One Life To Live

I laughed, “You were such a classy guy.”

He grinned. “It wasn’t my fault – she was twice as terrible as I was, you know. So I treated her like the awful person she was.”

“That seems cruelly justified.” I cracked a smile. “It makes sense, but it shouldn’t if you’re trying to think like a good person. Obviously, I’m not.” I leaned back on the towel, and gazed out at the magnificently powerful tide washing against the sand. The beach was deserted being that it was a Sunday and most people had to work tomorrow. Most being too stressed out to think about travelling to the beach in the middle of September. I would’ve be one of them if Lance hadn’t called me asking if I had wanted to go.

He chuckled. “An odd experience for you?”

“You’d be surprised that it’s actually not. I frequently and unintentionally judge people in my mind, but hardly ever speak it.” I sighed.

He shrugged. “Everyone does.”

“I suppose that’s true.” I scrunched my nose in remorse. “But still.”

He shook his head, “You’re way too hard on yourself. So what if you do? Come on, insult me. Right now. Do it.”

“What?” I laughed. “No! Why?”

“’Cause I know you’d feel better if you do it. Think of all those times when you wanted to say a mean comment to someone and didn’t.” Lance explained.

“This doesn’t make any sense at all!” I argued, slightly amused. “Plus I can’t think of anything bad to say about you.”

He clutched his heart. “Well, well isn’t that so heartwarming.” He paused to wink at me, and then continued. “Think back to the night of the party. Anything you remember wanting to spat back at me?” He raised his eyebrows like he already knew what I was going to say.

I chuckled. “Hmm. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ Is maybe one of them?...” I hesitated, looking up at him.

He laughed. “Good! Anything else?”

I chewed on my lip. “Not really…You’re hard to insult, you know.”

“Paulie would think differently.” He grinned. “He could make a list good enough for a roast.”
Lance fell back on the beach towel, and laid on his stomach. He groaned, “My back is so f-ed up. I should’ve gone to an f-ing chiropractor last week.”

“What’d you do to it?” I asked, concerned.

He paused, thinking for a moment. “Oh, just strained it doing some physical work.” He took a deep breath, exhaling loudly.

“Want me to give you a massage?” I offered.

His head popped up, with an astonished look on his tanned face. “Really?”

“Yeah, sure.” I shrugged.

“Damn,” he grinned, “am I gettin’ lucky. All right, c’mon.” He patted his butt, acquiescing me to sit on it. My face turned scarlet as I stared, embarrassed. He laughed, “I don’t bite, y’know.” I shook myself mentally, and, gathering my courage, plopped a seat right on his ass. He spread out, and laid his head on the towel with an entertained smile still on his face.

I took a deep breath, and went to work on his neck. I derived off of the knowledge I had learned when my dad got in a car crash, and had to go to physical therapy – the techniques the massage therapists used to help him. I let my thumb trace deep circles into the hard muscle of his neck, and bringing out the tension by running my fingers down to his traps. I repeated that several times, and moved on to his shoulders. I had to work my fingers twice as hard just to get through to massage them, but all the while using a different technique of hand after hand in a continual motion.

I switched from that to using my knuckles sliding down to my fingers and back and forth. I used a figure eight motion with my thumbs kneading his upper back muscles, and then used both my point fingers on either side of his vertebrae. He groaned while my fingers glided down and back up. My whole hand splayed out as I neared the top of his back, and then closed back to my finger tips. He was heavily breathing, and I got conscious that it was because of me sitting on him. I half-way lifted myself up to accommodate, but he grunted the word, “No.”

I went to his lower back, tracing the circles with my thumbs, and pointer fingers. One thing I remembered my dad telling me was when the nurse would massage his head. So, I slid my fingers back up to his neck – I slid my fingers down so that they reached the top of his clavicle bone in a V motion. I then massaged the bones leading up into his skull, and literally massaged his head. My fingers worked their way from the bottom of his neck, to the top of his skull. I would then run my fingers down behind his ear, and massaging there – that being a pivotal stress point. I repeated the whole massage about two or three times – even that my fingers ached afterward.

“Okay, done.” I smiled.

There wasn’t any response for moment, but then I felt myself falling sideways, my back on the beach towel suddenly. Lance hovered on top of me. I was frozen, staring up at him. He had a serious face; one that told you he wasn’t messing around. His mouth came down on mine in a heated passion, shocked; I kissed him back with equal tension – caught up in the moment. His hands came down on my waist in a tight grip, and his mouth weaved with mine fervently – a spike of raw fever flashed through me. My own hands reached up to cup his face; his body pressed against mine tighter, his open mouth kissing mine, our tongues meeting gently even though our intentions weren’t soft. The oblivion of kisses, and the way his mouth felt on mine…I could’ve kissed him like this all day. My heart squeezed as the emotions build onto each other, his breath ragged as well as mine.

His cell phone rang, then in his pocket. He jerked back, our lips making a smooching noise, and took it out. He checked to see who it was, and then rolled off of me. He answered it in a slightly breathless voice.

Holy hell was all I could think for a while.