll throw out everything next week. I should have done that ages ago, but I never really go in there but to push a dust mop around. I'll be downstairs, so just call me if you need anything."

Edwina nodded and she went back into the bathroom, looking around and trying to recall what this room had been and she realized that it had been her mother's sewing room.

Tommy heard her terrified cries a moment later.

He came up the stairs at a run and found Edwina just about naked and almost beside herself in fright. She saw him and lunged for him, crying as she hung onto him.

Her skin was flickering.

He put his arms around her and tried to get her to calm down a little, "It's ok, Edwina. I'm right here. What's going on?"

"I – I'm afraid," she stammered, "I tried – tried to take off my dress, but as soon as I tried to set it down, it was on me again – with every button done up all over again! I'm afraid, Tommy! A - a – and look! Look at my skin! I'm disappearing or something." She began to bawl and Tommy suddenly felt afraid that she just might disappear somewhere.

He was suddenly astounded that he was afraid for her – and for himself, knowing at once that he now wanted to be near her.

"Ok, ok," he said in a quiet voice, though he was feeling a little terrified as well. "Let's try to think this through. Let go of me just a little, Edwina. Keep holding my hand. I'm just going to lean back and shut the door. That way, if you vanish or something, just stay here and don't leave. I'm not going anywhere, alright? We'll just stay here and keep talking, so even if you disappear, we'll still be here together, ok?"

She was weeping in fear against his chest now, but she hung on and nodded, easing her death grip enough to take his hand as he did just as he'd said and closed the door. She threw her arms around him again and he hung on for dear life.

"I don't want to g-go away," she stammered against him, "I don't know anybody but you here, Tommy. Oh, please help me. Please let me stay, Tommy, I'll do anything, I'll-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down Edwina. You don't have to go anywhere. Just calm yourself, honey. I'm right here."

She hid her face against his neck and she cried as he stroked her back and looked down as far as he could at the dress there on the toilet seat cover. He felt some of it as it trailed up his body a little, still attached to her arm by the cuff and he wondered about the relationship.

"Edwina? Hey, just listen to me for a minute, alright? I need your help to think about this."

Her voice sounded small and a little tormented from down where she was, "I need your help in everything."

She sniffled, "I'm so lost."

"No you're not, Edwina," he said, trying to bolster her courage a little, "I'm with you. I'm no hero and I'm just as scared as you, but I have a thought, so just listen, ok? That dress is what you had on when you woke up, right?"

He heard her sniffle and she looked up at him. The sight of her almost hurt him to look at. Her fear was written all over her face. He said nothing for a moment; he just held her, stroking her back a bit.

"You said that it was dry when it was pouring down and you fell. There's so much material to one of these dresses that I'd think that at least some of it would still be wet the next day if you were lying on it. And here's another thought. This dress is light with a nice pattern of blue squares. If you were a ghost, that would mean that you'd died out there, and a hundred and fifty years or not, no piece of cloth would last that long in the elements and - "

"But Tommy," she whispered with a shudder, "You told me that I'm not dead. What are you saying now?"

He kissed her forehead for a moment, wanting to make them both feel better, "I'm still saying that you're not dead. But I think that you might have been for a while. You said that you unbuttoned the dress and took it off, but just before you set it down, it was on you again?"

She looked up and nodded, "Yes. That's what happened. I tried a few times."

He lowered his head and just spoke softly to her, "Think about this from outside of yourself. Think about how I'd sound if it was me telling you this.

You wake up in a dry dress, and you've been somewhere else for over a hundred years. We know that much, right?"

She nodded and he went on, "But no dead person can lie for that long and not well, ... I'm saying that no dress can either. But you woke up with a pretty and bright dress on. I think that maybe you're making that dress in your mind. It's all you've got and you're afraid to lose it."

It came together in his mind as he said the words to her. "I think I have the answer. I'm just not sure. You trust me, don't you?"

She sniffled a little and nodded up at him, "You're all I have. I trust you, Tommy."

He stared at her for just a moment and then he smiled and kissed her very softly once. "I think that you're all that I have too. Don't ask me to explain that, Edwina, I just know it somehow. Do you want to hear my plan?"

She nodded, "I'd listen to anything that you tell me, just, ... just kiss me again? That felt so nice and I felt better then."

He kissed her for a long minute. There was no urgency to it; it was just a long, soft kiss. They smiled at each other afterward and he said, "You go on and have your shower. Just leave the door open a little so you know that I'm right here. I won't go anywhere. I promise that I'll stay right here. I'll watch your dress for you, Edwina. I won't take my eyes off your dress the whole time. Want to try it?"

She thought about it and then she nodded, seeing what it was that he was trying to tell her.

She stepped away from him a little, suddenly so surprised that she'd been against him quite naked for all of this time. "I haven't had a thing on all this while," she said, forcing herself to look at his face, "I, ... "

She looked down at her undergarments there on the floor in a bit of a heap. Then she looked up at him again. "I've only had this dress buttoned to my wrist. The rest of me, ... "

Tommy smiled then, and she could see that it wasn't anything but just a little hopefulness from him. "The rest of you is wonderful to me, but none of it means a thing if you're upset and afraid. Now go on and have your shower. The soap is there and you have a choice of two shampoos."

