Touch Ch. 03

"Ok." She said in a small voice and my heart lurched to tell me to shut up and just do whatever she wanted. Sometimes being smart can really hurt.

"I love you. I really, really love you. It's big, bigger than anything I've ever known. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yeah."

"I wish it was different, I really do, but it doesn't matter how much I love you. It doesn't matter how much you love me. This could never work, no matter what we tell ourselves or each other." She spoke up then, unwilling to listen to what I had to say.

"Jay you don't believe that."

"I do. I know you don't want me to, but I do. I've seen the strongest relationships dissolve over stupid shit that meant nothing but tore them apart anyway. I've known guys who woke up one day and just left their wives and kids behind because they just couldn't stay any longer."

"But that's not us Jay. I could never leave you, no matter what." She was begging me with that, trying to convince me of it as if I didn't already believe it.

"You're right, it's not us. We're different. It's even harder for us."

"No it isn't, it's easier." She turned into me thinking she'd found something to argue.

"Listen to me please. It seems easier because we already love each other. But that doesn't mean we can make a viable couple. There's more to it than how much we love each other. Think about everything you'd have to give up for me."

"I don't care, you're worth it." She said fast to get in before I could go on. I let her say her piece and listened to it before going on heedlessly.

"Think about what I can never give you. You can't ever marry me, no matter where we go or what we do. We can only pretend to be married at best. No church would ever agree to marry us so even if we changed our names and forged whatever we'd have to in order to get a civil marriage we wouldn't be married in the religious sense."

"Since when do you care about religion? You haven't gone to church in years." She was right, but my point remained valid anyway.

"Yes but you go every Sunday without fail. You can't tell me that means nothing to you." She frowned and looked pensive for a moment.

"No, you're right it means something to me. Church isn't about what I can't do or what I'm gonna get in trouble for. It's about finding something that's bigger than me, something that's always there and can help me when I need it. I pray every day because I believe that someone, something, is kind and compassionate enough to listen. It doesn't matter what I do, I know that God will forgive me for it if it's wrong."

I just sat back and marveled at her as she explained her religiousness to me. I had always called bullshit to the trappings of the Church and it had been impossible for me to separate that from what she was describing.

"So you don't believe in hell?"

"I don't know. I mean, there must be some people who very much deserve to go there but they're not like us. They're evil, they hurt people. Who do we hurt by being in love?" She reached up and lightly drew a finger across my cheek. Oh the feel of her skin on mine, I just couldn't ever get enough of that!

"I don't know who we hurt. It's a crime just about wherever you go and I know it's a sin so it must be bad. Why else would everyone squirm at the thought of incest if there wasn't something intrinsically wrong with it?" It sounded like a good argument, even if I could easily blast holes in it myself. Why did I keep underestimating my sister?

"Since when do you care what all the drones do? I don't squirm at the thought of incest, at least not with you. Who cares what anyone else thinks about it?" She shot her eyebrows up at me and waited for an answer. I didn't have one so she went on.

"You know why incest is illegal and it's not a concern for us so we don't have to worry about it." I frowned at that, unsure what exactly she meant.

"How is it not a concern for us?" Her face fell and she colored before looking down to press her head into my chest again.

"I forgot that you don't know."

"I don't know what?" She shivered against me and held me tighter. I found myself stroking her hair and on the verge of telling her it was alright if she couldn't tell me. I stopped the words in my throat and hoped she'd tell me without any prompting.

"I have a disorder." Terror gripped me as I started to think of the worst. Was she dying? Was she about to die and no one had told me? God please don't let it be that.

"What kind of..." I couldn't finish it. All I could do was hope she wasn't about to tell me we needed to get another plot at the cemetery.

"I was born with a hormonal imbalance of some sort. The medical stuff is just confusing but..." she stopped and once again looked up at me with big watery eyes. "Basically I don't function like a normal..."

She started to cry again, which was something I would have thought impossible after everything we'd already let out. This was obviously something that was hurting her very badly.

"You can't have children Kerry?" I asked, thinking I'd figured it out. God I hoped that was all she was saying. I know it sounds harsh, but I'd rather hear the woman I love is infertile than hear she's about to die.

