Chapter 4 - How the Turns Table

“I…” Price starts to say, voice high and thin in a way that doesn’t suit him, but he doesn’t seem to know what he wishes to get out. 

He only seems to recognize where his hand is a moment later when it jumps away from Carter’s back, the other extracting from his ass too quick, too vulgarly wet . The sensation alone is nearly enough to shove Carter to his knees, but it’s truly the sudden absence of someone holding him up that has the detective white-knuckle gripping the examination table. He gets a shaky foot beneath himself, testing to make sure it’s not going to give out beneath him, then the other. 

“Jesus, doc,” Carter says, wincing at just how winded he sounds. Fuck, he feels like he’s run a marathon, that ache of physical activity burning through every muscle. “You make a habit out of fingering guys within an inch of their lives when you’re angry?”

He looks over his shoulder at the doctor. Doctor Price stares back at him, wide-eyed and…bewildered, angry, horrified, some shaken cocktail of the three. His skin is flushed down to the collar of his shirt. His hair has fallen askew. His right hand still lingers uncertainly between them, glove slick with lubricant. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something. He closes it again. If Carter had his wits back about him, he might be amused by the fact that Price seems to be the more stunned between the two of them.

“Cat got your tongue, doc?” Carter says, voice still raw, the tease not quite coming through when the lower half of his body is still trying to remember how to function.

“I— I—” Price stutters, “I didn’t think you’d actually —”

“Didn’t think I’d blow my load from you sticking a finger up my ass? You ever listen to yourself when you’re lecturing?” This time the amusement does make it to his voice, and Carter gives the doctor a half-smile. Theodore Price truly is more ridiculous of a man than he gives himself credit for.

The flush of Price’s face darkens. “W-well—!” He stammers out a few aborted noises, visibly fumbling for a real zinger he can hurl back, but the witty retorts seem to have fled him. It’s only as he looks down and remembers the state of his hand that he abandons the effort entirely, jaw clicking shut as he turns sharply and heads over to the sink. 

Carter forces himself to look back over at Price when he hears the sink come on, even though his skull feels about ten pounds heavier than it did when he’d arrived. For the first time in what has to be the better part of two decades, his ears aren’t ringing, and the room around him pours into that space — the fizzle of the sink, stove in the corner, the squeak of rubber as the doctor cleans his glove off before removing it, then hangs it over the towel rack to dry. His back is to Carter as he turns off the sink and then leans on the edge with both hands. The backs of his ears are pink. Ridiculous, ridiculous man.

Carter stays where he is. He has an odd fear of cracking the moment too soon. He's not sure what he’ll do if Price is crying. Yeah, that would be…that would be bad. Then again, the longer Price stands there over the sink, the more uncomfortable Carter feels. He pushes himself upright, turns around to lean heavily against the table. So far, so good. 

Fuck, this one’s going to haunt his fantasies for a while. Not even that evening he’d spent with the gent from Lola’s last August is living up to the pleasant, still-buzzing sensitivity that’s carved itself into his bones. 

He clears his throat. “Doc?”

Price glances over his shoulder at him. No tears: thank God. The doctor crouches down and retrieves two items from beneath the sink, turning back on the water and running something underneath it. It’s only as he totes the items back over to the examination table and sets them down that Carter realizes what they are — a glass of water and an old towel. Price's posture rolls back into that stiff, doctorly manner. 

“Drink that,” Price says, clearing his throat. His authoritative tone doesn't quite hide the rawness in his voice. “And clean yourself up. As well as my floors, please, considering you…sullied them with your ejaculate.”

Carter clears his throat again. His lungs feel like he’s been either screaming or smoking or both. 

“Give…give me a minute,” he rasps out. He chuckles, rubbing the side of his face. “Fuck.”

