Shane held his breath and stretched till it hurt. He exhaled hard, feeling happy and lazy, determined to continue his dream, to stay in bed as long as possible and not wake up, which, of course, meant he had already awoken. That irritated him no end and he turned onto his back, throwing off the covers; it had been a great dream. Little by little, however, he was persuaded to stay awake. A satisfying whiff of fresh coffee and cinnamon muffins was in the room; the morning sun flooded through Laure’s long windows and he luxuriated in its warmth. He stretched again and decided to go back to sleep.

But for an itchy foot he would have.

He rubbed the instep of his foot on the covers but it didn’t seem to help. He then felt a momentary itchiness inside his thigh, near his balls. He cupped them protectively. The itch reappeared on the wrist of that hand; he flicked it as one would shoo a fly.

The itch became a scratch. It traveled down his belly to the hair nesting around the base of his penis; Shane opened his eyes, saying out loud, “what the…” and saw delicate fingers playing with the dark trail from his navel to the stiffening shaft. As his eyes focused he saw more than fingers, there was a whole cast resting on his crotch, ruffling the hair around his dick with the curve of the elbow. Sophie. He squinted in the bright morning light to see the young woman smiling at him from under the fall of her long brown hair.

Shane went up on his elbows, braced for something. He wondered for a second what she had thought he was going to do, run out of the room, terrified? Or, did she think this would be reason enough to suddenly pounce on her? A ripple of sensation ran up his spine and he arched at the hips. Neither of them ran anywhere. She knew just where to rub the cast of her arm. Where and how hard to playfully grind the length of her arm into the dark tangle of wiry hair at the base of his penis. When to rock her casted elbow back and forth between his thigh and balls, nudging and coaxing a new erection. It visibly swelled and Sophie teasingly dragged her arm backward so she could tweak the head of his penis with her fingers.

He suppressed a groan, “someone’s been a naughty girl,” he told her.

Sophie smiled at his admonishment. “I haven’t even started,” she murmured, dropping her glance.

Rolling to his side Shane leaned on his right elbow and closed his long legs over her casted arm, trapping it. Her fingers began pulling and teasing at the hairs under his balls. He almost expected her to slide a finger into his butt; at the moment anything seemed possible. “I was referring to last night, miss.”

Sophie laughed, “oh yea, I forgot about last night.”

“Did you,” he said matter-of-factly. He liked the way her cast felt rough on his inner thighs, he moved so he that could feel the friction; it made her squeeze his balls with her fingers.

Once she had coaxed a full erection, one she could pump, she moved closer and pouted, “I was bored, no one was talking about anything interesting, and…”

“… and you just happened to find your foot sitting in my lap.” Shane opened his legs from their scissor-like trap. She pumped his shaft with an expert finesse.

“Correct.” With her free hand Sophie undid the top buttons of her pajamas so she could fondle her breast as she swiveled and stroked him; every time an edge of the cast ran over the sensitive skin of the head he flinched but Sophie didn’t notice, she was too aroused.

He continued, “… just wiggling your little toes all over my legs, pushing them under my pant leg…” He paused, dying to see the breast she was agitating.

Sophie obliged and undid the rest of her pink pajama top, letting him see the curve of her small tanned breast, the nipple reddening from her own pinching. She wet her finger and traced the nipple’s aureole the same moment she scratched under his balls, scraping the palm of her casted hand on his thigh.

Shane closed his eyes as he finished his sentence, “… and rubbing me till I could burst … ”

“Exactly.” She went up on her knees and used both of her hands to rub over her breasts, hips just beginning to rotate. Shane tugged at her pajama bottoms, pulling on the elastic till he could just see the soft light brown hairs between her legs. He wanted this girl. Sophie’s casted hand went over top of his and helped him pull the pajamas down her hips; she had only a small triangle of hair, the rest carefully waxed away, revealing her all-over tan.

Shane became quiet, “so, what do you do when you’re not bored?”

