stroking

"I hold an imaginary ball between my hands, and I dry brush my body, stroking my skin, visualising the blood flowing to my heart."

He said the troop deployment was "about stroking a dangerous President's ego".

In exile at her grandmother’s Oklahoma ranch, she meets Lucas Iron Eyes, who has been working since he was 16 and has no time for stroking her bruised ego.

“He started acting strange about a week ago. He wasn’t lunging at us and wasn’t taking food,” Young said, stroking the reptile’s head.

It can also involve other nurturing touch, such as back stroking or cradling.