THERE'S A CURE FOR ALMOST EVERYTHING
written by:
Naughty Miranda

"Poor baby. Can I get you anything at all?"

"Yeah, a cigarette."

I smiled. "Not until you're out of here." Mark had been in hospital for a week now, ever since taking a tumble off his roof (don't ask what he was doing up there!) and, no matter how many visitors he received, the only one he really wanted, ten minutes with Mr Nick O'Tine, was the one that he was forbidden. Not only did the hospital impose a strict non-smoking rule, but his room also seemed to double as a storeroom for every oxygen cylinder the ward might require.

I didn't know how he did it. I quit smoking a couple of years back, and I can still remember the agonies I passed through - and I was doing it of my own free will. I couldn't imagine lying there day after day, being forcibly deprived of my little fix. Still, at least they'd given him a patch. I went cold turkey. "Anything else?"

"How about a hot nurse?"

I shook my head. "You're really striking out today, aren't you?" I reached out, lay a hand on his as it rested in his lap, squeezed it... then squeezed it again. I hadn't felt a boner like that in I don't know how long.

His eyes flickered guiltily into mine. "Told you I needed a hot nurse."

"You need a hot something." Purposefully I left my hand where it lay, even after he eased his out from beneath mine, and clamped it instead on my wrist. It was a long time since Mark and I had been lovers... three years? Maybe four. But we'd remained friends ever since, and I think we'd both wondered "what if..." - although what if what, I could no longer remember.

I squeezed him through the thin hospital blankets, and felt an answering twitch. "At least nothing broke down there," I whispered, casting an eye towards the door to his room. It wasn't closed all the way, but the way the room was angled, I'd see someone walking in a few seconds before they saw me. But just to be on the safe side....

My hand slipped beneath the blankets, groped for a moment, then touched hot, hard flesh. Mark groaned as my fingertips stroked him gently, and again as I tightened my grip around his shaft and began rolling the flesh back and forth, back and forth....

I loved the feel of him in my hand, marveled at the way my mind seemed to leap back all those years to the days when I did this (and more... so much more) on a regular basis, remembering how far to pull back, how hard to push forward, when to rest and caress his balls, when to scrape a thumbnail across his helmet, and when to go hell for leather, pumping him harder as he started to come....

And come and come and come. It felt endless, a flood that I first felt flowing over my fist, as his cock spasmed in my hand and Mark let out a sigh like I'd never heard him utter before.

I reached for a Kleenex and pulled back the covers. "Wow, you must have needed that!" I said quietly. I'd never seen a cock produce that much come, and there was still a dribble leaking out of it.

He laughed quietly. "It's been like that for a couple of days now." He paused, then added, "I've had to take things in hand a few times, just to relieve the boredom."

I wiped his stomach, and then my hand, marveling at the thick drops that clung to my fingers and inched down my wrist. And there was something else. "You smell different as well." I didn't mean to say it aloud, it just blurted out, but he simply smiled. "Must be the hospital food. Or the bed rest."

"Yeah, must be." I finished wiping up, tossed the tissues - half a dozen of them, all drenched in come - into the bin. "I'd better be off now. Need to hit the store before I go home. But I'll be back tomorrow, if you like?" I leaned over and kissed his forehead, laughed as he nodded eagerly, and made my way out of the hospital. I needed a cigarette.

Four years. I met Mark during my last year at college, but it was another year before we started dating - I was in a relationship before that, and he always seemed too crazy to start anything serious with. But we met up one afternoon in a bookstore downtown; and, this time, it just felt right. Maybe I needed a little craziness, and he didn't disappoint., not even after we started to drift apart again, and it was clear that I'd had enough eccentricity. Or maybe he'd had enough of my sanity. Regular dates became irregular phone calls, and when we did meet up, we always seemed to have other plans for that evening. Then, one night he introduced me to a cute redhead named Sara, and I could tell from the way the girl looked at him that it was her turn to take a ride on Mad Mark.

Since then, we'd settled into the comfortable routine that old lovers often do - occasional phone calls, and postcards from vacation, the odd unplanned meeting, a sporadic drink... and then came the news that he'd been rushed into hospital, with a suspected broken back. That, mercifully, hadn't come to pass, but he was in a bad way all the same, and I was just thankful I got out of work so early every day. It meant I could spend time with him in the afternoons, before the rest of his friends and family descended.

