Rehabilitation

The sunlight streamed through the window into the beige carpet as Brittany set out the blue and white striped bowls amongst the clutter of nursing textbooks and half-full water bottles. One for her. One for him.

This morning ritual soothed her as she dolloped vanilla yogurt into her bowl and sprinkled it with Cocoa Pebbles. She left his bowl empty and instead propped her phone up inside of it, swiping the screen as she spooned the yogurt into her mouth. She tapped the Skype app and waited, watching the wheel spin. Her heart beat in her chest. A hint of panic as the application looped and looped. She picked up her phone from the bowl and peered at it, fighting the urge to press her finger on the smudged screen over and over again until his face manifested.

Just as she was about to give up, his face materialized in front of her. His freckled skin flaked with sunburn above his flak jacket. His lips full and soft, he smiled at her.

"Hey there," he said in his gentle way.

"Hey yourself, Brandon. You fucking scared me."

"Oh yeah? You thought I was laying out in the desert with holes in me?" His blue-green eyes reflected the screen of his phone.

"Not funny, Marine."

"I'm sorry, baby doll," he said. "How's nursing school going?"

"It's actually extremely easy. I have a one-hundred percent average."

"Really?"

"No. Not really. It's actually pretty hard," she grinned back at him. "We haven't taken any tests yet, so I am still sticking by my one hundred percent average."

"I've got something else that's pretty hard."

Brittany felt the warm of arousal spread from her belly to her clitoris. She reached down her flower-printed pajama bottoms, cutting her eyes to open window. Only sparrows hopped and fluttered on the sun-warmed sidewalk, the rest of the base neighborhood still quiet. She slipped a finger inside and stroked upward, feeling her own wetness. Her nipples hardened against the soft fabric of her LSU t-shirt.

"Oh yeah? Let me see it." She grabbed the phone and tilted it down so he could see her hand working under the fabric.

"Oh beautiful lady, only two weeks until I come home and take care of you myself," he whispered into the phone. The dark ceiling of the tent swirled above his head for a moment and then the camera refocused. His cock stood rigid above the crease of his pants. She pressed her fingertips onto her clitoris and stroked downward, feeling her hips tense as she neared a throbbing release. He stroked himself in front of her, his fist slipping down over his thick shaft.

"Oh shit, I'm coming," he whispered, his voice thick and deep with desire.

Their orgasms came fast and together, but still separated by miles and miles of oceans and desert. Brittany felt a hitch in her chest as the camera refocused on his grinning face. She felt hot tears gathering in her eyes for moment, then pushed the feeling down and smiled back.

"Well, I miss you," she said.

"I miss you too."

Faint shouting and the sounds of trucks echoed in her phone's speaker.

"Listen babe, I have to go. I love you," he said, shrugging his flak jacket higher on his shoulders and reaching for his rifle.

"I love you too."

The screen showed the picture of him nuzzling their blonde Pomeranian mix, Spuds, before it went black. Spuds' pink tongue a blurry flash on the side of his face. The sky clear blue behind him. They had spent the morning at the farmer's market, holding hands and picking up jars of lavender honey and stamped leather bags while Spuds sniffed the crisp fall air.

She set the phone down and finished her yogurt, stirring the soggy Cocoa Pebbles into a muddy swirl before downing it with a slug of lukewarm coffee. Her neighbor walked by the window, pushing a stroller with one hand, and holding the fat wrist of her toddler son with her other. Spuds trotted into the dining room and stared at her close-mouthed. His round black eyes glinting in the bright room.

"Ok Spuds. Let's go out."

The words made her feel better. Spuds twirled around, very nearly prancing at the word "out."

Just two more weeks. Two more weeks and she would be nestled in his arms.

#

The official who called her told her that Brandon had been injured, but didn't know how badly. The old pall of fear fell over her. A dullness tracked over her vision and her throat tightened. The disembodied voice on the other end asked if she was still there. She tucked her feelings inside and asked about logistics first. How bad is it? When will he be home? Can I see him now? Where is he? Why couldn't she join him in Germany?

She called everyone. She begged bureaucrats and wrote senators. She went next door and wept on her neighbor's shoulder, while the toddler patted her knee and handed her goldfish crackers.

