Read Online Between These Walls by John Herrick - Free Book Online Page B

they’d seen in a game on television the prior night.
    Hunter suppressed a smile. He hadn’t realized how much he needed someone to talk to. He tucked away the notion for future reference.
    Hunter drew his arms toward his head again, crossed them, and rested his head sideways upon his forearms as Gabe continued the massage. By this point, Hunter’s bones had morphed into rubber and he’d started to breathe deeper. He kept his eyes open but retreated into his thoughts. He turned a candle into a focal point and examined its shade of anemic green. Without intending to do so, he found himself yielding to the massage and wading into its waters of vulnerability.
    The slide of his towel jolted Hunter back into the moment. Though the movement was slight and the towel had shifted less than an inch, the contact of Gabe’s fingertips on the flesh just below his waistline caught him off guard. Hunter jerked in reflex, which sent his body into one quick, full-scale flinch, the type of reaction that occurs when you catch yourself off balance.
    Hunter had forgotten he wore nothing under the towel. He’d expected a female massage therapist and had given it no further thought. Until now.
    Gabe halted at the abrupt motion.
    “You okay?” Gabe asked.
    “Oh, sure. I ...” Embarrassed at having drawn attention to himself, Hunter tried to appear calm as he recovered from his own awkwardness. “I’d forgotten about the ... never been to one of these massage things before, so I just ... reacted.”
    Gabe nodded like he understood. He changed the subject as if he suspected nothing. “The discomfort in your back might relate to your sciatic nerve, which is why it would extend below your waistline. For that matter, it might have originated below the waistline and worked its way up.”
    Come to think of it, that was, indeed, how the pain traveled.
    “When I address this area where the towel is,” Gabe continued, “I try to uncover only a small area at a time and focus on that area so my clients have privacy. Maybe I should’ve mentioned that in advance. Does that work for you?”
    More than you know. Relieved, Hunter replied, “Yeah, that’ll work.”
    It still felt strange. Then Hunter reminded himself that people came to this place every day to have this work done on them. Gabe was a professional. And there was nothing exposed that people in locker rooms hadn’t already seen. It went with the territory here, much as it had there. It just seemed more sensitive in this context.
    For Gabe, this was part of the massage technique for lower-back pain, a matter of going through the motions. But Hunter knew he had given Gabe a second glance earlier, which altered the scenario and rendered conflict within Hunter’s conscience.
    He decided to endure it, though. If Gabe didn’t have an issue with it, why should Hunter? And the whole point was to resolve the physical pain.
    So Gabe continued, one bit at a time, exposing a small patch of flesh, working a massage into it, then covering it up again before moving on to the next patch. He progressed along the left side, then moved toward the right.
    Hunter closed his eyes before he embarrassed himself again or caused suspicion. One side of him wanted to escape the moment. Another male’s hands on a sensitive area reminded Hunter that he lacked answers and didn’t have a clue how to begin to find them. At the same time, however, curiosity crept in. And so, while he used his closed eyes and deep breathing to signal neutrality toward Gabe’s touch, the opposite rippled beneath the surface. Hunter remained fully aware of each movement. He examined every detail as it occurred.
    Hunter had experienced a female’s touch many times in the past, especially before he’d become a Christian. The sensation of someone touching him, with his full approval, where no one else was allowed, sent his hormones into a rush. Especially as a young teenager and the groping involved during those years of