“Hellie,” he used MaSoeure’s nick name for me which felt good.
“If the disconnect is difficult please remember that I am on the other side of the door; be sure to use your whole body if necessary. When it’s my turn in there and you start to freak out, just come right in and get reconnected, you know I won’t mind.”
He opened the door for me but positioned himself in front of me halting my entrance into the bathroom. He put his arms around me in a calming but possessive way. I felt a jump in our connection – made me happy to realize that everything hadn’t changed completely. He stepped aside and I ran in to handle my business. I was fast as usual, peed and washed my hands. Michael opened the door when he heard the toilet flush. He stepped in, stood behind me while I washed my hands and applied lotion and asked, “Are you ok?”
I backed up into him to get the reconnect. He increased the effect by putting his arms around my waist. I left the bathroom but stayed in full-body contact with the door. The connection felt strong; I honed in on Michael to see how he was doing and was pleased to see that he was fine, no anxiety at that time. I still kept tabs. I brushed my hair and put lotion on my hands and Chap Stick on my lips. After quite sometime, I checked in on Michael to see that all was still fine and took the Michael Creighton book from my bag and started reading.
When I heard his “I’m coming.” I was all into the book. Either the connection was strong or I didn’t need it as much as before, I felt no stress but I was eager for him to be back.
He stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped me in his arms, kissed my neck.
“It’s awesome to be back; thank you for smelling so good.” That was yummy!
He took my hand and we went to the balcony – straight to the rail. Our ship was a dot in the ocean and we were dots in the ship and yet I felt terribly important. We stood there at the rail until the sun was too bright in our eyes as it was falling into the distant horizon.
We moved back into the alee of the balcony to the table that had been there since lunch. We sat with our faces looking out to sea. The air was soft and felt as though it were that way just for us.
Michael put our hands on the table mine on the bottom our palms touching. As he spoke, he played with my fingers.
“I’m hungry it’s 6:30; is that too early to order dinner?”
“I’m hungry, too. An early dinner sounds good to me.” I told him.
He was distracted by what he was doing with my fingers. I flashed – he’s testing the connect to see if motion still had the same affect on me, on us. If he were to ask me I’d tell him that it felt really good, probably better than it should, the sensual pull had not changed. I waited to give him space to think and to see what he was up to.
Looking over at me, still playing with my fingers, he said, “Did I tell you that you have wonderful hands; that I really like your hands?”
He brought my hand to his lips and stroked my finger tips across them. He was still testing the motion thing.
“You mentioned it.” I answered.
“That feels nice. Are you testing my resolve?”
It was a mild challenge.
“Why, is this bothering you?” He asked playfully.
“My resolve is intact but that is because I am very strong and able to resist the desire to kiss your neck or kiss your hand or kiss anything of yours that I can get my lips on.”
He stopped all movement allowing me to gain some perspective. It only took a minute for me to show Michael what I was feeling or very near to it. I turned my hand over so that it was on top of Michael’s hand and started playing with his fingers.
At first he looked at what I was doing to his hand and then slowly he looked over at me and nodded his head.
“I see. Stop that.”
He was experiencing the same feelings brought on by movement that I had.
I stopped and just laid my hand on top of his, until there was balance and peace for both of us.
“Holding your hand is good.” He was saying, ‘at least I have that.’
“Let’s go order dinner.”
We did and then went back to the balcony where I packed a bowl to have after dinner or before dinner, whichever came first.
Michael asked if I’d like another catch. I said no that I just wanted to think about what happened during the day and feel the peace. I don’t think he was really into a catch either but just in case I mentioned that it might be good after dinner. He was happy and pulled the lounge chairs side by side and we sat together with his hand on top of mine in relative silence until dinner arrived.
We were interrupted by Denice for a few minutes to tell us she would be dining with Manny and the group and could she get me anything. I just reminded her to leave the slider open for me. She produced the room key and said, “Just in case.” She asked Michael if he beat me at catch – couldn’t tell if she was hoping that he had or she wanted to prove her point about me never losing. He told her that he had a rematch coming up after dinner so he still had hope. She laughed, gave me a sidewise 5 and was on her way.
Catch and the Toe Floss
Our dinner was light and we were hungrier and wanted more. I fished around in my bag and came up with my purple medicine bag – the medicine inside was fun size candy bars. I found a Snickers and tossed it to Michael. His face lit up like a little kid. He didn’t wait for my help; he tore the wrapper off with his teeth. I didn’t tell him that I thought it looked well practiced.
We were starting to put the lounge chairs end to end when I stopped and said, “Let’s try something to test the connect and to make the catch more interesting.”
Michael said, “I’m game.”
I fished inside my sundries bag again and came out with some dental floss. Explaining the idea to Michael was easy enough.
“The dental floss is for tying to our toes which I think would enable us to separate a bit, if we could still feel the connection through the floss, and improve the distance for the catch. It’s just a test; we’ll only be a few feet away from each other. What d’ya think; could we give it a try?”
There was about 15 feet of floss available, perfect. Michael was already wrapping one end of the floss around a big toe. The other end he started to hand to me but instead got down on his knees and wrapped the other end of the floss around one of my big toes. A single look signaled the release of our pinkies. We dropped our hand connection standing a few feet apart and we waited for whatever discomfort would come our way but nothing happened. Our connection was strong; ‘oh wow’, the floss thing worked.
Our lounge chairs were now as far apart as they possibly could be. My chair was up against one wall of the balcony and Michael’s was against the opposite wall. The connection was strong through the dental floss which allowed us a certain amount of mobility. The sense of freedom was exhilarating for both of us.
The catch took on a new face as Michael learned how to have a real catch. With that distance we could work up a greater amount of velocity. Until he felt comfortable with peppering an object to me as fast as he could throw it, I knew he didn’t have a chance. So I modeled for him how to really enjoy the catch by giving it everything you have, by not holding back, by not being afraid to hurt the other catcher.
For Michael’s benefit, I said, “Let’s warm up before we start the actual catch. We both need to adjust our aim and speed to the new expanse.”
We tested the distance and found it to be just perfect. The catch started for real. Within a minute we were laughing – never letting up on the strength of our pitches.