A boy I once knew...part seven

Sitting there kissing Jamie, hearing little else but the sound of the water rushing over the dam and feeling it merge with the blood coursing through my body. I was definitely warming up. I separated my lips from Jamie's and tried to look him in the eye. Jamie wouldn't meet my gaze so I did what I could to tuck some of his messy mane behind his ears and out of the way. It really was a tangled mass. Jamie grabbed my hands and held them over his heart. I could feel his heart beating and his hands warmed my fingers.

I told him we didn't need to talk, but we did need to clean him up. I told him that I was going to the house and I was going to draw him a bath, and also that if he didn't follow me in a few minutes, I would be going home and that I hoped to see him soon. Reluctantly, Jamie let go of my hands and I extracted myself from his lap.

As I walked into the house through the kitchen, my nose brought my body over to a pot on the stove that was slowly simmering. I grabbed a potholder to remove the lid and saw dinner tonight was vegetable soup. There were a few loaves of freshly baked bread cooling in front of the open window.

I went across to the bathroom and turned on the hot water. I was going to add some shampoo to make a bubble bath, but as I bent down to grab the shampoo, a flash of pink grabbed my eye from under the sink. There within my reach was something I hadn't seen in about 10 years. There was an open box of Mr. Bubble. I wasted no time in sprinkling some into the tub as it was filling with hot water. Once the tub was filled about halfway, I adjusted the temperature so it was the hot side of comfortable. Bountiful bubbles abounded beautifully within the basin of the tub.

I went to te kitchen window and saw that Jamie was not yet mobile so I got down some bowls for soup, found the spoons, and napkins, and set the table for two. By the time I was done with that I could see Jamie making his way down the path. I met him at the door and led him silently through the kitchen to his awaiting bath. At the sight of all the bubbles, Jamie rewarded me with a small shy smile. "Go ahead and get in while I get a pitcher to rinse your hair."

I found a ceramic water pitcher on the shelf over the sink and though I was gone just a few brief seconds, when I returned, Jamie had sunk down into the tub. I found a bath pillow and settled that in behind him so he could lean back slightly. I arranged his hair in the water behind him and made gentle work of wetting it all using the pitcher and letting the water wash down behind him. As I watched the water, my eye was caught by a jar of Noxema.

Before I got to washing Jamie's hair, I set the pitcher down on the floor and picked up the Noxema. Opening it released its pent up mentholated vapors. This illicited a soft moan from Jamie. That was all the urging I needed to plunge my fingers into the jar and scoop out some cool white cream. I put the jar down and made slow work of spreading it on Jamie's face. The coolness of it startled him because the bath was so warm, but his reaction was brief as once again he got a whiff of the pungeant vapors. Calm was settling and I could sense Jamie's silent surrender.

I rinsed my hands off and grabbed the shampoo. I had Jamie's hair lathered in a moment and took my time methodically massaging the entire surface of his scalp, just as I had been taught in beauty school. I got an A+ in shampoo and Jamie was becoming putty in my hands. There was a serenity in caring for Jamie so acutely. It was a new dimension to my craft and one of which I was totally unaware at the time. I could sense a tide turning within Jamie and his relaxation was almost audible.

After a few minutes of manipulating Jamie's scalp, I reached for the pitcher and began rinsing the suds from his hair. The water had cooled a bit so I mixed in some fresh hot water to bring it back up to temperature. The water rushing in renewed the Mr. Bubble and Jamie was once again hidden within the cloudlike dream of a private bath.

Jamie's hair was rinsed and I had squeezed out the excess water. As this was done, I applied some conditioner noticing with a smile it was the same as what he had gotten in the sample pak from Wendy. As each section was saturated with conditioner, I gently finger combed the worst of the tangles before twisting it into a rope and secured it on top of Jamie's head with a clip. I told him he could either rinse it in the shower after his bath, or he could leave it clipped up overnight and rinse it in the morning. I wasn't long into the process before I realized Jamie had been subtly stroking his cock under the bubbles.

