Attending Physician

  “Vermin they definitely are, of the worst kind,” said Terry. “Every charge is gonna stick, Verity.”

  “Will I be called to testify d’you think, Terry?”

  “Could be,” she said. “Or maybe give a deposition. I don’t know.”

  Cord spoke, “Ter, is it cool for us to know what happened?”

  Before Terry mustered a reply, I spoke, “I’ll tell them, Terry. That way you aren’t in breach of confidentiality.”

  She gave me a glimmer of relieved understanding.

  “This isn’t a pretty story, boys,” I started, and then I took them through it. I watched each butch at different points in the narrative get it, get pissed, and put it to one side. When I finished, I said, “Takin’ it to the ring, I presume, gentlemen?”

  I got seven speculative gazes, and total silence.

  “Do you know of the Masai warriors and grieving, gentlemen?” I asked. More silence. I went on, “When someone who knows the Masai loses a loved one, their practice is to embrace the one who is bereft and take a piece of the grief upon themselves so the one left behind doesn’t have to carry the sadness alone.” I connected with each one—in the eye. Then I spoke clearly, “That’s what your outrage in my behalf does for me with my anger. Thank you.”

  We were still with the weight of the moment.

  Raven shifted it, “Who brought tunes?” Several of them did. “Who wants pizza duty? We’re buyin’. No arguments.” A volunteer. “Who wants beer duty?” Two for that. “There’s a particularly bad sweater.” One took that. “The rest of us dogsbodies are cleaning crew. Let’s go.” They moved, as one. “Wait.” They froze. Raven bowed to me.

  “Verity, you supervise, okay, baby?” I nodded because I couldn’t speak.

  Then they mobilized. Somebody, Dex, I think, commandeered their tunes, and my wireless sound system. The cleaning crew got right to it. The sweater guy, Mel, I think, knelt over the bathtub and soaked the gunk out of it. They stripped my bed and remade it. Vacuumed. Dusted. Mopped the floors, Windexed every window and mirror. Polished every speck of wood till it shone. Even did the laundry.

  I wandered, answered questions, stayed out of the way, and marveled at their enthusiasm, and at the wisdom of what they were doing.

  An hour into the process, the door buzzed. I was standing in the kitchen near Cord. My legs collapsed, and she caught me in her arms. It was one thing to have Raven carry me, but it was entirely ... I didn’t know what ... different ... to have Cord do it.

  She wouldn’t have my protests though, not in any way, shape or form. Nuh-uh. She walked me to the center of the hallway and whistled like she was a New York City doorman calling a cab. Everything stopped. Music, talking, working. They came to the hallway.

  Cord said, “Guys, listen up. Raven was carrying Verity because every time the damn buzzer goes off, her legs collapse out from under her. It’s a trigger from the ... incident, shall we call it delicately? I’d like to help out this beautiful lady, wouldn’t you?”

  Yesses to a man.

  “So, here’s what we’re gonna do. Everyone has to ring the buzzer when Verity isn’t expecting it, and when someone is near enough to catch her. We have to stop that trigger and the only way to do it is to replace it with something better.”

  “Cord,” said Terry, “didn’t we agree to focus on arms during workout this week?”

  “We did,” agreed the blonde doctor, who still had not put me down.

  “So we’ll get a head start,” said Terry.

  “Cool,” was the general comment from the guys.

  “Ready to stand, Verity?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  A collective sigh arose from the Butch Brigade. I guessed they like that `sir’ thing.

  She set me upright and gave my eye another kiss. “Told you I always kiss the pretty ones,” she teased.

  “No fair,” objected the crew. “We want a kiss, too.”

  “Well, you’ll have to figure out how to give her one, ya lunks,” challenged Cord. “Team, Operation Buzzer starts right now.”

  They went back to cleaning and were they a sneaky bunch. I stood in my front office inspecting the fleurs from Geoff when Terry asked about them. I told her Geoff had sent them, and what a class act I thought that was.

  The buzzer went, so did my legs, and Terry caught me. She wouldn’t set me upright till I let her kiss my black eye. I giggled. A lot.

