“Good on your moms.”
“We used to beg them to let us have the boxes. One time, they let us each have one. Those boxes became where we kept our private treasures.”
Raven fell into silence.
I asked curiously, “Do you know where yours is, Raven?”
“Absolutely,” she refocused on me. “I still keep my most precious treasures there.”
“And you have no idea where Angie’s is,” I stated.
“None,” she said. “I’ve looked, baby, I have I swear. Terry has, too. We can’t put our hands on it anywhere in the house, in her desk at the office, in her car.”
“Wow,” I said, “a real mystery.”
“Oh, and ... there’s one more thing, baby.”
“Which is?”
“A boatload of money is missing.”
“Missing? Or you can’t find it.”
“I can’t find it. Jamie can’t find it. It’s not in Angie’s computer.”
“How much is a boatload, darling?”
“At least $100,000, could be more.”
I must have had some kind of puss on my face because Raven held me closer and said, “Does money blow your skirt up, baby?”
“Money itself, no. Should it?” I asked her, “But power? Yes!”
“Hmm,” she responded, nuzzling the delicate spot behind my ear sending gooseflesh down my arms. “I wonder if I’ve got any of that around here.”
I didn’t say anything. She was powerful—a surgeon, for heaven’s sake!—but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “You keep looking, darling.” I leaned away and lifted my mouth to hers.
“K-i-s-s-i-n-g,” came the soft, smiling chant from behind us on the sofa.
“Bedtime, baby girl,” I announced, from Raven’s arms.
“Nooo, Lady. Ariel!”
“Ariel will sleep tight while you do, Luce,” said Raven. A Papa pronouncement. “What Lady says goes.”
Lucy pouted then, like children everywhere, she perked up when she had a new idea. “Sleep here?”
“On the sofa?” I asked.
“Papa’s house,” said Lucy.
“Raven, does Lucy have a bedroom here?”
“No. There’s a guest room in a pinch but—”
“No, Lucy. Sorry, baby girl. The fairies and the unicorns will cry, and then no one will get any sleep,” I said. “Don’t you want to keep them company?”
For such an adult little girl, Lucy sometimes collapsed into her baby-ness. “Okay, Lady,” she yawned.
“Papa, give Lucy a ride to bed please,” I asked.
“And you a ride later, milady,” she spoke for my ears only which made me blush.
“As you wish, milord,” I murmured, appreciating the challenge of riding the edge of good-ish stepmama and MILF. I wanted her. “Lucy, up you go.”
We tiptoed our way upstairs as noiselessly as we could in an effort not to wake Nana. I’m not positive how successful we were but we did give it a noble try.
After washing, brushing, tinkling (privately, of course), jammies that we established unequivocally used to match Lady’s sweater, hair brushing, a glass of water, the nightlight, various stuffed animal companions and their assorted and vitally appropriate diplomatic positioning, summoning the fairies and unicorns (who were doing double duty that night watching over Gretchen as well), prayers, a kiss on her forehead from Papa, the Story Lady finally reached for the book of fairy tales. And, oh. My.
Prince Charming had already danced with the lucky serving wench, Cinderella, and lost her. All he had left of his love, evidence-wise, was a glass slipper, and thank Goddess for that or else he might have thought he’d dreamt her. The Hunt for the Missing Beloved began. Raven sat behind me in what had obviously been once upon a time a nursing rocker, listening to me read of the fruitless search throughout the kingdom, backlit by Lucy’s bedside lamp—a magical purple fairy.
Lucy, for her part, did her level best to stay awake for as long as she could. She squirmed in the bed. She flipped over. She flopped the other way. She mashed her curls out of her face. She grabbed one stuffed animal, then another, until finally, though the Prince was no closer to finding his dream girl, I had to say, “Lucy, baby girl, go to sleep. Maybe Lady can read more in the morning.” I replaced the bookmark, kissed her almost-asleep forehead, and put the book where it lived.
