Doctored

by K'Anne Meinel

  Madison loved the feel of Deanna’s weight on her, her fingers clasped the doctor’s buttocks to her as she ravished her lips, her tongue probing deeply to fence with the blonde’s. She gentled the kiss by sucking on the tongue offered to her.

  “God, I want you,” Deanna admitted.

  “Take me home,” Madison breathed. All these months had built up to this. She had thought of making love to Deanna time and time again. She knew, despite her fears, that she wanted to be with her.

  “You want to go home?” she queried, confused again.

  “Take me to your home,” she clarified, her hand reaching for Deanna’s to press between her legs. “You’ve started something and I need you to finish it,” she whispered.

  “Just a moment,” she gulped as she closed her eyes, feeling the heat beneath the palm of her hand. She sat up and made sure her dress was in place before pushing the button to lower the wall that separated the front from the back. “Could you take us to my house?” she asked the driver. At his nod, she pushed the button again to raise the separator. She looked down again at Madison, her Maddie, in her arms and looking up at her with lust-filled eyes. “Are you sure?” she asked gently.

  “Yes, take me,” she answered and leaned up to pull Deanna’s head down to kiss her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Madison woke and could tell it was early. The sun was trying to come in the large windows, but it was the angle of the sun that told her it was still early. For a moment she was disoriented as she looked around the huge room she was in. As she looked at the bed hangings, she panicked for a moment. Had she gone home with someone…then she remembered. She was in Deanna’s home. She was in Deanna’s bed. She looked around at the four-poster. It was amazing how the rich maple finish matched the walls of the bedroom. It was obviously an old piece, as was everything she could see in the room, all antiques. She looked around in the light of the early morning and could see the apparent affluence. She hadn’t really noticed the night before, but then, she’d had other things on her mind.

  Deanna had been so tender to her, so loving. Madison had practically ripped her dress off in her haste to be naked with her. She’d dreamed of this. She’d finally admitted to fantasizing about the good doctor all these years. Deanna was very physically fit, with a little paunch that surprised Madison as she caressed the body, almost a middle-age paunch. She didn’t dwell on it long as her fingers touched and caressed and probed in response to Deanna’s own caresses and touches. She could only think about getting closer, to feel her against her own skin, to love her…love. Deanna had admitted to loving her!

  Madison sat up in the luxurious bed. What was she going to do? Did she love Deanna again? Yes, she admitted that to herself, she’d always loved her. It was only her own foolishness that had torn them apart so long ago. She could admit that too, since she was being honest with herself. Having Deanna back in her life was wonderful. That a brilliant, beautiful, and accomplished woman such as Deanna Kearney could love her simply amazed Madison. She looked around the room again…such opulence. There was even a chandelier in the bedroom! How fancy! Could she get used to this? She realized then she was thinking about a future with Deanna.

  Could she openly live with a woman? What would her friends say? What would her coworkers say? She’d lose their respect! She knew what Scott would say. She knew what her mother would say. Her children adored Deanna though. Wasn’t she allowed to have some happiness in her life? Could Deanna make her happy? That was an easy yes, she could. Madison knew she wasn’t interested in Deanna’s money, not in the least. She loved the woman, the amazing and dazzling woman that was Deanna Kearney.

  “Oh, God, Kearney Pharmaceuticals,” she moaned to herself. Anyone in their right mind would think she was a gold digger. She hadn’t known that Deanna was a Kearney when she originally fell in love with her though. She had thought she was a Cooper. That hadn’t bothered her in the least ten, almost eleven years ago. It shouldn’t bother her now.

  She did admit that people and what they thought still bothered her. Could she get over that? It was what she had allowed to break them up so long ago. She hadn’t been strong enough to go against what people would think if they found out two women were in love. Was she stronger now? Times had changed. Wasn’t it more acceptable nowadays? Was she looking for justification?

  Her thoughts were interrupted as the door to the master bedroom was opened. “Mom?” a voice called. In walked a young boy who looked curiously at Madison who was hiding her nudity in the sheets. “Oh, pardon me,” he excused himself. “I’m looking for my mother.”