  Then Mel asked me for a towel and a good spot to lay out my newly clean Angora sweater so it could air dry flat when it buzzed again. Mel caught me like he did it every day. Stealing a kiss was definitely on for Operation Buzzer. Con molto femme giggling.

  Dex was the slightest of them, a sort of geek chic type of butch. I pictured him in a bowtie in half a heartbeat, and I didn’t know if he’d be able to lift me, but bless him, not only did he do it but fabulous salsa music blared from the sound system and he danced around a bit carrying me as well. Giggling madly. Plus the regulation kiss-it-better kiss.

  After the fifth one, my knees were stronger, and the trigger loosened. It had to be because we had replaced it with some lovely experiences. Adorable, sweet butches picking me up, twirling me around, and kissing me better—for a femme, what’s not to like?

  Finally, the last one of them, I think Ollie, caught me with the buzzer unawares and whilst my knees shook, I did not fall. Raven lifted me anyway and kissed me thoroughly to a soundtrack of good-natured wolf whistles and catcalls. Then we went around the house; she shook hands with her guys as a thank you, and I kissed each one on the cheek.

  I didn’t know if it would work when I was alone in the house, but it went a long way toward a much less traumatized me.

  Chapter 34

  The pizza arrived around 5:30, and the beer had apparently long been present cooling in the fridge and out on the porch in an ice-packed cooler. Now I think of it, that must have been the buzz that started Operation Buzzer. Anyway, they moved chairs onto the porch like they did it every day, grabbed a roll of paper towels for napkins, and used magically manifest paper plates for pizza. It was a memory in five minutes but I know it had to have been longer than that.

  “So, Verity,” asked Sam, one of the quiet ones, “how did Raven meet you?”

  I twinkled at Raven. “We delivered a baby together.”

  “That’s a new kind of bonding experience,” Sam commented.

  “It goes to show you, Sam, that you can meet someone anywhere. Do you think Raven was on the hunt for a femme at the end of a double shift on the OB ward? She was not. She was cross-eyed tired. But she fell over one and acted upon it.”

  Raven took a quick bow.

  “How,” I asked, “did you meet?”

  “In school,” they chorused, obviously having been asked and answered this question a time or two. Then they went individually, ranging from grade school to med school.

  “Cool,” I said.

  I stood to begin to remove plates and pizza boxes, and the buzzer went off again. I remained standing. That elicited a cheer from the Butch Brigade. Raven went to get the door. I saved the last few pieces of pizza.

  “More flowers,” she said from the kitchen. “Any guesses?”

  I thought a sec. “My guess is ... Ellie. I’d bet her dad had her sprung from holding, and she wants to be reassured that she can still work with me.”

  Raven began to puff up like a tomcat.

  “Darling,” I said winningly, “the right answer is of course not. She betrayed the trust that we’d built. It’ll be better if she starts fresh with someone else. Someone who doesn’t practice out of her home.”

  Jamie was a general practice attorney on her own. “If she won’t take your no seriously, Verity, call me, and we’ll get a restraining order.”

  I offered my thanks to her. “May I have your card, counselor? In fact, may I have everyone’s?”

  Well, let me tell you something. A lone femme surrounded by butches of every stripe reaching into their back pockets for t
heir wallets at the same moment is nothing short of breathtaking. At least, it took the breath away from this femme.

  Oh, and the flowers were from Ellie. The card read: Forgive me. Ellie.

  That was no problem. I could forgive her but what I couldn’t do was forget what she’d done. It counted as a thorough breach and could not to be repaired, at least not on the therapeutic front. I began to sort through other providers mentally so when the time came I had a referral for her.

  During my musings, the detritus was swooped downstairs to the garbage bins so I didn’t have to carry a stack of empty pizza boxes taller than me. Dex lassoed the kitchen speaker and opened the window, the boys got themselves settled into their chairs with beers and full-tummy guy ribbing and chat filled my porch as the sun descended in the West. It reeked of contentment.

