On Call Collection

by P D Singer

  “I’ll just take the top off,” I suggested, not wanting to jostle his leg unnecessarily. Harpo went flat on the bottom, but Dante scooped him gently out and set him on the table. “Tell me what you need for help.”

  “Just hold him,” the vet said, all attention on his patient. “He’s guarding that hind leg.” With gentle hands and soothing comments, Dante felt the leg thoroughly, dodging the one swipe Harpo took at him. “Yes, that hurt, and I know why.” He let go; my cat tried to huddle against me. I snuggled him as Dante delivered the bad news. “The stifle joint is dislocated. Unfortunately, with cats that usually means a ruptured ligament or two. It’s a surgical repair.”

  My heart sank. “I’m so sorry I stepped on you, buddy. So, when can you do it?”

  Dante shrugged. “If you’re willing to help I can do it now. I’d rather not wait, because he’s in pain. He’s not going to be getting from the litter box to the bowl very well until it’s put back together, and if we don’t do something soon, he’ll be permanently lame.”

  “I’m on call. What if I get beeped?” I had visions of having to dash away with cat bits lying all over. “And he ate not long ago.”

  “It’s quick, really. Getting him anesthetized will be the biggest part. Eating isn’t really a problem, I think.” With that, he grabbed a handful of paper towels and cleaned up the inside of the box. I hadn’t really tuned into some of the noises coming out of the crate on the way over.

  “Okay. I’m game.” Carrying Harpo back to the surgery area at least let me feel useful, and there was Dante’s nice butt for scenery again. I had time to notice the wide shoulders, too. “Need to coach me, though.”

  “You get to monitor breathing and heart rate for the anesthesia; tell me if either rate rises or drops, and you get to hand me things. You know all the names, right?” He grinned at me, his teeth flashing. “Sorry to make you watch, but at least it’s not your own knee.”

  “Yeah, but it’s my fault. Me and my big feet.” I watched as he drew out medications in syringes and kept Harpo from backing up off the table when Dante aimed one of the syringes at the meat of his thigh.

  “I’m going to knock him out first, just because he’s hurting. You know the drill.” He beckoned me to the sink to scrub up once Harpo went limp. He had to interrupt his scrubbing to park the sugar glider in a cage before he gowned up.

  His hands were deft and sure as he clipped the site and swabbed the leg, waiting only a moment for drying before he incised the skin with the scalpel I’d handed him. Nothing on that tray was new to me, aside from the small pin that he used to stabilize the joint while he took quick stitches in the tendons. The drill looked a lot more like a home improvement store item than what I’d used on surgical rotations, but otherwise, no big surprises, and he kept up a running commentary from behind his surgical mask.

  “Okay, going to close up now,” he said after what might have been a short surgery but seemed to take hours. “He’ll be sore for a while and he needs to stay inside for about six weeks while the ligaments heal, especially if he’s a jumper, but he should be very nearly good as new.” He wrapped the leg with a sterile dressing after flexing it to ninety degrees and then straightening it. “Better already.” He’d given Harpo a few more injections during the surgery to keep him sedated, but not recently. I wondered how long it would take the cat to wake up, and when I could take him home.

  “Now this big guy needs to come to and find his feet. I thought I’d just take him upstairs and park him in the living room; then I can keep an eye on him and pretend there’s something left of a day off.” Dante stripped off his gloves and flipped them in the biohazard trash. “Want to come?”

  “Sure.” My beeper remained quiet; I cast a stern thought at it to stay that way as I followed Dante, the sugar glider he’d retrieved from its cage, and a sedated Harpo up the stairs. The scenery was still nice. I could see grabbing a double handful of that.

  The stairs opened up on a small living room with an attached kitchen on the other side of a bar. Copper pans hung from hooks, but the main items of décor seemed to be animate. At least three cats sprawled across the room and a wall of aquaria held what were probably creepie crawlies. Toddler pens marked off two areas; one held a small dog with a cone over its head and the other had an open crate with a towel on the bottom. A fluffy tail was visible, nothing else. Something downstairs had seemed odd; there had been the usual rack of cages, but there was no one in them, save for a sugar glider and that only briefly.

