Open Your Heart
by Abigail Drew

Chapter Three

Janet set her burden down on the floor next to the tub and walked back out of the bathroom to the sounds of a rap remix of Canon in D using a keyboard and percussion. “We’re lookin’ on the sunny side,” incongruously sang the female vocalist doing melodic counterpoint. The song couldn’t be more inappropriate.

There wasn’t much she could think of to do. She had to figure it was something she’d said, but she didn’t know squat about psychology. She also couldn’t really understand where Drew was coming from. She asked all those questions and things because she was honestly curious about him. All she ever knew about him was that he worked as the groundskeeper at the same apartment complex that her husband managed and that her husband seemed to think quite well of him. She didn’t really understand why.

She’ll never forget the first time she met him. Her husband had just come home from the apartment complex when he announced they were to have a dinner companion. At the time, they had only just sent their daughter off to college at the end of the summer, and it was just the two of them, so having someone else over was a little bit of relief — for the moment, at least, she wouldn’t need to figure out how to cook for only two!

She had cleaned the place up a bit, even though her husband told her she probably wouldn’t need to, the young man he’d invited was only twenty-four and was a groundskeeper. She definitely wasn’t prepared for the individual who walked in her front door exactly at six, wearing a baggy flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off just shy of the elbow and tan cargo shorts. It was late October and it had to be at most sixty degrees out! He also had cycling gloves on his hands and was holding a bicycle helmet. No jacket, closely buzzed head, hairless skin anywhere else, and with beads of sweat rolling down his face. Sweat, wearing those clothes, at this temperature.

“Hey Jack,” he said as her husband let him in. “Mind if I use your restroom real quick before dinner?”

During the meal, she tried to engage him in conversation, but he only responded to her direct questions and offered nothing. “So you like riding then?” She asked him at one point during the meal, in reference to the way he’d come in.

“Yes.” He answered simply.

“What do you ride?” She continued.

“Just a cheap Trek 820 for now, with some small inexpensive modifications to make city riding easier that I take off out on trails.” That was a little more, still like trying to pull teeth.

“For now?” She prompted, and got no response. “You said for now, is there something better?”

“There’re lots better, the 820’s about as cheap a bike as you can get and still have a decent bike.” He replied, entirely missing the point.

“Are you looking to get something better?” She asked, trying to keep her exasperation out of her voice.

“Yeah. I’ve been saving up and having custom parts made for me to build my own.”

The stilted conversation continued with her asking questions and him answering until he left.

“Did he pass interrogation?” Jack asked her after Drew had left. There was a challenge in his voice that wasn’t there unless she’d done something he didn’t like.

“Interrogation?” Janet responded defensively. “I was simply trying to get a conversation going.”

“Couldn’t you tell he was uncomfortable?”

“Well…”

“My dear wife… You need to understand that not everyone likes to talk the way you do.” She didn’t argue with Jack at the time, but she felt there was just something more to it than that.

The next time Jack invited Drew to dinner with them was on Thanksgiving. This time, Christina was also home on break from college. It was one of those odd Thanksgivings you seem to experience every few years in the Midwest, give or take, during which it’s snowing so hard it’s like walking through a down blanket, and the wind so strong that it’s blowing it on a trajectory which aims most generally horizontally rather than vertically. Janet was becoming quite concerned for Drew’s safety, figuring he’d probably ride there again.

“Don’t worry,” Jack insisted, “he has a truck and I doubt even he would ride in this weather.” However, the look on Jack’s face told a different story. He was worried too.

A few minutes later they heard a distant rumble as of thunder. As the noise continued to get closer it became apparent that it was the rattling of the body of a vehicle so rusted out it’s a surprise it wasn’t spread across the highway, combined with the engine noise of an old truck whose muffler was shot over a decade ago.

“Who is that driving that awful deathtrap through here?” Janet asked.

“That would be Drew…” Jack answered, trailing off at the end.

