The Asian Blues - version Alpha

 The Asian Blues

Version Alpha

By Robert Lubrican

Bookapy Edition

Copyright 2023 Robert Lubrican

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, lend them your e-reading device. Otherwise, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Rights to cover art purchased at iStock.com

Table of Contents

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty | Twenty-one | Twenty-two | Twenty-three | Epilogue

 

Foreword

This story is written in two versions. In Version Alpha a young, Asian physical therapist helps a young man recover from a terrible accident. A side effect of his injuries is that he cannot relieve his own sexual stress and the therapist helps him. The young man's mother falls in love with a local policeman. In Version Bravo, both the young Asian woman and the young man's mother help him recover from the accident and see to his sexual needs.

Chapter One

Robert Eric Washington's life was fucked up. This was because Robert, called Bobby by his friends and mother was eighteen years old and had something called symptomatic epilepsy.

Symptomatic Epilepsy is diagnosed when there is a known cause for seizures, such as a head injury, brain infection, stroke, or because of scar tissue on the brain. In Bobby's case the head injury resulted from being hit by a car while he was riding his bike in a cul-de-sac in a suburb of Lawrence, Kansas. It was supposed to be safe because it was a nice area and it was a cul-de-sac. Nobody thought a drunk driver would be going forty-five miles an hour on a street that led to a cul-de-sac. Jessica French, however, was three times over the legal limit, both in speed and blood alcohol level. She had just gotten drunk at a weekly bridge party and had lost. She was angry and her driving showed it.

Bobby never had a chance to avoid the collision. He did not, in fact, even see it coming. He had used a three-foot-long piece of plywood and a milk crate to make a ramp and was trying to get some air on his bike. He did hear the car, just before it struck him, but he didn't have time to even turn his head and look. He did also get some air, but it wasn't the kind he had in mind. He was thrown fifteen feet before he impacted the short brick stand his family's mailbox was in. All the houses on the street had mail boxes like that. The part of his body that stopped his flight by hitting the mailbox stand was his head.

Jessica went on, crushing the bike, and then running into the corner of the house next door to the Washington home. Her airbag prevented any serious injury to her, but she was passed out when the paramedics got there.

Those same paramedics thought Bobby was dead, at first. His respiration rate, once they detected it, was eight breaths per minute. His pupils were fixed and dilated. His head was visibly misshapen.

At the hospital, surgeons decided to hold off operating to repair his broken skull because his brain was already swollen. Instead, they put him into a medically induced coma to let the swelling go down … assuming he didn't die. There were four doctors present during his evaluation. Three of them didn't think he'd live through the night. The fourth one was just an uncompromising optimist.

He did live through that night, and then the next one and the next one, but his prognosis didn't change, much. His tearful mother and stone-faced father were informed that their son would likely not survive, but that doctors were doing everything they could. Actually, the doctors weren't doing much at all, except covering his shaved head to try to keep bacteria out of his brain. The best bandage they had was his skin, which was holding things together and only actually split in one small place. That had been stitched up and was covered by a sterile dressing.

While Bobby slept, litigation took place. Roger Washington, Bobby's father, sued with a vengeance and was partially successful. The "partial" nature of the civil action will be explained later. The negotiations were long and hard core, involving projections of Bobby's estimated future earnings, the medical costs of his care, both in the hospital and out, and mental pain and suffering and on and on. Mrs. French's insurance company eventually settled by putting 18.2 million dollars into a trust fund for the injured youth. Funds could be accessed through an independent fund manager for his medical care, including any required medical services once he left the hospital – assuming he ever did – but the rest would remain untouched until he was twenty-one. The insurance company's lawyers believed the boy would die, which would give them a chance to ask the court to return the money to the company. The family would resist that, but there was a chance. The insurance company had nothing to lose and 18.2 million dollars to gain, less the cut that the lawyers would get. Roger and his wife Vicky took the deal because it would pay for his medical care, which had already created a bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile Jessica was charged, criminally, with Aggravated Battery while Driving Under the Influence and for causing property damage while driving drunk. It was her third DUI and the judge threw the book at her. Her attorney tried to get the photographs of Bobby's mangled body suppressed, but since it was a judge-only trial, there was no jury to posture in front of.

It took six months, but eventually the surgeons were able to do surgery to address brain damage caused by the impact and repair Bobby's skull. No one was surprised that he had begun having seizures, but medication seemed to minimize them. A month later they removed the ventilator and waited to see if he'd breathe on his own.

He did.

But he did not wake up.

He remained in a coma for two and a half more years, during which his parents fought and the marriage died. That's not unusual. Family trauma of this sort often leads to that outcome. Vicky Washington, his mother, hung in there, believing that her son would wake up and eventually come home, while his father took more long-haul trucking gigs, primarily to be away from home. Eventually he said he wanted a divorce and, since Roger Washington was the only parent who was employed, Vicky was awarded both alimony and child support. Roger felt that the child support the court ordered was unfair, since all Bobby's medical bills were being covered and his wife actually had no "child-related expenses." He therefore felt justified in making no payments whatsoever. As far as he was concerned, his ex-wife could get a job and support herself. After all, she had nothing to do all day because his broken son was sleeping in an extended care facility. One of the reasons they fought was because during the litigation that ended up creating a trust fund for Bobby, Roger's intent had been to get the money for himself, hence the "partial" success of the suit. Roger kept trying to figure out a way to get to some of those millions of dollars in his son's trust fund. One of the reasons he left was because it became clear to him he wouldn't see any of that money until Bobby was twenty-one and he wasn't willing to wait that long. By the time Bobby woke up, his mother had no idea where his father was and had not heard from him in over two years.

The house they were living in when Bobby got injured had mortgage payments of $1,700.00 per month. Vicky could no longer afford that. She had to move to a rental that was half the size and which would be considered "opulent" only in a third world country where the annual income was in the neighborhood of $1,700.00 per year. She got two part time jobs and spent as much time by her son's side as she could.

To be honest, everyone, medical staff and Vicky, were all astonished when Bobby opened his eyes one day and said, "I'm thirsty" in a voice that cracked and was so soft that the LPN who heard him had to ask him to repeat himself.

"I'm thirsty," he whispered again.

A flurry of activity ensued, but nobody brought him anything to drink, primarily because they weren't sure they should. It took another hour (during which Bobby said he was thirsty several more times) before a doctor ordered some apple juice for him. The patient hadn't had solid food for two and a half years, so his initial diet was all liquid. Two weeks later they gave him some soft food and got him sit up on the edge of the bed. During this time he had roughly seven to twelve seizures per day. His medication was adjusted and his seizures dropped to three or four a day.

During the next month he endured painful physical therapy until he could stand and walk twenty feet on his own. Only then was there talk of letting him go home. He was pale and thin, but was eating solid food again. He would need continued physical therapy to work on his atrophied muscles, but that could be done at home. His trust fund would cover the costs of in-home specialized care. When Vicky asked them what his prognosis was, in the extended future, the doctors shrugged and were honest.

"We don't know," they said. "If his epilepsy can be controlled, he might be able to live a fairly normal life. We'll know more in six months or so."

Red tape is pervasive and everywhere, and during the next two weeks some of it determined that Bobby was no longer entitled to stay in long term care. He could go home, where others could see to his medical needs. And so it was that Bobby Washington was put in a wheel chair and moved to his mother's fifteen-year-old sedan, where he slowly folded himself into the back seat and strapped himself in.

Nobody thought about how Vicky would get him out of the car and into her house, which would be a trip of some fifty feet. The paperwork to get the "in-home care" was still being shuffled by some minor bureaucrat, somewhere. Bobby could make it twenty feet across a tiled floor, but his hundred and ten pound body was much more difficult to move around if the surface was uneven, or if he had to go uphill or climb stairs. He had hated the physical therapy they tried to get him to engage in, in the long term care facility. He let them move his limbs, but he didn't try to build any strength. Now he paid for that.

Bobby's brain was scarred, but there was nothing wrong with his cognitive abilities. It's possible that, during his extended coma, his damaged sentience was restored, and his brain re-routed important brain functions around the damaged areas. Scientists think that's possible, but so little is known about the brain that almost everything is merely speculation. In any case, Bobby's IQ was still a solid 125. Ironic as it sounds, other than the physical damage to his brain, there was nothing wrong with his mental faculties. His body was emaciated and his muscles atrophied, but the coma hadn't stopped his physical development in some areas. His bones had continued to grow and his genes produced a body that, if it could stand up straight, would be measured at almost an inch over six feet.

