Attending Physician

  Raven stood in the door of the living room. “How can you still be so beautiful, Verity?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, darling,” I shook my head. “Not much feelin’ it.”

  She crossed the living room in two steps, and pulled me into her arms, “You will, baby. You will,” she promised. “I bet you’re desperate to pee.”

  I blushed. As a rule, I don’t discuss these sorts of things, but she is a doctor. I hid my face in her chest. She laughed softly, and picked me up. “It’s just adrenaline, baby. You’ll be able to walk in the morning.” I started to speak. “And before you say it, yes, I’ll leave you to your privacy.”

  I sent my thanks into her eyes.

  The loo was small enough that I dragged myself from throne to sink. I smelled the dirt from Mutt’s body in the air. It made me gag. In the mirror, I clocked my ravaged face. Goddess, my eye hurt. Well, maybe not my eye, but my cheek. And my temple. But not my jaw.

  A wicked thought rambled through my shocked mind. Maybe I could wrest a kiss out of Raven, and maybe, just maybe, it would make me feel a whole lot more on the beautiful scale. I determined to try it as I brushed my teeth.

  “Raven,” I called from within the loo.

  “Yes, baby,” she stood right outside eating an apple if I wasn’t mistaken.

  I opened the door. “Can I wash my face?”

  “Not yet, babe. In fact, you ought to let me do it in the kitchen where there’s more light.” She finished the apple. “I’ll be right back.”

  She rejoined me and looked better to my one eye than ever. She lifted me. “I’m going to set you on the kitchen counter by the sink, okay? Then I need a flashlight, and I have to ask you a few questions about your eye.” I nodded obediently.

  “Where’s a flashlight, baby?”

  “That drawer on the right,” I said. She reached for it.

  “Milady, we need to open that eye.”

  I shuddered.

  “It probably won’t hurt, babe. You probably won’t feel anything, but what we need to know is if you can see out of that eye, and how the vision is.”

  I trusted her completely. I tried to open my eye but the poor thing was too swollen.

  “Good try, milady, but let me do it for you, hmmm?”

  “Okay,” I felt about five.

  She pulled my eyelid open gently, and I saw through my own eye.

  “What do you see?”

  “A handsome doctor,” I said.

  She grinned. “How many handsome doctors?”

  “One. Are there more?”

  “No. Only one, at least, I hope only one for you.”

  “I’m beginning to think so,” I said.

  “Baby, I’m serious. Are you having double vision?”

  I glanced around the kitchen as she held my eye open. “No, single vision. One teakettle. One stove. One bedroom door. One handsome doctor.”

  “Excellent,” she said to herself. “I’ll palpate around your eye to see if any muscles are trapped by broken bone.”

  “Will it hurt?” I asked feeling afraid.

  “I don’t think so, milady, but it might make your face ache.”

  “I don’t think it could ache any more than it does,” I said.

  “Oh, let’s not test that, shall we?” Raven began to touch the socket of bone around my eye.

  It didn’t hurt exactly, but it didn’t feel good either.

  “Okay, baby?” she asked, probing gently till I nodded. She said, “I don’t think any muscles are trapped. That door just slapped you hard on the point of your cheekbone and cracked it.” She leaned away speculatively. “You should plan to have a first-class black eye, baby.” She studied me closer. “Maybe two, but you can tell everyone the biker drug dealer looked worse than you after you were through with him.”

  I giggled.

  “Raven?”

  “Hmm?” She gazed down at me.

  “Would you kiss it better? Please?” I swear I was five.

  “Of course, baby girl. Come to Daddy.”

  Completely unself-consciously, Raven had said the perfect thing. I hadn’t had a daddy in living memory, not since I was five, and the tears spilled out of my eyes. She took her kissing-it-better responsibilities very seriously, and butterfly-kissed every cell around my swollen, aching eye and cheek. Then she held me to her chest and let me cry.

  It didn’t take long for me to become limp as a ragdoll.