Sophie stood up on the bed, weaving a bit as she stepped out of her pajama bottoms. “You’re about to find out.” She was short in the waist but very long in the leg, with a full butt and slender ankles. She struck a pose for him, showing off her body and asked, “so, what do you think? Kind of different from what you remember?”

“Dunno,” he said lightly, appraising the view, “I need to see more; turn around.” As she did Shane slid out of the bed.

She looked over her shoulder, “well?” She sounded nervous, as if he didn’t think much of what he saw.

He smacked her hard on the butt, catching her by the elbow when it made her totter with a shiver and a very aroused “ouch!” Shane grinned at her, “no, you haven’t changed at all; you still like a good spanking.”

But that was fine with Tara, it was perfect. She slid down an inch and leaned over her pillows to reach Shane’s side of the bed, retrieving the black leather photo album that he had left in her care. She hauled the large album onto her lap, resting the spine between her legs, encased in their casts. She paused for a moment, assuring herself that she would be left alone. Once she heard the televised chatter from “Oprah” in the next room she knew she was safe. Having this album not only kept her company at night it made the days without Shane easier to endure, even enjoyable. She had never viewed his selection of cast photographs without him present.

Tara opened the album, already a-tingle, her heart almost leaping in her chest. She felt the electricity ripple all the way to her toes; she looked down and wiggled them, further exciting herself. On her first night alone Shane called from the Philadelphia train station to let her know he had arrived safely and to ask how it was going with the home-nurse service. The next call came about three in the morning. She couldn’t tell from his voice if he was alone, not until he asked her how she was enjoying “the album.”

She didn’t hear from him again until after Laure’s big opening and then it was only for a couple of minutes. So, just when she had readied herself for some private entertainment with the album Shane surprised her with another call. She let him ramble on through the rough draft of his review about Laure’s homemade tagliolini, the spicy lamb sausage, the mosaics and hanging lanterns, the lines that ran out the door and down the street. Finally, he noticed her unusual lack of interest and became suspicious. “You know, Saba, I think we might want to save this for later… are you by any chance alone?”

Tara giggled, should she tell him? She studied the photographs that accompanied the newspaper clipping of Madison’s soccer injury, “well, Nurse Ratchet is busy watching ‘Orpah’ so, yes, I’m alllll alone; just me and Madison…” Tara wondered if everyone on the team eventually signed the cast. It certainly appeared that way.

“You are obsessing about Madison,” he remarked, willing to bet she was looking at her favorite shot of the girl, sitting on the sidelines with her victorious teammates waiting their turn to sign her new cast. He had to admit it was a great shot, the work of a patient man. He didn’t just spool through an entire roll hoping to catch an opening, he had waited; and, as the noisy cluster wove in and around Madison he had caught one clear angle, almost close enough with the telephoto lens to make out the details of the signatures. It gave both of them a kind of stalker’s rush every time they got to the page.

Tara glanced at the girl’s leg propped up on a low pile of sport bags, Madison with her head back, laughing. In the near distance, off the glossy page, she could see her own straight toes, all that was visible of her legs. “Shane?” she asked, suddenly needing him, “where are you?” Maybe he had left early, maybe he was calling from Penn Station? Maybe he was already en route home?

“Portable phone, I’m out on the verandah.” Shane walked over to the French doors and quietly closed them; he didn’t want to awaken Sophie for a number of reasons.

Tara pulled at the edges of the photo page; she squeezed her toes tight. “Oh,” she said nonplussed. So he was still at Laure’s.

Shane laughed, “don’t give me that poor-little-me stuff, I know what you’ve been doing with Madison so don’t deny it.”

“Didn’t.” Tara flipped over the pages that covered Madison’s trip to the hospital, Shane had followed the ambulance. His contacts inside the ER were not yet established and the whole series were under par for that reason.

“You were about to,” he insisted, trying anything to tear her attention away from the album.

Tara shrugged, “so?” The last three pages were the best, there was just so much to look at, so many questions to ask.

“So don’t try guilt here, everything is on schedule, I leave on Tuesday as planned and Madison goes back in the closet, right?” He waited a second, then asked her again, “right?”