“Night-night, m ..., Lady,” she said. `Mama’ had been going to come out of her mouth. She’d already made the shift in her mind.
Raven caught my hand and we crept down the darkened stairwell, doing our step-missing maneuver once again. She pulled me out the front door into a star-filled autumn night, humming and dancing me along in the fallen leaves as they made a magical swishing sound.
Chapter 69
We waltzed the front walk and Raven spun me tightly into her arms to carry me up the front steps to her side of the house. She had a terrific singing voice if her humming soundtrack was any indication.
“Tea, baby?” she asked as we arrived in her sparse living room. I itched to buy a soft chenille throw for the sofa, some bright toss pillows, and some brilliant, alive artwork to bring this space to life.
“Is there any?” I asked.
“Your very own blend, sweetheart. I wouldn’t ask you to come for a weekend in the `country’ (not that Newton qualifies, but I do live closer to Boston proper than she does), and not have your tea! What do you take me for, a barbarian?”
“You must have a barbarian in you, darling,” I said archly. “Yes, please, tea would be lovely.”
She lit the wood in the fireplace before she left for the kitchen to make me tea warning, “There’s no chintz pot, milady, just mugs.”
“I’ll live.” For now, I added to myself after her exit. I compiled a mental list of what her house needed including a hazel chintz teapot. Then I put the timeline together and the utilitarian nature of the house made sense. She’d thrown this together in the immediate aftermath of Angie’s death when everything had to be 24/7 Lucy. Ah. No wonder.
Tea arrived on an antique hand-painted metal tray that had to have been her mother’s, two mugs as promised, my blend and hazelnut cream in a creamer, so we weren’t slumming by any stretch, delivered by a tall, dark and handsome butch who had a delightfully wicked gleam in her eye for me. I sat in front of the fire, drank my tea, and let her desire wash over me. It had been a long, long time since anyone had looked at me that way, and I wanted it to last forever.
We were quiet together. Something rare and beautiful. I didn’t feel much like talking. I’d had a whole day of new input, new things, new places, new ideas, and I wanted to sort through them inside myself. I didn’t know if Raven did the same, but I did know that we enjoyed being with one another.
Her text message sound pinged interrupting our reverie. Technology.
“Baby, I have to call Terry.”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off the fire, but aware that she wasn’t upset. Raven punched a number.
“Yo.” Pause, listening. “Uh-huh.” More listening. “Oh, Terr, that’s wonderful news.” I glanced over at her. “Can I tell her?” Some crack came at her. “I’m gonna get you for that tomorrow you know.” Laughter. “Yeah, yeah. You do that, bro. Later.”
The world had arrived to interrupt our solace. “Yes?” I said, wanting to know but not.
“A judge denied their bail, baby. He determined that they were flight risks. They’re locked up for a while.”
Tears came unbidden to my eyes. “Really?”
“You’re safe—from biker dealer dudes anyway.” She’d gotten another handkerchief, which she handed me.
“I didn’t even know I’d been thinking that.”
“You probably weren’t, baby,” she said, “not consciously, but bodies keep track of things we aren’t always aware of. C’mere, sweetheart.” She opened her arms. I set down my empty teacup, um, mug, and put my face against her neck letting those warm, strong arms hold me close.
“You see t
hat in transplants,” she said over my head. “Someone gets a new heart and, after a lifetime of detesting cats, has to have a kitty. Only to learn that the heart donor was a cat person.”
“Sir ...,” I shifted my face and began to lick and kiss her neck, a tender location if I recalled correctly. I worked my way to her ear, taking the lobe into my hot mouth and biting. My other hand threaded itself into the curls at the back of her neck.
My tongue had a will and a mind of her own. I extended it and let a hot breath cover her ear. She shivered. Then I began to trace the intricate folds of those delicate organs. Ears, sound in fact is based on sensation, and a probing, curious tongue definitely qualified as that. Raven dutifully held still for my ministrations until I invaded her ear with heat and wet causing her to moan.
Her hands grasped my waist reflexively. “Baby,” she exhaled.
