Medicine Man

by Saffron A Kent

  I also talked with the brunette who was admitted at the same time as me. Her name is Tina and she’s bulimic. We swapped stories about our first week and how she couldn’t sleep with all the noises and the smell. And how lime jello makes her break out in sweat.

  We cried about things and then, we laughed.

  Yeah, there was a lot of laughing. But somehow, I doubt that I’d laugh about The Confession.

  My illness might come with a prescription, but there’s no pill for heartsickness.

  On top of that the problem is that I don’t have a lot of experience with crushes. I mean, I’ve had them. Obviously. But I’ve always admired those guys from afar. I’ve never approached them. They would’ve died, or at least passed out. Being approached by Weird Willow, who hung out in the back with her book and her Harry Potter t-shirts.

  In my entire eighteen years, I’ve had only one boyfriend and that was because he wanted to get close to me and ask about all my symptoms; he wanted to be a doctor. When I found out about it, I dumped him. Thank God, I never told my mom about him. She would’ve murdered him for breaking my heart.

  Anyway, I have zero experience with crushes, confessions, and rejections. All I know is that I’m supposed to act cool and calm. Not sure if I’m the right person for that but we’ll see.

  I knock on his door, my palms sweaty. “You can do this, Willow. You’re a fighter. You can fucking do this –”

  The door opens, and my words get lost in my head.

  Is it me or has he grown even more handsome overnight?

  His hair’s a little longer than before and the strands curl at the ends. Maybe it grew out in the two weeks he’s been here. Seems like a lifetime since I first came into this room, thinking he was the enemy.

  My world turned upside down in the last two weeks and his has remained the same.

  Life’s a fucking biatch, isn’t it?

  He’s staring at me with the same intense eyes as he was yesterday afternoon. As if he never stopped looking at me at all. As if the few hours in between don’t matter and he’s picking up where he left off.

  It’s making me nervous.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Were you talking to someone?” he asks, his hands inside his pockets, only his wristwatch peeking out.

  “Yes.”

  “With whom?”

  “Myself.”

  He throws me a lopsided smile and steps aside so I can enter. Though he hasn’t given me a lot of space to work with like he usually does. Meaning my arm grazes the ridge of his stomach when I pass him by and every nerve ending in my body stands taut.

  How is it that I can feel this explosion of sensation all over my body and he doesn’t have a single hint of it?

  It’s so unfair.

  “How are you?” he asks from behind me and I turn around to face him.

  He’s standing by the door, leaning against it, actually, like he has no plans to sit down. The toes inside my bunny slippers curl, for some reason.

  “I’m okay.”

  “How do you feel? After the group yesterday?”

  I nod. “I feel good.”

  “It was…” He seems to be choosing his words carefully, slowly, while being completely focused on me. “Commendable and brave. What you did yesterday. Very few people can admit their flaws even to themselves, let alone to a room full of people.”

  Mesmerized.

  He kind of looks mesmerized by me. Which is so, so ridiculous that I feel like maybe I’m seeing things.

  “Uh, well, thanks,” I say, unsurely.

  He goes silent for a few seconds and I’m waiting for the bomb to drop. He’s going to say something about The Confession Day; I know it. I can feel it. It’s coming. I tighten my body and make fists out of my hands.

  You can do this, Willow. Just don’t blush too much.

  “I was harsh with you,” he says finally, and I see a flicker of regret flash through his eyes.

  Okay, I was totally not expecting that. I thought he was going to talk about my conduct as a patient or something.

  My mouth parts as I take in a breath. A shaky breath. The truth is that yes, he was harsh, and as usual, I’ve thought about that.

  The thing is that Dr. Simon Blackwood isn’t harsh. Not usually. He’s blunt and truthful, but he isn’t an asshole.

  Assholes are immature. Boys trapped inside a man’s body who don’t know what to do with it. So they make everyone around them miserable, instead of just sucking it up and dealing with their problems.

