Chapter 6

Sunday night, Amanda was eager to get to work. The calm from her orgasm with Bobby had lasted, as she showed Adrian how the player worked, and drove home. Her father was in good spirits, smiling at her, and making noises in his throat. She knew his mental function wasn’t impaired. She could see sadness and joy in his eyes, and his spastic movements and grunts had a quality to them that made it obvious he was trying to communicate something. She just didn’t know what that was. She had talked to him about things in the past. On this morning, she told him about Bobby.

“I met a man last night,” she said. “He spent some time with me at the station.” She knew he’d want to know more, so she told him she met the man through a mutual friend, and they’d talked a little, and found that they liked talking.

“It isn’t serious or anything,” she said, blushing slightly, as she remembered what, to her, was a very serious orgasm. “It’s not like we’re going to date or anything. He has a girlfriend,” she lied. She thought to herself that maybe that wasn’t a lie. He did have a girlfriend ... lots of them, in fact.

“He’s a farmer, over in Granger,” she said. “He seems to understand mechanical things really well. You know that four bay player we have, that’s never worked?”

She told him about how Bobby had read the manual and figured out how to wire it so that all the bays worked, automatically, instead of how they had used it for the four years it had been in the station.

Through it all, her father had made sounds, and his eyes had smiled, and his arms had waved. She wished she could understand him.

Now, as she drove into the station parking lot, in the dark, she was a little disappointed that Bobby’s car wasn’t already there. She knew that more would happen tonight. As he had suggested, she had left her bra off, feeling deliciously naughty as she covered her pear-shaped, heavy breasts with a sweat shirt. She’d put on the matching pants to that sweatshirt too, because they had an elastic waistband. If he wanted to put his hand in there, that would let him.

She’d applied a little makeup, and some perfume too. That was all she knew to do, really. Her hair was washed, and lying straight to the bottom of her ears, like it always did. She’d looked at herself naked, before getting dressed. Her breasts seemed too big ... or her head too small, one of the two. She’d decided her short hair made her head look smaller than it was, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. It had been long once, but it just took too much time to deal with.

She got out of her car with the cooler she’d brought tonight. She had completely forgotten “lunch” last night. His doughnuts had saved the day there, along with the chocolate milk. Tonight, she had food, enough for both of them, and sodas too. She also pulled two pillows out of the car and, clutching everything in overburdened arms, she waddled to the front doors of the station.

Jerry was in the sound booth and waved at her, smiling. She put everything in her office, and went to see him.

“Whoever fixed this thing,” Jerry said, slapping the player with his hand, “gets a kiss from me. This has made my shift so much easier. Did you know we can pause it now? Yeah, really! You can pause it, do the weather, play a commercial or whatever, and then start it right back up again.”

“I’ll tell him you said that,” said Amanda, smiling. “He might be here tonight too.”

“I saw you brought in pillows,” said Jerry. He blinked, and then got red in the face. “I didn’t mean it was for him,” he gulped. “I was still thinking about the player. I mean with that working, and you not having to play commercials, you can actually get a nap now and then.”

Amanda also got a little pink, but not much. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She wasn’t used to chit-chatting with employees. Most of them didn’t seem to want to say anything to her very often.

Bobby’s car pulled up outside.

“I guess that’s him,” said Jerry, peering through the windows into the dark.

“That’s his car,” said Amanda, wishing, suddenly, that Bobby had been late, like last night. She had no idea how he’d act, with Jerry there. Would he kiss her hello?

Bobby appeared in the light that escaped the station front windows. He was in his parka again. He had on slacks tonight, though, and what looked like cowboy boots. He was carrying his knapsack, and had something flat in his other hand ... something that looked about the size of an LP record jacket.

Amanda went to meet him, and was only mildly surprised when Jerry followed.

“Hi,” said Bobby, smiling. He set his knapsack down and handed what were, in fact, three LP record jackets to Amanda. Jerry’s hand appeared from nowhere, and took the records, before she could grasp them. Bobby started taking his parka off.

“Oh Man,” said Jerry, looking at the three albums. “The Moody Blues ... Luthor Ingram ... Roberta Flack. This is good stuff. Are we changing formats?” he asked excitedly.

“Now wait a minute,” Amanda started.

“Ohh man, I wish I could play stuff like this,” said Jerry, interrupting her.

“I just wanted to ask her some questions about those,” said Bobby. “They’re my sister’s records, and she wants to write some fan mail to whoever that is on there. I figured that somebody in radio would know where to send them.”

“Oh,” said Jerry, suddenly deflated. “Well, your sister has good taste, I can tell you that.” He held up the Moody Blues album. “I listen to these guys on WNE...” He stopped. He had about to add an “R” to that list of letters, which were the call letters of one of Amanda’s competitors. “I mean I was skipping through the dial, one day ... you know ... checking out the competition, and heard them playing this kind of stuff.”

