Lights of the Heart

by Nat Burns

  “Tell me this is real, Maddie,” I whispered shakily.

  She breathed out and nibbled my lips before whispering a reply. “This is real, mi canto. More real than anything before. We are creating a new reality. We generate new life and light between us.”

  I rolled onto my back, pulling her with me. I reached to unbutton her shirt, my fingers fumbling the task. Maddie rose to her knees and swept the shirt off over her head. Her undershirt followed, and I saw her unfettered leanness for the first time. Her tan skin seemed to glow with an inner light. Her breasts were small and sloped upward, the nipples small and dark. Her unbound curls cascaded wildly across her shoulders as if teasing those breasts. It was a sight I knew I would remember the rest of my life.

  I reached upward and pressed both palms to the space just below her breasts, spreading my fingers outward across her pronounced ribs. She unfastened her trousers and then lowered her body atop mine. There were those mesmerizing kisses again, pulling me from this world, easily thrusting me into another sensual realm where time and place ceased to exist. I shuddered, closer to orgasm than I’d ever been without benefit of touch.

  “Oh, Maddie. Oh, Maddie,” I murmured, pulling one of her thighs between my legs. She understood and pressed upward, even as her hand clutched my hip for more control. Her mouth left mine as she threw back her head and groaned. Her sandalwood-scented hair brushed my cheek as she turned her head, eyes closed. I pressed my lips to her neck, nibbling the corded skin there.

  Her hand left my hip and crept between us, the fingers easily finding and penetrating my throbbing center. She moved slightly to one side, and as her mouth found my lips again, the heel of her palm pressed against my hard, protruding clit. A few strokes in and out and I was done. My body arched off the bed as I wailed into Maddie’s mouth and my world exploded. My toes curled and my thighs tingled and quivered. I muttered nonsensical words as I tried to find my way back to reality. Maddie’s hand had thankfully stilled, but it remained, surely feeling my intense contractions of pleasure.

  I tried to be embarrassed but didn’t have the wherewithal to be anything but a quivering mass of sensual reverberation.

  Maddie gently kissed along my chest, above my breasts. I closed my eyes, feeling her against me, smelling her beautiful scent. I managed to lift the arm stretched behind her, and I pulled her closer with it. She nestled into me, with small mews of comfort. Her hand slid from me, and she rested it on the bed next to my side as she embraced me fully, one thigh across mine. We lay that way a very long time, connecting, until the air conditioning came on and chilly air swept across us.

  Maddie rose and slid from her trousers and panties. She loosened the sheets and blankets, tucking me into them. She slid in next to me and held me close, nose to nose.

  “At last,” she sighed.

  “At last,” I replied. “No more doubt?”

  “No more doubt. No fear.”

  She kissed me deeply, and I felt a new fire kindle. I cupped one of her breasts in my hand. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered, leaning to press my lips to the soft flesh there. She sighed and rolled to lie on her back.

  “Love me, Ella,” she ordered quietly as she spread her arms in invitation.

  “Oh, I will,” I assured her. I took her nipple between my lips and tongued it, relishing in how it grew unbelievably hard under my attention. Maddie moaned, and I captured the other, teasing it in similar fashion. She had her eyes closed, but I could see her skin pinken in anticipation. I moved back and forth between her breasts for a slow, unmeasured time, until she whimpered her need. Only then did I move lower, kissing that gorgeous expanse of skin until I reached a forest of curly dark hair. I brushed it with my fingers, lightly, slowly. I had no desire for this interlude to end. Even temporarily. Why couldn’t lovers love one another all the time? Why did jobs and other people have to interfere?

  I moved a knee between Maddie’s thighs and lowered myself below the blankets. As I flattened to my stomach and pressed my lips to her quivering upper thigh, I understood. To do so, to do this all the time, would be a type of madness. A madness spawned from pleasure. One the human psyche just couldn’t endure.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Maddie

  Breakfast had been a tempest of delight. Though we had to keep our newfound relationship secret, for work purposes, still everything was very different. I wondered if my peers would notice, so I made a real effort not to meet Ella’s eyes when around them. But the energy, the pervasive chemistry we emitted…I wasn’t sure how anyone could have missed that. Nor the dopey, happy grins.