"What is shampoo?"

He smiled, "It's a liquid soap to wash hair with."

She nodded and held up her arm. Tommy stepped over and unbuttoned the cuff from her wrist. It fell to the floor and she slid the door to the shower almost, though not quite closed after her, "Is this alright?"

"I only care that you feel comfortable and that you don't get the floor covered with water. That's fine with me. And I also promise that I'm not going to stand here and stare at your body, though I almost wish that I could.

But I'll be busy," he said as though he was talking to himself as he jammed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, "I'll be just out here watching nothing but your dress."

"Thank you, Tommy," she said and the difference in the sound made him look over. She was standing with her face at the opening and he willed himself to look only there at her face.

"You're welcome, Edwina, " he smiled back and then she was turning around, adjusting the water. He caught just a glimpse of her backside before he forced himself to look back at her dress. There were female asses that could be termed magnificent.

Hers wasn't like that.

Her bottom was just what a lithe girl would have, the kind that seldom showed the effects of age and gravity. It wasn't much; not anything like magnificent.

No, he decided, it was a wonderful ass. She had the kind of bum that he'd always preferred if it was left up to him as a personal taste. Mandy had once had a magnificent ass, though her time in an office chair had managed to erode the magnificence of it.

Edwina's was small and absolutely perfect.

Just like the rest of her, now that he could see a bit of her.

What came to him then was a bit of a judgement. He knew that he shouldn't make judgements on others, but in this case, he felt that it was both true and well called for.

Armbruster Gibbons had been an idiot.

The dress didn't just lie there damp and wilted. As he watched, he saw it change in one go – from a discarded and sweaty piece of fabric on a partially wet floor to a clean and freshly folded garment on the toilet seat lid. He wondered if he ought to tell Edwina, but he decided against it. By anyone's standards, she'd had a hell of a day.

"Is it still there?" she asked a few minutes later.

He turned and nodded, "Yeah, but, .. well, it's a little strange what's happened. While you were in there, I watched it dry clean itself somehow and now it's folded neatly on the toilet lid. I swear that I didn't touch it the whole time. I don't understand it."

"I think that I do," she smiled, "I think that you were right about me making it up in my mind. I thought about wanting it clean and folded. I don't know how any more than you do, but that's why I looked. I wanted, ... "

She sighed then, trying to keep up the bit of courage that she'd felt in herself, "I wanted to ask you if you would want a shower. You were as covered in sweat as I was. I think that I'd like it very much if you had your shower in here with me. I'm very nervous and a little afraid, but I think that I've seen that I can trust you. So, ... if you're not shy about a lady seeing you without anything on, I'd love it if I could be allowed to wash you for all of the things that you've done for me today and, ...

Do you think that you could wash my hair for me? I'm not really sure how it goes around here. I read the little words on the label, but it says that I have to wash it twice and I think that would just use twice as much, wouldn't it?"

He smirked, "That's why they put those words there. I swear they do that just so everyone uses twice as much. My own hair likes just one pass with the shampoo. If I do it twice, it's just too dry afterward.

And I think I understand the way you might feel, Edwina. I would absolutely love to shower with you."

Edwina tried not to, but she couldn't help staring at him just a little as he took that shirt off again. As he pulled it over his head, she decided that she liked it this way better, seeing him take it off. He took off his pants then and he wondered about his undergarment there for a moment, but then it was off as well and by the time that he stood up straight, she was smiling a little, and that was the best that she found that she could do and she was a little proud of herself for managing it, too.

She'd fought herself down from wearing the most foolish grin.

He stepped into the shower with her and found her against him again. Before he could even say a thing – or even get to wondering very much, Edwina put her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him softly.

When they were both done with their soft groans, she pulled back a little and saw the question in his eyes, so she smiled a little and shrugged, "You let me hold onto you when I seemed to be fading from here. I was so afraid then. I still don't know what that was, but you held me when I needed you to do that for me. It was not because I was naked against you. It was because I needed it. You have been very kind to me, Tommy Anderson.

Oh, and I heard it when you called me 'honey'. I cannot know what would have possessed you to say that to me, but I want you to know that if felt wonderful to have a man such as you say a thing like that to me.

I do not know where I would have gone if I'd disappeared. I only know that I didn't want that. I only knew afterward that I wanted – and needed - to be with you. I still do.

You said that I am all that you have. It may have been a want in you, or it might have been the same sort of need that I am finding in myself for you."

She looked down at his chest, not daring to see his reaction in his eyes for the moment. But she made her decision then and looked up again. "I find that after a mostly empty life, now I have a want in me to be all that someone like you has.

If you do not mind being that person for me, then that is all that I'd want to be for you, Tommy."

