The next evening, I drive out to Luke’s house in Newton. He offered to come get me, but I didn’t like the idea of being stranded out there without my car (although technically, the Green line on the T does go all the way out to Newton).
When I arrive at Luke’s house, I’m shocked to see that for the first time since we reconnected, he’s dressed casually in blue jeans and a nondescript navy blue T-shirt. The sleeves on the T-shirt are short enough that I can see his well-defined muscles in his upper arms, although the muscles fade going down his forearms and are gone by the time my eyes reach his hands. I’m not sure if Luke notices me staring a bit, but he doesn’t comment.
“You look great, Ellie,” he says.
I want to tell him he looks great too, but somehow the words catch in my throat. I’m not used to paying men compliments, even men that I like. So instead, I say, “The food smells great.”
“I would tell you that I made it,” he says, “but I know you’d catch me in that lie. My housekeeper whipped it up. Chicken something. I don’t know. She’s a great cook.”
The food does smell great, but somehow my desire for Luke trumps my desire to eat. And when I look into his eyes, I can tell he feels the same way. “Come here,” he breathes and I fall into his lap.
He kisses me, first on my lips, then on my neck, and I can feel his hand sliding up my skirt. I want to let him do whatever he wants to me, but then I remember last time, how it was all about me, and I start to unbutton his pants. He takes my hand and pushes it away, but I do it again as soon as his hand goes back to my inner thigh.
“Ellie,” he says, lifting his lips from mine, “I’d prefer if… we didn’t…”
My face burns. He doesn’t want to have sex with me. “Why not?”
Luke studies my face for a minute, then sighs deeply. “Look, Ellie… there are things about me, things about my disability that… I just…”
I remember what Luke told me, about how his last girlfriend dumped him after seeing him naked. Yet I can’t imagine anything Luke could show me that would make me stop feeling attracted to him. I’m not as shallow as his last girlfriend. But it’s clear that he’s uncomfortable and I don’t want to push him. It’s not like I’m some kind of sex fiend or anything. I’m not sure why Luke brings out this side of me.
“Okay,” I say gently.
His shoulders sag in relief. “Great,” he says, which doesn’t make me feel any better. “Can I eat you out again?”
I have to admit, the way he asks is so adorable and hopeful, I fall a little bit more in love with him at that moment. “Yes,” I say. “Definitely.”
He wheels me into the bedroom, which I didn’t get to visit last time I was here. Much like the rest of the house, the furniture in the bedroom seems incredibly stylish and expensive. He deposits me in his queen sized bed and I fall into his expensive silk sheets. His bed is made, which I suspect is courtesy of his housekeeper, because I suspect Luke is the kind of person who’s never made a bed in his life. God, this is a nice bed. It’s so comfortable that despite not being tired and despite Luke being about to eat me out, I’m slightly tempted to take a nap right now.
But as Luke spreads my legs I forget about all that.
He really takes his time this time, unlike when we were rushing in his office. He rubs the back of his hand against my inner thigh, kisses my knees. With each kiss and stroke of his hand, he moves every so slightly closer to my pussy. By the time his lips are centimeters away from my clitoris, I am already drenched. By the time I feel his tongue on my pussy, it takes me all of sixty seconds to climax. I come six times in a row and nearly pass out the last time. And alone in this large house in Newton, I can really let loose with the screams.
“Wow,” Luke says as he transfers into the bed next to me. “You’ve got quite a set of pipes.”
“That was fantastic,” I murmur. I roll my head to look at him. “Let me do something for you now.”
“Just watching you scream like that is enough,” he says.
I frown. It’s hard for me to believe that’s true, as much as I’d like to. “Luke…”
“It’s okay, Ellie,” he says. “I promise. I can’t feel anything anyway.”
“You can feel some things…”
“Well, nothing from the chest down.”
“So what if we keep it above the chest?”
Luke tenses up as I undo the first button on his shirt. I undo the second button and I realize I’m just torturing him. I try to remind myself that his last sexual experience ended in the woman walking out on him. “That’s all, okay? Just two buttons.”
“Okay,” he says.
I keep my promise, kissing him and licking him only from his collarbone upward. Despite his initial reluctance, he seems to enjoy the experience quite a bit. I even get him to relax enough that I pull his shirt out from his pants and get my hand up onto his chest. His abdomen is soft and somewhat flabby, but I love the masculine feel of the hairs on his chest. I know that Luke has nothing to be ashamed of, but I just need to convince him of that fact.
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I’m not entirely sure how and maybe I don’t want to know, but Luke seems to know every bar in Boston. He’s a virtual encyclopedia of all the upper end taverns. Of course, he doesn’t know the seedy little dives, but he’d never go into a place like that anyway.
The place to be on Saturday night is a smoky little establishment named Moonlight, where a well known local singer that I’ve never heard of is playing a set. Luke not only knows every bar in the city but apparently knows the people who run every bar in the city because despite the place being crowded, we get a fantastic table right next to where the singer will be performing.