Tara spread her casted legs so that the album could lay flat across her knees. Shane had devoted more pages of his photograph album to Madison than anyone else, including Tara. “I like talking about Madison, I like hearing you tell what happened.”

He paused, “you’re fixated on a girl I haven’t seen in what, ten years?” He didn’t mind Tara playing around with his album when he couldn’t make time for her, but, now, he felt she should put it down, think about him, what he might need.

“You’re jealous.” Tara bit into one of her saltines, crumbs falling on a shot of Madison on his couch, her casted leg up in the air in front of the camera, as if to block the view of her face. The back of her toes were somewhat blurry.

Shane fumed, “that’s ridiculous.”

She turned the album to one side, yes, that was a dildo on the table near Madison’s clothes. “You are, dear; I wish I could have been there…”

“I know you do,” he grumbled. It was as if she had appropriated his perfect fantasy.

“See? you are jealous!” She said absently; yes, that was definitely a double-headed dildo on the table.

“Sweetheart,” he said, trying to recover the mood, “together we couldn’t have kept Madison’s pace; if anything I’m still recuperating from the experience.”

Exaggerating Madison’s sexual prowess only played into Tara’s fascination with the girl. She put the album down, “mmm, so tell me about it again Shane. Right now, while I’m looking at her pictures, tell me what it was like, please?”

The sun was warm, the balcony protected from the winds, the narrow back yard a wild jungle of overhanging trees, he was alone. Through the glass doors he could just hear Sophie’s CD, typical airy pretty songs by Debussy, sonatas by Beethoven. So, he thought, it’s not exactly what I had in mind, but, why not?

“First,” he teased as he dropped into the padded lounger on the deck, loosening the draw-cord of his cotton sweat pants, “what are you wearing?” He held the phone between his jaw and shoulder as his eyes scanned the view of Sophie sprawled on the bed where he had left her, the white elbow of her casted arm parting the tumble of black silk sheets. His erection wanted some attention. “Are you wearing the stuff I bought you?”

He should have known better. “Certainly not,” Tara replied, offended that he would forget that she wore his old t-shirts and boxers to bed when he wasn’t with her.

“Well,” he murmured, “just tell me that you are wearing the other stuff okay?” He brought his knees up and teased his now aching erection, pulling its full length overtop the elastic waist band and cradling the balls with his free hand. Sophie had awakened, looking for him. He waved to her through the glass doors, from the deck. “Go on,” he told Tara on the phone, “I’m ready.”

“Oh, use your imagination!” she replied testily, assuming that he wasn’t going to retell the Madison story for her after all; he certainly didn’t sound like he was going to last that long.

“I am. Just tell me what you’re doing,” he said quietly. Part of him wanted Sophie to join him on the snug verandah, climb atop his dick and grind away while he listened to Tara come over the phone for him. Two women, two different casts, it was tempting.

“I think I should ask you that same question.”

Shane let his knees open wider, inviting Sophie to venture out onto the deck. She just smiled back at him from the bed, exhibiting her own assortment of toys for him to see. Lazy little witch, he thought. “Okay,” he drawled to Tara, “I am trying to get head from Sophie…”

Tara perked up, she even looked away from the photos of Madison. “Sophie? The little kid?”

“She’s um, grown up. Alot.”

“Whoa, tell me!” She had the sudden image of very young Betty Page in fishnets and a black leather bustier.

Shane gloated, finally got her attention he thought. “Sure,” he purred, “but first you tell me what you’re wearing, what you’re doing.”

Tara scanned the bed, where did that box go? She threw a few pillows around and found it still gift-wrapped. Opening the package she found the lacy plum-colored silk chemise and dangled it in the air; underneath were matching dark purple gloves that slid up her arms and over the elbow; Tara flexed her fingers, they felt stiff inside the sleek casing. She loved it; adored gloves almost as much as she did strappy, sexy shoes. She cooed into the phone, thanking him profusely.