"Uh uh," she thrust out her bottom lip and it quivered as her tears slid down her cheeks. She was in such pain! I hadn't realized how deep such a thing could hurt someone.

"Why...when...God I'm sorry." I was stammering as I tried to figure out how to find out everything I could without pressing her.

"There's more," she muttered against me as her head fell again.

"It's ok, you don't have to go into it. I understand it must be painful for you." I held her close as she whimpered and once again wet my shirt with her tears. It didn't last long though, the human body can only cry so much before it just stops.

"Jay, I'm sorry for everything."

"Don't apologize Kerry. I didn't know, I just..." I trailed off but she seemed to understand. Once again we fell into silence.

I thought hard on what exactly my goal should be here. I wanted her to come to the realization that we couldn't be a couple, but now I just couldn't seem to think of why. Sure, the usual stuff still applied even if she said it didn't, but with her shaking in pain against me there wasn't any reason I could think of not to soothe that pain however I could.

"Kerry, can you promise me one thing?" I asked, hoping to at least extract some sort of insurance that I wasn't damning her.

"Of course Jay. Anything." Once again she looked up at me and I fell into her eyes. I needed to help her however I could, but I couldn't seem to find the way to do it.

"Promise me when I die you'll pray for forgiveness for what you've done with me. Please..." She didn't let me finish.

"No Jay. I'm sorry, but I can't ever betray you like that. I won't, I can't."

"Please Kerry! I can't stand the thought of you suffering for me like that. Please!" I was begging as if her life depended on it and in a way it did, at least as far as I was concerned.

"I love you Jay," she said as she reached up to caress my face again. I was lost for a moment in the feel of her hand on my face and the look of intense emotion in her eyes. "I hope I'll never deny you anything else, but I can't do that. I can't ask God to forgive me for the best thing in my life. If you have to go to hell for me, I'll follow you no matter what."

"God Kerry..." I once again felt tears rolling down my face and wetting her fingers. It shouldn't have been possible, but the pain was so intense it seemed perfectly normal. How could I ever justify what I'd done to her?

"I love you Jay," she whispered as she leaned forward to kiss my tears from my cheek. "I'll always love you, no matter what. I'll always forgive you, no matter what. Even if God won't. If He can't, then we don't need him anyway."

I only sobbed louder at that. Now I had taken away her faith too. How far did this have to go before I'd completely destroyed her? How much could her soul take before she fell into utter melancholy?

"I love you. I love you," she whispered over and over as my tears ran dry and her lips pressed against my face to wipe them away. Her lips finally pressed lightly over mine and we shared a chaste kiss of pure love that blasted away the doubt, the worry, and the pain of what we were for just a moment.

"I don't know what the right thing to do is Kerry," I whispered against her lips as we stared into each other's eyes forehead to forehead. "I don't know how to save you from me."

"You can't save me, I don't need saving." She whispered back. "God will forgive me, I know it. If He thinks this is wrong, he'll understand why we had to do it. He'll understand, I know it."

"How can you be so sure?" I asked with a tight throat and a puzzled expression.

"I have faith. I trust God to do what's right even when I can't. I trust Him to save me if I deserve it and damn me if I deserve that instead. It doesn't matter, I love you anyway."

"I don't understand Kerry. I don't feel faith like that. All I can feel is doubt and fear. I can't justify loving you if it means God will punish you." I could barely speak around the ball of tightness in my throat but I forced my words out around it.

""What about you Jay? Don't you think I'm scared that you'll suffer for me too?" I drew in a shaky breath as she switched the emphasis back to me. I didn't want that, I wasn't important. Only her wellbeing was of any consequence here.

"I don't know, I guess. It doesn't matter to me though; I didn't have that far to fall."

"Don't say that! My God Jay, you're not such a bad person that you'd go to hell! You know that don't you?" She was vehement about that, but she didn't really know about the things I'd done. She didn't know what war had made me do, what I'd been unable to hold back from.

"Kerry, I've killed people. A lot of people. I know it was war, but it still stains me. I can't shake that off, I can't pretend like it won't weigh me down. I've done so much, seen so much, I couldn't ever tell you about. I can't have you knowing that too."

