Scotty Says:

     Would have posted this the other day, if not for tech troubles.   Oh
well...

TITLE: HEARSAY, part II of III
AUTHOR: Scott J. Welles
ARCHIVE: Yes, but please write and tell me where.
CATEGORY: f/f Slash
SPOILERS: Yep.  Big ones for end of Season 7.  Takes place just after
"Rampage".
RATING: NC-17
SUMMARY:  Strange bedfellows indeed....
DISCLAIMER: All "ER" characters and institutions are the property of Warner
Bros., ConstantC Productions and Amblin Television.  This is written
strictly for entertainment value, no infringement of copyright or ownership
is intended, and nobody is making a profit on this piece.  As always, any
errors in continuity, characterization, or common sense are entirely my own
fault.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Scotty Says 'Thanks!' to everyone who sent glowing feedback on part one,
Apologies to those in Whatever_Weaver_Wants for not replying individually;
I'm receiveing that group's posts in digest mode, and it's difficult to make
specific replies.  But it's all appreciated, folks!
   A note I should perhaps have added in the first part: both characters in
this story have strong opinions on the subjects of lesbianism and coming
out, but this story isn't intended as a definitive statement on the subject
on my part, one way or another.  I'm just trying to capture the opinions I
think these characters would have.  No offense is intended, in any event,
but if you think I've got it wrong, discussion is welcome.
   (All the above may go without saying, but I'm saying it anyway, just to
be certain.)

SEND ALL COMMENTS (positive or negative) to scottjwelles@yahoo.com



Hearsay, by Scott J. Welles


Part Two...

Making love with Kim was as different from having sex with Christie as
basking in sunlight was from huddling by a bonfire at night.  Both warmed
and nourished, but one was calm and steady and even, while the other was
raging and barely controllable.  It grew as you fed it, giving back as much
as it received, but it would burn you if you got too close.

Where Kim explored, Christie invaded.  Where Kim cherished, Christie
conquered.  She was as insistent as she was insatiable, and much of Kerry's
participation in bed was to hold on for dear life.

After removing Kerry's clothes, Christie had pushed her back onto the
mattress and dived in without ceremony.  Kerry clutched helplessly at the
woman's head between her legs, gasping and moaning in physical need as
Christie's tongue thrust into her, plundering her sex mercilessly.  Christie
shrugged out of her own clothes without moving from where she lay between
Kerry's thighs, and was fully naked by the time Kerry came again.

Then, without lifting her lips, she kissed her way up Kerry's body, hands
scouting ahead, breasts dragging along behind, thrilling Kerry on five
fronts at once.  Their bodies meshed together, legs entwining, as Christie
kissed her again.  One arm went around Kerry's neck, pulling her face
closer, the other went around her waist, pressing her belly up against
Christie's.  Her tongue pressed possessively into Kerry's mouth, as though
asserting a claim on her new territory.

"So fucking good," she whispered raggedly, coming up for air.  Kerry felt
Christie's pelvis grinding into her own, her wetness on Christie's thigh
matching Christie's on hers.  Their hardened nipples slid over and against
each other's as Christie writhed above her.  She felt the rising climax in
the other woman's body mere moments before Christie came, pressing her groin
insistently against Kerry's hipbone.  She let out a groan of pure
satisfaction and collapsed on top of Kerry.

What am I doing? Kerry asked herself helplessly.  How did I end up in bed
with this woman?

"Kim always had good taste in women," Christie said, bringing her lips again
to Kerry's face, "but I always forget how much they taste good."  Without
waiting for response, she bit and licked at Kerry's throat, eagerly
devouring the salty skin as she descended again.  Kerry clutched handfuls of
Christie's hair as her mouth engulfed Kerry's right nipple once more,
sucking it even harder.  Kerry had never been with anyone so aggressive, so
dominant in bed before; men like that tended to turn her off, and Kim's
loving gentleness had been nothing like this.  But Christie, the obnoxious,
insensitive bitch... God, she felt good...

Christie's hands slipped under Kerry's hips and clasped her buttocks firmly,
lifting them up to meet Christie's mouth, and Kerry surrendered herself
again to the sensations of oral sex applied with a vengeance.  She cried out
once as Christie's grip hurt her leg, but Christie either didn't notice or
didn't care.  Kerry pushed the pain away, refusing to yield to it.  Beyond
that, she could only let out gasps and squeaks of unwilling delight as
Christie ate her and ate her and ate her...

