Chapter 15

Bobby went outside to sit in a chair on the back porch and watch the men work. He was fascinated with the machine, which moved slowly here and there, making an awful racket. The man in the little cab seemed to use it like it was an extension of his own body. First he scraped the area clean of grass, digging only a few inches deep. Those scoops went in a pile to one side. Then he dug down eight more inches, making a pit big enough to be a fair-sized patio. Next the plumbers told him where to dig down right by the house, where he dug a trench four or five feet down.

Bobby, thinking much like his mother had, noticed that the youngest member of each team did the carrying and fetching. The older men consulted and supervised, giving directions. The guy in the middle worked the machine. This hierarchy was similar to what he’d seen in the long term care home, when he woke up. There were supervisors and worker bees. What the worker bees on this job were doing didn’t seem so onerous.

By lunch time the shallow hole had been framed with lumber Bud explained would form up the concrete pad that would be poured the next day. Dan and Stan used white, plastic-looking pipes to go from a hole they made that went through the foundation under the house, to the inside of the framed area. Even a novice like Bobby could tell that these pipes would be encased in the concrete when it was poured. Alongside these larger white pipes was one tube made of copper, which would also be buried in the concrete except for a few inches that would stick up, out of the flat surface.

The trench was refilled, burying the pipes there down deep, where the cold of winter wouldn’t affect them. Then the men said they were finished and left.

Just like that the back yard was quiet again and, except for the framed, dark dirt scar and pile of sod they’d created, looked just like it always had.

“This is exciting,” said Bobby, when he went back in and found Mai Li drying her hair. She hadn’t gotten to take her shower as early as she wanted because the plumbers kept going in and out of the house, and getting under it, first to find where to connect the pool drain and where to tap into a water supply, and then making those connections. She didn’t want to be running around in a towel or with wet hair until the traffic in the house slowed down. She hadn’t taken her shower until Dan had said, “I think we’re finished traipsing in and out. I’ll have Stan come in and clean up where we tracked dirt in.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “It isn’t that bad and I’ll have Bobby sweep as part of his physical therapy. He was so fascinated with what you guys were doing that we didn’t get to do his exercises, today.”

“Up to you,” said Dan. “The information we have from the pool company is that their people will hook things up. Have a good rest of your day.”

“Why is your hair wet?” asked Bobby, when he noticed she was combing it out.

“I took a shower,” she said.

“Oh.” There was a pause and then he said, “I wish I’d known. I would have asked if I could take it with you. I liked that before.” There was another pause. “Is that weird?”

“Not weird at all,” she said. “We’ll do that the next time we need a shower.”

“Really? Wow. That gave me a boner!”

“Bobby,” she groaned. “Is there any time you don’t have a boner?”

“I usually don’t have one when I’m doing my school work.” He smiled. “Unless you’re there to help me. Any time I’m around you I get a boner.”

“What am I going to do with you?” she sighed.

“I hope it’s what you’ve been doing with me already,” he said.

His comment wasn’t delivered with any trace of innuendo and Mai Li understood he simply meant that he hoped their relationship, both professional and personal, kept going as it had.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “We still have a lot of work to get you finished with your GED and ready to go looking for a job.”

“I thought about that while I was watching those guys,” said Bobby. “Some of them just went back and forth between the truck and where they were working, carrying things and such. I think I could do that someday.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “I won’t lie to you. A lot of it depends on how frequent your seizures are and what kind you have. I’m really happy you haven’t had any serious ones lately.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I guess so.”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” she said. “Now, those plumbers tracked in dirt and since you didn’t do any exercises today, you can clean that up.”

“Okay,” he said, drawing out the A sound. “I’d rather exercise like we did last night, though.”

She laughed, and it came from a place of pure joy. He was so normal, most of the time. Young, yes, but very, very normal in most aspects.

“Maybe we’ll exercise like that again tonight,” she said.

Later that night, as Vicky lay in her bed, alone, she heard noises for the first time. There was a rhythmic thumping and then a strained, “Bobby!” followed by the scrape of bed feet across the floor. Then there was silence.

It was Vicky’s imagination that got fired up as she realized what was going on in Mai Li’s room, next door to hers.

