Chapter 7

It had been a long day, that Friday when Crys came home from the hospital. The days following it fell into a pattern. Get up in the middle of the night to check on Crys – maybe she'd toppled over while asleep or something. Then get awoken by Tess in the too early morning. Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street were on every morning, you know, and I was in front of the only TV Tess had access to. Make a breakfast Swamp Thing would have loved. Go get Crys's morning started: food first, then I'd carry her to the bathroom, propping her leg cast on a stool. I'd convinced her that she should just let me wipe her ... the other choice being to hose her down and then I'd have to dry her off anyway. Fortunately, at this point she just had to pee, since she was on an all liquid diet. Prop her back in bed and run Tess down to day care. Rush back to the apartment in case Crys was on the floor or something. Go back to sleep. Crys, I assumed would either sleep or watch TV. Run the process backwards at the end of the day.

On Monday the lawyer came by and explained that she was looking for $20 million in damages plus the actual hospital costs and lost wages. It seems that the doctors had told our professional pit bull that Crys would have a permanent loss on her right leg: it'd be somewhere between 1/8" and ½" shorter because they'd had to piece things together so much. No one would venture a guess on how long full recovery would take. That was nice – hearing it from our lawyer instead of from her doctor. I started to think of him as "Thanks-a-lot-doc." Continuing the indirect medical report, we learned that her arms and shoulders would be ok: the clavicles had just cracked and not actually broken.

Back to cases: she was trying for $20 million plus actuals. That sounded like a lot of money to Crys – it sounded like a lot to me, too – but if it had to go to trial it could take two or three years to get it. That wouldn't work for us – for Crys, I mean. We – err – She would be out of money long before that, unless I could start making lots more money at the casino. Crys asked if she could get any money from her own insurance company and was told that the car was totaled and the reimbursement would be about $4,000, but anything past that would come from the self-insured casino.

The lawyer asked if Crys wanted to go for a settlement at a lower figure. Crys darted her eyes to me, and then said, "Depends on how much lower." The trained attack dog said she'd find out.

Food came to the apartment by means of a delivery service. Another bill, but I had no time at all to shop. Poor Tess was house bound from Friday night to Monday morning, and Crys's so-called friends from COEDS were non-existent after two weeks. Her "pal" Sealy would call every now and then but was mostly a voice on the phone for ten minutes. I managed to get internet phone service hooked up to her laptop, at Crys's request, but I never really saw her make a call.

Most afternoons were pretty pleasant, actually: I got myself a rocking chair in the bedroom (thank you online shopping), and we'd watch movies on the TV and talk. I'd moved all my stuff out of the dorm in the week before Crys was released from the hospital; Tess's room was crammed with my stuff, but she didn't seem to mind. I was back to "James" instead of "Unca James" – except when Crystal was being short with me, then Tess would say something like "Unca James, I just wanted to thank you again for not making me go away with that police lady."

Crystal was suspicious the first time she said something like that, wondering if I put her up to it. Tess, bless her little manipulative heart said, "No mommy. I was just glad that Unca James was here when you were hurt and there was nobody else to keep me safe." She said it with such an innocent, straight face that nobody could doubt that she really meant it. She probably did, too.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons I got to play with Crys's body. I mean: on those days, we spent the afternoons on her sponge bath. I didn't try to do her hair, by the way. The yellow pages yielded a traveling hair person, and she came once per week to un-braid, wash, dry and re-braid the wondrous blonde mane. I didn't like the utilitarian rope of hair that resulted, but it was much easier to deal with.

I would wash her back, butt and legs. I usually played a little with her asshole and tickled her pussy from behind. Never in my life would I have thought that I'd have an opportunity to do that much with such a Woman. She enjoyed it – so I did it. Invariably, I had to make a 'beat the meat' call to the toilet before helping Crys to roll over. Then I'd wash her front side and even her pussy – clean everywhere was my motto! I tried to make it as clinical as possible – clearly Crys was uncomfortable every time I touched her there.

One Wednesday afternoon made a fantasy I'll never forget – well it would have, if I'd been awake to experience the first part of it. I was tired as the bath-time was finishing. I'd sort a made a habit of getting on the bed with Crys and stroking her during the end of the bath. We were watching TV and just talking and I was just idly playing with the fine, blonde pussy hair that My Goddess had regrown. Yes, I was thinking of her in those terms again, the bad feelings I'd had had gone away with time and the departure of my exams. Well anyway, I was just playing with it, and I fell asleep, my head on her abdomen, and my hand on her pussy.

Sometime later, I awoke to Crys calling my name. "James, it's time to get Tess." I awoke with a start.

"I'm so sorry, Crys. I didn't mean to..."

"It is all right, James. You still know the right things to do, at the right times. I needed somebody to be normal around me. You are the only somebody I have, these days ... Now, go get Tess."

