Chapter 9: Christmas

Diane dumped all her clothes but her shoes in the hamper and went into ‘her’ bathroom naked except for her slippers. Ready for the night, she put on the nightgown and the robe Eric had given her. Remembering the one she had brought, she went into the bedroom and put it, too, in the hamper. She was really imposing on Mrs. Grant. She got out of robe and nightgown and got into bed.

She thought that Eric, for such a controlling man, really let himself be bossed by his daughter. Only to a certain extent, though. It was Mrs. Grant who gave Valerie her pizza-night treats. Valerie put her toys away and met the bedtime deadline, or -- at least -- he put her into bed by bodily force when she didn’t meet it.

Well, he admitted that her stubbornness was inherited. Maybe he claimed it. A stubborn six year old was a redundancy. Maybe she should use his methods on him. There was an arena where he would control, and out of it she wouldn’t yield one inch to him. This was his bed, and here he was king of the castle. When she did in the hospital was none of his damned business. What was sauce for the gosling was sauce for the gander. They had to meet there, of course, when she was coming here or for other dates. Then, too, she was a guest in this house, and they had to find their boundaries within the house but outside the bedroom. Still, some limits were a start. When she had reached that point, he came in wearing his robe and carrying his pajamas.

“You’re a genius,” he said. “You have so much beauty, that I sometimes forget the brains.” And he had so much blarney, that she almost forgot her decision.

“Do you ever actually wear those?” she asked as he hung up his pajamas.

“When you’re not here. I may give up and just leave them hanging there. I didn’t wear pajamas, and then I had to go into Sparky’s room fast. Not the appendicitis, a much earlier and more spurious emergency. I wore a robe, and Madeleine saw me like that. Then I was afraid that Sparky would figure it out. Pajamas seemed a safer course.”

“I’m here two off-nights running.”

“I know that,” he said, “and I’m quite grateful.” He hung up his robe. He didn’t get into bed, though.

“I don’t think you should come to the hospital cafeteria any more.”

“Are you going to call me those nights?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d be grateful if you don’t call me. A call means a return to the floor as often as not.”

“Very well. You know that we have been using that as a time to communicate as well as a time that I can see you.”

“If necessary, I will call. I actually get times I can call when I’m on duty, even though I shouldn’t. If I have to cancel something, I’ll call you.”

“Well, I can’t say that I’ll look forward to your calls, then,” he said. “You, however, are in charge.”

“Not everywhere. I’m in charge of our relationship at the hospital. You’re in charge here. What do you want to do?”

“May I remove the sheet?”

“If you wish,” she said.

“Oh, I wish.” He pulled the sheet back. “I wish. God, woman, you are beautiful.” She wasn’t beautiful, but, with his eyes devouring her, she began to feel beautiful. It was embarrassing, and she struggled with herself to keep from covering at least her vulva with her hands. It was also arousing, and heat seemed to flow from his eyes as he stared at her from knees to breasts. “Turn over,” he finally said. She did, and hid herself that way. She rose up on her elbows to keep her weight off her breasts, but her arms almost kept those covered.

She felt the bed shift from his weight, and then his lips were on her glutes. He kissed each hip and then kissed a line up her back. Heat flowed out into her body from his lips. As the lips and the heat climbed her back, his hand went between her legs. It stroked her thighs, and she spread her legs to accommodate that heat. His finger found her labia as his mouth passed between her shoulder blades. Then he bit the back of her neck, quite gently, as he brushed over her clitoris.

Then his mouth stayed on her neck. He stroked her clitoris in time with his licks and lip strokes. Time was suspended. Heat spread through her body, filling her to her fingers and her toes. Then the heat concentrated in her abdomen.

It became a burning, and then she shook. She sagged there in bed while he kissed down her spine. When she felt his lips on her right glute, she turned over before he could kiss her left one.

“Darling,” he said. He kissed her forehead and then her lips. His tongue met hers while the heat spread again. He buried his head in her cleavage and licked her breastbone. His hand stroked down her abdomen, and the heat followed it, concentrating again in her pelvic region. He stroked her thighs until they parted of themselves. Then he cupped her vulva while his lips and tongue traced a wandering path up her left breast. When he licked that nipple, he stroked her clitoris again. The heat shot through her.

He kept stroking and sucking while the heat kept building. She writhed, but that dislodged his mouth only momentarily and his finger not at all.

