Good Bedside Manner - 3 (Patreon)

Covid is still kicking my ass, though thankfully not nearly as badly as it was the first two weeks! Managed to finish this chapter, and I'll be noodling on the Thanksgiving chapter of LMLD next.

Also, I've had a thought recently about a new Patreon incentive--specifically, setting things up so that for every $10 folks spend subscribing, they would get to commission 1,000 words from me. This would be retroactive, too, so long-time patrons would get to commission longer stories! Let me know if this sounds interesting or like something you'd want to take advantage of. If enough folks are down, I'll add it to the membership perks!

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A week after running into Nayeli in the doorway of his aunt’s bakery, Hector was jolted awake from yet another dream about her. Each was different, but equally vivid. As he lay in bed with his heart racing, he could still feel the cool silk of her hair running through his fingers; the soft, doughy press of her body where he touched her; the warmth of her mouth on him, even as the dream faded into memory.

He reached a hand down into the waistband of his pajama pants, relieved to find he hadn’t come in his sleep (...again. The first time that week had felt embarrassing enough), though he was hard enough that it seemed like it had been a close call. He rolled out of bed and headed toward the shower, face hot with shame even though he lived alone. He couldn’t help it—there was something so awkward about waking up from a dream of fucking a woman you’d only met twice and barely knew. His friends would’ve rightfully clowned on him for pining so hard.

The warm water of the shower didn’t do anything to calm him down, instead reminding him of his favorite moment from that night’s dream: Nayeli licking something sweet from his fingers, tongue drawing his fingers deeper into her mouth as she ensured she got every last bit of it, dream-logic assuring him that she was getting heavier with every lick… He took his time in the shower with that dream-memory, grateful it was a weekend and he had nowhere else to be.

He felt more clear-headed once he got out of the shower, but not by much. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way about someone else—high school, maybe? He’d been so focused on his coursework in college and med school that he hadn’t had time to get all that involved with anyone. Dates and hookups, sure, but nothing substantial. He didn’t think of himself as the type to catch feelings for a near-stranger.

Even worse, this stranger was making him feel things he thought he’d let go of in medical school—chiefly, fetishes he believed he’d long since moved on from.

Hector had long since accepted that he liked larger women. He had no real qualms about that; a preference was a preference. No, the problem was that he kept wondering what Nayeli would look like bigger. Dreaming not just of her as she was, but of her growing, pounds heavier and inches wider because he was feeding her.

He shuddered as he finished toweling off and put on clothes. God, he couldn’t believe himself. He knew paraphilias were, to a certain degree, normal. But he’d always hated this kink, even though it had been with him for as long as he could remember. It was manipulative and controlling, dark in a way he had trouble squaring with his morals and how he saw himself. The thought of changing someone so fundamentally and irrevocably just because he wanted it made his stomach churn uncomfortably. Even fantasizing about it felt gross.

Not that he’d only fantasized. He’d experimented with encouraging girls he dated in high school, with all the ethics and subtlety of a horny teenage boy, and he looked back on those memories with horror. (Especially knowing his longest-term girlfriend from high school had been struggling with her weight ever since...) In college, armed with slightly more knowledge and the rush of getting to explore kink spaces as an adult, he’d participated in a handful of pre-negotiated feeding scenes with girls he met online who shared similar interests. It had been hard to enjoy those much. The feeding parts weren’t so bad, but most of those girls had wanted him to take a dominant, punishing role he wasn’t comfortable with. They didn’t want to indulge in the pleasure of food and sex—they wanted food shoved down their throats, with a heavy dose of humiliation, bondage, and pain to go with it. Even though they’d asked for it and knew what they were getting into, it took him weeks to shake the shame and guilt, or the nagging sense that what he was doing was horribly wrong.

No matter how much he tried to tell himself it was fine and he was just being a prudish lapsed Catholic about it all, he couldn’t let it go.

So, he’d stopped. He’d found other things to enjoy—normal things. Things that didn’t make him worry whether he was in his right mind. And things had been fine since then! He hadn’t felt like he was missing out at all. He’d been content with his sex life, especially considering how busy he was with work. He’d spent so long ignoring his old kinks that they didn’t feel like part of him anymore. It was easy to forget.

At least, until he was having dreams about a certain patient stuffing her face until she looked like she might pop and still begging for more. He was backsliding rapidly.

He headed out the door, hoping a ramble around the neighborhood would focus him. He headed a few blocks in one direction, and realized as he started to turn a corner that the whole street was blocked off for a farmer’s market. He figured he’d walk through, say hi to any familiar neighbors he passed, as and then continue his distraction-free walk.

That was before he noticed Nayeli winding her way through the crowd. Because of course she would be there.

She was in a tank top and jean cutoffs, soft arms and thighs out for the world to see, hair down and flowing. She was carrying a couple heavy bags packed with her purchases from the market. Hector walked up to her on autopilot—he couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried. When she noticed him, she smiled, and he could feel himself smiling back. “We can’t keep running into each other like this, Doctor! What will the neighbors say?” She laughed, and he felt drunk on her attention.

“Let them talk,” he said, putting on his best faux-deep telenovela hero voice. “We can’t let a little gossip hold us back!”

That made her laugh again. “It’s funny—I don’t normally come this way. It’s kind of far from my apartment, but I was in the mood for a walk today.”

“Same, actually. Usually I’m at the gym around this time, and by the time I’m done, the market’s all packed up.”

She took a beat, then said, “Well, if you’d still like to get a little workout in—wanna take one of these off my hands and walk me home?”

Hector was surprised by that, and by the flirtatiousness in her tone, though not ungrateful at the thought of more time with her. But he waited a beat too long to answer.

“Sorry—I don’t mean to come off as, like, too forward or anything, and the whole doctor/patient thing, and—you know, forget I said—oh.” She stopped as he gently took one of her bags, their hands brushing for a moment.

“I’d be more than happy to walk you home.” He knew better than to flirt with a patient like this, but desire was in the driver’s seat, and logic was locked securely in the trunk.

They talked and flirted the whole way. They drifted closer  and closer as they walked, until her hip kept bumping against his. By the time they made it to her building, he felt warm all the way through. He went to hand her the bag he’d been carrying, but she shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Tch, coming all this way just to make me carry everything inside by myself? How rude.” The look in her eyes blazed over him, like she could see through his clothes. His mouth went dry. “Be a gentleman and come upstairs.”

“Wouldn’t want to be ungentlemanly,” he managed to say as he followed her into the building and right to the elevator.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, they both went in for a kiss. Hector was so lost in it that when the elevator arrived on her floor and she pulled away, he was actually gasping. It took him a dazed moment to remember he still needed to follow her, and he had to slip past the closing elevator door. She was grinning at him from further up the hallway, walking backwards just so she could watch him, and his knees felt so weak he wondered if he might have to crawl to her door.

Once they made it inside, she set both market bags down in her little studio kitchen and tugged him by the hand towards her bed. She sat them both down beside each other, her hands moving to the waistband of his jeans. He moved to take off her tank top, hands skimming against her skin, giving the plushness of her waist a squeeze as he went. No—be normal, he told himself. Nayeli was too good for him to ruin this with weird kink shit.

You can be normal, can’t you?