The Pie-Maker and the girl he called Chuck didn't really intend to torture one another. It just worked out that way.

It started with her increasing casualness about what she wore to bed--progressing (or devolving) from flannel night shirts to pajamas to pajama tops to lingerie until recently he'd caught a couple of glimpses that told Ned that she was wearing nothing at all between the sheets.

In sheer self-defense, he became careless about closing the door to the bathroom when he showered or shaved, or changed clothes. He'd become very careless about what he wore, or didn't wear, when he sat on his sofa watching television with his long, bare legs stretched out in front of him, propped on the coffee table. So between dressing and undressing, showering and bathing, and just living almost within arm's length of one another, Ned pretty much knew what Chuck looked like naked, and she pretty much knew what he looked like naked.

There had been glances.

There had been sideways looks, the almost-brush of fingers, the sly grins, the fevered bright burning eyes, and the long nights spent on their backs, both awake in the darkness, staring fixedly at the ceiling and trying unsuccessfully not to think about what they were thinking about.

Worst of all had been the smell. Or smells, to be exact. The scent of shampoo, the warm damp air wafting from the bathroom as she did her hair, carrying her smell to him like a gift, wrapping itself around him like he imagined her arms would. There was the smell of her body lotion as she smoothed it on every night, with long strokes along her arms and legs and torso that Ned longed to follow with his tongue.

There were the smells of perfume in the morning, even deodorant in a girl-flavor, and laundry detergent and cooking and even sweat, on a hot day. She would come down from the roof smelling of honey, ripe and warm, and flutter past him like one of her own bees, buzzing with talk and bringing the scent of sunshine with her.

It was driving Ned mad. All his life, he'd focused on shutting down, withdrawing, fencing out the world. He started with touch, enveloping himself in long pants, long sleeves, layers of clothing, and an air of reserve that even Emerson Cod could appreciate. His relations with the opposite sex dwindled into nothing, starved out by his neurotic refusal to touch. He tuned out his hearing next--no music, no singing, and as little conversation as he could get by with, which was fine with Emerson but puzzling to Olive. He paid as little attention as he could to the conversations of others, drawing silence around him like armor. Finally, he put blinkers on himself, deliberately walking through life looking down or straight ahead, keeping to the same routine, never seeking out the color and throb of life.

But he could not escape the sense of smell. As a Pie-maker, it would have been impossible anyway. No matter how brotherly he tried to feel, no matter how often he told himself his touch would kill her, he lost all control in his dreams, where night after night he would wake in a cold sweat from dreams where he licked her like a lollipop and Chuck turned dead and cold in his arms.

He said nothing about this to her, of course. Nor did he ask her to dress more discreetly around the house. If they could not touch or love, at least they could look and wish. It was the only water in the desert they found themselves in, that they could look, and smell.

Ned came in later than usual after work. Olive had been out of sorts all day and they'd had a few words over her pie deliveries. Emerson Cod had been unusually snarky about Dead Girl, as he continued to call Chuck, until tears had welled up in Chuck's eyes and she'd stormed out. She hadn't come back, and Ned tried not to worry about her.

Hoping to cheer her up, he brought an apple tart home. But when he walked through the door, he smelled ripe pears. "Chuck?" he called out. He always found out where she was before entering a room. "Have you been baking?"

He saw her clothes on the hall floor. And knew she was in the shower. And the door to the bathroom was wide open.

Ned dropped the sack of groceries to the floor and unwound his scarf and hung it up very deliberately. This was not wise, he thought. He stepped to the door of the bathroom.

"Oh, hi!" Chuck burbled over the noise of rushing water. "I bought a new shower curtain today."

He had gone deaf from the roaring blood pounding in his ears.

Chuck stood naked in the shower, her hair plastered against her head. The new shower curtain (which filled the room with that new-car plastic smell) was so thin and light it was almost not there. Mesmerized, Ned watched as Chuck rubbed soap between her hands, replaced the bar in the soap holder, and slid her hands down her--

"What are you doing?" Ned said, more harshly than he intended.

She didn't pretend not to know what he meant. This was, after all, the girl who took the lead in all their kisses-through-plastic, dances-through-bee-suits, hand-holding-through-gloves. She caught his look and grinned mischievously.

