{"id":634,"date":"2010-08-09T14:06:31","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T20:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/?p=634"},"modified":"2010-08-09T14:06:31","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T20:06:31","slug":"130-the-arms-of-the-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/2010\/08\/130-the-arms-of-the-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"(130) The Arms of the Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am always amused about the little steps we train ourselves to take. There are muscle memories we reinforce, and, well, I once heard a speaker explain that every cell in our body had its own memory. (My favourite Niven story is “The Fourth Profession<\/em>,” so I’m aware of the RNA idea.) I didn’t quite believe her at the time, but as I put my keys down in the cup (it’s a ceramic octopus) by the door, I nearly laughed aloud because, well, it wasn’t like this was an ordinary situation. I would normally shuffle out of my pants right now, too, but that particular phase I was able to skip.<\/p>\n

“E!” I was suddenly caught up in a hug that crushed my breathing apparatus. Um, I mean to say my lungs and ribs and all of that thoracic stuff. I hadn’t been suddenly replaced by an alien. Brain tired words hard synapse take strange route.<\/p>\n

You know what I mean.<\/p>\n

I extricated myself carefully (without bringing in anything like the Jaws of Life) from Rohana’s glomp. I tried to get the oxygenation process restarted with the minimum of grunts and coughing.<\/p>\n

I referred to the open door with a wave of my left hand in its general direction.<\/p>\n

“Grapevine had it you were in bad straits. But I knew you’d come back here, and well,” she kissed me.<\/p>\n

Wow, did she kiss me.<\/p>\n

I know I was addled and my brain wasn’t receiving correctly, but I was pretty sure that was a kiss that was measured on the Richter scale. Someone in Boulder was watching a little needle bounce because of it. Stars exploded somewhere near the core of the universe. I hadn’t been kissed like that since…<\/p>\n

…I couldn’t remember if I ever had been kissed like that. I remember her hands were at my neck and my hair and she was pulling herself up against me (she is a bit shorter than me) and soft and words start to go away. Bye-bye, words. Nice knowing you.<\/p>\n

I was still trying to remember basic math skills to see if I was about to pass out (I had forgotten my name, where I was, how to talk… all those pertinent details, but I remembered something about an equation where breathing was involved) when it ended.<\/p>\n

“Was that a real King of something big out there?” she asked me, kind of pressed against my chest. “He said he was. Then he laughed fire.”<\/p>\n

“Uh-huh,” I managed. I felt my arms wrap around her, as if they fit there. They did, I noted. It felt nice.<\/p>\n

“Was he a Dragon?” she asked, very, very quietly.<\/p>\n

“Uh-huh.” I took a deep breath. “Are you?”<\/p>\n

She laughed and pulled away a little, one of her arms snaking around my waist as I slid my right hand away to give her space. “No, no, no. I don’t even really give myself a title. Maggie calls me a healer, but I’ve got very little, you know, talent. I’m learning. A little reiki here. I try to make people feel better.”<\/p>\n

I smiled. <\/p>\n

She put a finger on my lips. “I know what you’re thinking.” She rolled her eyes.<\/p>\n

“Oh, telepathic, too?” I grinned. I shut the door with a kick. <\/p>\n

“The best thing about it, is that it’s the same thing I’m thinking,” she said, and she pulled me in the direction of the bedroom.<\/p>\n

“But Brain, where are we going to find a dozen cans of whipped yak cream and a sponge?” I mock-protested. It might not have been the best example, and certainly non-canonical to the show, but it worked. At least she giggled.<\/p>\n

I would be lying if I said it was the most amazing sexual experience of my life. I would also be lying if I said it wasn’t perfect. It was just what I needed, exhausted, drained, and then, somehow less so. It was as if I was made more, made whole, you know, healed. Giving and taking in equal consideration, and different enough from the almost angry sex Maggie and I had been having towards the end… too much to process then. Then I was told to, “Stop thinking,” a few times, and, “Enjoy.”<\/p>\n

Yes, ma’am.<\/p>\n

There were funny moments. I had no idea where I had put the condoms, and after some awkward drawer opening and excavations with one hand, she had some in her pack. She kicked me in the ribs once, I nearly backhanded her getting twisted up in the top sheet. <\/p>\n

I hoped I didn’t look smug or desperate, as either would have been criminal. I know we both smiled a lot.<\/p>\n

She fell asleep after setting a combination of alarms on a variety of devices. “It’s kind of my thing,” she explained. “I can’t sleep until I do it, and I won’t wake up if I don’t,” she grinned. Then she kissed me on the forehead. “You, sleep.”<\/p>\n

I did. I don’t think I had any dreams.<\/p>\n

When I woke up, she was still there. I reached out and touched her arm. She grabbed my hand and held it to her, like it was some kind of teddy bear. I took it as an invitation to move closer, and fell back asleep.<\/p>\n

When I woke up a second time, she was gone. I hadn’t heard the alarms, but I smelled a faint hint of shampoo still in the air. A towel was spread over the back of one of the chairs in the living room, almost like a caress. I don’t know, maybe I was feeling super-sentimental. It was all sweet and soft somehow.<\/p>\n

On my bathroom mirror was a note. “Dinner 6:30p. I drive. Dress fancy-schmancy.”<\/p>\n

After a long shower I found where I had stuffed my phone partially under the bed and tied up in my pants. I had two missed calls and one voicemail. One was from an unknown number, so I ignored it. <\/p>\n

I leaned back and sighed. The second was from Sylvia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“But Brain, where are we going to find a dozen cans of whipped yak cream and a sponge?” I mock-protested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-seven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}