More men from Jayhawk Construction arrived the next morning, along with a huge truck that had pipes all over the top of it. It was a concrete pumper and the pipes unfolded to make an articulated arm. The operator extended the arm over the house so that the pad could be poured because the concrete truck was too big to get into the back yard.

Again, Bobby stood a safe distance away and watched as a concrete truck arrived and poured thick gray concrete into a hopper on the back of the pumper. The hose from the pumper delivered a thick stream of the gray liquid concrete into the wooden frame. He sat in his lawn chair on the back porch again as the workers then smoothed it until the top glistened and became a smooth flat gray. The man he knew was named Bud came over to him.

“Want to sign your name and the date on one corner of the pad?” he asked. “This is all for you, right?”

“I guess so,” said Bobby, who was surprised. “I mean yes. Can I really do that?”

“Make it neat and small,” said Bud.

He took Bobby to the corner nearest where the plumbing stubs stuck up out of the new concrete. Bud took a nail and showed Bobby how to push the flat head into the soft surface, rather than scraping. When he got finished, the neat letters “Bobby Washington” and the date were pressed into the concrete.

“Now you’re immortal,” said Bud, smiling. “I wish I was you.”

“You’ve never done that?” asked Bobby.

“Sure, but that’s not what I meant. If you’re lucky, when you use what they’re going to put on that pad, that hot Chinese physical therapist will get in there with you, maybe in a bikini. That’s what I wish I could do.” He grinned.

“She’s Vietnamese,” said Bobby, who felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck.

“Chinese, Vietnamese, doesn’t matter,” said Bud. “They all have a hot pussy. You take care, now.”

The crew started packing up and Bobby went inside.

Suddenly he wasn’t curious about what was going on outside, anymore.

“How are they doing?” asked Mai Li, when he came back inside.

“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped. “They’re leaving. I’m glad.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, hearing something in his voice that was dark.

“One of them said something about you,” he grunted.

“Oh? What was that?”

“He said he wished he could be me when you get in the pool wearing a bikini.”

“He did, did he?”

“It made me mad.”

“Bobby, Honey, nobody’s getting in that pool with me except you,” said Mai Li. This was one of the times she wished he was a bit more mature.

“I know. It just made me mad.”

“One of the things you need to learn is that I’m not going to be intimate with anybody except you,” she said, gently. “You need to have confidence that I don’t want anybody but you.”

“You did before,” he muttered.

She got up from where she’d been surfing the net on her laptop. She went to him and pulled him to the seat she’d just vacated and made him sit down. Then she straddled his lap and leaned her face towards his.

“Who was your girlfriend before the accident?” she asked.

“I didn’t have one,” he said, putting his hands on her waist.

“Who did you wish was your girlfriend?” she asked.

“What does it matter?” he asked, his voice still sulky.

“Because I want to be jealous of her, but I can’t if you don’t tell me who she was.”

“That’s silly. She’s grown up and probably in college, now. She has a real boyfriend. She might even be married.”

“So, because she’s from your past and is no threat to me now, I shouldn’t be jealous?”

“Of course not,” he said.

She stared into his eyes until his mind caught up with her frame of reference. She saw it when his face relaxed.

“Raoul is from my past. I have no idea where he is now and I don’t care. Maybe he has another girlfriend. Maybe he even got married. Either way, I don’t care because he’s in the past.”

“I get it,” he sighed. “So why do I get jealous?”

“I think it’s natural,” she said. “You don’t feel secure. That’s part of your fifteen-year-old mind that hasn’t grown up, yet. You don’t want some other man paying attention to me. You don’t want some man paying attention to your mother, either. What you need to realize is that even if other guys lust after me, I’m not interested in them, and just because some guy is dating your mother it doesn’t mean she’s going to stop loving you. Both of us are in your life and that’s not going to change. You’re stuck with us, Bobby. Two women love you and neither one is going to let you go.”

“What happens when I get better and really can get a job? You’ll leave and start working with some other person who needs your services.”

“Your mom goes to work every day, right?” Mai Li said.

He nodded.

“That doesn’t mean she forgets about you. She comes home every day.”

“Yes, but you only live here because of your job,” he moaned.

“Bobby, I’m going to be delighted when you don’t need me as your physical therapist, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to walk out and never speak to you again. I’ll still live in Lawrence. We’ll still go on dates. I’ll still want to be with you like this.” She scooted, pushing her pussy against his lap. She leaned forward to kiss him. “I love you, Baby,” she moaned. “I’ll never stop loving you.”