And the handjob? Call it a helping hand. Call it Auld Lang Syne. Call it what you will but, as I lay in bed that night, I couldn't get it out of my mind. The touch of his flesh, the strength and weight as it lay in my hand. And that was just for starters. The rivers of come. Where were they when we were dating?

The next afternoon could not arrive soon enough, although I didn't have a clue what I was going to do. I had the archetypal one-track mind all morning at work; I only needed to look down at my right hand to go weak at the knees, yet the only workable fantasy that I could conceive of was one that I knew I could never go through with - to walk into his room and roll back his covers, "okay, Mr Carthy, it's time for your afternoon jerk-off."

And it's just as well because his mother was there when I walked in, and though she insisted I sit and chat for a while, it was easier to lie and say I was only passing by, that I'd drop in again later, when I'd run a few errands. So that afternoon turned into evening and I swear, the thoughts that were going through my mind as I waited for the elevator the following day were enough to flood my panties there and then.

I heard his voice as I pushed open the door. "All clear!" I walked in and sat, smiling as he apologized for his mother; "I really wasn't expecting her. She usually comes in the evening."

And you come in buckets. I couldn't block the thought, and I smirked to myself. "No worries. I'm here now." I was also sitting at the end of his bed, as far from temptation as I could possibly be. He knew it as well. "It's alright, I promise I don't bite." He tried to raise his head, winced at the effort, then lay back again. "See, no reach."

"It's not your biting I'm worried about," I said softly, as I moved to the chair by his bed. It's mine. Hey, where did that come from? I didn't think such thoughts were even in my vocabulary.

Okay, time to come clean, if you'll pardon the pun. One of the reasons why we drifted apart was because I don't like giving head. I don't like the taste, I don't like the texture and I especially don't like the fear that, for all his vows to the contrary, he's still going to come in your mouth. So, long before I hooked up with Mark, I stopped doing it.

Mark, the angel, never said anything. A couple of guys I've been with have got quite aggressive on the subject; "hey, I've been down on you enough times, it's about time you repaid the favor." Yeah, well stop doing it then. It's not like you know what you're doing down there. But not Mark. He never said a word. I know, though, that there's only so many times a guy can try and angle his cock in the direction of your mouth, only to have you move away, before he starts to lose hope that it'll ever happen. And once a guy loses hope, he loses a lot of other things as well.

"How you doing today?" I tried to clear my head and, especially, not glance down at his lap.

"Still want a cigarette."

"And a hot nurse?"

"Oh, I've had one of them," he laughed and I felt a momentary pulse of jealousy. "Yeah, she was in here a couple of afternoons ago. Sorted me out like you wouldn't believe."

Relief made me laugh a little too loud. "Well, if you're lucky, she may come back."

He raised his eyebrows. "I wondered if she might have just been passing through. Trying out a revolutionary new treatment, maybe."

"No, I think she's still around," I chuckled. "Especially if she thinks the treatment worked."

"Oh, it worked alright. In fact, I've barely thought about anything else since she was here."

I kissed him on the cheek; paused a moment, and then again on the mouth. His lips parted a little and our tongues touched. "I'd forgotten how great you taste," he murmured and I couldn't help thinking, if he wasn't almost completely immobile, right now is when he'd be throwing me onto my back, my legs wrapped around his neck, and diving down to discover where else I can be tasted. A shiver ran down my spine. Mark ate pussy like other men watch football games, throwing himself in heart and soul, and making it last all night. And I always hoped it would.

Well, he wouldn't be doing that for a while (unless, of course... but no. I put that thought - you could always sit on his face - out of my head immediately). Instead, I broke the kiss and, checking once more for any unwelcome visitors, I pushed my hand under the covers. Contact.

Slowly, gently, make it last. God, I loved how he felt in my hand, and how that feeling transmitted itself to a point between my legs. Mark's eyes were closed now, his breathing gentle, and that excited me even more. I moved my hand a little faster, feeling the ridge of his helmet as it slipped beneath my fingers, the moisture of his pre-come as it slicked my pinkie.

Did I dare take a peek? The doctors' station outside was quiet; a phone rang somewhere and a few machines were beeping. A voice sounded, but it was distant. With my free hand I raised the blankets, using them to screen myself from the doorway. Oh fuck, he was beautiful down there, eight inches of solid man muscle, dwarfing my hand as it rose and fell on his shaft.

I heard Mark laugh. "Does everything look normal? I've not actually been able to see for myself."

