Listed: Volume II (10 page)

It
was Paul’s voice she heard.

Poor
Paul. She wished he wasn’t so upset.

*
* *

It was dark in the room
when Emily opened her eyes.

And
her body—blessedly—didn’t hurt.

She
wasn’t hot. She was actually a little chilly, and she felt sore and exhausted.
But she realized her fever must be gone because she felt so incredibly better.

She
dared to move her head to the side, and her eyes landed on the clock. It said 3:47.
It was dark in the room, so it must be the middle of the night.

She
had no idea what day it was. She was so hungry it felt like her stomach was
trying to gnaw its way out of her body.

Feeling
even more daring, she rolled onto her side, and she realized for the first time
that she wasn’t alone in the room.

Paul
was slouched in the chair—that same chair where he’d been sitting the last time
she’d been aware of seeing him. Except this time he wasn’t watching her.

He
was asleep.

He
was slumped down in the seat, his legs stretched out in front of him. He wore
the same black trousers he’d been wearing before, but now he had on a gray
t-shirt. His head was tilted to the side, resting against the back of the
chair, and his chest rose and fell slowly with his breathing.

She
wondered how long he’d been sitting there. It was so strange to see him asleep.

In
addition to the hunger, Emily became aware of another major discomfort in her
body.

She
needed to get to the bathroom right away.

She
tried to sit up and was thrilled when her head didn’t spin. She felt incredibly
weak, but no hot flashes or bone-deep aches.

She
drank a quick gulp of water because her mouth was so dry. Then she started to
stand up.

She
gasped when she realized she was naked.

She
seemed to know vaguely that Paul had been forced to give her a bath, which must
explain what happened to her clothes, but she was still horribly self-conscious
about the idea of his seeing her naked, especially under such conditions, when
she’d been so sick and so entirely helpless.

She
pushed the self-consciousness aside, however. Peeing was more important. She
found her tank, panties, and shorts on the floor near the bed, and she managed
to grab them and pull them on.

She
swayed a little when she first stood up, but it was from weakness, not from
dizziness. After a moment, she was stable enough to walk to the bathroom.

She
felt much better after she’d gone, and then she felt even better when she
splashed water on her face.

Her
hair was a wreck—the two ponytails were lopsided and half undone with tangles
lining the sides of her face.

She
pulled out the elastics and brushed her hair, and it felt incredibly good. She
pulled it back into little low ponytails again, since her hair was kinked in
horrible ways from water and perspiration.

Feeling
almost revived, she started to leave the bathroom. Gave a gasp of shock when
she collided with Paul.

“Are
you all right?” he demanded, taking her shoulders gently in his hands to
stabilize her.

She
managed to smile at him. “Yeah. I’m better.”

Something
tense in his expression relaxed in a rush of relief, and the sight of that
relief touched Emily deeply.

So
deeply she raised a hand to her chest, since it hurt so much.

“What
day is it?” she asked, to distract herself and because she really wanted to
know.

“It’s
just early Monday morning. You were sick for about twenty hours. You really
feel all right now?” He put a hand on her forehead to check.

She
couldn’t begrudge the gesture. She couldn’t resent it like she normally did.
And she returned his smile when he realized she was no longer feverish.

“I
know it’s a bad time,” she said, “But I’m about to starve to death.”

He
gave a huff of amusement and put an arm around her waist to help her back to
the bed. She didn’t need his support, but she didn’t pull away. “Get back in
bed, and I’ll go find you something. I actually haven’t had much to eat
either.”

She
wondered if he'd had anything to eat at all.

She
crawled back into bed, and lying down actually felt really good. So did the soup,
evidently warmed up in the microwave, and the sandwich Paul brought into the
room for her.

He
ate in his chair, and she ate propped on her bed. They didn’t talk much, but
Emily enjoyed it.

As
Paul was collecting the dishes, Emily said, “Now I’m going back to sleep.
Please go take a shower and get some sleep yourself. You look terrible.”

He
did look terrible. He was pale, his hair stuck out in all directions, and there
were shadows under his eyes. A day’s growth of beard darkened his jaw, and he
smelled like he could really use a shower.

He
promised he would, and he reached over one more time to feel her forehead.

“I’m
really fine now, Paul. Thanks….” Her voice cracked on the word. She was
suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude and mortification both.

She
hated
to be helpless. And she particularly hated that it was Paul who
had witnessed her so helpless.

But
he must have been with her the whole time, trying so hard to take care of her.

“Thank
you so much,” she managed to say, taking a breath and babbling a little from
her weakness and self-consciousness. “I really appreciate all you did for me. I
never expected it. I mean, it wasn’t something I would have thought of as your
responsibility. I knew, when I got sicker, that I would need a nurse or
something. But I never expected that
you
would do all of it yourself. So
it means a lot. I mean, I didn’t know you would be…
be
here the whole
time.”

She
finally broke herself off, realizing with a flush of heat what an absolute ditz
she’d sounded. Maybe she could blame it on the fever.

Paul
had just been watching her quietly. She couldn’t really read his expression.
Before he turned to leave the room, he said, “Where else would I be?”

Paul woke up hard.

It
wasn’t an unusual occurrence. He hadn’t had sex in a while, and his body didn’t
appreciate the deprivation. He almost always woke up hard, but it was easy
enough to just take care of it in the shower.

This
morning was different, though. He didn’t wake up with the familiar dull ache in
his groin.

He
woke on the verge of climax.