Bobby's main problem wasn't that his brain got hurt. Bobby's issues mostly circulated around the fact that his spirit got smashed as a result of that accident, too.

That started when he woke up and the only person he recognized was his mother. Nobody he knew came to see him. His friends had moved on, both figuratively and literally. He was a stranger in a strange land. He had the education – both socially and academically - of a fifteen-year-old in an adult's body. He couldn't walk well, his speech was slurred (something his brain hadn't yet re-routed), he looked like a skeleton wearing a bag of loose, pale skin, and he couldn't even eat unless he was careful. The first few times he tried to have a decent meal his stomach rebelled and he threw up. He had to take small bites, chew them to a ridiculous mush, and then stop long before he felt full. Initially, for example, he could eat one quarter of a grilled cheese sandwich and maybe five or six fries.

Then, when he got home, it was to a strange house and a neighbor he'd never met before, who had witnessed how pitiful his body was when he helped carry Bobby into the house and drape him on the couch. His days were filled with nothingness. He couldn't go out. He had no friends to invite in. Daytime TV made him want to blow his damaged brains out.

Then there was his father. Or, rather, his lack of father. The man he had loved the most in the world had abandoned him, given up on him while he was comatose, and might even have gone off to be with some other family.

He knew about his trust fund, which, due to medical expenses not covered by insurance (which was most of them), had dwindled to a little over ten million dollars, but there was no way to get to any of that money for almost three more years. He knew one thing. When he turned 21, the first thing he was going to do was tell his mom she'd never have to work again. He didn't have big plans to spend millions of dollars. He knew money wouldn't bring happiness, because the world wouldn't have changed. All he wanted was for his mother to be able to relax, and to never have to see her drag her tired body into the house and collapse on the couch with a groan of exhaustion.

His spirit was so broken that he didn't even try to "get better," physically. Just as he had ignored or avoided the physical therapists who tried to work with him in the long care home, he avoided doing anything on his own that would strengthen his stringy muscles. He was eventually able to get around the house, but only because his bladder drove him out of bed and made him walk to the bathroom, and his hunger or thirst required that he go to the kitchen. He still hadn't unpacked all the boxes his mother had lovingly and hopefully boxed up when she moved out of their old, nice house into the dump where they now had to live.

Basically, Bobby Washington hated the world. The world sucked, and he was stuck in that sucky world. The only bright spot was his mother, and even she was absent for most of his day, because she had to work two jobs to support them.

He spent two months at home, basically doing nothing except feeling sorry for himself. He contemplated trying to end his life, but didn't because he knew it would kill his mother, too.

And that was when the bureaucracy finally approved his mother's request for in-home care. As a result, a young Asian woman arrived one day, suitcases in hand, and reported for duty. The fact that it was this particular Asian young woman, named Mai Li MacIntosh, quite possibly saved his life.

She saved it by giving him a reason to live again.

That, of course, is what the rest of this story is about.

******

Mai Li was Vietnamese by birth. The circumstances that led to her parent(s) giving her up for adoption were unclear, but luck had led an American couple to adopt her. The woman she thought of as her mother had traveled to Vietnam, to the orphanage in which a then two-year-old Mai Li languished, and she was whisked away to the land of milk and honey. She was raised with a Chinese sister, five years older, who was also adopted, and in America she had flourished. She had always thought of herself as a normal American girl, though she faced some racism and prejudice along the way. She had ignored that, for the most part, and taken advantage of being able to get a good education, which included a degree in physical therapy. At the time she was hired to live with the Washington family and take care of Bobby, she was twenty-three. She had learned her native language and spoke it, if not fluently, at least understandably. She'd done that because her dream had been to return to her birth country to work there, perhaps in an orphanage. For now, though, she was fresh out of school with a brand new degree and certification when she was offered the Washington post. She assumed she'd spend six months or a little more recuperating a boy who had suffered tragic circumstances, and then be free to explore her origins.

Mai Li's experiences as a girl and then young woman had been both quite normal, from a Western perspective, and unusual at the same time. She had all the same problems as her Caucasian counterparts, in terms of her social life. Hormones had raged through her body just like they did in other girls. Guys were interested in her and she dated regularly. There were always issues involving Asian stereotypes, though, even with kids she grew up with and went to school with every day. She had heard them all. Asians couldn't drive. Asians were good at math. Asian women were naturally subservient and docile. More than one boy who took her out called her "exotic" when all she did was normal stuff. One girl had actually asked her, at one point, if her vaginal opening was sideways, instead of up and down, like "normal" girls.

All that most people in America knew about Vietnamese women came from the scene in Full Metal Jacket, where a Vietnamese woman, clad in a miniskirt and hot-pink tank top, sashays up to a few American GIs and says, “Me so horny. Me love you long time.” For $10 each, the GIs can get “everything” they want. So most Vietnamese women are whores, right?

It didn't help that an American diet had done for her what it did for so many young women in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Genes had restricted her height to five feet four inches, but her body had developed into a lush female landscape of curves, hills, and valleys. She had breasts that would over-fill a grown man's hands, a narrow waist, and hips that swelled to join "an ass to die for" as more than one of her male, teenage classmates had said. Her mother had never cut her hair, and when she left home she only trimmed it to a more manageable length. It now fell almost to that ass-to-die-for. It was straight, black, and heavy, and, if not tied up or restrained by elastic bands or pins, fell and swayed like teasing curtains around her body. Whether by genetics or chance, her nipples were sensitive and often erect, especially if she wasn't wearing a bra and the material of her top rubbed against them.

She was exotic when compared to her Caucasian, black, and Hispanic compatriots, even if she didn't want to be.

At the time she arrived at the Washington household Mai Li wasn't a virgin. She'd lost her virginity in just the way many young women do so, after prom, while a little drunk. It had not been memorable. One other high school boy had slid into her hot (and not horizontal) pussy. He was her boyfriend, or at least she thought he was. All he wanted, though, was to fuck that little exotic Asian girl and, after he'd done that a few times, he lost interest and looked for another hot chick to bang.

The heartbreak of having been used lasted until Mai Li was a junior in college. She met another Asian, a Pilipino man, and dated "one of her own kind" for the first time in her life. Raoul had grown up in the Philippines, though, and was not acclimatized as an American. His attitudes were Pilipino, or actually a mixture of Pilipino and Hispanic. He was macho and expected Mai Li to act like a girl from his country. They dated for six months and had sex more or less regularly. Mai Li wasn't subservient at all, and the only time they had sex was when Mai Li wanted to have sex. Eventually Mai Li lost interest, primarily because while he got satisfied each time, she did not. They stayed friends and study partners, but there was no romance after that. Raoul found another girlfriend and Mai Li decided men were too much trouble to deal with at that point in her life.

All in all, Mai Li's experience with men, in a sexual sense, had been pretty unfulfilling. She had several sex toys, though, and they never let her down. She was young and her biological clock was still tightly wound, so she wasn't worried. She hoped to meet a man in Vietnam who might understand her. She didn't think about the fact that she really was an American woman. In an ironic way, she let racist perceptions affect the way she thought about the world, and her future.

She certainly didn't look at Robert Washington and put him in any category even brushing up against an interest in any sexual or even social situation. If anything, after she was introduced to him, she thought he was kind of pathetic. He was cute, but it was cute like an injured puppy. He was a pain, though, because he resisted her efforts to help him get better.

Vicky, on the other hand, was fairly elated when the short, curvy woman reported for duty as Bobby's live-in care-giver and unofficial tutor. She was embarrassed, initially, because the small third bedroom in their house was still filled with unpacked boxes and things not currently being used. She had known that the Kansas agency that supplied assistance to families with "special needs" members had a file on them and was working to find her assistance. That agency, in fact, went through some two dozen prospective caretakers before finding one who would accept the conditions of employment the Washington household required. When they found Mai Li, they jumped on it, coordinating with the manager of Bobby's trust fund to ensure that the financial side of things would work out. As happens so often in a bureaucratic situation, a decision was made in a vacuum that didn't include Vicky Washington's active participation, and she only had twenty-four hours' notice before Mai Li came to live with them.

When that happened, Mai Li arrived late, around six P.M., having driven twelve hours to get there. That evening all she did was meet her hosts, get her luggage sorted, and collapse into bed.

******

It didn't start with a bang. On the first day Mai Li woke up in her new "home" her duties were still marginally defined. She knew her job would include physical therapy and she was comfortable with that, even if this was her first job as a professional therapist. She also knew she was expected to help bring her charge to the point where he could take and pass a GED test. Other than that, she didn't really know what to expect.