  Now, on the way home, I cleared my throat and squeezed the hand I’d been holding as I drove. “So, Sandy will know, won’t she?”

  Ella sighed and shrugged. “I’m not sure how she wouldn’t. Did you see how strangely Dixie was eyeing us at breakfast? I’m sure she’s guessed.”

  “You…um, you really didn’t want to date her, did you?”

  “Of course not, you beautiful woman. I only have eyes for you. Though…” She paused, and my heart lurched. “I did consider it, for the briefest second, when you seemed to be persistently ignoring my advances.”

  “There’s no way I could have ignored you any longer. I was going just a little crazy.” I stroked her hand with my thumb. “I’ll never make that mistake again. I can promise you that.”

  She smiled tenderly at me and then turned to study the passing landscape. “So, what about Sandy?”

  “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and, you know, everyone will need to know, sooner or later. I mean, I plan to stay in Maypearl and practice. And—”

  She turned and eyed me curiously. “And?”

  I took a deep breath. “And of course I want you in my life. To be with me.”

  I felt the radiance coming from her rather than saw it. “Do you mean that?” she asked breathlessly.

  I checked the traffic all around and managed to pull to the side of the interstate. I put the SUV in park and turned to her. “Ella, I don’t know you as well as I plan to know you, but I am certain of the way I feel when I am with you. You…yes, you fill my heart with light. I’ve never had that before, so I’m not well-versed in this committed relationship thing. But I want, no, plan to try being a couple. I want to come home to you, or with you, every day and discuss our days. The way we feel about our days. I want to hold you at night while we sleep and wake with you as I did this morning.” I paused and took in a deep breath. “I hope you feel the same way, and I think you do. If not, let’s discuss it.”

  She nodded. “And we could, you know. Discuss it. I don’t think there’s anything we can’t talk about. At least now.” She grinned at me. “So, shall we? Play house together?”

  Relief filled me. “Yes! Yes, please.”

  She unbuckled her seat belt and pressed her lips to mine. Heat surged through me, and I felt desire for her start at the end of my spine and work its way upward. Time passed uncounted as we lost ourselves in one another. When I found myself straining against my seat belt, trying to possess her, I pulled away and laughed shakily. “Ah, woman. What you do to me is…well, it just is.”

  She wasn’t unfazed. I watched her chest rise and fall as she straightened her blouse. She chuckled. “Let’s get home, my love.”

  “Together,” I added as I carefully pulled back onto the highway.

  For the next two hours, we discussed logistics. She still wanted to leave the practice, and I was begging her to stay. For some reason, working together would not be a conflict for me any longer. I wasn’t sure why my viewpoint had changed, but now I imagined us working together as an even more streamlined medical team. Her doubts were sound, but in the euphoria of our new love, I couldn’t see us working apart from one another. We tabled that decision for a later discussion.

  Another discussion concerned where we would live. I didn’t care at all, trusting that she would make wherever we lived a cozy, personalized abode for the two of us. She remained undecided, howe
ver, and I guessed giving up her independence, via her apartment, was proving hard for her. I felt sad about that but certainly understood it. I let her know right away that Julio would be a welcome addition to our new family. I was actually excited about the idea of having a pet again.

  I squelched a sudden niggle of doubt at one point. My evenings, although lonely, were when I was safely able to think and to spend time writing and studying. I was apprehensive of what I imagined would be a certain amount of chaos in my future. I knew Ella was an avid reader. We’d make it work.