“These seats are great,” I comment.
“Being rich and influential has its perks, huh?” Luke says, winking at me.
We place our drink orders, but as the waiter walks away, I see Luke has turned a bit pale. I look at him in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Rebecca,” he mumbles.
Rebecca. As I recall, that’s the name of his last girlfriend, the one who destroyed his self-esteem by dumping him after seeing him naked in bed. I don’t blame him for looking upset. “Do you want to leave?”
“No, it’s okay,” he says, although he kind of looks like the answer is yes.
If I were Rebecca and I had done what she did to Luke, I would probably have wanted to stay far away from him. But apparently she and I think very differently because about two minutes later, I’m face to face with Luke’s ex-girlfriend.
Rebecca is exactly the type of girl that Luke used to date in college, meaning she’s blonde and gorgeous. Several orders of magnitude better looking than me at my best. I can’t help but notice she’s got a huge rock on the ring finger of her left hand. And that she’s accompanied by a man who’s probably twenty years older than her, and not particularly attractive, especially compared with Luke.
“Luke,” Rebecca coos. “It’s so good to see you again!”
Luke lifts his eyes only briefly to look up at her. “Hello, Rebecca.”
“I’d like you to meet my fiancé Richard,” Rebecca says, gesturing at the thin, gray-haired man next to her.
“Luke Thayer,” Richard says, holding out his hand for Luke to shake. “I’ve heard the legends, of course. But it’s great to finally meet you in person.”
Luke shakes Richard’s hand and seems moderately embarrassed by his inability to really grip the other man’s hand. Richard too seems surprised by the limpness of the handshake. “Nice to meet you,” Luke says quietly.
Rebecca regards me with a critical eye. I can tell she’s trying to sum me up, figure out my type. “And who’s this?”
“This is Ellie,” Luke says, possessively putting his arm around my shoulder. “She’s… we’re together.”
“Oh,” Rebecca says. Then she adds in a really patronizing voice, “That’s wonderful, Luke. Good for you.”
By the time Rebecca sashays away to her own table, Luke seems completely beaten down. He doesn’t say much for most of the music set, mostly just stares down at his drink. I feel awful for him. I don’t even blame him for his anxiety in the bedroom anymore. Getting shot down by a woman like Rebecca seems like a permanently damaging experience.
After the singer finishes up, I head off to the restroom, although Luke is so preoccupied he barely seems to notice. When I get out of the stall, I see none other than the infamous Rebecca touching up her make-up. I immediately feel uncomfortable and smile at her politely, hoping our interaction will be left at that.
Unfortunately, not.
“So you’re dating Luke, huh?” Rebecca says. “Ellie, right?”
“Uh huh,” I say, not sure which question I’m supposed to answer, but the answer to both is yes.
“You have a stronger stomach than I do,” Rebecca says.
“Excuse me?”
She shrugs. “I mean, when it comes to money and power, Luke is entirely ideal. I mean, he’s absolutely loaded. But when it came to the bedroom, I just couldn’t go through with it. I mean, when I saw him, you know, all of him, it felt like it should have been illegal.” She laughs. “I guess you just want it more than I do.”
I’m shocked that she’s saying this to me. At first, I’m at a loss for words, but then I manage, “I’m not dating Luke for his money.”
Rebecca laughs harder. “Oh, come on. It’s okay. I certainly can’t throw stones.”
I stick out my chin. “Luke is a wonderful guy and I think he’s really sexy.”
“A wonderful guy? Sexy?” Rebecca stares at me, looking very confused. “Is he paying you to be here with him?”
“No!” I’m not a violent person, but I seriously want to punch Rebecca in the face. “Look, as hard as this may be for you to believe, I actually really like Luke. He’s smart and cute and… and fantastic in bed! And if you didn’t realize that, then you’re a shallow bitch.”
Rebecca is still staring at me as I stride out of the bathroom.
I rush back to our table, where Luke is sipping on his beer. I approach him breathlessly. “We should go. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because I just told off your ex-girlfriend in the bathroom,” I say.
For the first time since Rebecca arrived, Luke smiles. “Okay,” he says.
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Back at Luke’s house, he immediately grabs me. He pulls me onto his lap and he can’t stop kissing me and touching me. “Let me go down on you,” he says.
“No,” I say. “Let’s have sex.”
Luke’s shoulders sag. “Look, Ellie, I know you’re being nice, but… you just… don’t understand.”
“You can’t base anything on Rebecca,” I say. “She’s a horrible person. She only wants to date men for their money. Honestly, I don’t know why you were dating her in the first place.”
He lowers his eyes. “I guess because she was the sort of girl I used to date. And I wanted to prove to myself that I could still get that type of girl.”
“Well, she’s awful,” I assure him. “And you’re lucky it didn’t work out.”