When she got up she found a note Vicky had hastily compiled and left on the kitchen table before heading off to her job as a waitress in a local diner where many of her customers were long-haul truckers. The note said:

1. Get him up. Make him eat something.

2. Make yourself at home. Anything we have is yours to use.

3. There are some study materials in a box in your room that has "school stuff" written on the side. I hope they help.

4. If you can get him to go outside that would be great.

5. Please forgive him if he's rude. He's not a happy boy right now.

6. If you have problems you can reach me on my cell.

The number was listed, along with the number of Bobby's doctor. "He knows all the other doctors who helped Bobby," was the last thing on the page.

Mai Li thought about finding something to eat first, but then decided she might as well have some company, so she went to Bobby's room and tapped on the door. When there was no answer, she opened the door and peeked in. There was a lump under the covers on the bed.

"Bobby?" she called.

The lump moved, but there was no answer.

"It's time to get up, Bobby," she said, going into the room.

She looked around. The room was a mess. Dirty clothes littered the floor and other clothes, either clean or dirty, hung out of open drawers. A stack of boxes stood against one wall, under a window that was dirty and fly-specked.

'Have you no pride?' she thought, looking at the bed.

"Come on," she said, stridently. "We have a lot to do, today. Get up and we'll get you something to eat."

"Go away," came a groan from under the covers.

"I can't go away," she said, patiently. "I'm here to help you get back on your feet and back into the normal world."

"Fuck the normal world," growled her charge.

"What are you wearing?" she asked.

A lump rose under the covers as what she assumed was his head lifted.

"What?"

"I asked what you're wearing," she said.

"Why the fuck would you ask me that?"

"Because I'm about to take the covers off of you and I don't feel like seeing a naked man right now," she said.

Another lump formed, a lateral one, as his arm lifted. A tousled head appeared as the covers were dragged off of it. Bleary eyes peered at her.

"I'm not naked," he said, sounding confused.

"Good," she said, as she stepped forward.

She lifted her foot to clear a pile of jeans and something striped, probably a shirt, and reached for the covers. As she gripped them and pulled, his hand scrabbled to grab the cloth covering him. He was too weak, though, and she pulled the covers out of his grip easily. She whipped her arm and the covers slid across his body to fall in a long pile on the floor.

"Get up!" she ordered. "We're starting your physical therapy today and you need fuel for your body to use when we do that."

"I didn't ask you to come here," he complained, laboriously rising on one elbow.

"Your mother did," she said. "And I'm here, so get used to it. Come on. Do you need help getting out of bed?"

This question was prompted by her saddened eyes taking in his emaciated condition. The boy was a bag of bones. She realized this job would involve a lot more than she had expected.

"I can get out of bed, thank you very much," he muttered.

She watched as he worked his way to a sitting position. He was wearing boxers, in a plaid design. They looked two sizes too big.

"I'll go get breakfast started while you get dressed," she said. "Wear something loose so you can bend and stretch. What do you want to eat?"

"I'm not hungry," he said.

"Well, you're going to eat something," she said, firmly. "I'll go investigate the possibilities. See you in a few."

She returned to the kitchen and started going through the cupboards and refrigerator. She found flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar, and used them to make a basic pancake batter, with milk as the liquid component. There were pans and skillets on the stove top, which looked out of place in this low-rent accommodation because it was a nice glass-top model that looked expensive. The refrigerator looked out of place, too. It was big and stainless steel, with a large pull-out freezer drawer below double doors above.

She had two pancakes ready on a plate and was thinking about going back to light a fire under Bobby when he shuffled into the room. Like his boxers had looked, his shirt looked like a 3X garment on a medium frame, and his sweat pants looked like the string in them had been pulled out as far as it would go.

"Good morning," she said. "I found butter, but no syrup."

"It's under there," said Bobby, pointing vaguely at a lower cabinet door.

"Can you get it?" she asked. She was already assessing his capabilities.

"Of course I can get it," he grumbled. "I'm not a cripple."

"Did you study the Bataan Death March in school?" she asked. "It happened during World War Two."

"No," he said. "Why?"

"Because you look like a survivor of the Bataan Death March," she said. "All you are is skin and bones."

"You're not supposed to say stuff like that," he objected.

"Why? It's true," she replied.

"It's not nice," he said.

"I'm not here to be nice," she said. "I'm here to get you back to where you were before the accident."

"I'll never be like I was before the accident," he said.

"Well, you won't be if you have that attitude," she said. "I've looked over your medical records and, according to your doctors, you defied the odds more times than I could count. There's no reason you can't get better, stronger, and more capable. You can't lie around like you are now all your life. Don't you want to go out into the world and get a job, maybe meet a nice girl and go on some dates?"

"No girl will want to go out with me," he said, sullenly. "I have seizures. It freaks people out."

"Well, it won't freak me out," she said. "Your records say your current meds are working pretty well."

"Yeah, if you consider having two or three seizures a day working pretty well," he argued.

"I'm not a neurologist," said Mai Li, "but I know there are cases where people have been taught how to tell when a seizure is coming on and prepare for it so it isn't so disruptive. Maybe we can research that and give you a little more control over your life."

"Yeah. Sure," he said, obviously dismissive.

"We'll talk about that later. Right now eat your pancakes before they get colder than they are. You want me to put them in the microwave and warm them up?"

"I can't eat all that," said Bobby, looking at the plate.

"Okay, then, eat as much as you can. We're going to start putting some meat on those bones. After you eat we'll start your first PT session."

******

Their first PT session didn't go swimmingly, either, with one possible exception. He had eaten the equivalent of one pancake and drunk a small glass of orange juice. Now they were on the living room floor as she showed him what she wanted him to do. She had changed into an exercise suit consisting of a spandex body suit that showed too much in the crotch, which was why she had on running shorts over it. Her hair was up in a ponytail and there were elastic bands holding the tail together every five or six inches so it wouldn't swish too much.

Bobby might have been disillusioned with the world and un-inspired, generally speaking, but there was nothing wrong with the part of his brain that was male. He knew a babe when he saw one, and his new babysitter, which is how he thought of her, was definitely a babe. The male part of him was interested, even if the rest of him was not.

That interest waned a bit as she made him stretch. One would think that atrophied muscles would stretch easily, but that's not the case. Any unused muscle becomes shorter, which means normal positioning of the bones makes that muscle stretch more than it's used to. Holding a stretch like that causes pain, and for the next hour Bobby felt like she was torturing him. When he didn't do what she asked him to voluntarily, she put her hands on him and moved him into the position she wanted. That hurt just as much as doing it himself. The one slim, silver streak in the cloud he was under was that, whenever she got near to him, she smelled wonderful.

Next came elastic bands of various colors, which he was required to grip and pull. She tied one end of a band to a doorknob and had him stand a couple of feet away while he pulled this way and that. He had to grip and spread his arms. He had to loop the band around his foot and pull, leaning back. She worked every muscle in his body and, after two hours, he flopped on the floor and spread his arms in limp surrender.

"No more," he whined. "Everything hurts!"

"It's a good start," she said, thinking about how, when he pulled his hands apart using the yellow band, they only went six inches. The yellow was the lightest band she had and he should have been able to move it two feet. "I'll give you a massage and that will help with the pain."

******

To continue the theme, the massage started off roughly, too. She had him strip down to his boxers, the same ones he'd been sleeping in. He was sweaty from the workout his body was unaccustomed to. And he was … odiferous.

"Shower, first," she said, leaning away from him. "You smell."

"You're really kind of a bitch, aren't you?" he said, callously.

"All I do is speak the truth," she said. "You smell bad. When was the last time you showered?"

"I don't know," he grunted. A shred of the decency he'd been raised with rose from somewhere inside him and he felt embarrassed that his hygiene had been allowed to lapse a bit. "Last week?" he admitted.

"From what I've seen, thus far, your self-image kind of sucks," said Mai Li. "There's nothing wrong with you except your body has been put through a wringer. If you work with me and start behaving like a normal guy, I think you'll start to feel better about yourself. We can make things better, Bobby. We really can, okay?"

"That's easy for you to say," he grumbled. "You look like you could go run a marathon and hardly get tired."

"I like to run," she said, "but not that far. Some day you and I will go running together. If you decide you want to get well enough to try a marathon I'll help you do that, but you'll have to run it by yourself."

She was simply being supportive, something she'd been trained to do. She didn't believe for a second that he'd ever run more than maybe a mile; if he ever agreed to run at all. That was in the distant future, should it ever evolve, but her job was to encourage him.

