Chapters One Way To Graduate Chapter 8
Nora’s cheeks turned a rosy shade. Was she feeling flush from the storm, or was it by being taken care of by this boy, so ready to jump to her aid, and now ready for… more? It was hard to tell, but Nora’s mind was flying a mile a minute as Ethan confidently began tearing the velcro from her right wrist. It was necessary to get at the brace’s own fasteners underneath, sure, but… he didn’t know how her body worked, the ways it pushed away every person she wanted to get close to…
He was going to get himself hurt!
Eyes wide, darting between him, her arm, and the screen — she wanted to type but he was so fast! — Nora moaned a warning, “Ughhh!” and tried to calm her muscles, but thinking about them only agitated her arms more, an endless cycle like resisting pins and needles when you’ve been in your chair all day.
“It’s okay. Just tell me if I hurt you, or something, alright?”
‘It’s not okay!’ Nora panicked, which only made her body more tense, and right when the velcro tore, her fist went flying up, missing his face by just an inch or two, waving around unsteadily in the air, outstretched.
“Woah!!!” Ethan dodged. “You nearly got me there!”
He grabbed her thin forearm and brought it down again, not without effort, so Nora now had a moment to type things out. “I am sorry. I am dangerous.”
Ethan chuckled, before realizing what she really meant. It wasn’t a playful threat; it was a solemn admission of guilt, built up over years of untold accidents she could only watch her body cause.
“Hey,” Ethan rubbed her shoulder gently, “I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me. I’ll go a bit slower now that I know you’re coming out swinging.” He smiled simply, not making fun, just trying to keep the mood light.
Nora flicked her eyes up for ‘okay, I guess,’ and watched as the boy unfastened more velcro and unwrapped the brace from her wrist, pulling the plushy ball end out of her clinging grip, causing her fist to collapse and dig her short nails into her palm. It wasn’t too bad, her mom had trimmed them just a few days back, and she made a throaty sigh: slipping her braces off put the relief of going braless to shame.
The exposed skin revealed some inoffensive fragrance and maybe a hint of sweat, and Ethan’s hand tentatively wrapped around the girl’s small, balled-up fist; admiring the slim fingers all pressed together and smoothly curved at the joints, the knuckles like unimposing foothills, the odd bend of her wrist almost asking for the brace’s guidance again. He found it oddly feminine, so delicate, with skin lacking most wrinkles or patterns; soft from a life of complete disuse.
Nora felt his warmth around her clenched fist, tracing her, every touch laced with curiosity about the differences between them as his dexterous hand swallowed her little club-end whole. She felt everything, every stroke and graze and grip. From internment in the braces with guided outings in therapy to sudden contact; it was all so very new! Then he went for more.
He began to pry her fingers open, which wasn’t too tough itself, but spreading them apart elicited a pained grunt from Nora, “Agh-uhhhh!!”
He stopped, her speech saying all it had to.
The two of them wouldn’t be interlocking fingers, it was plain to see. Her eyes almost begged him to try again, knowing full well it wouldn’t work. Her physical therapy routine didn’t include that in their stretches, and why would it? Nora was wholly discouraged, wondering if she could work on it; wondering if she would ever get a chance like this again, but Ethan blew her silent doubt away like it was nothing. He simply slipped his fingers into her palm and let her spasticity hold down gently but persistently, as it had her whole life.
Nora hadn’t known what to expect, but feeling him instead of a palm protector, imagining she was consciously holding him instead of a glorified stress ball was… incredible! With the pressure of his other hand fighting her unsteady arm, keeping it at bay — without pushing down too hard either — Nora felt so safe right then, wishing she always had him holding her down instead of hard plastic and tethers. She thought about moving her arm and it simply shook in his grasp, but the intended side-effect worked! Her hand reflexively gripped him tighter — slightly, she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was — and after trying to smile a few times she simply squealed and looked his way so he would get it.
“So you’ve really never done this before?” Ethan asked. It hadn’t really been too hard, all in all.
Nora looked into his dark eyes, casual and unaffected but focused on her, so close; Nora’s darting around once in a while when she would lose control, then right back. With great reluctance she glanced at the screen. “If I say yes. Just in therapy. Therapist guiding my hand with a utensil. Practicing. Pointless. Or when young. With Play-Doh™ or finger paint. It is not the same as.” Nora couldn’t find the final words — in her head, not on the screen — and the sentence timed out and auto-played.
“As what?”
