026: I'll teach you how to dump me

It was early, but Kell drove her to her house and they stayed in the car for a few minutes before getting out and Maille actually leaned back in after opening the door for herself, and said good night. Kell shrugged. He hopped the fence after she closed it behind her, and whirled her around to face him.

"This isn't how it's done." he said.

Maille's shoulders slumped in exasperation. "It is when you're feeling what I am."

"Nah. Come, come, come. Lay on the trampoline with me."

He had her hand, but she was skittish and jerked away. Kell flipped head over heels onto the tramp and lay there staring up at the clouding sky. He crooked a little finger at her. "Come and see. I will explain how it is done."

Maille flung her arms and forced herself to walk to the edge of the tramp. But she wasn't getting on. Kell rolled over and lay face down, very close to where she was. His dreads stood out everywhere, and for some reason, it made her smile. He was just plain silly.

She didn't know anyone like him, and that's why he was confusing her so. He didn't behave in any conventional fashion at all. Maybe that was the thing to rely on, that you couldn't count on any one reaction from him. But then her finger tingled again, as it had been the whole drive home and even as she opened the fence. She turned around. She needed to be alone for this one.

"Don't go." Came his voice.

"I-- need to be--- alone, Kell." she said.

"Come, come, come. Lay on the tramp with me."

Maille shook her head a little desperately. "I can't..."

Kell looked up at her, his beads lying flat on the tramp, like limp blades of grass. The sight again made Maille feel like laughing. This is nerves, she thought as her finger gave another strange tingle that made her heart do something funny too. She felt a shiver coming and tried not to show it, but she shuddered.

Kell smiled and reached out to grab a braid. "Maille, come, I will tell you how it's done."

''What? What is done?" she said wearily, tired for the moment of cryptic sayings.

He pulled the braid. "How you dump me."

"Dump you? I can't dump you." Her thought was that she didn't have him, how could she dump him? But her next thought was that he needed to explain what he meant by the 'next level'. She should at least understand what happened back there before she went to stew all night.

Kell pulled her braid again, and this time she rolled onto it, not touching him, in fact staying far away from him, but Kell simply kept her braid and bounced the tramp until she had slid toward him and they were laying side by side.

"Are you confused, Maille Mann?"

"Why do you ask things you already know the answer to?" she snapped.

"It's natural to be confused."

"I just want to know what happened back there, and why; before I go in my house and try and make sense of it all. I'll probably get it all wrong, but at least if you tell me your version, I can try and understand."

Kell picked up her hand, and she jerked again and folded her arms over her chest. "Maille, it was a touch, plain and simple. A touch meant just for you."

"What does that mean? Just for me?"

"Have you held hands before?"

She was silent. "With my dad." she finally admitted with a tremulous laugh.

"Hmmm... Well, I have held hands many times, too many to count. It is...." He drew in his train whistle breath searching for the right words. "Not unique." he finally settled on and Maille held her breath picturing him holding hands with every guy on the set. She kept her fingers glued together to still the tingling. "It is nice." he ran a finger lazily along the junction of her two hands as if reminding her how it felt to hold hands. "But you needed reassurance that I am not toying with our friendship. To take it to the next level, means to give us both something to call our own. Hence the little finger."

"So, you've held hands a lot, with many.... Guys.... And you've never sucked anybody's little finger, just mine?" she repeated archly, feeling the finger in question give another slight tremble that sent a wave of electricity throughout her whole body.

"To bond us."

"Bond us?"

"I'm your friend, Maille Mann, it's time to trust that."

"But—I-- felt...." she turned her face away, and missed Kell's smile.

"Don't say it, Maille, keep it here." he pointed to her chest. "For now."

She felt relieved. It kind of meant that he would keep it there too, and she wouldn't have to face that knowledge each and every time she looked at him. But when she looked into his eyes, she recalled the slight parting of her lips, the feeling of something missing.

"Kell... something about it isn't right." she finally said trying to relegate the pinky finger to a distant part of her idea of friendship, but it didn't fit. She couldn't picture that happening in any friendship.