"It looks fine, sweetie. Finer than fine." I let the covers drop again; felt cheated as they cloaked him, but the rhythm of my hand was clear beneath the blanket, and I leaned over a little, planted a kiss on his stomach. "I just want you to get better," I whispered.

"You keep doing that and I will," Mark answered, and then, "okay, faster now. I'm coming... oh Christ, Chrissie, I'm coming!" And he was... he did... and this time, I did fling the blanket back, in time to watch an arc of come soaring over his torso, to spatter on his chest, while more, even more than last time, flooded across his stomach.

Again I reached for a Kleenex, then grabbed a whole wad of them and began dabbing at the goo. But my own hand, too, was sopping and... I don't know what happened then, if I just wasn't thinking, or if some instinct that I'd never before awakened somehow and suddenly took hold of my soul. But I raised my hand to my lips, glanced down to the great glob that was pooling by my thumb, and then very slowly, very deliberately, licked it up with my tongue.

Mark's eyes were wide, just gazing at me. My own, I think, must have registered the shock. Not at what I'd done, I wouldn't even try to process that until later. But at what I discovered. He smelled different, I knew that. But he tasted different,too. He tasted good.

"Is everything alright in here?" A young voice sing-songing at the door, laughing eyes dancing across the sight that lay before her, a patient's stomach and chest festooned with damp tissue, a slowly softening cock still leaking its final secrets, and two pairs of eyes melting into one another.

"Yes, everything's fine." Mark recovered first. "Thank you, nurse."

"That's alright then." And then, "you know you can draw the screens if you need a little privacy? We don't like you to do it all the time, but if it's just a few minutes here and there, that's fine."

"Thanks. I didn't know that. I'll remember it." She left and we both burst out laughing. "How long do you think she was standing there?"

"I haven't a clue," he said. "Once I started coming, I lost all sense of my surroundings."

"You and me both." I could taste him on my tongue still, on my lips and on my gums. Still salty, still tart, but fresh as well. Clean. Delicious. You probably wouldn't want to have to live on the stuff, but a mouthful every so often? Yeah, that would be fine. And I wondered what the rest would taste like. For the first time in my life, for the first time even in my imaginings, I longed to take a cock... Mark's long, hard, beautiful cock... inside my mouth, to suck and suckle for as long as it took, till he flooded my mouth and it ran down my chin. Oh God, all those wasted years. Why couldn't he have tasted this good, back when we were together?

I shook my head, glanced across at the clock. "Nearly four. Time for me to run. Are you okay?"

His smile was as wide as the Hudson. "Better than okay. Better than better than okay. Are you sure you have to go?"

"You said your mother would be here around four. I should scoot before she arrives. And you should probably get your breath back."

Mark nodded. "See you tomorrow?"

"Try keeping me away." I kissed him hard, then leaped away. "No, let's not start that again. I'll see you tomorrow." I straightened his covers, tossed a last tissue into the bin, and left.

Outside, the nurse we'd been talking with was waiting. "He's doing well, isn't he?"

"Amazingly," I answered. "How much longer do you think you'll be keeping him?"

"To be truthful, I can't really say. It'll be a while, I think, and there's a lot of recovery for him to get through before he's back playing the fool on the roof." She paused, then looked around. "But you noticed the difference, didn't you? I could see it in your eyes."

I think I gasped, but I caught myself quickly. "You mean...."

She nodded, smiling mischievously. "Yeah. And it'll keep getting better as well. It was the cigarettes. People go on about the health benefits of stopping smoking, but how many smokers really pay attention to that? Yes, you may get lung cancer. But you might get run over by a bus as well, and it wouldn't have mattered how many packs a day you got through, the bus is still going to kill you.

"No, if you want a guy to quit smoking for good, tell him what really happens. His erections will last longer, he'll produce a lot more semen...."

"And it'll taste better as well."

The nurse laughed. "Oh, you noticed that as well? I thought it was just me. But yeah, it tastes a whole lot better. And if you tell him that, and keep proving it as well, I guarantee he'll never look at a cigarette again." Then, leaning close, she whispered softly, "and you won't believe what will happen to his tongue. But you'll need to wait a while before you find that out for yourself. Until he regains a little more movement."

"That's okay," I told her as I turned to leave. "I can wait. I've got more than enough catching up to do already." I did some quick math, counting the years since I last tasted cock. "About 17 years worth."

"Lucky Mark," she replied. "I'd better make sure we've enough tissues in stock."