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Baran is just about to leave the conference hall when she spots a familiar face. Trinity Santos looks older, less like the always exhausted sarcastic resident Baran knew, and more like a professional. It helps that she’s wearing a suit, a button-down shirt with the top few buttons undone, her hair cut in a bob. Baran reminds herself that she’s going to catch up with an old trainee, not looking for a date for the evening. “It’s lovely to see you again,” Baran says, stopping before she hugs her former resident. Baran knows she’s prone to physical affection with everyone and reminds herself that not everyone enjoys being greeting with a hug. Baran keeps in touch with many of her former residents, but Trinity had never exactly warmed up to Baran in the three years they worked together and she was unsurprised to not receive any career updates after Trinity went to Philly to complete her fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine.
“You too,” Trinity says, “I know why I’m at a pediatric conference. Why are you here?”
“You might recall from your time at PTMC that we see a lot of children.”
“I do remember that,” Trinity answers, and Baran cannot help but notice that Trinity’s gaze has strayed from Baran’s eyes and down to the v-neck of her shirt. “Any chance you want to hire a soon to graduate fellow? It would look awfully good for the Pitt to have a pediatric attending, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Baran agrees. “Send me your CV.”
“Or you could get a drink with me,” Trinity suggests. Baran stares at her, unsure if she’s catching Trinity’s meaning and not wanting to embarrass herself if Trinity is simply trying to network. Luckily, her former resident is just as blunt as ever. “You’re into women, right? I thought you were straight at first because of the ex-husband but then the Pitt rumor mill told me you were sleeping with a hot intensivist for a while.”
Baran laughs. She’s gotten used to the fact that the ED is the center of all hospital gossip thanks to Princess and Perlah. “Bisexuals are real, you know?” Baran says lightly. “We aren’t mythical creatures of legend.”
“I’ve heard that rumor, but I couldn’t be sure. Pleased to have it confirmed.” Trinity smiles like they’re meeting at a lesbian bar after pride, not at a medical conference, though Baran has been to enough conferences to know the rate of hookups in those two settings is similar. “So, what about that drink?”
Baran pauses for a moment, debating whether this would be appropriate. Trinity hasn’t been her resident for three years now, but she did just suggest she might be looking for a job in the ED that Baran runs. “Where do you want to go?” Baran asks, tired of holding back. Trinity is no longer her resident. She’s an adult woman who asked Baran to get a drink.
“You seem like a bougie wine bar kind of person, am I right?” Trinity asks.
Baran laughs. “Actually, I don’t drink.”
“Then why did you say yes to a drink?”
“I thought that was pretty obvious, Dr. Santos.” Baran looks Trinity up and down pointedly before smiling at her.
“Are you going to call me that in bed?” Trinity jokes. “Not that I would complain.”
Baran rolls her eyes. It seems that this woman hasn’t changed too much since she last saw her. “I’m happy to go to a bar.”
“I’m not drinking alone. Why don’t we go for a walk and then back to my hotel room,” Trinity suggests.
Baran shouldn’t agree. She doesn’t normally have one-night stands and certainly not with a person she knows, one who just suggested that they might work together again soon. But the last five years of Baran’s life have been very different from how she imagined it. She’s different from the woman she’d been before her seizures returned and her perfect life unraveled. She’d worked so hard, hidden so much of herself for so long, and then she’d no longer been able to hide. For months it felt awful, felt like losing everything she worked for, accepting defeat to not be able to do procedures anymore, to not be able to drive, to not be able to take her son swimming. Baran lost so much, and multiple medication changes later, as well as a surgical evaluation that ultimately seemed too risky to go through with, she had accepted that she might never be rid of the seizures entirely, that they were part of her life again.
There had been a long time when that realization was devastating, when Baran had hardly done anything on days when she didn’t have her son with her. For him she could put on a smile and make him happy. But when her son was with her ex, Baran spent her days off alone in bed crying. It took months and an intervention from her brother before she started to move forward.
Her brother had found Baran a therapist and made her an appointment. She had resisted the idea of therapy for years, didn’t need to talk about having epilepsy when she was living a life without seizures for a decade, when she had the life she always wanted. She didn’t need to talk about her nightmares, about the distorted memories from the PICU or the horrifically vivid ones from Afghanistan. She didn’t need to talk about her parents and their insistence during her whole life that she should hide having epilepsy from everyone, that she should get married before telling her husband.
But Baran’s baby brother was as stubborn as she is, and he had thrown her in his car and driven her to her first therapy session. He’d stayed in the waiting room the whole time, ready to hold her in the aftermath of saying aloud for the first time in her life how ashamed and worthless she felt. Saying it turned out to be the easy part, no longer feeling that way was more challenging.
