"So where do we start?" Lorne asked as they finished the sushi and the remainder of the Champagne.

"We can lie in bed and cuddle and talk."

They lay silently, wrapped in each other under the duvet. After a few minutes, Catherine said softly, "Don't even need to talk. Just be together. Relax and allow our spirits to merge. Know we're here for each other. Safe, protected, loved."

They remained silent for a long while as Lorne thought. Why am I so afraid of looking at this? Connolly's dead. He can't hurt me anymore. I no longer have to deal with the church lawyer or that psychiatrist, Doctor Frick... Doctor Sick, the sick-aitrist. He laughed.

"What's funny?" she asked, kissing his shoulder.

"Doctor Sick, the sick-aitrist. His name was Frick, but sick was more appropriate."

"Frick... So that's where your curse word comes from, the one I've adopted. Frick the fricking sick sick-aitrist."

"That's good. I hadn't thought of that one. Fricking sick, he had to have been. He contorted reality in his testimony. Contrived twisted lies with the church lawyer, nearly convinced the court I was making up the whole thing. He damned near convinced the judge I was a self-abusing, mutilating pervert. He played Connolly as a gentle, saintly man. I again feared for my life, thinking they'd get Connolly off. He now knew where I was."

She rubbed the back of his head and snuggled her face into his chest. "He's dead now. You no longer have anything to fear."

He wiggled his body more tightly to hers. She wiggled tighter still, and they lay silent for another long while.

Lorne wandered back through his memories, slowly sorting and sifting. He started quietly speaking. "Mine was always big compared to other boys. Then with adolescence, it grew... A lot. In the school showers, I gained the names Allcock, and Hunguy. Father Connolly was often in locker room talking with us when we changed into and out of gym or sports strip. After Mum and Dad died, he applied to be my foster parent. The system didn't question the Church then. It certainly does now."

She squeezed him tighter, rubbed her face into his chest and kissed it, remaining silent as she waited. Waited a long time. Waited patiently.

"The fucking pervert shackled me to the floor." Lorne started convulsing in deep sobs, between them blurting, "Fucking pervert... God damned psycho... Christ's fucking representative? What fucking crap... Satan's servant suits better..."

Lorne's ranting convulsions continued as Catherine gently stroked the back of his head and murmured almost to herself, "Let it out, let it go... Free yourself... It's gone... It's behind you. You're safe, protected, loved... I love you... You're such a beautiful creature. I love you, Lorne... Let it all out."

She awoke a long while later from an urge to pee and looked across to the bulkhead clock. 0142. She tried to untangle without waking him, but he reached up and rubbed her back as she rose to begin sidling toward the edge of the bed. She turned and kissed him, put a hand on his cheek, moved it to his ear and played. "We've slept. It's quarter to two — gotta pee. Don't go away, I'll be right back."

He shook the sleepiness away in time to enjoy her kiss and her gentle strokes. "Did I miss anything?" He laughed. "The last thing I remember was my blue language and... Was that stuff really coming from me?"

"That's the first time I've ever heard you use anything stronger than effing or frick. You're getting to be normal." She smiled at him, stroked his cheek and bent to kiss him, grazing her breasts across his chest as she did. "Gotta pee."

A minute later she was back and snuggled beside him again, resuming their entwined cuddle. "Champagne — any bubbly — does that to me. Do you want to sleep, orrrr?"

"Or what? You make it sound so exciting. That's the most exciting or I've ever heard."

"We could play doctor. You remember playing doctor as a kid?"

"The girl down the street — Kate. God! We were four, close to five. Innocent explorations. Delightful. Looked at my first pussy, got an examination in return. Can't remember, but I likely didn't even rise to the occasion, so innocent. I've forgotten those innocent days. Too much muck followed."

"We can go back. Pretend I'm little Kate and you're little Lorne."

"Could we?"

"It'll be fun. We'll make a game of it. I'm Kate, I'm almost pretty near going on five."

His eyes widened to match the smile on his face as he sat up to look at her. "How do we do it?"

"The same innocent way we did as children — curiosity."

"My curiosity was with the difference. Why Kate couldn't pee against the garage wall like me."

She rolled onto her back and spread her legs. "Well?"

He turned around and lay on his elbows between her legs and stared. For a long while, he did nothing but look, then he moved a tentative finger to touch her rounded lips, to poke at their softness. "This is so pretty. Like a small bum. You have two bums, one in back and one in front." He ran his finger lightly along her cleft, gently pulling one lip aside.

"It's my pee bum."

He looked up at her smiling face. "That's exactly what Kate called hers. I've never heard it since. Such a cute name. She had a pee bum and a poo bum."

"That's what Mum called them. I wonder if it's common, I've not thought about it. I'll have to ask Cynthia what she called hers as a kid."

Lorne resumed his exploring, two hands now, pulling aside the lips and minutely examining. "I love how your little lips are arranged. They're there to protect the delicate inside parts." He lightly tugged on one and watched it pull the hood of her clit. He moved the lip back and forth to study the action there. "These attach to your foreskin — I guess your hood's like a foreskin, a protective cover." He moved both inner lips now and watched the action. "These are here not only for protection, but also to move the hood over your clitoris — to excite it."

