Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sharon
Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division
I have a million things I want to say to Kate.
I want to acknowledge her fear and her experiences and the pain and loss she’s endured.
I want to tell her that even though our queerness is different, I still understand how the cloak of homophobia can affect us in so many weird and ugly ways.
I want to share with her my story, about my own mother rejecting me in a similar way.
I could talk with her until the sun comes up about all these things and countless more.
But I don’t talk. Instead, I pull on my hands and bring her closer to me. Close enough to kiss.
There’s no haste in our lips as they press together so lightly, it’s like being stroked by a feather. Even as our kiss deepens, the pace stays slow, the heat little more than simmering.
“If you’re too tired…” I mumble against her mouth.
“I’m not.”
“You want to?”
“God, yes.”
And that’s when I wrap my arms around her body and roll us so she’s lying on top of me.
We kiss some more and slowly, steadily, so very certainly, there’s more to it. Hunger. Craving. Want.
“Please, Kate,” I whimper, unashamed that I’m begging. “Please let me touch you.”
“Sharon, I—”
“I want to make you feel good.”
Her hands grip both sides of my face. “Don’t you see that’s the problem?” She demands. “You always make me feel good.”
“I just want to try…”
She opens her mouth and I fear it’s to turn me down again, but she snaps it shut. “Okay,” she says eventually. “Okay. Make me feel good, Sharon.”
As if to affirm her agreement, she takes my hand and slides it between us, under the covers and under her, my, T-shirt. She’s naked there, completely naked, and I almost feel tricked, like she was just lying in my bed with no knickers and didn’t tell me. Like how dare she? But also, thank you, God.
My fingers roam around feeling smooth hairs, the softest skin, and wet, wet flesh. When I brush up against something small and hard, Kate gasps in my ear and I know I’ve found her clit. I go back to it, circle it, map its miniscule topography and in doing so, Kate opens her legs wider for me.
“Tell me when it feels good,” I ask her. “Remember I’m new to this.”
“New doesn’t mean bad,” she says before punctuating it with a soft moan. “Yes, there, Sharon, right there.”
There’s something about hearing her say my name like that – all air and lust and need – that makes me more determined than I’ve ever been to bring her to climax.
I roll my finger over the tip of her clit and pull back so I can watch her expression as I play around with pressure and strokes.
She bites down on her lip when I run my finger over the tip as lightly as I can.
She looks down at me with a small frown when I apply more pressure.
Hmm, she doesn’t like that as much. Who would have thought bossy little Kate Chiu would like a gentle touch?
And then her eyes roll back in her head when I dance those light touches around her clit in little circles, sometimes around it, sometimes on top of it.
When her head tips back and she releases a long guttural moan, I know exactly what I want to do next.
“Let me kiss you,” I say, “down there.”
Kate erupts into silly little giggles. “If you want to eat me out,” she runs a hand through my hair, “then say it.”
I ignore the way her bossiness makes me bristle. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe I even like it. “I want to eat you out,” I say pointedly and she smiles.
“Then fucking do it.” She pushes my head down as I shove the covers away.
When I’m positioned between her legs, my body curled up under me, I’m grateful there’s enough light in the room for me to really see her.
I have nothing to compare it to, not even my own because I’ve always been too apprehensive to take a mirror down there, but she seems so neat and tidy.
Her hair is trim, her lips are slim and already open for me, and what’s exposed is all pink and slick and well, small. Or at least, smaller than I expect.
And then there’s her scent. It’s magnetic.
Musky and sweet and pulling me in closer and closer.
When I feel the heat of her on the tip of my nose, I inhale deeply.
It’s a fresh, earthy smell – like rainwater drying in bright sunshine – and there’s a tang of something citrussy too.
Orange blossom. My shower gel. For some reason her smelling of my shower gel, of me, makes my heartbeat louder and faster in my chest and in my ears. I inhale again.
Kate laughs. “I like to do that too,” she says.
“I can understand why,” I lift my head enough to look at her. “You smell so fucking good.”
“Want to find out if you like my taste just as much?” She gives me one of her craftiest smiles and I give her one of mine before putting my lips on her.