Baran had been dubious when her therapist and her brother both came to the same conclusion about what might help: gay sex, though they’d suggested it in quite different ways. Her therapist told Baran that she needed to connect again with positive physical sensations, needed to remember that she wasn’t at war with her body, that it could bring her pleasure and connection. Her brother had been far blunter about it. He had recently broken up with his boyfriend and so had moved into Baran’s guestroom for a while, dragged her with him to gay bars, set up profiles for her on apps. She didn’t need a relationship she told him. He’d smiled and told her that what she needed was to have sex with a woman for the first time, to finally live her life openly about everything. She wasn’t in the closet exactly. It was just that she got married to a man her parents set her up with right after college and so she’d never had the chance to explore her desire for women.
Something helped Baran get out of her depression, though she wasn’t sure what. Therapy. Sex. Going on hikes again. Getting a dog, a pittie mix from the shelter who looked at Baran with the most haunted eyes at first but after months began to behave like a puppy despite the white fur around her muzzle. The way her brother annoyingly and lovingly reminded her every day that she had nothing to be ashamed of, that she should be proud of her strength. It didn’t stop Baran from feeling a sting of shame every time she worked with a new attending and needed to disclose that she couldn’t do procedures or see trauma patients. But she was working on it.
“It’s a nice night,” Baran agrees. “Let’s take a walk.”
They start with easy topics first. Baran asks about Trinity’s fellowship. Trinity asks about the gossip from PTMC. For the first few minutes Baran’s mind spirals, wonders if this is a bad idea, thinks about her parents' disappointment when Baran had gotten divorced, the way her mother had looked sad and asked who would want to be with a woman who was divorced with a child, “especially with…” she’d said pointedly before trailing off. In that moment Baran had only felt ashamed, but now she’s angry, now she reminds herself that she is worthwhile and lovable. But that is not what tonight is about. Tonight is about embracing pleasure, something that Baran is slowly growing more comfortable with.
“Are you worried this is a bad idea?” Trinity asks when they reach their hotel. Baran looks at Trinity, her jacket slung over her arm, sleeves rolled up, buttons straining on her blouse over the swell of her breasts. Baran lets herself appreciate her body’s reaction, lets herself embrace the warmth gathering between her legs. She’d been the one to support her brother when he came out as a teenager, the one to yell at their parents when they reacted badly. So why had it been so hard for Baran to accept that she too was queer? Why had she not slept with a woman until she was forty? Baran takes a deep breath and tries to clear her mind. She’s allowed to have sex at a medical conference. It’s a time-honored tradition.
Trinity puts her hand on Baran’s waist, and Baran feels a shock of pleasure run through her, has to suppress a moan. She hasn’t been touched in a long time, and her body feels hot, achy, wanting. “Your room or mine?” Baran asks.
They choose Baran’s, and something about the hotel room, about being in a different city, makes her behave unlike herself. As soon they shut the door she shoves Trinity up against the wall and kisses her roughly, lets Trinity pull Baran’s shirt from her body, lets her unbutton her pants, which Baran removes quickly along with her underwear and bra.
The sight of Trinity standing there hungrily in boxer briefs and an undershirt makes Baran burn, aching and desperate now. She lets Trinity push her down on the bed and straddle her waist.
“Wait,” Baran says as Trinity reaches between Baran’s legs. Baran has gotten used to saying this and she tries not to let any shame creep in. “I need you to know that I have epilepsy. When I have a seizure, I freeze for a minute or two. Nothing else most of the time, so sometimes people don’t notice. If that happens, I need you to stop.”
Sometimes it ruins the mood when Baran says this before the first time she has sex with someone, but after waking up once with a man moving inside her, his weight heavy on top of her, she had started telling people. He likely hadn’t noticed anything, she’d told herself after, the alternative too awful to consider. But still it felt like a horrible violation, him using her unconscious body for pleasure. She pushes the thought away.
Trinity looks horrified at Baran’s request, and she hopes she didn’t ruin this. “Did you just ask me to stop having sex with you if you have a seizure?” Trinity asks, and Baran nods. “I’m not a fucking monster. Of course I would stop.”
Baran grabs Trinity and kisses her then, wants to erase the thought of Baran’s vulnerability from Trinity’s mind, wants to be seen as powerful and beautiful, not as broken, delicate, and in need of protection. No need to worry about that it would seem because Trinity is nipping hungrily at Baran’s bottom lip before dragging her teeth down her neck, then working her way lower, over Baran’s breasts, before settling between her legs. Trinity locks eyes with Baran and asks, “ok?”
“Yes,” is all Baran can manage, hips already bucking forward. She’s so desperate to be touched, and Trinity can see it, smiles smugly before her mouth is on Baran.
Baran watches, her hand on her breast, rubbing her nipple softly as she watches Trinity, listens to her little moans as she focuses on bringing Baran pleasure. Baran closes her eyes and focuses on the sensations, on the fingers inside her bumping perfectly with every thrust, on the movement of Trinity’s tongue, the way she sucks hard, drawing a sharp sudden intense pleasure. Baran can’t hold back a long low moan at that.