"Are you ever not this perky?" he asked. "Just talking to you makes me tired."

"Shower!" she ordered. "Then a massage. You'll feel better. I promise."

Half an hour later she had him on his stomach, on his bed, in a fresh pair of boxers, this time red and white striped ones.

What happened then was good for both of them. It was also surprising to both of them.

She started by wetting her hands with a lotion she'd brought with her and sliding her hands all over his back and shoulders. He groaned, and his groan became whimpers as she squeezed and rubbed and dug into his tight muscles. She felt bones under her hands and her determination to get more flesh and muscle to cover those bones solidified in her mind.

Everything she touched that was muscle was tight and it was very satisfying to feel the tightness ease as he slowly relaxed.

"You okay?" she asked at one point.

"It hurts," he moaned, "but it hurts good."

"Good," she said, and continued working.

She moved from his back to his feet, which she worked one at a time. She did his calves next, and then moved up his thighs until her hands came to the hem of the boxers. Her fingers penetrated the loose opening a few inches as she squeezed the insides of his thighs.

"You're not going to touch my butt, are you?" he groaned.

"We didn't work your butt," she said, moving her hands back up his back, checking to make sure those muscles were still lax. "Roll over," she said.

"I can't," he grunted.

"I know you're tired, but surely you can roll over," she said.

"No … I can't," he said, clearly.

She reached, putting one hand on his hip and the other on his shoulder and pulled. His light body presented almost no resistance and he gasped as his body rolled. His hands flashed to his groin, but not before she saw the protrusion, there. He had an erection. One of her instructors had said this could happen, and that the best course of action was to simply ignore it. He was clearly agitated by his situation, though, and that was going to tighten up everything she'd just worked on. In her attempt to avoid that, she did not ignore his condition.

"It's normal!" she blurted. "It happens all the time."

"Not to me, it doesn't," he moaned.

"It happens to everybody," she said. "I've seen it a hundred times." She added the lie to get him to relax. "It doesn't bother me, okay? Just relax."

"Oh, man," he whined.

"Bobby! Relax!"

She saw him slowly loosen, though he kept his hands firmly over his groin.

"You're fine," she said, reaching for his pecs. "Don't worry about it, okay? Just relax and let me finish. Then you can take a little nap."

Back in the day, before a drunk driver changed his life forever, Bobby had masturbated regularly. Usually, at least once a day, he'd stroked his boner as he thought about this or that girl, or this or that picture he'd seen online. Since the accident, though, this was basically the first erection he'd had that wasn't the result of some random biological reflex. He'd had some piss hardons, for example. This one shocked him because that old, familiar feeling was there and now it felt foreign, somehow. He was embarrassed that this good looking woman had "caught" him in that condition. She was the first human being to actually see him like this. Before, he could adjust things to hide it from public view, but she'd caught him off guard.

He'd felt the erection forming as her hands moved over his body. It intensified and solidified when she worked his inner thighs and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't thinking about anyone or anything, except how good her hands felt, touching his body. He hadn't had any human touch other than his mother's in what seemed like forever. The nurses in the hospital and long-term care had given him sponge baths, but those had been efficient, if not hasty. The physical therapist who had tried to work with him before this hadn't touched him like this, either.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I said it's fine," she reminded him.

"It's not because of you," he blurted. "I mean I wasn't thinking about you when it happened. I swear."

"Would you please just relax," she sighed. She picked up one arm to work on and his other hand moved incrementally to keep his bulge covered.

When she put the arm she was working on down, she laid it at his side.

"Don't move that arm," she ordered. Then she picked up the other one. She had to lean over him to work on it and the bulges on her chest hung over him. He felt his cock twitch and this time it was definitely because of her.

She put that arm down and worked on his waist, just above the elastic waist of his boxers, pulling and squeezing. Both of them were very aware of his stiff penis, but neither said anything. She worked the other side and moved down to his thighs. Instinctively, perhaps, he bent his knees and pulled his heels up several inches, spreading his thighs.

It was when her hands slid to his inner thighs, right next to the hem of his shorts, that he had the seizure.

******

She didn't realize what was happening, at first. His whole body went rigid and his back arched, lifting his butt clear of the bed by three inches. Then, as his body straightened again he seemed to vibrate. That turned into shaking and he let out a groan that tore into her heart.

Now she understood and she moved to do what she'd been taught. Her mind went back to when she'd learned about tonic-clonic seizures, better known as grand mal seizures. When he went rigid, that had been the tonic phase. Now he was in the clonic phase, which could last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. She knew she couldn't stop the seizure. All she could do was keep him safe while it happened. She turned him on his side, to make sure that if he vomited it wouldn't close off his airway. She didn't try to hold him down; she just kept him from rolling off the bed. Suddenly he went limp again. His eyes opened and he licked his lips.

"I'm okay," he panted. "How long was that one?"

She'd forgotten to time it.

"Not that long," she said. "A few minutes, maybe?"

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No," she scoffed. "It was no big deal. I just kept you from rolling off the bed."

"Thanks," he said. "I have them all the time. It freaks Mom out, if she's here."

"I'm not freaked out," she said. "Can you sit up? Or do you just want to take that nap?"

He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. Then he lifted his head. She could see the tendons strain at the effort.

"How about that?" he said, sounding surprised. "It's gone."

She followed his gaze to the front of his shorts. There was no bulge, there.

"How about we take care of future events without having a seizure?" she said. It just popped out, and she didn't think about it before she said it.

"What did you have in mind?" asked the boy who was with the first person who hadn't gone all goofy because he had a seizure. She also hadn't minded when he got a boner. She was different, and her personality pried at a small chink in his emotional armor.

She realized her error and blushed.

"Well, not what you apparently have in mind," she said.

"Do I have something in mind?" He was very close to teasing her. It felt strange to be having this verbal interchange.

"In my experience all men have that in mind," she said, deciding to confront him on a level playing field.

"I haven't had that in mind for what seems like as long as I can remember," he said.

"See there? You're already feeling more normal," she said, smiling. "I'll just leave you to nap and … uh … be normal."

His eyes fixed on her ass as she left the room. She was still dressed in the exercise suit and the shorts weren't loose. He was a little amazed to feel his cock start to stiffen again.

******

Mai Li closed his door and walked to her room. She sat on the bed, thinking. She wasn't sure how she felt about all this. The erection, while it surprised her, really didn't disgust her or anything. It was normal for men to get that way. It was their verbal interchange that gave her pause. It had felt both tense and relaxed at the same time. They had talked in a code, of sorts, but both were using the same code. She had basically suggested he jerk off, if he got more erections. It had been a joke … sort of. She hadn't meant to actually say it. But his reception of it showed he wasn't repelled by their verbal … intimacy. If one could call it that. People, especially people like her and her patient, don't generally have casual conversations about masturbation, coded or not.

Still, his demeanor had been lighter. For the first time he'd said something that wasn't a complaint, or based in unhappiness.

She decided it was progress.

And any progress was something to celebrate.

She changed out of her exercise togs and into a halter top and shorts.

Then she took a nap, herself.

******

The next few days were very similar. Bobby was surly and resisted doing his exercises but she was patient. Using a combination of nagging and encouragement, she got him to walk more and exercise more. His physical condition improved enough that she could see the difference in real time. He ate more and reacted to her, getting more erections, which she studiously ignored.

On the fourth day she had lived there, after both she and Bobby took naps after his workout, Mai Li woke up hungry. She got up and went to the kitchen to see what she had to work with. There was a crock pot and some frozen chicken breasts in the freezer. That, a can of cream of chicken soup, and maybe some potatoes would make a good meal, but that would have to be for later, since it would take six hours for that to be edible. She thought about making tuna salad, but there were no hardboiled eggs or pickles. She'd have to make a grocery list.

She settled for PB&J, which calmed her hunger pangs, and then set about getting the crock pot ready for their evening meal. She started the shopping list and had just added the sixth item when he shuffled into the room.

"He lives!" she teased. "How do you feel?"

"Actually, not bad," he said. "I don't feel any stronger, though."

"That will take some time," she said. "Be patient. What you need to concentrate on right now is being willing to go through the process."

He stared at her cleavage, exposed by the halter top. She really was a babe. What she did felt awful, at first, but the massages she gave him felt great.

"I'm not used to talking to people," he said.

"When was the last time you got out of the house?" she asked.

"I've never been out of this house," he said.

"Want to go shopping with me?"

"Shopping?"

