Doctor's Orders: The Complete Series (8 page)

I sit down heavily in the Doctor’s comfy desk chair. I don’t know what else I expected to find. I knew he’d been married. That he was a widower. I knew...I don’t know what I thought I knew. But my own selfish desires, my own fantasies, seem pathetically childish now. Not only is the Doctor a real man, he has real grief.

I feel like such a jerk.

I pick up a letter, the one lying at the top of the pile, crinkled and creased and with fingerprint smudges along the edges.

Love,

You know I worry for you, and your tendency to fall prey to the worst of your doubts. I know where I believe that tendency comes from, and I believe you do too. It’s not your fault. But I confess it makes me angry, too, that you could hate yourself for something that makes me feel so good.

I have never felt so alive as when you dominate me.

And that is about where my brain short circuits.

I look away and flinch instinctively, the way you do when you see an unhappy couple fight, or when you see a man you don’t know well cry. I just...feel wrong, looking at it. Having read it. At the same time, there’s this gnawing hunger to know more. I mean, that is a tantalizing piece of information. Also probably an unforgivable violation of privacy, but – 

The door creaks open.

The door. To the room where I am. To the room where I’m not supposed to be, where I’ve come to rifle through the Doctor’s things, where I’m reading his dead wife’s secret sexy love letters.

I’m like a frozen prey animal. I just cannot bring myself to look at the door, to move, to even drop the letter from my hot, guilty hands. My mind races down each and every possible avenue, searching for some plausible series of events that will excuse what I’m doing, even though I know it’s useless. I’m caught. There’s nothing that excuses this. I close my eyes, and try to formulate an apology.

“You must be Claire.”

It’s not the Doctor. It’s not the Doctor! It is, however, whoever it was on the intercom system. My eyes fly open, and I do my best to look accusatory. Incredibly, I’m feeling like I somehow have a right to be pissed.

The man closing the door behind him is dressed in surprisingly casual fare, though it’s more rich-guy-pretending-to-be-working-class than anything else. He has a pea coat, like he works on the docks or something, and jeans. But they fit too well, and are artfully distressed. They probably cost a fortune. He has an even stubble over his admittedly chiseled chin, like he has an electric shaver set to “five o’clock shadow.” The care that I suspect he puts into his appearance is confirmed by his hair – blonde, carefully tussled. There’s product in there. He’s got rakish good looks. And he’s grinning at me.

This can’t possibly be good.

I just remind myself: the Doctor does not make mistakes. Maybe Cedric does, but not the Doctor. There must be a purpose to this.

“Yes, I’m Claire,” I say, casually dropping the letter back onto the desk, and rising to my best nonchalant lean-against-a-desk pose. I just want to distract him – whoever this sandy-haired man is – from what I was doing. “And who are you?”

I try to arch an eyebrow, but I can tell it hasn’t quite worked. He still looks amused.

“Whoever I am, I have a right to be here. I don’t think you do, Claire.”

He strolls over to the desk, and plants a hip on the corner, close to me. He leans in, startling me, and I get a whiff of his cologne. It reminds me of sea salt; it goes with the overall maritime theme. He pulls his hand back, deliberately slow, prolonging his nearness, and I can see he’s picked up a silver letter opener. He tosses it lightly in the air, catching it with ease, and arches his own eyebrow.

So he noticed the letter, then.

“My name is Gerald.”

Now he’s drawing little patterns on the desk with the tip of the letter opener. It gives me something to concentrate on other than him and my obvious, obvious guilt. I’m grateful, in a small, desperate way.

“I know what you’ve been doing in here, you know.”

I bite my lip, and wish, not for the last time, that I was a practiced liar. I can’t think of anything to say, so I just silently beg the universe to have this somehow work out in my favor.

“There’s only so many reasons to go through a guy’s private things, Claire. To go through his letters. Are those Julia’s letters?” he asks, as though suddenly realizing that this might be even worse than it seems, and grabs the one I’d held in my hot little hand. The eyebrow goes up again. “Jesus.”

