Project Lia Ch. 04

Warmed by the summer air, John and Lia enjoy each other's company on the roof. Once John's back starts to ache from sitting on the unforgiving bench, he looks at his phone to check the time. Realizing how late it is he says, "Hey Lia, it's getting late - I have to catch some sleep before work."

"Lia, who is currently sitting next to John while leaning into his shoulder, with her arms wrapped around his midsection squeezes him. She traces into his hand, "Yeah :("

John and Lia head back downstairs. Lia opens up her door and turns around in the doorway. She must have hit send on a text she prepared as they were making their way back, because John's phone lights up just before she turns around. It says:

"John, tonight was really great. I'm looking forward to our date but I'm kinda freaking out too... I look forward to seeing you at the gym Friday. <3"

Lia gives John a few seconds to read the message, then snakes her arms under his and gives him a hug. John gives Lia a kiss on the top of her neck, and says "Thanks for tonight, I'll miss you."

John is exhausted when he arrives at work later that afternoon. The late night has taken its toll and his sleep wasn't especially restful. He settles into his cube and starts to get focused on his work day; doing a quick scan of open issues, checking his requests and tickets, logging into the various management systems.

His phone buzzes and he pulls it from his pocket - It's a new text from Lia. He unlocks it and takes a look.

"So I was thinking about our date on Saturday and I'm really worried... I need to know what you're planning before I can decide if I can do it. I don't want to get caught in public - if I make it into the news before this whole thing wraps up I would be in deep trouble.

John replies, "That's fair, I want you to be able to have fun and not be worried, so I'll spoil the surprise :). I think I found a place that should be fun and low stress.

I booked us at the last session for the evening at a private spa rental place. They have a hot tub, sauna, massage chair things, cold soak pool, and smoothie machine.

Best part is it's all ours with no interruptions for three hours. We should be able to check in with no issues, it's all done through my phone. Thoughts?"

"Interesting... I think I'm on board! I'll remember to bring my swimsuit. Although the traditional sauna is in the nude, so we'll see about the first one ;)"

John, now thoroughly distracted by the images in his head, tries to get some work done. About 30 minutes later, his phone buzzes again - this time with a photo attached to the message.

"Hey, I'm at the end of my workout and figured I should torment you a little more while you're stuck at work. Did I mention I'm pretty flexible?" The photo is of Lia in the middle of her yoga area in her room, mid pose. She's laying on her chest with her legs curled back behind her, knees bent with her heels hooked over her shoulders. One arm is extended holding her cell phone. The other arm, hand, and fingers are engaged in teasing her neck stump, slightly pulling one of the lips to one side with one fingertip inserted into her throat.

"Wow Lia, that's really hot. Definitely not safe for work though lol. I was tired before, but that sure woke me up."

"Or at least woke up part of you lol. Speaking of which, you probably should have warned me you were packing some serious firepower down there - I think you damn near skewered me with that thing last night. I'm going to need to order some bigger toys... Anyway, think on that while I work on some school work. Text me when you get home <3"

John kicks off an online class and tries to stay focused, but it, along with other things, are a little harder now.

John completes the work day without much drama, helping out where he can and working on learning some new skills. He's starting to think about his next career move, from being a cable puller and server jockey and into something a bit more advanced and less physical.

John heads out from home really looking forward to the next PT session, mostly so he can hang out with Lia again. Even if it's mostly just being in the same place doing their own thing, it's still nice.

When he gets home, he sends Lia a quick text, "Hey, I'm home and prepping dinner. I'm looking forward to seeing you again, even if it's while I'm paying to get beaten up.."

"You getting beat up is for a good cause though, you'll be able to ditch those crutches soon. :)"

"That's true lol. Speaking of crutches, I'm going to try just using one tomorrow. I'm tired of never having my hands free and I've already gotten a lot stronger." John replies in-between getting some leftovers out of the fridge and firing up the microwave.

"Nice! That's some serious progress!" Lia replies.

"Thanks! You mentioned school work earlier, how's the thesis going?"

"The title of my project is: Nonverbal Adaptive Communications Facilitated via Mobile Device Voice Recognition and Haptic Coding. It's a mouthful, apparently the longer the title the better the paper so I swung for the bleachers... I'm actually putting the finishing touches on it in the next week or so. I'm hoping that when the researchers are ready to show me off to the world my paper will be ready so I can ride the wave of attention right afterward."