  This man in front of me, in his crisp shirt and wingtips, is anything but immature. He’s a man. Through and through. Mature, masculine, commanding.

  Sexy.

  But I’m not thinking about that right now.

  “You were.” I nod. “Why?”

  Exactly. Why?

  Why the fuck was he so ticked off when I asked him out? I mean, it could be that he really hates me and was totally disgusted by the idea of going on a date with me. But this isn’t high school, and I’ve already established that he isn’t immature.

  So there has to be something else. His anger has to have come from somewhere else.

  At last, he leans away from the door and stands up straight.

  “Because there are moral and ethical concerns involved. I’m your doctor. You’re my responsibility. You’re under my care. There are lines that can’t be crossed. Your health depends on it,” he says in a low, severe tone.

  Almost passionate.

  He’s so passionate about taking care of me. About my mental health. Well, about his job.

  But as twisted as I am, it almost makes me feel special. His passion inflames my passion, a quickening in my belly.

  Taking a deep breath, I try to get my misplaced reactions under control. This is not the time. So not the time. My lust can roam free when I’m alone in my room at night. Not here.

  Besides, I need to know something. Something about what he said on The Confession Day.

  When they die, they don’t die alone. They kill people by leaving them behind.

  “Do you know a lot of people like that? Who give up? Who… die?”

  His expression remains the same, severe. So I don’t know if he heard me. But this is the only conclusion I came up with – that he might have some experience with people like me. Obviously. He’s a psychiatrist. But I think this is personal.

  Something that makes him go dark and devastated at the same time.

  Then he jerks out a nod. “Yes.”

  It’s said in a small voice. Not in intensity but in volume. As though he didn’t want me to hear it. As though it came from somewhere deep inside of him.

  My heart clenches; I was right.

  He does have personal experience with it. He does know someone who’s given up. I wish I could ask him. I know he won’t tell me, even if I did.

  It’s not my business, anyway. It shouldn’t be. My chest shouldn’t ache for him. I shouldn’t want to wrap my arms around him and give him a hug. Because he looks like he could use one. He’s just too hard and closed up.

  It’s not going to be me, though. That much I know.

  But I can always use my words. “I… Whoever they are, I maybe understand what they were going through. And I just wish they hadn’t given up.” I stare into his eyes, so he knows I’m giving this to him. My words are for him, even though I don’t know why he needs them, what his involvement is.

  “I wish they hadn’t left their life and the people in it behind. Maybe they would’ve found a reason to live. A reason to be happy.”

  I sigh and lower my eyes, looking down at my slippers. Blinking, I get rid of the moisture. I can cry once I’m out of this room. I can cry when the man I’m crying for doesn’t know I’m shedding my tears for him.

  Is it creepy to cry for the crush who doesn’t want you back? Maybe. But then, I’ve always been a little weird. So there.

  Wiping my hands on m
y yoga pants, I look up and my breath evaporates. Because he’s staring at me like he’s never stared at me before. And that’s not even the part I’m focusing on.

  It’s the fact that he looks so… open and angry and tortured, even.

  His cheekbones have sharpened and there’s a flush covering them. A dark hue that wasn’t there before. He seems to have sprawled, even though he hasn’t moved an inch. His shoulders cover the entire breadth of the door.

  God, he’s so big.

  No, actually. Big is the wrong word. He’s large. In body, in presence.

  I don’t know what makes me move, what makes me approach him, but I do. I keep putting one foot in front of the other, until I’m standing close to him, tilting my neck up like I’m looking at the cloudy sky.

  “I… Can I go now?” I whisper.

  He bends toward me. Not like he did yesterday when he was all shaken up and furious. This leaning is slow and filled with a different kind of intensity.

  “No.”

  I swallow, looking into his eyes, which have moved down to my lips. Has he ever looked at my mouth before? I can’t remember. He’s always been so professional and distant that just one look of his seems exaggerated, almost too much to handle.

  “W-why not?”