"Kim," she gasped involuntarily, "oh god, Kim..."

Mention of the tall blonde woman's name only served to fuel Christie's
efforts at burrowing inside Kerry, and it wasn't much longer before Kerry
was driven into a third orgasm, this one a truly shattering climax that
threatened to rend her limb from limb in its sheer power.  She screamed out
inarticulately, spine twisting, and somehow managed to sustain her climax
for several long heartbeats before it escaped from her and flew out into the
ether.

She fell back on the sweat-soaked sheets, one arm covering her eyes so she
wouldn't have to look Christie in the face and admit what a powerful effect
she'd had on Kerry.  How could she have let this happen?  How could a woman
who inspired such resentment in her provide such an incredible sexual
experience?

Christie crawled up beside her and lay on her back.  "You never entirely get
over her, believe me," she said hoarsely, referring to Kim.  "I was thinking
about her, too, if you want to know the truth."

Kerry turned away, on her side.  Her embarrassment at having yielded her
body to Christie was compounded by having cried out another name.  That was
bad form in bed, no matter what.

Clearing her throat, Christie added, "It's always been my experience,
though, that the next best thing to sleeping with a friend is sleeping with
an enemy.  Either way, the emotions run high, and the sex is intense."  She
chuckled.  "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you
hate."

Kerry said nothing, feeling at once satiated and violated.  It wasn't
Christie who she blamed for the latter, though.  It was her own self, her
true self, whoever that was.  Never able to commit to the parameters she set
for herself...

"I didn't come here intending to sleep with you, Kerry," Christie went on,
breaking into her thoughts.  "But I don't believe in passing up an
opportunity when it presents itself.  Never know when you'll get another
one."  She curled up against Kerry's back, reaching both hands around to cup
Kerry's breasts.

Kerry endured her touch silently, her fervent wish to recoil from Christie's
presence outweighed only by the loneliness that awaited without her.

"You know, you don't have to do all the talking," Christie said.  "At least
let me get a word in edgewise, can't you?"

"What do you want me to say?" Kerry mumbled, wondering if this was the
strange new direction her sex life was destined to take.  "I just allowed a
woman I can't stand to fuck me.  Who's next, that Lori woman?"

Christie reacted with a bitter laugh.  "Forget that slut, she's just some
rebound girl.  She'll be history within a month."

Oh, so she's not entitled to the same respect and support that you came here
to show me?  Kerry didn't voice the thought, reflecting how inconsistently
Christie's claims of solidarity were applied.  "Why exactly are you here,
Christie?" she said out loud.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, why this sudden interest in me?  You made it clear at our last
meeting that you didn't think much of me then.  Now you've designated
yourself my new best friend.  What's that about?"

"I told you.  I'm here to thank you for coming out to your boss.  I'm just
sorry I didn't bring you a toaster."

"Is that all?  Because I 'came out', you're suddenly my cheering section?"
Kerry snorted and pushed Christie's hands away.  "Why does this have to be
about 'coming out'?  Why can't anyone see it as 'standing up'?  For years,
I've been trying to stand up for what's right, and all I get is complaints
about it!  Why doesn't that mean anything to anybody?"

"Oh, right," Christie drawled.  "It was all out of nobility, is that it?
Had nothing to do with sticking up for your girlfriend?"

"No, it didn't," Kerry snapped at her.  "I'd have done the same for any
staff member who was unfairly discriminated against."

"Come on, Kerry.  You telling me you weren't hoping you could impress Kim
and get her back by making a big sacrifice for her sake?"

Kerry rolled over, facing Christie squarely.  "No," she stated.   "I've lost
her.  I had already accepted that.  But it's not right for her to lose her
job just because she's gay.  You don't treat people that way.  Doesn't
matter if I'm gay or straight, I won't stand for it."

The younger woman propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at Kerry's
face with a cynical smile.  "I like you, Kerry," she said.   "You're a total
Cleopatra, but I like you."

"A what?"

"Cleopatra.  You know, as in Queen Of..."

Oh.  Ha ha.  "Well, then I'm sorry to say this, Christie," she said, sitting
up and gathering the sheet around herself, "but I don't like you.  You can
talk all you want about supporting my coming out, but I think you really
came here to rub my nose in it.  To say, 'see, Kerry, you're gay whether you
like it or not'."

