Love from jealousy – part 11
By Fishiexy
Kyle's thoughts in italics
Lori desperately wanted to apologize properly to Kyle, to explain the reasons behind her abrupt withdrawal from him, to reassure him once again that it wasn't his fault and that he had done nothing wrong. She had tried to follow him to his room after he'd got up from the floor, but Nicole had shooed her away and told her that Kyle didn't need any more excitement that night, that it would be best for him if he could just get some sleep. So she had reluctantly turned away but not before getting one last look at him standing unsteadily next to his tub and reaching out with a shaking hand to Nicole for help.
As she walked up to her room an overwhelming sense of guilt descended upon her. Kyle had been fine before she had touched him, before she had rejected him. She was the cause of his anxiety, his misery and pain. She had shouted at him and made him cry for God's sake! And she could have stopped it all so simply by just going over to him, taking his hand and telling him she was sorry and that she hadn't meant to hurt his feelings but that she was scared of how easily she had given in to her body's desire to kiss him even though she knew it had been wrong.
But she hadn't because she didn't want her family to see how much she cared for him, she wasn't ready for the questions she knew would follow, questions she didn't have answers for, because she didn't understand what she was feeling herself. So she had ignored him, tried not to look at him so as not to arouse suspicion. But that had just caused him even more pain, made him even more worried and anxious and maybe even been the cause of his collapse.
This whole thing had started after Hillary had put it into her head that Kyle was The Perfect Guy for her and that she had fallen for him. And Lori told her emphatically that it would never happen because Kyle was off-limits. She had lost count of the number of times she had warned Hillary off of Kyle, warned her not to touch him, not to corrupt him because it was simply wrong. Kyle wasn't the sort of person that you just had a one night stand with. He wasn't someone that you slept with to ease your tensions or to see what he would be like. Casual sex or a drunken hurried coupling would sully him, denigrate and defile him, contaminate him. He was destined for higher things, for a higher purpose. He had a goodness about him, a purity that transcended the everyday desperate and insincere attempts of her peers for gratuitous sexual conquest. When Kyle finally experienced intimacy it had to be with someone who cared for him deeply, who was prepared to hold him, touch him, teach him, mould him but most importantly love him unconditionally.
Yet here she was dreaming of doing to him the very things that Hillary had dreamt of doing to him too. How hypocritical was that? Yet she hadn't stopped there, hadn't been able to stop there because when she'd kissed him her body had gone into overdrive. She had never felt like that with Declan, with anyone, never felt so important, so desired, so sexy, so alive. Her body was humming, her skin felt on fire, she couldn't get enough of him and yet her lips had barely grazed the surface of his. She couldn't understand why she was acting like this and what the hell was happening to her.
As she closed her eyes and drifted off into a troubled sleep she realized that the only thing that made sense to her in this whole sorry mess was how good Kyle made her feel, whether it was just by being with him, or watching him, or talking to him, or holding him but most of all by kissing him.
She could hear the shower going as she pushed the door open to the bathroom. Steam enveloped her: hot and humid, burning her lungs. She made her way over to the bath. She could see a dark figure moving through the shower curtain. She slowly reached out her hand and pulled it back. The steam billowed out and surrounded her, sticking her thin nightshirt to her skin. She looked into the shower and through the misty vapour saw an outline of a male body.
Kyle was standing under the spray with his back towards her, arms outstretched and hands flat against the wall in front of him. The hot water was cascading over his head, down over his shoulders and back, his normally pale skin now flushed a delicate shade of pink. She followed the line of his back as it tapered down to form his waist and then met his buttocks. Firm, taut, muscular… And then he turned his head and he was looking at her over his shoulder, deep set eyes gazing at her. It was just like in school. She'd been caught staring at him again, lusting after him again. Did he know that she wanted him?
She looked down and was mortified to find that she wasn't wearing any clothes any more. And suddenly, all the imperfections of her body, all the things she wished she could change, all the things that she was ashamed of became visible and were on display for Kyle to see. And Kyle's acute eye for detail meant that he would notice everything, every blemish, every birthmark, every freckle. He would see that her waist was too thick and her legs were too short, her butt was too big and her breasts were lopsided, not by much, but she could see the right one was bigger which meant that he would know too. He would think she was fat and freakish and undesirable. And with Kyle's amazing memory, everything he saw he would never forget. She would never be able to have him. She turned away in shame.
But then she felt a hand on her shoulder. He was turning her around to face him again. He was lifting her chin up to look at him. He was smiling at her, reassuring her. And suddenly it didn't matter what she looked like, because Kyle would never make fun of her, Kyle would never make her feel insecure, never make her wonder if that was the real reason why Declan had split up with her.
