Chapter 5

Mai Li had eaten enough cookies to cover half the sheet. She was currently staring at her laptop screen, squinting at hits on one of the searches she’d been doing. Her search had initially started out as “patient treatment involving sexual components” but what she’d gotten from that had been related to sexual dysfunction issues. She’d tried different combinations of words, trying to find anything that might relate to what she’d done with Bobby. Normally, she only went two or three pages deep into search results before trying something else. She was forty-two pages deep in the current search, grasping for straws, when the doorbell rang.

She looked at her watch and gasped. It was 4:30! She’d been staring at her computer screen for hours!

She hurried to the door and opened it to find a tall, thin man wearing glasses. She thought of Clark Kent, for some reason.

“I’m Ted,” he said. “You must be Mai Li.”

“Yes!” she yipped. “Come in! I was busy doing things and lost track of time.”

“I take it the other guy isn’t here, yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Well, where’s Bobby? I’d like to meet him. I’ve spent literally millions of his dollars but never seen him.”

“I’ll go get him,” said Mai Li. “I think he was taking a nap.”

She hurried to Bobby’s room and went in without knocking. He was still on the bed, but had rolled onto one side. She shook him awake gently.

“Ted’s here,” she said. “He wants to meet you.”

“Okay,” said Bobby, his voice bleary.

“Don’t forget to do up your pants,” said Mai Li.

She left and went to offer Ted something to drink. He declined, looking around the house.

“It’s a little strange seeing this house and knowing that the young man who lives in it is a millionaire,” he said.

“They’re struggling,” said Mai Li. “Vicky works two jobs.”

“How’s he doing with his physical therapy?” asked Ted.

“So far, so good,” said Mai Li. “We’re still in the beginning stages of things, though.”

“Of course,” said Ted. “I take it you’re hopeful, though?”

“I am,” she said.

“I’d ask you more about this pool, but I’m sure the company rep will cover all that.”

As if his mention of the man did some kind of magic, the doorbell rang again. Mai Li opened it to find a man who looked like the physical opposite of Ted. This man was almost as short as Mai Li was, and almost as wide as he was tall. His face was florid and he used a handkerchief to mop the sweat from his face. He was wearing a suit and tie, like Ted, but while Ted’s fit him well, this man’s suit would never fit any human being well.

“I’m Jerry,” he said, beaming. “I’m from Covington Therapy Pools. Are you Mai Li MacIntosh?”

“I am,” she said. “Please, come in. We’ve been anxious to meet you.”

“We got ahead of schedule. I appreciate you seeing me so much sooner than our original appointment. You saved the company a bunch of money on either putting me up in hotels or flying me back home and then back here.”

“Maybe you can give us a discount, then,” said Ted. “I’m Ted Byker, Mai Li’s associate. I can’t wait to hear your pitch.” He extended his hand and the shorter man took it.

“I don’t have a pitch,” said Jerry. “I’ll tell you what our pools will do and if there’s an appropriate place to put one in this particular location. The pools sell themselves.”

“First things, first, then,” said Ted. “Where can one of these go?”

“Show me around,” said Jerry, simply.

It took almost no time for Jerry to decide that a pool could not go anywhere inside the house. Along the way Bobby joined them and was introduced as “the patient.” In the back yard Jerry stepped away from the house and then studied it.

“All our models can be used outside. The cost difference is in the amount and type of insulation we have to use at varying latitudes,” he said. “There’s room for one over there, or there, or there.” He pointed to three places. “I’d recommend in this area,” he said, walking to a place that was just outside the kitchen window, next to the small back porch. He held out his hands and turned in a circle. “This is the closest to available water. There’s a sillcock over there.” He pointed again. “There would be minimal disturbance of the soil with it here and I don’t think tree roots would be an issue, in terms of burying the water supply and drain to the pool.”

“Is it more expensive to have an outdoor pool as opposed to an indoor one?” asked Ted.

“Yes. Indoor installation generally doesn’t require insulation and the covers can be less robust. In Kansas we generally want to insulate to, say, ten below. People ask us to cut costs by using an indoor model and saying they won’t use the pool in the winter, but our experience with that has been unhappy. People fail to drain the pool and then want us to cover freeze damage under warranty. So we install all pools as if they’ll be used year-round. To be honest, anybody spending this much money on a pool will want to use it as much as possible. This isn’t a recreational pool.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Ted. “But, surely, the pool could be used recreationally, too.”

