Touch Therapy Ch. 01

For those who are interested, there's a Touch Therapy: Prologue which sets up the events in this chapter. I'd characterize it as 'all foreplay, no fucking,' but if you're interested, it's there. Hey, some of us LIKE foreplay!

*

Greg and his dad had polished off half of an extra large pepperoni, and were only twenty or thirty minutes away from the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, when the front door flew open and bounced off the adjacent wall with a dull thud.

Robert hastily brushed the pizza crumbs off his T-Shirt, mumbling "Uh, oh, the girls are home. Stash the porn and clean yourself up."

Greg responded with a half hearted "Har -- de -- har har. . . gosh pops, you're such a stick," and then laughed more genuinely as 'pops' lunged at him with a grimace and dug a forefinger under his ribs, driving the breath from his lungs.

"Stop, stop!" he coughed, thrashing about.

His dad, assuming an evil villain voice, just poked him harder, saying "Oh hoh! The ungrateful brat dares to mock the mighty bringer of pizza! Such insolence must be repaid with great pain, and suffering, and. . . " he ran out of evil monologue and broke the bit off abruptly, letting Greg catch his breath while he caught him by the scruff of the neck and gave him an affectionate shake. "You better get ready for bed kiddo, you got school in the morning."

Greg snapped him a mock salute and a quick 'Sir, Yes Sir!' and then carried the pizza box into the kitchen. As he was transferring the pizza into Ziplocs, he could just make out Elaine's voice from the front of the house, the sound of packages, and the thump of shoes being tossed into the hall closet. It felt, Greg thought, like 'normal' family sounds, and for a moment he felt a pang of sadness that it would not last, and that it had come so late. Eighteen now, and a senior in high school, it was only a matter of months until he headed off to college.

As Greg headed back into the den and started to arrange the futon for bed, he saw Rachel pause at the foot of the stairs, whisper something quietly into her mother's ear, and then give Elaine a quick good night peck on the cheek. Rachel turned toward him then, favoring him with a quick smile, and walked through the kitchen and into the den, which doubled as his bedroom. She picked up the other side of the blanket he was holding, without asking, and began to help him shake it straight and tuck it into place.

"Mom said it was O.K. if I stayed up a bit longer and watched some TV with you."

"Fine by me," Greg said, eyeing her as he fluffed a couple of pillows. "Grab the other end, and help me put it back in couch mode."

Rachel waved this suggestion away "No, just leave it down. I'll prop myself up on some pillows. That way, if you fall asleep, I can just sneak out without waking you up."

Greg strongly doubted that he would be able to sleep with Rachel lying next to him in his bed, no matter how innocent the stated purpose, but he nodded dutifully and fished a few more pillows and a couple of throws out of a chest in the corner. Rachel caught them, then flounced onto the left side of the futon without hesitation, snuggling in under the throw and patting the mattress with her right hand. "Well come on, then," she said, "the remote's on your side. Fire up the Netflix."

Greg did as instructed, paging through the instant queue until Rachel slapped his leg excitedly and said "That one!" He forced himself not to roll his eyes and groan "Oh sure, brooding sexy vampire boy. What else," and seconds later they were watching Angel.

When Greg woke, it was much later. The room was darker now. The TV was on, but the show had ended and the screen was rolling through an assortment of screen savers. He was on his left side and, he realized, with some shock, Rachel was spooning with him. Her back and butt were pressed back into his chest and groin, and her head rested on his left arm. Her right hand was closed loosely around his right wrist, pressing his open palm against the bare flesh of her stomach where her t-shirt had hiked up.

Her t-shirt? But she'd been wearing . . . Greg eased up on his left elbow, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl, and realized that she was now wearing clothing similar to his own. She had stolen a t-shirt and a pair of boxers out of his linen basket.

Her face was relaxed in sleep, and her lips, slightly parted, were puffing light warm breaths onto his bicep. She was also drooling a little, and Greg was shocked at the sudden surge of emotion that welled up in him as he looked down at her somehow childish form. Then she mumbled something in her sleep, shifting against him, and transformed immediately into a creature that was anything but childish.

The thin fabric of the borrowed T-shirt stretched tight against her breasts, bringing startlingly dark areolae into sudden relief, and her butt ground into his groin in a way that drew him to abrupt and focused attention.