  “Does everyone come upstairs to hang out with you?” I asked, as Dante settled Harpo on a cat bed on the floor.

  “Pretty much. A couple of these guys live here, but I don’t see why the others should stay in jail all weekend just because the families went out of town.” He arranged another set of toddler pens around Harpo and set out some dishes and a box. “Sit.” The sugar glider went into a large cage where she disappeared into a nest box.

  The couch was pretty well catted, so I picked up a white one with a brown tail and spots in order to sit under it. The cat seemed content to settle on my lap, driving some curved spikes into my knee to demonstrate. “What about the black and white one in the waiting room?”

  “She’s not very well socialized to other animals, and she’s had all the company she can stand for one day, so I put her in there to calm down. It’s really not solitary confinement.” Dante went into the kitchen and returned with cans of soda. “She’ll be a great pet for someone.” He handed me a can and sat down, close enough to make me think I had a chance, but far enough away that he wasn’t making a move. Or maybe it was the cats on either side that made him sit there.

  I started to take a swig of the soda but was arrested mid motion by Dante taking a sip of his. Those full sensuous lips against the can made my breath catch; his lowered eyelids partially covered the deep brown eyes. I wanted to touch his eyelashes, feel their texture. Instead, I stroked the cat in my lap until his tail flipped in annoyance.

  “So, busy on call?” he asked, settling back.

  “Yeah, up all night with a labor and delivery, a few other things. Had to put some kid’s elbow back, which was a lot easier than what you had to do just now.” I managed a drink of soda at last. The cat regarded me and my social skills through slitted eyes.

  “Funny, I had an L&D, too, only I got five kittens. Mama and babies are in there.” He gestured to the pen with the crate. “Scottish Folds, rather valuable, but she’s a nice cat. More important, I think, but the shows are big business.”

  “Scottish Fold? I don’t know what that is,” I confessed.

  “A breed of cat with ears that fold over close to their heads. Like this.” He turned slightly and reached to my lap cat, pushing one ear over. His own ears were small and close to his head, nearly close enough to whisper into. Or kiss. I made a small choked noise in spite of myself for the effort of doing neither. He turned to face me without backing away. “Too close to the black guy?” he challenged.

  “Not close enough,” I blurted. Now he could get mad, throw me out, and tell me to come back and get my cat later.

  “Really?” He hadn’t moved.

  “Really.” I was frozen in place.

  “You’re gay.”

  “Yeah.”

  I was waiting for it all to come apart, but I might be waiting a while, because he kissed me. He didn’t bring his body any closer; he just moved his face enough to meet my lips. I didn’t close my eyes, because I needed to see him; he didn’t close his either, and the challenge didn’t leave them. Still, he kissed me, lips parting gently though neither of us tried for tongue, me because I was scared I’d make him back off, he, because…

  Because I was a stranger, because I was white, because I was an experiment, because… Oh hell, I didn’t know and I wouldn’t until he chose to tell me, but that would mean ending the kiss and I didn’t want to do that. He brushed his lips against me again, making me respond both with my mouth and with my cock. It hardened and rose; the h
unter in my lap grabbed at it, claws out.

  “OW!” I dumped the beast off and felt for damage. Dante pulled back, smiling but not laughing, though I finally had to shake my head and chuckle ruefully. “Does he chaperone you all the time?”

  “He… doesn’t have much to chaperone.” He shoved another cat off the couch and sat close to me, his arm around my shoulders. “Shall I do any first aid?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, not daring to believe this was happening.

  Once again our mouths met, my thin lips pressed against his soft full ones, and this time I did let my eyes flutter shut. I had to slide down a little to fit against him; we were nearly of a height, though he carried most of his five feet eleven in his torso and I’m more legs. He held me and slipped his hand down the front of my pants. I pulled the knot out of the drawstring to let him have better access and was rewarded with a strong hand gripping my cock.

