Chapter 3

"Judy? How'd it go?"

Even though she had been expecting her husband's question, Judy hesitated for a split second. She had never lied to Mark before. "Oh, all right. I got the listing, just as I expected."

But not the way I expected, she added silently to herself.

She suddenly noticed the faint gleam of sweat on her husband's face. So soon? Was it starting again so soon? "How are you, darling?" she asked softly, bending over to give him a kiss. She caught his faint, distinctive odor - the smell of a body slowly going sour.

"Can't kick," he replied, half seriously.

Judy frowned. "Your knees again?"

Mark grinned tightly, humorlessly. "My knees, my ankles, my hips, my shoulders, my elbows. Hell, even my toes hurt."

Judy settled down in his lap and cuddled him tenderly. "Oh, Mark," she said miserably. "Maybe we should call and reschedule your appointment?"

"And lop another half a week off my life?"

Judy winced. "With the listing I got today, if I line up the buyer, too, that'll do it."

"Think it'll all pan out?"

"It has to," she said quickly.

"I don't know how you think you're going to do it," he commented innocently.

Judy lurched guiltily, then snuggled against him, ignoring the clammy coldness of his skin. "Just be the best damn real estate agent in town."

"And how many hours of work is that going to take?" he asked. "Judy, I want you with me as much as possible. We don't have much time together left."

Judy stiffened, angry. His defeatist attitude rankled. He was talking as if she was sure to lose him.

"Mark, I'm working so we'll have each other forever," she argued.

"The vows said 'Til death us do part, ' nothing more," he reminded her. "Death separates everyone sooner or later. In our case it's going to be sooner."

"No sooner than necessary." She glared at him. "What's gotten into you? You've never been a quitter."

"I'm not quitting, I'm being quit," Mark replied sourly. "I'm not pulling the plug, God and that damned Committee are pulling the plug."

Judy surged up out of his lap, furious. "Nobody's pulling the plug on you," she snapped. "I don't know why God has done what He's done, that's His business. As for The Committee, they made what seems to them to be the best decision." She was pacing furiously back and forth in front of him. "As for us, we are not giving up. I am not giving up, and you are not giving up. I am not going to let you give up. We are going to fight and keep fighting until we get a dialysis machine!"

And what I went through for you today is not going to be for nothing, she thought bitterly.

Mark slumped wearily. The sweat was thicker on his forehead. It was forming shining beads. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry," he apologized weakly. "I guess the damn, damn itching is getting to me."

Judy felt a surge of sympathy for him, but no regret for her outburst. She knew it was getting harder and harder for him to fight, and she had to keep him going, any way she could. Of all the symptoms of his disease, the worst was the itching. He described it as a creepy, crawling sensation just under his skin, as if the flesh was softening and melting away.

"Why don't you go get undressed?" she said softly. "I'll run a bath for you, then I can give you a rubdown."

"Okay, honey," he sighed, hauling himself up out of the chair.

Judy watched him leave the room, then slumped down in the chair herself. She covered her face with her hands and rubbed her eyes wearily. If she had been the crying type, she would have cried. Before all this had started, Mark had been brave and powerful and strong. Bit by vicious bit he was being eaten away by the dread disease. His physical strength had rapidly vanished, and now his courage was fading, too.

She knew, she had learned, that dialysis patients had the highest suicide rate in the country. Forever dependent on a stainless steel tank full of cellophane-like tubes and membranes, they suffered the tortures of the damned as poisons accumulated in their bloodstreams. The plastic tubes piercing their arms itched and ached, the skin around them ulcerated and tore no matter how careful they were. The plastic shunts constantly had to be repaired and replaced.

Added to that was the unending expense - three hundred dollars a treatment, one or two treatments a week. And for Mark, because of his rare blood type, there was the additional problem of finding the blood needed to prime the machine.

With a sigh, Judy got up. At times, she felt almost as weary and beaten as her husband did. But, she couldn't give up - she wouldn't give up. This morning she had taken a step toward saving him. It had been a step downward, true. But she had done it, and she was glad she had.

Mark was nude when he came into the bathroom. Judy steadied him with one hand as he stepped into the cool water. She carefully avoided noting how much more of his muscle tone had melted away. But she couldn't avoid eyeing his cock and mentally comparing it with Steven Shein's. Mark's was longer when limp, though slightly smaller in diameter.

The way it bobbed and weaved as he lowered himself into the water brought a brilliant memory of Shein's cock rolling and twisting during the impromptu backstroke race.

"Feel good?" she asked, sitting on the edge of the tub.

"Aaaahhh," Mark sighed. His knees pushed up out of the water as he slid down and immersed his torso. He threw her a grateful look. "You're getting your skirt wet," he pointed out.

Judy glanced down. "Doesn't matter, it needs washing anyway."

