3. He Clarifies The Assignment #3
I shrug, keeping it professional. “She said you two talked already?”
The beautiful blonde nods, gaze drifting to the shelves behind my head. “Yeah. Jeannine sounded… excited? I don’t know. She said you were only slightly ill, and that I should just keep you company.” The words are laced with uncertainty, as if she can’t believe this is happening either.
I walk to the window, hands clasped behind my back, and let the silence grow. It’s not awkward; if anything, it feels appropriate. The city outside is blue and smudged, the sky just beginning to surrender to night.
Behind me, Mary Kate clears her throat. “Are you really okay, Kent? Jeannine asked me to move back because of your, ah, medical problem. So it can’t be nothing.”
I turn, slow and deliberate, and this time I let myself look at her fully. She’s bracing for bad news—maybe cancer, maybe worse. But I don’t want to play that game. I sit on the edge of the window seat, just across from her, so close I can see the faint sheen of lip gloss on her mouth.
“My health,” I say, and pause, because it’s a difficult thing to make sound casual. “I do have a condition. It’s painful, at times. But it’s not fatal. And it’s not contagious.”
She waits, patient as a priest. I almost laugh. “It’s called testicular lithiasis,” I say, and the clinical name sounds ridiculous, obscene, spoken aloud in the safe cocoon of the library.
Mary Kate blinks, then tilts her head. “I’m sorry?”
“They’re basically calcium deposits that form in the testicles.
Kind of like kidney stones, except these are in the testicles, as opposed to the kidney.
But like the aforementioned kidney stones, they can be unpleasant and even painful.
” I hear myself fall into the old doctor’s cadence, measured and slow, the voice that makes patients believe even the worst news can be managed if you just keep your hands steady.
She bites her lip, and for a second she’s a child again, scared of blood or bruises. Then she rallies: “So what do you do? Surgery?”
I shake my head. “No. There’s a treatment, but it’s conservative.” I watch her face as I say it, searching for any hint of disgust, any spark of fear or curiosity. “It involves massage. Deep manual manipulation. To break up the deposits and restore blood flow.”
Mary Kate goes very still. Her eyes widen, and her cheeks flush, but she doesn’t look away. “Massage,” she echoes, voice barely audible.
“It’s more complicated than it sounds,” I say, and for a moment I want to explain the biology, the cell structure, the slow agony of pressure building in such a small, sensitive space.
But all I say is: “It’s tricky. If it’s not done right, or if it’s not done regularly, there’s a risk of permanent damage. ”
She swallows, her throat working. “Who does it?”
I exhale. The answer is obvious, but it still feels filthy to say it. “Normally, a partner. Or, failing that, someone trusted. I’d been hoping Jeannine would help because I only developed these stones recently. But she was uncomfortable and disgusted, to be honest. And now she’s gone.”
We let that hang in the air, thick and sour. Mary Kate fidgets with the cuff of her sweatshirt, twisting the fabric between her fingers.
“So that’s why I’m here,” she says, not quite a question.
I don’t answer. Instead, I let the silence answer for me. Her eyes flick up, meet mine, and the blue is so innocent it hurts to look at. She speaks again, this time softer: “You want me to help give you the massage?”
I nod, once. “Only if you’re comfortable. If not, I can manage. But it’s easier if you do. And you’re the only person I trust.”
She doesn’t look away. For a long time, she just breathes, lips pressed together, cheeks pink. Then she says: “You can’t get a nurse?”
I shrug.
“I could, but most home health aides are about seventy years old and geriatric. Call me prejudiced, but I don’t want an elderly man or woman with wrinkled, gnarled fingers touching my balls. It’s too witchy and freaks me out.”
Mary Kate pauses.
“I see,” she says quietly. “I can do it. I’d be happy to.”
There’s no uncertainty, no drama. She says it like she’s volunteering to take out the trash, or wash the car. I want to laugh, or scream, or reach across the gulf and kiss her again, but I do none of those things.
Instead, I lay out the terms: “It helps for me to get a massage every night, at the same time. It’s just a medical thing, and I can show you the technique.” My own voice sounds far away, like I’m reciting lines from a play I never auditioned for.
Mary Kate nods, her hair falling forward, obscuring her face. “Tonight then?”
I pause.
“I’ll give you some time to think it over. How about tomorrow night, if you’re comfortable?” I repeat, and this time I can’t hide the tremor in my voice.
She looks up at me, lips shiny, eyes enormous.
“Yes of course. I’m happy to help,” she repeats softly.
“You’ve done a lot for me, Kent, from paying my tuition to covering my bills.
I want to help.” She glances away, then back, and the flush creeps from her cheeks to the hollow of her throat. “You’ve always taken care of me.”
The words land heavier than I expect. I want to say something kind, something fatherly, but the only thing I can muster is: “Thank you.”
She stands, stretches her arms overhead, and I can’t help but follow the line of her body, the way her shirt rides up to bare an inch of skin at her waist, the faint shadow of her hip bones. I’m hard again, aching in a way that’s both new and utterly familiar.
“What time should I come by tomorrow?” she asks, voice steady, even as her hands tremble.
“After dinner,” I say. “Eight-thirty, in my home office. I’ve set up a massage table there. If you want to eat earlier, that’s fine.”
She nods, and with one last look, she pads from the room, her footsteps silent on the thick rug.
I sit there, alone, and listen to the blood thudding in my ears.
I stare at the place where she stood, the ghost of her perfume still hanging in the air.
I stare blankly at the wall, and wonder if there’s any limit to the things I’d let her do to me.
The guidebook lies open on the table, its pages fluttering in the draft.
I think of Rome, of fountains and wish coins, of the lies we tell ourselves to get through the night.
And I think of Mary Kate, and the hot, silent ache she leaves behind in my groin … because now, the wheels are in motion and there’s no turning back.