She convulsed again, and he removed his mouth and his hand. When she recovered enough to note what was going on, he was kneeling between her legs and kissing her knees alternately.

As her breath came back to normal, he pushed her left knee up until it nearly touched her breast and then her right one. He kissed down the back of her right thigh. When she was lying like this, her vulva were presented up to him, and his mouth was heading right there. He raised his head up when he’d almost reached her center.

“Lovely,” he said. Then he dropped his head down to lick her labia. He parted the outer ones with his finger and then licked all the way up the revealed slit. That time, he stopped just before he reached her clitoris.

The next time he didn’t stop, and the sensation was as if he’d touched it with an electric wire instead of his tongue. The heat kept pouring from her vulva, but the way she was bent it could not escape. It pooled there, and her genitals got hotter and hotter. She felt exposed, used, and terribly aroused.

When she convulsed this time, her back and hips straightened. That lifted every part of her off the mattress but her head. When she crashed down flat, the bed shook.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Your coloring really sets off the sex flush.” She felt even more exposed, but the sensations didn’t leave her any attention to give to his words.

He moved up over her rapidly that she flinched. She wasn’t able to support his weight right then. But he stopped with his face an inch above her breasts. The only parts of them that were touching were his knees on the insides of her thighs. Then his mouth touched her breasts. He licked her left nipple and then her right. He sucked her right nipple and then her left.

Still without putting any weight on her, he began stroking her labia again. She was going beyond repletion to another bout of wanting. As the heat spread from her breasts again, she wanted him -- she needed him -- deep within her. He left her breasts, though, and kissed down her abdomen toward her vulva. Had she really told him that he was in charge in bed? Well, she would die happy.

And she was certain that she would die, too, as the heat spread once again. He would arouse her until she broke, then arouse her again until she finally melted into a puddle of lust and soaked into the sheets. The knowing tongue delved and teased. Her body, quite without consulting her mind, thrust her pelvis up into his face to get more stimulation when the stimulation it was already receiving was going to tear it apart. His hands shifted up her sides to cup her breasts and tweak her nipples. The heat roared out of those points of stimulation, filled her body, and then rolled back to concentrate in her pelvis.

Sparks flew from his tongue to her clitoris, and it set her entire pelvic area aflame. She convulsed. She writhed with the flame and convulsed again and yet again, but the flame kept increasing.

Finally, overcome. She dropped.

Eric stopped sucking her clit when she stopped responding. He relaxed with his cheek against the top of her thigh and breathed in her scent, the scent of a woman aroused. It was, more than that. It was the scent of Diane aroused and Diane satisfied.

‘His,’ he thought. He had made the elusive Dr. Thibault his. His eyes watched her breasts past her heaving belly. She took a long time to come down from that high, and he thought that he ought to time them so that he could try for longer recovery periods in later sessions. When she seemed recovered, he turned his head to kiss her thigh. He licked off a little sweat, and he started kissing a line around her thigh to get him to the inner part.

Diane knew she couldn’t stand any more. “No,” she said. She grabbed his hair with both hands and pulled him up her body. “You.” When his mouth was over her navel rather than her groin, she relaxed to let him extract his arms from under her legs. He continued up her body under his own steam. He paused at her breasts to cover them with kisses, but he resumed moving upward. When she spread her labia with her fingers, he slipped right into her vestibule.

“Diane,” he said. Then he was filling her. When he was all the way in and his penis was touching her clitoris, he kissed her. He filled her mouth as he was filling her down below. He shifted until he had his hands holding her breasts again. He moved from side to side, and the heat filled her. Then he was moving in and out. She shifted under him until he was rubbing her G-spot on each stroke.

The heat spread and built. She, who had feared more stimulation not long ago, now gloried in it. The heat built and every part of her became more sensitive. She felt the blood vessels on his shaft as it drew out through her labia. She felt the finger prints on his thumb as it rubbed across her nipple. She couldn’t get enough of him, and she thrust her pelvis up to meet his downstrokes.

Then the heat in her pelvis burst into flame. The flame licked at every part of her body, and she writhed in it. Her vagina was full, and she felt it grip him.

“Oh, Diane,” he said. He drove her down into the mattress and skewered her there. She could feel his penis pulse within her contractions.

Then she felt nothing except how hard it was to breathe. The next sensation was of his weight making it harder. Finally, he moved off and merely held her closely. She almost went to sleep, but the seeping moisture was feeling unpleasant. She was between Eric and the edge of the bed.

