Edward Lee - The Chosen

So was the woman, the housemaid. Definitely an up.

Lee guessed she was a housemaid. She did a lot of things around The Inn: cleaning, kitchen prep, running RS orders. She was illegal, Lee knew, perhaps all of the maintenance staff was, so Kyle could pretty much work their asses off without worrying about them running to the state employment board.

Sure, it was an up, all right, but it still wasn’t something Lee felt too great about. It seemed exploitative, almost like he was taking advantage of her. Granted, he’d helped her out getting Kyle off her that night in the pantry, but that didn’t mean she was obliged to blow him every night in gratitude. Lee’d told her over and over that it wasn’t necessary, but she wouldn’t hear of it. By now, he suspected that she had a speech impediment; she seemed to understand him, but she never talked. In fact, he had yet to hear her speak one word.

Usually she brought things for him too. A couple of beers, sandwiches. Once she’d even tried to give him cash, but he stuck it back in her apron. I should be paying you, he thought. Christ! The whole thing was a crazy situation, and he often wished he was out of it. But…

Incompatabilities aside, Lee began to realize that he…well, he liked this woman. Nothing romantic or anything like that. He just liked her. Not to mention the head. He definitely liked that. What guy wouldn’t?

Every night now, for weeks. She’d slip into his room several hours before dawn. She always insisted on keeping the lights out, which was fine with Lee. This woman— shit, he realized, she’s been giving me head for weeks and I don’t even know her name! — wasn’t much of a looker; she was, what Lee’s Emerald-Room pal Dave Kahili would call Fugly— that’s fuckin’ ugly, and Lee himself, of course, was none too eager to show off his less-than-trim abdominals and log-sized legs.

Additionally, Lee was none-too-experienced in being a recipient of the sexual colloquialism known as “head.” (Why did they call it head? Hadn’t the Monkees made a movie called Head? Moreover, why did they call it a blow job? They don’t blow in it, they suck it.) Nevertheless, Lee couldn’t imagine anything better. This woman…she had a technique that defied description. Liddy the busgirl had blown him a bunch of times, but that had been nothing compared to this, nothing at all.…

“Hi,” he said from beneath the covers. A slant of dim light fell into the room, then fell out as she opened and closed his door. Moonlight tinseled her bulky, pasty features when she crossed the room’s darkness, set down her bag of goodies, and crawled into bed with him. She seemed happy to be with him, he could sense her smile. He loved the feel of her hands on him, running under the covers, which she quickly skimmed off. Why didn’t she ever take off her clothes? She’d always fuss with him, pushing his hands away when he attempted to disrobe her, but then that made sense. The scars, he recalled. He remembered the whip-weals crisscrossing her back; naturally she was self-conscious about that, and God only knew what other kinds of marks her body bore from so many years of abuse. The most he’d ever done was get her blouse partway down. Lee’s member (which he nicknamed, for some reason, Uncle Charlie) responded quite quickly to her probing, inquisitive hands, and she didn’t spend much time with preliminaries. Aw, jeez, he thought. It was in her mouth already, the slick delicious friction coursing tightly up and down as her nimble fingers massaged his testicles. He always seemed to fall into a dream, like time stood still, when she did this. Like the luscious sensations converged to a paralyzing pinpoint which left him helpless to do anything but lie there and absorb her pleasures.

And upon those pleasures, his mind sailed away…

Now, Lee was not exactly Mr. Endurance. His climax began to amass from the get-go, and it wasn’t more than a few minutes—a very few minutes—before reflex took command. (Thinking about baseball did little good. Lee’s team was the Yankees, and year after year, it seemed, they did the same thing that this woman did, with equal proficiency; they sucked.) It was a bit embarrassing. What must the woman think? Goddamn Yan kees , Lee thought, and there it went, the unretractable manumission of his orgasm. Lee thought he might actually die of pleasure, as the ever-reliable Uncle Charlie quite liberally relinquished the starchy-white product of Lee’s loins.

Lee’s body went lax in the silken, exultant aftermath. The woman happily lay her head atop his great belly, as if at total ease in the silent dark, and she gingerly cradled his spent genitals in her hand. Often she’d do it twice, three times, as many times as he wanted, or at least as often as Uncle Charlie would reclaim its necessary rigidity. Lee felt at ease, too, at unparalleled ease, lying here with her as the clock ticked on.

But he also felt…guilty.

More and more he’d felt this way of late. She came in here every night to do this for him, to make him feel good, and all she got in return for her generosity was a mouthful of his goo. Not much of a reward. He was determined to do something for her for a change. But what? he wondered now. She didn’t seem to like to be touched at all—no surprise, really, considering the vicious extent to which she’d been touched in the past. Sometimes he tried to put his hands in her hair while she was doing it, and she’d jerk her head away. If he’d touch her shoulders, she’d flinch. But there must be something he could do for her.

“All right, no arguments this time,” he said. He leaned up, put his hands on her shoulders, and pushed her back onto the bed. Instantly, she tensed up as if terrified, shuddering. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just…lay back. Relax.”

She at least attempted to do this, continuing to shudder. Lee began kissing her; her lips remained sealed tightly as the seam between two bricks. Meanwhile he gently ran his big dishman hands over her plump body, feeling her through her housemaid uniform. Christ, this is like pulling teeth, Lee thought, persisting. But eventually his persistence paid off. Soon she was kissing back, lightly opening her mouth to his. Then the tips of their tongues were touching. That’s better, he thought. Now she was getting into it. Now she was— Hoooo! Lee thought—practically sucking his tongue out of his mouth. Her arms wrapped around him, tightening. She made stifled moaning sounds into his throat. Soon it was not even a matter of inference. She was getting aroused.

But when he began to unbutton her starched, collared top, she went to seizing up again. Don’t freeze up on me now! Lee thought. I’m finally getting somewhere! “Relax,” he kept assuring her. “Relax.” Her bra-cupped breasts felt huge and wobbly in his hands. He slid up and straddled her. Careful, big boy. Your fat ass’ll crush the poor girl if you’re not careful . She seemed to like it, though, his weight atop her, pinning her. But her hands kept grasping at his, as if she didn’t want her breasts exposed. He realized why a moment later, when he managed to unclasp the big bra and unloose her breasts.

Jesus, he thought very slowly. Don’t freak out, Lee. You’ll hurt her feelings. Instead, he pretended not to care, not to even notice. But as he gently kneaded the big breasts in his hands he couldn’t help but feel their blemishes, and, even in the dim moonlight, he could see them too. Nests of scars and healed-over punctures made a thick map of each breast, and things that felt like old burn-marks. This woman’s really been through the S&M wringer, he lamented. Still, he did not falter. This was what he could do for her in return for what she’d done for him. Not care. Not react to it. Accept her as she was, not a scarred, pasty gross foreigner, but a human being with real feelings and real desires. It was tough, though. When he began to lick her left nipple he flinched. It had been punctured with pins and needles so many times it felt like a puckered knot of leather. Her hands caressed the back of his head as he carried on, she squirmed gently beneath him.