“I suppose so,” said Jerry, “but you could do way better for way less money if that’s what you’re after. The pool you’re interested in is designed for one person to use during therapy. There’s room for a therapist to be in it with the patient. You could get maybe six people in the pool, but they’d need to like each other a lot because they’d be standing right next to each other.”

“So there’s the pool and then installation, right? How much is that?” asked Ted.

“We’ll sub contract for the pad to put it on and the plumbing work, but otherwise everything is included in our price. We can have this pool installed and ready for use in thirty days, assuming we can find acceptable sub-contractors.”

Ted turned to Mai Li.

“I’ll take it from here. I assume you still want the pool, right?”

“Yes!” yipped Mai Li. “Can we really get it?”

“I’m satisfied it’s for his medical treatment. Our lawyers will sign off on it. Is where he suggested it go acceptable to you?”

Mai Li turned to Bobby, who hadn’t said a word throughout the whole process.

“There is fine,” he said. “I do have one question though.”

“Shoot,” said Jerry.

“This is a rental house. In three years we’ll be moving. Can the pool be moved, too?”

“Simple as pie,” said Jerry. “Our warranty includes a five year satisfaction guarantee, which includes moving it to a different location. There is a fee involved, but the pool is made of modular panels and it can be disassembled, moved, and reassembled for about a thousand dollars, not counting additional prep work. That’s today’s dollars, of course. Inflation may make it more than that three years from now, but it won’t be much. All it costs the company is the manpower and those are already on our payroll. Also, if it gets moved into a building then no prep work is required, in terms of hiring subs. Our people will do the disassembly and reassembly. Getting them here means you’ll need to get on their schedule, but you’ll have plenty of time to do that if you’re not moving it for three years.”

“Okay,” said Bobby. “Thanks. That’s all I was worried about.”

“Okay. You two can go do whatever it is you do on a daily basis and I’ll settle things with Jerry,” said Ted.

“Okay,” sighed Mai Li.

She turned to Bobby.

“Let’s go for a walk and build up your stamina. In about a month you’re going to need to be in better shape than you are now. Doing exercises with water resistance is a lot harder than people think it is.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be more than willing to do water resistance,” said Bobby.

“Oh? And why do you say that?” asked Mai Li.

He leaned closer to her. They were already out of earshot of the two men, but he spoke softly anyway.

“Because you’ll be in that pool with me, right? And you said you’d wear a bikini ... right?”

He looked at her with puppy dog eyes.

“You’re terrible,” she said, smiling. “And I did not say that. You said you wanted me to. I never agreed. Besides, why would you want to be tormented like that?”

“It’s your fault,” he whined. “I wasn’t terrible until you started working for us.”

Nothing else happened that day, but when Vicky got home that night the air of tension she’d been so aware of was gone.

Both Bobby and Mai Li were already in bed, so she didn’t get to find out what had healed the rift, but she could still feel the aura in the house, and it was comfortable again.

She didn’t really care. All she cared about was that her son get the care he needed.

Mai Li got an hour with Vicky the next morning before the older woman had to go to work. Mai Li filled her in on the pool, and that it seemed like a done deal, though it would take a month before they could use it. She did not inform Vicky that she had masturbated Bobby. She wanted to, but that needed to be when they had more time to work through the storm Mai Li expected to develop. Vicky was visibly happy and left for work in a more upbeat mood than usual.

To Mai Li’s surprise, Bobby didn’t try to take advantage of her new status in his life. On her twelfth day of working for and living with the Washington family, she got Bobby up around eight and did physical therapy with him for two hours. Then they did GED work on her laptop for two hours. After lunch they walked and Bobby made it a whole mile, though he was worn ragged by the time they got back home. Mai Li thought he’d ask for a massage, and then a “special” massage, but he didn’t. All he did was soak in the shower for a while and then took a nap.

It wasn’t for three more days, in fact, until Bobby’s behavior indicated he was remembering her hand around his penis, masturbating him.

They had been doing stretches after a PT session. He was getting stronger by the day and his sessions weren’t leaving him limp and sore as often. She saw it come over his face as they stretched and his eyes ran over her body. They were facing each other and her legs were spread into splits. He could only go half way down and it was her goal to get his balls on the floor. On this particular day she was wearing a tank top over a sports bra with running shorts over her lower torso. Her breasts were firmly pressed against her body by the tight fabric, but the smooth outline of her tank top made it clear she was very definitely a woman under the suit.