“Sir?” I said with a touch of innocence.
“You’re killing me.”
“No, sir,” I corrected gently, “I’m loving you.”
I shifted my mouth from her ear across her cheek to her mouth. “Kiss me, darling, please,” I begged.
She wasted no time, falling into my open, willing mouth, her tongue taking me with delicious, urgent hunger. Her kiss was tender and demanding at the same time, and I met her swirl for swirl, my mouth opening wider to accommodate her. I wanted every kiss. I’d missed this for so long.
My nimble fingers were swift on her shirt, undoing tight buttons and exposing her undershirt to my hands. Then my mouth sought those sensitive nipples through the flimsy cotton fabric as she had done with my black nightie. I nibbled, I sucked, I hummed against her knowing it would turn her on, and that my treatment of her held respect for her butch identity.
Raven rarely let go and let me have my way with her without reciprocating basically at once, and I took full advantage. I reached for her cock, and she groaned, “Milady.”
“Sir,” I said, letting her feel me stroking, reaching under her for the hard seam to ramp her up even more. “I need the taste of you,” I said unbuttoning her jeans. They were old 501s, well-worn, and well-washed and the buttons were definitely on my side. I pushed them down over her hips to expose her cock, and knelt by the side of the sofa to let her watch my mouth. For most of the butches I’d known this was a close second to the sexiest sight they get to see.
“Mmm,” I said as I sucked the tip into my heated mouth. “Mmm, my Raven,” I took more of her. Her eyes were riveted on my profile. “Mmm, my butch,” I said, hollowing my cheeks to pull more of her length into my wet, hungry mouth. I began to take her in earnest, plunging till she hit the back of my open throat and pulling back as she watched me. “Mmm,” I finally said, “come, milord. Honor me, come for me,” I tugged hard on her cock with my mouth and my hands to tighten the harness against her ass stimulating her as she had done for me.
Finally, she couldn’t resist any more and she held my head still in her hands so she could fuck my mouth till she came, and come she did, with a shout of my name.
I left my hand where it had been and laid my face against her belly as I let her recover. She stroked my hair, saying nothing. She appreciated what I’d done.
At last she rested her hand on my face, “Baby, come here,” she said, wanting me closer than kneeling. I stood and she snugged me down into her arms so that I lay on top of her still fully dressed.
“Baby,” Raven began quietly, “I need to ask you something.”
I raised my head. She sounded so serious. “Yes?”
“Why is it that whenever I imagine or think that I want a taste of you, I get a distinct feeling that I ought to stop?”
“You do?” I was amazed.
“Yes, I do,” she confirmed. “And while I don’t mind, I would like to know why.”
This conversation was due but I so didn’t want to have it. It would make her mad. I’d never met a butch who it hadn’t made mad, and we’d had such a lovely day that I didn’t want to ruin it. It’s that this wasn’t one of those topics that you raise in the deli over pastrami sandwiches.
“You don’t have to tell me why now if you don’t want, Verity,” Raven said. “But I’m asking because I want to know.”
“It’s going to make you mad,” I said curling into her.
“I can live with that,” she said evenly.
There’s no way to tell anyone a childhood sexual abuse story without some kind of reaction; mine usually provoked anger, especially when telling a butch. Sympathy, when telling femmes. Horror, when telling colleagues.
It goes on, but suffice it to say that not one of the reactions is fun or cheerful.
“I can’t tell you lying down like this,” I said.
“Do you want to tell me?” she asked, her eyes glued to my face.
“Not really,” I said forthrightly, beginning to rise. “I want to have told you and have this part of it be over with.”
“I get that.” She sat up, and patted the sofa next to her. I reached over and illuminated a light.
“That bad?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Shit,” she swore.
“Raven,” I took a big breath, “oral sex is hard for me. I can do it, but it isn’t part of what I would call my everyday sexual repertoire.”
She looked at me confused, and I heard what I’d said, “Oh, I can perform oral sex, no problem, but receiving it is ...,” I searched for a word, “fraught.”