  “Your mother?” Madison asked, curious, studying his mullato features. She began to realize who his mother must be when Deanna walked in the room.

  “Roman, Aura has breakfast for you downstairs,” she said firmly as she sidestepped the young man.

  “I’m sorry for my intrusion, ma’am,” he said courteously with a little bow as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Deanna turned, carrying a tray with coffee, juice, and two plates on it. She began to chew on her lip as she came closer to the bed, walking around a large chest at the foot of it.

  “Is that your son?” Madison asked the obvious question as she looked at Deanna carefully. She was already dressed for the day in slacks and what looked like a silk blouse.

  Deanna set the tray down on the bed. Bowing her head slightly, she nodded. “Yes, I named him Roman.”

  “You’ve been married?” she asked surprised. They hadn’t talked about anything like that and she knew she would have remembered if they had. She wondered how old the boy was, he seemed so…mature.

  Deanna shook her head as she looked up slightly. “Do you want some breakfast?” she asked instead.

  “I’m curious…” Madison began, but Deanna cut her off.

  “Could we talk about it after breakfast? I’m starved.”

  Madison nodded and reached for the coffee, only it wasn’t coffee, it was hot chocolate. It brought back instant memories of Africa and Mamadu.

  The breakfast was painfully quiet. Instead of loving it was awkward, and they both picked at the plates of eggs and bacon Deanna had brought up. Madison caught Deanna absentmindedly pulling on her eyebrow a couple of times. The last time, she brought her hand up and said, “Don’t.”

  Deanna looked at her, then at the hand touching her own, and she stopped immediately. She shrugged in an almost ashamed manner.

  “We’re not making much headway here are we?” she finally asked, indicating the breakfast.

  Madison had to agree with her. “I need to get dressed.”

  “I brought you some clothes. I thought you wouldn’t want to wear the dress home.”

  Madison was pleased with the thought and then gasped, “My children…I never said I was going to stay out all night!”

  “I called your babysitter and explained we had car trouble and you would be spending the night at my house. I said that you would be home in the morning. It’s only 7:30,” she pointed out.

  “Car trouble? In a limo?”

  Deanna shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with. I didn’t want her, or them, to worry.”

  Madison was grateful for that and pushed aside the plate of food she had barely eaten and went to get out of the bed. It was then she realized how naked she was. “Um,” she began.

  Deanna realized her dilemma immediately. She grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed and shoved it Madison’s way before turning with the tray and giving her some privacy. She put the tray on a table in the room and by the time she turned back Madison had entered her bathroom and closed the door. She sighed. She had awoken with so many hopes and dreams. To have Madison back in her bed had been a big break. She had imagined they would talk everything out this morning.

  When Madison returned to the bedroom, the bed was already made, the tray gone and Deanna was sitting in a rocking chair in the large bedroom. She looked up as the redhead came out of the bathroom. �
��We should talk,” she said, indicating another chair that looked comfortable.

  “I should get home,” Madison answered, feeling uneasy and sensing she wasn’t going to like this.

  “This won’t take long,” the doctor answered, feeling hurt.

  Madison sensed the hurt in Deanna and wondered at it. She took a deep breath and asked, “So, your son, is he adopted?”

  Deanna shook her head. “No, he’s nine and he’s all mine.”

  Madison frowned at her, putting the numbers together and coming up with… “Then you got pregnant…”

  “I was raped, Maddie,” she said quietly. She pushed Madison back in her chair when she would have gotten up to comfort her. “You need to hear this.” She looked at the redhead with fearful eyes. “Roman knows the circumstances of his birth,” she added, “just not all the details. I’d prefer it that way.”

  Madison waited where she was, held at first by Deanna’s touch, and now by the pain she saw in her beautiful blue eyes.

