Attending Physician

  Raven had chosen the same For You heavy white paper. I’d bet the others had themes that were too blatant for where we were. “Perhaps it’s time for a romance,” it read, “A kiss, R.”

  I had to sit down.

  The shrieking of the teakettle brought me out of my butterfly haze and into the relatively real world. I made tea, my thoughts trained wholly on Raven and what seemed to be growing between us. I recognized it as feeling like exactly what I wanted.

  I went in search of my phone to text her, which was permissible in my femme brain where a phone call wouldn’t be. Don’t ask. Some things better remain a mystery in life.

  Oh, darling, I wrote, they’re exquisite.

  Just like you, came instantly.

  She was with a patient, so, I did not text her again.

  The sun had set and my tea was long drunk by the time the phone rang in my hand in the dark scented room.

  “Raven,” I said.

  “Have you had dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Do you like Indian food?”

  “Some.”

  “Chicken tikka masala?”

  “My absolute favorite.”

  “Mine, too. Buzz me, milady.”

  “You’re here?!”

  “Come to your office window.”

  Oh yes, Raven stood in the streetlight leaning against Cherie, holding a shopping bag full of what had to be dinner.

  “What are you waiting for?” I giggled. Delighted.

  She leapt the stairs, soared into my flat, picked me up and kissed me hello like there was no tomorrow.

  “I couldn’t wait till tomorrow. Is it alright?” she breathed in my ear. Speechless, I met her with definite enthusiasm. “You smell so good, milady.”

  “I could say the same to you,” I flirted, extricating myself from her arms and attempting to organize the door and our dinner. “Is this the apology dinner then?”

  “Oh, no,” she assured me, “we’re still on for tomorrow. We’re going to one of my favorite places.”

  “Telling?” I relieved her of the shopping bag.

  “No.” She followed me down the hall to the kitchen.

  I opened the cupboard to reach for my hazel dinner plates when her arms tucked around me again. “Let me,” she said.

  “You don’t know where things are,” I protested.

  “So? I’ll explore. Sit, baby. Let me serve you.”

  This was a departure from my usual role in life. I thought I’d like to get used to it. I occupied my chair at the antique kitchen table, the one she’d sat in two nights ago, and watched her. It took her no time to discover everything. Soon enough, I faced chicken tikka masala on a bed of rice, with warmed nann on one side. And her.

  “Pray, baby. It’s getting cold.”

  “Oh God, bless the cooks and the delivery ... guy. Amen,” I said.

  “Amen,” she breathed. “I’m starved.”

  “I bet you’re always starved,” I said.

  “Usually,” she admitted. “I work at an intense pace and I’ve been known to forget to eat.”

  “And you have no extra,” I scolded.

  “Very little,” she agreed this time, “it’s true.”

  “So ....”

  “So?”

  “So it would be best if you didn’t forget to eat, darling.”

  “Uh-huh. How you gonna change a lifetime of bad habit, milady?” She tossed her head back to drink from her bottle of beer, and I caught my breath she was so sexy.

  “I’ll think of something, dear knight,” I threatened.

  “Doubtless you will, milady,” her amused eyes rested on my scheming face. “God, you’re beautiful.” I blushed. “You have a quicksilver face. It changes constantly. I want to watch you for hours.” I blushed again.

  “Thank you, I think,” I met her eyes.

  “The picture you sent is lovely, Verity, but I had hoped for something more ... you.” I’d sent her my professional headshot.

  “Shall I show you my stash and let you pick?” I asked.

  “Would you?” She was serious.

  “Why not?” I asked. “After dinner, you can have your pick of the photographs. In fact, my ex-husband snapped a whole batch of photos of me recently, and I haven’t had time to go through them. It would be a help to have other eyes on them.”

  “I’m honored, milady.”

  “You should be, dear knight.”

  We ate in silence for a bit, and then she said, “Ex-... husband?”

  “Well, I am remarkably capable, darling, but I didn’t make a baby by myself. You know how that works, right?”

