Attending Physician Read online

  “Dr. Raven,” I smiled.

  A heavy pause, and my butterflies froze.

  “I wish I were calling to say I’d be a few minutes late.”

  “You’re not.” I made it a statement not a question.

  “No. I just got a page. I have an emergency and I’m on my way to the hospital. I have a patient in trouble.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

  “Nowhere near as sorry as I am,” she said, meaning something entirely, unmistakably different.

  “I meant your patient.”

  “I know you did. Is it any wonder I want to take you to dinner, milady?”

  I wanted to purr.

  I didn’t have an answer for that so I kept silent.

  “Verity?”

  “Yes?”

  “May I call you later once I have her stabilized?”

  “You think you’ll be able to stabilize her?”

  “I do.”

  “Then, of course,” I smiled again.

  “Stay with me till I have to go?” Raven asked. “I so wanted to see you tonight.”

  The butterflies were back.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “How are your fleurs?”

  “Still beautiful,” I said.

  “Just like you,” she complimented.

  “If you think so, sir,” I blushed.

  “I do. And what I think on that particular subject goes.”

  “Really?” I flirted. “Sez who?”

  “Sez me!” she threw back.

  “Good to know,” I said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because now that I know that what you say `on that particular subject’ goes, I won’t bother to challenge you. I’ll just meekly agree.”

  She erupted in laughter. “Meekly?” she gasped. “You?”

  I gathered the shreds of my stood-up dignity. “You’d be surprised, Dr. Raven. I can be quite meek if I put my mind to it.”

  “I’ll have to see it to believe it,” she chuckled.

  “Well, I guess this means you owe me dinner,” I said.

  “Two!”

  “Two? How does that work?”

  “Well, one to feed you, and one as an apology for having to cancel.”

  “You use an interesting sort of emotional math, Doc. Two it is.”

  “One sec, baby,” she said, making those butterflies go crazy. Baby? Really? Already? It’s only my very favorite. “Jimmy, park her please?”

  A distinctly young male voice said, “You bet, doc.”

  “And take care of her.”

  “You have a girl in the car with you?” I asked.

  She snorted. “No, Verity, no girl. My car is a she.”

  “What kind of she?”

  “A 1967 vintage convertible Mustang, cherry red, which I restored with my dad.”

  I pictured her in it in my mind’s eye. “Perfect,” I said. “Dr. Raven, you have to go. Thanks for calling.”

  “It was the least I could do.” She stopped, completely still. “I’m thoroughly disappointed, Verity. I very much wanted to see you.”

  “I know. Go heal your patient.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “If you can,” I cautioned.

  “If I can,” she repeated, and rang off.

  I sat in my beautiful black suit in the fading sunshine as the smile fell off my face. She’d cancelled.

  Wow.

  Ow.

  I walked slowly down the hall to hang my suit, caught in the wretched feelings of neglect that my marriage had, it seemed, made permanently mine. So sad. So lonely. So bad. So lonely. So ...

  My grown-up brain knew that she’d had an emergency. My grown-up brain knew she was a physician. My grown-up brain knew she was as disappointed as I was. My grown-up brain understood all of this. But my critter brain, in a word, didn’t. And, just so’s you knows, critter brain trumps grown-up brain every single damn time.

  I put on my best white lawn Juliet nightgown, white ballet slippers, and a white cascading ruffled robe with a train. If I had to play the tragic heroine, I would be costumed properly. I let my hair fall freely in a riot of red curls down past my shoulder blades.

  Then I nuked more leftover Chinese and watched back-to-back episodes of The Good Wife, which irony was not lost on me, until I fell asleep on the sofa. Had anyone been curious, they would have seen the streetlight glinting on the tracks of my tears.

  Chapter 9

  I wakened disoriented and panicked, with a painfully cricked neck. The squawk box to the front door—there’s no other word for it—squawking. I bounced off the sofa, noticing it had just gone midnight—the witching hour, and buzzed the door in a daze. Then I tossed my hair out of my eyes and opened the front door.