  Seeing the large blue sign welcoming us back to Maypearl set a whole new wheel of apprehension into motion. How would my patients react to Ella being my partner, maybe one day my wife? What would change in my career? A glow of peace filled me as I realized I just didn’t care. I couldn’t care. Being as unhappy and unfulfilled as I’d been since meeting Ella and not having her as my love had revealed to me that a happy woman made a happier doctor. I’d be a better physician with Ella in my life. This was a fact, as far as I was concerned. The patients and Sandy would just have to come around. It might be uncomfortable in the beginning but, really, wasn’t I allowed to have a loving, fulfilled life?

  I pulled into a parking space near the door to Ella’s apartment. I carried both our bags inside.

  Julio greeted us with loud complaints with a few ‘welcome home’s thrown in, just to be politically correct. Ella seemed to be listening to him, deciphering his language, and I thought she was adorable the way she tilted her ear toward him, listening with intense concentration.

  “Yes, yes. I know Sandy was here. You don’t think I’d leave you all by yourself, do you? Did she feed you what you wanted?”

  I fell under the spell myself, swearing I could make out words in the jumble of mews and meows.

  “Well, I’ll tell her not so much salmon next time,” Ella said as they walked down the hall to the bedroom. I followed as a smiling bellman, a small suitcase in each hand.

  “You can just put them on the bed,” she said, and it took me a minute to realize she was talking to me.

  “Ah, so it’s okay if I stay here tonight?”

  She sidled close and insinuated her body against mine. I leaned my head forward. She captured my lips and thoroughly answered my question.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ella

  As soon as Maddie left to check out things at the office, I went back into the living room and dialed my sister.

  “Jess! Jess! Jess!” I cried out as she answered.

  “Whoa! Hold up, Auntie El, it’s Westie. Are you okay?” I could hear the concern in her voice, so I calmed myself.

  “Of course, sweetie. How are you?”

  “Superfragicool. Mom made Dad cough up the dough for a new microscope so I can sweep my finals so, yeah, all is suweet!”

  I laughed at her youthful enthusiasm about a microscope, of all things. “That sounds amazing. What are you working on?”

  We talked shop until my sister sounded in the background and Westie told her I was on the phone. Westie signed off, and I heard Jess.

  “Ella? How was your trip?” she asked. “I want all the details. Fess up.”

  I was held spellbound, making fish-kiss noises into the phone.

  “Ella? Ella?” She sounded panicky.

  “It happened,” I wheezed out. “She…she loves me.”

  “Oh, Ella,” she sighed.

  “And wants to live with me. Like, forever!”

  Jess squealed into the phone and, of course, I matched her squeal for squeal as Julio eyed me with disgust.

  “Oh, sis. I am so incredibly happy for you. Is she wonderful? Did you…?”

  I grinned and poked Julio impudently. “Yes. Last night, and let’s say…well, I can’t keep my hands off her. She is so very luscious.”

  “Lus-cious,” Jess repeated, drawing out the word. “That sounds so wonderful for you. Oh my God. So, when can I meet her? Oh, and what about the job? Will you keep working there?”

  I curled into the sofa next to Julio, scooting him over. He grumbled but moved easily enough. “We’re still talking about that. She wants me to, but…”

  “But?” I heard the sliding glass door through the phone and could picture her walking out to sit on the expansive deck Brian had built for her. The chair cushions blew out air as she sat.

  “I don’t know why I have reservations. I guess it goes back to my gut feeling about asking her to break, what? Protocol? I just don’t want to be responsible if she…thinks about that someday.”

  “I get that. Maybe not such a bad idea.”

  “But then I think about the two of us working together, you know, like as a team. That excites me. We’d be like Batman and Robin. The Lone Ranger and Tonto.”

  Jess laughed so hard that she choked and fell into a coughing fit. This set me off, and we cackled together like two old hens.

  “Oh, Ella,” she sighed finally. “Be happy, hon. You certainly deserve it, and I am so very happy for you. I’m sure the two of you will make all the right decisions. Life is too short not to, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I replied thoughtfully. “And she’s so wonderfully, well, together. I know I can trust her to make the right decisions for us. Hey, did I tell you her family is from Puerto Rico? That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? I’ve never dated anyone like her. Oh, and Jess, you should hear her speak Spanish, it makes me like, um, Gomez with Morticia on The Adams Family movie.”