So I cleaned up from the bath, pulled her sheet up and made for the door. "James, we need to talk about something when you get back."

That sounded ominous. Well, not actually, she'd said it in a kind of light way, but that's not the kind of thing you want to hear when you can't talk about it now. I worried at the thought of what I might have done this time. Sure, I figured, I'd made 'unwelcome advances' and fallen asleep. That thought bothered me all the way to day care and all the way back. I formulated excuses and explanations, finally deciding to just tell her the truth. That I loved her, that I probably had since the first day, and I'm sorry if I fell asleep while petting her beautiful pussy.

Tess picked up my distracted/upset vibe. "Is mommy mad at you again? I hope not, Unca James, because..."

"No Tess. This time I think it is me that did something wrong."

"Well," she explained simply, "just 'pologize. If you mean to be sorry, then 'pologizing is what you should do." Wisdom from a nearly-7 year old sage.

When we got home Tess ran in to see her mom, as usual. She crawled carefully on the bed and hugged her around the neck. "I'm gonna go in th'other room and watch TV, so Unca James can 'pologize now." Crys looked surprised.

Tess passed me at the bedroom doorway, pointed to her mother and said, "OK Unca James." She emphasized the "Unca" in case I didn't understand what I was to do now. You know, I kinda liked letting someone other than me be in charge sometimes – even if she was only nearly-7.

Again, I heard the snick of the door latch behind me. It made me nervous because of the other snicks in my past with Crystal. I was rooted to the spot, saying nothing. Crys was confused and didn't say anything either. Finally I blurted out "What?!"

That didn't do anything to clear up things for Crys. "What what?" she said.

"You said we had something to talk about. So ... What?" I had my prepared explanation ready, and I would deliver it with all the sincerity I could muster.

"We do?" A pause. "Oh. Well, my period is about to start and that will change our schedule and you have to buy things and ... you know."

"Your period?!" I got somewhat agitated. "You can't tell the man you're living with ... I mean, I'm almost full grown and I'll be 18 in a few weeks and I'm here 24/7 so I am living with you, even though we're not ... you know ... living together. Anyway, you can't tell somebody that 'we have to talk about something' ... especially after I woke up after petting your ... I mean, well, you know..."

"My pussy?"

"Yes. Your pussy. And I fell asleep while I was playing with your ... your pubic hair. Which is exceptionally soft and beautiful by the way. And I love you and I have loved you from the first day I met you in the library. And I'm sorry I fell asleep on you." The last part came out before I could stop it. "And I know you said there was no chance and..." It trailed off softly into nothing.

Crys was looking at me. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as I spoke. Through her wired closed jaw she said something, very quietly, that I couldn't hear. Then, louder, "You don't have anything to apologize for James. It's just a shopping list. I'll tell you what to buy." That was it. Not one word about my profession of love. I felt lower than worm shit. Worms do shit ... in a way ... but if you want to have more details, you'll have to hit your web browser.

That afternoon was the ending of one phase of our friendship, and the beginning, though I didn't know it at the time, of another phase of our relationship. Like a small set of data, and a superset of data, encompassing the entire smaller set. It was a basic principle of ... sorry, why do I get lost in these side trips?

Every two weeks, we'd take an entire day to get her down the steps, into an ambu-taxi, and to the hospital for a visit with the Thanks-a-lot-doc. One visit he took out the stitches in her stomach incision. Another time, four weeks later, he gave her a lot of pain killers and removed the wiring on her jaw. She could eat solid food! We'd have to re-start her slowly, but we'd get on track soon. Oh Boy! Soon we'd be having solids in the toilet. She was still in her casts for another two weeks, so I'd be wiping her dirty bottom.

Believe me, you don't know somebody until you wipe their ass after a bowel movement. You should have seen the cartoony looking balancing act when I tried to get her to stand up – one footed – while I wiped her ass. I finally forbade her from pooping more than once per day. Like that was gonna work.

The lawyer called and needed to talk with us (her) about the settlement. The best they'd offered was $14.5 million. Crys was all in favor of grabbing it right away. I said I wanted to negotiate with the casino management directly. The lawyer said to do it, that I was probably pretty good at negotiating. Two days later, we bundled Crys in to an ambu-taxi and wheeled her (rented wheelchair) into the casino. Their lawyers wanted to know what was the holdup – did we have a deal or not.

"Just two final things," I said. "And they're not big things at all. First, Crys would like to have one of those big SUV's that you have a couple of dozen of. She doesn't fit into a regular car." I could see the decision maker for the casino nod at that. "And second, we want to have guaranteed permission to come in here and buy $10,000 of chips and gamble with it. $10,000 monthly of our own money. Win, lose or draw. We don't want to be shut out because she got this big settlement, or for any other reason. You won't blackball us with the other casinos either."