“There’s more,” he said patiently. At the moment he would have given anything to see her in bed, her legs gleaming in their white casts, her long satiny arms seductively around his neck as he laid atop of her, his heavy dick wedged tight between her thighs.

With her gloved fingers Tara tried to open the small velvet bag that was underneath. Tugging at the white ribbon she fetched from inside an unusually stout seven inch dildo, fashioned to mimic the texture and contours of the real thing. “Oh, Shane,” she gasped, “ohmigod. This thing is huge!”

He smiled, “not really dear, not compared to what you’re used to.” He listened to her give him the business about his ego as he watched Sophie with her legs open. She had started fingering herself using her casted arm, her other hand gripped around the long shaft of a pale, rigid didlo. Tara would want to know about this. “Listen,” he interrupted urgently, “put Madison away for a moment. We should be talking about Sophie … she’s got those pouty lips you like, and the little snub nose, and really long dark hair and the chubby butt and really nice hands. The sight of her knuckles alone when she fists them over my dick would probably kill you… Tara?”

“Go on,” she said, trying to slide down as far in the bed as she could. The casts never felt heavier. She turned her own dildo on till it vibrated on the lowest setting, and played with her outer lips, running the head of the dildo over her mound, toying with the clit, rubbing it hard against the half-submerged bud. “Is she shaved, you know; and not too skinny? Nice tits? With big nipples?”

Shane smiled, he loved the excitement in her voice, “shhh, listen, Saba, did you put it in yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“Good, wait until I tell you to.” He took a piece of paper from his notepad and wrote some instructions for Sophie, who was watching his every movement just as keenly. Shane held up the note, giving her a moment to understand. “Okay,” he said, satisfied, “now you’ve got my undivided attention, Saba; remember, don’t put it in till I tell you.”

This was harder than he realized, Tara was already probing the wet opening, its tiny vibrations making her want to suck it up inside, deep inside. “Then hurry up babe …”

He took a breath, placing his hands on either side of the lounge armrests, deliberately not touching himself. The phone was wedged between his ear and his shoulder, the tilt of his head made Sophie appear equally lopsided, as if falling off the bed. “She is taller than you,” he began, “ all legs. Not totally shaved but you’d still like her, very soft hair, really, unusually soft. I think she uses conditioner it’s so soft; you want to rub your face all over her...”

Tara gasped again, laying the dildo flat against her pussy, dying to insert it. “And the breasts? Tell me, Shane, tell me,” she couldn’t help begging.

Shane gripped the lounge sides; Sophie had moved to the floor, in front of the glass doors between them. He watched her sit cross-legged, grinning at him. She tilted backward on her butt for a moment, long enough for him to see the blunt end of her own dildo protruding an inch or so from her pussy, then rocked back down, driving the dildo all the way in. She leveled her eyes on his till he could feel the electricity shuddering all the way down his dick. The fingers of her casted arm began massaging and pulling at her breast as she rocked back and forth on her dildo.

“Saba,” he said quietly, “time to put it in honey. Slide it in for me now, ease it in till your fingers are wet, go deep, like I was fucking you from behind; oh…” He held off a moment, watching Sophie slowly withdraw her foot from under her other leg. It was coming. She leaned back against the bed, still rocking gently on her dildo, and guided her foot to her mouth so she could lick the edges of her own toes for him. Shane nearly came, even without touching his dick, he could feel the cum pulsing and throbbing in his balls, every time her mouth parted and the big toe slid in between her lips he felt weak.

“She’s got perfect breasts,” he continued, “exactly what you like, so small she could be a boy but with enormous nipples, they pucker up all nice and tight and they’re still as big as a quarter. You could suck on them for hours, rubbing your body on hers; she’s very experimental. She tries to tongue-fuck; likes her breasts bitten…”

Tara lost the phone, it fell to the pillow. She drove the dildo in deeper, imagining the sensuous body of Sophie writhing underneath her, using a double dildo together. She’d bite the breasts, and dig her nails into the soft sides of her hips, making her squeal, make her rut frantically. She’d be nice to her too, suck and kiss and lap at her soft furry clit; maybe she would tongue her down there too. Tara began rolling with her first orgasm, unable to hold back, lost in the fantasy of the luscious Sophie.