Price watches stiffly as Carter pulls himself together, his mouth smoothed into a tight, unhappy line. He crosses his arms impatiently, then uncrosses them, then buries his hands in the pockets of his coat. He clears his throat. “I’m…just so we’re clear,” the doctor says, “if you came here, detective, with the intention of— of charming me, o-or sweeping me off my feet with cheeky displays of idiocy, then—”

“Is that what you think this is?” Carter asks, gingerly testing how much weight his knees will hold. When they don't immediately fold under him, he carefully picks up the cloth and wipes himself off, then just as carefully bends and pulls up his pants where they lie on the floor along with the shreds of his dignity. The rest of the cleaning can wait. Even that much movement makes him want to sink to the ground in a puddle. “Jeez louise, doc. I really don't think that lesson of yours had the intended effect.”

Price tenses. Carter sips his water and waves a hand to dismiss the doctor’s frown before he can speak.

“Relax. Look, I'm not looking for — any of that. Companionship . Not the way you're thinking of it, at least. You interest me, doctor. You're an interesting man.”

“I—” Price opens his mouth to protest, but Carter holds up a finger, downing the rest of his glass like a shot, and whatever the argument had been has slipped away by the time the glass is set back down on the table.

Carter looks up at the doctor and is jarred by his expression all over again. All the smugness, the vitriol, the bitterness from earlier has melted away. Price shifts his weight, and there’s that little crack in his composure that Carter’d seen from the sink again — uncertainty, perhaps? Doubt? Embarrassment? He doesn’t know what the doctor’s embarrassed about, considering Carter’s the one who just made a fool of himself all over the man’s table.

“Look at you, dollface,” Carter mutters, reaching up to smooth Price’s hair back into place, “you're more a mess than I am.”

“That's impossible,” Price says, and then flinches away from Carter's hand like it's a bee coming for his face. 

“Just – fixing this, here,” Carter explains, tucking the wayward lock back. Price looks exceptionally unhappy, even for him. He tenses when Carter continues the motion, dragging a finger lightly behind his ear. It's hot. Still flushed, then. 

Carter considers the situation for a moment. Price doesn't want to be treated like a lady, but he doesn't seem too happy about taking a man's role in intercourse, either. Maybe he just doesn't like it at all? But no– Carter had heard the way his breath had shook, the way his hands gripped Carter's shirt. And a man who could talk dirty like that had, at least, thought about sex before. So, what? He couldn't ask for it? Carter didn't know how long Price had lived as a woman– any amount of time until he was eighteen, he supposed. Plenty of time to pick up some of those expectations placed on young ladies of a certain social class. Well, bluntness had worked before, hadn't it?

“Can I do you?” Carter asks. “Can't guarantee I can make you come as hard as I just did, but I can sure give it the old college try.”

“I'm not a whore,” Price says, taking a step back, face creasing. Yeah, that wasn't a no.

“I believe you established rather clearly that that would be me in this little scenario,” Carter agrees. “My knees are still shaking, doc.”

Price’s mouth twists. 

“It was inappropriate of me,” he says suddenly. “I let my emotions get – you goaded me, and I – you should leave.”

“Doc, doc,” Carter protests, raising his hands. “Slow down a minute. I'm not upset, am I?” 

“A doctor should be a trustworthy and confidential source for his patients, and I –” Price begins, his voice still high.

Carter barks out a laugh. Price falls silent, startled, and then his mouth purses.

“Don't kid a kidder, Price,” Carter grunts before the doctor can try to say anything else. “We’ve gotten one over each other now, haven't we? I surprised you, you surprised me.”

“So we're even,” Price says testily. He twists the hem of his coat with anxious fingers. 

“Nah,” Carter shakes his head. “Way I see it, after the lesson you just gave me – and if you were serious about accepting me as a client – I owe you at least one favor. Now, I don't like staying in debt if I can help it. So, what can I do for you?”

“You can leave me alone,” Price says, but there's no weight in it. 

Carter steps forward. 

“That really what you want?” he asks. 