“Look, I didn’t mean –”

“Of course you did. You’re poking around because you want to know more about him, because you think you’re close. You don’t think you’re the first, do you?”

I’m humiliated to realize that I did. I did think I was the first to get close to him, or to want to, or...I did. I thought I was special, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to.

Gerald, the rich faux-mariner, plants his large hand on the desk, and leans in close, closer than before. His solid body is only inches from mine, his breath hot on my neck. I’m ashamed to feel the adrenaline that’s pumping in my blood begin to pool in a tight, burning knot around my pussy, but I do not move. Still like a prey animal, I am preternaturally still.

“Let me give you some advice, Claire,” he whispers. And his voice sounds kind, somehow, so close to my earlobe. “Do not pry. Do not get attached just because you think he’s a challenge. If you push at him, if you tell him it’s more than just the treatment...”

My whole body flinches, and I wonder how much Gerald knows about my particular treatment. I can
hear
him smile.

“He’s the most guarded man in the world, Claire. He’s my best friend, and he’s shut off. If you push, he’ll push back. You’ll be out, gone, done. Finito.”

He pulls back slightly, enough to look into my eyes, but still in my space. Still close. His eyes are a deceptively calm gray.

“In fact,” he continues, “if he finds out about this...”

“So don’t tell him.” I’m shocked to hear my own voice. Even more shocked that it’s not shaking.

Gerald laughs, genuinely.

“Right. So simple.”

I do not find this reassuring.

“Claire,” he says, letting his thumb drift over my hand. “He doesn’t let anyone in.”

“He let her in.” I stun myself for the second time. And Gerald, too. At this point all I can do is push forward, like a kamikaze, just...keep going.

“Was she his first?” I ask.

Gerald lets a slow smile spread across his face. He really is a very good looking man.

“Wow, you are just full of surprises.”

“Was she? His first submissive?”

I perch on this moment, holding my breath. It’s the first time I’ve acknowledged, out loud, to anyone else, what my relationship with the Doctor is about. What the Doctor is about. What
I’m
about. I hadn’t realized how much the prospect scared me until the words were already out, and yet I feel relieved.

Gerald seems to know that this is a big deal. Both eyebrows are raised now, and he wears a delighted smile, looking up at me with the light skin beneath his eyes heightening his look of surprise. 

“Well, I can’t comment on their private life, Claire. But I gotta tell you,” he says, pushing off the desk and turning towards me, penning me in against the side of the Doctor’s desk, “there are quite a few words I’d use to describe Julia, but submissive is not the first to come to mind.”

Huh.

I don’t have much time to ponder that, though, because Gerald is playing with the sash holding my trench coat closed, running his hand up and down its length, toying with the knot at my waist. I feel his tug as though the sash were connected to that ball of fire in my groin, the one that just roared back to life.

“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” he says, not unkindly, his eyes fixed on the knot holding my coat closed. His fingers deftly untie it and pull the sash free, tearing the coat open, exposing my unusual corset, my pale skin peeking through the crisscrossing cords that keep my breasts barely contained. I catch my breath, my flesh spilling over the top of the garment, a rush of moisture dampening my panties under this very tight skirt. He raises a hand and lightly grabs my chin, tilting my face up. He’s grinning again, and it’s hard to think of him as malevolent.

“What are you willing to do for some answers?”

My head is swimming. My skin is on fire, my breasts ache, my pussy has begun to pound in all the familiar ways, and yet this is not the Doctor. There is something about it that is...I don’t know. But the Doctor does not make mistakes. Each appointment has been a challenge, each has tested my boundaries. I’m physically turned on, and apparently I’m not supposed to admit that I actually care for the Doctor.

Gerald lowers his fingers to my neck, and begins to trace a delicate, slow line, down to my clavicle, to the hollow where the bones meet, and then, oh God, further down, into the deep valley between my bound breasts...

“Tell me something about him,” I say.

“What?”

“Something...big.” Gerald’s fingers dance lightly across the top of my left breast, and my eyelids flicker. “Something I’m not supposed to know.”