  “Because I’m curious about something.”

  I lick my lower lip. I swear it’s not meant to be provocative. It’s just that his stare is making them tingle and dry out. I didn’t know that a body part could be shy until this man focused on it like this.

  “About what?”

  Again, I’m expecting one thing but something entirely different happens. Instead of answering with his words, he touches me. Of his own volition.

  His hands wrap around my neck, his fingers spanning the entire length of my throat, tilting my face up. My eyes are wide; I can feel it. I can feel them popping out. I can feel my heart popping out too, bursting with too many beats.

  He’s touching me.

  Touching. The litmus test of attraction.

  “I’m curious about,” he whispers, his breath wafting over my nose, drugging my senses. “Why the fuck do I want to kiss you?”

  “What?”

  My hands reach up and hold his wrists. I feel like my world just went unsteady and I can’t stand up straight without his help.

  Did he just… Did he say he wants to kiss me?

  There’s a slight frown on his forehead, as if he’s genuinely perplexed. As if I’m a riddle and so is his desire to kiss me.

  “It doesn’t make sense.” His gray, almost black, gaze flicks back and forth. “You’re my patient. You’re my responsibility. I’m supposed to fix you, not think about your lips. I’m not supposed to think about your mouth or the taste of your tongue. If you really taste like you smell.”

  “How… How do I smell?”

  His chuckle is short and harsh as he moves his hand and grabs my face. “Like lemons. Like you’ve been sucking on lemon wedges all day long with that pink mouth of yours.”

  I feel the heat of his hand on my flesh. He’s burning up, slowly boiling over. “I-I… It’s the lime jello,” I reply, as if that’s the most important thing in the world right now. Explaining the source of my smell and possibly my taste too.

  His grip on my cheeks increases. “That was for me, wasn’t it? That whole lie about getting kissed in a dark alley.”

  Oh God. Why’d he have to bring that up?

  Again, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was so overcome by this urge to show off. To tell him without telling him that I’ve been thinking about him. Dreaming about him. And that I’m not ashamed of any of it.

  My cheeks are possibly the same temperature as his fingers now, all heated up with embarrassment and lust. Even though I want to look away, I don’t. I stare into his passionate gray-black eyes and nod. “Yes.”

  He shakes his head once. “Is that how you want to be kissed, Willow? In a dark alley, pressed up against a wall?”

  I know I’m panting. Probably even salivating right now. My thighs are trembling. There’s a buzzing inside my stomach because yes, I do want to be kissed like that. I do want to be devoured, eaten up, swallowed in.

  By him.

  “Yes. Like that.”

  “That’s what you want, don’t you? For a man to go so fucking crazy for you that he can’t afford to be a gentleman. That instead of dropping you off at your front door and walking away with a chaste goodnight kiss, he pushes you against it and fucking kisses the breath out of you.”

  Yes. So much yes.

  He’s gotten closer to me with every word out of his beautiful lips and I go on my tiptoes to bring our mouths even closer. “No. Not just any man. You. I want you, Simon.”

  A shudder ripples through him, like a shock wave. It ripples through me, as well. Why did I wait so long to say his name? It was stupid. I’m not going to be so stupid anymore.

  Well, aside from what we’re doing right now. It doesn’t feel stupid, even though it should, for all intents and purposes. Especially after his whole moral and ethical argument.

  “You’re not my type,” he growls, pushing his forehead against mine.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re young. You’re reckless. Inexperienced. You believe in happy endings, don’t you? Fairy tales and fucking magic.”

  His breaths are wild, frustrated. Like believing in good things is a bad habit. Believing in something bigger than you is silly.

  I frown, pressing harder against his forehead. “Of course I do. If someone like me doesn’t believe in magic, then there’s no hope for anyone else. There’s no hope for me. And it’s not a bad thing, you know. It’s not a bad thing to believe in something. In fact, it shows that you’re brave and –”

  His mouth pulls into a humorless smile. “And you don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

  “Hey –”

  “Willow.”