What caught her eye was a momentary jitter of his eyes, which she thought might be the onset of a focal seizure, but then she realized his eyes were just whipping from her breasts to the juncture of her legs and back. She knew what a man’s face looked like if he was mentally undressing her and his face had something akin to that look. Her own eyes went to his loose shorts and the evidence of his arousal began to show even as she looked.

His eyes found her eyes watching him and he folded his knees to sit with his legs beside him.

“Sorry,” he said, knowing he was busted.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind it when a good guy leers at me a little.”

“I don’t mean to leer,” he said.

“I prefer that to the silent treatment you were giving me a week ago,” she said.

“I’m sorry about that, too,” he said. “I was mad and I couldn’t figure out who I was mad at.”

“I thought you were mad at me,” she said. “I’m the one who hurt your feelings.”

“Yeah, okay, I guess,” he said. “But you wouldn’t have had to hurt my feelings if I hadn’t gone all squirrelly on you.”

“I wasn’t complaining about you being squirrelly,” she said. “All I was doing was trying to manage your expectations.”

“That’s the part I don’t understand,” he said.

“What? Managing your expectations?”

“Yeah. I know I’m not supposed to have a crush on you, but after what happened a few days ago ... I mean that exceeded my expectations so much it blew my mind!”

“Ah, yeah,” said Mai Li, blushing. “I can see how that might confuse you.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I mean girls don’t do that to guys they don’t like.”

“But I do like you,” she said. “I can’t be your girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean I can’t like you. But think about it this way; what happened last time didn’t happen because I like you. It happened because I thought you needed it. You were getting so frustrated I was afraid things would get so bad you’d have a seizure. I didn’t want that. I don’t even know where the idea came from. I just suddenly thought that if you could calm down and I could do the stressful part for you, it might work. It was a crazy idea, but it worked. I actually saw you use some of the techniques the doctor taught you to try to head off a seizure. And you didn’t have a seizure! So it was a success in that respect. Of course the other side of that coin is that I’d lose my license if anybody found out I did that.”

“Then we have to make sure nobody finds out you did it,” he said.

“I have to tell your mother,” she moaned. “The honesty we’ve had between us is too valuable to ruin by lying to her.”

“It’s not lying to just not tell her,” said Bobby.

“Yes, it is. She has to know what I’m doing and whether it’s working or not.”

“And what if she says you can’t do that again?”

Mai Li remembered that look on his face, which had happened only a few minutes earlier. She glanced at his crotch. The evidence of his arousal was still there.

“Do you want me to do it again?” she asked. She held her breath. How could she have asked such a stupid question?

“Of course I do,” he said, calmly. “But I think of that as a sort of privilege and I know I can’t abuse that privilege.”

“Is that why you haven’t asked me to do it again?”

“Sort of,” he said.

“Explain!” she ordered.

“Well, I felt so good after that happened that the next time I got horny it wasn’t so bad. It was almost like I could enjoy looking at you and it didn’t drive me crazy. And that lasted a long time.”

“Until today,” she said.

“How did you know that?” he asked.

“You have an erection,” she said, softly. “And a few minutes ago you were undressing me with your eyes.”

“Oh,” he said, looking down.

“How are your muscles right now?” she asked.

“My muscles?”

“I can give you a massage if there’s therapeutic value in it. If your muscles are sore, then a massage has a legitimate purpose. I’m not just going to jerk you off because you get horny, though. You’re right. We need to save that for times when your stress level is so high that it threatens to bring on a seizure.” She sat and folded her legs like his. “Or, if I’m giving you a legitimate muscular massage as part of your therapy, and that excites you, then while I’m working on your other muscles, it might be acceptable to work on that one, too.”

“My muscles are killing me right now,” he groaned.

Mai Li laughed.

“Nice try,” she said. “You didn’t work hard enough for your muscles to be aching right now.”

“Okay, then, work me some more,” he said. “I’ll work until they do ache.”

“You are so bad,” she sighed. She felt flutters in her belly and her mind displayed a picture of his hard cock. It was tempting to play with it again.

“What do you say?” he said.