"For food. I need some things to expand the menu around here."

"I don't know," he said, warily. "What if I have a seizure?"

"Then you have a seizure," she said. "What if you don't?"

"I couldn't do all that walking," he said.

"They have those little electric cart things," she said. "You could drive one of those."

"You think so?"

"Sure."

"I never got a driver's license," he said.

"Did you ever have a tricycle?"

"Yeah, when I was little."

"Same thing. Just steer and stop pedaling when you want to stop."

"Those things don't have pedals," he pointed out.

"They have a 'go' pedal. If you let off of it it's like you stop pedaling, okay?" Her voice held mild frustration.

"What if I run into something?"

"Don't run into anything," she said. "Come on. What do you have to lose?"

He blinked. What did he have to lose?

"Okay. But if I zone out, you have to take care of me."

"Of course," she said. "That's what I'm here for; to take care of you."

******

It took a few minutes to get to her car, because he took steps that were only twelve inches apart. She was glad there were only two steps from the porch to the cracked sidewalk that led to the street. He really was in a bad way and she needed to address that aggressively. Once in the car he leaned back and looked around. He fumbled with the seat belt and got it clicked into place, but it took him thirty seconds to accomplish that.

Once they were moving he sighed.

"This is the first time I've ridden shotgun since the accident. They put me in the back seat when I came home."

"How does it feel?" she asked.

"Weird. It feels weird just to leave the house."

"It should feel normal," she said. "We'll work on it and make it feel normal."

"You're not a bitch," he said.

"Thank you. You may change your mind again as we continue your physical therapy."

"I'll try not to call you that again," he said.

She left it at that and kept driving.

"So where are you from?" he asked.

She was used to this question. Everyone assumed she was from another country. She had been born in another country, technically, but where she was "from" was Kansas City.

"I was raised in Kansas City, on the Kansas side," she said. "Overland Park. Ever heard of it?"

"Of course. Everybody's heard of Overland Park," he replied. "It's only what, thirty miles away from where we are?"

"Thirty five," she said. "For the last four years I lived in Michigan, where I was going to college. That's where I came here, from."

"I meant what is your … um … "

"Ethnicity?" she finished, when he couldn't find the word.

"Yeah."

"I was born in Vietnam, but I was adopted and brought to the US when I was two. I'm almost as American as you are."

"Vietnam," he said. "Huh."

"What?" she asked.

"We fought a war with Vietnam and then you got adopted by Americans. It just seems weird."

"Everything seems weird to you," she said.

"Everything has been weird since the accident," he said.

"We'll work on that," she said. "Like I told you, we'll get things to where you feel normal most of the time."

"You really think so?" He felt something like a glimmer of hope, but he hadn't felt any hope for a long time, and it wavered.

"I do," she said. "This afternoon we'll start school. That will feel normal, too, I hope."

******

It turned out that Mai Li's education had lasted long enough that rather big changes had taken place in secondary education in America. She had known two girls who had to pursue their GEDs when she was in high school, herself. Both had gotten pregnant and dropped out of public school, opting to go the GED route instead. And both had been required, at that time, to go to night classes at the local tech college to prepare for the GED test. Bobby had never even thought about the GED. He knew it existed, but it was on the same plane – to him – as how a milking machine worked. He knew they existed, but it didn't go any farther than that.

His mother had petitioned the school board to let him go back to high school, since it wasn't his fault that his studies had been suspended. They had actually agreed, because, technically, he was still of school age, though when he turned nineteen it would create issues nobody, at that point, knew how to address. But Bobby had no interest in being the only eighteen-year-old in a class of kids who were fifteen. And it would only get worse from there, as he went through three years of school. Then there was the fact that, if he went the "traditional" route, he'd be in school all day. One of his nurses, while trying to cheer him up, had said he could get his GED by studying a couple of hours each day, but didn't go into specifics. Home schooling was discussed, but in Kansas that actually requires that the household be registered as a non-accredited private school, and that a certain number of hours of teaching have to be adhered to. The state can do inspections and the whole system assumes the student is between seven and eighteen. Bobby's age was also a concerning factor and, in any case, he'd have to take the GED tests anyway, if he wanted to get into college. Basically, it was just easier to think of him as a high school dropout who wanted to get his GED.

What sealed the deal was when they found out the GED could be studied for and taken online, without ever having to leave the comfort of your house. The courses were self-paced, and the speed at which one could achieve a GED was based on how much time each day you wanted to put into the process. The advantage of getting a GED in this manner was that all the "wasted" time in high school wasn't there. You didn't have to ride the bus, and walk between classes. You didn't have to take fluff courses like choir, or speech, or art, or physical education. There is no specified lunch period and the only time you have to spend is on the four common core subjects, themselves. The down side is that all that "fluff" is part of a young person's social upbringing, and it integrates a child into the world of adult, complex relationships. High school is a little like dating. You don't just go out and get married to the first person you're attracted to. You don't have babies with your first or second crush. Instead, over years, you learn how to navigate a romantic relationship so that, hopefully, when you finally "graduate" you'll pick the right person to grow old with.

The GED is made up of four tests, one each in Science, Mathematical Reasoning, Reasoning through Language Arts, and Social Studies. They can be taken at the same time, though that isn't required. Structured tutorials lead the motivated student through everything that will be covered on the test, and more. Some classes are even presented by a live teacher, though in recorded format. Help is available from real people via email.

Bobby decided to tackle language arts first. He'd never felt like he was good at math and thought his background in science was just rudimentary. He thought social studies would be easy and wanted to save that for last, so all the hard stuff would be over when he got to that point.

They didn't actually get any studying done that day. It took them most of the day to research how to establish an account for him and find out all the requirements. There were documents to FAX to the state office that oversees the Kansas GED program, and an email account to set up.

The first issue was that Bobby's computer – which would now be out of date anyway – had been sold while he was in a coma. Vicky's financial situation had not allowed for the purchase of a new computer, so they did their research on Mai Li's laptop. She had to use her cell phone as a hot spot to get internet access.

"We need to get an internet provider," she muttered.

About one in the afternoon Mai Li got on the phone and called "Ted," the man who worked at The Trust Company of Lawrence, which was the company Bobby's trust had been set up with when the court awarded his damages. Ted said he'd have to research whether "educational materials" were covered by the rules of access to Bobby's trust, and that he'd be in contact when he found out the answer. He said it would probably be the next day, but that he felt confident that education issues would be addressed in allowable distributions.

When she hung up she turned to find Bobby staring at her. They had sat, shoulder-to-shoulder, for hours, peering at the small screen on Mai Li's laptop, and Bobby had been aware of "her" for all those hours. She had not tried to maintain any 'personal space' and the situation had felt … comfortable … to both of them. Mai Li had also been aware of the warmth of his body next to hers, but only every now and then. Bobby had been affected much more, because his gaze had, occasionally, fallen on her cleavage, or hair, or profile. It was arguably the first sustained intimacy, of a sort, that he had experienced since he woke up. He didn't think about that on a conscious level, but his psyche was aware of the attraction he felt for this new female in his life.

He had watched her while she was on the phone with Ted, and was basically just enjoying looking at her when she punched the off icon on the call and turned to give him the update.

"What?" she asked, as she studied his gaze.

He seemed to jerk awake and his cheeks darkened.

"Nothing," he said. He felt a little guilty for the misty thoughts that had drifted through his mind, concerning this good looking woman.

Mai Li recognized the "maleness" in his contemplation, but chose to ignore it. She still didn't know him well and she felt no discomfort at the fact that he was "male" and looking at her like many other males did.

"He said he thinks you'll be able to get the stuff, but he won't know until tomorrow," she said.

"Oh. Okay," said Bobby. "So, what do we do now?"

"We need to get you working on building your strength," she said. "We can do that whenever we have some free time, such as now."

"Exercise?" he groaned.

"Don't be that way," she chided, gently. "We'll take it slowly."

"It will still hurt," he complained.

"Less and less as you get stronger," she said. "Come on. Let's do some stretching and take a little walk."

"We walked through the whole store," he groused.

"I walked through the whole store," she said. "You rode a scooter. Come on. It won't kill you. I promise."

West 6th street was three blocks away, and Mai Li remembered a Burger King there, so she chose to take him there. They could get a drink there, and maybe something to eat. She saw it as a chance for him to do something thousands of people did every day, something normal, and BK would be the reward.

Bobby saw it as torture.

He persisted, though, for two reasons – and a meal at Burger King wasn't one of them.