His look stopped her grin cold. Her gaze locked with his, her smile faded into something else, something very serious and yet playful, on a level of play akin to juggling butcher knives. A corner of her mouth curled up in that way she had, and she looked at him from under dark wet lashes. Her hand, filmed with soap, stroked slowly down her body, following shoulder to breast to waist to hip. It left a trail of tiny soap bubbles to mark its passing.

Ned's breath caught in his throat. "Chuck," he breathed. He felt his throat closing up with the words he wanted to say, stuck behind the barriers he'd spent a lifetime putting up.

He took a step into the warm, humid room. Another. Another, and now he was only inches from her, unable to keep his eyes off her curves and dimples, her sleek wet skin and lush nipples, the dark curls at her thighs. Her eyes didn't leave his, but her hands snaked down over her body again, caressing herself, lingering on nipples, sliding down and down. His gaze followed her hands, fascinated.

"Oh, God, Chuck, don't..." He couldn't finish. He couldn't make himself ask her to stop, when he really didn't want her to stop what she was doing.

"Ned," she said softly. Her voice said she wanted him to look at her.

His right hand trembled as he reached towards her, stopped when it came into contact with the soft plastic of the shower curtain.

She leaned into his hand. Her nipple pressed against his palm through the thin plastic, hot and slick. His thumb swept over her nipple, feeling it rise, pressing softly against her breast. So soft, so warm, so heavy. Ned moaned, his head full of steam and the smell of her shampoo (pear?) and soap (lavender, definitely) and her her her. His other hand came up, and slicked along the wet plastic to mold her, shape her out of steam and polypropylene into the round, full shape of woman. Of Chuck.

She made a little sound in her throat and leaned against him, offering all of herself, naked against plastic as thin as a condom. It made a small squeaking sound as she moved, as her breasts flattened against the plastic and then against his mouth, his tongue moving quick and hot along the curtain, along her body. She said nothing, her breath coming fast, her breasts rising and falling against the plastic.

She trembled suddenly. She pushed at Ned's shoulder. "Off," she said breathily.

He stepped back, his face flushed, his eyes bright. His hair was tousled, falling out of its neat combing into bangs that came down to his eyebrows. His lips were parted, flushed. He looked down at his clothed self, looked back up, hot-faced. "Should we?"

She made no answer, but stuck her tongue out and licked the plastic. He watched her tongue move along the surface, leaving a trail behind it. Lust and love and longing and a deep, deep ache of loneliness surged through him. Ned tore his shirt and sweater off in one convulsive move, shed his jeans and boxers and shoes in a flurry.

She watched him, not smiling, her eyes drinking him in.

Then he was naked and half-erect and standing close. Nothing between them now but a half-millimeter of plastic as thin as a soap bubble. Dangerous. Deadly, even.

Neither of them cared.

She leaned toward him, almost off balance in the slippery tub/shower. He held out his arms, catching her like a trained acrobat, a trapeze artist, the edges of the plastic curling around her. Carefully, he gathered the edges of the curtain around her, followed it with his hands, and then she was tight against him, almost skin to skin, his arm around her slender waist and his erection pressing against her belly through the sheet of plastic.

She lifted her face and he kissed her through the film. They'd done this so often it almost felt natural. She opened her mouth under his and he was careful, careful not to press against her teeth, which might tear the fragile barrier and let his killing touch in. Her tongue was hot and pressed against his through the plastic; he felt her lips so warm and soft under his. It was maddening not to be able to taste her.

All around him was the smell of ripe pear, and it smelled of her and of fruit and of some kind of fulfillment he couldn't even name, something sweet and deep. As sweet as her. As deep as his love.

Chuck moaned against him, pressing against him. His arms loosened, his hands swept up and down the plastic, feeling her through it, aching to touch skin but happy to touch something. Breast (oh so soft), belly, hip.

Lower.

Trembling, he reached lower, his mouth still on hers, and felt the hot slick plastic pressing inward, felt the delicate brush of hair, felt her folds against his hand, felt her moving her hips against him, seeking more. She moaned into his mouth, eyes closed, and the sheer desperation of her need almost melted through the plastic. He felt her tremble against him, and slowly pressed his fingers inward, tense, alert to the possibility of tearing and breakage and disaster.

