I got several responses to the post of Non-Sexual Acts of Intimacy.

miss-ute asked for Back scratches, (along with another to come) and an anon asked for the same (with another to come as well…two for one!). I'll be collecting these and other challenge/prompt fics into this multi part post, Challengers of the Unknown. (title taken from my favorite song, by The New Pornographers)

:Back scratches:

It had started that morning with the rising sun, the little prickle of sensation between her shoulder blades, just out of reach and just beyond the edges of her consciousness as she descended the staircase.

She gave it a few quick swipes with her fingers when she could, to no end. Of course not at the table at breakfast, lest Mr. Carson interrogate her with incredulously raised brows and a sharp tongue. She may be favoured, but she wasn't above rebuke.

By luncheon the itch had become almost intolerable. She paused as she put Lady Mary's freshly pressed dress on its hanger and, after looking around, arched the wooden contraption over her shoulders in search of sweet…

Lady Edith's voice just outside the doorway stopped her, and she resumed her work, her shoulders twitching involuntarily.

She even went to Mrs. Hughes's study in search of the old wooden back scratcher she knew the housekeeper kept hanging behind a cupboard door, only to find the tiny hook empty. She could have wept.

That evening, as she sat at the dinner table, her shoulders heaved again and she rolled them, hoping that the starchy fabric of her dress would soothe the worried spot of skin. She hoped no one would notice.

Mr. Bates did. Of course he would have. She hadn't seen him all day, and he noticed that split second of agony in her expression and looked at her with concern from across the table as she pressed her lips together to hide a grimace. Anna gave him a reassuring smile and nod and looked back to her plate. After Mr. Carson dismissed them all from dinner, and with a quick glance to make sure that neither Thomas nor Mrs. O'Brien saw her, she stole out into the courtyard.

The need to scratch was beyond her own sense of personal dignity at this point. She contorted her arm over her shoulder, then back around her middle and up, in search of the spot, only to find her her short little fingers not quite long enough to reach.

"It's a terrible thing," she heard Mr. Bates say softly from the doorway, "to have something you desperately want just out of reach."

Anna spun and shot him a withering look even as she blushed at being caught. "I've had this spot of bother since morning," she explained, straightening her dress and ducking her head. "A spider bite, or some such. I just can't get at it."

His hand raised slightly, his fingers flexing, then he lowered it and sighed. He seemed to be considering the same thing she had thought of asking him.

Then at the same time, "If you don't think it too forward…"

And, "Could I dare to ask?"

They laughed nervously and she gave him a shy smile.

"Where?" he whispered as he circled his arms around her, looking to make sure they had no audience.

"Just…" Anna flexed her shoulders. "Just under the top bit of corset."

She jumped when she felt his fingers graze her through the fabric of her dress, then relaxed as he slowly worked two fingers downward. "A bit to the left," she directed, closing her eyes. She ducked her head against the solid warmth of his chest. "Down." When his fingers encountered the top of her corset, she sighed. Still out of reach.

"Better?" he asked, his whisper soft yet rumbling, sending a new set of sensations down her spine.

She shook her head in frustration. "It's no use," she said. "I should just wait until tonight and get at it then."

But instead of feeling the cold withdraw of his hand, she felt one finger slide into the opening at the back of her dress, between the buttons. He swept downward, his fingertip hooking under the top edge of the corset and…

"Oh," she whispered, both from the intimacy of it and the feeling that finally the itch was being relieved.

Mr. Bates wiggled his finger back and forth, the nail scraping her to gooseflesh and sending tingles of relief all over. Then he stopped, and a second finger joined its mate, just for a moment, and she nearly exploded from the sensation.

And then his touch was gone. But then, so was the itch.

He withdrew slightly and brought his hand up for her to see, and pressed between his fingers was a small, curved feather, probably from her own pillow. "That was it," he whispered.

"That was it," Anna repeated, her shoulders relaxing finally. "Thank you."

"It was no bother," he said, and she could practically hear him smiling in the darkness of the courtyard. He took her back in his arms and suddenly the relief spread all the way from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.

And with a blush she was glad he couldn't see, she wondered what else his fingers could do.