Price swallows. His gaze drifts down, just for a moment. He's staring at Carter like he's waiting for something, like… no. Really? Surely not. But then…

Carter takes another step forward, raising a hand. When Price still doesn't move, he grabs a handful of Price’s cunt through his trousers. Price's gaze flashes up to his at once, nostrils flaring in a silent, offended gasp. 

Ah, fuck me, Carter thinks as his cock hardens all over again.

“Think of it like this: I’m just one more whore in your clinic, doc,” Carter suggests. “One of those sex addicts, like. I'm looking to you to fix all my problems. Would be damn near irresponsible of you not to take advantage, right? Nobody'd blame you for needing to let off a little steam. Unofficial business, just winding things down for the evening. And anyway, I'm hardly a client yet. Just a tool. Just something to get off against. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

He's kneading Price’s crotch as he speaks, a rhythmic push-curl-drag that presses his fingers up into the give directly between Price’s legs and then rolls up to pull the bundle of his fake dick up his clit, then back down again. Price lets out a nearly inaudible wheeze. His hair has fallen out of place again. Carter knows he’s grinning by now, a warm pleased-as-punch feeling settling in his gut and in his working fingers. The doctor’s trousers are made of some thick fabric — wool, perhaps — but he can still practically feel the slick—

Price’s hands come up and roughly shove him away. Or, rather, they meet Carter’s chest and push with all the might that all that gangle can muster, which isn’t much, but it’s enough to break the connection between them. His skin is still flushed blotchy pink, but the bewildered, doe-eyed look he’d had before has been replaced with a carefully curated anger.

“Enough,” Price snaps, fighting hard to keep his voice steady and authoritative. “ Enough . You think you can just— you really— I am owed a basic level of dignity, and you—”

“Y’know doc,” Carter says, reaching out once more — the doctor flinches, moves to shove him away once more, but Carter rests his hand against the man’s hip instead. “I don’t think I've ever met a man who puts up this much of a fight against a good time.”

“A good—” The doctor scoffs. “Detective, I am not your— your personal floozy to bend over any desk you see fit—”

“Who said anything about bending over a desk?” Carter says easily. His thumb strokes over the fabric of the doctor’s shirt; beneath, he can feel the ridges of something stiff that he can only assume is some sort of corset. Must be how Price keeps that masculine figure of his, long and slender. Women would eat a man like him alive if he ever got out of the house. “I told you, doc, I owe you a favor — I’ll let you have me however you want me. So what’ll it be? My hand? My mouth?” He thinks for a moment, then asks, “You ever had your cock sucked?”

“ Excuse me?”

“I’m going to assume that’s a no,” Carter says. He looks up at the doctor, his own mirth met with glinting disdain. “We really need to get you out more, doc. Introduce you to some folks.”

Price’s mouth twitches, wrinkles scored into the corners. “I told you, detective,” he says, clipped, “I don’t do intimate relationships.”

There’s an odd sort of rawness to the doctor’s tone, something akin to embarrassment or shame. His eyes dart away from Carter’s to find a spot on the floor, and the pieces come click, click, click ing into place. 

“Oh,” Carter says. He doesn’t care for how off-balance his own voice sounds. The doctor looks just about as flimsy as he feels. “Wait. You mean like…you meant at all ?”

The flush of Price’s face darkens as he sinks a bit lower into the collar of his shirt. “I…” he starts, swallows. “As you’re aware , detective, I have a bit more…complicated circumstances regarding whom I choose to undress for.”

Well, that is a pickle. Carter isn't sure how he feels about potentially being the first hand other than the doctor’s own to bring him to climax. That's a lot of pressure. He's never been one of those men whose found it complimentary to be someone's one and only– for one thing, that often means the same exclusivity is expected of him, and for another, it says more about his partner’s lack of experience than how good Carter is at pleasuring them. Someone who's had plenty of fun and still finds him a good time? Now, that's a compliment. 

Which is all to say he needs to get the doctor fucked, stat. Not that he doesn't want to do it, of course.