  He flattens my cheeks with his hands, asserting all his stupid authority over me. Too bad it only makes me hornier and I have to clench my thighs against the shivers running through my lower body.

  “What?” I somehow manage to squeak.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  I gasp; how dare he?

  But it gets swallowed up by his mouth.

  I freeze. It’s happening.

  He’s kissing me.

  Simon Blackwood, the ice king, my psychiatrist, is kissing me. His lips are on mine and they are moving. Slowly, thoroughly. They are so warm and alive and wet.

  So wet. Maybe as wet as I am, down there. In my pussy.

  Clutching his wrists harder, I lean against him, both restless and in relief. I’ve been dying all this time. To feel him like this. For him to cross the line that I’ve already crossed ages ago.

  Moaning, I press harder against him, plastering my body over his, almost draping it, and he groans into my mouth.

  “You do taste like lemons,” he rasps, licking the seam of my lower lip.

  My hands sink into his hair, then. All soft and velvety and dark. They make me smile. “It’s the lime jello,” I repeat, looking into his hooded eyes.

  “Fucking hate lime jello.”

  “Me too.” I lick my lips and his nostrils flare. “B-but you should try the ones here. They taste good. Like, so good.”

  His fingers move from my face to my hair, undoing my loose topknot. “Yeah.” Burying his hands in the strands, he whispers not to me, but to my lips, “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  I don’t get what he means, but I don’t have the time to think over it before he covers my mouth again. This time his rhythm is not as slow. It’s thorough though. So thorough that I feel his lips all over my body. I feel them on my throat, the back of my neck, my stomach, my thighs.

  I have a feeling the earlier soft and slow kiss was only the beginning. He was sampling my lips, getting a taste of them. Warming them up. So he can do more. So much more.r />
  And he does.

  He thrusts his tongue inside my mouth, taking me by surprise, and I fist his hair, going up on my tiptoes. My lips open wide as I take him in, as I take a part of his body inside mine, and something clicks into place.

  I feel like I needed that, his tongue inside my mouth, tasting, sweeping, licking. Hungry. I needed to be his food, his sustenance, like he’s become mine.

  Latching on to his tongue, I suck on it like my life depends on getting his flavor, filling my belly with it. It makes him go wild. It makes him growl inside my mouth like he’s more than a man. He’s an animal. A carnivore.

  Simon maneuvers my face so he can go deeper, and so I open my mouth wider. Like a receptacle of some sort. For him. For his rainy, fresh taste. For his tongue.

  Even his teeth.

  They nip at the seam of my lips, sending sparks down to my pussy that’s just getting sloppier and sloppier with every second.

  Drenched. That’s what my core is. Like the grounds outside. It’s a stormy day and the rain is coming down hard, like Simon’s mouth on mine.

  Grunting, he’s slamming it over and over, his fingers fisted in my hair. He’s feeding on my mouth like I’m feeding on him. I’m sucking and swallowing, eating him up.

  But his sucks and pulls and tugs have a purpose. They are selfless, unlike my selfish ones. They are curing me.

  Yes, my medicine man is curing me, purifying my blood, vacuuming the illness out of me.

  With his mouth, his kisses, he’s drinking down all my poison. That thing inside me that gives me blue eyes. He’s making me cleaner, healthier. He’s purging me.

  He’s making me happy.

  The thing that’s as elusive to me as love.

  I feel myself getting lighter, more pliable, until all I can feel is him and his ridged, sculpted body. I arch my spine. I push my breasts – restless and heavy with engorged nipples – into his chest and clutch his shoulders.

  “Simon…” I whimper when he lets me come up for air.

  “Don’t talk,” he orders and resumes kissing me.

  Jesus.

  His authority will kill me. I’m so fucking wet right now. I moan with how swollen I am. I’m almost tempted to let go of him and rub my pussy. Shamelessly masturbate as he cures me.