AUTHOR'S NOTE:

PLEASE vote and comment. I've worked hard this week.  lol

Those pics of Harry from the Jingle Ball are ruining my life!

TWITTER:  @lovethedinklage

*****

SHERRY:

He looks into my eyes with weariness, and I press my lips to his cheek and hold the gesture, nuzzling his tears with my nose.

"I'm so broken, Sherry. Those things should have made my dick as hard as a rock. But they didn't. Nothing happened, Sherry," he sobs audibly now. "Nothing happened."

*****

HARRY

Sherry doesn't say anything, but maintains constant physical contact as she tries to provide comfort. She hugs me, strokes my cheek, and runs her hand through my hair, twirling it around her fingers. Soon, soft whispers spill from her lips to calm me.  She says it'll be okay, she says things have ways of working out, she says shhh and calls me baby.

I eventually pull myself together to some extent, yet continue to hold her and allow her voice to soothe me. I want to enjoy her touches while I can, before she pulls away and looks at me with pity. Before she starts dating somebody else, like maybe Liam. Why am I thinking about all this shit? It's only getting me stirred up again. I'll just run her off sooner if I keep up this crybaby routine.

"Harry," Sherry speaks, looking at me for the first time since my revelation. She is so in tune with me and can always tell when something's on my mind. Even if I didn't confess, she'd figure it out soon enough.

"Hmm?" Is all I answer for now, waiting out her response. Her verdict. I force myself to look into her eyes, and what I see isn't at all what I expect.  I don't see sadness, pity, or even discomfort. I see concern, warmth, and her lips turn up in the hint of a smile. It's so subtle, yet I feel the hope begin to trickle through my veins, and I am thankful. Seeing the change in my eyes, her smile widens, lighting up her face with a beautiful radiance.

With a fistful of my hair, she pulls me to her and gives me the softest kiss of my life.  In fact, her lips are still, and she moves her head ever so slightly back and forth so her lips barely brush mine. Then she nuzzles my nose like an Eskimo, and I actually giggle.  Giggle? Fuck. I'm losing more manhood here by the minute. At this point, I could lose pretty much anything and as long as I have her to cuddle me, I'd feel whole.

"Did you just giggle?" She teases.

"Shut up," I pull her in for a real kiss, soft and slow, and when she moans I gloss over her bottom lip with my tongue before dipping into her warm mouth. Her tongue pushes against mine and my kisses become rough, and soon I'm covering her neck with bites and sucks of various intensities. She whispers my name and tells me how good I feel as if I didn't know already from her whimpering. Fuck.

I pull back to look at her. She's breathless, almost in a pant, but I can see in her eyes that her mind is clicking away and working overtime, probably trying to think of a gentle way to address my situation. I know she wants to care for me, and I want her to. I need her to.

"Something on your mind?" I ask with a kiss to her nose.  She laughs, and we both know I'm referring to the elephant in the room.

"Umm . . . let me know if you want to talk about it, okay?" She blushes a tiny bit, but for the most part isn't treating this like anything unusual. "I could do some research, or we could call your doctor or whatever." She shrugs like we're deciding between dinner or a movie. "Whenever you're comfortable. If you're comfortable. Or, if you'd rather talk to Liam . . ."

I realize that Liam only seems to be a threat now that my dick's outta commission. I want to grumble, but push it to the back of my mind.

"I guess I've been so busy worrying about whether or not I'll be able to walk after this, I haven't thought about anything else. Plus with my right arm broken," I feel a hot flash as I realize what I'm saying. "I mean, that's the hand I usually use to, um . . . you know. And I didn't think about it at all until I saw your pictures." My cheeks feel inflamed, I look away and then back to Sherry. Her cheeks are red too. Maybe she's thinking about what I said about her pussy.

Sherry suddenly gets up and grabs my school bag, pulling out my laptop. "Let's just look up some ballpark information, yeah? Possibilities, so you'll know what potential outcomes could be?" She takes a seat on the bedside chair, staring expectantly.

No one has discussed much regarding the big picture with me. I know my dad was just glad I was alive, and didn't want to overwhelm me with too much early on. He said we might as well wait until the second set of x-rays so we know exactly what we're dealing with.

I chew on a fingernail for a minute and think. I suppose some information is better than no information, right? So I can start mentally preparing myself? I give the go-ahead, and Sherry flips open the laptop and starts it up. Who knows, maybe it'll give us something to look forward to?

"You have a Miley Cyrus background? Seriously?" How dare she mock Miley.

"What are you typing? Come sit by me so I can see." I boss her between nail bites.

Picking up the laptop, she's soon nuzzling her butt into the edge of the bed by my hip. "Quit biting your nails, Harry," she chides, pulling my hand from my mouth. She kisses my knuckles and then lifts my arm so it falls over her shoulders. I drop it down so it's resting diagonally across her back, pushing my hand between her bottom and the mattress so I can give her ass a squeeze. She smiles and shakes her head, but she doesn't stop me.

I kiss her ear, and she types sex and spinal cord injuries into the search engine. "Let's see what this gets us," she says with a shrug. She clicks in and out of several sites, skimming information, never quite satisfied with what's provided. I continue to touch her in random ways, enjoying the closeness.

"When you have to pee, do you feel you're going to pee, or you don't know?" She asks.

"I can feel I'm going to pee. Once my cast is off and the second set of x-rays is done, I guess we'll decide on a wheelchair and I can get rid of the catheter." I look at the laptop screen. "I thought you were reading up on sex?"

"I am. I was just curious." She laughs. Dork. "Do you feel anything if someone touches your legs or feet? Like when I did your bath?"

"Sometimes I feel a little bit – or I think I do.  Maybe I think I feel it only because I see you touching me though, it's like I'm not sure if it's real or not. I just know when I try to move my legs and feet, they don't respond. Some signal isn't going through."  Sherry watches me thoughtfully, and I know she's trying to find some answers.

"Here's something," she speaks, her eyes moving back and forth across the screen reading a bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo.

"What? What does it say?" I am totally invading her personal space right now.

"Shhh, I'm reading. Hold on," she keeps reading while I freak out internally.

After two minutes that pass more like two hours, she explains that men typically have two types of erections. One kind is caused by mental arousal (psychogenic), and the other is a result of physical stimulation (reflexive).  Where the injury is located on the spinal cord determines if you lose the ability to achieve one, or possibly both types of erection.

I stare at her blankly. "What does that mean in normal language?"

"Well, when you were looking at my nudes," she clears her throat with an a-hem while simultaneously giving me the stink-eye, "that would have been a mental arousal. Or if you were to look at a dirty magazine like the Playboy I found in your closet at the frat house."

"Shut up."

"Then the physical kind would be caused by sex or direct stimulation to um. . . your area." Sherry nods to down below.

"My area?" I blink, mulling over this information and trying to see if any of it benefits me.

"You said you haven't touched yourself since the accident?" Sherry inquires in a quiet voice.

"No." I feel the heat in my cheeks as my eyes meet Sherry's blue ones. "Do you – do you think I should?" I gulp.

Sherry tilts her head, "Might as well . . ."