Witching Hour

Patrick places a cup of tea in your hands. It warms your cold fingers as you hold it. 

“That should settle your nerves. We need to gradually warm up your body,” he explains, sitting across from you.

You take a long drink, feeling the warmth rush through your body. He’s placed a blanket around your shoulders.

“Dr. Sumner, I-I apologise-”

“My dear,” he begins softly. “You fainted. It is my duty as a physician.”  

He always knows what you need to hear, your gentle doctor. Even so desperate for money as you were, you had your anxieties about living with a man, especially a bachelor with such a shrouded past. But you’ve come to trust Patrick like family, letting him guide you through life with his experienced hand. He had come to your rehearsal this afternoon, providing his much needed medical assistance to your struggling sisters and their aching feet. You had overworked yourself and fainted, and though you wanted to continue dancing that day, Patrick would not let you. 

His eyes spy your feet in the oversized boots you so often wear.

“May I help you?” he offers.

“Oh, yes, please.”

He kneels before you and sees your rehearsal shoes are still on, the dainty blush coloured ribbons tied above the top of the boots. His careful fingers untie the laces and gingerly pull each of your feet out. He rotates your ankle and sees a blood stain at the heel. 

He looks up at you.

“It is an old stain, sir,” you explain. 

“You have no need to call me sir, my girl,” he says softly. 

“But Doctor-”

“Patrick,” he repeats. 

“Patrick,” you whisper. 

He unties the ribbons and watches them flutter down to the floor. He easily slips off your slippers, seeing the unfortunate state of your poor aching feet. 

You’ve been drinking your tea like a good patient, and as you take the last sip you blink slowly.

“Doctor- Patrick… I think I should get to sleep,” you mumble. 

“Are you feeling faint again?” he feigns concern for you, coming to your side to catch your head before it falls.

“No, I… I am so exhausted…”

“We should get you out of these wet clothes, sweet girl.” 

You nod absently, allowing him to peel the blanket away from your shoulders. He is careful and slow, freeing your body from the thin fabric of your leotard. He admires your damp skin, the way the candles make you glow.

Before long your beautiful face is taken by a laudanum sleep. A soft smile dances over his own face at the sight. Peaceful. Graceful, even with no control over yourself. 

He peels the fabric further, exposing your chest. Your nipples have hardened to small peaks in the softness of your breasts. Your body reflects the temperature of the cold evening air rushing in through the window. The curtain waves softly with the wind, like your long skirts when you twirl on the stage.

You are like a spinning figurine in a music box to him. Fortified by the wooden walls, but fragile and breakable. He can only clutch the box to his chest for so long.

Patrick can’t keep you from the men who come into the home you share, where you are safe from wickedness. He feels ill as you invite them in, with your doe eyes and sweet voice. You make yourself small and call them sir. That word should be reserved exclusively for him. Even in his anger, Patrick examines them. He is diligent in preventing disease. They hand you dirty coins— wrinkled bills if you are lucky— and take you to your bedroom. 

Patrick cleans the mattress as often as he can, and cleans you frequently. You must not catch sickness and you cannot be pregnant. Not with one of these men. The son of a half-witted sailor who cannot even read. Not when he is here. 

Patrick has no desire for a family. You are enough to take care of. There is a yearning for companionship he has always had. He knows what he feels for you is not love, but rather that biological imperative, the hand of manhood that guides him toward the roles of father and husband. 

He hears you with them. He listens to you from the hall, taking his pipe and biting down on the wood until he can hear it splinter between his molars. A whore would moan falsely, but your noises are painfully real. Your winces of pain and fear leave him stiff in his trousers and shaking with anger. 

He would never hurt you. The pain of doing such a thing would be unbearable. The men, however, have gotten precisely what was coming to them.

You’re safe now in his careful embrace. He wipes the sweat and sadness from you with a wet towel, the steam rising from your skin as he swipes it along. At long last the leotard is pulled down your legs and hung over the back of a chair to dry. He returns to you, parts your thighs, and sighs. This is home. The patch of curled hair between your legs that demurely covers your honeypot is where he feels the most safe. His fingers trace the shape of your mound. 

Even in that deep laudanum spell you stir, your hips tilting up ever so slightly. Your unconscious mind saying yes, doctor, and more, please. 

He spreads your folds cautiously, finding you wet and wanting already. You’re so good to him. He whispers a soft praise and glances up to see no change in your face. He pushes one digit in, pumping it back and forth to collect as much of your slick as he can. Another finger slips in beside the first with a pleasing squelch. 

If he was a less composed man he would dive down and indulge, but he remains level-headed. He cannot deny that your feminine musk is tempting. It would be the sweetest distilled spirit straight from the source. 

Instead, he opts to rub your glistening pearl with his thumb in leisurely circles. He watches the subtle twitches in your face and pays particular attention to the clenching of your cunt around his two digits. Perfect. Pristine. There is such a grace and precision to your movement that Patrick thinks for a moment that you were born a ballerina.

The added stimulation has sweat beading at your brow and your fingers almost succeeding at grasping the blanket below you. Your back arches slightly. Perhaps his dosage was too low. He’ll dress you and craft a story to make you seem like the lascivious one. That he was helping you to undress when you reached for his touch and begged him to kiss you. 

You gasp suddenly— it’s the first noise he’s heard from you since your eyes closed. You whine and twist as much as you can. He watches the rush of slick that follows and internally curses. What a bloody waste. He could have been on his knees to catch it in his mouth and let it soak into his beard. 

He slips out his fingers and wipes them on his trousers. Not yet. He needs you to be awake when he tastes you. He crawls up and presses a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth.

“Let us get you to bed, sweet girl.”

-

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