“Can you move back?” she asked.

“Sure, but I won’t stay here when I’m asleep.” He moved back a good way, and she followed him. She turned on her side, and he held her in the spoon. “Want the light out?” he asked.

“Please.” In response to her answer, he hit the headboard, and returned his hand to holding her in almost the same motion. “I’m not going away,” she said. He grunted something and kissed the back of her head. He didn’t let go, though.

When the alarm went off, she awoke slowly. Dressed for the day, she went downstairs to a breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes. After burning off the calories last night, she did both justice.

“Here are the menus you asked about, Doctor,” Mrs. Grant said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Grant. I don’t know when I’ll get to look at them, but I’ll make the time.”

“I can’t talk to you tonight,” Eric said when they were on their way.

“No. If I need to call you, I will. Your office won’t be open, will it?”

“On Christmas Eve? Even programmers have lives.”

“Well, the hospital is a bit slower, too,” she told him. “There are probably as many appendectomies on Christmas Eve as any other day. There aren’t any tonsillectomies, though.”

“Well, if I can’t speak to you until then, may I invite you to come to our house tomorrow night? We’ll go to church tonight and open the gifts in the morning, but tomorrow is a special evening, too.”

“I’ve been out of the apartment forever. That case you delivered to my apartment contains my second-best dress folded up. Besides, I don’t have any gifts for you or anyone.”

“Well, actually, you have four gifts for Sparky.” he said. “They’re already under the tree. Madeleine assures me that they’ll all go over big. None of them are all that expensive, either. Madeleine seemed to think that that would be important to you.”

“I can’t have Mrs. Grant buy gifts and say that they are from me.”

“I don’t see why not. I do every year. Besides, Sparky has a gift for you, and she’s dying to have you see it. She made it herself. Look, the Christmas service is for everyone. The tree and the gifts are for kids. You don’t have any other kid to have that Christmas with than Sparky. I’ll admit that I want you there, too, but she really likes you. Say you’ll come.”

“And, do you have a gift for me under the tree, too?” she asked. She was getting suspicious.

“Well, yes.” He sounded guilty, as well he might.

“If the tree and the presents are for kids, then you should not have.” ‘Oh you shouldn’t have,’ sounded so false. “Well, that determines it. I don’t have a gift for you, and so I can’t take part in your Christmas celebration.” She was trying to establish boundaries, and he was transgressing them faster than she could build them.

“Well, if I took it from under the tree could you come for Valerie?”

“Just for Valerie? With nothing planned for the time after your little stalking horse is asleep?”

“Well, if you insist that there be nothing, there will be nothing,” Eric said. “I’m not a rapist. The first time, I asked you. I stopped in front of your apartment. You had merely needed to get out. I want you. I always want you. I don’t, however, put conditions on your visits. If you come to see Sparky, you are quite welcome. If you only want to talk, I enjoy it. I enjoy these rides, if not this particular turn on this ride. Hell! I come to the cafeteria to talk with you where we can’t even kiss. It’s not me who barred those. I don’t always have to have sex with you.” No, he didn’t. Sexual as he was, she could establish limits on sex, and he would accept those limits.

She, if anyone, wanted their relationship to be purely sexual. He kept pushing her and Valerie together, although Valerie might remember in later years and figure out that ‘Doctor’ had been her father’s mistress.

“Well, what is it?” Eric asked. “Shall I have Madeleine make up one of the guest rooms?”

“No.” Why put Mrs. Grant to extra work? She could call Eric’s bluff, but she wouldn’t enjoy it. Why cut off her nose to spite her face? “If you return that gift to the store, I’ll come tomorrow night, and I’ll sleep in your bed, too.”

“Darling!” he said. He’d got his wish, and she hadn’t got the boundaries she’d wanted. If the choice was always up to her, why did he win so many rounds?

The entire hospital was decorated for Christmas. The nurses on the floor had two kinds of Christmas cookies to share. The doctors -- even the Jewish ones -- had closed their offices, but they visited their patients on the floor. In the afternoon, a visiting troupe came through and played Santa and his merry elves. Santa’s gifts for the GI floor were all inedible. She got off a little late because of the disturbance in the schedule. Nobody complained. Something should be good for those kids.

