Chapter 1

There was something wrong today, and I could feel it as soon as I hit the jogging path.

What had I done? What, perhaps, had I not done? I felt different. Yes, it was ungodly hot and humid, and maybe that was it, and it wasn't me. Just before I had completed the second mile of my three mile run, though, I had stopped fooling myself. I didn't prepare myself for this heat, not well enough anyway. I was feeling weak, and I felt like I was sweating in places that didn't even have sweat pores. I glanced down at my light blue bikini bottom and saw that it was almost completely soaked from my exertion. The loose t-shirt I wore on top didn't seem to let in enough air, and my ponytail felt like a wet rope pounding my shoulders with each stride.

C'mon, I told myself, just slow the pace a little, you'll be fine, you'll finish this thing and maybe take a splash in the ocean, if you can make it the fifty yards from the path to the water. I could hear the ocean's gentle rush as my sneakered feet rounded a stand of pine trees by a chin-up bar, the landmark that told me I had one mile to go.

I had been tired before while jogging, but this was getting ridiculous. Even after slowing, my lungs started to ache, and there was a pounding in temples that was drowning out the ocean's waves, invisible on the other side of the bushes.

Dammit, Traci! Should have had more water last night and this morning. I had also not eaten since early... oh stupid girl... then, just as I was going to swallow my pride and slow to a fast walk, my right hamstring seized up like a corkscrew. I cried out and hobbled to an ungraceful kneel, then I plopped down on the thin grass and sand at path's edge, my arteries hammering, my head spinning. I wanted to spit, no I wanted to vomit, no I wanted... just to breathe. I tried taking in a deep breath, but somehow that just wasn't working, and the pain in my hamstring was excruciating. I felt so... helpless.

I laid back, bending my leg to try and stretch it a little, and to try and get my breathing under control. How ridiculous would it be, the thought came to me in the blinding fog of fatigue, to die at the age of 29 on a jogging path? I lay there actually thinking that. I wondered if my "new start" since last spring's divorce from my idiot gambling addict husband was going to be all for naught. At least, I thought grimly, I would die without leaving a pot of money behind. Nick had spirited it all to the casinos, withdrawal by withdrawal.

The hammering in my ears didn't allow me to hear the rush of rollerblade wheels as they came to a stop near my head.

"Hey are you ok girlfriend?" came a voice from above. Through sweat-stinging eyes I squinted up at two long legs meeting at a red string bikini bottom. Above that, some boobs, some blonde hair. So far, help had hopefully arrived. I wasn't dead, and this wasn't heaven.

"I'm not sure," I said. "No," I quickly corrected myself. "Not ok."

She knelt just then, and touched my forehead, then my neck. She had red fingernail polish. I could still see!

"Heat exhaustion," she said. "Let's get you to some water, and some shade. "Can you get up?"

I shook my head. "Hamstring." My lips felt cotton dry.

"Uh-oh. Ok hon. You definitely need some hydrating. Let's go." With that, she carefully lifted me up to a sitting position. Then, patiently she helped me to stand, though I was really just leaning on her.

I was too weak to talk.

"Put your arm around my neck," she said, and I did. Then, I heard some unbuckling noises. Sounded like she was dropping her skates on the ground. Then, to my absolute astonishment, her arm dipped behind my knees and she swept me off the ground.

"Let's go," she said, carrying me like a baby. My god, from helpless, to even more helpless!

Too spent and near total system failure to be embarrassed, I managed to croak, "Whoo... you're a strong one."

"Your skates..." I said weakly. "People 'll steal 'em..." My words were coming out like a drunkard.

"Don't worry about them," she said calmly.

Well, the skating rescuer made a zig-zagging but very determined safari path through the bushes, and in moments were on the beach side. I had my eyes half open in some lame attempt to conserve energy. I guessed that this is what people who bled to death felt like just before the lights went out completely. All I could see right now was a red-fabric covered breast just an inch or so from my cheek, and the blue sky.

