The Making of a Gigolo (14) - Erica Bradford

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

Chapter Nine

Erica lay in bed. She wasn't sleepy and, for once, she wasn't horny. She had gotten up and just left her brother. His last word: "Please!" rang in her head.

Her mind had calmed, while she lay there, unable to sleep, still in her robe. Her anger had faded to a dull ache that, while she didn't realize it, was associated with her general wish that things hadn't happened the way they had.

It wasn't just her brother. She wished her parents hadn't died. She wished Billy - Will, she reminded herself - hadn't been disfigured. She wished she had been able to make it work in Chicago. For all her high-minded ideals, she had little to show for them. Her father had helped her with all the projects she had won ribbons for. Men had helped her learn the skills to teach.

The thing that seemed to shout her defeat, as a woman, was that her own little brother had thought sexual things as he spied on her. But she was also acutely aware that he wasn't proud of what he'd done. He didn't boast about it or make fun of her. The pain in his voice had had nothing to do with his broken body. He knew he had hurt her by admitting the truth.

Why had he done that? She thought about that for a while. He hadn't had to admit that. He had risked, at least as far as he was concerned, being thrown out of her house. That was ridiculous. It wasn't her house. It was their house. They were family. They were all that were left of the Bradfords.

Her mind jarred to a stop. That was true! All their other relatives were from her mother's side. When Will died ... there would be no more men ... or women ... who called themselves by that name.

Now she glimpsed the pain and longing she had heard when he talked about that too. It wasn't that strong in her, but she began to understand it. He had lost everything when the war had taken his body. He had life left, but nothing to look forward to. Not in terms of children ... and carrying on the family name.

She realized, for the first time, that his physical injury was the least of his problems. Without dreams ... plans ... how could any human being, man or woman, look forward to life? She had walked out on him ... left him there alone.

She got up without thinking. The lights were off, but she didn't need them. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand, and the glowing dial with the short hand just past the three and the long hand at the five. It didn't matter. She had to do this now. She could never sleep if she didn't.

She went to his room and opened the door, not trying to be quiet.

"Will?" she said, her voice almost at a normal pitch.

"Yes?" He was still awake too. His voice sounded dull.

She went to the bed and sat down on the edge again. He was under the covers now, but his head and shoulders were above them. She leaned, to place one hand on the smooth, soft skin of his right shoulder, and the other on the hard ruined skin of his left. She put her face right in front of his, and in her mind's eye she saw the line that separated the two halves of his face.

"I love you," she whispered. "We're family. That's all that matters."

His sob almost broke her heart and she hugged him. Her face came down on the ruined neck, but she didn't recoil. That was part of him too, now. The ruined lump that had been his left ear was still his left ear and she kissed it. Then she turned his head and kissed his good cheek as his relief found exit from his body through sobs.

"I'll try to stop," he moaned, as his right hand came to her hair and stroked it.

"You don't have to," she said. "It's okay. It's not hurting anything."

She had to hold him for fifteen more minutes before he could stop crying. Then, and only then, did she feel like she could go back to her room.

When you enter a phase where you examine your life and reevaluate your goals, there can be a number of outcomes. You can decide that you've been a failure, and that it's no use trying any longer. You can decide that you haven't done as well as you wished, and try harder. You can decide that things haven't gone like you wanted them to, and alter your goals, to see if new ones might be reachable. You can decide that it's someone else's fault that you aren't where you wanted to be. You can celebrate your successes, and ignore your failures. There are many other possible outcomes, but you get the idea. It's complicated.

It is the complicated nature of human beings, though, that makes them so interesting. Any given wild animal can be watched, and very little happens that will surprise the experienced observer. But no matter how long you study humans, you never quite know what to expect.

For Erica Bradford, as she went to school the next day, it was as if her life was a closed box that had been turned upside down and shaken. It still had all the parts and pieces in it ... they were just rearranged a bit. Thankfully, nothing had been broken, though some things were a little the worse for the wear.

Though it didn't show on the surface - not right away, at least - there had been changes in the way she thought about things. Her brother was an example. After leaving him, and knowing that he was no longer afraid, she had more or less decided that if she loved him - and she did - then she would just accept him as he was. That meant she didn't have to worry about what he did in his dark room any more. It didn't matter what he did. She loved him. Period.