John replies, "That's really cool - do you know how the whole reveal is going to work?"

"I found out recently what the plan is, but the afterward part could get weird. They're pretty strict about who will be allowed into the conference, so I hope that helps. It sounds it'll be a lot of technical stuff on the front end to prep the audience, then talking about me and my case. Eventually I'll show myself off and answer questions. I figure that even if it blows up and I get in the news, it might reduce the number of people who freak out when I'm out in public. If I'm lucky there will be some folks in the audience that would be looking to buy up my work or have me jump on someone else's research project."

John finishes up his dinner, then replies "I can't wait to be able to go out with you in public, even if people are a pain sometimes. I'll be able to help out if anyone is weird - I'll work on some snarky replies to dumb questions.."

Lia texts, "Ha! I'll think of some too, once I get this horrible paper out of the way. Speaking of which, I better get back to it. I have to get ahead of it to afford the time to go out on Saturday. I'll see you at the gym tomorrow. <3."

The next day, John heads back through the doors of the shuttered clinic and heads over to the now familiar physical therapy office. The receptionist is at her usual station, still as overstimulated as ever.

She does a trying-to-be-quiet-but-still-shouty voice as she greets him. "John, how's it going? Lia told me you two really hit it off, and you have some secret weekend fun! Don't worry, I won't ask - your secret is safe."

"It's going good! We're going on a semi-secret date on Saturday night, and I'm really happy that she's going along with it." John says.

"That's so cool, Lia hasn't been out much for a while so it's good you came along to drag her out of here.. " The receptionist smiles and looks over to where Lia is seated, in her usual spot in the waiting room as she starts to prep for the PT session. She removes her prosthetic head and stashes it in the bag, then removes the light jacket she wore in, revealing a purple sports bra. She stands up and starts to do some preliminary stretches.

John says "I better head inside and get ready" then turns to move into the waiting room.

The receptionist jumps up and says "I'll get the door, also you ditched one of your crutches! Nice!" then runs around to the waiting room door, holding it so John can enter without needing to juggle the crutch around.

As John enters, he says "Hey Lia", and she waves to him. She finishes up her stretch, and beckons him over. Once he closes the distance, she reaches out and grabs hold of him, then pulls him into a hug. They embrace for a few seconds. She gives him a quick smack on the butt to be cheeky, then guides him to the chair next to her as they wait for the trainers to kick off the session. John gently takes hold of Lia's hand and spells "It's nice to see you, you look great."

Lia spells "Thanks! I'm doing weights today, so less is more."

The workout proceeds as expected. The trainers open up the place and retrieve their patients. John goes through a routine that is now familiar: stretching, strength, coordination, etc. Lia is pumping iron and doing well, except for some occasional struggles with balance.

As John is finishing up his workout, Lia is already done with hers and is packing up her stuff, getting ready to head back. His phone buzzes with a text just as he completes his last activity.

John completes his last task, pulls out his phone, and takes a look. "Hey, if you have some time to hang out, want to get dinner? My food gets delivered to my room, and I can add on some real food for you if you're hungry."

John heads back to Lia's place, hits the doorbell and she pops open the door. She's still in her gym gear, and takes a seat at her desk. Next to her is a pitcher of a mysterious off-white liquid, and a large plastic syringe with a flexible tube attached. She set out a rolling TV tray next to her bed for John to use as his dining table with a plastic to-go container sitting on it.

Her phone speaks up. "sorry if this is weird, but it's much easier for me to just do a quick liquid lunch. It takes me a long time to eat regular food. It's pretty frustrating sometimes being such a weirdo."

John replies "Lia, I don't think you're weird - you've been through a lot and rose above it. You are killing it with the schooling, are probably going to land some crazy deal soon, and you're really gorgeous."

Lia types in her phone, "Thanks, I'm probably getting worked up about my big reveal to the world and my paper coming up soon. It's going to be pretty nuts for a while but hopefully folks will get used to it quickly. It'll be nice though to be able to hang out in public again. You should get a head start on your lunch, I'm going to be done pretty quickly."

John takes a seat and gets started on his lunch. "This is pretty good for hospital food, needs more salt though." He says between bites.