  She reached for a Kleenex without letting me go. “That’s one way to wash your face, sweetie. I think we need to do a better job than this though. Here, blow.”

  I wondered idly if she was this good with Lucy, doing her bidding.

  Then she invaded my hallway linen closet and ran the water in the kitchen sink till it ran hot. She handed me the steaming washcloth and I held it dubiously.

  “It’ll feel good, I promise,” she encouraged.

  I lifted the washcloth to my face and set it gently over my whole visage, and she’d been completely right. Good didn’t begin to describe it. Then she wetted it again, and we did the procedure once more. I got limper and limpest as we did, immediately feeling my limbs were made of lead.

  Finally, she pulled the cooling cloth away from me and said, “Baby, it’s bedtime.”

  “Yes,” I murmured. “It has to be. I’m falling over.”

  “You are,” she agreed. “Verity, I need you to pay attention for a bit longer, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll put you on the bed, sweetie, and put on your Juliet nightgown, okay?”

  I perked up briefly. “Raven, you can’t ..., I’ll be na- ..., it’s not right,” I finished lamely.

  She outright laughed at me. “Do you think you’re the first girl whose nightgown I’ve put on?”

  “No, but ....”

  “No, but ... what?” she asked. “Besides, I’m a gynecologist, sweetheart, I see women’s bodies every day.”

  “I know but ....”

  “But what?”

  “Can I make a counteroffer?”

  “Counteroffer?” Amused does not begin to describe her. “Sure, baby.”

  “If you give me the nightie, I’ll put it on, or how’s this? I’ll try first, and if I can’t I’ll let you.”

  “Why, Verity?”

  I blushed past the roots of my hair. “Because,” I zeroed in on her with my good eye, and tried to muster stern, “I do not remember offering you a sneak preview.”

  She broke into laughter. Crowed with laughter. Held her sides and slapped her knee with laughter. I sat immobilized on the kitchen counter attempting to hold my shredded femme dignity together.

  Finally, she recovered enough to say, “You’re so right, ma’am. You did not offer me a sneak preview.” Then shaking her head, she carried me into the bedroom, speaking one head-shaking syllable to herself, “Femmes.”

  “Indeed,” I agreed. “I’m so glad I helped you to understand.”

  “Oh, you did, milady. You surely did. Hilarious.”

  Chapter 29

  True to her word, she located the white lawn nightgown, and placed it by my side on the bed. “Shall I help with the sweater, milady?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  Very carefully she helped me pull my arms out of the sleeves and got the cornflower blue angora over my head without touching my face. “We can take care of this tomorrow,” she said, meaning, I thought, the blood and Goddess only knew what else that had gotten stuck to the lovely wool.

  “Thank you, darling,” I said primly, “leave the rest to me.”

  “Alright,” she said, “but if you’re not calling me in here in twenty minutes,” she checked her watch, “I’m coming in unbidden.”

  “Deal,” I said with asperity. “Shoo.”

  She began to go off again and exited the bedroom.

  Truth? I’d meant what I’d said to her. Of course she examined women’s bodies, but she did it clinically. I wanted her to first discover my body when we were
both ready, and not clinically. She wouldn’t have been able to do it—because I wouldn’t have been able to let her. A femme is a femme is a femme, and a real one is a femme through and through.

  I made it under her deadline, but only just, and when I was done, I had a pile of clothes, not even the ability to get under the covers myself, and I was shaking again. This time effort caused it. Regardless, I was vampire-pale, and her compassionate heart bloomed.

  “Baby,” she said, crossing the room in one stride to fall on her knees in my pile of clothes and wrap me in her arms.

  “Raven.” Then I made one more major effort. “Raven, you said earlier we would stay here, right?”

  “Right,” she watched me closely.

  “Where were you planning on sleeping?”

  “I wasn’t completely sure, milady,” she smiled at me. “I figure I have three options. No, four.” “Four?” I asked. “What are they?”