Soon she called Brandon's best friend Jason who had been medically separated after he developed an abscess in his lung from the burn pits during deployment. When he picked up the phone, he sounded excited to hear from her. They had always gotten along well. He brought her an intricately carved camel bone box from Qatar and regularly stopped by to help her get a box down from the attic or to clean the gutters when Brandon was deployed. Little things. Kind things. Things that eased the sounds of an empty house. His brown muscular arms lifting and straining against his shirt sleeves. His curls now unconstrained by regulations fell softly around his shoulders.

"Hi Brit, what's going on?" His deep voice resonated on the other line.

"Brandon is injured and no one will tell me anything," she blurted all at once, feeling her throat knot up again.

"Oh Jesus. Ok. Where was he stationed again?"

She told him and waited for his response.

"Ok, I'll see what I can dig up."

She sat on the floor, stroking Spuds as she waited for him to call her back. A surge of guilt wracked her as she thought about the times when she had imagined Jason drawing her into his arms and kissing her, his hands sliding over her body. Her loneliness drove the fantasy.

He called her back after thirty minutes, his voice strained.

"Brittany. I need you to listen to me. It's pretty bad."

"Ok. Ok. Tell me."

"He took some shrapnel to the spine. They don't think he's going to be able to walk again. He's paralyzed from the waist down." Jason's voice cracked.

"Oh God. Oh God."

The ceiling spun above her.

#

When Brandon was wheeled off the plane, she rushed to him and fell to her knees in front of his wheelchair. She hardly recognized him. His tall, muscular frame was crunched into the wheelchair. Deep pink scars ticked over his cheekbones from the minute flecks of shrapnel that drove into his face when the bomb exploded. His white scalp showed through his shorn red hair. People milled around them under the bright white fluorescent lights that cut hard rectangles into the shiny floor, sending long stretched reflections of his wheelchair into a wavering imitation of their new shared reality. She pressed her cheek against his knee and looked up at him.

His blue-green eyes lighted on hers and he raised his hands to the sides of her face, rubbing his thumbs over her tears.

"Oh damn. I'm smearing your mascara everywhere. It's too bad that you're such a pretty crier, otherwise my master plan of making you ugly so I can keep you all to myself might have worked," he said, grinning down at her. Faint shadows of sadness clung to the corners of his lips.

"Shut up. Please just shut up," she said, smiling back at him and rubbing her hands over his cool motionless thighs.

"You just left Jason standing over there watching like a pervert," he said loudly enough for his best friend to hear.

Jason peeled himself off of the wall next to the women's restroom and hurried over to wedge his arms under Brandon's back in a strong hug. The two men held one another for a moment before Brandon motioned for Brittany to stand up and join them in this embrace. She kissed his cheeks and temples as Jason wrapped his arms around them both, trying to hide his own tears.

"You guys are embarrassing me," Brandon joked. "As charming as the airport is, what I would really like is some homemade food and a nap in my own bed."

"We were really fucking scared," Jason said.

"Not as scared as me. Now let's go. You guys are depressing everyone."

#

Jason came over every day to help. He and Brittany tore out the old non-accessible bathtub together, glancing at one another over their dust masks as he cut the old fiberglass siding with a jigsaw. She cut her finger on a piece of tile as they worked. Blood sprang bright and red and blossomed like camellias as the drops pattered into the sink. She yelped as the pain throbbed through her finger and hand. Jason rushed over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tight at the wrist and snatched a hand towel from the ring and applied pressure. His large hands covered hers and she could smell the clean brine of his sweat mixed with laundry detergent and deodorant. She looked into his deep brown eyes as he held her hand in his. He swallowed and rubbed her wrist gently with his thumb.

Just then, Brandon wheeled into the bathroom and saw them clutching hands.

"What's happening in here?" He asked evenly.

"I cut my finger, baby. Jason is just putting pressure on it."

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I will go on to fight another day."

Her tone had an overlay of grief as she looked at her husband.

Brandon was fully healed now and only needed help getting in and out of the tub now. His arms had become large and ropy from wheeling himself everywhere, refusing help over thresholds, refusing help lifting himself in and out of bed. He was no longer able to fuck her like he used to, but he pleasured her with his strong hard hands. Sometimes she forgot and reached down to stroke his lifeless penis and he would make a joke. Making jokes. Never letting anyone see his sadness. Never letting anyone ask him anything serious. He went to therapy at the VA and told them that he felt better than ever. All the nurses flirted with him. All the doctors loved him.