'Holy crap,' he thought, as he stiffened almost instantly. He tried to pull gently away from her, but she mumbled in her sleep again, drawing his right hand tighter, and consequently lower, against her naked belly. His boxers fit her only loosely, and as her hand drew against his wrist, he felt his fingers slip inside the waistband.

'oh man. If she wakes up, I'm so screwed. She will --not- understand this.' Heart hammering in panic, Greg tried once again to gently disengage. Rachel shifted again, rising slowly into wakefulness, and then suddenly froze as she became fully conscious.

'I didn't. . . ' Greg whispered in her ear, 'this wasn't. . . '

Rachel shushed him, and Greg fell silent for what felt like an eternity, trying not to even breathe too hard, intensely aware of the way his erection was pressed insistently into Rachel's backside.

After what felt like an eternity, Rachel shifted again. She turned her head slowly until her lips rested against his bicep. Then she kissed it. At the same time, her hips pushed gently backward, grinding deliberately against his hardened length. Greg gasped, gritted his teeth, and fought to control his breathing. Rachel's lips opened against the flesh of his arm and, with a slight moan, her tongue came out and licked lightly at his skin.

"Don't move," she whispered, and Greg nodded silently, furiously, pretty sure that if he even twitched the wrong way, he'd be wearing a suddenly sticky pair of boxers. "Dr. Griggs said I should start with what she called 'touch exercises,'" Rachel murmured, her breath tickling coolly along the trace of saliva she had left on his bicep. "She said it was an important part of 'reconditioning' my responses."

Her face turned up toward him, then, her lips only inches from his own, as she asked "I was going to ask you to try it tonight, but you fell asleep. Did you mean what you said?"

Still somewhat stunned, Greg only managed "hunh?"

"What you said!" Rachel repeated, somewhat impatiently, twisting toward him a bit more, the T-shirt tightening against her in even more distracting fashion. She reached back with her right foot, hooking it behind his calf and pulling his leg tighter against her. "You said you'd do anything. Did you mean it or not!?"

"Yeah," Greg managed to blurt, "of course."

Rachel paused, as if not quite believing him, then took the plunge. "Ok then. Don't do anything. I'm going to touch you, maybe move you around a little," she whispered, holding his hand by the wrist and moving it around in the air a bit by way of demonstration. "I want you to do your best to not do anything. If I ask you to move, or do something, I want you to do it, but don't ask questions unless you absolutely have to. Try to stay quiet."

"Ok," Greg said dubiously, a slight frown on his face. "Why are we doing this again? I mean, this, specifically?"

Rachel paused for only a second, and then told him that it was a suggested exercise in one of Grigg's books on sex surrogacy. "It's about trust," she murmured, "and control. When all your experiences are ones where you've had no control, and your trust has been abused, it damages your image of yourself. Wrecks your confidence, your self esteem." She paused, and then turning her face back toward his, her lips inches from his, said "it makes you angry at the world," her voice quavered for a moment before she went on, "Griggs said this might help me feel a bit less angry, a bit safer."

Greg stared back at her, at the solemn expression on her face. Living with her so close, every day, he sometimes forgot just how beautiful she was. But then she would run her hand through the fluff of her short, downy hair, or bite pensively at her lower lip, or go up on her toes, reaching for a cup on a high shelf, and Greg would find himself holding his breath, struck dumb by a sudden pang of . . . he had no words for it. But as he looked at her dark eyes and delicately arched brows, the long line of her neck, the sweep of her thigh and calf, he felt once again that surge of inexplicable tightness in his gut and chest. It felt, he thought, almost like grief.

He thrust the thought away before his mind could track it further, and swallowed hard. "OK," he whispered. "Ok."

She kissed him then, leaning up and pressing her dark lips against his. Instinctively, he started to return the kiss, but she broke away, shaking her head. "No!" she whispered insistently. "No! Don't do --anything-. Don't try to guess what I want you to do. If I want you to do something, I'll tell you." Greg nodded his understanding, and stilling himself, he closed his eyes.

Rachel pressed her lips against his once more, kissing him softly, lingeringly, her butt still pressed into his crotch, her right foot reaching back and hooking behind his calf, drawing him against her, her upper body twisted back towards him so that her lips could touch his.

