Welcome to Chapter 31! Looks like Church and Shawn are finally gonna get their bath. I hope it's hot enough for them...and for you!
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31
Those That Will, and Those That Won't
I sank into the steaming water in the stone tub that was actually behind the waterfall. It felt great on my tired muscles. Shawn got in opposite me. The tub, really more of a pool, was big enough for both of us to sit with our legs stretched out toward each other, and our feet just didn't touch. It was deep enough to cover Shawn's shoulders. He'd set towels, soap, our clothes, and a light source on a dry rock ledge above the pool.
The light looked like a glowing coffee mug. It filled the semi-cave with soft, diffused light and added to the ambiance. The waterfall streamed, the water lapped the rocks, steam wafted from the water's surface, and the light glowed on everything, including Shawn's flushed face. I erected a dome barrier over the pool. It blocked the sound of the waterfall, which was a shame, but the steam it held fogged the barrier like it was a glass shower wall. Instead of a pool behind a waterfall, we were transported to a private luxury sauna.
"How do you feel?" I asked.
Shawn sighed a deep, tension-releasing sigh. "I found the definition of `heaven' in your memories. I think this is it."
I reveled in how good he felt and hoped my emotions were as soothing to Shawn as his were to me. "Anything I can do to add to the experience?" I asked.
He leaned back with his eyes shut. "Too soon for that. I want to soak for a while."
"I meant, like a shoulder massage. I'm looking forward to playtime, but I want to soak first to."
Shawn picked his head up, his eyes luminous through the steam. "Anything?" He asked, his voice tentative.
"Sure."
"How about a foot rub?" He broke the water's surface with his left leg. I leaned toward it, stopped, and settled back against the rock. I wrapped my magic around his foot and ankle. He tensed as he felt the touch of my power, which was a fair reaction. After all, he'd just witnessed that same power handle a tree weighing several tons like it was a ball-bat. I stroked his foot to get him to relax. It worked. He sighed again and laid his head back. "Just be careful."
I got Shawn to lower his leg and show me the other foot. I wrapped my magic around his right, and he lowered it. I went to work on both. I rubbed and kneaded the soles and the tops like I had two pairs of hands massaging at the same time. I worked from his heels to his toes, flexed and massaged his ankles. I spent extra time with the calloused areas, working the heat of the water into the muscles and joints. I tried to quiet my mind and open myself to his emotions. I read his feelings, letting his pleasure guide my power. He relaxed completely and moaned. "Sooooo goooooood, aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh..."
I worked on Shawn's feet for a long time. He enjoyed the massage, and I enjoyed his pleasure. His relaxation, relaxed me. "Oohhhhh...you better stop or I'm going to fall asleep."
I stroked his feet a few times and released the magic. He scooted back to sit up straighter, his elbows rested on the rim of the pool behind him, a sweet satisfied smile playing on his face. "That was amazing." He purred.
"I liked it to."
"When you do that, how much can you feel?"
I opened my mouth to answer but paused when I felt something through my magic that I didn't expect. I felt a pair of hands and the scratch of a close beard on the dome barrier I'd erected over the bath. I raised my eyes to where I felt Bem trying to peep on us, to make certain it was impossible to see through the fogged barrier. I reassured myself that it was and mentally wished Bem a `nice try.' I went back to what I was getting ready to say to Shawn. "I can feel everything I touch. Small things I can feel all at once, large things, like the tree, I have to focus on different parts of it to experience them."
As if to illustrate my point just to me, Bem started crawling over the dome barrier, dragging his face on the magic as he went. I assumed he was looking for a hole in the fog. I once again double checked the fog to make certain Bem wouldn't be able to see through it and went back to my conversation with Shawn.
While my attention had been momentarily distracted, Shawn's eyes had widened and flashed, then narrowed to sensuous slits. He felt curious and naughty. "The implications of that, of you being able to feel so much, are...interesting." He murmured.
I got an idea of what he was thinking and agreed with him. "I thought about what it would be like to wrap my magic around all of you."
An erotic shiver went through him. "We'll have to...uh...maybe when we get home, after you've had more time to practice. For now, you just made me feel amazing. What can I do for you?"