First, on a subliminal level, he wanted to please his new care-giver and tutor. This was a purely subconscious desire to make her smile; perhaps to make her praise him. Second, on a much more conscious plane, he liked watching her move around. He had already decided he could enjoy looking at her under almost any conditions, and if it cost him some pain, then he was willing to endure that pain.

It wasn't really that bad for the first two blocks. He moved slowly, like an old man, taking short, shuffling steps, but other than feeling like he looked foolish, it didn't bother him that much. By the time they got to BK he was out of breath and his legs ached. He collapsed happily into a booth and waited while Mai Li ordered their food. When she returned with a tray and the odor of French fries wafted to his nose, he was suddenly hungry. Food hadn't been all that appealing since he woke up. Nothing had been very appealing since he woke up.

As his eyes once again dropped to Mai Li's generous cleavage he thought, consciously, that maybe … just maybe … his life had taken a turn for the better.

******

"There's a park over there," said Mai Li, pointing with a French fry out of the window they were sitting beside.

Bobby craned his neck and looked.

"They have kids stuff," he said, looking at the plastic, enclosed slide that made half a turn as it carried a child ten feet or so.

"They have swings," she said. "Swings are good for working your arms and legs."

"I'd look stupid swinging on a swing set," he said.

"Not if I was swinging with you," she argued. "I see couples swinging together sometimes. It looks cute, not stupid."

"We aren't a couple," he said. It just slipped out.

"No. Of course not," she said. "But people who see us won't know that. All I'm saying is you won't look stupid. And even if you do, if something is good for your body, then who cares if it looks a little silly? Getting you fit again will last your whole life. If some clueless idiot thinks you look silly, you'll never see that person again in your life, most likely. So who cares what they think?"

"You're not going to give up, are you?" he sighed.

"I'm being paid not to give up," she said. "I'm a professional and professionals don't just give up because something is difficult."

"Okay, okay, but not today," he moaned. "I'm already tired and we have all that way to go to get home."

"All right," she said. "If you work hard walking home you can take a nap and get all rested for when your mom gets home."

"Okay," he said.

Chapter Two

The junk food actually helped. His glucose level was high when she urged him to take longer steps on the way back to the house. At one point she linked her elbow through his and tried to get him to match her stride. Her soft breast rubbed against his arm and distracted him from the discomfort and, to his surprise, he found himself with a stride that made him feel younger. He was sweaty, breathing hard, and his hips ached when they got home, though, and he shuffled like an old man as soon as they got in the house. When he complained about it, Mai Li told him to take a shower and she'd work on his hips.

In the shower Bobby stood under the pounding water, leaning against the wall on both arms. He was thinking about Mai Li "working on his hips" and how he might get hard again if she touched him like she had, before. He was mildly astonished when he looked down and saw he was already hard. Bobby had been awake for six months, at that point. He'd had some erections, now and then, in that time, but they had been few and far between, at least before Mai Li got there. And he'd never felt like jerking off when he'd had one; hadn't felt the urge to deal with his erections in that way. He just wasn't … interested enough.

Now, though, as he thought back to the dozens of times he'd stared at the deep crevice between Mai Li's breasts, he was … interested.

It felt odd to reach and grip his prong. At the same time it felt familiar, like riding a bike again after years of walking. His muscles remembered what to do and he stroked faster and faster. He closed his eyes and imagined Mai Li getting ready that morning, before she put on that halter top. He imagined her naked breasts, and nipples on those breasts. He was right on the verge of cumming, breathing hard, when the seizure hit him.

It was a grand mal seizure and it robbed him of all control over his body. When the tonic phase hit him he went rigid and lost his balance, leaning sideways. His shoulder hit the glass door and it slammed open, crashing against the wall. It didn't break, but only because it was tempered glass. His head glanced off the plastic clothes hamper, which skittered into the commode and fell over. His shoulder hit the floor with a thump.

Mai Li just happened to be walking by the bathroom door, on her way to her room, when she heard the door slam into the wall and the other sounds associated with his fall. She went to the door and tapped.

"Bobby?"

Nothing.

She only asked one more time, a little louder, before she violated his privacy to make sure he was okay. He was in the clonic phase of his seizure when she saw his wet, naked body lying half in and half out of the shower. He was jerking and his head was hitting the bottom of the hamper, so she hurried to pull him away from anything that could endanger him. The easiest way to protect him was to sit down and pull him onto her lap, holding his head against her upper torso as the tremors wracked his body.

"It's okay," she said, soothingly, stroking his wet hair. "It's okay, Bobby. I'm right here."

Her eyes did a quite normal scan of his body, looking for signs of injury. It could be argued that it was inevitable that she saw his penis. It was still quite firm and it looked entirely different than any penis she'd ever seen before, at least in real life. The organs of the men she'd had sex with had all been circumcised. This one was not. She hadn't really gotten a good look at any of the ones that had gone in her until Raoul, in college. His had been very pink, very bent, and slim, compared to the one she was looking at now, as she cradled Bobby's head. Bobby's organ was very white, and very straight, with a uniform thickness along its length. She knew, academically, that the tip was covered with a foreskin, which looked both interesting and a little gross. It didn't look like a penis, exactly, but she knew it was. It was both thicker and longer than Raoul's, but it didn't look scary or anything. It just looked odd.

Before she could reflect on his manhood further, he came around. He woke to find his nose firmly buried in the cleavage he'd stared at so often that day, though he wasn't aware of that immediately. It took him maybe thirty seconds of rubbing his face against her breasts, while she cooed at him that he was fine, and it was over, before his mental faculties fully returned. His concentration, once he did realize where his nose was, centered on that fact, and only when he began to recognize where they were did he also realize he was naked.

"Shit!" he groaned. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said, still stroking his hair. "You had a seizure while you were in the shower. I heard you fall. You were thrashing around and the easiest way to protect you was to hold you like this. I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Reluctantly he found the floor with his hand and pushed away, lifting his face away from her chest. He looked down and saw his bone and, groaning, covered it with his free hand.

"I'm sorry," he moaned again.

"Bobby!" Her voice was too loud and he winced. "Stop apologizing for being normal."

"I'm not normal," he said, also too loudly. "I have seizures and I can't control myself!"

She helped him get off of her and then stood to help him up.

"Look," she said. "If I'm not worried about your seizures, or your so-called lack of control, then it bothers me that you are. I've seen erections before. I'm not afraid of you or your erections. What I am afraid of is that you being embarrassed about it will cause problems with your recovery. So get over it, okay? Please? Let me help you and let me be comfortable about being around you."

"I don't get it," he said. "How can you not be freaked out?"

Mai Li had a small epiphany at that point, primarily because there was a whining tenor to his voice that made him sound younger than he looked. The epiphany was that he was younger than he looked. Mentally, Bobby was still fifteen. Emotionally he was fifteen, as well. His social development had been suspended by the coma and his unusual circumstances. Physically, his body might be three years older, but sexually he was still just a clueless teenager who didn't understand the hormones raging through his body.

She didn't feel like she was a beautiful woman. She knew men viewed her that way, but when she looked in the mirror she didn't see what they saw. Still, she could imagine that Bobby, who seemed pretty normal, in terms of his male-ness, might react to her on a biological level in the same way other men did. She had avoided thinking about his erections after she massaged him. Now she wondered if his current boner was the result of the seizure … or something else.

"Well, let's talk about that, then," she said. "If you're game. I don't want to embarrass you."

"Talk about what, exactly?" he asked. "Can I get dressed?"

"Of course!" she groaned. "I'm sorry. I was thinking so hard about things that I forgot you were still naked. And wet!" She reached for a towel on the bar and handed it to him. "You go get dressed and then we'll talk."

He took two unsteady steps while running the towel across his body and she changed her mind.

"Wait. I'm worried you'll fall or have another seizure. I'm going with you but I won't watch while you get dressed, okay?" She reached into the shower stall and turned off the water.

"Do I have a choice?" he asked, sullenly. "You've already seen me like this. It's not like you can pretend you never saw me wet and naked on the bathroom floor."

"Look," she said. "I had a choice, a few moments ago. When I realized what had happened, I could have called 911 and had them come deal with you. But I decided I could help you faster so I did that. Would it have made you feel better if two complete strangers had seen you wet and naked on the bathroom floor?"

"The seizure would have been over by the time they got here," he argued.

"So you'd rather I just wait outside the door while you thrash around and split your head open?" Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"I don't know what I'd rather," he grumbled.

She poked him with a sharp fingernail.

"Move, Buster," she ordered. "You need to get dressed so we can have this conversation in a civilized manner."