  “Better check,” he teased, pushing my soft pants down enough to expose my cock. “So far, no major trauma.” He began to stroke me; I had to hide my face in his neck. Dante smelled of warm man, antiseptic, and soap; breathing him in was making me dizzy. Wrapping my free arm around him let me feel the skin on the back of his neck, and then I ran my hand up to touch his short hair. Even the texture of his hair excited me; when he kissed me again with those open mouthed, yet almost chaste kisses, I had to moan out loud.

  “Hurts that bad?” he breathed, and no, it just felt that good.

  The kisses grew in intensity—tongue met tongue, lips met lips and he kept stroking my cock, though before I grew aroused enough to climax he took his hand away to run it up and down my body under my shirt. I’d been doing the same to him, and somehow I ended up kneeling between his knees.

  “May I?” My hands were at his fly; I waited for the go ahead before unbuttoning him.

  “Yeah,” Dante said, running his hands through my short, sandy brown hair. He let me pull his jeans off and the underwear came with them, exposing his muscular thighs that I’d tried not to notice when he’d come in for treatment. I noticed them now, with both eyes and both hands, and then moved to his cock, thick, uncut, and so hard. I wanted him in my mouth, and yet I hesitated. I knew something important about him, but he didn’t know the same about me, and telling him now would be meaningless; it was the sort of thing that needed to be talked over while dressed and limp.

  So I ran my lips over the shaft, flicking and nibbling, playing him with a hand as I slipped the other behind him to grab one rounded muscular buttock. Not slipping his entire cock into my mouth was one of the tougher things I’d ever done, but until we’d had that conversation, this was going be the safest sex we’d ever have.

  His hand on the back of my neck urged me on but didn’t push me into more than I wanted to do, though his moaning was encouraging me on to more than was wise. When he pulled me up for a kiss, he interrupted the temptation to take the head into my mouth, and then he stripped my shirt off.

  He pulled me off my knees, slipping my soft jersey pants down over my ass. Grateful for the gym time I’d been putting in, I knew that my butt would be almost as nice to grab as his was, something he was busy finding out for himself. The sob came out of my throat unbidden, muffled against his shoulder.

  Straddling his thigh with one knee on the couch and the other foot on the floor put our cocks so close together. I leaned down to kiss him, thinking that our differing proportions made this work well, and then I quit thinking as he put his hand on my cock again.

  His cock was right there, throbbing in my grip; we pumped each other as we played lips and tongues over one another’s. He didn’t cry out until the end, as he pulsed in my hand; my own yell followed swiftly as Dante stroked me into an orgasm that contracted everything in my body.

  Once the shuddering was done, far too soon, I straightened my back and slid next to him. His thigh between my legs was something I’d be glad to have more of, but now I wanted to sit close. We’d started at the wrong end of this; we needed to talk.

  First he needed to pull his shirt off: his scrubs had caught our semen. Pulling the front of his shirt out as he pulled it up kept his face dry; we chuckled just a little as he mopped our groins with the wadded up fabric. He dropped it on the floor, stretched out behind me on the couch, and pulled me down to lie against him.

  “That,” he murmured, his voice deep, “was unexpected.”

  “It wouldn’t have been if you knew what I’ve been thinking since we met.” I didn’t like confessing unprofessional thoughts. “I was going to ask you out the other night, but I wasn’t sure if you’d welcome it.”

  “I thought you might have had more to say.” Dante put little kisses on the edge of my ear between words. “Though I also thought you weren’t supposed to date patients.”

  “I’m not. I’ll need to relinquish care.” I rubbed his arm with the edge of my thumb. “That is, if you want to see me again.” Socially. I should have said socially. Maybe if I banged my head on the wall I’d get all the right words out.

  “Is someone else in the clinic okay, or do I need the records sent somewhere else altogether?”

  He heard what I hadn’t managed to say.He wouldn’t have said it like that if he meant professionally. “Someone else in the clinic is fine, it’s just that I can’t be totally objective about you.” I turned my head to find his lips again.

  “Imagine you can’t.” He rubbed my belly in little circular moves and then followed the treasure trail south, brushing his fingertips across the base of my cock before resting his arm over my chest again. “Not sure how objective you’re being about us, right now.”