There are too many new sensations to name as I kiss her silky-smooth and unbearably soft flesh.
Her scent engulfs me, her taste fulfils me, the heat of her is enough to make my tongue melt.
And yet it doesn’t, not as I get more confident with licking and stroking and playing with her.
In turn, Kate starts to move with me, riding my mouth and guiding me without words to how she wants to be touched, eaten, fucked.
If I hadn’t been so turned on, if I hadn’t been so desperate to do this to her, if she hadn’t made me wait so long, maybe I would have been more nervous, more self-conscious, more petrified of this.
But as it is, I’m too desperate to please her.
I’ve spent every night since she last slept in my bed imagining her taste and how she would feel on my tongue.
Every time she’s touched and pleasured me in the last few weeks, I’ve been taking notes, memorising how she moves against me and inside me so I can yes, repeat it for myself, for my own pleasure, but also so I can do the same to her.
And yet it still feels like a miracle when her fingertips dig into my scalp a little harder and she tells me, “I’m close. So close.”
So I keep doing what I was doing – alternating gentle licks and slightly more persistent sucks on her clit – and I wrap my hands around her thighs and wait, full of anticipation for her climax.
“Inside me,” she says through what sounds like gritted teeth, but her thighs are muffling her voice. “I need you inside me.”
Yes, I think. That does feel good. I want her to feel that.
I suck on two fingers and find her entrance. Again, it’s smaller, tighter than I expect and so I hold back one of them and just slide my middle finger inside her.
“No!” She pulls my hair. “More. I need another.”
Happily, I give her another. Lifting my head so I can watch her expression, trying to gauge if it’s too much, if I’m hurting her, she releases a low moan and throws her head back into the pillow. And then she starts to ride my hand.
God, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, ever felt, ever been a part of. Her hips bucking and falling, her cunt rocking against my mouth. Because yes, my lips are back on her silky wet flesh and my tongue has resumed its dancing pattern over her clit, alternating its strokes with little sucks.
“Oh, fuck,” she grips the back of my head and thrusts up into my face. It should hurt, maybe it does hurt, but I don’t care. I’m lost to giving her pleasure. If I’m being really honest, I’m lost to her. To Florence Fucking Nightingale.
“Yes, fuck, yes,” she pants and then there’s more. More moans and groans and beautiful little sighs I want to capture and keep. More of her on my tongue. More of her scent filling my nose and mind. More of her tightening around my fingers that I didn’t even move, hadn’t even got to thinking about.
But I will next time. I will do this again and again for as long as I can. Until she kicks me off her. Until she can’t take any more.
Twenty-four hours. That’s all she wants. That’s what I agreed to.
And that’s what I know will break my heart come this time tomorrow.
*****
Impending doom is a funny thing. It grows with time.
It looms larger and larger the closer you get to it, but also, if you try really hard, you can ignore it.
At least enough to squeeze three more orgasms out of a bossy bisexual nurse who shows me how to move my fingers inside her, and how to eat her when she is sitting on my face.
But it never goes away. Not completely. Impending doom lingers close enough to remind you of its presence in between orgasms, in between kisses and when it’s finally time for you to go to sleep.
Kate is curled up next to me, her head resting on my shoulder and her hand gripping a fistful of my pyjama top. I’m pretty sure she’s asleep, and that I should be too now that it’s the small hours of the next day, but she doesn’t leave me alone with my thoughts and impending doom for long.
“I need to tell you something else,” she says.
“What?” I roll onto my side and wrap an arm around her waist.
“It’s about Danny,” she says.
“Oh.” My body freezes, along with my next breath.
“I don’t know for certain, of course, but I… I don’t think he’s got much longer, Sharon.”
It’s the one time in our relationship, no, acquaintance, when she’s been less than direct and it’s almost that fact that really sears the message into the centre of my heart.
“It’s going to happen… soon?” I ask, needing her directness, her bluntness, her Kate-ness more than ever.
Her eyes are shining in the dark. I can’t see their colour with the lights off and the curtains closed to the night, but I can see that.
“I think so,” she says. “Sometimes, just before patients enter end-of-life stage, they get a rush of energy and liveliness. The surge, we call it.”