Kell turned on his side and lay a hand on top of hers. "Too intimate?"

She nodded, embarrassed, wanting him to move away. His goatee tickled her cheek.

"I am a very intimate man. I like to touch. It's how I feel what you are feeling." he said. "If this has offended you...."

Maille felt her heart drop. Offended? Was she offended? Or just confused? What was she feeling exactly? Kell, the gay guy, had given her an intimate moment to bond their friendship, but it didn't feel like friendship to her. And it couldn't be anything else. He was gay. He didn't like her in that way.

He read her mind then and smiled. "Maille?"

"What?"

"Let friendship transcend the girl/guy, guy/guy thing, okay?"

"So... you can just do that whenever, and I'm not supposed to feel anything?"

"Feel... cared for."

"Kell... it feels too..."

"Intimate?" he sighed, tickling her cheek again with his beads. "Classify it as part of our friendship."

She realized that she was trying to classify the experience, the whole experience today. It hadn't been like the other two experiences, which had seemed much lighter in some way.

Was that wrong? Should she quit classifying and just let this whole thing happen?

He was very close, his breath in her ear when he said, "Maille, I didn't kiss you on the lips."

His breath fanned across her lips and they tingled. She turned slightly toward him, not knowing why, but feeling, for the second time that was the natural thing to do. Her eyes closed and she felt the tickle of his beads on her cheek, the warmth of his hand on top of hers on her chest. She allowed herself to feel... all of it, whatever she wanted to feel. Washing over her in delicious waves. 

She felt cared for. Special, to somebody who was taking the time to lie beside her and help her classify her feelings, new and strange feelings. She allowed herself to share. To accept that this somebody was going through it all with her.

Never had she shared an intimate experience with another person. This was unique.

Each moment, each second was only theirs. She didn't think about the other guys... she didn't wonder about what it felt like to hold hands with anybody else, or what a kiss might be like, when she could remember the feel of soft lips on her finger and know that no one else had ever felt that before. And then she knew that to make it right, to make it truly a shared experience, she would need to do it too.

Her hand lifted and felt around for his. She pulled his fingers up, one by one till she got to the little one, keeping her eyes closed, she pulled his little finger to her mouth and put it in. She felt Kell shiver beside her and a powerful feeling of exhilaration washed over her. Now it was a shared experience. She tasted sand, and soap and turkey sandwich and ran her tongue around the entire edge of the nail and then sucked just slightly on the tip. 

Kell was frozen. He barely breathed. His eyes had closed as well, and he simply stayed there, letting her do to him what he had done to her.

She pulled his finger out and then blew on it gently, opening her eyes. 

Kell was staring at her, an unfathomable look on his face. Had she done wrong? For a split second, she felt a sense of confusion, and then hips lips parted in a smile. It was a sweetly serene smile, peaceful and easy. He wrapped her stray braids around her ear looking at her face.

"I didn't kiss your lips." she said softly.

He smiled broader. "No ... much more."

"Now you understand?"

He nodded. "Another level."

She nodded, feeling what he was feeling, knowing what he knew, reveling in the sweet communion of two hearts.

"Do you want to go now?" she whispered.

"Hell, no." Kell rolled onto his back, holding her hand and stared up at the stars. He couldn't talk. Talk her to sleep like he had two nights in a row. He couldn't think of one thing he wanted to say. And he knew exactly how she'd felt. Wanting, needing to be reassured, to analyze the experience.

To preserve unity, to keep the bond.

Maille lay there knowing he knew what she'd felt, and a great happiness welled within her. She'd successfully communicated her feelings. Rather strange means, but she knew he knew exactly what she was feeling and that felt good. She let herself drift and before she knew it, her breathing had deepened and she let out a little sigh of contentment.

Kell turned his head slightly to look at her. She was asleep again. 

The incredible trust it took to fall asleep like that staggered him. Did she not know? Each day she gave him so much more of herself, so much to think about. To experience. And tonight. The unexpected ... beyond unexpected. He held up his finger and felt again the warmth of her.

He felt a splash of rain on his face. His heart clenched. Leave? Never. He closed his eyes.

****