“You stopped loving Raoul,” he said, circling back to where he’d been before.

“No. I never loved him, Bobby. I had fun with him. We dated. But I never loved him. I never let him put his naked penis inside me. I never let him cum in me without a condom on. You’re the only man whose sperm has gotten into my womb. Do you understand how special that is?”

He blinked. She kissed him again.

“Wanna get some more sperm in my womb right now?” she whispered.

To say he was galvanized would be like saying getting a nail driven through your foot would hurt.

Twenty minutes later he groaned and the sperm she’d reference raced through his penis and into her hot pussy.

She’d already had two orgasms by then, and when she felt his juice, she hugged him tightly.

“Feel better?” she panted.

“I do,” he gasped, going limp on top of her.

“Remember this the next time you get jealous,” she teased.

“Do I get to do this every time I get jealous?”

She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her back or not.

“If you do, I might never be able to get out of bed,” she said.

“I love you enough to at least let you eat and take a shower every once in a while,” he said. He rolled off of her and flopped onto his back.

“Speaking of showers, you got me all sweaty. I seem to remember you wanting to take a shower with me, is that right?

“Hmm?”

By the time she levered herself up and leaned over him, he was already breathing the slow, measured cadence of a person asleep.

The day ... and his emotions ... had worn him out.

At 3:30, the owner of the diner approached Vicky and asked her if she could cover half of Debbie’s shift. Debbie was the evening waitress and her car had broken down.

“Sure,” said Vicky, who figured she could use the extra money. She’d only gone on one date since deciding not to be celibate any longer, but she felt like a whole new person. And she had a second date lined up for Saturday night. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed home. Mai Li picked up and Vicky told her what was going on.

“You two okay without me?” she asked.

“Bobby’s asleep and I’m doing some sketching,” said Mai Li. “We’re fine.”

“Okay. See you later.”

Because of all that Vicky didn’t get home until 7:30. She was tired and her feet hurt, but she’d eaten at the diner, one of the perks of working during a meal time. Since there were no other perks, she tried to enjoy it and Joey, the cook, was good at his job, so she was always willing to eat what he fixed her.

She was already removing her uniform as she moved through the kitchen, toward her bedroom. There were no lights on in the living room and it was too early for Mai Li and Bobby to have gone to bed, so she looked for them. Mai Li’s door was open and the light was on, so she stopped. She stared at Mai Li’s back, which was bare. Mai Li was sitting on a straight-back chair from the kitchen and the easel was set up in front of her. Bobby was on the bed, arms and legs flung akimbo. Even from the doorway she could hear him snoring gently. He’d always been a hard sleeper and the coma hadn’t altered that, apparently. She moved forward to get closer to the easel as Mai Li’s hand rose and the pencil in her hand scratched the pebbled surface of the art paper.

“It’s beautiful!” whispered Vicky. Mai Li turned her head and looked over her shoulder.

“I’m glad it’s you. I felt the urge to sketch and I’ve been at it since just before you called.”

“You sketch in the nude?” whispered Vicky.

“I was ... um ... already nude ... and I guess I just forgot about it when I got into the zone,” said Mai Li.

“Already nude? At three in the afternoon?”

“Bobby had a little crisis of self-confidence,” said Mai Li. “One of the construction workers said something – you know how men can be – and Bobby got jealous and worried that I’d dump him like I dumped Raoul.”

“What we women won’t do to salve the wounded confidence of our men,” sighed Vicky.

“Actually, I had quite a lot of fun salving him,” giggled Mai Li. “Of course, like a man, he fell asleep on me almost instantly, but he looked cute so I decided to draw him.”

“You really do good work,” said Vicky. “It’s pornographic, but it’s also beautiful.”

“It’s not a classical pose,” said Mai Li. “That’s one reason I decided to draw him this way. Nobody but you and I will ever see it, anyway.”

“I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to see it,” sighed Vicky. “He’s a good looking young man.”

“He is,” Mai Li agreed.

“It’s all right. Terry is taking me out again tomorrow night.”

“You going to sleep over?”

“I hope so. At least I don’t have to go to work Sunday morning.”