With those words, I go for the button of his pants. I undo it and Luke quickly swats me away with his hand. “Luke!”
“Ellie,” he sighs. “Can’t you just trust me that… that…”
“No, I can’t,” I say. “If we’re dating and I can’t even see you naked, then I don’t know what. This isn’t going to work out, I’ll tell you that much.”
Luke shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I say. “I’ve got a three month rule that I need to date a guy for three months before having sex with him. But I’m breaking that rule for you. Because you’re the sexiest guy I’ve ever met.”
He seems baffled by that revelation. “Really?”
“Really.”
“But… why?”
I don’t answer him and instead start kissing his neck. While I do, my fingers go back down to his pants start unzipping his slacks. His whole body is stiff and tense, but he lets me do it. I pull down his boxers and I gasp slightly when I see a tube coming out of his lower abdomen.
“See?” Luke says in a flat voice. He swats me away now and pulls his boxers back up to cover the tube as I stand up.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s a suprapubic catheter,” he says. “I can’t control when I go to the bathroom and I was… having a lot of accidents. Also, my dexterity isn’t very good so it was very time consuming to keep… you know, putting a catheter in every few hours. So I went to a urologist and we decided this was the best thing. And it is. But it’s not very… sexy, I guess. So now you know.”
It would be a lie to say I was turned on by Luke having a tube in his abdomen. But it didn’t necessarily turn me off either. Not much, at least. I still wanted him. A lot. “It’s okay,” I say.
Luke squints at my face.
“Look,” I say, “what kind of person would I be if I saw some tube and didn’t want to have sex with you anymore? Probably not the kind of person you’d want to have sex with anyway.”
To prove my point, I resume kissing his face and his neck. He’s stiff at first, but then his muscles loosen up and he starts kissing me back. I forget about any kind of tubes or paralyzed hands or legs and all I can think about how sexy Luke is and how much I want to make love to him. I don’t care anymore about my three month rule. Fuck the three month rule.
Luke obviously senses my urgency and starts wheeling us in the direction of his bedroom. Between my weight and his decreased ability to grip with his hands, he’s struggling a lot to wheel the both of us, but I do nothing to help. I like the fact that he’s struggling enough that his face is turning slightly pink with effort. Shows how much he wants me.
I climb into Luke’s bed and he kisses me on the lips. “Just a minute,” he says. He wheels himself to the bathroom and I hear some rustling and rattling around. I have no idea what he’s doing in there. Putting in a diaphragm, perhaps? (Kidding.)
When Luke finally comes out, he quickly wheels over and transfers into the bed next to me. I’m breathing heavily at this point. He starts to pull at the buttons on my blouse but he’s having trouble and I can tell that if he doesn’t succeed in another second, he’s going to rip it open, so I quickly undo the buttons myself, as well as the ones on his shirt. Finally, I’ve got Luke completely naked.
I admit, it’s a little difficult not to compare this Luke’s body to the one I saw naked during Primal Scream all those years ago. That Luke had the body of a Greek God. This Luke has the body of… well, a disabled man. His hands don’t look right, and it’s obvious there are no muscles at all in his abdomen. It’s not a beer gut exactly because it’s not fat, but something more deflated than that. And he’s pale, very pale. Luke hasn’t been showing off this body at the beach any time recently.
“Okay?” He’s studying my face anxiously.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly.
“I just took a pill,” he whispers. “To get a… you know, erection. It… usually works. Should be fine. I hope. I mean, it will be fine. But we’ve got to give it a little time.”
So we take things slow, even though it just about kills me. We lie side by side in bed, he kisses me, I kiss him. I rub my naked body against his and although I have to admit, feeling that tube is a little weird, but I’m getting used to it. After about thirty minutes of this, I feel Luke’s penis growing hard against me. I put my hand on it, and while it’s not as fantastic as one might have expected from the Great Lucas Thayer, I’m fairly sure it’s good enough for him to penetrate me.
I put on a condom for him and he lies on his back while I pump against him in the cowgirl position. He keeps his hands on my hips, but compared to his skill when he eat me out, he isn’t able to do very much now. He’s mostly lying there while I do all the work, which I guess is all he can do. But I don’t mind so much. It’s actually a nice reversal, consider Luke is always the one with all the power. Part of me wishes he’d wipe the worried expression off his face, although part of me loves him more for it.
I finally come three times, then collapse onto his sweaty body.
“Did you come?” I ask him.
“I don’t come,” he says.
I stare at him.
He shrugs. “It’s okay. I just want you to enjoy yourself.”
“But didn’t you enjoy it too?”
“Of course I did,” he says and hugs me.
This Luke is so different from the one I used to know. The old Luke wouldn’t have shrugged at the idea of not being able to have an orgasm or told me earnestly that he just wanted me to enjoy myself. I could never have loved the old Luke. But I think I’m falling for this one.