Supper didn’t taste as good without Eric, and -- considering how it tasted ordinarily -- that was saying something. She got up to her room and collapsed. With no patients to tend, the question from twelve or thirteen hours before surfaced. If Eric would do anything she insisted on, why didn’t she win when they wrangled? Part of it was that he was slick. Even his daughter at six was a conniver. But she’d evaded Valerie easily enough. Well, she’d put the onus on Eric and Mrs. Grant. Let them deny Valerie pizza. Why was it so hard to evade Eric? Even now, she was wondering about the gift he’d bought her.

She wasn’t his kept woman, though. If he wanted to repay the orgasms he received with the ones she received, that kept them equals. Even if she received a greater number and probably more profound ones, that was still mutuality. But fur coats and diamonds were beyond the pale. And she knew Eric well enough to know he hadn’t bought her a Rubik’s cube.

What if he’d intended this as a parting gift? Eric was generous, and he wouldn’t like recriminations. ‘This has been fun, and here’s something to soothe the wounds of parting.’ That might be his style of ending an affair. He didn’t act like he wanted to end it. Still, he had offered her a guest room. What if he were telling her the truth about Valerie? Eric loved his daughter; she might be the only person he loved. He was quite capable of inviting Diane because ‘his Sparky’ wanted her to be there.

And she didn’t really know how men acted when they had tired of their mistresses. She knew the signs of a waning romance; she’d been through a few. But this wasn’t a romance. At least, it wasn’t a romance on his part. And that it was on her part was a shocking insight. She had entered into an unspoken deal with Eric. Their genitals would entertain each other, and their hearts would be kept out of the matter. Well, she had failed on her part of the bargain.

She wondered how Eric had broken with his last mistress. Smoothly, she’d wager. If she knew that, it would be her warning about his current attitude towards her. Mrs. Grant wouldn’t tell. What had Valerie seen? The problem was that Valerie didn’t talk about what she had thought of Gloria or Melanie. Or would it have been Miss Smith and Miss Jones? Maybe Eric was treating her differently. After all, she had met Valerie well before Eric asked her out. That would be safer, and Eric was intensely protective of his daughter. After all, that Dr. Thibault had been a family friend before moving on when her residency ended was not going to be a clue ten years from now when Valerie would have moved from latency to a hyper-awareness of sexuality.

It was the night before Christmas, and visions of kiss-offs were dancing through her head. Well, she had avoided as many lessons on business from Norm as she could, but she knew one rule of salesmanship. Never say ‘no’ for the customer; let him say it for himself. Eric managed to communicate fairly well. When he was tired of her, let him say so. Still, she had promised Valerie that she could listen to her own heartbeat through a real stethoscope. She had better bring it along in case tomorrow would be her last visit.

That should have been a thought to keep her awake, but a resident can sleep on any thoughts. Diane could catch forty winks standing up if she had something to hold on to. It was the season for presents, and her Christmas present was that she got no phone calls that night. Christmas on the floor was the day after Christmas Eve. The patients were going through let-down. Santa had come yesterday, but they were still locked into the same beds with (for some of them) the same tubes in their arms. The staff all felt put-upon. The only nurses on duty were those without the seniority to miss it. The longest days, however, end. Six o’clock came, and Diane stopped at the nurse’s station to pocket a half-dozen alcohol swabs. In her room, she draped her stethoscope around her neck, put on her evening-out makeup, got into her parka, and went down to meet Eric.

“Traffic’s not so bad, today,” he said when she was in the car and headed towards the bridge. “Everybody sensible is staying home. Not including present company. Curing sick children is a good reason to be at work. Selling gimcracks isn’t.”

“Seems to me, you’re in no position to talk. You buy as much as anybody.”

“Guilty. I never claimed to be useful to society. Look how well I’m paid. Sewer workers keep the city safe. Look at the statistics some time for death rates about 1850. We don’t do all that much better than they did in good years. What gives us our high life expectancy -- or, really, gave them their low one -- is the waves of pestilence. Well, the more money you’re paid above a sewer worker’s wage, the less likely it is that you’re contributing to society.”

“Well,” she said, “and a cheerful Christmas to you, too.”

“Sorry. I get into a black mood sometimes. Well, I’m going to have you and Sparky with me. That’s twice what it takes to lighten my mood.” She thought, but didn’t say, that he’d had his black mood while she was in the car with him.

“Sparky enjoy her day?” she asked.

“Absolutely manic. The kid’s been on a sugar high since school let out. She nagged me to say that you’re coming, but I wouldn’t.”