“Y-You asked him to Thanksgiving dinner with us when you knew it was going to be like this and that he’d either be riding on t-th-that b-bike, or driving t-th-this deathtrap!?”

“They do both seem to get him where he needs to go…” Jack said, a little hesitantly as the engine noise outside spluttered off.

Just then Christina came downstairs from where she’d been doing schoolwork in her room with an odd look on her face. “Is that?” She began, as the doorbell rang. Janet started to get up to answer it, “Just stay there Mom, I’ll get it. I’m closer, and besides, already standing.”

Christina opened the door to the sight of a young androgynous person in loose cargo pants, a baggy flannel, and even baggier heavy hooded jacket with a three-size too large windbreaker covering the entire ensemble. Only its face and hands were visible. The hands looked almost feminine except for the cuts and calluses. The face was indeterminate, there was no sign of beard shadow, but neither were the eyebrows neatly kept. In fact, the eyebrows were oddly sparse and thin out towards the side of the face and dense and course in near the bridge of the nose. There was no widow’s peak, the throat was narrow and lacked an Adam’s apple, and the skin appeared soft.

Only when the apparition spoke did it become apparent its gender was male. And that, not so much because of pitch, but because of timbre. “Uh… Hi. You must be Christina?” He asked, then put out his hand as to shake, adding, “Drew.”

Mesmerized, Christina tripped on her own foot as she went to return the gesture, falling forward face first onto his chest. Then she discovered something that almost made her wet herself with sexual excitement. His chest wasn’t rock-hard like a lean muscular man, but neither was it springy and flabby like an obese man. It was simply soft and pillowy, with two soft, barely discernable, breasts. It was obvious that they were being held tightly in some thin material and that he was trying to hide them.

“You ok?” Drew asked, his hands on her shoulders as Christina regained her composure.

“Y-yh-yeah.” She replied, slightly breathless. “I honestly don’t know what came over me.” She lied in complete dead-pan as though she really didn’t.

“You looked a little dazed out for a minute there. You sure you don’t need to sit down for a while?” Drew asked with a hint of concern.

“Uh. Maybe.” Christina said, as Drew led her to the couch opposite the love-seat that Jack and Janet occupied. There she sat down and waited as Drew went to hang up his jackets, when he returned and sat as well, she cuddled against him. Drew stiffened a little at first, but then relaxed.

The entire rest of that afternoon and during dinner Christina had practically glued herself to Drew’s side, talking animatedly with him, or just cuddling against him. Incredibly, Drew seemed to weaken his defenses to her and actually talked with her, and only seemed to relax increasingly easily when she cuddled against him as the evening wore on. Oddly, at the same time, Drew seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that Christina was flirting with him.

Once Drew had left and Christina returned to her room, Janet decided to have a talk with her daughter about Drew. As she was going on and on about responsibility and not pushing too hard and so forth, Christina appeared distracted. Finally, Christina interrupted her mid-word and blurted out, “Mom! He’s got boobs!”

Janet was interrupted in her reverie by the sound of the shower starting. Hopefully he’s using the new stuff I gave him… She considered going in and making sure herself, but thought wiser and called Christina.

“Hey hun, you outside already?” She asked when her daughter picked up the phone. She’d set it up with her daughter ahead of time that if she were to have any problems, she’d let Christina in to help. “Yeah? OK, let me buzz you in.”

Drew faintly heard the sound of someone buzzing the intercom to come in, and the answering buzz as Janet permitted them entry while he just stood under the hot water, not yet actually actively showering. ‘Great. Party at Drew’s!’ He thought darkly, ‘Why not invite the whole freaking town to watch me get turned into a gay girl. Must be good sport!’

Janet was wrong. She had to be. He’s never had any real sexual drive around anyone. He once experimented with dating a known slut, just to see if he could even get it going if someone actively tried seducing him… And of course nothing happened and she practically chased him off and refused to ever talk to him again.