  “Well,” she said, “there’s the guest room cum office, but that’s the farthest away from you, which doesn’t feel so good now that I think it through. Then there’s the sofa in the living room, but that’s still farther away than I’d like to be. Then, there’s the faithful servant option ...,” she trailed off.

  “Which is?” I asked, tracking with her completely.

  “Sleeping on the floor outside your bedroom door,” she supplied, “so anyone who tried to approach you would have to come through me first.”

  “And there’s one more?” I prompted, hoping I had anticipated what it was.

  “Oh, yes,” she regarded me seriously, “sleeping in your bed with my arms around you.”

  “Do I get a say?” I asked solemnly.

  “A say, without question, and yours is the only vote, milady,” she replied.

  “Well then, good and faithful servant, I choose ..., I choose ..., I think I have to choose ...,” I was winding her up, “option number four. It seems only right.”

  “I’m so glad you see it my way, milady.”

  “If I might have your help, I’m getting cold.” It had to be sheer exhaustion.

  She slipped an arm under my knees and chivvied me gently into the covers. “I’ll use the bathroom if I might.”

  “There’s a toothbrush in the second drawer of the green dresser,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said over her shoulder as she left the bedroom.

  I lay in bed, on my back, never a good sleeping posture for me, feeling muscles begin to unkink from knowing that she would be back to hold me in her arms. I entertained a vague hope that Dr. L. Ravenal Lange had a penchant for spooning.

  “Baby,” she stood over me in scrub pants and what I thought was called a wife-beater, but I wouldn’t for the life of me say that aloud. Let’s call it a tank top, shall we?

  I looked up at her, way up. God, she was tall, and oooh, I love that.

  “You probably sleep on your side, don’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “On your right side, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can turn you, milady, and see if you can put your face against the pillow, but you probably won’t be able to do that till tomorrow night at the earliest.”

  I let her get it done, and straighten out the nightie and the covers, “Ow.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I thought so.” Then she opened the covers, switched me to my left side, and moved me toward the porch wall so she would have the open edge where I usually sleep. “Milady, I’m afraid you’re relegated to the left side tonight,” she said, folding her long legs under the covers. “Besides, this is the best compromise between options three and four.”

  “It is?” I asked sleepily.

  “Yes,” she promised. “I’d rather be between you and anyone who might come through that door.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said. “Raven? Can you slide me onto my back for a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  I looked at her in my bed, and said, “You know what I really need, sir?”

  “No, baby, what?”

  “You might not believe me,” I warned.

  “Try me, baby girl.”

  “A kiss,” I said, “a real, romantic kiss from my butch.”

  “Your lip’s split on the left side, sweetheart. It’ll hurt.”

  “I don’t care,” I assured her. “I’ll feel better if you’ll kiss me.”

  “I love a woman who knows her own mind.”

  “A woman?” I quirked an eyebrow.

  She grinned. “A femme.”

  “Indeed,” I agreed resorting to one of my defaults: prim.

  Then she moved in the bed and shifted her body so that it partially covered mine. Dear God, the weight of her felt heavenly, like a promise of things to come. She reached down to my mouth, and began to kiss me so gently, so sweetly, so much the exact way I wanted that I almost started to cry again.

  I slowly, but insistently, kissed her with more passion than she had brought so far, to tell her that I wasn’t broken and I wouldn’t break, but that I could and indeed wanted to receive what she had so carefully banked to keep away from me.

  What I wanted from that kiss was to feel like a “normal” girl—whatever that meant, and by grace I think, Raven got my message, and began to kiss me in earnest. With heat, with desire, with intent, with passion, and absolutely, positively thoroughly and completely so that I knew, but knew, I’d been really kissed. Because ... she wanted me.

  Chapter 30

  Raven finally pulled away from my mouth, panting slightly. I tried to smile at her. “Exactly,” I said. “Juuust right, like Goldilocks.”