The half-mocking smile faded from Christie's face, all traces of it
disappearing for the first time since Kerry had met her.

"Maybe I'm being ungrateful, or violating some kind of lesbian etiquette by
saying so, but I don't care.  I think you're a petty, shallow little woman
with an axe to grind, who can't feel secure unless she's cutting someone
else down."

Christie looked at her, taken aback, her mouth open but no words coming out.
Then she gave a scornful little laugh.  "Well," she said, "I guess there
won't be any U-Hauls in our future, huh?"

"You could learn a thing or two from Kim," Kerry added.  "She doesn't hide
who she is, and she's fine with it.  But she doesn't need to belittle anyone
else to feel good about herself.  I wish you could have that kind of
confidence."  And I wish I could, too.

Christie sat up and swung her feet to the floor, sitting naked at the edge
of the bed with her back to Kerry.  "Who the fuck are you to talk to me like
that?" she spat over her shoulder.  "You don't know me, you don't know what
I've been through.  You pissy little ball-buster, with your
go-along-to-get-along attitude...you probably still wish you could take it
back, don't you?  Tell them you're not a lesbian after all..."

"God, I hate that," Kerry hissed.  "That insistent pressure to label myself.
Like everything else I might be is subordinate to my sex life."

"Oh, don't give me that...!"

"Nobody else is required to declare themselves a 'negro doctor', or a
'Jewish doctor'.  And why the word 'lesbian', anyway?  Neither of us is
Greek."

"So blame that Sappho chick if you don't like the word, I don't care,"
Christie growled, disgustedly.

Kerry sat straighter, her eyes boring into the smooth skin of Christie's
back.  Admiring the gentle contours of her shoulders and spine even as her
indignation grew.  "What I mean is, it shouldn't have to be the central axis
of someone's character," she insisted.  "It shouldn't have to matter to
anyone else who we love, or what we do together..."

"No, I know what you mean," Christie snarled, turning her head sharply to
face Kerry.  "We shouldn't talk about it, that's what you mean.  We should
all just hide ourselves and pretend we're no different from all the fucking
straight girls so we can walk around and stay invisible, right?"

Fury brought Kerry's face right up to Christie's.  "Don't you ever...put
words...in my mouth," she grated.  The sheet fell away, forgotten in her
ire.  "You don't know me nearly well enough for that."

They stared at each other, inches apart, in a deadlock of wills, each almost
a mirror image of the other.  Kerry could feel the proximity of the other
woman's body to her own like a palpable force.  The eyelock held, tension
crackling between them, until one had to look away.

"You think I don't know you?" Christie replied, averting her gaze first, her
voice tightening.  "Or what you're going through now?"

Kerry was literally trembling with rage, and yet the nerve endings in her
skin all cried out for more contact with Christie's.  She would never, in a
million years, feel the kind of love for this woman that she had felt for
Kim, and yet part of her wanted nothing more than to pull her closer and
mesh with her right now.  They were, for the moment, the most intimate of
enemies.

Christie swiped at her eyes, brushing away tears that Kerry hadn't yet seen.
"You're so fucking self-righteous, like you'll have it any different," she
muttered.  "You really think you won't need help from people like me?"

"Not if this is the kind of support you're offering," Kerry began, but
Christie continued without listening.

"You're just going to go back to your job and it'll all blow over, and
pretty soon everything will be back to normal, and life will go on without a
hitch, right?  Is that what you think?  That they'll all respect you just
because you do good work, and treat you fairly?  That they're not going to
look at you differently, treat you differently outside of work?  You think
your friends will all be there for you, the way they were before they knew
you were gay?"

Kerry started to answer, but a little voice in her head said, wait, just
listen.  She's trying to tell you something, and it's not about you.  It
sounded like Kim's voice.

"Forget it, babe, they're not your friends anymore, because you're not the
person they all expect you to be.  The women you used to hang out with will
avoid you, 'cause now they'll think you've just been hoping to lay them all
this time.  The men who were your friends?  Say goodbye to them, too; the
ones who used to like you will lose interest once they realize they've got
no chance getting you in the sack.  Or maybe they'll fake interest 'cause
they've got this fantasy about being the one to show you what you've been
missing, and they figure maybe they can end up in bed with two girls at once
in the process.  And maybe you'll be so afraid of change that you'll sleep
with one of them to prove you're still straight, or to curry favor with
someone.  Only he won't respect you, and you'll never respect yourself for
it, either.  So pretty soon, you'll just be the lonely one in the corner at
parties, the one who shows up to be part of the crowd, but isn't really
wanted there by anyone specific."