  “After you and the others left, we were a mobile medical clinic. We were on the run for a very long time. We were always under the threat of being overrun by guerillas fighting in the area. They decided we should pull out and evacuate. It was too late though and they captured us. Dr. Burton was killed defending me and my honor, of all things. Dr. Wilson was tortured and he is now in a clinic in Switzerland as a patient…permanently. They didn’t let us go, but we managed to escape a week later. I found out I was pregnant three months later when I was trying to work in the Amazon. I had to get out of Africa, away from the memories....” She looked at Madison searchingly. “I couldn’t get rid of the persistent flu-like symptoms that I had. I couldn’t believe my eyes at the results of the blood test I took. I prayed I’d miscarry, but it wasn’t to be. Against all the odds and sickness so great I should have died.” At this, Madison again tried to rise, but Deanna held her arms down on the arms of the chair as she leaned in to tell her the story.

  “Did you want to die?” Madison asked softly, the hurt she was seeing in Deanna’s eyes was real.

  Deanna nodded. “I’d lost you and then with what happened…” her voice broke. The tears in her eyes welled up. She swallowed and lifted the back of her hand to wipe at the tears.

  “Shhh, don’t cry, don’t cry…If you don’t want to finish it’s okay,” she tried to tell her, tried to take her in her arms and comfort her.

  Shaking her head, the blonde refused. “No, I want you to know,” she swallowed. Finding reserves of strength, she continued. “I stayed for a while in South America….”

  “With her?” Madison asked, feeling jealous and unable to control it. She’d always felt it though, that woman had inspired love in Deanna long before Madison had met her.

  Deanna looked at Madison through the tears, seeing all the insecurities that had plagued her. Swallowing back the last of her own anxieties over this relationship, she bravely continued on. “Yes, she nursed me back to health. I stayed there until Roman was a little boy, until my mother insisted I come home. I lied a little to you about coming home first, my father and sister died only a few years ago, not ten like I said. With my father and sister gone, they needed me to organize the foundation. She also wanted to meet her grandson. My sister’s kids are spoiled, elitist brats. They are simply waiting for their trust funds to kick in. Little do they know that I am in charge of them. They tried to make my life hell when I stayed with my mother. They were cruel to Roman until I moved out. I couldn’t stay, I was restless.” She let Madison go and got up to pace.

  “We had so much to work out and I didn’t have to stay. They wanted a board of directors…I didn’t want to give up my family’s autonomy. I wanted to go back to the jungles, but how could I do that to Roman? I didn’t want to do that to her again. She’d saved my sanity when I might have done something foolish, and for what? My virtue?”

  “Did you consider suicide?” Madison gasped, realizing she could have lost Deanna and never have known.

  Deanna paused in her pacing and looked at Madison. “That, and worse,” she confessed.

  “What is worse?” she wondered, but didn’t realize that she had spoken until the blonde answered her.

  “There are freedom fighters and I wanted to kill the bastards who did that to me. I don’t even know who my son’s father was because of what they did. I couldn’t let anyone touch me for so long…” she sobbed.

  This time Madison didn’t wait, she got up and pulled Deanna into her arms. She would never have guessed. This confidant and intense woman had been so strong for so long, she hadn’t ever thought she had weak moments. “It’s understandable you wanted them to pay for what they did…” she began.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Deanna pushed her back to hold her at arm’s length. “A doctor saves lives, she doesn’t take them. I was thinking of things I could do to them, to all of them. It would have hurt a lot of innocents too, but I didn’t care. I was half a world away and I was thinking chemical warfare!”

  Madison was startled by the vehemence she saw in Deanna’s eyes. The blue had turned almost a crystal white. She was angry and hurt and oh so vulnerable at the moment. “But you didn’t,” she said softly.

  “Only because they wouldn’t let me leave. They made me work, made me use my skills until my mind returned to me and I realized I would never be able to find the man who was responsible, the men who did…” her voice broke again.

  Madison wondered briefly what exactly they had done to her and then dismissed it. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Deanna was here now, she was better, and she hoped she had left that in the past. “You have Roman. Are you ashamed of him?”

