CHAPTER TWO #3
He turned on the shower water, but I didn’t wait for it to warm up, I was that eager. Splashing across the tiles, I grabbed a bottle of whatever and made for the shower head.
He held his palms to me, like telling a dog he had no more biscuits.
“Whoa, whoa! Don’t you do your hair first?
That’s body wash.” He grabbed the bottle from me, replacing it with another.
“And you’ve got plenty of thick hair to wash.
” Taking me by the shoulders, he squared me off under the spray, as if I couldn’t remember how to do it.
The warm water flowing over my scalp was paradise.
Running my hand over my skull, I let it soak in.
Eyes closed against the spray, I didn’t see Truman take the shampoo from me.
Now I had two free hands to massage the water into my roots.
Untied and wet like this, my hair reached the middle of my shoulder blades.
Rivulets of ever-warming water raced down my lower back, into my butt crack.
I rubbed my abdomen and pubic bone, encouraging the water into every nook.
And then just like that, Truman was washing my hair.
I guess I was too fucked-up to really notice or care.
Another man washing my hair wasn’t on the list of weirdest things that had happened to me that year.
I guess because I considered him straight as a lance, my entire skeleton didn’t clench up at the thought of rape.
Although still nauseous and shivering, I began to cave to the hot water’s caress, one of the few things guaranteed to feel good anymore.
Truman’s fingertips against my scalp had me shivering, and not in a comedown sort of way. He seemed an expert at hair washing, as though his wife might’ve been a hairdresser. His circular rubbing against one of my most sensitive body parts had my nipples peaking, my cock stiffening.
I didn’t care. He was helping me. He was a pragmatic, sincere servant of the government determined to help the downtrodden. Me.
And for once, I didn’t mind taking myself along for the ride.
I clutched his wrist. “You’re soaking wet.”
He actually smiled! He was getting a kick out of this. “No big deal. My clothes needed washing too.”
Frowning, with soap running down my face, I reached up to undo a couple of his shirt buttons. Like he’d done to me, I peeled that wet cotton layer from his torso and flung it in a far corner of the shower. I became suddenly aware that I was practically smacking him in the belt with my thick penis.
I wondered if he’d strip farther.
“C’mon,” he said happily, like a peppy cheerleader. Not even glancing at my big dick. “Turn back around. Let me finish your hair.”
It was too much to ask, a straight government employee massaging my cock to completion. So I took what I could get and obeyed, one hand splayed against the tiled wall as he rubbed my scalp, squeezing handfuls of dirty water from my long thick black hair.
“There,” he said. “You really needed this. Don’t you feel better?
Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. You’re an intelligent guy.
You don’t need fentanyl. We’ll find another way to fix your hip.
You could easily OD on this street fentanyl.
No one ever knows if it’s one percent pure or forty percent .
. . Imagine if every time you bought wine you didn’t know whether it was eight percent alcohol or eighty. That street crap is death.”
I couldn’t agree more, but I was luxuriating in his touch so deeply I couldn’t respond.
My usual inclination to orate just evaporated between the nausea, chills and the ecstatic bliss of his touch.
And yeah, it did seem he was taking his time washing my hair.
He did seem to enjoy it for personal reasons, too.
“When drugs are prohibited, people use them in secret. They hide in dumpsters to shoot up. When European countries provided addicts with safe houses watched by nurses, deaths from ODs practically ended.”
I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to stop him.
His tone was different now as he applied some new substance—conditioner?
—to my head. He smoothed it down like petting a cat.
He said, “Since I was six, I wanted to die. But facing this storm of abuse, I found something inside . . . the will to live. Working for Public Health, I gained a home, a community. People to fight for.”
I’d always saw people like him as corny. Now, for the first time, I felt his confidence, sincerity—his kindness. I reveled in the hot water rushing over my scalp as he rinsed the flowery conditioner from my thick Italian hair. I never wanted this to end.
Fact, as I nestled my bare ass against his soggy crotch, he did pour some soap into his hand. All my prayers were answered as he started smoothing it over my pec. When his palm cupped my stiff nipple, my cock jumped. I lifted my arms to thread my fingers together at the back of his neck.
He spoke into my shoulder. “My wife was an addict. Then she died.”
Bending at the waist, I puked on the tiles.