Once his hair was all clipped up, I needed a wash cloth. I remembered seeing a pile of folded towels on the sideboard in the kitchen. As I went there to look for one, I saw that it was 6:30 and knew immediately I was late for work. I called expecting to have my mom answer and to get an earful. I still got an earful, but it was my dad which was odd until I realized it was Monday night and my mother had likely gone bowling thinking I would be home soon enough. I quickly told him I was cutting hair for a friend of Wendy's and he was okay with that. I told him I could come home right away and he said as long as I was home for the late firewood run it would be fine. That happened at 8:30, so I had two hours and hung up the phone quickly to get back to work in the bathroom.

As I returned with the washcloth, Jamie was standing to get out of the tub. The water had been drained away and he was reaching to turn the water on in the shower. As was true to form for the little I knew of Jamie so far, there was no concern for modesty, something I was getting quite accustomed to. The water was scalding hot because I had just had it on and Jamie barely seemed to notice. I turned the cold water on and soon had the water comfortable enough for me to reach in and help Jamie unclip and rinse his hair. He turned around and leaned his face into the water, eyes closed, and rinsed away the Noxema. So much for the washcloth, He wanted me in the shower with him, but I told him explaining soaking wet clothes to my father when I had to be home in less than two hours was not something I cared to do. "Right, the Judge." That was the first thing Jamie had said since he told me he didn't want to talk a few hours before. I took it as a good sign. Comprehension. A fog was definitely lifting.

I was holding a big fluffy towel for Jamie to cover up with and he just stepped past me, totally ignoring it. He was at the sink looking in the mirror. His skin was pink and moist and I reached around him from behind to gently blot it. The towel was between us, and Jamie wanted me closer. I then used the towel to remove excess moisture from his hair. There was a big comb on the counter which I used to comb his hair all back and away from his face. Once the tangles were all gone, I loosened the curl with my fingers.

Jamie grabbed the towel from where I dropped it on the floor and wrapped it around his waist. As he left the bathroom he grabbed my hand and led me toward the kitchen. With his other hand, he grabbed a candle we passed along the way. He stopped at the stove and lit the candle and placed it on the table between the places I had set for dinner. He had me sit and gave me a knife to slice the bread. Jamie then dished up some soup for us both and turned off the stove before he made sure the lid was secure on the pot. "That'll keep it warm enough until Sandy gets home. She'll want some soup after bowling even though she would insist oherwise." We had our soup and bread in a companionable silence and I felt as if Jamie's eyes never left me.

We washed and dried the dishes and Jamie put them away. Well, he put one set away and the other he reset at the table for his sister. I reached for his face and was soon kissing his lips. It was as it had been the first time and nothing of the darkness of this afternoon existed to the point of me questioning myself that it ever had. Jamie was steering us toward the living room which was softly lit as twilight arrived.

We stood in the near darkness of the living room kissing for what seemed like a very long time. I again laced a soft braid into Jamie's still damp hair, all the while lingering in kisses. It was nearly eight as we finished cleaning up in the kitchen, and it would take me about 7 minutes to walk home. "I've got just fifteen minutes more, Jamie, why don't you lie down and get some rest until Sandy is back. I'm sorry I can't stay until then, but I do have to be home soon."

"I'm okay now. Just stay with me as long as you can." With that said, Jamie was stretching out on one of the couches on his side. He was so innocent again in this soft filtered light. His breathing was slow and steady and his skin still slightly shriveled from the bath. He was asleep just moments before I was out the door.

I walked into the campground office at 8:27 and my dad handed me the keys for the dune buggy so I could make the 8:30 wood run. I got back to the office about an hour later just as my mom was coming in from bowling. I handed her the cash from wood sales and went to get a Pepsi from the soda machine. Then I popped a Stewart's ham and cheese sandwich into the Stewart's light bulb stove. Five minues later I was enjoying a nice snack and thinking abouth the afternoon as the phone rang.

I am glad I got it because it was Sandy and I wasn't sure how I would have explained her asking for me. "What did you do to him? I expected to find him sullen and non-compliant and instead, he's sleeping like a baby. And he's clean. And the soup hasn't burned or boiled over." All these things seemed surreal to Sandy even when I recounted the afternoon to her. She was appreciaive of everythiing I had done for Jamie. For her. As she was hanging up the phone she told me to tell my mom we were discussing Kay's yard schedule because knowing Barbm, surely she would ask.