052: Has anyone ever done your feet?

He wanted to distract her from her grief, but he didn't want to make love to her and that was his first inclination of distraction. It was too soon, too big of an event after such trauma, if she was afraid of him now, that would surely clinch it forever. He wracked his brain for a means of distraction, she'd been pretty easy to distract before, but at the moment nothing came. His brain was tired and overloaded. He recognized the symptoms.

Thoughts of her new car and new house had failed to distract her. He ooched on his back toward her like an earthworm. Maille didn't move but watched him impassively. Until with arms overhead, he could touch her bare toes. He pulled her middle toes. Maille was unresisting. He'd thought she might flinch at his touch, but she didn't. She didn't even react at all.

He rolled on his stomach. "Ever had someone do your feet? Foot massage?"

"Yes." she said.

"I mean a real person, not a pedicurist." 

"My brother Danny is a reflexologist."

"Oh." he laughed.

"Don 't laugh, Kell." she whispered. "Not now. I can't bear it."

He nodded and started to rub her feet. She had an immediate ticklish reaction but then settled as his thumbs pushed harder, feeling for knots or lumps. Firs,t he worked through one foot and then he started on the other. He realized Maille's eyes were closed. That was a good sign. He ooched away from her and pulled her foot a bit toward him. This time Maille complied.

Kell continued to do her foot and then listened as she sighed. It was a few more minutes before he recognized the unmistakable sound of quiet tears sliding to the carpet; the wayward sniff gave her away. He tugged again, pulling a bit harder and she slid all the way down the wall, lying on her back on the floor, stretched out full length.

"Kell..." she whispered.

"No advances," he said. "You're all knotted up." It wasn't strictly true, but not completely untrue either. What he really wanted was for her to relax and go to sleep.

He pulled her again and she scooched toward him away from the wall. "Relax your arms," he told her. "Put them over your head."

"I don't want a massage." she said stiffly.

"No, just the feet," he answered. "Relax."

"Kell... has anyone ever died in your arms?"

He recognized the dam bursting when he saw it. Necessary, reality, even if painful and somewhat dangerous. Bonding, to share these kinds of experiences, but for him, there was no turning back.

"Yes."

"You mean Myndee?"

"Myndee died in your arms, Maille."

She swallowed back a huge lump. "Then who?"

"Jason."

"Who is Jason?"

"A boy I loved."

"Your boyfriend?"

He chuckled. "I told you I'm really not gay. No boyfriends, ever."

"Then?"

"I was raised in a group home, and when you get to be a certain age there and no one has adopted you, they emancipate you."

"How old?"

"Sixteen ."

"Then you get fostered?"

"Or you go to the YMCA." he smiled. "That's where I met him. He'd been there already a couple of months. He had plans, did our Jason. He'd been kicked out of his home, drunk step-dad, abusive and neglecting mother. He was better off on the street, believe me."

"But he wasn't on the street, he was in the Y."

"That's on the street, hon ."

"Oh." she didn't know, she'd never thought about it, or had to think about it.

''He got a job, we both did, at a paper mill, hauling boxes on forklifts. We saved our money, we were gonna buy a car. We were gonna go to college. Then one day he drove his forklift over a loading dock. It fell on him. It crushed him. By the time I got to him, there were only a few minutes left. I held him while he went, Maille. My best friend."

He heard her quiet sobs. He felt their sympathy, and swallowed his pain. He pulled her a bit, pulled her till her whole leg was next to his side, and he could wrap an arm around it. He laid his cheek against her thigh and sighed.

"Does it ever go away?" she whispered.

"No." 

"My mom has lost a lot of people, and she says the pain never goes away it just goes inside. Is that what you think?"

He nodded against her, wiping his eyes on her soft pants. His soft pants. "Yes."

"How long?"

"Long." he admitted.

"This pain? This deep sadness? This kind of not being able to focus?"

''This will pass in a couple of days." he told her stroking her leg in long smooth caresses.

"A couple of days." she repeated.

"Yes." he scooched back down to her calf so as not to give her any impressions.

"Can I sleep here?" she whispered. "Right here?"

"Anywhere you want." he answered.

"I don't think I can get up." she replied and her voice sounded far away.

"It's okay." Kell put her calf up on his chest and massaged it gently with both hands. She did relax then, his sweet Maille who could sleep anywhere she felt safe, and her breathing deepened. The sweetest sound in the whole world.

••••