Shane heard the panting, the little squirming sounds Tara made as she crested the first time. She wouldn’t be back for several minutes as she coasted in limbo. He began to stroke himself, watching Sophie’s long delicate fingers caress her own nipple, play with her lovely long toes. He thought about how perfect they were, just slightly undulating at the knuckles, tapering in a soft arc from big toe down to the little toe. Sophie came in a rush and closed her eyes, suddenly holding her good arm out for him.

He swiveled off the lounge and stepped through the French doors, leaving them open as he passed through. He pulled Sophie flat onto the floor by her ankles, her good hand over her mound as her hips pumped and rotated, still in the last throes of her orgasm. He called to her, waited for her to open her eyes, then made her watch him rub and massaged her foot with both his hands, kissing the instep, nibbling on the heel and lower calf. She moaned and attempted to tickle the sensitive area under his balls with the top of her casted hand, rubbing him carefully, as if stroking his dick. The length of her toes made the nails seem petite, pale, barely tinted with polish. He swirled his tongue around each one until he couldn’t resist sucking on them. They seemed to go on forever, with hills and gullies and crests and soft, rounding flares at the knuckles. He couldn’t feel the exact shape with his tongue but he knew the delicate bones were there.

Sophie groaned deeply, in need. She began to withdraw her vibrator when he covered her hand. Her foot slipped from his mouth, to his chest, and wiggled provocatively in the nest of dark hair above his navel. He pumped his own erection and prepared to enter when Sophie turned to her side; he helped her to her knees. Face down, resting on her right shoulder, she felt him take her by the hips for penetration. She’d have rug burns on her cheek for this, and smiled at the thought.

The nurse had left an entire dinner tray for her, covered in plastic; all Tara had to do was pop it into the microwave, which she did, humming to herself as the tabletop unit buzzed along. She read the nurse’s notes, Shane had called back twice but the nurse hadn’t been able to rouse her. With a stab of panic Tara wondered if the nurse had been dipping through the photo album; and, if she had, what would Shane do if he knew? Other than Cheryl, she was the only person he deigned to share his precious album with.

Tara’s dinner chimed “ready;” she carefully removed it from the oven to the tray and fanned the meal. While it was cooling Tara wheeled herself back into the bedroom to retrieve the album. It weighed more than she realized as she hauled it back to the kitchen, resting it across her lap. Every few feet she thought it was about to slip off her casted legs. Squeezing her toes tight, as if that would tense up muscles encased in fiberglass, Tara wanted to laugh; if only Shane could see this, she thought.

She moved the tray to the little stacking side tables they used when they entertained and turned the television on; she didn’t like the quiet either. On the other table she propped the album, munching her reheated dinner as she perused the photographs, not really thinking about Madison as much as she was absorbed in all the stray details one finds with overly familiar material. For instance, she mused, why did the cast look so different in the later pictures? Right by the inside of the ankle Madison had the most peculiar signature, if it was a signature. Tara flipped back to the earlier shots: coming out of the ER, reunited on the field with her teammates, the main photo that made the morning Local Sports section, not one of them had this signature. Had to be someone other than her teammates. But, who?

Wasn’t Shane’s signature, that much she knew. She wheeled over to the massive office center and rummaged through the drawers until she found Shane’s hefty magnifying glass. This is no ordinary name, she thought, examining it in the clearest photograph she had of Madison, her casted leg resting atop the good one, her back against the pillows. It appeared to be more like a tribal tattoo than a name; how very odd. She had asked Shane about it before but he didn’t know or care either; it was just some friend’s “notice-me” scribble.

Tara pushed her plate aside and brought the album onto the table, where the light was better. She examined the graceful entwining of initials, ML and RA, framed inside a celtic-knot like border. This wasn’t any show-off deal, this was someone who had all but put his stamp of ownership on the cast. Tara assumed the maker was a male for the whole interlace design was strong and firm, there was nothing flowery or feminine about the work.