  Dr. L. Ravenal Lange took one step toward me, swept me into her arms, and kissed me like she’d just come home after a year at sea.

  “Baby ...,” she murmured against my mouth.

  She held me so close, so safe, so warm. Her hand had woven its way under my hair and held the back of my head. The other was wrapped firmly around my arched waist. I opened my eyes.

  “Raven,” I said.

  She lifted me bodily, pirouetted us, and closed the door behind her without letting go. Then she picked me up, and walked unerringly into the living room where the corner of the L-shaped sofa beckoned her. Sitting down, she placed me on her lap, and kissed me again.

  Then she put her cheek against mine and spoke softly into my ear. “I was minutes from home, thinking it had gotten too late to call you, when Chérie made a u-turn and brought me here.” Chérie must be the car. “I realized when I got here that what I wanted was to continue where I hoped we would have been had we gone to dinner.”

  “Which,” I whispered, “was ....”

  “...kissing ...,” we said together.

  “ ... me,” I said. “... you,” she said. I laughed, as delighted as I’d earlier been despairing. I pulled away from her to regard her face.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Do you?” she asked. Then she kissed me again. To make sure.

  My heart hammered against my ribcage. Raven didn’t know this but it had been eleven years since I’d been kissed like this—kissed at all, save the occasional parsimonious peck. As good as it felt, and oh Goddess, it felt amazing, it also brought me grave sadness. Which I didn’t yet want to share with Raven.

  I shifted to catch a breath. “I think I do see, Raven, but you might have to make it a teensy bit more defined so I get the whole picture.”

  She grinned and kissed me yet again.

  When she pulled away, she was thoughtful. “I’m so glad I kissed you in the hospital.”

  It seemed a non sequitur. “Why?”

  “Because you don’t kiss doctors who haven’t kissed you first.” She stated it like one of the laws of physics, which it is.

  “It’s true, doctor, I don’t,” I agreed.

  She observed me steadily and said, wonderingly, “You’re a real femme, aren’t you?”

  “Is there another kind?” I arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Oh, yeah, there is.” She rolled her eyes. “There definitely is.”

  I didn’t want to hear about other kinds of femmes at that particular juncture. I wanted to be the only femme in existence. (Not fair, I know. But I want what I want when I want it, don’t you?) “Well then, let me assure you, that yes, Raven, I am a real femme.”

  She tightened her arms and pulled me closer. “I’m so glad,” she whispered into my hair. “Real femmes are very, very rare.”

  “Welcome to Real Femme World,” I smiled shyly at her through my lashes.

  “Oh, you are adorable,” she said.

  “Raven, did you have dinner?”

  Her stomach was on my side, and growled perfectly right then. “Um, no?” I started to pull myself out of her arms. She held tight. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To see if there’s any more Chinese. I’m no domestic g
oddess but I do know how to order in. You won’t starve on my watch.” I grabbed what was in reach. “You’ve got no padding as it is.”

  “Oh, there’s padding. You can’t see it from here.”

  “And I’m not going to see it tonight! But you are going to eat something ....”

  She silenced me in the best possible way. Have you ever noticed that it’s hard to talk with someone else’s tongue in your mouth? Not to mention rude, really.

  “Before I put you to bed and let myself out,” she spoke softly.

  “Eat first,” I negotiated, “and then tuck me in.”

  I had her. She didn’t want to leave. She knew I had her, too. “What a butch must do for a femme,” she complained.

  “Indeed,” I resorted to Prim. Then, as a precautionary measure, I added, “Always.”

  “Yes’m,” she concurred obediently, “always.”

  She steadied me till I was balanced and then stood beside me. I loved how tall she was. Loved it. It made me feel—or I let it make me feel—protected.

  “Lead on, wench,” she prompted, patting my bottom.

  “Good sir!” I reacted. “Please!”