  “Yes, I know how that works, ma’am, said the obstetrician in the room.”

  “Good,” I said, smiling. “Well, I was married to a man once. He remains one of my dearest friends.”

  Chapter 19

  “You’re in touch then?”

  “Oh yes, we speak often, a couple times a week. When you have a baby with someone and then the baby dies, there’s no one else who can completely share the experience.” She started to object. “No, darling. You can empathize, but once you’ve shared a loss like that, not to mention made a baby together, there’s a double bond.”

  “Makes sense. How long were you married?”

  “Five years. We were both gay, and we knew it when we got married.”

  “Oh wow. Why’d you do it?” She finished her dinner, leaned back in her chair extending her legs out, and reached for her beer.

  “To make our parents happy, to do the socially-correct thing, who knows? Suffice it to say, we did. And we’re friends.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yeah, it is.” I smiled at her. “Tell me the story of the locked college door.”

  “Locked college door?”

  “The teamaker?”

  “Oh. Cecily.”

  “Right,” I said, “tell me the Cecily saga.”

  A dark cloud covered her face. Literally. She personified a storm. I stopped her.

  “Whoa,” I said, “you don’t have to, Raven.”

  “Yes, I do,” she was impatient, I suspected, with herself, not me.

  “Not until you’re ready, darling.”

  “There’s no ready with Cecily. She hurt me—a lot—and that hurt has changed the face of every relationship since.”

  “Wow, she still has a lot of power.”

  That made her come to a full stop. “Not her so much, as what she did. I have one absolute deal-breaker in relationship because of her.”

  I waited to let her say it.

  “Cheating,” she went on. “No can do.”

  “Good, sweetheart,” I said, “me either.” She offered me a crooked grimace. “While we’re on deal-breakers, I have one.”

  “Do tell,” she sounded so morose.

  “Lying—about who you are.”

  “Why would I do that?” she asked surprised out of her hurt.

  “I don’t know but my ex did, the woman I was married to for ten years, in the beginning, and it sent us down a rocky road.”

  “Nope, no lying here, milady.”

  “Good. No cheating here. We’re good.” I rose. “And so was dinner—thank you!”

  “I’ll do that,” she said taking the dishes from me. “Let me take care of you. Please.”

  “I’m not very good at that, I guess.”

  “You’re a quick study, baby,” she took my plate from me. “You’ll learn.”

  I watched her ass as she fulfilled dish duty and thought seriously, I’ll more than learn, sweetie, I’m worried I’ll get used to it.

  She tugged on my hand a few minutes later, and said, “I want you to.”

  “To what?” I asked coming toward her.

  “Get used to it.”

  Had I said it aloud? I didn’t think so.

  “No,” she said, “you didn’t say it aloud, but I heard it clear as day.”

  “That’s wild,” I said.

  “No wilder than deliveri
ng a baby last weekend and standing in your kitchen tonight.”

  “Fair point,” I concurred.

  “Let’s go for a walk in the rose garden, shall we?” she suggested.

  “Oooh, let’s. They’re gorgeous. What a great florist!”

  “What a great butch to use such a great florist,” she corrected.

  “Indeed, sir, I stand corrected,” I curtseyed.

  “Don’t you dare go into serving wench mode, milady. Or I’ll not be held responsible for my actions!” She lunged toward me, and I barely eluded her grasp and scampered down the hall, a tall, dark and handsome butch in hot pursuit.

  The roses had garnered a streetlamp spotlight in the living room. I stopped in front of them, panting slightly. Raven arrived the same second and pulled my back to her front. I fit into her body like I was made for it. We stood in the dark beholding the roses in silence.

  Finally, she reached down and nuzzled my neck, placing light kisses from my ear toward my collarbone. I shivered, her arms tightened. She kissed her way toward my ear, and said, “You know why I sent red, right?”

  “Maybe,” I twisted to see her face. “But why don’t you tell me?”