"Dana what's going on?" I heard a male voice say.

"She's way overheated and she's hurting. Grab some of that Gatorade we brought, babe."

I heard ice rustling in a cooler, and I was being laid down on a towel, my head resting on Dana's thigh. A male face appeared above me, and his face, seemingly in slow motion, said, "Drink."

I never liked Gatorade, but this tasted like the coolest finest champagne on earth as it slid down my throat and spilled over out of the corners of my mouth, onto Dana's thigh, obviously, because she went, "Eek!" as she stroked my head with a towel. The effect of just three or four gulps of that stuff made a world of difference. My peripheral vision slowly returned, and I didn't feel like I was being asphyxiated anymore. My hamstring was still aching horribly.

Dana gave her apparent boyfriend a brief rundown of her discovery of me floundering on the jogging path. The boyfriend, whose good looks were coming more into focus as my health improved, nodded and fed me Gatorade. I craned my neck a little so I could see Dana, and said, "Thanks so much. I don't know what would have become of me if..."

"Shh now. Don't try to talk, just drink slowly and get your strength back. I'm Dana and this is Ryan."

"Traci," I said my voice raspy and weak.

Then, the two of them hurriedly said something back and forth, and I heard the word "hospital" in there somewhere.

"Yeah, be on the safe side," Ryan said.

"No no... no need," I tried to protest.

"Bullshit. Let's go." This time it was Ryan who swept me up in his arms like an infant, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't deliberately let my head loll against his very nice chest.

"I can walk," I whined, hoping he would ignore that, which he did.

In the back seat of their car, with Dana sitting next to me, I sat up and shook off some of the cobwebs. I wasn't going to die, but my hamstring was still killing me.

"No hospitals," I said, "please."

The two of them exchanged a glance in the mirror and Dana said, "Ok, but you are stopping at our place. I have some cream that will fix that hamstring, and I'm a licensed masseuse."

"You two have done so much already."

"We're right down the street," Ryan insisted. "Let Dana work that leg for a few minutes. Trust me, she's magic, I know first hand."

"It's the only reason he wants to marry me," Dana joked, "So he can get free massages."

So, fiancees. I glanced at Dana sitting there, still in her red string, and decided that Ryan had many more reasons than her masseuse license to have her around. She looked to be a couple years younger than me, and Ryan maybe a couple of years older. Her hair was long with slight natural curls, and he had sandy colored hair, deep set green eyes, and a killer smile. They made a striking looking couple.

I felt inadequate around them, me with my smallish breasts and girl-next-door-standard-brunette looks. My body was in good shape, though. Enough, anyway, to jog in public with a bikini bottom on. I had a decent derrier, and had to have something to show off after all. None of that mattered then. They had been so helpful, had taken charge in fact, and insisted upon my recovery and well-being, that I felt deeply indebted.

Once we got inside their condo, a very nice two story place, Dana pointed to a massage table. "On your tummy, no back talk about it."

I grumbled but complied, limping to the table and climbing aboard, with a helping hand from Ryan.

Dana opened a cupboard somewhere behind me and I heard her unscrew the cap of a jar. With one hand, she reached in between my thighs and patted the inside of one of them. "Let's open up just a little," she said, and I parted my legs so that my feet were about shoulder width apart.

Moist noises filled the room as she rubbed her hands together, and then she started at my right ankle, working up slowly. She expertly worked the muscles in the lower leg, and when she got up past the knee, she ran her fingertip up the back of my thigh until it reached the bottom crease of my butt. Then she pressed in. Without asking, she pulled the fabric of my bikini bottoms up so that it exposed my buttock and the fabric bunched up in my crack.

Her very skilled hands worked the minty smelling cream into the flesh of my upper thigh, all the way across to the outside, then back in, higher and higher until Dana's fingers were aggressively kneading my butt cheek.

More than once, she hands went high up, just at the crease where thigh turns to buttock, and kneaded, her fingertips down near my groin muscle, which she worked with several different techniques.