  “Of Roman?” she asked incredulous. “Of course not. He’s my joy!” she said proudly. “He isn’t a child protégée, thank goodness,” she added as an afterthought. “But he is smart in his own way and proud to be a Kearney. He doesn’t want to be a doctor,” she laughed. “He says it’s too time-consuming. He wants to be a businessman and run Kearney Pharmaceuticals someday. The Foundation, he says, is in good hands until he is old enough and experienced enough to take it on.” She smiled as she repeated his words. “Not bad for a nine-year-old, eh?”

  “No, not bad at all,” Madison smiled back at her. She had a flash of her own children, wondering if she didn’t push them enough.

  “Well, that’s the story I kept from you,” Deanna finished with a big sniff as she wiped her leaking eyes on her sleeve and her runny nose on the back of her wrist. “Oh, excuse me,” she said as she ran to the bathroom, leaving the door open to grab a tissue and blow her nose. She washed her hands up to her elbows to get rid of the snot, shaking her head at herself. She, of all people, should know better. She grabbed a washcloth and wiped her eyes, removing the last vestiges of her makeup from them. She looked into the mirror. She could see where she was missing spots of eyelashes and eyebrows, and sighed. The stress had been getting to her recently. She needed to get out of that hospital, it was getting to her.

  “Are you okay?” Madison asked from the doorway where she was watching her.

  “I’m fine,” Deanna answered, knowing there were so many meanings to that phrase and she’d heard them all from her patients over the years. She herself had been ‘fine’ many times over the years. She took a deep breath, centering herself, and released it slowly, expelling the bad karma she had invoked with her memories. She did this several times until she felt her normal self. When she had her equilibrium back, she looked up once again at Madison and asked, “Do you want to go?”

  Madison nodded. She had watched Deanna pull herself together amazingly well. It only strengthened her awe of this woman. After going through God only knew how much, she had come out the other side. People thought her blessed for her brilliant mind, but this, this was the real Deanna Kearney. She still thought of her as Doctor Cooper, but she wasn’t. She hadn’t been that young and carefree woman for a long time.

  They left the bedroom hand in hand. Madi
son looked at Deanna frequently, hoping to convey her sympathy, her pride, and that she was there for her if she wanted to discuss any more with her. She wouldn’t pry, she’d never repeat it, but she did have questions.

  “Hey, Mom, are we…?” the boy came to a skidding halt on the socks he was wearing in the large foyer at the bottom of the enormous staircase they were descending.

  Madison didn’t remember the stairs from the previous night, but then she’d been fogged up about a lot of things, caught up in a lust that only Deanna could assuage.

  “Roman, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.” She pulled Madison forward to her side, proudly. “Madison this is my son, Roman…Roman Kearney. Roman, this is Madison…” she began, but he excitedly interrupted her.

  “MacGregor? This is the Maddie of your stories?” he asked with obvious joy on his face.

  Madison looked surprised and turned to Deanna. Deanna just smiled and nodded at her son. “Yes, Roman, this is the Maddie of my stories,” she confirmed gently. “It’s rude to interrupt though. She prefers to be called Madison now.”

  “My apologies, Ms. MacGregor,” the boy said formally, back to the well-mannered kid she had met in the bedroom. Remembering she had been nude under those covers in the bedroom, she blushed slightly as she nodded.

  “My mom speaks of you often when she tells me about Africa and her time in Mamadu,” he continued almost as formally.

  There was a loud crash in one of the rooms off the foyer where they were standing and Deanna suddenly asked, “Where is Spot?”

  The boy looked guilty. “We were playing and I forgot,” he began and quickly left on slippery socks to see what the cat had gotten into.

  Deanna tried hard not to laugh and failed, a slight snort came out and Madison looked at her in surprise. The boy obviously delighted her. There was no hint of the sad tale she had told her up in the bedroom, no hint of the anxiety or utter desolation she had indulged in, however briefly. “Come on, I better get you home before you see my cat and run away in terror.” She tugged at the hand she was holding and Madison realized that the boy hadn’t even noticed they had been holding hands, or if he had, he had accepted it.