Lia removes her neck cap, setting it on her desk and grabbing the large syringe. Her tongue works its way out of its spot in her throat, as she dips the flexible tube into the pitcher of liquid. She sucks up most of it into the syringe, then grabs the tube with her other hand. Lifting it up and over, she maneuvers the tube to the top of her neck stump. Her split tongue reaches out and grabs the tube, helping pull it down into her throat as she pushes it part way down her esophagus. She then pushes the syringe down, gradually emptying the contents. She unhooks the tube and puts the syringe back into the liquid, sucking up the rest of it. Reconnecting the tube, she empties the syringe again then carefully pulls the tube out of her throat, and puts the parts back on the tray.

"See, I said I was quick.. That has everything I need and they count the calories for me so I don't have to." Lia types as John continues eating.

"Yeah, that seems pretty efficient." John says in between bites of food as Lia gets up.

She walks over to the bathroom and out of sight, around the corner. John hears a drawer open and some shuffling sounds. A handful of seconds later Lia steps out from around the corner in a fluffy bathrobe with a different neck cap on. This one is gray with vent slots around the bottom edge and a solid, slightly domed top. She leans against the doorway and sends a text to John then heads back around the corner.

The message takes a few seconds to arrive, about the same time John hears the water turn on. "I'm going to hit the shower before getting back to work. I'm pretty quick with the whole no hair thing but I'm leaving the door open.. hint hint"

John takes one more bite, sets down his lunch, gets up and heads over. Lia is already in the shower, her outline visible through the frosted glass walled cube currently filling with steam. He strips as quickly as possible; although he is recovering quickly, some of the moves are still pretty difficult.

He slides the door open and steps in, finally seeing Lia in the nude for the first time. Water cascades over her, deflecting off her shower cap and running down her body. Unconstrained by the sports bra, her breasts are even more impressive - a bit more than a handful but still perky, contrasting nicely with her toned figure. She moves over to allow John into the water, grabs a shower poof and squeezes some soap into it. She starts to soap up John, working the puff down his body and feeling her way around.

She hands John the poof and turns around, pointing to her back. John lathers up Lia working his way around her toned body - from just below the end of her neck cap, down her shoulders and back, along her hips and ass, and down her legs.

As he works his way back up she backs up against John and pulls his arms around to the front of her body. She takes the soap puff from him and hooks it to the side wall of the shower. She guides one of his hands onto her breast, and takes the other hand guiding it downwards. With his arms wrapped around her, her neck cap against the top of his chest she guides his fingers along and between her lower lips.

Although Lia is silent, with his body wrapped around her John feels her breathing pick up and the tension in her body increase as he works her with his fingers. Lia comes quickly and powerfully in his arms, losing control of her legs for a moment and relying on him to hold her up.

She taps on his arm, signaling him to let up. She composes herself for a moment, turns around and embraces John, grabbing hold of his now raging erection.

She reaches over to a bottle on the wall and pumps out some lotion into her hand, and starts to work her hands up and down his cock. He doesn't last very long under Lia's attention, and tells her that he's close, although with her phone on the counter it's unlikely she heard it. She feels his dick tense up and start firing though, and the flowing water soon takes care of cleanup.

They finish up their shower together and dry off. Once she's dry enough to not risk ruining her phone, Lia grabs it and types. "That was great; I needed some stress relief and that did the trick for sure."

"Agreed. Good water pressure here also..." John says as Lia throws the bathrobe back on and removes the shower cap. While John finishes drying off she grabs a washcloth, wets and wrings it out and gently cleans the top of her neck stump; the only place the shower didn't get to.

Lia types "Want to lay out on the bed for a while? I know you have to head home eventually but we can relax here for a bit. Dibs on the little spoon."

They make their way over to the bed, and Lia removes and folds her bathrobe on the side table. She pulls back the covers, and lies down on her side. John lies down next to her and slides up behind her as she pulls the blankets over both of them.

As Lia settles into spooning with John, he makes sure that Lia's neck stump is clear of being covered up by the blankets and she is comfortable. Lia reaches over to the bathrobe, pulls out her phone and types a message, then holds her phone up so John can read it.

"John, I know stuff has been a bit strange lately but this week has been great. The old me probably would have thought that living like this would be both impossible and pretty terrible, but you've helped me realize that I have a lot to look forward to."

John replies "Lia, I'm lucky to have found someone like you. I can't wait until we can finish this whole thing up and we can live like a normal couple. Hell, I'm looking forward to being able to show you off, you are absolutely one-of-a-kind and really beautiful.

John gives her a second to process his voice, then he tilts his head down and kisses the top of her neck. She takes a deep breath, sighs, and squeezes up against him a bit more.