“You think tonight was that? His surge?”
“I don’t know for certain but yes, I think it could have been. The way he was sleeping before that…”
She doesn’t say anything else and for that I’m also grateful.
I wonder why she’s telling me now, away from the hospital, away from Danny himself. I doubt she’s told him. There wasn’t time at the disco. No, Kate’s telling me now, in my bed, with her arms around me and mine around her, for a reason.
Immediately, I realise that that is the reason she’s telling me now. The fact she can hold me and soothe me and be by my side until dawn breaks.
“But I could be wrong,” she adds suddenly, her voice shaky and more uncertain than I’ve ever heard it.
I smile, weakly, but she doesn’t know that because I’ve pulled her into my body and am resting my chin on her head. “Are you saying that Florence Fucking Nightingale gets things wrong?” I tease, with great, great effort.
“I’m saying…” She sniffs at the same time a tear slides down my cheek and onto her hair. “I’m saying I want to be wrong. I’ve never wanted to be wrong more.”
“I’ve been waiting for the moment you fuck up since I met you,” I say as tears fill my own eyes. “Maybe this will be it.”
“Maybe.” She squeezes my body tight. “But I do think you should call his parents, if you think they’d want to know.”
Something heavy plummets through my guts, hollowing me out. “It’s just his mum and a sister. His dad left them when he was a baby.”
“Well, they should know. They should have the option to come and say goodbye.”
“I’ve never met them,” I say, and it sounds like an excuse. Like I can’t do it; can’t call them and tell them that Danny is dying.
I know Kate hears it too when she wriggles out of my hold and moves up so her head can lay on the pillow directly opposite me.
“Just one phone call. It’s not up to you whether they come or not.
You can’t control that. All you have to do is call.
” When I’m silent for several seconds, she adds, “Or I can do it. I normally do for patients who don’t…
who don’t have many visitors. But I just thought you’d want to. ”
“I do want to. Or rather, I want to be brave enough to do it.”
“You don’t think you’re brave?” Kate’s tone has changed. It’s got its edge back. “Fucking hell, Sharon. You’re the bravest person I know.”
“Says someone who literally saves lives for a living,” I scoff.
She rolls on top of me and I feel rather than see her shining dark eyes pin themselves on me. “Do you know what I like most about being a nurse?”
“The uniform?” I joke, even as a tear sneaks out of the corner of my eye.
“God, no. Hate that. No, I like making people more comfortable. I feel like the doctors and maybe other nurses and practitioners are responsible for saving lives or just diagnosing and treating illnesses, but the kind of nurse I aspire to be is one who makes my patients actually feel better. More comfortable. More at ease. More rested. More at peace. And this week, you also taught me that I should be thinking about helping them feel more joy. More delight. More fun.”
“I didn’t do that,” I start, but she interrupts me.
“Yes, you did. You were the one who came up with the disco idea. You’re the one who has been baking your childhood treats for all the boys. You’re the one who calls them ‘the boys’. You’ve brought more life to them in the last few weeks than I have in months and months, possibly my whole career.”
I shake my head. “You’re not there to entertain them,” I argue.
“You’ve got to administer meds, take bloods, check vitals, clean up godawful messes and keep on top of all their essential needs.
And we all know how stretched the NHS is.
It’s not like you’re paid millions to do a job so few people would willingly do. ”
“But I know from personal experience just how important quality of life is. How beneficial laughing and smiling and just feeling alive can be.” She pauses and in the shadows I think I see her bite her lip.
Whatever she’s doing, I know she’s looking at me, searching my face for something when she adds, “Or maybe, I forgot.”
“Well, you’re remembering now.” I don’t know what else to say.
She releases the lock in her elbows and lets all her weight fall on me.
I wrap my arms around her again and stroke her hair down her back.
Kate burrows her head down so it’s resting just under my head and I wonder if she could fall asleep like this because I am suddenly desperate to.
I can’t imagine having her further away from me than this after what she’s just told me, after what we’ve just shared.
I don’t ask her. Instead I wait to see if she will roll off me. And before I get my answer, I fall asleep.