Now she could look at him and appreciate all of him standing naked in front of her. She didn't have to be embarrassed about his nudity because he wasn't. She didn't have to flick her eyes over him or quickly look away when all she really wanted to do was to stand there and drink him in: His almost black hair, wet and flat against his head, the front of it, normally spiked up, now plastered over his forehead, so long it almost covered his eyes. His dark eyelashes clumped together by the water, making them even longer, even thicker than they normally were, framing his amazing colored eyes.
His tall muscular frame, glistening under the cascading water, the shape of his shoulders and arms, lithe, toned and contoured, the muscles hard but not overly bulky. His flat abdomen with its 'six pack', his narrow pelvis and hip bones jutting out, his gorgeous long legs and hanging between them: his penis. It was longer and thicker than she remembered or maybe he had just grown…
She reached out to touch the skin of his chest: hairless, hot and slick from rivulets of water running down his body from the shower still pounding over him. She followed the trail of the water down his chest and onto his abdomen. She lingered there for a moment feeling the ridges and edges of his rectus muscles, almost the same as Declan's stomach except for that peculiar and unique lack of an indentation at the center. She could feel his muscles contracting beneath her fingers. She looked up at him to see him smiling at her: friendly and inviting. And it suddenly wasn't enough just to touch his skin with her hand, she wanted to feel all of him, hold all of him against her. She stepped forward under the water and wrapped her arms around his body.
The spray pounded over her, immediately soaking her hair to her head, dripping into her eyes, running down her nose, off her chin. The water was hot on her neck but nothing compared to the heat radiating from Kyle's body. She felt his hands run down her back and come to rest lightly on her hips before he pulled her firmly towards him, squashing her breasts against the hard muscle of his chest. She could feel his penis trapped in the space between them, pressed up against her abdomen, digging into her stomach, long and thick and hard. She felt his hips gently moving, undulating, rubbing his groin against her, stimulating himself. Kyle was aroused and very erect and suddenly she didn't care about Declan or Amanda, or what she'd said to Hillary or any implications this may or may not have for the future, she just wanted to have Kyle now, because he was perfect.
Her breath hitched in her throat as she gazed down at his erect penis: uncut, dark and swollen, heavy with blood, he was so different to Declan. She reached down between their bodies, between his legs, longing to feel the silky hard length of him, but something was wrong. Puzzled, she raised her eyes to his. He had stepped backwards out of the spray and was standing frozen and uncertain with a look of hurt and confusion on his face. She tried to move towards him to touch him and reassure him and to tell him that she was sorry. But the more she reached for him the more he seemed to back away from her and fade into the swirling steam. And then she saw that he was crying or was it her, the spray from shower stinging her eyes and blurring her vision.
'Kyle, I'm sorry. Don't go!'
She shouted to him through the water cascading over her, the steam surrounding her, hot and humid, scalding her lungs, making every breath an agonizing burn.
'Kyle!'
But he just stood there, silently weeping, with a look of hurt and despair on his beautiful face and she knew that she was the cause of his pain because she had so cruelly and unthinkingly, rejected and abandoned him.
'Kyle!'
'Kyle! Kyle!'
Nicole heard the distressed and plaintive calls as she opened the door to her daughter's bedroom.
'Lori! Wake up!' She told her firmly.
'Kyle?'
'No, it's Mom.'
'Mom?'
Lori's unfocused eyes gazed at Nicole, before widening in realization at where she was. She quickly looked round the room just to make sure, then ran her hand shakily through her hair.
'Are you ok?' Nicole asked her. 'You were shouting in your sleep.'
'Shouting?' Lori asked anxiously, remembering the more erotic parts of her dream Oh God! She hadn't said anything incriminating had she. 'What was I saying?'
'You were calling Kyle's name over and over.' Nicole told her.
'Oh. I must have been having a dream…' She smiled awkwardly.
'It couldn't have been a very nice one then.' Nicole paused and raised her eyebrows, giving Lori the opportunity to explain. 'You didn't sound very happy at all!'
Lori thought back to the look of despair on Kyle's face, both dream Kyle and real Kyle.
'I guess not.'
Lori shrugged then sighed. Nicole frowned in consternation.
'Honey, are you alright?'
Lori looked up at the worry and concern evident in her mother's voice debating what to tell her. Nicole wasn't stupid and she was bound to have noticed that Lori hadn't been her normal self over dinner and she had certainly noticed that Kyle was upset. And she did after all shrink peoples' heads for a living! Maybe she should give her the benefit of the doubt and try and tell her what was going on although the problem was she didn't really understand it herself.
Lori sighed again.