She kept looking up, but after a second, what she saw there showed her all that she needed to see and she just laid her head against him with a sigh which was just barely audible over the hissing of the shower.

She felt Tommy's hands on her then - one around her back and one much farther down. In all of her life, she'd never felt a man's hand on her bottom where it meant anything other than his want of her for the moment.

She felt his thumb moving as a gentle way to say what he could not bring to his lips just yet. He was stroking her haunch so very gently, and that in itself told her that this man was so unlike any man that she'd ever met before.

Now, it felt so good to her to feel that it was his sign that he'd accepted her and it was more than enough for her.

"This soap that you have smells so good to me," she said taking up the bar from the soapdish.

"That's supposed to be a male fragrance," he smiled, "I can help you to choose one that you like."

"Well, I like this one," she laughed a little, "especially on you."

Edwina had never really washed a man before, never having had the opportunity nor the desire of it. But she was well into it before long and found that it wasn't an onerous task and it gave her great opportunities to examine his tattoos. She decided that rather than pester Tommy with questions relating to each one, she'd do this piecemeal if she got the chance of it.

She worked her way over him and to her pleased surprise, she found that he wasn't shy in the least and was very obedient to her requests so that she could get everywhere on him that she needed to go with that bar. She'd only glossed over his genitals at first, but he stopped her then.

"Are you doing this out of just a desire to have me clean, or could there maybe be a little bit of uh, hopeful exploration to this?"

Edwina felt herself blushing, but she fought it down as much as she could. "There is," she admitted, "I am a mature woman, but I must admit that my education in this regard has been sadly lacking. I enjoy washing you, Tommy. I admit it freely. I just wish that I knew what to do better than I do."

"It's not such a big deal," he said softly next to her ear as he took her hand in his, "A lot of men my age are circumcised. That means that this skin here," he said guiding her fingertips, "was removed not long after birth. It's done for religious reasons by several groups and it's also done out of a sense that it was what was done before. I won't speak to that.

But what's here on me is what's there naturally. With that said, it raises issues of personal hygiene and just, ... well, a want to be clean, the same as anyone, I guess. So watch carefully. This is what I do to get clean. "

It was rather a lesson for Edwina and she was a little afraid to try it, and she felt a little sorry for Tommy when she heard the sharp intake of his breath and then the tight sound of his voice as he whispered, "Gently please. Try to think of your own sensitive parts. These are mine."

Edwina apologized, but he shook his head, "I can see that you're enjoying this for the most part and I am too. I've never had a woman wash me other than my mother and that was a hell of a long time ago. Unless you plan on shoving a soapy facecloth into one ear and then pulling it out through the other one a few times, I'd love to do this with you any time that you like."

"Well this certainly is a challenge, isn't it?" she asked, peering closely as she worked carefully, "How far back can this go?

"Until you can't move it back anymore and a good indicator that you've gone too far is the appearance of tears in my eyes."

Edwina wanted so much to laugh at his joke, but she saw her own chance at one, "This job never gets stubborn like say, a similar task on a stallion, does it? I remember that Grandfather had the devil's own time getting a similar job done on the prize draft stallion that he had. I recall the conversation coming up over Sunday dinner and when he mentioned having to scrub with a stiff brush, I thought that Reggie looked about to faint from it."

He didn't answer, but when she looked up, the wide-eyed expression on Tommy was priceless, though he did laugh along afterward.

The really difficult part was moving his foreskin forward again, since he'd hardened some during it all, but they managed it and Tommy told her that she'd done well.

"I was rather surprised at all of the little places to wash. I'd never given it a thought before. But then a girl has a lot of folds and things as well. I enjoyed that a great deal."

She suddenly found a hope in herself to have him wash her. It was something that she'd never have had the thought of before, but she was feeling rather brave with him now.

She announced that he was 'done' and then asked if he might wash her hair for her. Tommy nodded with a smile, but he warned that he had little experience at washing hair as long as hers was.

She stood before him smiling up for as long as she could, but he had a little trouble keeping the suds from running toward her eyes. He was more worried about it than she was, but then she had a thought and sank slowly to her knees before him.

"I'll keep my eyes closed, and you can concentrate on washing my hair and not worrying so much."

Tommy did his best, and Edwina looked at his tackle from rather close up for as long as she could before she felt the advance of the suds again.

"What did you use for this before, Edwina?" he asked.

"Well, if I didn't have anything," she said, "I'd boil water and melt soap shavings into it. I'd need to add something to keep my hair from looking dull then, since that is what soap does to hair all by itself. Usually, I'd add a little perfume and scented oil if I could get any. Sometimes, I'd add little chopped pine needles, but it can be hard to strain them out. This – what you have here is pretty nice, I think."

He chuckled, "There is a whole industry to this stuff, so there are only about thirty brands for men, and perhaps twenty for women."

She felt that her eyebrows were still up to the task of diverting the suds, so she risked opening one eye carefully. What she saw pleased her, since he was a little hard and what was there looked so nice to her. She wanted to, ...