  “Now?” she asked innocently knowing full well that wasn’t what I’d meant. She wrapped me in her strong arms and leaned down till her mouth was near my very sensitive ear. “If you’re going to behave like a serving wench, milady, I’ll be glad to play the lord of the manor.” Then her devilish tongue traced the shell of my ear.

  My whole body shook.

  She held me till it passed.

  I gazed at her speculatively—serving wench is a fun game to play—. “Soon, milord, soon,” I murmured as I pulled her down the hall toward the kitchen.

  She sat in my chair at the kitchen table in front of the windows looking like she’d sat there a hundred times. She was so comfortable in her own skin that she was comfortable wherever she was. It put me at ease to see her ease.

  I finally had a moment to observe what she’d chosen to wear. She, too, had chosen a black suit for our date. Tailored trousers, a black silk turtleneck under a starched blue oxford cloth button-down shirt that made her eyes bluer, black jacket that matched the trousers, and gorgeous, shiny black boots that made her taller. She looked yummy.

  More, she looked at me like I was yummy.

  I’d asked her what her preference was for food, and she hadn’t answered me,, so I’d made an executive decision. Finally she said, “That peignoir is perfect on you.”

  Oooh, one point for the butch.

  Butch error: “That peignoir is beautiful.” Do not comment on the garment, gentlemen; comment on, nay, compliment the girl in the garment.

  I curtseyed prettily. “Thank you, sir.” Then I decided just to tell the truth. “I was playing the role of tragic heroine this evening.”

  “You were? Why?”

  “I had a date and she cancelled at the last minute. I decided to be the wronged Shakespearean ingénue to soothe the savage disappointment of my heart. Take your pick. Juliet, Ophelia, Helena, Hermia. Desdemona. Alas.”

  She began to convulse, knowing full well I’d been serious. “I must descry the cur who did this to you, lady, and right a dreadful wrong.”

  “Indeed, sir, you must,” I agreed. “Punish him cruelly. The pain was worse than I’d expected.”

  Microwave beeps do not belong in Shakespearean improvisations.

  “Your dinner, good knight.”

  “My thanks, milady.”

  I’d put chopsticks and a fork at her place. She grabbed the chopsticks like she was born to them, and began, elegantly, to eat my leftover Chinese food. I said nothing, just watched her. She was starved, and hadn’t known it till dinner was in front of her.

  After ten minutes, she slowed and glanced at me across from her.

  “Verity, you’re extremely beautiful.”

  I blushed, of course. “Thank you, Raven.”

  “No, baby, thank you.”

  I blushed again. “Then, you’re welcome.”

  “I think I could look at you forever. Your face is so expressive.”

  “Transparent, you mean. Secrets are not my forte. I had too many of them as a kid.”

  “Just as well. Secrets can make one ill.” She continued to eat. “That was precisely what I needed. Thank you for noticing.”

  I cleared her plate, running water on it in the sink. Before I turned around her arms swept around me, pulled me tight into her body, and she lifted my hair to kiss my neck sending a waterfall of shivers down my spine.

  Chapter 10

  “Bedtime, baby,” she whispered after she’d ravished my neck to the degree that my legs trembled.

  I had such pure longing that I was on the point of asking her to stay. To sleep, mind you, but it simply wasn’t right. Still the longing had a stab to it from my womb.

  “Excuse me,” I said, leaving her to brush my teeth and take care of other private matters. She did not question me or stop me, which I thoroughly appreciated. I might, someday, take a shower or a bath with her, but some things I’m not interested in sharing and loo time is one of them.

  I presented myself as ready for bed, and blinked up into her sparkling blue eyes.

  “Truly lovely,” she murmured.

  I raised my arms to clasp them around her neck and bestow a kiss of thanks when she carried me ceremoniously across the threshold of my bedroom and set me down gently on the queen-size bed slipping my feet under the quilt. She’d thought ahead and opened the covers.