'It's just that ever since Declan left, I've been feeling… alone, out of sorts, frustrated and… '
She thought of the way Declan had been flirting with her mom's new patient the very same day he had come around to the house to pick up his stuff, hell, flirting with that disturbed headcase in her house while she was still upstairs like she meant nothing to him…
'Betrayed.' Lori finished angrily.
Nicole rubbed her arm gently and smiled sympathetically encouraging her to go on.
'And I don't know what I would have done without Kyle because he's just been so great, helping me through it all. He's been there for me and just listened to me talk which can't have been easy for him because Declan was his friend too, and I've cried all over him and he didn't say anything and he's just so thoughtful and kind and considerate and he's really good company when you spend time with him and he's developed a sense of humour and last week he actually made a joke and he was like so totally pleased with himself!'
Nicole watched how animated she had become, how she just couldn't seem to help herself let all the things she admired about Kyle just bubble up spill over and how she smiled as she remembered their shared time together.
'It sounds as though he's been a very good brother and friend to you…'
'I guess.'
'So what's the problem then?' Nicole prodded.
Lori's face was downcast again.
'I don't know. Nothing really, apart from being dumped of course.'
'How do you feel when you're with Kyle?' Nicole asked.
Lori thought for a moment. Her mom was doing her head shrinking business now, but she realized she wanted to talk to someone about Kyle. She wanted to tell her mom all the little details she had noticed about him, all the funny and cute things he did without knowing, how he looked, how he dressed, how he behaved, the things he said. She just couldn't seem to stop thinking about him.
'Like I'm important. Like I matter. He makes me forget all the crap in my life. He makes me feel good about myself.'
Nicole smiled. Kyle did have a way of doing that.
'Did Declan make you feel like that?'
'In the beginning, yes!'
'And now?'
'He's like the total opposite of Kyle!'
Kyle again, Nicole noted. She thought back to the tender and unguarded look of love on Lori's face when Kyle was asleep on the sofa and then to the embarrassed and angry look at Josh's insinuations that something had gone on between her and Kyle upstairs. And Kyle's apology and Lori's reassurance to him, whatever that was about, she was certain that something had happened between them.
'Kyle seemed very upset tonight.'
Now Lori's face became guarded.
'Lori, I have to ask you this, but did Kyle do something tonight, something um…'
She searched for a word that wouldn't have too much of an emotional impact on Lori.
'Inappropriate?' Nicole asked.
Lori's eyes widened in horror.
'No!' She denied vehemently, body stiff in outrage at the question.
'No!' She repeated again, 'How could you think that?'
Then her shoulders sagged.
'No.' She said for the third time. 'Nothing.'
She sounded pensive, almost regretful Nicole thought and then opened her mouth in shock at the sudden realization of what Lori had just implied. She had not been lying when she had told everyone repeatedly at dinner that Kyle had done nothing wrong because Kyle in fact had done nothing at all and that was where Lori's problem lay. Lori then, was the one who had behaved inappropriately, Lori was the one who had done something to Kyle, something she was ashamed of and for whatever reason, Kyle had not responded to her. And judging from the unhappy and dejected look on her face, Lori had very much wanted him to.
Nicole thought carefully before proceeding.
'Having feelings for someone, caring about them, loving them…'
'Love? You mean like love for a brother right?' Lori tried not to understand what Nicole was saying to her.
'Oh honey!' Nicole sighed and shook her head.
'Because how could I love someone who less than a year ago couldn't speak, who ran away from home to wait for his alien parents to come and pick him up, who couldn't tie his own shoe laces, who I had to babysit for in case he stuck his fingers in the electrical sockets or tried to drown himself, who ate so much ice cream he was sick, who walked around the house naked, someone who didn't even know how to pee standing up?'
Nicole smiled sadly at her.
'How could you not love someone who only a year later helps you overcome the break-up of a relationship and makes you feel important and good about yourself, someone who puts other peoples' feelings and needs above his own and who holds you while you cry, someone, who despite the most horrendous trauma in his own life would do anything to protect you and make you happy? Honey, Kyle's so easy to love.'
Nicole watched Lori's eyes fill with tears.
'But he's… well, he's Kyle!' She said lamely, as if that alone was a reason why it would be impossible for her to have feelings that were anything but platonic for him.
Nicole sighed as she pushed Lori's hair behind her ear and then gently wiped away her tears. How could she make what was blindingly obvious to her, clear to her daughter who was so deeply in denial about her own feelings and emotions that they were threatening the very relationship which unconsciously she so desperately desired.
'Lori, have you considered the possibility that the reason you're feeling so adrift, so lost, is that you might have fallen in love with Kyle?'
