I return Nurse Jeannie has gone. Pierre Levi is lying on his bed, the sheet rolled down and with it, oh God, his pyjama trousers. His cock isn’t erect but it’s long and firm, lying across his thigh. How could I have compared it unfavourably with Daniele’s aggressive little weapon? Even at rest this is a magnificent sword unsheathed, ready for engagement.
I can imagine my sister chortling at my overblown Sir Lancelot imagery. I must be more frustrated than I realised, because I can’t take my eyes off it.
‘What are you doing, Mr Levi? We agreed!’ I frown, standing by the door. ‘Cover yourself up!’
‘Strict orders. Nurse Jeannie’s doing spot checks this morning. Lucky you entered stage left just then, ready to perform my toilette,’ he says with a grin, folding his arms behind his head. ‘So you’d better get on with it, because she could be back any time!’
A spasm of desire drags at me at the sight of his nakedness, so brazen, so calm, the dark line of hair running down his flat stomach like an arrow aiming at the target, the black hair curling round something that I can imagine, oh so clearly, getting hard, hot, nudging against me pushing inside me –
I step closer, forcing my eyes up to his face.
‘I doubt she’ll be back. So we can stop pretending now, can’t we?’
He drops his hands, grabs for the sheet. ‘You’re repulsed. You can’t bear to touch me. God, I’m such a –’
Our clients are way more vulnerable than they care to admit.
‘No. No. No! Don’t you ever say that again! Don’t you ever think it!’ I’m there like a shot, taking the sheet from him, pulling it back down to reveal his nakedness. ‘I’m not repulsed. Look at you. Look at your cock. It’s beautiful.’
There’s a long pause. The room is thick with the silence. Outside a mower starts up and begins to carve green stripes in the lawn.
‘Rosie. You’re just being kind, but I –’
‘I’m not being kind. I’m being truthful. I only hesitated because you told me you didn’t want to be touched.’
The smile is fading. His black eyes are steady. They pull me towards him.
‘I’ve changed my mind. Take the gloves off, Rosie.’
I do what he asks, peeling the gloves off my fingers one by one.
His tongue runs across his lips, but I detect nervousness there as well as bravado.
We, the staff. We’re the strong ones.
‘You sure about this, Mr Levi?’
‘Despite your brave, encouraging words you still look as if you’d rather eat your own hair, Cavalieri, but yes, I want this. I want you to wash me. Please, Rosie. I won’t bite –’
‘Unless you want me to!’ We finish the sentence in unison.
But our smiles fade as I take hold of him. It’s so warm. I can feel the pulse throbbing through it. My sex tightens at the feel of it, at the intoxicating mixture of innocence and lust in the action I’m about to perform.
He’s got two broken legs. Post-traumatic stress. Insomnia. How dangerous can he be?
‘You’re not just a cleaner by the way, Rosie.’
‘My God. Everyone in here can read minds.’
You can’t deny the charisma’s still there. For those who could be susceptible.
‘Nurse Jeannie wouldn’t let you tend to me like this, on your own, if all you were good for was scrubbing the bogs.’
I squeeze soap on to him and rub along the shaft with the tips of my fingers. It shifts against his leg, stiffens with its forgotten strength, lifts into the palm of my hand. I swallow. This is a swifter reaction than last time. Beneath the soft new cotton of my uniform my pussy heats up equally swiftly, throbbing between my legs.
‘You came in the nick of time, Rosie. I thought Dr Venska was going to attack me.’
‘Seriously? It didn’t look like that to me. Quite the opposite, in fact.’
‘Just how much did you see, Rosie?’
He lies back and closes his eyes.
I rub at the soap, covering his cock with lather. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly.
‘I saw her taking her shirt off. And then her bra, and then I saw her touching herself. I assumed you had a, an arrangement. That this was your usual therapy.’
‘She hypnotised me, yes. I responded, but not to the extent she wanted.’ Pierre’s eyes flash open, burn into me. ‘Not like I respond to you, instantaneously. Like Pavlov’s dog.’
I cough, lower my eyes to the task in hand. ‘Pavlov’s dog?’
‘Pavlov was a scientist who conditioned his dogs to salivate instantly when he rang a bell, because through various connections they associated the bell with food.’
‘So am I the food or the bell?’ At least this daft conversation is distracting me from the erection growing slowly but surely in my hand.
He laughs. ‘Apparently the dogs started salivating whenever they saw the lab assistant. I like to think she was a female lab assistant – because they associated her with bringing the food.’
I laugh. ‘And Dr Venska couldn’t have worked this out as a solution?’
‘She’s not only incompetent, she’s violated every professional ethic in the book, but I’m not going to report her, and nor are you. Because I have only myself to blame.’ Pierre sighs and closes his eyes. ‘I’ve made her job impossible.’
I can focus better without those lovely black eyes boring into me. I can convince myself that he is just a patient. Client. Whatever.
‘Go on.’
‘That feels so good, Rosie. I can’t think why I told you to stop the other day.’
I soap the balls as gently as I can, but his cock is lifting, glistening with soap.
‘What’s really wrong with Dr Venska, Mr Levi? Why is she so angry?’
The rounded end of his knob is pushing out eagerly. I have a sudden, terrible urge to lick it.
I clench my teeth, dip the cloth into the warm water to rinse off the bubbles.
‘Because I turned her down. She was trying to seduce me, Rosie. She thought she could fuck me out of my sexless state.’
‘Sexless state? Nothing sexless about this!’
It’s out before I can stop it.
‘That’s your