“You can go home now, Jerry,” said Amanda, her voice tight.

“Okay,” he sighed, knowing his boss was pissed at him. He handed her the records, and went to get his coat. When he came back he stuck out his hand at Bobby.

“Thanks for fixing the player,” he said. “It made my job a lot easier.”

“No problem,” said Bobby. “You got a minute? I wanted to ask you a question about the interface board.”

Jerry took him into the sound booth, and Amanda could see them talking, and pointing to various buttons and dials on the board. She glanced at the clock. She only had three minutes until she had to take over, so she went into the room. They were talking about commercials, and how they were keyed to run. She ignored them, and got out her first four tapes for the night. There was already one in the player - bless Jerry’s heart - and she loaded the other three bays, setting the extra tape on top.

“Any time, man,” said Jerry, as he left the booth. “Let me know what you figure out. It sounds interesting, as long as everything happens on time.”

“See you,” said Bobby. He watched Jerry go out the front door and then turned to Amanda. “You look good enough to eat,” he said.

“Oh really,” she said, making it a challenge. “In a sweat shirt and sweat pants?”

“I see beautiful unbound breasts under that sweat shirt,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing them.”

“You’re awfully bold,” she said, feeling a tingle of happiness that he was so forward.

“I am highly motivated,” he said. “How’s your father?”

His abrupt change of subject startled her, but she relaxed.

“He’s fine,” she said. “I told him about you.”

“What did he say?” asked Bobby.

“He can’t speak. I told you that,” she said.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he can’t communicate,” said Bobby. “Haven’t you guys worked out signals?”

“Signals?” she asked. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“Is he in physical therapy?” asked Bobby.

“No,” she said. “The insurance paid for the hospital, and for the fact that he can’t work, but it won’t pay for anything like that.” She waved a hand. “Besides, the doctors all said the damage is permanent.”

“Oh,” said Bobby. “When do I get to meet him?”

“You don’t,” said Amanda. “In the first place, I wouldn’t know how to explain you to him. In the second place, why would you want to? You’re hired to take care of me ... not him.”

“He’s part of your life,” said Bobby. “If you had kids, I’d want to meet them too.”

“Well I don’t have any children,” she said, “and my poor father has enough troubles without worrying about some strange man being with his daughter. I just told him you were a friend of a friend and that we liked to talk and that was it. I even told him you have a girlfriend.”

“So,” said Bobby. “What are we going to do tonight?”

“I thought you were in charge of that,” she said.

“All right,” he said, briskly, “I am in charge. Why don’t you get this radio station prepped to run for four hours, and I’ll get everything else ready.”

She realized nothing was coming from the box and freaked out for a minute, until she realized that the player was already on. The green light was showing. Who had turned it on? She looked at the box, and saw the little white line on the dial in the off position. She stepped over, turned the knob, and heard music. Jerry had turned it off. Why did everyone turn the thing off?

She turned to see Bobby hauling a big roll of something into the station. He put it in her office, and went back to his car to get an identical one. Then he got his knapsack and started pulling things out of it. She walked to her office door and felt a tremor go through her loins as she realized he had brought in two thin mattresses, which were on the floor, side by side. He was putting sheets on them, and there were bottles and jars of various things set aside. He reached over, snagged the pillows she had brought and put them on the mattresses too. He jumped up, went back outside, brought in two more pillows and two blankets and dropped them in a heap at the foot of the bed he had constructed.

“These are camping mattresses,” he said. “You were sort of falling off the couch cushions, last night.”

Then he went to one of the turntables, and put a record on. He seemed to know which buttons to push, because another set of speakers that she hadn’t even known existed, came to life. They were outside the sound booth, in the entry area. He pushed another button and the sound switched to the kitchen area. A third button made her office suddenly full of music. She looked around, looking for speakers she hadn’t known were in her office, and spotted them, covered by louvers. She had thought they were part of the heating and cooling system. He turned the box down until she could just barely hear that something was broadcasting.

“How did you know those speakers were there?” she asked, as he came back into her office.

“The manual said that you could pipe demo music anywhere you wanted to. It just didn’t tell me which button went to your office. It’s meant to let you screen music that you might want to program into your play list.” He seemed to think that was a completely normal thing to happen - for a complete stranger to be able to come into the station, figure things out, and make things happen. She was astonished, and a little embarrassed by her lack of knowledge.

“What is that?” she asked, listening to strings, what sounded like an orchestra, but with a meld of male voices that were in beautiful harmony.

He got her the album jacket. “They’re called the Moody Blues. Their first album was R&B, and they decided to try mixing rock with orchestral music. My little sister, Susie, bought the record, but I probably listen to it more than she does.”