  Apparently a favorite song of Ollie’s, the shyest of the bunch, came through the sound system and he was bereft of a dance partner. The guys moved the chairs like lightning and silently urged Ollie in no uncertain terms to take advantage of the single femme whose house they’d served so bravely.

  “Verity, um, ma’am,” he was so cute, “would you dance with me?”

  Was no even a possibility?

  “I’d be delighted,” I reached for the hand he’d offered.

  What no one on that porch knew was that I had been a dancer since I was a kid, and a good one, and I loved nothing better than to dance with butches who know how to partner dance with a femme. Ollie was smooth as Sinatra, I swear. Well, that set off a whole chain of requests. Dex played DJ until his turn arose to spin me, and they all, save Raven, danced with me.

  Part way through our spontaneous dance marathon, one of them got the bright idea of pushing the buzzer to test their success, and by jiminy, I stayed strong on my feet dancing in their more than capable arms.

  Around eight, they decided as one—I’ve often wondered if butches share a collective butch brain—that they’d stayed long enough for both Raven and me to feel supported, and to a man, they rose to say thank you for dinner and bid us goodnight. I got teary-eyed trying to say how much I appreciated what they’d done. My house was pristine, true, but also energetically cleansed because of the care that they’d brought to what they’d come to do, and the fun they’d given me with Operation Buzzer.

  Raven shepherded them out the front door after I’d kissed them each goodnight. I sat on the porch wallowing in a rare feeling of care. What the guys had done was sweet, thoughtful and genuinely good. And exactly what I’d needed. So sweetly remarkable that they’d seen the need and just done it—taking care of business, I think they’d have said. I was in tears again when Raven came out.

  “Milady, is something wrong?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said, “something’s right.” She grasped my hand. “Your guys were incredible—”

  “I’ll say,” she huffed, “grabbing you, lifting you, carrying you, tossing you, kissing you, and don’t get me started on the dancing!”

  The tears left diamonds in my eyes as I began to laugh. “They were definitely ... um, tactile,” I agreed. “You know you have no cause for concern, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said softly coming to kneel in front of me. “I know, milady. Besides,” she added, “there’d be no way any of us would try to steal a femme from one of the others. Our brothers would whack the thief into line faster than you could say Jinkx Monsoon.”

  Of all the drag queens, Jinkx was one of my favorites. “I bet,” I said. “Well, I’m glad you weren’t worried. Sometimes that transition from private to sharing with friends can be tough to navigate.”

  “You’re right,” she said offering me her hand, “and we did it earlier than usual.”

  I took it and she pulled me upright into her arms. Goddess, it felt so good to be right there, held close, warm, cared for. I’d missed it during my increasingly cold marriage. What I hadn’t known without having it back in my life was the depth of the missing. I put my cheek against her sternum and was completely still.

  “I bet you’re tired,” she said.

  “I am. Those boys ask a lot of energy, especially where there’s only one of me, and so many of you.” She was concerned. “Don’t get me wrong, darling,” I assured her, “I loved every second of it. The attention. The teasing. The attention. The laughter. The attention. The kissing. Did I say the attention?”

  “You did, milady,” she grinned. “Not getting enough from me?”

  “No, in fact,” I said, “lately, I am not!” I intended to be teasing but my voice indicated what kind of attention I thought I lacked. “If you don’t mind, good sir, I shall excuse myself to put on something a lit-tle more ... comfortable, and ask you if you would trouble yourself to make us a pot of tea.”

  I waltzed to the bedroom, and shut the door. You know what I wanted to put on, but I debated with myself whether it constituted fair or not. I still wasn’t grounded in terms of going to bed together but then I concluded that we’d already been in bed together, and she’d better get used to me sleeping in a black lace nightgown because Juliet nights were, as a rule, few and far between. I wanted to keep them that way.

  The black lace it was, I decided. We’d see how ready all of me was. I had a lovely cashmere robe trimmed in marabou feathers around its edges with matching high-heeled slippers. I decided to go for it.

  When I walked into the kitchen, the lights were dimmed and I smelled the unmistakable chocolaty smell of better than sex. I followed the scent into the living room. Raven had set down the tea tray. Standing in the doorway, I closed my eyes and breathed in contentment.