  She stood above me, staring down for a long minute, perhaps memorizing, but I thought maybe just seeing me instead. Then she bent down to pull the quilts over me, and tuck me in. I resisted a bit and released my arms so as to be able to hug her.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t want to leave you, baby.”

  “I know,” I said. I didn’t want her to leave me either.

  “Shall we arrange our two dinners tomorrow?”

  I yessed, feeling surprisingly emotional.

  Raven pulled me close and held me to her chest. Then she kissed my lips gently, lay me down, stood, pulled the covers over my arms, and kissed my forehead. “Sweet dreams, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Then she strode from the room and lucky for me didn’t look back.

  The front door lock clicked and the front door of the building slammed closed, and then a satisfied smile bloomed on my lips. “Good night, good sir, good night,” I whispered. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

  I smelled her cologne on my nightgown as I wakened, and it set me off on a happy day. Nothing like a midnight house call from a hot doctor and a kiss goodnight. Go on, doc, I thought, make my day every day. There’s a little femme challenge for you. I skipped into the shower.

  Wednesday was my day (mostly) for teaching and supervision. Less experienced psychologists and psychiatrists need more experienced eyes and ears on their sessions in the beginning, or so the conventional wisdom goes. Personally, and mostly privately, I disagreed. I thought supervision was way too artificial a model, but like so much else in our world, it had become entrenched, the “way it is done.” So I did it, but with the extraordinarily talented doctors, I pulled them aside and mentored them in a completely different way.

  Two of my favorites—I preferred to think of them as apprentices rather than supervisees —would be arriving within thirty minutes to sit in on my two sessions of the morning. Then we’d spend a couple of hours in dialogue over them, the three of us. It made sense that, instead of making suggestions of what could/should have been done by the less experienced (as in classic supervision), it proved far more valuable for younger docs to observe a master and ask their own questions. My reason was simple. Every human has their own filters, and it is those filters that psych docs need to bring to light—especially their own so that they see how their own filters change the psychotherapeutic process.

  Anyway, Sara and Mickey would be arriving, and I needed to get into some clothes. When the phone
rang, I tore into the office in my towel and answered it in time. My phone rang at all hours, so I thought nothing of it.

  “Dr. Spencer,” I said.

  “Dr. Lange,” came to my ear. I smiled and I know she heard it wherever she was. “I wanted to hear your beautiful voice,” she continued, “before my day runs away with me.”

  “How are you?” I asked. “Did you sleep?”

  “I’m well. A bit,” she replied. “Not enough.”

  “I know,” I said. “You did a wild thing last night.”

  “I did?” she asked, denying it in the next breath. “I did not. Chérie did a wild thing.”

  “Chérie is the car, right?”

  “Got it in one,” she said. “Is your Bluetooth in?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Can you put it in?” My brain went to other implications and my teeth started to chatter. “Are you cold, baby?” she asked, concerned.

  “Uh,” I said. “I just got out of the shower,” I explained distractedly. “Here it is!” I focused and the cold left me. “Okay, got it.”

  “Verity, are you standing in your office soaking wet?”

  I had to give her a point for focus.

  “Um, not exactly.”

  “Meaning ...?”

  “Meaning I’m standing in my office in a pink towel.”

  “And freezing,” she stated flatly.

  “Well, not exactly that either,” I answered truthfully. “But shivering, yes.”

  “Not with cold,” she clarified.

  “Nooo ...,” I let it hang in the air.

  “What’s making you shiver, baby?”

  Oh, damn, here it comes. I’m going to have to tell her. I took a beat.

  “You are.”

  Then something I would never have anticipated happened.

  “Been a while, has it?”

  And I knew she knew, and I didn’t have to say a word. At least not yet, and at least not on the phone. Both of those good things.

  “Let’s talk this through in person, shall we?” I tried to sound light, but didn’t succeed at the level I’d have wished.

  “By all means,” she agreed, “but first, come here.” I swear I actually felt her pull me in to her body, where I fit just right. “Better?” she said after a minute.