“This feeling.” she eventually replied with those flat words, her gaze carrying all the earnest wonder they lacked. Nora might still have been strapped securely in her seat, but she felt closer to Ethan than she had been to anyone…
“And… is it like you expected?” he smiled, enjoying how novel this was for her.
Nora took a moment to think. Her cheeks flushed, almost embarrassed by how affected she was, and definitely annoyed by the bolster between her knees. That damned ‘posture correction’ kept her legs apart, and kept the empty feeling there too, as it was too far down to even push on the padding of her diaper. She hadn’t minded it for years and years, but just in the last couple — when the carers’ hygienic wipes began to do more than tickle, Nora blushing and gripping her thumbs in something more than just shy boredom — that’s when it became her sworn enemy, rivaled only by the wedge pillow that filled the same job in her bed. Nora eyed their hands entwined, and at Ethan looking at her sweetly, and then down at her writhing body and her gently squeezing thighs.
Fuck she was pent up, and warm, and about what? Was this what ‘getting turned on’ was all about?
She had asked Vicky once in the school cafeteria, “Do you ever feel warm and tense in your V-A-G-I—” but the volunteer had acted so weird, panicking and shutting off Nora’s speaker before it could finish her thought, and the two uneasy companions had finished their lunch in silence. That had been enough to stymie any further questions, but who else her age could she ask?
“You are very warm,” she finally typed, not wanting to say more than she should.
Ethan wasn’t too far off, himself, but knew very well what the tightening in his jeans meant. “Hmmm, yeah… you’re warm too. And smooth,” he replied, his thumb stroking her idly. With every lingering touch he felt like he was transgressing some unspoken set of boundaries and taboo, each one seeming insurmountable ahead before they dissolved to pointless worry in hindsight.
“Said no one ever.” She squealed alongside the speaker and squeezed his hand again. It was clumsy; Ethan had to hold her arm in place on the tabletop to resist the yank and push, but he could see— he could feel her intention.
“Well, they’re just distracted by all this…” He didn’t have to gesture to make his point. “I’d say you’re a pretty smooth talker at least… I mean, with some killer lag.” He laughed with a squeeze back, prompting Nora to absolutely glare at him and moan ‘I’m going as fast as I can!’ before she focused on her screen.
“So. You have found my true disability. No comedic timing. The doctors say I cannot quip. And you are teasing me. Ruthless. Asshole.”
Ethan didn’t just chuckle to himself, he laughed outright, rubbing her arm and feeling her whole body tense with every silent, gasping laugh of her own.
“Well, you’ve put up with so damn much already, what’s one more jab?”
“Jab? Oh. You are beating up cripples now? Very cool.”
Ethan couldn’t help himself, and he stood up from his bedside, leaned over, and kissed Nora’s cheek. It was more than a peck but he didn’t linger either, pulling back while she fluttered between the two sideguards in her headrest, attention locked on him regardless of her head’s excited movements, an unmistakable smile on the corners of her mouth, and in her sparkling eyes.
Nora’s disbelief burned bright red where his lips had touched, and some sort of tiny involuntary sound escaped her. She caught herself embarrassed not by him but by how excited her body got, how transparently down for that kiss she was, how obvious it was she had been waiting for him to simply make that move like he had to make all the moves tonight.
She averted her gaze just long enough to trigger one word: “Again.”
Infused with all the confidence he needed, Ethan stooped down as requested — no, as commanded — but just as his eyes closed, Nora used all her focus to turn her head sharply and catch his kiss on the upper edge of her open mouth!
Ethan recoiled just a bit, caught off-guard by the messy kiss! It didn’t take him more than a second to decipher the mischievous grin behind her roving expression. The passive girl had reeled him right in and got him good! She was just full of surprises!
“Sneaky!” he chided her, “So you want a real kiss, then….”
She squealed, shook, and glanced hard upward, ‘Took you long enough!’
Restraining her wrist again with the tether, he freed his hands and brought them to Nora’s face, brushing her sandy hair away and wiping her chin dry, before gently pushing on her jaw.
“Can I?” He asked before using more force. She was tense, unsurprisingly, and Ethan had no intention of hurting her for this, when he could kiss so many other places instead…
Nora was up for anything it took at this point, glancing up for ‘go ahead,’ or was it ‘good luck’?
Cradled between her chair and his attentions, there was nowhere for Nora to retreat to as he caressed her cheek and gently-but-firmly closed her gaping mouth, forcing her head back into the cushion, until her teeth met each other; an odd feeling for the girl who hadn’t done a whole lot of chewing in her life. Focused on the boy above her massaging her jaw into submission, Nora hoped this would work, just once… so maybe she could feel what those girls in the living room felt when they drank too much and found someone to pull aside and…
“You okay?” he asked, wiping a tear away from under her foggy glasses.