Not worrying about something frees the soul, somehow. That part did show as Erica walked into the school. There was a smile on her face, and when a teacher nodded at her, she said "Good morning, George." It was a simple thing, really, but it was a simple thing George Turner had never seen this woman do before. She didn't flirt, or look back at him, as men sometimes hope a beautiful woman will do, and he instinctively understood she was just being friendly. His image of this woman underwent a subtle shift from, "Ice queen bitch, with a cob stuck up her ass," to ... well something a little softer.

That improved attitude interested her students as well, which led them to actually listen to her, at least for a few more sentences than they usually did.

When she sat down next to Ted Brandywine at lunch, he still stiffened. Then, trying to be polite, he said, "I saw Bobby, the other day. He said something about your brother coming to live with you."

"Yes," said Erica. "It's sad, really, but we're going to try to make it better."

"Sad?" Ted looked confused.

"About his physical condition," said Erica.

"I'm sorry," said Ted, regretting saying anything at all. "Bobby didn't say anything about there being anything wrong."

"Oh," said Erica, her eyebrows rising. "He was badly injured in the war. Very badly."

"That's too bad," said Ted. "Do you need anything ... any help, I mean?" He almost groaned. Offering to help this woman was an invitation for a lecture on how women didn't need a man to make things work.

"Bobby's building us a wheelchair ramp," said Erica, looking at her plate like she was trying to figure out what the food items actually were. "I think we'll be okay after that. I need to think of some way to give him something to do, though. Right now he's just sitting at home. I'd be bored to death."

"Yeah," said Ted, amazed that she was acting just like anybody else. "I'll think about that," he hazarded.

"Good," she said. "By the way, thanks for talking to Bobby about the sets. He's been very helpful."

"You're welcome," said Ted weakly. He'd watched the Twilight Zone on TV just last night, and was wondering if maybe he had entered it.

That feeling persisted as lunch continued without a single lecture.

Erica's thoughts about Bobby Dalton were not quite as cut and dried as they were when it came to her brother. Bobby was not her brother, and she didn't love him. He was a problem, insofar as he plagued her dreams, and she couldn't get him out of her mind when she lay down in bed. Well, except for last night, anyway. It hadn't been a problem then.

So when, after school, she saw him in the auditorium, already working with two girls on one of the double sided sets, her feelings were somewhat complicated. Part of what complicated them was that there were four boys there too. But they were watching, while the girls wielded hammers. Bobby wasn't doing the work. He was supervising the girls. As she approached, she saw that Melody Murcheson was trying to pound a nail, but it kept bending. Bobby patiently showed her now to use the claws on the hammer to straighten it, and then told her why the nail was bending, and how to hit it so it wouldn't bend.

"I can't do this," Melody complained.

"Sure you can," said Bobby. "Look at Carla. She's doing fine."

Melody frowned and then tried again. The nail went home firmly.

"I did it!" she said excitedly.

"Now do five more," said Bobby, pulling a pencil from his pocket. "Right here ..." He drew an X on the wood. "And here ... and here ..." He drew four more Xs.

"Okay," said Melody happily.

Bobby turned around and saw Erica.

"If you don't need me here, I'm almost done with the ramp. I might be able to get it done tonight."

With a peculiar feeling, Erica said: "There's no hurry. I don't know where I'd take him anyway."

Bobby looked surprised, but not for long.

"I have an idea about that too ... if you're interested."

She waited for him to go on.

"I have a friend, also in a wheelchair, not quite as bad as Will, but similar. I thought the two of them might have enough in common to ... I don't know ... socialize, I guess?"

"And what am I supposed to do while they ... socialize?" she asked.

"Jake is married," said Bobby. "Tilly, his wife, is about your age. She's a nice woman, and you need to get out and meet people anyway."

"And why is that?" she asked archly.

"Because nobody I mention you to knows you," he said. "And Will needs to get out too. If he's going to live here, he needs to know folks."

"He's not going to want to meet people, Bobby. You know that."

"People are going to find out about him sooner or later," said Bobby. "Sure, they'll be all weird when they first meet him, but they'll get used to it eventually. He can't just hide in the house for the rest of his life."

"I'll talk to him about it," said Erica.

Nashville, Tennessee is just like any other town a week into December. There were decorations up everywhere, and Christmas music playing. Commerce flew along as people shopped for just the right presents. Everybody was excited.

Everybody, that is, except one up-and-coming music star.