The position was awkward, though, and Rachel eventually pulled her lips from his with a small sigh. She unhooked her ankle from behind his calf and turned into him then, both her hands on his chest. Kissing him again, this time on the corner of his mouth, she took his right hand in her own, and placed it on her left hip, throwing her knee up so that it rested on his thigh. And she kept kissing him, sucking at first his upper and then his lower lip.

Her teeth nipped playfully, daringly at the soft flesh, sometimes with almost enough force to make him wince. Finally, the tip of her tongue slid gingerly along his lower lip and forced its way into his mouth, thrusting past his lips, licking along the edge of his teeth, and pushing between them to touch his tongue.

Greg fought not to respond, although his entire body screamed at him to pull her closer, to press his lips back against hers, to tighten his grip on her hip, and draw her toward him. Rachel deepened the kiss, her tongue probing into his mouth as she made tiny sounds in her throat. Her hands moved on his chest, sliding over his nipples.

Her hip moved, it seemed involuntarily, under his hand, and her pelvis rocked forward toward him until he could feel the front of her boxer shorts against his own. He was suddenly grateful that his shorts did not have an open fly: relieved that his stiffened length wouldn't suddenly burst forth to wave awkwardly about. He could almost feel the heat of her groin, only millimeters away from his own flesh. More than anything, he wanted to pull her close, press himself against her, roll on top of her. . .

Greg let out an involuntary groan that was muffled by Rachel's mouth over his. She broke the kiss with a soft liquid sound, and pulled back slightly, looking into his eyes. A tiny smile flickered around her lips, and then she ducked her head and nipped at his collarbone, pinching the skin sharply through the thin fabric of his shirt. Greg grunted in surprise at the unexpected twinge, then forced himself to silence.

Rachel's hands roamed over his chest and shoulders, sometimes squeezing gently at the muscle, as she continued to kiss along his collarbone, her breath pushing warmly through the shirt. She tugged gently at the fabric, working her fingers under the edges of the short sleeves, dragging her short nails along the skin of his right arm, scraping the palm of her hand across the tip of a nipple, where it dimpled through the fabric.

"Take it off," she finally said, one hand grabbing the bottom of the shirt and hiking it upwards, exposing his stomach. Greg squirmed around awkwardly until he managed to tug the shirt up and over his head. Rachel sat up a bit while he did so, helping him where she could.

When he fell back against the futon, naked now from the waist up, Rachel remained propped on one elbow, her leg still thrown up over his, and her free hand tracing gently over his naked skin.

Her face was carefully blank, but her eyes glinted in the flickering light from the muted television. Her hand stroked lightly across his stomach, and Greg's stomach muscles involuntarily tensed in a movement that ground his erection just briefly against the inside of Rachel's thigh. His eyes glazed slightly, breath coming faster at the heat of the contact. Rachel's eyes widened; then her face grew impassive again as she coldly instructed him to lie still.

As a sophomore, Greg had wrestled at 138 lbs. Now a senior, he was a good thirty pounds heavier from muscle mass he had put on in the sudden growth spurt after his eighteenth birthday. While he no longer had the clean, delineated abs he had sported as a wrestler, his stomach was still flat and hard. Short dark hair curled on his sternum and on his lower belly. His skin, lightly tanned and freckled from hours by the pool, was marred here and there by small scars from incidental sporting or work injuries, and by stretch marks on one shoulder, where his sudden growth had outpaced his skin's ability to keep up.

As Rachel stared down at him, Greg suddenly felt more naked than he ever had before; he felt brutal, and marred, and ugly, and he wanted desperately to pull the cast off shirt back over his torso, hiding the scars, the hair.

The moment stretched interminably until Rachel finally nodded, as if to herself, and then leaned down and very slowly, deliberately, licked one of his nipples.

Greg grunted at the surge of sensation that came with that simple action, shocked at the intensity of it. He was no virgin. He'd been with girls before, but this was . . . insane. His head swam dizzily as Rachel gently pulled him back into the position they'd been in before, and resumed kissing him, her hands now playing across his naked chest. Occasionally, she would draw her nails across his stomach, wrenching a shuddering grunt from him; he could almost swear that he felt her laughing quietly into his mouth every time she did it.

