​     Noel and Shawnacy were in the tub by the time Estelle and Brock got back to it.

     "We just got here," Noel said. "We haven't been here thirty seconds." 

     Brock used his azure energy, again, to lower himself into the warm, bubbly water.

     Estelle gave Noel's shoulder a naked hug before climbing into the tub herself.

     "You okay?" she asked him.

     Noel shook his head. His words seemed to come from so deep within him, it was like he had to drag them out. "I'm...I...to me it's..."

     "We ordered Chinese," Brock said.

     "There's still more than plenty left," Estelle added. 

     Shawnacy's eyes brightened at the sound of that. 

     "We ate up on the balcony," Estelle said.

     Noel said, "It's still almost winter, right? It's a little cold up there right now, right?"

     "I guess, sure."

     Shawnacy rose out of the tub, quickly dried herself off, slipped on her robe, then flitted from the room.

     "You're not hungry?" Brock asked Noel.

     "I have no idea whether I'm hungry or not," Noel replied. "In one way, I fell like I never want to eat again, but on the other hand..."

     "How about a little champagne?" Brock asked. "We're making mimosas."

​     "Now that sounds like it might work."

     Brock used an azure beam to open the door leading upstairs so he could yell, "You hear that up there, Shawnacy? We've got champagne!"

     Two seconds later, Shawnacy was back with them. She made her drink and took a long first swallow. Before she left to go back upstairs, she tapped Noel on the back of the head in a way that said, come on up into the kitchen with me. Keep me company.

     Noel shook his head. "Let me finish this, first," he said. "I'm hoping it will make me hungry."  

     This time, Shawnacy bopped the back of his head, her message this time being, I don't care if you're hungry or not. You come upstairs with me.

     "Okay. Okay." Noel climbed out of the tub, dried himself off, slipped on his robe, then left the room to follow Shawnacy upstairs. He moved double slow.               After he was gone, Estelle said, "I hope he's all right."

     "I wish that for all of us." Brock got a look around at the room they sat in. 'You know what I was just thinking?"

     "What?" 

     "I was thinking that, for the last five years we've lived here, this is the only room that hasn't changed a bit. It looks exactly like it did when I first saw it." 

     "You and I were the only ones who used to come down here the first couple of weeks, remember?"

     "I need a hot tub or a sauna or something," Brock said. "My circulation. My muscles and joints hurt sometimes like you wouldn't believe."

     "Plus, you like showing off your...your..." 

     "I'm not modest, if that's what you mean."

     "You are, kind of. You don't like anyone seeing your legs." 

​     "And you really don't care. That's something I liked about your right from the start. You'd just strip down and hop right in." 

     "You know where that comes from? I hit my teens, and I stopped giving a shit what anybody thought about me about anything. When you've been ugly like me all your life..." 

     "I'm not going to hear that, Estelle. You are not ugly."

     "To you I'm not, not now, you're used to seeing me and you love me, but that first week we lived together..." Estelle sipped before continuing. "It's like you were embarrassed by how ugly you thought I was."

     "Estelle! I..." 

     "Brock, please. I don't care. I know you love me. It's just something I've always had to deal with. Everybody, even the nicest people in the world, would wince when they got a look at me. You know what I always kept an eye out for, though?"

     Tears suddenly appeared in Estelle's eyes.

     "Estelle, if you..."

     "No, let me finish. I've got to get this out. What I looked for in anybody's eyes, and I'm still this way, really, and this was only when people let me look at them, most people would turn away, but for those who did, and this only happened, like, half a dozen times over my whole life, but even then..." She openly cried now. "I always looked for those who, from the first time they laid eyes on me, didn't see just the ugly me but just me."

     "Oh Estelle..." 

     He couldn't help but take another look at her, then. The water distorted his view of her nudity but did not hide it. She sat with her legs separated so that Brock could easily see her slit and sparse pubis. Everything about Estelle's nakedness seemed sexual, all of a sudden. He fought the urge to caress her thighs. He felt like taking her hands and holding them and kissing them. 

      Estelle smiled. 

      Her nipples hardened, softened, hardened, softened. 

     "What's going on here?" she asked. 

     "I'm feeling a little crazy right now because I want to kiss you more than I ever have before. You are the exact opposite of ugly to me, Estelle. I think of you, and I think, what a beautiful face on such a beautiful, strong woman."  

     Estelle blushed. She'd never been called beautiful before, not where she actually believed what they said.

     She pressed her lips against his, then separated his lips with her tongue to explore the inside of his mouth.

     "Thank you," she said after they finished.

     "You really want to thank me, give me another kiss."

     "You're hard again."

     "How about that?"

     The door opened. It was Shawnacy and Noel, back with their mimosas. 

​     Brock's hard on dissolved like ice cream in July.

                                                                                                                                                                                      CONTINUE