Nora glanced up for ‘yes’, blinking fast to quell the tears. She didn’t want to derail this… “MMMMMmmmmmph!” she added, eyes hungry, mouth held closed. ‘Kiss me already!’
Ethan let another tear fall. When none followed, he leaned in.
She had no idea if her lips were puckering right, but it must have been close enough. Ethan’s face, so close to hers, held no hesitation — none of the fear or pity she had expected for her first kiss — as he held her head steady between two strong hands, thumbs holding her jawline. Nora shut her eyes and felt his lips on hers, full and warm, a bit wet but also… all-consuming. Bound as it was to the chair, her body shook, twitched, and tested every restraint keeping her down, but it almost didn’t matter as his soft touch kept her right where she needed to be.
For as long as he could.
Ethan didn’t expect her to kiss him back, and she didn’t really — she couldn’t — but her lips were pliable for just a few sweet moments before her face grimaced and jaw muscles really cranked back open.
He tried not to let his discouragement show. The hardest part for him was decoupling her body — her expressions — from the intentions and desires underneath. What felt to him like a girl somewhat disinterested, then rejecting his advances, was actually frustrating Nora just as much, if not more.
She was about to apologize, about to call this all off, but Ethan leant in and began kissing her neck, something she hadn’t expected… to feel so good! Nora eyed her screen over his back, “I did not know people kiss there. Please keep doing that.”
Ethan chuckled, listening to her guttural purr. Even that didn’t sound ‘sexy’ per se, it was just her uncoordinated vocal chords trying their best. He didn’t really want to get into why he knew this secret spot was so sensitive, how many girls it had worked on in college when he should have been focusing on his grades. But Nora was different, this wasn’t a drunken fling in a frat house or a dorm room. Last he checked, Orange Crush was zero proof.
He caught his mind wandering, and he just refocused on how Nora’s skin felt, how it tasted, as he pulled her damp handkerchief bib down and off… exposing her chest above the v-neck cut of her shirt — pretending he hadn’t already seen more than he should have in her fits — and ran his lips over her collarbone, as far as he could follow until the padded shoulder bars blocked his advances.
Nora could hardly handle this overwhelming sensation, her body pulling and shaking within the tight clearances allowed by her rolling cage. This kind of care and devotion to every inch of her exposed skin was revolutionary to a young woman who knew ‘care’ to mean something much less passionate.
Now if only she could expose more for him, herself…
That tense, agonizing feeling below was only growing now, and Nora couldn’t help but worry. There were so many roadblocks between here and there! She didn’t even know what ‘there’ even was for a girl like her! Did Ethan? Would he back out once he saw her tube again? Or her diaper?!
”Ethan.”
At the odd incantation of his name, he pulled himself off of the vulnerable girl in front of him, and glanced at the door as a first instinct. He always locked it to keep some privacy and now he hoped nobody would come asking about Nora, only to see the host’s older brother making out with a girl who could not move at all on her own. He caught himself. That probably wasn’t the issue, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I do not want my first kiss to be my last. Please. Try again.”
Nora tried to close her hanging mouth and some twitches registered on her lips, her head shaking, the warm bedside light flickering in her wire-rimmed glasses.
Ethan obliged her, cradling her cheeks again and firmly closing her jaw, but he didn’t close all the way this time, leaving space… space he invaded with his tongue when his lips met hers, full and twitching and uncoordinated in their hunger for more. Her chin was slippery — Ethan had forgotten to wipe her face — but he could feel Nora pushing toward him, if nothing else.
It was strange; kissing a girl who could not embrace him, or feel him up. But with both arms strapped down, Nora was all his, and that anxious energy emanating from the inevitable knock on his door actually urged him on; urged his tongue deeper to flick at hers while it could. Exploring her for the first time, it was more than a little exciting to kiss this beautiful, helpless girl properly.
Ethan still felt guilty about how Nora’s disability excited him, but then it crystallized: he enjoyed her. The two of them got along far better than any of his dates in the past year, better than anyone in his life, that was already clear from just talking tonight. He enjoyed Nora, and she lived in this body. It was all one package.
His body was as close to hers as it could be and Ethan could feel his cock harden on the hard metal he was leaning across, as he deepened the kiss. He needed to get her in his bed, now.
Luckily, Nora was thinking the same thing, desperately.