"Come over here and let me touch you. My hands miss your body." I scooted forward off the side of the pool. Shawn closed the distance between us and moved to sit on my lap facing me, his legs around my waist. We kissed. He leaned back, offering his beautiful torso to me. I touched and kissed and explored, tracing my tongue over the topography of his chest and stomach. I teased his soft pink nipples and licked and gently bit the base of his ribcage where the arched bone gave shape to the top of his flat stomach.
I surprised him by raising his arms, one at a time and burying my face in each of his pits to breathe his scent and lick the saltiness of the tender skin. Shawn felt desired and lusty and naughty and nasty and sexy as I made my slow tour of his body, using all my senses to enjoy him. He shook with pleasure while I burned with need. We came together, joined our individual passion into a single fiery lust as we basked in each other and our own, steamy, private world. Bem remained on the dome, held on the outside of my magic while I reveled on the inside.
Shawn and I fucked and washed, then fucked and washed again. We took turns topping and bottoming, the sessions equal in all respects. Sometime during the proceedings, Bem gave up and slid off the magic dome, presumably to return to camp so we wouldn't catch him when we finished. Shawn and I dried each other off and dressed in the robes that Shawn had bought on our last day at the hotel.
We crossed the cool clearing to join Neb and Bem by the crackling fire. We'd cooked in the water for so long, Shawn looked like a boiled lobster. I guessed I looked the same. We sat together on a chunk of tree to warm ourselves on the dry heat of the flames. Bem huffed and glared like a spoiled child denied his way. "You were in the bath over two hours." He crabbed.
I snaked an arm around Shawn and rubbed his upper arm through the terry cloth. "And you had your face pressed to the barrier for most of that time." Bem put the overused, innocent look back on his face. "Did not."
"Well, I felt someone trying to look in." I said to the group. "Neb told me earlier, that large men do nothing for her. Shawn is large-ish and I'm a side-show freak, so I don't see her being interested." I used my eyes to ask Neb to confirm my assertion.
Neb dragged her disinterested face from a tablet she was reading. "Not in the slightest." She said and went back to reading. "Even if you two were my type," she added, "I don't pursue men who aren't attracted to women. It's pointless."
"It would be in my case." I admitted to no one's surprise.
"And mine." Shawn agreed.
"And..." I continued, "I felt the scratch of someone's close beard on the barrier. Unless Neb managed to grow a beard, try to peep on us, and shave her beard, all in the last two hours, I'm gonna say it wasn't her."
Bem pouted and huffed some more. Neb set her tablet down, said `goodnight' and retired to her tent. Shawn thought that going to bed sounded like a good idea. I agreed but asked him to go ahead of me. He went to our tent, leaving Bem and I alone. "Can I talk to you?" I asked him.
Bem nodded a grudging, silent nod. I moved my piece of tree next to his and sat beside him. "You seem to be taking our unwillingness to have sex with you very personally tonight. Why?"
"I thought you wouldn't because you were staying with him, and it wasn't convenient, small apartment or whatever. Now we're all in the same place and you and him did, but not with me. It's insulting."
"My refusal has nothing to do with you."
Bem turned the glare on me again. "I know it's not Shawn. He's from here."
"You're right, it's not him. It's me."
"Yeah, well what's your problem with me?"
I hesitated. Explaining the issue would expose an awful lot of me. I didn't want to, but I knew we needed to be a team and any kind of resentment put that in danger. I pulled my watch off and stretched it between my hands. "My problem is me. I'm self-conscious about my body, I have crippling performance anxiety, and I've only been doing this for two weeks. I'm not ready."
Bem's glare became a look of curiosity. He inclined his head in my direction. "What have you been doing for two weeks?" He asked.
"Having sex."
"You mean having sex with Shawn."
"No, with anyone." I closed the watch in my fist and looked away from Bem in embarrassment.
"I don't understand."