She took the album and magnifying glass back to bed with her, irritated that she would never know who did the design or why. Hell, even Shane didn’t know, or so he claimed. Tara threw the album and glass onto the bed first, then dragged her butt back onto the edge of the bed; it was exhausting work moving two casted legs anywhere. Once settled back into her comfy wall of pillows she piled another one onto her lap and decided to inspect every photograph from those Shane had taken of Madison in his apartment to the last ones from some art show at the college. Shane had always maintained that the affair with Madison had fizzled because he couldn’t satisfy her expectations, an idea that strained even Tara’s gullible nature.

In every shot people flocked around Madison, she seemed to know everyone, her popularity ranged across age and background. For “a jock” Shane said she had as many connections in the arts and humanities department as she did in her soccer milieu. Any one of them could have signed this thing, Tara thought with mounting frustration. Even this guy here, she said out loud, this pervert checking out her ass. Tara was mortified that any man would try to horn in on Shane’s girlfriend as she worked her way through the crowd, and on crutches no less. The man, tall and blonde, husky without being heavy, was in every shot almost from the moment Shane began the roll in the college’s little art gallery. Pervert, Tara thought again, noting that he was dressed very casually, no tie, his LLBean type shirt open a couple of buttons to reveal the bristle of his blonde hairy chest. I hope Shane belted him one, Tara blurted out in agitation.

She reached into the drawer of her nightstand and found the pen and pad of paper she kept there for phone messages. She would make a list, put all the names of the people she could account for signatures on one side, and all the possibilities on the other. Except she didn’t know any of these people. Shit. Now what?

Disgusted with her abysmal detective skills Tara leaned back into the pillows and chewed on the end of her pen. Shit shit shit. Ready to heave the whole album to the floor Tara looked down at the first of the gallery photos, where that blonde professor pervert was doing some kind of speech near the long tables dressed with finger-foods and the obligatory red punch of art show openings. Behind him were several enormous paintings, all abstract color-field works, nothing to interest Tara. Or anyone else, she muttered, dismissing the large rectangular canvases, unable to find anything in the works to focus on. Except the smudges on the bottom.

Tara’s delicate eyebrows furrowed… smudges. All in the same place, all whip-like and framed in a box. But, she thought, leaning forward with her magnifying glass, what is that inside the box? The glare of the plastic sheet blinded her for a moment; Tara peeled back the plastic cover and tilted the album out of direct light and examined the smudge. Even as she did so she knew what it would be… the initials ”RA” entwined inside a cord border, another of the celtic frames. She nearly dropped the magnifying glass. So some big-deal, important painter had signed Madison’s cast as well? And who is this painter? She scoured the faces in the crowd around the blonde professor pervert gassing away about the gallery opening and decided any one of the anorexic women or David Crosby look-alikes could be the painter in question. Double shit. She would have to wait till Shane got home to show him her curious discovery. It hadn’t, nor would it have ever occurred to Tara that some things Shane was not going to tell her.

She fell asleep with a frown; so close yet so far. Tara was convinced another Madison story was waiting to be told, one that had escaped her for way too long. As she slept the magnifying glass slipped from her hand onto the album, right over the chest of the blonde pervert, the one with the white name label pinned to his shirt, the one that read “Roger Aeirl” in his distinctive whip-like script.

“Just humor him,” Madison whispered at his side. “Do it for me, okay?”

“I am. I would not be caught dead inside this asshole gallery with that asshole if I wasn’t doing this for you.” He changed lens and adjusted for the lighting, it would serve them right if I overexposed the whole damn thing, he thought.

Madison leaned even closer, “be a good boy, that guy you call “asshole” is my art teacher you know. And I suck in art. I can’t lose my 3.0 status or I pay more car insurance, lose my scholarship, get hassled by my parents…ya ya ya…”

He turned to her, capping his lens, “like you’re in any danger of blowing that prick’s class. Not as long as you keep blowing his fucking prick, right?” He handed her the roll of film from his camera and began walking away from her. He had forgotten that the first roll of film was still inside his pocket.