“I hope it all works out okay. You want to see what they did in the back yard today?”

“No. All I want is a shower and bed,” said Vicky.

“All right, then. I’ll try to draw quietly.”

“You moved the bed away from the wall last night, didn’t you?” said Vicky.

Mai Li looked at her with surprised eyebrows.

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Because it was making noise banging against the wall ... and then it wasn’t.”

Mai Li blushed and Vicky saw it start on her pale breasts, with their almost black nipples.

“Sorry,” said the younger woman. “He’s getting stronger and more ... um ... vigorous.”

“Thanks for moving it,” said Vicky. “It’s hard enough just knowing what’s going on in here without hearing it, too.”

“We’ll be more careful,” said Mai Li.

“See you in the morning,” said Vicky.

When no construction people showed up Saturday morning Mai Li was worried about it until, at breakfast, Bobby said one of the men had told him the concrete needed to cure for a couple of days before anybody put anything heavy on it. That meant nobody needed to be home at the house over the weekend.

“Want to hit the pool again today for your PT?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said.

They spent until eleven going over his math work again and Bobby said he thought he could take the test.

“You want to do that now, or go to the pool?” she asked.

“Hmmm,” he said. “Get to see you in your bikini ... or take a test?” He ‘weighed’ each side of the scales and the hand he’d raised when he referenced her bikini suddenly went low. “I can take the test tomorrow, right? If it’s online, then it should be available on Sunday.”

She felt her nipples crinkle at his obvious interest in her body. Other men had been interested in her body, too, but it felt different when it was Bobby.

A familiar feeling suddenly appeared in her middle.

“Hang on a second,” she said.

She went to her room and got into one of her suitcases, where she kept some things she didn’t feel comfortable putting in the bathroom. She removed a tampon and went to the bathroom, where her senses proved to be right. She had started her period. She inserted the tampon, washed her hands, and went back to where Bobby was now playing a game on his computer.

“We can go swimming, but I have to tell you we won’t be able to have sex for a few days.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I started my period,” she said, feeling awkward. She’d never discussed her periods with any other man, not even Raoul. She’d told him when she was on it, but hadn’t said anything further.

“That’s good, right?” he said, unfazed by the discussion. “You were worried about getting pregnant and now we know you’re not, right?”

“That’s correct,” she said, dryly.

“You know, I’m not as helpless as you think,” he said. “We don’t have to have sex. I like doing that, but we don’t have to do it.”

“How thoughtful of you,” she said, her voice still dry.

“Are you sure we can go swimming? I mean I remember what they said about periods in health class. I mean, there’s like bleeding ... right?”

“We can go swimming,” she said. “You still have a few things to learn about women.”

“Okay. You can teach them to me,” he said, brightly.

As she drove to the pool, Mai Li reflected on the man/boy who was Bobby Washington.

They wore their swim suits to the pool this time, and by the time they met, coming out of the respective dressing rooms they still had to walk through, she had decided that, despite the “boy” side of Bobby Washington, it was worth being with the “man” part of him.

He was always eager to learn.

And that meant he hadn’t made up his mind already.

A woman was lucky if she fell in love with a man who had an open mind.

It was almost three in the afternoon when they got back from the pool. Mai Li had taken sun screen this time and had insisted on liberal, frequent applications, but both were still a little pink when they left the pool.

Bobby had done all the exercises she listed for him, and had obviously worked hard at them, in Mai Li’s opinion. Pool therapy had been touched on in her classes, but she had very little experience in supervising that activity. She could monitor his pulse and breathing by looking at him and both were elevated while he was working against the water. They didn’t spend the entire time working, of course. Part of the time they just soaked and talked, standing close together in neck deep water. She half expected him to cop feels, but he never did.

He puzzled her, sometimes. He was obviously infatuated with her body and she knew he thought often of sex, and yet it didn’t dominate his thoughts. She wondered if the fact that he had gone through much of puberty in his coma, as the doctor had mentioned, meant that the hormones in his eighteen-year-old body didn’t affect the dregs of his fifteen-year-old mind like it would if he was still in puberty. Then she wondered if there were enough young men like Bobby in the world that somebody had actually studied whether typical teen boy sexual obsessiveness was age-related, in terms of social development, or hormone-related because of puberty.

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