"I don't care what you've done. God will forgive you if it was truly a sin. All you have to do is ask, really ask, and God will forgive you." She was almost pleading with me as she gently rubbed her nose against mine.

"I'm not sure I believe that..."

"It doesn't matter, He does. He'll save you if you let him. If you let me." She kissed me in that soft, loving way again and my mind blanked.

I reveled in the purity of her love for me, knowing it was stronger than any words I ever used would be able to overcome. I couldn't convince her to let me go. I didn't want to. I hated myself for that, but I just wanted to love her forever and never worry about the consequences of it.

"I want you to come to church with me. Right now. We can go in and you can confess everything you've ever done, get it off your chest. Tell Father Brian everything you feel guilty about, from the war to me and everything else. If you are truly repentant then God will hear it and forgive you. It doesn't matter what you've done, He will forgive you." She was so confident, so trusting in her God that it inspired a little faith in me. I didn't think it was enough.

"I don't know if I can. I can't ever ask God to forgive me for you, for loving you like I do." I tried to tell her I didn't have the faith but she didn't let me go on.

"I know. I can't do that either. I regret everything we've done. God I hate that I regret it, but I do. But still I love you and I'll do it all again to share that love with you. I understand if you feel the same way."

"Kerry I don't regret what we've done, but at the same time I feel like I hurt you. It's like I changed you..." I couldn't figure out what to say, how to explain it.

"You didn't hurt me. You've never hurt me. I have changed, but it's only been for the better. I will always look back at yesterday as the day I woke up to what love and sex and everything good could really be." I held her close and we clung to one another desperate to ease each other's pain and worry.

"Will you do it? Will you confess your sins?" She asked after a time, pressing her cheek into my chest so I could feel her jaw working with each word.

"Kerry..."

"Please Jay, if not for yourself then for me. Please!" I wanted to say yes if for no other reason than to put her at ease, but I had to think about it. She wasn't asking me to half-ass this, she didn't want me to go in and tell the priest I had beat off a few times in the decade or so since my last confession. If I agreed then I was telling her I'd make a full, honest confession.

"Kerry I'm not sure it will work."

"You don't have to be. Just be sure that I believe it will work, it will clean that stain from you. If you can't have faith in God, have faith in me." I sighed into her hair and she squeezed me tight. How could I say no to that?

"If you promise it will work then I'll do it. Only because I believe in you, nothing else."

"I promise. God will forgive you. I swear. He'll see the goodness in you that I do and wipe away all the darkness you've been put through. I promise." I squeezed her back and we fell into silence for a short time again.

"I'll do it Kerry. I'll confess my sins, but the priest won't hear anything about you. I can't explain it, but even though I know I've put a ton on you I can't bring myself to regret it. Not really. I wish I was a better person, but I'm not." I whispered to her as she once again looked up at me with deep watery eyes.

"I feel the same way. I'll never ask God to forgive me for you, no matter what."

We sat on the recliner for nearly an hour in silence. I could feel her warmth making my legs and hips sweat. Her scent, clean and potent through her thin clothes, was all consuming as I brushed my nose through her hair and over her head. I was sweating too and I could smell my own scent, not nearly so attractive or clean as Kerry's. I started to worry that having her head so close to my underarms was starting to become repulsive to her.

"Kerry, I think I should get changed and get ready if we're gonna go." She just pressed tighter to me, drawing her nose closer to my unpleasant sweat stained armpit. "Kerry..."

"I know, but I can't let go yet. Just a little while longer. Please?" She wasn't trying to be sexy but her voice held that innocence that she affected so well and drove me crazy. I drew my hand over her curly hair and cooed softly to her.

"Are you sure you don't want to let me put on some deodorant or something?" I asked softy, feeling the heat of embarrassment burn my face and down my neck.

"Why...?" She looked up at me and saw the flush across my face. Confusion flitted across her face only to be replaced by a sort of compassionate understanding.

"I like your smell Jay." I frowned at her as she said that. She couldn't really enjoy that, could she?