  Jess laughed. “Oh, so you mean you want to kiss her all up her arm and utter sweet nothings to her every time she speaks it?”

  “Yeah,” I blushed, hoping Julio wouldn’t notice. “Something like that.”

  “Oh, El, you got it so bad, and I’m loving this living it again through you. You just wait, two years from now, you’ll be bitching about something she does that gets on your nerves.”

  “Yeah, probably. Everything’s like that, I know. But right now she’s got me wrapped around her little finger. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

  “Maybe you guys could drive up next month for our anniversary party. Twenty-five years.”

  “Damn! It’s been that long?”

  “I know.” She sighed. “Hard to believe. We’ve been lucky, I guess. No reasons to split. We don’t even fight. Guess we’ll be like Mom and Dad and just grow old together.”

  “But you’re okay with that, right?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather grow old with. Maybe you and your Maddie will be the same way. I’m crossing my fingers.”

  I thought about that a long moment. Yes, Maddie and I would be perfect as two old ladies living and loving together.

  “El?”

  “Sorry, woolgathering. So, when should I tell Mom and Dad? And Barbie?”

  I could sense Jessica’s shrug. “Who cares? I wouldn’t rush it. You don’t have to see them until next Christmas, if then. It’s your life, and they have no say over it.”

  “I’d sorta like to let them know that I can be a lesbian and still be happy,” I murmured.

  “No, you just want to prove them wrong. What will that get you, Ella?”

  Damn Jess. She was always so reasonable. “Satisfaction,” I said sarcastically. “No, I know. Not the best motive. I hear you.”

  “Mmhm,” she responded doubtfully.

  I laughed. “Look, gotta go. I want to unpack before she gets back.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “Just to the office to make sure everything’s okay. And to relieve the relief doc for tomorrow.”

  “So, what are you gonna do about work?”

  “I’ll go in and probably give notice tomorrow. We’ll see. She’s coming back here tonight, and maybe we’ll talk about it some more then.”

  “Okay, lil sis, love you bunches,” she said, signing off.

  “Love you back,” I replied before ending the connection.

  Julio stretched against my leg, drawing my attention. “So, what do you think
, little man? Should I find another job? I sure can’t make up my mind.”

  He stared at me and blinked one eye slowly.

  “That’s no help,” I told him. “Let Mama up so I can make everything perfect for when my woman-love comes home.”

  He turned his head away, and I wriggled out from under his substantial weight.

  “Yeah, I know, cheesy. Just can’t help myself,” I told him, giggling as I traveled the hall to the bedroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Maddie

  “So, how was the office?” she asked me when I seated myself at the table. I couldn’t answer right away. I was still tingling and stunned by the warm kisses she’d greeted me with just moments ago. Being in a relationship with Ella was certainly going to change my life in the most pleasant of ways.

  Finally finding my voice, I answered her. “It was good. Jason has everything under control.”

  She turned from the counter. “When is Dr Mikas leaving?”

  I studied the feast before me. She’d made a huge bowl of salad, covered it with a layer of roasted nuts and then prepared a platter of crusty, buttery bread to go with it. “After he closes the office today. This looks so good. Thank you for doing this.”

  “You’re welcome, my darling. I thought a salad a good idea as I had veggies that needed to be used up. And bread, of course.” She seated herself and smiled at me. “Enjoy.”

  I dug in with gusto, realizing how famished I’d become since our late breakfast. I realized after several moments of silence that Ella was watching me eat. I laughed and covered my mouth with one hand. “Stop that,” I said. “You’re making me self-conscious.”

  Her eyes held adoration in their depths, and I wondered that I had never seen anyone look at me with that type of affection before. How could I have lived all these years without that in my life?