In the privacy of his own bedroom, the only thing that ever turned him on was… no, no way he’s going to actively admit to those fantasies. It was bad enough having them. If he had been willing to admit to them, he might have been able to do something with that slut, but she’d probably have reacted even worse than she did to his complete lack of natural libido. It wasn’t natural. It couldn’t be natural. He couldn’t be natural. He wasn’t natural. No one could care about such an unnatural creature as him. He was asexual, he insisted. He had to be. If he was otherwise, it’d be much much worse.

His thoughts were interrupted by the gentle opening and closing of the door as someone tried to remain undetected entering, followed by the soft sounds of clothing being carefully removed as silently as possible. ‘Great. Whoever it is plans on joining me in the shower.’ He darkly thought as he turned to see if he could tell who it was through the glass doors of his shower and bathtub stall. The glass doors had a bumped texture, which fuzzed anything you tried to see through it in either direction. ‘If this sort of thing were to ever become too common,’ thought Drew, ‘maybe I should see about replacing these with mirrored glass instead, so I can see out, but no one can see in.’

All he could really tell through the doors of his shower… was that the individual who would be soon joining him was clearly female: having all the right curves in all the right places and lacking any dangly bits between the legs. She was about his size, maybe slightly shorter. Which was actually fairly unusual, he being only five-five… and a half, he insisted on counting that half inch. Most people assumed he was just being funny when he told them his height was five-five-five, but the truth was he was very self-conscious about being so short, so he attempted to make light of it to hide his real insecurity towards his size.

Now completely naked, the figure came up to the tub, picked up the stuff Janet had left there that he’d ignored, slid the stall door further from the shower head open, and joined him. Now up close, she was plainly about an inch shorter than he was, built a little slimmer than himself but with much wider hips, had perhaps C-cup breasts, seeming to be larger than his own B-cups, reddish-brown hair, and a deep tan.

“Christina!?” Drew exclaimed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised…” he almost muttered. “How long have YOU known then?”

Christina blushed slightly. “Since that first thanksgiving you spent at our place… remember I tripped over my own foot and fell onto your chest?”

“So you’ve known I was a freak since the first moment you met me…” Drew began, trailing off, before his voice sharpened. “Why then did you spend so much time with me? Acted like you really cared? Am I some sort of joke to you?” He accused.

“No… I really do care.” She answered softly.

“Hrm.” Drew grunted. It was neither agreement nor denial, he was simply still upset that it seemed what he’d thought was a secret was no secret at all. He still doubted Christina’s sincerity. How could anyone care about him? A loser. Asexual. College drop-out. Man-boobs. He wasn’t worth anything to anyone. He couldn’t even get up enough courage to face any of it. Or to simply end it.

Christina apparently either took the grunt as accession, or just didn’t care, as she began arranging the things Janet had brought over about the currently empty shower shelves, and reaching around Drew and turning the water off. There were what appeared to be two different shampoos — upon closer examination he realized she’d brought his Selenium Sulfide back in, and an expensive looking daily shampoo, two conditioners — one claiming to be a “deep” conditioner, some sort of exfoliating facial cleanser and toner, a facial moisturizer, an exfoliating body wash, and a different, probably far more expensive, bubble bath. She also returned his sponge, as well as bringing some strange looking gloves, a pumice stone, and some sort of poofy lacy looking thing.

“These are what my mother brought you for lathering,” she began, indicating the poofy thing, “and exfoliating,” indicating the gloves and the stone. “Since you have this,” she said, and indicated his sponge, “You won’t be needing these,” and she tossed the poofy thing and gloves out of the shower. “My mother probably figured you’d be like most guys and just lather and wash bare-hand and not care about exfoliation at all… Why do you have a sponge anyways?”

Drew rolled his eyes. “And why wouldn’t I have a sponge? I don’t know why, I just like to use it.”

“I wasn’t trying to say anything about it, it’s just that real sponges aren’t cheap, and especially of this size and quality, with a removable handle and the sewn-on wood back. You could have gotten a loofah made of other natural fibers for much cheaper, which would have done the same job, if not quite as well.”