"Yeah, but I'm starting to sweat pretty good and..."

"I know. That's why I was pressing my face so hard against your chest. I can smell you. I like it." Puzzlement filled my expression and I could feel the way it pulled at my face. She laughed softly at me.

"You don't believe me? Watch." To my surprise she bent down and pressed her nose against the sweat stain that had developed on my shirt. She inhaled loudly and drew in my scent with a hard pull. If she didn't like it, she was going through a lot to tell me otherwise.

"How can you...?" I started to ask but she reached up and put her finger over my lips. Once again she inhaled deeply, pressing her nose deep into my armpit as if I smelled like fresh apple pie.

"Kerry..." Again she stopped me and this time she pulled up the short sleeve of my t-shirt to press her nose against the sweating, hair covered skin of the armpit itself. The sound of her inhaling my scent straight from the source muted me more than her fingers could.

"Remember yesterday when you...licked me...down there?" She asked uncomfortably as she pulled back and swiped her fingers across her face to get my sweat off her nose. I was about to reply when she stuck those fingers in her mouth and I was dumbstruck again.

"Remember Jay?" She asked once the fingers were out, glistening now with her saliva rather than my sweat.

"Uh, I'm not sure which time you're talking about." I answered with difficulty.

"In the kitchen when you..." she paused and the soft smile fell into a frown. "When you licked my ass." She forced it out as if the words didn't want to be spoken.

"Very well," I answered. I was about to ask why she wanted to know when she dipped her head to stick her nose back into my still exposed armpit. I was unable to speak as I felt her press her nose hard against my underarm and once again inhaled loudly.

"When you first did that I was freaked out," she explained as once again she gathered my sweat from her nose and began to lick it off her fingers. "I thought that something like that was disgusting, like you should never want to go anywhere near me there."

"Kerry, I love everything about you. Every part. There isn't any part of you I don't want to pleasure, to experience as closely as possible." I explained and that soft smile returned.

"I know. I realized that later when the same thing occurred to me. Remember when you were on the island and I was sucking you?" She asked as her nose moved to take its place in my armpit again.

"Who could ever forget that?"

"Remember how I was only using one hand most of the time?" She asked and then inhaled me like a coke addict.

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"I read more on the internet than just about stopping before orgasm," she explained as she once again cleaned my sweat from her hand. "I wanted to test something out but I was scared it would freak you out. I kept trying to get the courage to do it but I just couldn't."

"Ok. What do you mean?" I wasn't sure, but I thought I understood where she was going with this.

"Well," she started as she finally stopped sniffing my underarm and looked up at me. "I wanted to use my finger on you...down there."

"Whoa! Ok, I get it." I said, thinking she'd stop when I said that. She didn't.

"I thought when I read that that I'd never be able to do it, that it was just too disgusting. But when I was there, with your amazing cock in my mouth, all I was concerned about was that you'd freak out from it. It didn't seem disgusting at all; just something to do that would make you feel good."

She shifted on me and looked me in the eye. I could tell she wanted me to confirm my understanding of what she'd said but I was still a little stuck on the fact that she'd wanted to finger my ass. I'd never had anyone do that to me, and truthfully it seemed kind of gay to me. I realize that's rather neurotic of me, since it would be a woman doing it and not a man, but that was still my gut reaction.

"That's when I realized that there wasn't any part of you I didn't want to have anything to do with. The only thing that held me back was fear, as usual. Do you get what I mean?"

"I understand," I said softly. "You should know that I would let you do that, but I've never experienced it before. I don't know if it would feel good or not, but if it's you doing it I'm sure I'll love it."

"I'll keep that in mind for the next time." She said, without adding any sort of sexual overtone. We were too emotionally drained for that.

"Alright, what do you say we get up off our lazy asses and head over to that church for a little soul cleansing?" I asked a bit sarcastically and she giggled. She leaned forward to press her nose to mine again, rubbing back and forth so intimately.

"I object to being called lazy. I like to consider myself smart for saving my energy for when I need it." She spoke softly through a wide grin and I chuckled into her lips. I could smell my scent on her, sharp and basic. Not at all what I'd call pleasant.