He drew a finger up her cleft, pushing lightly on the bottom of the nub, watching it poke out to greet his examination. Then moving his finger side to side, he studied the now turgid clit's interactions with hood and lips. Satisfied he understood the layout and mechanics there, he moved his finger back along to the slight thickening of her pee hole. Not an elegant name, but I prefer pee hole to urinary meatus. We have such strange language for our nether regions.

He smiled up at the sublime expression on her face. "You've that wondrous face again. God, Catherine, I love you. I've been thinking; down here — that's another one — just thinking of the strange language we use for such magnificent parts, down here, down there, nethers, unmentionables, pudendum... What do you call your pee hole?"

"Pee hole, I guess. I don't know what else it would be called."

"Urinary meatus is the medical name. Not elegant, but descriptive — a direct translation from Latin for pee hole. But the unmentionables, the pudendum? What's that about? Pudendum is from the Latin, pudere, meaning to be ashamed. Why the shame? These are magnificent parts."

He continued his explorations, moving along to the glistening moisture, dipped a finger in it and brought it to his nose. "Such an intoxicating aroma." He shuddered. "You have such a marvellous bouquet." He leaned forward to more fully appreciate it. "Nature's perfume." He looked up and smiled.

Dipping his finger again in the moistness, he drew a slow circle around her opening, and again, and again, feeling the smooth slickness of the skin. He pushed his finger in and felt around, tingling with the warm sensation, feeling her tremble, hearing her moan.

Slowly he withdrew and sat up to take an overall view as he nosed his finger. "You have an absolutely gorgeous pee bum." He shuddered again and looked up to see her extending her arms toward him.

He collapsed on top of her and they writhed in a tight embrace, kissing whatever came near their lips as they moved. "So much more interesting with a woman, than a little girl," he said after a long silence "You're such a beautiful woman. Thank you."

"You've grown up magnificently yourself. You're much better at it than you were the first time. I liked it then, we had fun, but I love this; it's far more exciting, and so much more comfortable than your garage on Cypress —"

"On Cypress?" He stiffened. Shook his head and rose onto an elbow. "You can't be... I... Oh, my frickin God!" He started laughing then flopped onto his back convulsing with laughter, tears streaming from his eyes. "I didn't..." He tried to speak but the belly-laughing prevented his words, so he stopped trying.

Catherine watched, puzzled at first, but then began realising he had forgotten. I never thought he didn't know me when I asked him to be my beta reader. Oh, my God! It never entered my mind. He became such a sweet friend. I wanted more, but... She watched as his laughing eased, then rolled on top of him. "I thought you knew. All these years, I thought you knew." She burst into laughter and they rolled, clasping tightly as their movements ground their bodies together.

"My little Kate is all grown up now. I never connected her to that drop-dead gorgeous woman who was so friendly to —"

"And I never thought you didn't remember me."

"So it was better this time?"

"Frickin God! You barely touched me, and I almost popped."

"So you're still the only girl I've touched down there. Damn, there has to be a better term for that. When was it when you moved? Can't even remember where you went."

"I was ten, so 1992 when my folks bought the winery. Had to leave my best buddy when we moved."

"I don't know how I didn't connect you. We had such a sweet relationship back then."

"We still do, Lorne. Do you want to keep going? It's now my turn to play the doctor. I'd love to see how my best buddy, my little Lorne has grown up."

Catherine felt him tense, start shallow breathing, then slow and begin relaxing. She squeezed him gently and whispered, "We don't have to now. We can pause and get some sleep, then —"

"No, let's keep going. If I don't... If we don't work through this, it will always haunt me."

They kissed lips lightly as they had done as kids, playing mummy and daddy. Then untangling from their embrace, she rose as he rolled onto his back. "Close your eyes and relax, Lorne. Think of the garage on Cypress Street. No more comfortably, the old mattress in your attic." She giggled. "Without the dust."

She knelt beside his hips, her eyes admiring him. My Greek god... No, my Canadian god. She gently lifted his limpness from between his legs and laid it up his belly A bit past his navel, well the puckered spout is, the head's a bit short of there — like a bottle-nosed dolphin. I hope it fits... Of course, it will; babies are bigger. She shuddered and continued her slow examination along his length.

Not touching, only looking. Don't want to excite him — yet. Check it out soft first, then I'll watch the hardening. I'm dripping... Calm down girl, this is supposed to be clinical. She ran her gaze down his raphe, remembering her anatomy classes. Her eyes stopped.

Looks like jagged scar tissue. She bent to more closely examine. A big hole, a piercing. That's probably what that was about — no, not probably — that's what it was about. Dare I touch it? Will it trigger another? Yes, damn it. We have to get him beyond this.

She extended a finger to lightly touch the edge of the scar tissue. No response. She ran her finger down the scrotal raphe and back up to the scar, touched it again, then put the tip of her finger through the piercing in the web.

Lorne tensed. Not much, and then he relaxed. "That's where he put the padlock through. To chain me to the floor — the first time. That was the easy one."

The image above is a Photoshopped finger
through the neck wattle of an old man.
Some may see it differently.