He
might have been dreaming, although no details of any erotic dream lingered as
awareness slowly broke through the dark cloud of his mind. He wasn’t conscious
of anything except the deep throbbing of arousal and the intense urgency of his
need for release.

Still
half-asleep, he realized his hips were already working in shallow pumps, trying
instinctively to hump the mattress, and the only thing that seemed to matter
was that he get some sort of relief for that raw, desperate, pulsing ache.

Without
conscious volition, he slid his hand down and squeezed around his erection. He
heard a soft groan that must have come from him as the pressure of his hand
eased some of the painful tension. Still not fully awake, he squeezed
rhythmically and rocked his hips, knowing exactly what his body needed.

In
less than ten seconds, he came with another guttural sound.

He
gasped a few times against the pillow as his body relaxed, having gotten what
it demanded. Only then did he come to full consciousness.

He’d
just jerked off in bed under the covers, coming all over his pants like a horny
teenager.

Faintly
disgusted with himself, Paul reached over and grabbed a couple of tissues to
clean himself up. The bedside clock said it was 9:53, and he had no idea why he’d
slept so late into the morning.

At
least he hadn’t been dreaming about Emily or masturbating to mental images of
her. That would have been truly appalling.

Emily
.

All
of the softening of his body from his climax clenched up again in a flare of panic.
Emily. She’d been so sick yesterday. Desperately sick. And she might still need
him now.

While
he’d been sleeping unforgivably late and indulging in an adolescent grope
session.

Acting
on instinct, he jumped out of bed and hurried out of his room, quickly striding
over to Emily’s bedroom.

Her
door was open, and he stood staring blankly into her empty bedroom. Her bed was
unmade, and everything else looked the way it had last night when he’d left
her.

“Paul?”
he heard a familiar voice call out from the other side of the suite. “Are you
looking for me?”

He
followed the voice and found Emily in the kitchen. She wore sweats and a loose
t-shirt, and her hair was damp and pulled back at her neck. She was stirring
some sort of batter in a large bowl.

She
grinned at him as he stood like a moron in the entrance to the kitchen. “Hi!
Did you catch up on your sleep?”

“Are
you all right?” he asked, searching her face for signs of fever or pain. She
looked so much better than she had yesterday, without the clammy whiteness of
her skin and the agonizing pain in her eyes.

“Yeah,
I feel great! I slept late too. I just woke up a little while ago, actually.
It’s so nice to feel better that I thought I’d make you pancakes. I called down
and they brought me everything I needed.”

Paul
blinked. “You’re making me pancakes?”

“Well,”
she explained, lowering her eyes, “I was going to have some too.”

It
hurt Paul, even now, to think about how she’d suffered yesterday. And yet she
was standing here this morning and telling him that she was doing something
nice for
him
. He stared at her speechlessly.

“You
don’t have to eat them, if you don’t want. I can't claim to be the best chef in
the world.” She stirred her batter busily and wasn’t looking in his direction.

“Thank
you,” he managed to say.

It
must have been the right thing to say because she turned back to him with a
glowing smile.

She’d
suffered so much yesterday, and she had to know that her next two months would
be filled with even more suffering, even worse suffering.

He
had no idea how she was capable of smiling like that today.

Then
he noticed that her eyes shifted down from his face. Her gaze lingered briefly
on his chest before it slanted down to his bare feet and then up again.

Suddenly,
Paul was washed with a wave of hot self-consciousness. What if she could
somehow tell what he’d just been doing in bed?

And
he was still wearing nothing but pajama pants.

“I’m
going to put something else on,” he mumbled, “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t
you dare take the time to get all the way dressed,” she called after him.
“Pancakes will be ready in five minutes!”

Paul
took a one-minute shower to rid himself of the lingering feeling of having just
come.  Then he pulled on clean clothes—a black t-shirt and a pair of
jeans.

He
felt weirdly disoriented when he tried to think about the previous day. The
whole experience loomed at the edges of his consciousness like a dark,
agonizing void. Something lurched with panic inside him when he tried to
pinpoint any specific memories or feelings.

Twenty
hours of worry, fear, discomfort, and helpless attempts to make Emily better
blurred over into one gaping hole that threatened to swallow him up.

So
he forced it into a back corner of his mind—the same corner where he hid all
thoughts about his father—so he could return to the kitchen where Emily was
waiting for him.

The
only positive thing to come from yesterday’s experience was that Paul’s
wretchedly inappropriate sexual feelings about Emily—which had been spiraling
far out of control in the previous days—had evidently been snuffed out
completely.

Paul’s
thoughts of Emily had been so far from sexual yesterday that he didn’t think
the two could possibly exist simultaneously in his mind.  She’d been so
small and so sick and so completely helpless. Even when he’d taken her clothes
off and carried her writhing and naked to the tub, nothing remotely sexual had
even crossed his mind. And now, the vague memory of doing that hurt him, but
the visual of her naked body in such a context didn’t arouse him even in the
smallest way.

He
looked at her as he walked into the kitchen and carefully assessed his body’s
reaction. She looked young with her baggy clothes and damp hair as she puttered
at the stove with her pancakes. He couldn't help but think about her yesterday
and didn’t feel even the faintest stirrings of physical interest.

It
was such a relief that he released a thick sigh. He was going to take care of
Emily—he cared about her a lot now and she was his responsibility. But it would
be so much easier to do so if he could keep remembering her helplessness and
her vulnerability rather than be bombarded with guilty, erotic thoughts that
should always be forbidden.