  She chuckled.

  “Thank you, dear knight.”

  “My pleasure, milady.” If a butch can bow whilst lying down, Raven did.

  Then she angled my back to her front and spooned me like a pro. My bottom fit tight into her hips, her legs tangled with mine, her chest held my back, her arms wrapped themselves around me like they’d done it a hundred times, and her mouth landed close enough to my ear to hear her breath. “Good night, baby. Sleep.”

  “Raven,” I said, “thank you, darling, for everything.” I was asleep before the final syllable.

  I wakened to blue eyes trained upon my one open green one. The right was still too swollen to open on its own.

  “Good morning, baby,” she said.

  “Good morning, darling,” I stretched.

  “Sleep alright?”

  “Like an angel,” I smiled, and was delighted to feel like a real smile appeared on my face. “Thanks to you.” Then I sobered. “I highly doubt I would have slept a wink had you not been here.” Tears began to rise.

  “Sh-sh,” she said. “Not to worry, I was here, and if you’ll have me, I will be for a while.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “Good. We’re golden then.”

  “Did you sleep, darling?”

  “Some,” she admitted. “I had some emotions to deal with.”

  “Anger,” I said.

  “That, and rage and outrage and fear and sadness and upset and ....”

  “Wow, that’s a lot, Raven.”

  “Well, baby, it’s not every day one’s ... femme ... gets taken hostage by a patient and her drug suppliers.”

  “No, I suppose not,” I murmured. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I worked through what I could, and I’ll work the rest out when I work out until they’re worked out.”

  “That was a lot of working out,” I observed. “What do you do for work-outs?”

  “Mostly boxing. You’ll meet the gym rats today.”

  “Gym rats?” I asked.

  “My crew, my guys, my team. They’re good guys, baby.”

  “What makes you think I’ll meet them today?”

  “They’re coming here at three.”

  “They are?”

  “Yup. I offered pizza and beer?”

  “I might dimly recall that,” I said. “A lot of yesterday is blurry.”

  “An
d some things are crystal sharp, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”

  “That’s how trauma memory works, especially physical trauma. You wouldn’t be anywhere near so fuzzy if it had only been emotional. In fact, you would probably have wakened mad, but because physical trauma was involved—we used to see it most often in the ER with car accidents—it’ll take some time to get clear on what happened. That’s also why Terry wanted to talk to you last night, and not have it wait till today.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said.

  “Ready to try those gorgeous legs, babe?” Raven tossed the covers off and stretched to her full length.

  “How do you know they’re gorgeous?” I asked.

  “Because they were wrapped around mine all night long, and what butch worth her salt can’t tell if legs are gorgeous lying down?”

  I had no appropriate response to her claim. “I’ll have to take your word for it, sir,” I said respectfully.

  She laughed. “C’mon, sweetheart.” She reached for me and pulled me to the edge of the bed. “Upsy daisy.”

  I stood. Easily. With no wobbles. “Phew,” I breathed.

  “Now kiss me a proper good morrow, wench!” She grabbed me, and gave me no pardon. So I did what any self-respecting femme would do, and kissed her silly.

  “Mmm,” she said. “I should grab your—”

  “Tea, darling?” I interrupted. In point of fact, she had grabbed my ass.

  “Is there coffee?” she confessed her preference.

  “There is. High test. Would you like some?” I walked toward the closet and reached for my white ruffled peignoir.

  “May I, milady?” she asked, taking it from me. Her arms went around me as she peeked over my shoulder to tie the sash. I felt so very cherished.

  “Thank you,” I smiled at her. “How does it look?” I referred to my eye.

  “Like a doozy,” she offered ruefully.

  “That bad, huh?” I asked from the kitchen as I filled the kettle for tea and coffee and went to check it in the loo. “Oh, holy Mary!” I swore. “This is dreadful!”

  “No, baby, it’s not. It’s what happens when violence is forced upon you.”