"I'm sorry I'm falling apart," he apologized. "I know you're trying awfully hard. But the chances of getting enough money to get the dialysis unit are just plain pitiful. And I'm tired of having a hope held out in front of me, like a carrot in front of an ass, and then snatched away. And even if we somehow get the unit, how are we going to get the money to pay for running it?"

"You'll be able to work again," she reminded him.

Mark snorted. "Sure. High school athletic coaches really rake in the dough."

"I'll be working too," she said determinedly, getting up from the edge of the tub. "When you're done soaking, come on out and I'll give you a massage. As for running the kidney machine, that's a bridge we can cross when we come to it."

She went out to the bedroom and started to sit down on the bed, then remembered her skirt was wet. After letting it drop around her ankles, she stepped out of it. Wearing just her blouse and her panties, she sat down on the bed and waited for her husband.

Wordlessly, Mark wandered in from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his hips. He flopped bonelessly, face down, on the bed. Sliding over until her hips pressed against his, Judy twisted and began kneading the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck.

Mark grunted appreciatively as her strong, yet graceful fingers prodded and squeezed his souring flesh. After working his shoulders over from the center outward, Judy began to work down his back. Her hands were dwarfed by the expanse of flesh, making her task look almost endless. Judy wished that the task was endless. She loved Mark, loved doing what she could for him, loved giving him pleasure. He had told her that cool baths and her thorough rubdowns were the only things, other than having the poisons purged from his blood, that eased the agony.

At the small of his back, Judy was forced to twist awkwardly around. She got to her knees, then straddled Mark's thighs. She tugged at the towel until it came free, unwrapped his hips, and exposed his hard white muscular ass. With the same easy motion she had used on his back, she kneaded his buttocks, her thumbs probing into the hairy crack between them. Then she worked her way down his thighs, finally finishing by rolling his hairy calves between her palms.

Unstraddling him, she moved up next to his shoulders, hooked her hands under one of them and pulled. Mark neither resisted her, nor helped her. It took a huge effort on her part before she got him flopped over on his back.

She noticed out of the corner of her eye that his cock was half erect. She swallowed tightly. She wasn't horny, not after Steven Shein. But she knew what the rubdown was inexorably leading to. It always did. She knew she couldn't break the pattern.

After arranging Mark's arms out to the sides, as if he were being crucified, she straddled his hard, flat stomach. She massaged the sides of his neck with the tips of her fingers, then bent down and gave him a gentle, tender kiss. His torso felt warm and sturdy between her thighs and under her buttocks. She gripped his flanks with her knees as if she were riding a horse.

Finished with his neck, she proceeded down to his pectoral muscles. As she worked her way down from them, she slid her ass lower on his body. She felt his cock jab her in the rear and lifted, then lowered herself on it. It lay up against his belly, hard and stiff in the crack of her ass.

As she massaged the muscles of Mark's solar plexus, he reached up and unbuttoned her blouse. Then he spread it open to bare the graceful, firm, pink-tipped mounds of her breasts. His big hands formed a truly living bra for them, pressing them against her ribs, kneading and squeezing them.

Judy felt the crotch of her panties get suddenly wet where it was stretched tight across her pussy. She broke off her massage long enough to shed the blouse and dropped it off to one side of the bed. Then she sat up straight, her hands on her bare thighs. Her spine was straight, her shoulders back - the graceful, controlled posture of a gymnast.

Mark's eyes filled. She looked like she was just past puberty: small, firm, pert breasts with tiny, tight, excited nipples. He slid his hands up from her waist until his thumbs swept over the mounds of her breasts and scrubbed her sharp pink tits.

"You still have your panties on," he informed her.

"I'm not done yet," she said softly.

"Oh?"

"When I give a rubdown," she stated, "I give a rubdown."

"Do all your customers get such personal attention?" Mark asked, smiling.

Judy flinched. "Certainly not, sir!" she snapped, in mock outrage. "Only the big tippers!" She rolled his cock against her tight bottom to emphasize the pun.

Mark chuckled, and pushed his hips up slightly against her weight. He continued his tactile study of her tender, nubile breasts.

Judy was bubbling with excitement from his touch, and the feel of his cock trapped under her ass.

"If you will unhand the masseuse, she will continue her task," Judy commented at last.

Reluctantly, Mark released her breasts. Before letting go, his thumbs and fingers tugged gently at her nipples.

Judy slid lower on her husband. Looking down, she watched his cock peek out from under her. As she slid lower it looked as if she was growing a cock.

She remembered Steven Shein's cock, then tried to put it out of her mind. Shein's cock wasn't as long as Mark's, but was bigger around when erect. Judy bit her lip. Mark's innocent comments kept getting to her. If she wasn't careful, she was bound to give her infidelity away.