I rubbed my neck with my free hand and tried to explain. "Earth isn't like here. I was taught same-sex relationships were wrong, disgusting. When I was in high school, I had three disastrous experiences with women while I tried to convince myself to like women. When I got out of high school, the pressure to be like everyone else was less, so I didn't have to pretend anymore, but I didn't have the courage to be who I was. I watched a lot of porn...like...a lot. Two weeks ago, I met Shawn and two days later I had my first experience with a man and my first experience with a partner in twenty-two years. I think you're attractive. I'd like to...you know...with you. But I'm not ready and Shawn knows not to pressure me. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't either."
Bem was so quiet, I had to look to make sure he was still there. When I did, I saw that his face wore the strangest expression, puzzled and sad and something else. "Why were you alone for so long?" He asked.
"A lot of reasons."
"I apologize." He said and sounded like he meant it.
I slipped my watch back on and felt better that he understood. "You don't need to be sorry. I just don't want you to be upset with me. I said I want to, and I do. I know it's part of the culture here and I think it's great. I can't figure out how to be OK with it yet, to make it OK with all the crap in here." I pointed to my right temple with my index finger. "I need some time."
Bem jumped up, all smiles and excitement. "That means we will, but not right now. That's fine. I can wait. I mean, I can't wait, but I can. It's going to be great. Shawn is a lot of man, but you...and both of you at once...that's like man overload!" Bem prodded me to stand. "You need to go. Go to bed. I'm so excited and bothered. Go before I lose control. Goodnight."
I went as Bem directed, climbed in the tent, and laid down with Shawn. He snuggled against me. "Everything good?" He asked.
"I may have fucked up, but I'm not sure. I can't think about it. How about we just sleep?"
Shawn kissed me `goodnight' and put me out.
I woke before dawn and climbed out of the tent. The morning was cool. I raked the ashes from the fire ring and started a small fire to warm myself. Above the crackling of damp kindling, I heard the swishing sound of steps in healthy grass. I looked up to see Neb approaching camp from the clearing. She was dressed for the day and had a white towel wrapped around her head. In her hands was the paraphernalia of bathing. She stopped at her tent, said some muffled words to Bem, and came to stand by the fire.
She held her hands out toward the flames. "I don't know what you said to him last night, but I thank you for it."
I didn't respond to Neb's words because I didn't know what she was talking about. Bem came out of his tent and stopped to warm himself. He carried clothes and a towel and was dressed only in what I took to be black bikini briefs. His normally perfectly styled hair was a tangled mess. His body shown with dried perspiration. He yawned and stretched his wiry, slimness. His was a toned, tan body; a runner's build, evenly coated with light, straight body hair. When I first laid eyes on him at The HALL, I'd pegged his age in his mid-thirties. His impressive fitness shoved the clock backwards to twenty-seven or eight. He wished us a good morning.
Neb snapped the waistband of his underwear with a curious finger. "Are those mine?" She asked.
"Yes, I couldn't find mine."
"You weren't wearing any."
Bem yawned again and smacked his lips. "That's right. I forgot. Anyway, bath time." He headed across the clearing toward the waterfall.
I watched Bem retreat and admired his lean ass that somehow filled the back of the bikini bottoms he was wearing. When he got too far away for me to see detail, I shifted my gaze to Neb. She must have felt the scrutiny because she turned her whole body to me. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
I wanted to ask but didn't know how without actually asking. Saying `did he fuck you?' seemed coarse. "Uh...did...uh...what...uhm...did you and him...I don't..."
She unbuttoned the cuffs of her overshirt and rolled the sleeves up. "I assume you want to know if he and I had sex last night. The answer is yes. That's what I thanked you for, for whatever you did to him that turned him on. He's good at it to. You and Shawn should take him up on his offer. Might learn something." Neb finished with her sleeves and moved toward the folding table.
"You want coffee?" She asked as she reached into the rations crate to rifle through the boxes. She drew a round canister from the crate and waved it at me. "Church, coffee, or no?"
I nodded like the dumbfounded idiot I felt like. I dropped my face in my hands and rubbed it savagely. "I'm never gonna get used to this place; never, never, never." I said to my palms.
Shawn got up a few minutes later. I said something to him about Neb and Bem. He was surprised that I was surprised. I let it drop. It was clear the difficulty, or more appropriately, lack of understanding, was all on my side. `Good for them.' I decided.