“I say maybe we need to do something different this time,” she said. “We need to do something to gather more data.”

“Like what?”

“Well, let’s get a few of your muscles burning and I’ll tell you more while I massage them.”

What Mai Li had in mind would have shocked her if someone would have suggested it before she began working with Bobby Washington. He had already gotten under her skin enough that her moral compass was no longer pointing at true north. She still had a moral compass ... it was just a little skewed. What she wanted to do was have Bobby do the work himself, while she watched. She wanted him to tell her how he was feeling every minute of the process. If he started to display signs that a seizure was imminent, then she’d have him stop. If he could complete the process himself, while still utilizing self-calming techniques, then great. Problem solved.

And, after all, watching him masturbate was a whole lot better, ethically, than helping him do that ... right?

It was with that mindset that Mai Li had him work with the elastic bands until she was sure his muscles were burning, and then told him to take a shower and meet her in his bedroom.

Mai Li’s mindset has been mentioned. Bobby’s should probably be mentioned, too.

From his perspective, he was expecting her strong hands to make his body feel wonderful. It was just that simple. To that end he had worked hard. It would have been simple to cheat while stretching the bands. Something less than full extension of the muscles being worked was easy to do and wasn’t obvious to an onlooker. But he hadn’t cheated. He wanted his body to ache so that her magic fingers could pull that pain out of him. He showered quickly and efficiently, leaving his penis alone. It was, at that moment, flaccid. He had been so intent on working hard that he’d ignored Mai Li, in terms of her appearance. He did not realize he was so focused on following her instructions that his imagination didn’t supply the stimulus needed for him to develop an erection.

In one sense, on an unconscious level, he had gotten to a place where he thought of erections as a bad thing, a thing that was dangerous to him. And her one-time manipulation of his cock to give him relief had been so out of the box that he didn’t just assume she’d do that again. What he had missed while he was in a coma prevented him from making assumptions that a normal young man might have made, concerning male/female relationships. In a nutshell, he was still very innocent, when it came to sex. His body “knew” what to do, sometimes, but his social growth hadn’t caught up with the biological side of things.

He didn’t think about any of this conciously, though, as he stood, tired and drained, with the hot water beating on his body. All he thought about was how good it would feel for her magic fingers to range across his complaining muscles.

He was so intent to get to the massage, in fact, that as soon as his skinny body was dry he walked to his bedroom without putting his boxers on. It was completely unconscious on his part. He had taken fresh shorts to the bathroom with him, but while he showered their importance disappeared from his subconscious.

Mai Li had sat down on the edge of his bed while she waited. She was going over in her mind what she wanted to do, how she’d get him to do it, and what she’d look for. Several scenarios flitted through her imagination and she made plans on how to react, no matter what happened. She hoped he’d be able to jerk to completion and relax afterwards. That would be the best possible outcome. If he could get close, but then had to stop because he was so worked up that his brain threatened to rebel, then okay. She could give him a little help. Again, in this scenario he didn’t have a seizure and could relax afterwards. She’d work with him verbally, though, giving him instructions on how to stay below the threshold where his brain would mutiny. If this had to be the way to deal with his problem, then at least they could work toward teaching him concepts on how to control his emotions better and, eventually, maybe he would be able to satisfy his urges and stay alert.

Other scenarios involved him having seizures. She resisted thinking about those, but she knew it could happen. She knew what to do if it did, but she desperately hoped it wouldn’t.

Basically, if the only thing that worked was what had worked last time, where she took him from start to finish ... then she was willing to bite the bullet and help him.

There were, however, three things Mai Li didn’t think about as she waited for Bobby.

The first was that she had no real medical training in the treatment of seizure patients. She wasn’t a doctor and she didn’t think about all this like a doctor would have. In the roughest sense, she was a quack, pretending to know how to treat a patient.

The second was that she didn’t think about how what she was about to do would affect his feelings for her.

And the third was that she didn’t give any thought to how all this might affect her feelings for him.

Mai Li looked up when the door opened and Bobby walked in. She felt something akin to an electric shock; just a little one that buzzed through her body with a tingling sensation. He was skinny, yes, but he was also fully-formed and the little time they’d spent in the sun had darkened his skin just a little. He no longer looked like death warmed over. His posture was erect and his step normal, if not exactly confident. Of course all he was doing was walking into his bedroom, at home. How much confidence did something like that require?

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