“Something...big...” His hand drops down, to the hem of my skirt. He works his fingers underneath and slowly, slowly pushes the hem up my leg, his fingers gripping against my hot skin, kneading my flesh. He leans over me now, enjoying the sight of me, panting below him, flushing bright red because of his touch.

He has me pinned against the desk, and I don’t mind. His touch is not the Doctor’s, but it has its own pull. There are too many conflicting things warring for attention in my brain. My desire to know about the Doctor, my desire to come, and my desire to come
with the Doctor
.

I’m almost on the verge of stopping Gerald when he speaks.

“How about this?” he says, whispering into the side of my neck, setting off a new rush of static fire down the length of my body. “She didn’t die of a heart condition, like they said.”

“What?” I’m struggling to rein in my mind, my body, just enough to focus on the conversation.

“She killed herself.”

I’m sucked out of that muddy mess of desire instantaneously, my focus razor sharp. I push Gerald away at the chest, and stumble away from the desk.
She killed herself
. What does that mean? His first submissive, his
wife
, killed herself, and now he, what, tries to make up for it with his “practice”? I don’t want to be part of some sick re-enactment of his relationship with his dead wife, I’m not some sort of doll, some twisted stand-in, so that he can try to make peace with his
dead
wife
. I mean, if that’s all I am...

My chest heaves against the corset in sudden panic. Or grief. Maybe it’s closer to grief.

“Claire?”

“Shut up.”

But that’s not the Doctor I know. The Doctor I know is all about being aware of yourself and your desires, and accepting them, and...and being healthy. And happy. He’s done all these things to help show me how to be happy.

He must have felt so perfectly unlovable.

He must have felt like a failure.

God, that poor woman.

If I thought I knew grief before, the thought of the Doctor living a lonely life all this time, doing his best to help women like me overcome their own sadness and embrace who they are, and yet always feeling he had failed...it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I can’t know if he really cares for me, or if I’m just part of his penance.

“Claire?”

I turn around, doing my best to compose myself. Gerald actually looks concerned, and a little guilty, in a boyish way.

“Don’t turn shy on me.” He smiles. And then he winks. “I’ve been looking forward to your show.”

My show.

I’ve heard the expression “like a slap in the face,” but I always thought it was a little over the top until now. The Doctor told him about my stupid dream of being an artist, and my stupid failures, and the show I’ll never have. He told him. It was so hard for me to admit to the Doctor, and he told this...
stranger.

I suddenly feel like I know where I stand.

“Gerald, please make my apologies.” I cinch my coat closed, hating myself for being unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. And for being stupid enough to think I was special. I won’t even look at Gerald as I turn towards the door.

“Claire!”

But I don’t stick around long enough to hear the rest of his plea. I’m off and picking up speed, trotting along as fast as these stupid heels will carry me, clattering down that elegant staircase, burning with shame. And stupidity. And more shame.

The house that seemed so grand, holding so much promise, now just makes me feel even smaller in comparison. Small, and young, and impossibly naïve.

Pretty much the last thing I want to see waiting for me in the foyer is the Doctor.

Well, last, and also first.

He’s standing there, coat in hand, soft light falling down on his perfectly shaped head, streaks of gray shining amidst the black, blue eyes wide open in surprise. This may be the first time I’ve caught him off guard. He really didn’t expect me to be here. Which means, upstairs, with Gerald, was not part of the plan at all.

I feel sick.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, throwing his coat on a side table. His brow is furrowed, his mouth frowning in concern, his blue eyes shining through all of it. He’s striding towards me before I can reply, catching me at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the small of my back.

God.

“What’s wrong? Are you all right?” His voice is gentle, warm and deep. Not like his Dom voice, although I can hear echoes of it. I want to confess everything to him, and apologize, and then yell at him, and I’m afraid to do all of those things. So much for learning to be fearless.

“Claire.”

“I just met your...
friend.
”

I can’t quite look at him. I know he notices this, I know it’s breaking our cardinal rule.

“Gerald,” I explain, and the Doctor relaxes a bit. I brave a look up at his face, still trained on me, and see the beginnings of a smile. It pisses me off.