  “They’re a message. Red roses this early in a connection say, `I could fall in love with you.’”

  “Is that Ravenspeak?”

  “No, it’s in the Butch Handbook.”

  “You know, I’ve never seen an actual copy of that book,” I said musingly.

  “Same here for the Femme Manual,” she said.

  “I wonder if they exist?”

  “They do in our heads, and in the heads of butches and femmes the world over.”

  “You’re right, darling,” I deliberately aligned my front with hers and her breath deepened. “I don’t suppose you’d accept a kiss of thanks from me for the roses, would you?”

  “I might be talked into it,” she allowed.

  I reached to tangle one of my hands in her curls tugging her face down to mine. “I’ll be careful, I promise,” I whispered against her mouth. “I wouldn’t want to shock you with my forwardness.” I began to offer her closed-mouth kisses with tiny, gentle tongue licks on her chin and along her jaw. Finally, I approached her mouth and lifted myself onto my toes. “Thank you for the roses,” I said softly and then I put one hand on her cheek, pulled hard on her curls, and opened my mouth. Her response was hot, wet, instantaneous and extremely sweet. There is nothing in the world like kissing someone who really knows how to kiss, and Raven did. I trembled from head to toe when she lifted her face from mine.

  She pulled me closer and held me but the trembling didn’t ease. So she carried me to the sofa. She sat, holding me, and settled in saying nothing. I tucked my head into her neck and continued to shake. It hadn’t shown any signs of abating when she spoke.

  “Baby, do you know what the shaking is?”

  I felt like a little girl. “Maybe,” I said, not looking at her.

  “Can you tell me?”

  “I thought you knew.” I wanted to cop out.

  “I thought I did too, but now I’m not as sure,” she spoke gently. “If it is what I thought, it should be getting better now that we’ve spent more time together.”

  “I’m not afraid, Raven,” I said bravely, sounding to myself like a little girl.

  “I don’t think you’re afraid, Verity. I think ... it’s been ... a long time since anyone has touched you.”

  I pulled my face away from her chest. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’ve seen it before, even felt it.”

  “Why? How?”

  “I’ll tell you that, but later. Now I want to know about you.”

  I hid again. I was embarrassed. Then my powerful femme self all at once had had it with me. “Give me a sec,” I said, knowing I sounded completely different.

  She jerked at the sudden change.

  “I need to be apart from you to tell you this, Raven, so I can see you.”

  She let me go, and saw me smooth my skirt and sit primly on the edge of the sofa away from her.

  “I’m going to tell you this—because it’s need-to-know—but I want you to know that I’m not convinced it’s the smart thing to do. I’ve played it out several ways in my mind since we met, and I can’t figure out an optimal one. So I’m going to choose, and we’ll deal with whatever happens after, okay?”

  “Yes, Verity,” she agreed hearing how serious I was. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Maybe,” I speculated, “and maybe not.”

  Chapter 20

  “First, you need to know that I am embarrassed about this.

  “Second, you need to know that I know you will have some sort of reaction to this, and that’s okay with me.

  “Third, here goes.

  “You’re right. I’m shaking because I haven’t been touched like this ... I haven’t been kissed ... I haven’t been sexual ... in ... eleven years.”

  Raven was briefly a statue. “Did I hear you correctly? Eleven ... years?”

  You know how you can hear caps, underlined and bold? Well, years was all three. Maybe with a little italics thrown in for good measure.

  “But weren’t you married for—” she started.

  “That whole time,” I clarified. “This is where my deal-breaker comes from. Shelby met me and so wanted to be in a relationship that she pretended to be a butch for the first year of our connection. Then we got married, and the whole façade fell apart. More like, dissolved. She wasn’t a butch; she was a gender-neutral dyke who was big into everything being fair. We were friends, we lived together well, we functioned in the world together easily.

  “It cost me eight years to figure out why my sexuality had collapsed, another two years to request and receive a divorce, and it’ll be final for a year in April,” I finished.