Madison let him go. An hour later a black Lincoln towncar pulled to the curb of his apartment building. Madison stepped out and slowly crutched up to the lobby doors, its antiquated ringer system numb to any amount of pressure. She took a small rock from the sidewalk rubble and threw it against the second floor window, three away from the lobby roof. His window. C’mon Shane, she thought, don’t make me stand out here all night.

It took several chink-chinks on the glass before she saw him loom in the window. He didn’t wave back but he did go downstairs and open the lobby doors to her, his body wedged between the door and its frame. “Yea?”

Madison held out her hand, palm up, “how about the other roll of film? Or did you take that home with you just so I would have to come round your place to get it?”

Shane pressed his forehead on the cold metal doorframe, “Madison,” he said with effort, “what do you want?”

She swung on her crutches closer to his body blocking the doorway, her casted leg hovering over the pavement, the long toes scraping slightly on the crumbling cement. He looked down and noticed how chilled her toes looked, pale and naked. As he raised his gaze back to hers she kissed him quickly. “What did I want yesterday?” she asked him pointedly, her black hair loose around her shoulders. “And the day before that? And the day before that? And last week when you finally got the nerve to stand close enough to me to talk to me? What did I want then, Shane? The same thing you want, the same damn thing.”

He stared back at her even as he let his weight push the door open, allowing her to crutch through. He followed her to the stairs; this time he didn’t carry her up the two flights to his apartment. This time he let her fumble each step, cursing under her breath. He was content to watch her tilt to the right, step up, position the crutch, pull up, and tilt again. It was slow and he could see that the back of her toes were dirty by the time she got to his room.

Even as mad at her as he was it gave him an undeniable charge to see her aggressively assert her “place” among his things, knowing where he had left her clothes from the day before, which side of the bed was “hers.”

“God, why do you have to make something so simple into something so difficult?” she said with an edge as she fell onto his bed, groaning about her leg which hung off the side. “I mean, do I ask who else you’re sleeping with and why? No, I don’t. There isn’t any difference between us Shane, except you try to make it like there is…”

Madison stopped talking, she was in too much pain.

Shane went into the small bathroom, filled one of the bowls he had used the day before with warm water and returned to the bedroom with a towel, soap, and the bowl. He set it down on the floor and began undressing her, without a word. She relaxed almost immediately.

“There is a difference,” he said absently, “I only fuck someone I want to fuck.”

Madison stretched her arms over her head, eyes closed. As she arched her back he removed her one white sock and pushed his fingers through her toes, lacing them as he would the fingers of her hand. She smiled and groaned happily. He continued to push his fingers through, tight though the fit was, too tight to really be comfortable. With her toes splayed out in a fan-like arc he dropped his head to suck on them, keeping each one apart, isolated, trapped. Her foot had the smell of Dove soap and the vanilla like fabric softener from her sock. The skin was so velvety smooth, so slick, like marble, from the trace of moisture and heat. He sucked on the back of her toes, gently, with all the time in the world.

He moved the casted leg onto the bed, along with the bowl of warm water and began bathing her feet, wiping away the dirt from the street, refreshing them, drying them on the towel. She watched him through the motions, the delicacy of his touch drove her to a kind of heat she never knew with Roger. Couldn’t know. Shane could control his passion, could measure it out carefully, with unnerving patience, savor every second of the massage or sucking or kissing that he gave her feet. Roger, in contrast, was a match in kerosene the moment he saw her naked foot.

Shane took a moment, got them something to drink, discussed what kind of shots he had in mind “this time” and could wait until he got them. The shutter had no sooner finished its fraction of movement, however, when he finally got what he really wanted.

“You know,” she said later, ruffling her fingers through his damp hair, “if you gave Roger half a chance you’d like him. Baby, you should see what he does with my cast…”