Misty Compton sat on the toilet, staring at the shower curtain. She didn't know what to do. She was officially two weeks late. Late wasn't the right word any more, really. She had skipped a period. She stared at the packet of pills in her hand. She'd taken them religiously, had started them as soon as Bobby had said he'd come to Nashville for the awards ceremony.

She couldn't be pregnant. She was on the pill!

She didn't need this. If she was pregnant, her mother would be furious with her. People would talk. They might quit coming to hear her sing. And this was on top of that damn reporter, who had actually bought the seating chart for the awards banquet from the organizers. They'd sold it for three thousand dollars!

And on that seating chart were the words "Bobby Dalton" ... right next to the words "Misty Compton".

It had splashed on the news, but as far as she could tell, only the TV stations in Nashville had carried it. It was only interesting on a regional basis. Part of her wanted to feel proud that anybody would even care, much less pay three thousand dollars to find out who he was.

She sighed. That was the good part. They had his name, but they didn't know where he came from. She had weathered the initial storm when his name broke. Her answer to every shouted, "Who is Bobby Dalton?" had been "Just a friend, thank you." Eventually they had lost interest.

That might change when her belly started to swell.

If she was actually pregnant.

December in the Bradford residence was a more sedate kind of existence. The ramp had been finished, but Erica still hadn't taken Will anywhere. He said he wasn't bored, though she knew he was just watching soap operas on TV, which would have driven her insane.

He had asked for a card table, and a jigsaw puzzle. The first one she got him was five hundred pieces, and he put it together while she was at school one day. She got him a thousand piece puzzle next. That one took him a couple of days, but he said he wasn't pushing it.

Tonight she intended to shake up his world. She had mentioned his interest in puzzles in the teacher's lounge, and Shirley Henderson had said she had a whole stack of them left over from when she and her husband had been heavily into doing them. Shirley said Erica was welcome to them. Four of them turned out to be five thousand piece puzzles. Not only that, they were hard ones. There were two seascapes, with sailboats in them, which were hard enough, at least as far as Erica was concerned. But the one of a table covered in gold coins was the one that got her excited. That one and another table piled high with various kinds and colors of dice cubes. They both looked completely impossible to Erica. She knew that Will would be intrigued.

She waited until after dinner to show him.

"Wow!" he said, looking at the boxes. "This is incredible."

"Do you like them?" she asked anxiously. "I mean they look really hard to me."

"They're perfect," he said. "At last, a real challenge."

"Ohhhh good," sighed Erica. "I so wanted you to be happy."

He twisted in his chair, to look at her.

"You've always made me happy," he said. "I can't believe how lucky I am."

Later, after they had worked on the first puzzle together, spending two hours and only just getting the border done, as she lay in bed, those words came back to Erica. She marveled that Will could consider himself lucky in any way. If that had happened to her, she'd just give up and die. She knew that ... could feel it in her bones. But he was adapting ... finding joy in life wherever he could.

She closed her eyes. She was used to what would happen now. That was another thing that had subtly altered inside her after her long night of epiphany a few weeks ago. She had fought the feelings as her body betrayed her. And she had fought the image of Bobby Dalton in her mind, in the dark, as her hands sought her nipples, and between her legs. After adjusting to her brother's nocturnal ... relaxation ... she had also decided to stop worrying about her own desires. It didn't do any good anyway. As hard as she tried, she still got horny, and as hard as she tried, she still couldn't keep that bare glistening chest from her mind. He would never know she thought about him ... so what was the harm?

And, as she stopped feeling guilty about it ... she began to enjoy it.

Now, as she had done for over a week, she just enjoyed the buildup, knowing that in a few minutes, the streaks of pleasure would suffuse her body, and she'd be able to go to sleep.

It was a good orgasm, at least as far as she was concerned. She felt good ... relaxed ... comfortable.

Her thoughts went to Will. She could imagine him peering through a tiny hole in the wall, his hand moving at his groin, and it didn't make her mad any more. Knowing he had done that for years, and that he had never let on, and she had never had the slightest inkling, made it all seem surreal to her.

She wondered if his release tonight had been as good as hers. She hoped so. He deserved that. She lay on top of her bed, her robe open and legs still spread, and her fingers idly stroked her labia. She stared at the wall that separated her from her brother.

Suddenly, her eyes opened wide and she froze. What if he'd done it again?