“When I lived with my parents, my mother had a real sponge much like this one, though it was glued cheaply to plastic backing, I got to using it when I started working, it felt good over the sores and irritated skin. So when I moved out, I searched long and hard for my own, finally found that one on ebay for more money than I want to admit spending.”

“That’s cool!” She exclaimed. “So… I’ve never had dandruff of any sort before, what do you usually do for your hair?” Christina asked.

“Well, I only use the Selenium Sulfide once a week and that’s on Sundays… But when I do use it, regular shampoo first, then dandruff shampoo, leave it in for a couple minutes while I wash my face, which I just use some body wash for, then rinse the dandruff shampoo and body wash off together.” Drew explained. “Daily, I just wash my hair with the regular shampoo, leave it in while washing my face, and rinse together.”

“Well, you can basically just stick to that same routine, though now you’ll be using a different shampoo and some proper facial products… by the way, why did you start letting your hair grow out?”

Drew groaned. He always used to keep his hair buzzed extremely short, no longer than an inch in the winter, half in the summer. Just this past winter he decided it wasn’t worth the twelve bucks every two weeks to keep it buzzed, and he let it grow all winter. By the time warm weather hit, he’d just simply gotten out of the habit of going to a barber. His hair was now almost to his shoulders, though it definitely needed some trimming to make it look neat. At least he’d finally lost the thick curl he always had growing up that made anything longer than an inch poof out into a completely natural afro, it had calmed down to just a gentle wave. This was the direct opposite of his younger brother who grew up with razor straight hair that eventually developed the same gentle wave that Drew’s own hair now sported. “Pure laziness.” He responded in a deliberate monotone. The kind that said just shut up. Drew never had really worried too much about his appearance, aside from trying to hide his breasts.

“We’re going to have to take you to the salon to get that tidied up.” She apparently didn’t get the hint. “Anyways, you’ll use this shampoo and 3-in-one exfoliating facial cleanser and toner, rinse them off after waiting the appropriate time for the facial cleanser, then this conditioner,” she held up the conditioner that didn’t have anything about “deep” on its label as well as the facial moisturizer, “and facial moisturizer, and rinse, then you’ll use the exfoliating body wash for the rest of your body using that sponge of yours, rinse, and use the pumice stone on your feet.”

“That sounds like it’ll take forever.” Drew complained.

“Not really. At least you won’t have to shave thanks to you solving that problem with electrolysis. How long do you usually take in the shower?”

“About twenty to twenty-five minutes… depending.”

“This’ll take you to about fourty, tops, if you dawdle.”

“On Sunday’s, you’re going to use the deep conditioner instead of the regular conditioner, and hold off on the facial moisturizer until after you get out of the shower. Add another 5 minutes.”

“And why do I have to do all this? What was wrong with my old shower routine?” Drew asked.

“What wasn’t wrong with it would be easier to answer… At least you cleaned yourself thoroughly.”

Drew could tell it’d be pointless to argue with either Christina or Janet, unless he wanted to back out completely, which he couldn’t do. Not after he’d said he’d do it. His word bound him more tightly than a noose.

“OK. Now you wash me while I wash you, we’ll get done faster that way.” Christina said, and Drew went beet red as he complied, turning even more violently red when Christina started washing him and moaning in pleasure.

Janet had finally figured out how to turn Drew’s music off and get his TV on and was looking for something half interesting to watch when she heard soft moaning coming from the bathroom. She was going to have to talk to Christina about Drew again… and soon.

Musical accompaniment for this chapter brought to you by:

M.O.V.E. - Lookin' On The Sunny Side

I figured out a way to arrange the information I needed to present without going to chapter-and-half length, nor with making it a half-chapter with only Janet's romp down memory lane. Hope it came out at least tolerably well.

Comments are, as always, welcome, read, and usually appreciated ;P