For a fleeting moment her brain manages thoughts beyond the pleasure. Baran’s body has felt like her enemy so often, but it can also feel like this, and she remembers to be grateful. Not everyone’s body can feel this exquisite. She has listened to enough friends and patients talk about this to know that sex isn’t pleasurable for everyone, but Baran’s body has always been so easily led to pleasure by different touches and different bodies. It’s a gift her body gave her to feel this way, and she takes a moment as she feels her orgasm mounting slowly to be grateful for this body.
Trinity is done teasing, and Baran clears her mind and focuses on the mounting pleasure that is moving towards an inevitable peak. Trinity is fucking her hard, fingers hitting Baran’s g-spot and creating an almost painful pleasure, deep and so close to too much. Trinity’s tongue flicks and then she sucks hard and it tips Baran over. She shouts as she comes, the pleasure sharpening as Trinity keeps moving her fingers, keeps sucking, only stopping when Baran starts whimpering and squirming away from the touch. Trinity looks up, and Baran smiles at her, uncoordinatedly reaching for Trinity’s arm.
Trinity flops down next to Baran and props herself up on her elbow to study her. For a moment Baran lies there and savors the pleasure along with the feeling of being watched like this, of being wanted. In a moment she will return the pleasure, will pull loud moans and screams from Trinity. But now Baran takes another moment for herself, to be grateful to feel this.
“What are you thinking about?” Trinity asks.
In Baran’s post-orgasm haze, the words slip out uninhibited. “That you reminded me that my body is more than something to be drugged into submission.” Trinity looks at Baran with such deep sadness that she struggle not to look away. “Sorry,” Baran says. “I didn’t mean to be self-pitying.”
“You’re not,” Trinity reassures quickly, her hand on Baran’s chest, thumb stroking softly.
“It’s been a weird few years,” Baran tries to explain, “and my body hasn’t always felt like my friend.” An understatement. Her body has felt like her enemy since childhood, and Baran wishes it didn’t feel sometimes like an impossible task to accept her body how it is and still love it.
Trinity strokes her hand over Baran’s breasts then down her belly before settling between her thighs, fingers hardly moving, just pressed to the warm, wetness. She swipes her thumb over Baran’s clit and an aftershock ripples through her, body clenching at nothing. Eventually, Trinity presses two fingers back inside Baran. “Not a friend?” she asks as she fucks Baran, thumb lazily teasing her clit. “When it had you moaning with pleasure a moment ago? Do you know that I fantasized about doing this when you were lecturing me about documentation?”
The comment catches Baran off guard, and she laughs. But then Trinity is between Baran’s legs again, sucking and moving her fingers with perfect precision. Baran comes again quickly, and Trinity looks up, her lips and chin wet. “A body that can do that is pretty fucking incredible.”
“I’m trying to believe that.” Baran doesn’t know why she can’t hold anything back, why Trinity has Baran sharing things that she still struggles to share even with her therapist. Shit, Baran’s eyes are burning, and she sits up and breathes and blinks back the tears.
“You ok?” Trinity asks, sitting next to Baran without touching her.
“Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I get emotional after sex.” Baran pulls Trinity into her lap, hands grabbing her ass. Trinity is still wearing boxer briefs and her shirt. “You are overdressed.”
Suddenly the extremely confident woman is gone and Trinity looks afraid. “I don’t,” Trinity says. “I’m sorry.” She looks away, looks ashamed for an instant, before she returns Baran’s gaze, expression confident and in charge again. “I prefer giving pleasure.”
“Ok,” Baran replies, moving her hands from Trinity’s ass up to her back. “Would you like me to touch you at all?” Then it’s Trinity who looks emotional, moved Baran thinks that she’s simply accepting this rather than pushing for something Trinity isn’t comfortable with or demanding an explanation.
“Getting you off is what gives me pleasure,” Trinity says as she schools her face into control again, all smooth seduction, vulnerability well hidden. “So, if you think you could go again.”
Baran laughs softly. “Give me two minutes and then absolutely.” She caresses Trinity’s back softly and asks, “Can I hold you?” Trinity lies down in Baran’s arms, and Baran runs her hands up and down her back, over her hips. “Is this ok?” Baran checks.
“Good,” Trinity mumbles against Baran’s chest, looks embarrassed and ashamed again. Baran wants to ease that. Trinity accepted Baran with all her shame, and now Trinity is lying here looking embarrassed for asking for what she needs.
“You made me feel incredible,” Baran says. “I just want to touch you how you like to be touched – or not touched – that’s all.”
Trinity nods against Baran’s chest, and for a moment they lie there together, the night quiet around them. In the morning they’ll get on their respective flights home. Baran will check her email while she waits on the tarmac to find Trinity’s CV with a message that reads, Thank you for the productive meeting. I look forward to similarly spirited communications when I’m next in Pittsburgh, and Baran will laugh and smile and think that she looks forward to it too.