  Raven regarded me solemnly. “Verity, I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too,” I agreed softly.

  Raven stood and began to stalk the room. “That makes me mad,” she said under her breath.

  I let her pace for a few minutes knowing this was part of that reaction.

  Then I said, “I know it makes you mad, darling, and mad isn’t too far a step from passionate. Just sayin’.”

  She whirled on me and took my measure with her eyes. Mine were steady on her, trusting. I watched her slot that demure Verity into her new understanding.

  “Oh, baby,” she pulled me into her arms and kissed me hungrily.

  I met her every thrust. Then I pulled away to say, “It’s as though my nervous system has to learn neural pathways for sexual expression all over again.”

  Raven got her doctor face on. “I wonder if that’s true,” she mused.

  “If what’s true?” I asked.

  “If that’s what’s happening. Maybe it’s not just your nervous system either, beautiful. This is your world, but what if it’s your energy system as well?”

  “Listen to you, Nancy Drew!” I teased.

  “I mean it, Verity. It makes sense. Your sexual expression has been shut down for more than a decade. Opening it up again should take some doing,” and then she morphed into a pirate, I swear, “and I, for one, am very much looking forward to seeing where it takes us, milady.”

  “I am, too, sweetheart, and I decided you needed to know not so you’d get mad but so you’d know that it might take some time, and that you aren’t dealing with a normally sexually active close to fifty year old.”

  She got this flash of transported wonder on her face, and I cocked an eyebrow in her direction.

  “Baby,” she breathed, reaching for me again, “it’ll be like bedding a virgin.”

  She wasn’t teasing as she held me close, protected, safe.

  “Not tonight you won’t, Doctor Raven,” I warned.

  “Oh, of course not, milady,” she answered easily. “I wouldn’t have expected such a thing. Ever. It’s too soon, but I’ll admit that the anticipation is getting rougher.”

  “For me, too, darl
ing,” I agreed. “But I’m not—”

  “Baby,” she covered my mouth with her fingers, “you don’t have to say it. I promise you, we won’t until we both are.” At my look she was explicit. “Completely ready.”

  Then I clasped her hand from my lips, and began to kiss her fingers, then lick them and suck them one at a time into my mouth, my green eyes huge on her face. She stopped breathing I think.

  “Baby girl,” she exhaled, and her warm breath brushed my cheek.

  “Hmm?” My mouth was full.

  She shifted her hips, and we both knew why. “You’re ... so ... enticing,” she said.

  I stopped what I had been doing, and held her hand in my two. “To be explicit, Raven. This is part of that demure thing.”

  “That wasn’t exactly demure, baby,” she growled.

  “No, I know,” I said. “It’s like two completely different sexual channels exist in me, and they haven’t come together. It has to be confusing for you.”

  “No, not really,” she said. “Not now that I know where they came from. Since we’re being explicit, milady, are the two channels ... um, virginal maiden and brazen hussy?”

  I crowed. “That works,” I laughed some more. “Probably more accurate to say .. virgin again and femme fatale.”

  Her voice dipped low, “I like that, baby.”

  I got shy. “I kind of do, too,” I said. “It’s not confusing?”

  “Not so far. Your signals are patently clear, and if my swashbuckling self approaches your virginal maiden, she’ll go shrieking into next week, so it ought to stay that way, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Raven,” I beamed at her with shining eyes, “I’m so glad I told you.”

  “Me, too, baby. Now, can we revert to some of that sweetness you were—”

  I launched myself at her and let her kiss me till I trembled again and was out of my mind with desire for her. We had a tacit agreement—nothing below the neck except for hugging and, because I’d ravished her hands, she seemed to feel she had a right to do the same. I wondered briefly if that’s how this was going to work: any time I pushed us forward, she’d go there.

  Femme Manual Sentence #1: The girl is always in charge.

  It’s been so since Audrey Hepburn had breakfast at Tiffany.