“Fraught,” she repeated. “Meaning?”
Chapter 70
Well, the cat was among the pixies now. I’d started it. I had to finish it, no matter where it hijacked our lovely evening.
“I need to ask if you can let me tell you and say nothing. Let me get it out, and then you can ask questions or have whatever reaction you need to have.”
“Of course, baby,” she said.
She wouldn’t have been the first to say that and not be able to do it.
You see, what happened wasn’t the problem. I was over that part. How my body had continued to react even these many years later was the problem for me.
“I was eleven, and my mother was married to alcoholic #1, husband #2. My dad had been dead for six years by then,” I started. “My stepdad picked me up from school, and took me to a piano bar where he hung out with his buddies sometimes. I’d sit at the bar and do my homework while they got drunk. It didn’t happen often but often enough.”
I stopped to gather more courage. Raven said nothing. She didn’t touch me. She knew that if she did it would be harder for me, and she was right, it would have been.
“That particular day, they were rowdy, he and his five friends. I think they’d closed some big real estate deal or something. I was studying ... when one of them grabbed me. I thought he meant it in fun, but ... he didn’t.
“They put me on the bar, stole my white cotton panties, and took turns holding me down, and using their mouths on me.”
Raven’s jaw was like steel. Her body vibrated with her effort not to react. Finally she spoke, “Is there more?”
I nodded, still, after thirty-eight years, flushed with shame. “My body ... my body,” I whispered at that point, “um, ....”
Raven, the first butch to do so, filled in the blank, “Reacted.”
“Yes,” I aspirated.
“Your ... beautiful, responsive, sensual body, you mean? Reacted to a tongue against the exquisite, most intimate part of yourself? Of course it did, Verity.” Raven’s eyes were steady on me, soft, full of this love that was growing between us. “Of course it did,” she repeated. “Is there more, baby?”
“No,” I shook my head, paralyzed by the tender ferocity on her face.
“Good,” she said. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”
I stayed with her eyes.
“I have to move, probably pace a few dozen times across the living room. I am not upset at you. I am angry at them and I need to do something with this adrenaline. That’s all it is, sweetheart. Okay?”
“I’ll be right back,” Raven said. “I need something out of the front closet.” Raven came in with her leather jacket, and wrapped me in it. “Here, baby. You’re cold.”
I smiled. “You’re much better than Dave Herman, you know?”
“Dave Herman?”
“Yeah, when I was in the fifth grade, I wanted him to wrap me in his jacket because I was cold.”
“Did he?”
“Nope, I hinted and hinted but he was effing clueless.”
“Yeah, fifth grade is early for boys.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“This will probably take five minutes, baby. Will you be alright?”
“Yes, I will,” I pulled the leather closer to my nose and sniffed.
Raven walked to one end of the living room. I watched her let the hormones and the feelings loose. Was she magnificent. She was avenging rage, I kid you not, like she could take those men and rip them limb from limb with her bare hands she was so angry. She paced, boots thudding into the floor, until the adrenaline released and chilled out in her body.
Then she ran in place for a few seconds, danced like a boxer, threw out a few awesome punches, and was calm and loving again.
She knelt in front of me, “Baby, I am so very sorry that happened to you, especially since you were so young.”
“Me, too, but not because it happened. It happens to lots of people, and I’ve appreciably healed. The problem is that it still affects me, and now you, today. Raven, there’s more to the story. I’m sorry I didn’t tell it all at once.”
“No problem,” she said tersely but with warm eyes on me. “Tell me.”
“It still has an effect. What I mean is, I avoid oral sex if I can. Some holds on my legs will send me screaming out of a bed.”
“Have I ever done one?” Raven asked, horrified.
“No, darling,” I assured her. “You’d know if you had, I promise.”
“Will you show me?”
“Some time,” I said. “But not tonight. What you need to be aware of is that when I can’t see your face, it can be tough for me.”
Attending Physician Page 29