To Caress My Day

“I-I’m sorry.” Twigs panted heavily past swollen red lips, apologizing to her beloved Seth who was just as naked and sweaty as she was from where she sat on her kitchen table with her boyfriend between her legs. They’d just made love out of her blind desire to have him, to physically feel his body’s heat close while simultaneously having him lodge so deeply inside of her her own soul quaked from their sexual encounter. Both catching their breaths, her jittery brown orbs frequently snapped up to take in his flushed face from behind her tumble of curls that had been fluffed and frizzed from Seth’s heavy handling. “I didn’t mean to…throw myself at you like that.”

“Save it, Pixie. You’re going through a tough time right now and have every right to be upset with the world. Trust me, I get it.” Seth absolved her, his hands braced on his hips as he caught his breath, his pain-filled eyes locked on hers, his chest rising and falling. “My mother died from cancer.”

Squeezing her eyes shut as his dreadful reminder, Twigs felt like a foolish idiot for making such a selfish hysterical commotion like she was the only one that had ever gone through a parent sickened with cancer. Of course, she already knew that Seth’s mother had cancer and had unfortunately lost her wonderful life from battling it. And yet somehow in all the pandemonium surrounding her mother’s cancer, she’d completely forgotten about it. “Oh god, Seth, I’m…I’m so sorry, my love. I…I…”

Leaning down, Seth cut off her second apology by placing a kiss on the tip of her rosy freckled nose. “Stop it, Tahliah. If there’s anyone you need to be apologizing to right now it’s our lunch. It’s probably ice cold by now due to your seductive magnetism to me.”

The couple got halfway dressed before taking their seat at Twig’s kitchen table to delve into their once hot lunch. They barely spoke as they ate in silence, both of their minds on the state of Twig’s mother.

Seth was the first to finish lunch, and so he began to clear up the trash, his tense voice filling the void. “Oh, I forgot to mention I stocked up your cupboards and your fridge before I went to grab us some lunch. You should be good for a while if you still need time to work through your mother’s illness.”

Nearly finished with her delicious cold lunch, Twig’s had to do a double-take at her boyfriend, confounded by his notification. “W-What?”

“You don't have to eat anything in there that you don’t want to. I won’t peer pressure you out of guilt.” Seth spoke on, not wanting to give her a chance to reject the groceries he gathered for her. He wasn’t actually sure how she would go about doing that anyway. Seriously, she wouldn’t go through every nook and cranny of her kitchen to pack away everything he bought her just to give back to him. That would be ridiculous! “How come you hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet, Pixie? Those shelves of yours were practically barren. Even poor college kids have more food in their dorms than you.”

Twig opened her mouth then closed it as she sat in nothing but her underwear and his T-shirt. She’d just been about to tell the man that right now she was BROKE broke to the point where she didn't even have two nickels to rub together. She knew better than to disclose that to Seth. He’d certainly trip over himself trying to force money on her if he found out she seldom had the money to pay for the three essential meals of the day. She’s had to make a lot of sacrifices since they last saw each other, especially because she was taking less gigs due to her mother’s illness. Coercing herself to give him a half-truth considering he flew all this way to be with her, Twigs told him. “My mother’s…cancer…has been stressing me out as you can imagine. I don’t seem to have much of an appetite these days for food.”

Seth vividly recalled how rapidly his girlfriend had scarfed down her lunch just now. For someone that didn’t have much of an appetite these days, she sure ate enough for 3 people and half of his own on top of the appetizers he bought to snack on later.

So what was this lack of appetite about?

Was she lying to him?

Not wanting to get all investigative on her statement when she was going through a hard time with the news of her mother’s disease, Seth decided to boot the case entirely as he crammed their empty containers into her trash can. Dusting his hands off, he extended a hand out to an awaiting Twigs. “Come, let’s go sit in the living room together.”

Taking his hand with a soft smile, Twigs allowed him to escort her to her open living room to take a seat on her couch.

Withdrawing from Twig’s side, Seth turned the lights on in the living room and flicked off the TV he’d skipped to the weather channel before he walked out for a second time to nab them both some hot lunch. Returning to the couch, he finally settled down facing her, compelling her to turn and face him too with huge sorrowful eyes.

Smiling tenderly at her, Seth leaned forward to help himself to a kiss that he hoped would bring some warmth to her usually lovely spirited eyes. What he should have remembered was that a simple kiss never ended as just that, a plain kiss.

Applying pressure, Seth parted his lips to delve his tongue between her already parted lips, tasting the banquet she always passionately offered to him. Their noses squished together as they kissed thoroughly, their eyes falling shut from the inducing ecstasy that always seemed to await them even behind simple kisses like this.

Seth’s hand came up her neck to capture her jaw, keeping her in place as he tilted his head to the side to slant his mouth over hers, taking her even deeper. He felt her dainty hands come up to either side of his head, one to gently cup the side of his neck, the other to grip onto his shoulder. When he felt her pull him closer to her to enhance the intensity, Seth knew he had to break the spell they had on each other and withdraw from her. Tightening his grip on her jaw, he sat back from her, their lips smacking as they disconnected from each other.

Twig's eyes remained close, dazed by his passion before she realized he wasn’t close anymore. Opening her eyes languidly, she stared up at Seth like a drunk, searching his face for a reason why he discontinued their kiss. Finding none, her brows furrowed together as she licked her lips, chasing his taste to prolong her intoxication. “Seth?”

“Sorry, I…I got kinda carried away there.” Seth apologized, loosening his hold on her jaw until his hand slid down to cup the side of her neck.

“Don’t be.” Twigs rejected his apology. She didn’t want to hear it, or any other apology for their passions ever. It wasn’t something she felt any of them needed to atone for. It was too beautiful to regret, too pure to second guess. Smiling softly, she whispered. “Kissing you is worth every breath I take.”

Seth felt bad for what he was about to say next because her words touched him so. Sighing heavily, he staunchly revisited their earlier discussion. “Tahliah, I want to pay for your mom’s treatments…whether or not you need the money.”

Twigs didn’t balk to his firm insistence which worried him greatly as she stared blankly up at him, the corners of her mouth falling.

Normally, Twigs would. She’d politely decline like the proper self-sufficient woman she was and smile sensually at him before wrapping him around her naked body again like the sex siren she also was. The siren he devoted succumbing to.

Staring up at him, things began to slowly click into place for Twigs that hadn’t clicked into place earlier. Seth wasn’t asking to buy her wedding ring, or something as monumental as moving in together. He was simply asking, no…he was begging her to allow him to be the walking piggy bank her family might need access to for her mother’s battle with cancer.

Cancer.

Cancer was such a treacherous disease that has claimed a myriad of lives Twigs couldn’t even begin to appraise. It could also end up claiming her mother’s life as well. Nevermind that her Doctors had guaranteed both Twigs and Luther that her mother’s cancer was one of the lesser evils within the fatal Cancer family tree. It wasn’t the serial killer of all the cancers out there that people could come down with. But to Luther and Twigs, cancer was just that. Cancer. And because it was cancer, neither one of them were about to relax anytime soon over it. Not until the blasted thing was gone from Twig’s mother’s system and far enough away from her she would never be able to have it again!

Gazing up into Seth’s handsome but forlorn face, Twigs could ask herself one question. For her mother’s sake, as well as Luther’s and her own, how in the hell could she sit before this financial miracle and deny his proffered money when it could be the only thing keeping her mother from an early grave?