It was almost unbearable. Greg didn't know where this was going, or how far. He trembled on the brink of completion at several points, fighting the urge to pull her against him, and grind his throbbing length against her until he spilled over.

Rachel, meantime, seemed to be either indifferent to, or actively enjoying his discomfort. Any time he started to move his hand from her hip, or try to pull her toward him, or respond to a kiss, she would break away and freeze him with a sharp look and a stern word. Greg was suspended in a silent, screaming delirium of frustrated desire.

Finally, Rachel paused for a moment, wrapping her arms around her younger brother's neck and shoulders, and pressing her lips against his ear. "Ok," she whispered softly. "We're going to try something else now. And you're going to have to follow my lead, OK? Think of it like," she paused, searching for the right words, "like dancing. I can't walk you through every step, or it won't work, but if you pay attention, you'll know what I'm asking, and you can follow. Can you do that?"

Greg had no idea what she was asking him, really, but he gave a mute nod.

Rachel ducked her head again, pressing her face into the warm skin of his chest. She dragged the nails on her left hand up and down his arm, from shoulder to wrist, and back again. Her left leg was still thrown up and over his right hip, and his hand still rested on her hip, where she had placed it.

Now, moving with deliberate slowness, she encircled his wrist with her long, cool fingers, and drew it upwards, bending his elbow until her own hand lay behind his. She curled her fingers, forcing his fingers to move too. "You're going to give me a hand," she murmured into his chest, and then stifled a giggle.

Greg's eyebrow twitched quizzically, but he stayed silent as she took his hand and stroked it down along the line of her hip. Immensely excited, his heart hammered away in his chest, and his breathing grew faster. Rachel moved his hand along her thigh in gentle strokes, then raised it and brushed it along the side of her face, touching her ear and lips and jawline.

She bit gently at his forefinger, and then kissed him as she moved his hand down along her body, stroking her side, the edge of her ribcage, and then bringing his hand to rest on her left breast. She curled his fingers around her breast, squeezed gently, and then stroked the pad of his thumb across her hardening nipple, where it pushed through the thin fabric of her shirt.

Greg's pulse was hammering in his head, but he was focused enough to see that Rachel's eyes were almost closed, her lips parted and breath coming faster. He could see a faint pulse throbbing in her throat, and there was a rosy flush creeping through her cheeks. She drew Greg's hand from her breast and, squirming about slightly so that she could get both hands around his wrist and hand, she brought his hand to her mouth.

The purple cupid's bow of Rachel's lips split, her warm breath puffing out across his hand, where she held it between their faces, cupped between her own slender, pale fingers. Her breath smelled vaguely peppery, like dry summer grass.

She sculpted his hand with her own, then, closing it into a fist that left only his first two fingers free. With a small, hungry sound, she drew his fingers into her mouth.

Her eyes opened into his as saliva flooded her mouth, engulfing his fingers with a warm, slippery heat. She fastened her gaze insistently on him as her tongue pushed and probed, squeezing his fingers against her palate. Then she closed her eyes, and with a soft moan, tightened her grip and his hand, forcing his fingers deeper into her mouth, until his knuckles scraped against her teeth.

Greg fought gamely for control . . . and lost. The band of muscle under his balls spasmed, his stomach muscles grew rigid, and his convulsing cock jetted what felt like a quarter cup of cum into the confines of his boxers.

Desperately embarrassed, he gritted his teeth, his head falling back slightly as he struggled to remain silent. He held back all sound except a slight grunting moan. Rachel seemed almost not to notice. When Greg regained enough composure to open his eyes again, he found her eyes still closed, her hands cupped around his, her dark lips wrapped around his fingers still, sucking busily as her tongue slathered his fingers with hot saliva.

Greg watched with a certain post-coital detachment: slightly self-conscious about the rapidly cooling jism plastering his boxers to his thigh, but mainly caught up in watching Rachel. Again, he found himself marveling at how beautiful she was.

'Snow White,' he thought to himself. That short and fluffy black hair, the dark, dark eyes, the oh so pale skin. 'She looks like Snow White.'

But he was no Prince Charming, he realized, following the train of thought along its metaphoric rails. And he knew, then, how this would end. Felt the inevitability of it like a sudden weight upon his heart, squeezing the breath from him. It was all he could do not to cry out in anger and despair, not to grab Rachel, and shake her, and make her see it too.