She surveyed the names of the tracks, which seemed to be the listing of a whole day ... morning, lunch and evening. Her eyebrows rose when she saw how long some of them were. The first cut alone was much longer, at almost six minutes, than any radio station could play.

On the other hand, it was neither loud, nor annoying, as the rock and roll she’d heard in the past seemed to be. It didn’t jangle her nerves. For pure listening, it was interesting. She shook off her instant (and quite normal) aversion to long tracks and then jumped as Bobby’s hands came around her body from behind her and cupped her heavy breasts.

“I knew they’d feel wonderful,” he said softly in her ear.

The shock of feeling his hands on her breasts made her go suddenly weak, and the album cover seemed to gain weight as it sagged toward the floor, her fingers barely able to hold on to it. He didn’t do anything else, for most of a minute ... just held her breasts, squeezing them and moving them around in circles. She let her head go back to lie on his shoulder. She felt his lips on her throat in a brushing kiss.

She turned, suddenly nervous. He just stood there, smiling, his blue eyes looking at her face.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, feeling stupid.

“Be yourself,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” she said, knowing she was lying. She’d liked the feel of his hands on her breasts, even though it sucked the energy out of her.

“Another massage?” he asked.

She knew what that felt like, so she nodded, feeling a rush of comfort at being able to anticipate what would happen. That wasn’t so scary.

“Take your clothes off,” he said.

Her tension shot up. “All of them?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“But...”

“Take your clothes off,” he said firmly.

She dithered for a few seconds, and then gripped the bottom of the shirt, starting to pull it up.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” he said, smiling. “I’ve been wanting to see this since I met you.”

She felt heat rush into her chest. Men just didn’t talk like this. She knew men wanted to see her naked, but his easy confirmation of that ... his confession that she had been on his mind all the time ... made her feel amazingly good.

She pulled the shirt up, feeling the cool air on her belly, and the heat in her face as she started to blush. Almost violently she finished taking it off, and stood, frozen, holding it in her hands.

His eyes seemed to consume her. They glittered as he stared at the skin she had bared. But they roamed all over, too ... not just looking at her breasts, but at her shoulders, and neck, and face too.

“Keep going,” he said softly. “You’re doing fine.”

“You’re not going to ... take yours off too?” she asked, her voice breathy.

“Not yet,” he said. “Maybe later.”

Maybe? She already felt so shy she thought she’d shrink into a tiny little ball. The music suddenly swelled into a crashing symphonic chord, that felt like the panic she knew was in her gut, trying to swell and get out. Then the orchestra dropped to almost nothing, as if it were part of her mind, as she clamped down on that panic.

She pushed her sweat pants down, thinking all the while that her plan to allow him easy access to her pussy had been a waste of time. She stood, shivering, in only her panties.

“Do I have to take them off?” she moaned, her fingers fluttering at the waistband of her last article of clothing.

“Not now,” he said. “If it makes you feel better, we can wait on that.”

“It’s cold,” she complained. She looked down to see her brown nipples straining away from her breast flesh. They looked hard, like they were made of plastic.

“I have something that will help with that,” he said. “Lie down, and we’ll get started.”

She did, on her stomach, for some reason, arranging a pillow under her head, and then leaving her arms at her sides. She felt better, now that her front was covered, and decided she was being silly. She’d hired him for this, after all.

“I have some special oil that has something in it that creates heat, when there is friction,” he said.

It didn’t feel hot, when he first put it on. It felt cold! She wiggled, but as soon as his hands spread it, she felt the heat almost instantly. Not only was it immediate heat, it felt almost too hot, for a few seconds, but then dropped to a soothing warm feeling that seemed to flow from his hands, as they slid all over her back and shoulders. She remembered feeling like his hands were sucking energy out of her, and almost laughed as she felt that energy flowing out of his hands again, returning it to her ... as heat.

“Ahhhhhh, that’s nice,” she moaned, as his hands moved quickly to cover her whole back, and the back of her thighs.

“Did you lock the front door?” he asked.

She tensed. “Shit!”

“I’ll get it,” he said.

She was suddenly covered by a blanket, which was also cold, at first, but then grew warm. He was only gone a few seconds.

“My butt is cold,” she said, as he got back.

He drew the blanket away, and her whole body shivered, until he rubbed it again.

“Turn the thermostat up,” she moaned, feeling the warmth flow back into her body.

“You’ll sweat, before I’m done,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she said.

He was gone again, and then back before she could tell him where it was. She heard the air begin to whisper from the vents, and his hands were back. They slid into the back of her panties, and the warmth burst from his hands, into her skin there.

“Take them off,” she ordered.

He chuckled, and it went on as she tried to lift her loins off the sheet, but couldn’t. She had to go to her hands and knees, briefly, so he could slide them off her hips, to her thighs. Then she lay back down, feeling the heat her body had left on the sheets, and bent her knees as he pulled the fabric over her calves and off her feet.