The new guy’s fingers are at least softer than whoever started working on me earlier. I can tell he’s younger than the last man by the sound of his smooth, skittish voice. I have half a mind to beg him to just massage my back with those agile fingers, but I’ve found I like being touched less and less over the years. It’s like living in skin and a body that aren’t your own. My mind is thirty-seven, while the shell it inhabits feels seventy. After my idiocy last week, I’ve decided to stick to the comfort of my own hand, my heated massage recliner, and muscle rub gel. Wild nights ahead of me. Yay.
“You’re set for ten minutes. I’ll leave you be. Just holler if you need anything. Okay?” the guy rattles off, his steps heading toward the privacy curtain.
There’s something pleasant about his voice that relaxes me, making me mind less that I’m stuck lying on my stomach, the worst thing for back pain. On that note, however, I know I’m not going to want to wait here if he’s breezing away to fuck off and forget about me.
“What’s your name?” I call, my lips half smashed against the therapy table.
“Remy.”
The name sticks out like a carnival game sign popping up after a ball hits the target.Remy.Really? Of all the names. There’s a soft waft of air and a rustling sound from the curtain, telling me he’s slipped through.
I’ve only heard that name once before. It brings back a flood of memories. Satisfying, hot memories that make my belly burn deep down in the pit of it. A wash of heat runs up my neck and into my cheeks, remembering the sound of it on my own lips.Remy. I guess it’s not entirely true that I’ve only heard it once before. I remember saying it many times like a prayer that was pulled from my throat as I released into a beautiful, firm, lithe body that hugged me to the point of delirium.
Shit. Wrong thing to think right now. Somehow, the blood flow to my cock doesn’t seem to mind my uncomfortable position at the moment.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and try to focus on the little tingles from the leads around my spine, willing them to work magic. The memory of the man’s fingertips, however, and the sound of his voice hover like a distraction.
‘Um…all right. I-I’m going to start at a low level and work my way up.’
Am I clouded by old memories, or did he sound nervous the way Remy used to? My Remy, who always seemed so irresistibly drunk at the sight of me.
Okay, so he wasn’t exactlymyRemy. We never made it into anything it wasn’t. He was just there and willing whenever I wanted. The perfect arrangement to get me through the stress of college and a budding football career. So fucking perfect. My first drug, if you will. One that never left my insides crawling afterward. Two years of the blissful sensation of walking on airand feeling like I could take on whatever was next. Maybe in that regard, hewasmyRemy.
Huffing a laugh, I silently gloat over the fact that I don’t think he sought out any extracurricular activities aside from me the entire time. We had an agreement to show each other new test results if we ever hooked up with anyone else, but he never did. I don’t get much to gloat about these days, so the memory is good for my ego. Sometimes, when I need to jerk off to forget about the pain, I pretend I’m back there in his room. Agile, limber, strong as an ox, with him on his knees looking up at me the way he used to. Him under me, moaning the sexiest sounds no porn has ever been able to replicate earnestly.
Snorting, I turn my neck and bury my face deeper into my forearms. He wouldn’t fucking look at me like that now.
I wonder what happened to him? He was roommates with that obnoxious guy from my journalism class who always showed up in pajama pants and had something snarky to say that had the professor sighing, an exasperated noise, while everyone laughed like minions. Remy only had bio with me that I had to take as a requirement, while he ate it up because he was going to become a physical thera—A…therapist. Aphysical therapist.
The confident, unaffected voice when the therapist entered the room, the peculiar shift to skittishness, and rushed speech after I told him my name. The way he rushed out of here. It can’t be, but…what are the odds there would be another Remy who’s a physical therapist at a center connected to the college we both attended?
Was it him?
Hell, it’s got to be.
That heat in my belly returns, expounded upon by a live-wire charge that tightens my mid-section. It’s not a rogue currentfrom the TENS unit. It’s a delayed reaction to knowing whose hands were just on me.
Oh, God. That means he saw me.
Remy saw me. Likethis. Likeme now.
The machine lets out a monotone beep, signaling the end of the treatment course. My pulse kicks up, galloping away from me, snaking tension around my lungs. He’ll come back in, and I’ll have to get up. He’ll have to see me crawl off this table like a drunk grizzly bear. Hear me grunting and my joints cracking as though I’ve been in extended hibernation. I can feel my love handles sticking to the vinyl fabric of the therapy table. Love handles that weren’t there fifteen years ago.
Fuck.
Fingers twitching, my mind races for a way to escape. Why though? Why do I care?
He’s probably married or in a committed relationship with someone by now. That’s what happens to nice guys like him. That’s what happens to everyone but me. He could probably care less about recognizing me, if he even remembers.
My stomach swirls. A sour sensation creeps up my throat. I can taste the reason for my panic, clarity in the form of stomach bile. Hewasa nice guy, and I…was a total asshole.
Suddenly, those longing looks he used to give me that I’ve lived off during wet dreams over the years don’t feel like something I can gloat over. Not when he’s minutes from being in the same room as me, face to face. It all comes back to me—the hearts in his eyes, the way he used to nibble his lower lip, and how he’d stutter when he’d get too flustered. The way he’d look at me like he wanted to kiss me all night was just a bit too on the far side of intimacy for me at the time, and yet always so tempting I had to rush out his window to stop myself from giving in. I think I knew it then, but what did I do? I repaid the closest thing I’ve ever received to devotion with frenetic dickings andreveled in the way my bossy bedroom commands could bring him to his knees.
There is no way I’m letting him see me like this after the way my cocky, amped-up-on-adrenaline ass used to talk to him. No way. I’d rather live with the delusions of my memories than see an ounce of disappointment in his eyes. The memories are all I’ve got. I’ll be damned if life is going to take those away from me, too.
Reaching around behind me, I yank the cables off the leads. Only half of the sticky patches come loose, but I don’t care. I can pry the rest off when I get home.
Peeling myself off the table, I ease to the side until my feet touch the floor, and I grunt from the stiffness after lying down for so long. Spinning around, I locate my shirt where I discarded it on a chair and tug it over my head. Shoving my arms into my zip-up, I flip the hood up and peek through the slit in the curtain. If there’s a check-out process, they can figure that out after I’m long gone.