  “Milady,” Raven’s voice was husky.

  “Milord,” I matched her, opening my one good eye, aware that the other was beginning to open.

  “Will you pour?” The tone of her voice made it sound like she had asked an entirely different question.

  I wafted over to the other side of the coffee table, marabou feathers dancing in the light, and reached for the teapot. She caught my hand in hers and lifted it to her lips watching my eyes in the candlelight. “You are so beautiful, Verity.”

  I blushed. “For you,” I said.

  She pressed her open mouth into my palm. I shivered. Good shivered. Then she began to kiss my palm, and my fingers, biting every once in a while causing more shivering. When her mouth touched the inside of my wrist, I made a reflexive sound in the back of my throat grateful for the long sleeves of the robe.

  “If you want tea, Verity, you’d better pour now,” she cautioned.

  “Yes, sir,” I said obediently, retrieving my ravished hand, and reached to pour the tea. My robe draped open to reveal my somewhat generous cleavage and I noticed Raven noticing.

  Chapter 35

  Truth? I wasn’t sure I wanted tea but I wanted us to take our time and not hurry this next bit so I poured. We resorted to everyday conversation.

  “How does your eye feel?” she asked.

  “Wonderful,” I said. “How could it not when it was kissed better so many times today? That was so dear. Also, I think the swelling is down enough that it’s trying to open again.”

  “I told you they were great guys.”

  “What made you think of cleaning my house?”

  “I did some work with abuse survivors as part of a psych rotation during my internship, and one thing they uniformly said was that it was hard to get the men, or the sense of the men who’d hurt them, out of their homes. That always stuck with me. It makes sense.

  “That’s why I asked Terry to move in here last night for the conversation. You had no memories or smells or anything related to those guys in this room.”

  “Very smart, darling,” I complimented her.

  “Thank you,” she acknowledged. “Do you have anything on for tomorrow?”

  “Not scheduled, no,” I said.

  “Now you do,” she said. “I still want to take you on our date.”

  “With an eye like this?” I asked. “I don’t know about goi
ng out like this.”

  “Yes, with an eye like that—it’s a badge of honor, baby. You survived, and that reminds me. Is Ellie part of any of your groups or supervisions?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because I think you need to go show your supervisees what happened and the sooner the better.”

  “I don’t want to scare them, darling.”

  “No, I know, but they should know what could happen, and it would be a great teaching op, don’t you think?” She put her teacup down and leaned toward me taking one of my hands in hers, “Baby, you know you were lucky, right? What were the chances that it would be a sting operation with an undercover guy on the scene to make sure you weren’t hurt worse than you were? Slim to none, I’d guess.

  “If something like this had to happen, it went down in the best possible way. For my money, I’d like to know that you have a plan for a time when it doesn’t go as well as this. A hidden alarm button? Connection to the cops? An evacuation plan? Other resources?”

  She built a head of steam like I do when I have a squillion questions. I’m falling in love with you, Dr. L. Ravenal Lange, drifted unbidden through my brain. I slid my teacup onto the table, reached forward with my free hand and cupped her jaw. “I hear you, darling. I’ll rearrange a few patients and call an emergency meeting for Monday. D’you think Terry would send me the pictures she took of my face right after it happened?”

  “I’ll ask her,” she promised. “Unless you object, milady, I want to talk other things.”

  “Like what?” I teased. “Do tell.”

  “Like how sexy you were tonight, and how I was itching to dance with you.”

  “You didn’t ask, milord.” I asked her an implicit question.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said. “I’m asking now, when it’s private, and I can kiss you while I dance with you.”

  “I’d be delighted, sir,” I accepted.

  From her phone she pushed a button, and the room filled with the dulcet alto of Rosemary Clooney crooning “Tenderly.” Raven held me tight, close against her. And, oh Goddess, she did, indeed, kiss me whilst we danced. Slow, long, deep, and then deeper, and tender beyond tenderly. A true miracle I remained standing.