Wet. Warm. No, hot. And a sweet soft yielding feeling, closing around his fingers. Opening to him. Vulnerable.

He stroked, and she shuddered, and he explored, and she whispered, "There! Oh!" and he pressed harder even as his tongue danced against hers through the plastic. She moved against his hand, and he moved his fingers against her, and felt against his naked chest the rise and hardening of her nipples. She slid a hand down against the plastic, pressing outward, seeking him, down his chest and his waist until she met his erection and closed her hand around it.

Ned gulped and his mouth came away from hers with a wet pop. He wanted to catch her hand in his, it was so intense to feel her there, but his left arm was holding her up and his right hand was between her thighs and she was moaning against him.

He prayed for the tensile strength of plastic, wondered frantically what the breaking point of that stretched membrane might be even as her hand stroked him and his vision dimmed for a moment. There was no sound between them, only the shush of the shower and the squeak of taut plastic and the shallow panting as they fought for air, too involved to breathe.

She thrust her hips against him. He answered with a slow, deliberate thrust into her hand, letting her feel the strength of it, the power behind it, the desire in him, giving her everything. His right hand stroked deeper, firmer, and then Chuck gave a little squeal and shuddered all over. He felt the tension go out of her body; she sagged against his left arm and he had to take a step sideways to keep from dropping her. He stroked his hand against her again and she moaned, hips lifting and dropping, nipples hard.

"Ned..." she whispered. "Oh, God, Ned..."

Her hand tightened on him and he drew his breath in sharply. Her eyes opened, soft and dreamy, and she smiled a slow, lazy smile. "Oh, my," she said quietly.

He was holding almost all her weight on his left arm, but it didn't matter. His arm was made of iron. He was concrete. He was stone. He could hold her like this for the rest of his life. He bent down to kiss her but she wriggled out of his arms, stood straight.

He looked down. Her hand was still fisted around his cock, wrapped inside the plastic. The very thin plastic. Like Saran wrap, almost. She squeezed, looking him straight in the eye, amusement and love in her gaze.

Ned gasped. Her hand stroked firmly upward. "Oh. Oh!" he said. He felt the hot flush along his cheeks and knew he was blushing. Not that it mattered. Nothing in the universe mattered but the feel of her hand on him.

And then she was kneeling, looking up at him out of merry eyes.

Oh God, he thought. Oh, God oh God oh God please don't let the plastic break oh God and then he couldn't think because her mouth slid down the plastic, taking him in, and he felt her hands against his thighs, holding him. He clutched at the plastic, heard the rings zing along the metal bar overhead, braced his arms against the wall, the towel bar. Most of all he felt that divine heat and pressure and softness of her mouth and it didn't matter about the plastic because she started a rhythm that beat in him like his own heart.

She moaned a little, and the sound hummed through his whole body. He felt his knees weakening, clutched at the towel rack for support, missed and hit the edge of the shelf above the toilet. A pale green bottle fell to the floor, the cap flew off, and the smell of pears filled the room. Her shampoo. It didn't matter because her mouth and the feeling and the sounds and the oh God tightness were drawing him out of himself, building the pressure between his thighs, the base of his spine, and then yes there it was, and he was shuddering and gasping through an orgasm so intense his vision went black.

He came back to himself, on his knees, head down, gasping, hands on the edge of the tub/shower, plastic curled around them like spray-on gloves.

She knelt on the other side of the plastic, a sad smile on her face. "Ned," she whispered. "Oh, Ned."

He was sure he was glowing. They wouldn't need a night light tonight. "I ... that was ... intense. Stupid. Dangerous. Thank you."

Chuck placed her hand flat against the wet curtain. He matched his hand to hers, palm to palm, feeling the warmth and strength of her hand through the film. "I love you," he said quietly.

"Me, too."

He couldn't think of anything else to say. He let his hands speak for him, flat against hers. He leaned forward at the same time she did, and this time their foreheads met gently. He could see her beautiful naked body through the curtain, her knees together, water sluicing over her skin. He ached and glowed and lusted and mourned, all at once.

"Is this ... is this enough?" he whispered.

"For now," she said, a little sadly. "For now."

THE END