But Brittany saw after she reached down to touch him his eyes would go hard and glassy and empty. And he knew that she missed that part of them. She missed being the one being lifted and carried. She missed his tall body stretching to get the crockpot down for her from a high shelf. She missed him picking her up on his motorcycle from nursing school, all of her friends looking on in envy as she slung her leg over the bike while he turned to kiss her. But now she just smiled and kissed the top of his head. Their hearts breaking in silence. Pain covered by duty. Pain covered with jokes.

Jason started to say something but Brandon held up his hand to stop him.

"I have an idea. An activity for us. Let's get you patched up, pretty lady, and I'll make us some lunch and we can discuss."

#

Jason and Brittany stared at Brandon over the kitchen table, unbelieving. Spuds sat under the table and darted for each spilled morsel as Brandon gesticulated wildly, sending smatters of tomato soup to the floor.

"I really want this," Brandon said, blowing on a spoonful of hot soup. "I kind of had a thing for it before all this bullshit."

"This bullshit?" Jason asked, incredulous. "Losing the ability to walk isn't 'bullshit', Brandon. Have you been to the VA? What has your therapist said?"

"Why are you dodging my original question?" Brandon asked.

"Because you're my best friend. I love you. Brittany is your wife. I won't take her from you."

"Brittany is right here," Brittany said. "Please don't talk about me as if I wasn't here."

"Oh shit. I'm sorry, babe." Brandon put down his spoon and reached across the table to stroke her arm. "What do you think?"

"I think that it might be fun," she said.

Both men looked at her.

"What?" She asked. "I do think it would be fun. I trust both of you. I love both of you. We've all already seen each other naked."

An image of the three of them dragging their clothes off on the shore of the lake rolled through her mind. The wet sand packed under their bare feet. Silvery moonlight gleaming off of the men's wide shoulders as they hopped out of their underwear and flung their bodies into the cold black water. Her own body softened and brushed with shadow. She saw herself through their eyes as she slipped into the water. She imagined being pressed between them, their hands slipping under the water to touch her.

"Look Jason, I don't have a lot going on here," Brandon said, gesturing at his legs. "You are my best friend. I wouldn't trust anyone else."

Jason stood up from the table and picked up his soup bowl in silence. He went to the sink and rinsed the bowl, carefully tilting it to avoid being splashed. Brandon and Brittany exchanged glances as their friend braced himself on the edge of the sink. He stood there, looking out the kitchen window at the winter-browned front yard. Patches of melting snow like bright bandages. After a few minutes, he turned to them.

"Brandon, you are my family. You are too, Britt," he said. "I felt like I should have done something. Like it should have been me, you know?"

Brittany pushed her chair back from the dining room table and went to Jason. She wrapped her arms around him and drew him to her. His tense back muscles relaxed as she held him, stroking the back of his hair. His face hot against her neck. Brandon pushed up beside them and squeezed Jason's arm.

"Hey, there is nothing you could have done, ok? You helped both of us while I was deployed."

"It's just fucked up. I came over to help and think about how pretty you looked while you were reading those textbooks at this table. Like your hair all piled up and falling around your face," Jason said to Brittany. "And now, you both want me to..."

"To fuck me?" She smiled.

"Yeah. It's like I'm getting rewarded even though I was looking at my best friend's wife while he was over there and I wasn't."

Brandon chuckled and joked his way through the tension.

"She is really fucking hot. That's why I married her."

Brittany untwined herself from Jason to slap at Brandon.

"That's not the only reason," she said.

"It's a damn good one though. Look, we aren't here to pressure you or anything like that. I just think the thing that turns me on is seeing my beautiful wife getting fucked. I love to take her out and watch everyone fall in love with her. I love to see you look at her ass. It makes me feel rich and powerful."

"So, I'd be doing you a favor?"

"No, I'd be doing both of you a favor," Brittany said.

The tension broke as the men laughed.

"So will you fuck my wife?" Brandon asked, his slow, wry grin spreading.

Brittany plopped down in Brandon's lap and kissed his freckled forehead.

"Yeah, will you fuck me?"

#

Brandon lay on his side propped up on pillows, watching her from their bed. Watching Jason.

Brittany's heart pounded as Jason slid his heavy hand behind her neck and drew her mouth to his. His tongue slid into her mouth and slipped against her own.