She peered at the wall, which had a complicated patterned wallpaper on it. There could be a hole there, and she'd never know it. She got up and went to the wall. Then, tying her robe around her, she padded barefoot to his room. She knocked, this time, and then opened the door. He was still in his clothes, lying back on the bed and reading, one handed. He looked over at her with a question on the right side of his face.

She stopped, feeling suddenly foolish.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"Come on," he said, putting the book down.

"It's stupid," she said. "I feel stupid."

"Why?" he asked.

He'd told her his secret. He'd exposed his soft, white underbelly to her and she could have ripped it open.

"I suddenly got scared that you'd drilled another hole in the wall," she said, flushing dark red.

"That's not stupid," he said.

She blinked.

"Sure it is," she said.

"Not at all," he said. "I wish I'd thought of that."

"Will!" she gasped.

Now the right corner of his mouth went up.

"You're still beautiful, Sis. Even more now than you were then."

Erica Bradford had heard men tell her she was beautiful before. When that had happened in the past, she had heard something in their voices ... something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. There was a quality to those men's voices that had sounded greedy somehow, an oily kind of tone that made her feel like she needed to take a shower. Part of it may have been their eyes, which were invariably fastened on her chest. She remembered that tone well. It was the tone of pure lust. She remembered only too well how that had made her feel.

What shocked her now, was the fact that that tone was completely absent from Will's voice. And his eyes were on her face ... not her breasts. It wasn't the hairs on the back of her neck that stood up now.

It was the nipples under her robe.

"You really mean that," she said, with awe in her voice.

His smile disappeared.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was crude."

"No it wasn't," she said, feeling excitement in her gut. "You meant that as a real compliment."

"Well sure," he said, sounding very tentative.

Erica had another epiphany, at that moment. That Will felt some kind of desire for her was clear. She had adjusted to that already. She had thought it was strange that he'd fix that desire on his sister, instead of some girl outside the family, but his explanation for that had made sense too. He might get a glimpse of her, whereas other girls were beyond his sight. But the difference was that he loved her. It wasn't just lust at work in his mind. He cared about her. He didn't want to just rape her and then stalk off to find another woman to do the same thing with.

He had watched her for years ... soothing his urges with his eye pressed to a hole in a wall. He had felt properly bad about it. She had forgiven him for it.

But he still felt the same way.

Instead of revulsion, she felt something she usually only felt in her bed, when Bobby Dalton's chest swam into her mind and wouldn't leave. Will's face was ruined, not like the handsome face of the man who plagued her dreams. But Will loved her. The surge of emotion she felt made her knees weak. She went to the bed and sat down on the edge.

"Are you okay?" asked Will, concern in his voice. "You know I won't do that again ... don't you?" He shifted to roll toward her. "I know how much that hurt you. You don't have to worry."

She looked down at the only man she loved ... truly loved, and the only man she trusted too.

"You don't have to," she said softly.

He misunderstood.

"I'm trying hard to stop thinking about you," he said.

"That's not what I meant," she said. "Have you ... done that? Tonight?"

He could still blush.

"No," he said. "I've been trying not to do it so much."

"Why?" she asked. "I know it relaxes you."

"I know," he said. "But I also know you don't like it. You've been really nice about it, and I love you for that, but I know how you really feel."

"Maybe not," she said softly.

He looked confused.

"Do you want to do that?" she asked.

The right side of his face took on a look of anguish.

"You do, don't you. It's okay. I told you it was okay, Will."

"I know," he moaned. "But I know how you really feel."

"I've been thinking about that," she said. "All those years of you hiding in that closet, peeking at me and jerking off."

"I told you I was sorry," he moaned.

"I know," she said. "And I believe you. But it helped you too. You didn't go out and attack some poor girl because you were horny. You just looked at me. Isn't that right?"

He nodded, and a tear ran from his right eye.

She reached and wiped it away with her left thumb.

"I told you I wasn't mad, and I'm not," she said. "Would you think I was a slut if I let you ... see me again?"

"What?" He was clearly confused now.

"I said you didn't have to drill a hole in the wall," she said. "I love you too, and I want you to be as happy as you can be," she said. "I thought you might want to see me again ... like you used to."

"Naked?" His voice was barely a whisper.

She nodded.

His right eye went round, and his mouth sagged open until the tight skin on the left side stopped it.

