For several agonizing minutes, she'd been frozen. She'd listened to what he told her. He could see the information being processed in her head and then he didn't know what to do: should he hold her? Should he say something else? Should he cut his losses and just get out of bed? He could let himself out.

Murdock closed his eyes against the perceived rejection and tried to lick his lips. His tongue was too dry to complete the act.

When Kerry still didn't say anything for another impossible eternity of seconds, Murdock resolved to get up.

He readjusted his weight to turn over, an apology on his dry lips. He knew the next words he spoke would be pitiful and crumble into dust in the air. He wanted to say how sorry he was—

Kerry grabbed his elbow.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He shook his head that she couldn't read the signs. "I'm leaving."

"Why are you leaving?" she asked.

He'd give her credit for sounding surprised, but had to take points away for making him repeat everything again.

"I told you. I can't . . . be a proper boyfriend. I can't get it up. I . . . I have mental problems, real problems. That's not fair to you. It's not fair to anybody."

He wanted to sound angry, but couldn't. What was the sense in being angry about something inescapable?

Kerry sat up beside him and didn't relinquish her hold. "No, you said that your medications fucked around with whether or not you could get it up. Not that you couldn't ever get it up."

Murdock looked over his shoulder to her. She was looking at him, directly at him, not in that uneasy, flitting way that so many people did when they realized he wasn't joking, that he had problems that were beyond their scope of experience and the only mental patients they'd ever known were the crazy people in horror films. Kerry tugged at his arm and he turned slightly back.

"That's what you said, right?" she persisted. "Which means that sometimes you can get it up. Now if our relationship was just based on one hundred percent physical animal rutting, that could be a problem—"

Murdock couldn't hide his surprise either, when he caught the tease in her tone.

"—but I hope that it's not just that."

Kerry finished in a softer voice, and her sentence almost lilted upward, like a question.

Now she glanced away, like she was embarrassed to admit something like that out loud. Why would she be embarrassed to say that? That was silly, Murdock thought; he'd just finished telling her he'd been in and out of psych wards most of his adult life, his meds jacked up his bodily functions so he couldn't maintain an erection like a normal guy should be able to do, and she's ashamed to confess she likes his company and is maybe hopeful they have something special?

It almost made him laugh.

Murdock turned back towards her again. He didn't lie back down completely, but seemed less likely to bolt out of bed. He hoped.

He couldn't think of what to say. He asked, "Really?", and mentally kicked himself for sounding slow.

Kerry nodded.

He still couldn't think of what to say but it didn't matter. Kerry scooted closer again and kissed him. Murdock thought it was the sweetest kiss he'd ever been given. A dull, aching tingle settled in his belly. He wished the arousal would wind its way into his groin—there may have been a twitch down there!—but besides the phantom movement there was nothing.

Kerry broke off the kiss but stayed close enough that he couldn't make out the fine details of her face. Her breath was quicker again.

Murdock slipped a hand over her bare side again. "Do you want me to continue?" he asked in a whisper.

He could tell she smiled, and bit her lip before pulling back a bit. Coyly she dragged her fingernails down his chest again, watching her own hand instead of him, before nestling them just under the waistband of his pants.

"Would you get naked? If I say yes?" she countered.

Murdock swallowed. "Yes."

He immediately dropped back on his shoulders so he could use both hands to undo his fly.

Kerry hindered him by not moving her hand. "And if I say no, I don't want you to continue? Would you get naked then?"

He swallowed again. She watched him with eyebrows raised.

". . . yes."

Her smile at his response, as hesitant as it was, was worth it.

Murdock shed his jeans and briefs. A different kind of tingle pricked at him; he was burning up and he knew it was more akin to embarrassment instead of arousal this time.

Kerry didn't seem to notice this.

She looked him over—that was okay, he'd seen her naked so it was only fair—and ran her hands over his now bare hips and down his thighs—her fingernails tickled, but the slight scratching felt good too. Her middle finger slipped into the crease of smoother skin between his thigh and groin.

He couldn't help but jump.

She glanced up at his face. "Even if you don't have an erection, does it feel good to touch it?"

"Y-yeah," Murdock stuttered, and jumped slightly again as her fingers moved and became feather light on his unresponsive cock.

It was a curious feeling, a woman handling him, stroking him, teasing him while he wasn't erect. It did feel good, and again Murdock wished the sweet ache would light a fire down below instead of just making his insides quiver and turn his brain into mush. His cock still kept its own counsel, however, and remained indifferent.

A couple fleeting thoughts flashed through his mind: maybe Kerry thought he'd been lying, or that she believed she had the power to awaken the sleeping . . . well, not princess, because he was a guy, and no one ever wrote a story about an enchanted prince awaiting for a kiss from a beautiful woman to bring him up and out of the spell cast on him—

Murdock laughed deep in his throat. It was a bedroom sound, flavored by the fact that her hand rubbing him felt nice. It was more akin to a throaty moan than a belly-laugh, and Kerry stopped watching her hand and looked up at him.

He hoped, now that she had firsthand experience—haha wasn't he the comedian!—that he wasn't going to get a hard-on like a normal guy, that she wasn't going to be disappointed.

The expression on her face, like she was amused that he was laughing, made him think that maybe this would be okay.

Kerry let him go and scratched her way back up his chest. She caught the side of his neck and she kissed him, taking in his chuckles and replacing them with her tongue.

Murdock tried, but couldn't stop laughing. It shifted from stimulated to giddy.

Kerry gave up trying to kiss him.

He'd have to tell her, have to make her understand sometimes he swung from one emotional tree to another with very little warning, that it was part of his mental illness, that he couldn't really control it, just keep it at a tolerable level—

Kerry started laughing with him. Not at him, even in the throes of mirth Murdock could tell the difference. She laughed and held his hand and kissed his chest while she giggled. She didn't get the joke—yet—but was still comfortable and happy to be with him.

Maybe this will work, Murdock thought. Maybe this time it'll work . . .

fin.