  “Because of…?” I’d make him say it. His arm was dark across my middle, my own forearm a pale contrast next to it, my hand a ghostly presence on his biceps.

  “Because you don’t know me. I don’t know you. The sex was fun, but what else is there for us?”

  “Whatever we find and make, I guess.” He was looking past the obvious better than I was, at least out loud. “But I do know some things about you. Important things.”

  “Oh?” Dante picked his head up from the arm of the couch, craning to see movement in Harpo’s pen, then lay back down. “Like my HIV status?”

  “Aside from that, yeah. Mine’s negative, too, but I don’t expect you to take my word on it; you can see the results or you can stick me for the lab yourself if you want to. But more than that.” I didn’t want to offend him, but I thought it was important. “But just because of what you do and how I met you, I knew a couple of important things from the start.”

  “Better tell me.” His voice was neutral, though his eyes were wary.

  “You’re smart. You have to be, or you wouldn’t be a vet.”

  “So?”

  “So, I like that in a man. Means we could have a lot to talk about, or some lively arguments, at least.” I wasn’t explaining this very well. “Dante, I didn’t make it into vet school; I have to respect someone who did.”

  “So human medicine was your second choice?”

  “Yeah. I’m happy with it, but it wasn’t what I’d always planned.” Lots of things in my life weren’t what was planned. “I like animals better than I like most people. They,” I hesitated, “they don’t judge.”

  “No, they don’t,” Dante agreed, his eyes focused somewhere or some when else than in the room. “Their owners do, though. Doesn’t pay to forget that.” He brought his gaze back to me.

  I’d take that as a warning.

  “So, brains are good. What else?”

  “Well…” I trailed off, because I didn’t want to offend him and this next was a minefield.

  Movement from Harpo’s pen attracted his notice; he got up and crossed to the little enclosure. Instead of stepping over, he opened it and knelt down to the cat. I sat up to watch, and the view was fine as his knees splayed out and his cheeks parted. He stroked Harpo, who moved uncertainly under his hand but didn’t try to get up. “Hey, fella, you want your man?” He stroked some
more. “So do I; do you mind sharing a bit? Even if he can’t get a coherent thought out?”

  Okay, hadn’t blown it yet. “And you’re ambitious. This is your practice, you aren’t much older than I am and you’ve built this up. That’s impressive.”

  He turned to look at me over his shoulder; his smile was blinding. “And that means I’m not sucking up to Dr. Hoyer for the bucks?”

  “That, too. Dr. Hoyer isn’t sucking up to you, either. I’m sure you’ve met that as often as I have.” One of my feet had to be firmly in my mouth now. “But it’s the ambition that I admire; the other is just a relief. My last boyfriend… Well, it got ugly.”

  “And that’s over?” He’d picked up Harpo and now he was coming back to the couch. My mouth went dry at the sight of naked gorgeous Dante carrying a cat, the view only slightly spoiled by a bandage on a hind leg.

  “Long time ago, more than a year.” I scooted over and lay back while Dante placed my groggy kitty on my belly. Harpo looked confused, but he relaxed as I rubbed his ears. Dante lay next to me on his side, on the outer edge of the couch this time. His warm brown body would keep Harpo from rolling off. We ran our hands over his soft striped fur, now and again running our hands over one another. Whether it was pain, confusion, or contentment that made the cat purr, he rumbled and vibrated against my middle.

  “And one more thing…” I trailed off. “One really important thing.” I could look up at his face as he propped up on one elbow. I wasn’t going to tell him that he was the sexiest guy I’d met in a long time, that his tight body and crisp hair excited me, that I liked the very feel of his name in my mouth. Or at least not yet.

  “Is getting information out of you always this hard?” Dante asked me with a lazy smile.

  “Only at first,” I admitted. “After a while you might beg me to shut up.”

  “I’ll risk it. I know a way to shut you up.” If it was by kissing me, as he did now, his full lips traveling softly over mine, I’d recite the phone book or read jokes out loud from emails. “But you have to tell me now— what’s this important thing you know about me?”