She followed him to his room, watching his skinny, pale butt as he moved the ten feet between the bathroom door and the door to his room. She left the bedroom door open and leaned against the jamb, breaking her promise not to watch him as he dressed. Whether it was a natural process or the result of embarrassment, his erection had wilted by the time she saw him pull up his shorts and cinch them around his waist with a belt. If he saw her watching him, he gave no notice and within five minutes of leaving the bathroom he was clothed. He put on leather moccasins and turned to face her.

She looked at her watch. It was three P.M.

"Let's go for a ride," she said.

"Where?"

"I don't know. Show me around town. You've lived here all your life, right?"

"Yeah." His voice sounded neutral, but neutral was better than grumbly, so she took it.

"So show me around. I'm going to be living here for the next few months or so and I need to know where things are."

"Okay."

******

Her car was an eight-year-old Subaru Forester that looked rough but wasn't high-mileage. The previous owner had gotten in a fender bender and had apparently used any insurance payout for things other than repairing the damage. She'd bought it because she didn't care about the dents and scrapes and it had room for her to put her things in when she moved. The passenger door creaked when he got in and he had to slam it twice to get it closed and latched. When they pulled away from the house she drove aimlessly, waiting for him to tell her where to go. That didn't happen until she ended up on a dead-end road and had to turn around.

"I don't know where to go," she pointed out, gently. "Where's your old school?"

"Go that way," he finally said, pointing to the left.

The high school he'd attended for six months before the accident was situated between the KU campus and the campus of the Haskell Indian Nations University, so they spent almost an hour in that part of town while she got him to tell her what he knew about both universities. Slowly his mood lightened and they began to have a normal conversation. He directed her to highway 59 and showed her the shopping area in south Lawrence, where the Walmart and big box stores were. When she saw a park with swings, she pulled into the parking lot and turned the car off.

"What are we doing here?" he asked.

"Swinging," she said.

He looked skeptical, but got out and followed her to a long swing set made of thick pipe that had six swings hanging from it. She sat in one and kicked off, swinging four or five feet while she reached up and gripped the chains. Bobby just watched as she waited, slowly swinging back and forth. Eventually he sat on the swing next to her, but didn't make it move.

"Let's talk about your erections," she said, suddenly.

"Let's not," he said. His grumbly voice was back.

"I'm not a virgin," she said, again, suddenly. "Are you?"

"You can't ask something like that!" he retorted.

"Why not?"

"Because you just can't," he said. "How would you feel if I asked you something like that?"

"You don't have to," she said. "I already told you I'm not."

"Oh," he said, blinking. "Yeah." His foot dug in and he moved the swing ten inches. "So … why did you tell me that?"

"Because I wanted you to understand that I do not find an erection to be a strange or exotic and troubling thing to deal with."

"Deal with?" His reaction was less thought-out and more based in curiosity.

"I didn't mean I'd be dealing with it … yours," she said, as she realized how that phrase might have sounded. "I just meant that being around a guy who gets that way doesn't freak me out. You asked why I don't get freaked out, and I'm trying to explain that, now."

"Okay, but I don't understand why any of this matters," he said.

"It matters because you and I are going to live together for the foreseeable future and it's likely that what happened today will happen again and I don't want you to be freaked out about it."

"I can't help it," he groaned. "Nobody's seen me like that since I was in the hospital."

"You got erections while you were in the hospital?"

"No," he moaned. "At least not like … these."

"Didn't they give you sponge baths?" Her implication was that, during such sponge baths, his organ would have been manipulated and might have reacted to that.

"Yes, but none of them looked like you."

"Ahhh," she said. "Now we get to the meat of the matter. How, exactly, do I look?"

He was silent for long enough she thought he wasn't going to answer.

"I don't want you to get mad at me," he finally said.

"Why would I get mad? I asked you to tell me, so I can't get angry if you answer me, right?"

"Okay, you're beautiful and sexy. There. Are you upset because I think you're sexy?"

"No," she said, calmly. "I don't agree with you, but it doesn't bother me that you think that."

"I stare at your boobs all the time," he confessed.

"I know. I see you doing it."

"And that doesn't make you mad?"

"Guys look at women's boobs," she said. "And at their asses and legs and all that. It's normal. It can be rude if they do it too obviously, but I'm not one of those women who yell that men shouldn't look at women or think about women as sexual beings. Mother Nature made men to be that way. It's not their fault. Sure, I think a guy should be polite about it, but he can't just turn off that impulse. Just like he can't turn off the process that makes his penis get hard. What controls that is so deep in a man's psyche that it's untouchable by his conscious processes."

"You're very strange," sighed Bobby.

"I'm not strange at all," she argued. "I'm as normal as the day is long. That's the whole point. We're both normal. Yes, you have some challenges to overcome, but there's no reason in the world we can't be comfortable around each other like normal people are comfortable around each other."

"So if I get another boner it won't bother you?" His sarcasm was less virulent, but was still there.

"Actually," she said, looking around like a spy afraid of being caught. Her voice was lowered and she leaned toward him. "You have a pretty impressive one. I shouldn't like it, but I have to say I'm impressed."

She leaned back as if what she'd said was more akin to, "I can live with it. I won't tell anybody if you don't." She kicked off again and started swinging her legs, increasing the length of her swing.

"I can't believe you said that," he gasped.

"Why? It's just the truth," she said. "I've only seen a few, but you have nothing to be ashamed of. Not at all. I'd even say it was handsome."

"I can't believe you said that, either," he blurted.

By now she was moving in an arc with eight feet between the end points, and was going steadily higher.

"I'm just sayin'," she said, leaning back and thrusting her legs out straight. "I bet I can go higher than you."

Her change of subject was what he needed to shake him out of the shock of hearing her compliment his penis. That had been a first and it had shocked him. Part of that was simply because of the innate taboo of saying something like that at all, especially to someone who was a virtual stranger. But it went deeper than that. He did think she was sexy. He also thought of her as untouchable. She was older than him and gorgeous and could have any man she set her sights on. That she thought his cock was … handsome?! … struck a chord in him that vibrated deep in his bones.

She was still untouchable ... out of reach ... unavailable as a member of the opposite sex, but her status had changed, somehow. It was as if the wall between them was now made of glass, maybe, rather than granite blocks. He was suddenly full of energy and her challenge let him think about something else. He kicked the dirt with both feet and started trying to do what she was doing. It was also like riding a bicycle in the sense that he knew how to make the swing go higher. His still under-developed muscles didn't cooperate with him, though, and he felt uncoordinated as he asked them to do something they refused to comply with. He tried, though, and he tried with a gusto that was uncharacteristic for him.

"I win!" she crowed as she held her legs straight and let gravity begin to slow her down.

"Not fair!" he complained. "I just got started!"

"I still win," she said. "You're doing a good job, though. Keep going."

He was able to maintain his current level and found that his body worked better at doing that than trying to go higher. He felt an ache in his arms that he knew was because the muscles in them weren't used to being used. His legs felt fine. In fact all the rest of him felt fine. She jumped a few feet, abandoning her seat, and stood watching him. She was breathing deeply and he stared as her breasts rose and fell.

"You're staring at my boobs again," she said.

"I am," he admitted. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing," she said. "I don't care."

"I still don't get that," he said, kicking his legs more easily, now.

"I just don't mind it when a man I like looks at my boobs," she said.

"You like me?" His voice rose a bit.

Her adult mind heard that question coming from a fifteen-year-old mind, where it mattered a lot whether someone of the opposite sex "liked you" or not.

"You're okay," she said, carelessly. "I don't hate you. That's for sure."

He quit pumping and let his swing slow down.

"You're so strange," he said, again.

"Nope," she said. "Not strange at all. C'mon. Let's go find some ice cream."

******

They were sitting in the car, parked in the lot of the Cold Stone Creamery. He'd ordered a shake and she was nipping at the top scoop of a double. He watched her lips as they teased the pink ice cream and was unable to stop himself from thinking about what else those lips might have nipped at. Knowing she wasn't a virgin had led him down a path he wasn't really comfortable being on, but he couldn't help it. No girl had ever done that to him, but his imagination supplied details anyway. She glanced at him with her Asian eyes occasionally and he wondered if she could tell what was going through his mind.

"I've never met anyone like you," he said, just to break the silence.

"There weren't any Asian girls in your school?"

"There was one, but I never talked to her," he answered.

"What was her name?"

"I don't even know," he sighed.

"Well, she was probably a lot like me," said Mai Li. "Most girls are quite similar."