Brandon and he were complimentary opposites of one another. Jason's skin glowed a warm dun from the sunlight filtering through the gauzy curtains as he stripped off his shirt. His chest and arms were heavy with muscle and lightly furred with black hair. His eyes so dark, they were inscrutable, sphinxlike under their fringe of heavy lashes. His belly bore flat purplish scars from surgery and his thighs and calves curved into a statuesque ideal.

Brandon was lean and porcelain, his eyes large and sea green. When he smiled, his gapped front teeth took center stage. When he laughed, it boomed around the room and the corners of his eyes crinkled. His beautiful milky skin was studded with freckles where the sun had touched his forearms and cheeks and neck. His golden auburn hair grew in heavy and wavy.

The moon and the sun. Darkness and light.

Brittany slid her hands down Jason's muscular back and around to the front of his jeans. She could feel his hardness pressed against the seam of his pants. He sighed as her hand grazed against it. She looped her finger around a beltloop and pulled him toward the bed. He followed her, his eyes roaming to her small round breasts sheathed in a soft white cotton t-shirt. She lay down on her side with her back to Brandon and nestled against his body. Brandon dropped his hand down the collar of her shirt and squeezed her breasts as he kissed the back of her neck. She felt the warmth of arousal spread from her belly to her clit as his warm breath and hard hands flowed over her.

Jason knelt on the bed and joined Brandon in caressing her in long deft strokes. He kissed her collarbones and jaw, his breathing heavy in her ear. She arched her back and slid her hand down her leggings to stroke and press against her aching lips. Brandon shifted her to the end of the bed with his strong arms and slung a wedge pillow behind his back to better see.

Jason moved down and pulled down her leggings and panties, his erection stiff and large under his jeans. She fingered herself in front of the men, spreading her lips and gliding her fingers in and out, pulling her slick fingers out to rub in circles on her clitoris until she felt herself descending into orgasm, her hips bucking against her hand. She sat up and whipped off her t-shirt. Her small breasts tipped with tight pink nipples.

She crawled over to Brandon and sat on his outstretched legs as she drew off his t-shirt, kissing his freckled, muscled chest, pinching his nipples, biting his neck. He kissed her. His full, soft lips covering hers and then turned her to face away from him pulling her back against his chest. He reached over her shoulders and parted her thighs with his calloused palms. He nodded at Jason over her shoulder as he stroked her clitoris with the pad of his thumb. Jason knelt in front of Brittany and Brandon then slid to his belly on the bed, steadying himself on Brittany's thick pale thighs as he lowered his mouth to her creamy slit.

With slow strong strokes he lapped at pink the folds and creases, sliding his tongue into her. The bridge of his aquiline nose nudged against her clit, sending warm shocks across her vulva as he closed his lips over that sensitive nodule and sucked on it. His fingers pressed against her opening, stretching and plying as she gushed over his palm. His fingers curved inside of her, in and out. Brandon kissed her neck and pinched her hard nipples as she craned backward against his chest, sending waves of pleasure and pain across her body. His golden stubble raking across her cheek. She relaxed as another orgasm lapped over her like warm seawater.

Jason looked up at her from between her thighs, his dark eyes glazed with desire. He stood up at the end of the bed, grasped her ankles, and pulled her down flat on her back from Brandon's chest. She watched as he unbuckled his belt and slid down his jeans and boxers. His cock stood full and thick against his flat belly. He stroked the shaft as a clear pearl dripped from the tip, his eyes roaming over her body. Her fine, smooth hips, the downy hair on her thighs, her soft belly, her breasts rounded and high. He drank her in as he stood before her, the Eagle Globe and Anchor tattoo on his forearm wavering as he lifted and flipped her to her belly.

She felt his hands on her hips pulling her up onto her hands and knees facing Brandon, who cradled her face in his hands as Jason slipped his fingers into her dripping cunt from behind, tonguing her anus as she pressed back against him. Just as she was about to orgasm, he withdrew his fingers. She whined and rubbed her clitoris, looking into Brandon's eyes.

Jason nudged his penis against her swollen lips as Brandon fondled and weighed her breasts in his hands. She gasped as Jason slid into her. His hardness filled and stretched her as he grasped her hips and pushed deeper. His own desire barely contained, he twined his fist into her long chestnut hair and rode her. She gripped Brandon's hand and drew his fingers to her mouth, sucking them as Jason fucked her. Brandon leaned back and groaned like he used to when she sucked him off. She stopped for a moment and looked at him.