"But I don't want you to think I'm a slut," she said, "like those women in Playboy."

"You're anything but a slut," said Will. She could hear his firm belief in that too. "But I don't understand. Why would you do that?"

"I told you. I want you to be happy."

"To be perfectly honest, I can be happy just remembering," he said. "You don't have to do that."

"Do you want to see me or not?" she asked.

It was quiet for a long time.

"Yes." Another tear rolled down his right cheek. She wiped that one away too. She stood up.

"Why don't you get ready, and I'll go comb my hair."

"Why?" he asked. "It looks perfect right now."

She smiled. "I didn't think you'd want to get undressed in front of me."

"You've seen my face," he said. "The rest of me isn't much worse."

"Okay," she said.

She didn't know what to do. She'd never done anything like this in her entire life. Part of her mind was screaming at her that this was crazy, as insane as it was possible to get, and told her to flee.

She didn't, though, because as he leaned against the bed, and his body became visible, her belief firmed that if any man deserved a little happiness in life, it was this one. His body was so ravaged, and it would always be ravaged. He deserved this, even if she was exploiting her own body to give it to him.

It turned out he was a little shy. When he got to his underwear he stopped.

"I'm ... um ... already stiff," he said.

"I'll take that as a compliment," she said. She was amazed to find that, in this situation, it felt like a compliment.

"I can't believe this," he sighed, getting onto the bed.

"Me either," she said. It caused her to giggle.

"Have you been drinking?" he asked.

"No."

"Cause if you've been drinking, you're not going to like this tomorrow," he suggested.

"You know I don't drink, Will."

He finally pushed his shorts down. It was a first for them both. Other women had seen his penis, but not like this. As for Erica, it was the first she had ever seen at all in real life. She was immediately amazed that it looked just like the ones in that terrible movie her girlfriends had shrieked over. She had expected it to be different, because he was different. She watched as his hand went around it. It looked like he was squeezing it.

She was jerked out of her reverie as she realized he was ready. As if she was in a dream, she let her fingers go to the knot on the belt of her robe. It came undone, and the robe started to spread. Her hand automatically pressed to keep it closed.

"Ohhhhh." His moan sounded painful to her ears.

For some reason she closed her eyes, as the fingers holding her robe closed slid to grasp an edge, and her other hand joined it. She felt the cool air flood against the front of her body as she held the robe open. Her nipples almost ached and demanded to be squeezed.

She couldn't do that, but she opened her eyes at his long, drawn out sigh. There was so much contentment in that sigh. He was staring straight at her breasts. Then his eyes seemed to bounce up and down, in time with his hand, as it began to jerk up and down so furiously that she was sure he must be hurting himself.

"Ahhhhhhhhh," he groaned.

She stood there, holding her robe open, feeling somewhat silly at first, but the sounds he made soon convinced her there was nothing silly going on in any way, shape, or form.

"Ohhhh, Errrricaaaa," he groaned.

The fountain of white that leapt from the tip of his penis shocked her. In that old movie, there had been spurts of something that looked white, and made drops appear on that woman's abdomen, or back ... even on her face. But this was a thick stream that shot into the air, then fell back to lay like a string across his wrist and part of his stomach. Then another string shot up, a little shorter than the first, and suddenly she couldn't see any more as his good leg pulled up, and the stump of his amputated leg stuck straight out, almost like some huge and grotesque penis that had suddenly taken the place of his real one.

Now the sounds he made sounded piteous and his ragged breath almost scared her. She had gone two steps closer, dropping the edges of the robe, before she realized she was even moving.

"Will?" she said, concern in her voice.

His ravaged face lifted. His eyes were wide open.

"Are you okay, Honey?"

"Oh damn," he sighed. "You have no idea how okay I am."

Relief flooded her. His eyes dropped and she realized her breasts were holding her robe apart. He licked his lips, which required him to run his tongue in a circle to cover both good flesh and bad.

"Thank you," he panted.

The sudden need inside her was so strong that she barely kept her hand from darting between her legs.

"I have to go now!" she said, and realized she was out of breath for some reason.

She didn't even make it back to her room. Instead, leaning against the wall, she masturbated, the fingers of her right hand flashing between her thighs, as the fingers of her left hand tortured her nipples. As she came, her knees gave way, and her butt slid down the wall, until she was sitting on the floor, her knees wide open, her fingers extending the pleasure between her thighs.

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