"No they're not," he said, automatically.

"We are!" she insisted. "Look, put aside all that nonsense about how we look different so we must be different. We all worry about the same stuff, and have similar dreams and challenges in life. People are pretty much alike, in my opinion."

"I never met a girl who would talk about the stuff we've been talking about," he argued.

"Okay, I admit that most girls wouldn't bring up your erections in casual conversation," she said, "but our circumstances are different. It's important that this 'stuff', as you call it, doesn't inhibit our plan to get you better. That's the only reason I brought it up. I don't want it to get in the way of our work."

"I understand that part," he said. "I'm just not used to things being that … open. I mean my own mother wouldn't talk to me about … that."

"How do you know? Have you ever asked her?"

"Right," he groaned. "I can just see me going to her and saying, 'Hey, Mom. I get these boners and I don't know what to do about them.' That would go over like a lead balloon."

"Well, if you said it like that it might not go well," said Mai Li. "But if you approached it a little less confrontationally she might be happy to advise you. In my experience mothers are very interested in their children's welfare and concerns. It might be uncomfortable, but I bet she'd talk about it with you."

"I think I'll just leave things like they are," he said.

"Good. That's progress."

"How, exactly is that progress?"

"It's progress because it means things are cool between us. That's what I was going for in the first place."

"So I can ask for your advice about my … um … erections … in the future?"

"What's to ask? I believe you already know what to do about having an erection."

"Good grief," he sighed. "Maybe this is freaking me out."

"Why? We're both adults. I get it that, in your mind, the world should be like it was before you got hit by that car, but that's not the world we're in, Bobby. You're eighteen and we're trying to prepare you to engage with a world in which you are an adult. I understand that a fifteen-year-old would get freaked out by discussing masturbation, but you're not fifteen anymore."

"I thought all you were here to do was physical therapy," sighed Bobby.

Again, she leaned toward him and looked around as if she wanted to make sure no one could hear her comments.

"Maybe masturbation is part of your physical therapy," she whispered.

"Good grief," he groaned again.

"Let's go back home and see if the GED people have sent us an email," she said, brightly.

"Why does it seem like I might still be in a coma and all this is some weird dream?" he sighed.

******

"Did you dream while you were in that coma?" asked Mai Li. They were sitting at the kitchen table, where Mai Li's laptop was open. She was checking her email.

"I don't remember that," he said.

"I've heard that people in a coma can hear voices," she commented.

"I remember my Mom's voice, but not what she said," he replied. "When I woke up everything was jangly and I couldn't remember anything at all for a while."

"It must have been tough," said Mai Li, sympathetically.

"Yeah."

"Well, it doesn't have to be tough anymore," she said.

"That's easy for you to say," he groused. "You don't have the problems I do."

"That's true," she admitted.

"What do you do when you get horny?" he asked. He blinked. He was astonished that he'd asked something so personal.

Mai Li was taken aback, but not for long.

"Well, since we've agreed we're both adults and can talk about this kind of thing … I do what you do." She frowned. "Or what I think you do. What most guys do."

"Pardon me, but we're not exactly built the same," he said. In his limited experience, he'd never given any thought to how a girl might masturbate.

"Obviously," she said. "What a woman rubs is smaller, but it's basically the same thing."

"I can not believe we're talking about his," he groaned.

"You're the one who asked," she said.

"I didn't mean to ask that," he said. "It just came out. I think I'm frustrated right now."

"Frustration creates energy," she said. "Want to work out?"

"No," he said.

"Come on. Don't be that way. You know we have to do your physical therapy."

"What I know is that it will probably happen again and that will make me even more frustrated!" he yipped.

"We have to get past this, Bobby," she sighed. "If it happens again, we'll deal with it."

"We'll deal with it?"

"You know what I meant. You're perfectly capable of taking care of that without my help."

"Oh yeah? The last time I tried that I had a seizure in the shower!"

"Is that what caused that seizure? That's interesting," she said, unfazed.

"Well … yeah. At least I think so."

"So that's what you were doing in the shower?"

"I already said that, didn't I?"

"Okay. Okay. Maybe when you get excited like that, it triggers a seizure. That's good to know."

"Why is that good to know?"

"Well, you can avoid having a seizure if you know what triggers it."

"You just said I should take care of things when … you know … that happens. How am I supposed to work on one problem if it causes another?"

"Right," she said. "Hmmm. I wonder if we should ask the doctor about this."

"We're not going to go tell some doctor that I have a seizure whenever I try to beat off!" he yelped.

"There has to be a solution," she said. "Maybe a change to your meds?"

"Again, I do not want to ask the doctor to change my meds just so I can whack off," he groaned.

"We need more information," she said. "We'll need to do some experimentation."

"Experimentation? What does that mean?"

"Let's go through some therapy while I think about this," she said. "Stretches first and then we're going to do some strength work."

"You're hard to like sometimes," he groaned.

"I'm not here for you to like me," she said with a grin.

******

An hour had passed, during which Bobby felt like every muscle in his body had been strained and stressed beyond what nature allowed. He felt pain, which Mai Li said was caused by the buildup of lactic acid in his muscles.

"You need to keep moving those muscles to work that acid out of them," she said, after she'd put away the colored rubber strips that had done the straining.

"I can't move anything," he groaned. "You're killing me."

"For a dead guy you look pretty good," she teased. "I can massage the muscles and it will work the acid out that way."

"If you do, you know what will happen," he said.

"Okay. So it happens. We need to figure out a solution to that problem anyway, right? If it happens we can experiment."

"We can experiment?" he said again.

"Maybe I can advise you," she said. "That's all I meant."

"So now you're an expert on that?"

"Let's just say I'm familiar with the process," she said. "I might be able to help." She blinked. "Advise," she amended.

"And you won't get mad if I pop a stiffy?" he asked, boldly.

"I promise," she said.

******

Bobby felt like he shouldn't be able to groan anymore. His throat had been producing whines, whimpers, and bleats regularly since her hands had been causing that peculiar pain/pleasure sensation in his muscles as she kneaded and stroked them. He was on his stomach, with his head turned sideways so he could breathe. The weight of her body, supported by her hands, felt like it was bending him backwards as she worked.

"Okay, flip over," she said.

Laboriously he rolled over, which took him too far away from the edge of the bed for her to be able to reach him. He saw her glance at the front of his boxers, but he knew there was nothing going on down there.

"I'm not climbing on the bed with you," she said. "Scoot over."

He knew that complaining would do no good, so he lifted and scooted until he was within her reach. She was still wearing that damn halter top and now he could see it. Even as her hands went to his pecs he felt his penis begin to respond.

Silently she continued to work on him, feeling the tense tissues slowly relax as she worked each area of his body. As she paid attention to his thighs, his erection slowly matured.

"I told you," he muttered.

"You did," she acknowledged.

Her hands moved under the leg opening of his boxers and he raised his head.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice raspy.

"What?" She had been in the zone, feeling his muscles and applying her art to them.

"Your hands are up inside my shorts," he pointed out, needlessly.

She stared at where the cloth of his boxers covered her missing fingers.

"I'm massaging your thighs," she said. "They need working all over, not just where they're exposed."

"Oh man," he groaned, as her fingertips came within an inch of his balls.

"You okay?"

"No!" he gasped.

"Okay," she said.

Her fingers pulled out and trailed down to his knees as he groaned.

"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding very sorry at all. "I didn't think you'd have that bad of a reaction to that."

"I felt like I was going to break apart, like a glass jar, or something," he panted. "I got that tight feeling, like I was going to seizure out."

"I'm sorry," she said again, this time sounding a little more genuine. "I won't do that again."

He lifted his head.

"Want to hear something crazy?"

"Sure," she said, her hands still working across his leg.

"The worst part was when you took your hands away."

She remained silent. Part of that was her own reaction, because when he said that she realized she had gone a little farther than propriety had called for. She remembered the feel of the cloth on the backs of her fingers and how sensuous that had felt. She was a little shaken, herself, by the relatively innocent experience.

"Well, I'll go check on supper," she said. "You'll be okay alone?"

The inference was obvious. She expected him to masturbate.

"I think I'm just going to take a nap," he said.

He was obviously worried about having a seizure and she felt a little helpless.

"I'll check on you in a bit," she said.

******

In the kitchen Mai Li went about checking the crock pot, more or less on autopilot. Her mind was elsewhere. What was happening to her? She had only known this boy four days and already he had wormed his way into her … heart?

That was a preview of The Asian Blues - version Alpha. To read the rest purchase the book.

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