I've always been that one, Kerry thought to herself.  Nothing new there.
But this wasn't her story that Christie was telling.

"So then you'll figure, fuck it, I don't need any of them, and you'll just
be the total Business Bitch at work and figure they can just kiss your ass
if they don't like it.  Only the business doesn't work on merit alone,
'cause under it all, it's still a fucking popularity contest.  Your bosses
won't like you or trust you, 'cause they all think of you as a man-hating
dyke who wants to take their jobs and maybe cut their dicks off for good
measure.  So they'll throw you all the shit jobs and give the good
clients--"  Christie broke off for just a moment.  "Patients, whatever, to
morons who don't deserve 'em half as much as you do..."

Kerry drew her knees up, sitting back against her pillow and carefully
considering the picture Christie was painting.  She had much more in common
with this woman than she'd realized.

"Then, finally, you're gonna get to the point where you realize the whole
deck's stacked against you, and you're gonna call the woman on the card I
gave you, or somebody like her, and she'll say and do all the right things,
and you'll win your court case against the firm and walk away a winner and
tell 'em all to go to hell while you set out to make a fresh start.  Only
you can't start fresh, 'cause all the other firms you know are buddies with
the one you left, and they've gotten word through the Old Boys' Network what
a pain in the ass you are, and...they won't want to deal with you for fear
of the same thing happening.  And they won't listen...to your side of
things, 'cause it's your word against all the other guys', and they've
already...spread the word all over town."  Christie's voice was hitching
occasionally, like she was holding in sobs as she spoke.

"So what did you do?" Kerry put in softly.

Christie's shoulders twitched once, then settled, admitting she was talking
about herself.  "Made a half-assed suicide attempt.  Nothing serious, but a
neighbor called the cops and I ended up in a psych ward overnight."  She
sniffled and drew in a ragged breath.  "Guess who they send to talk to me?"

"Anyone I know?"  Kerry already suspected what the answer would be.

"My old college roomie and ex-girlfriend, surprise surprise.  Talk about
your coincidences."  She drew a hand across her eyes.  "Kim helped me get
through it, introduced me to some people, and put me in touch with a smaller
law firm that didn't care who they hired, long as they were good at their
jobs.  And I'm damn good, when I have the chance to prove it," she added
with stubborn pride.

I'll bet you are, Kerry thought, amazed how many similarities they had.
Perhaps that was why Kim had been attracted to them both, at different times
in her life.

Christie half-turned to glare at Kerry again.  "Look, I didn't treat you
very well when I first met you, I admit that.  Maybe I saw some of myself in
you, and I didn't like remembering what it was like.  So maybe I acted out a
little and embarrassed you some."  She paused.  "And maybe I was a little
jealous that you had Kim and I didn't."

Kerry recalled the flash of jealousy she'd felt when Christie boasted about
sleeping with Kim.  She still couldn't claim to like Christie, but found
herself resenting the woman less, particularly after breaching that smug
exterior.

"But whether you believe me or not, I am trying to help you, Kerry.  Or do
you really think all that's not going to happen to you?"

"A lot of it already has," Kerry told her.  "I've already taken a lot of the
same attitude just being a smart, successful woman doctor."

"Okay, fine, so you're starting out with more battle scars than I did..."
Christie snorted, rolling her eyes.

"That's the problem," Kerry interrupted.  "You keep wanting me to see this
as the start of something, when it's really just another part of what I've
been living through for twenty years."

"And all the other doctors and people you work with, they're gonna be fine
with you once they know you're gay?"  The familiar scorn was resurfacing.

"As fine with me as they were before they knew."  That wasn't saying much,
but Kerry didn't mention that.

"Oh, so it won't change their opinion of you?" Christie sneered.  "It won't
make any difference to them at all?"  The very same question that Kerry had
been fretting over earlier.  But now that it was voiced by another person,
she knew the answer immediately, instinctively.

"No," she said with quiet finality.  "It won't."