“Listen, doc,” he says, “do you have a lot of friends?” 

“I–” Price looks taken aback by the question for a moment, then stern. “Enough.” 

Carter snorts again. “Yeah, alright,” he agrees dubiously. “Not counting your knife-happy psychic or your clients, how many people do you see in a week? How often do you go out? You have a thriving social calendar?”

Price clears his throat and looks away. “The clinic takes the majority of my time.”

“And the rest?” 

“Sleeping. Maintaining this apartment. Helping Madame Rake with her errands. Studying. Making house calls.”

“Mmhm. And those friends of yours?”

“There's such a thing as letters, detective,” Price says. “As well as more modern appliances. Perhaps you’ve heard of the telephone?”

“Let me tell you what I think,” Carter begins. 

“I certainly can't seem to stop you,” Price says tiredly.

“I think you're a lonely man, doc. And I'll let you in on a little secret; I'm not doing too hot myself. I think you could use someone to help you get out of your head every once in a while. Maybe me, maybe somebody else. But somebody ought to do it, and I'm certainly available.”

“Is that so, detective,” Price says coldly. 

“And I think you can use my Christian name after wrecking me like that,” Carter says. He holds his hand out to shake. “Finley. Fyn, if you'd rather. And right now I'd do just about anything for you, so ask away.”

“...Even leave?” Price asks.

Carter considers the doctor for a moment. Then he smiles. 

“If that's what you wanted.”

The doctor regards his outstretched hand silently. He doesn’t reach up to shake it. “Frankly, I don’t understand you, detective.” 

Carter chuckles. “Is that it? Aw shucks. You should have said something, doc. I love answering questions.”

“You humiliate me when we first meet,” Price continues, “then you come to me with your injuries. You have enough blackmail material on me to have me spend years in jail, nevermind my clients, and yet you come waltzing in here offering to protect me from the police. For some reason, you find it appropriate to proposition me, a man at a blatantly obvious disadvantage here, for sex, and my attempt to humiliate you in turn only results in you saying you’d do anything I’d ask for.”

“Doc—”

Price holds up his hand. He doesn’t look angry, but his brow is furrowed in concentration. “I can’t tell if your act is a result of you being simple or you being clever. You call me a lonely man, and perhaps there’s some truth to that for how long I’ve been willing to entertain you, but I have to ask this — do you truly find me a lonely man, or do you just find me to be someone at enough of a disadvantage to push around?”

Carter studies the doctor, for once not hidden behind the mask of his anger. The round curve of his face makes him seem younger without his worry lines, his nose twitching over the bit of hair on his upper lip that he hasn’t trimmed away. A slight flush paints his cheeks, which could very well be a residual of all the yelling he’d done earlier, but it seems…well. Carter isn’t going to point it out when the doctor is feeling so open at the moment. 

“How many people d'you think dare push me around, doc?” he asks. “This ain't a trick question. You’re fun. I wasn’t lying when I said I find you a very interesting man, and one that I’d quite like to get to know better.”

Price looks down at the detective’s still outstretched hand. Carter half expects to see smoke start pouring out of his ears with how rapidly he can watch the gears turning in his head, putting things together, lining them all up. Price inhales. He adjusts his lapel. 

“Right,” Price says softly, to himself. He rolls his shoulders back, and then finally, finally after what’s long enough for Carter to feel all that smoke that had vacated his sinuses start to trickle back into them again, he places his hand in the detective’s. “I suppose we’ve reached some sort of understanding then, Detective Finley.”

Carter grins at the name, giving the doctor’s hand a hearty shake. “Do I get the Christian name basis too, doc?”

That little glimmer of amicability is retracted immediately as Price scowls at him. “I’m honestly not sure you’ve earned it.” 

“C’mon,” Carter says, “‘Doctor Theodore’? Has quite a ring to it. Or Theo. Or hell, even Teddy — you ever go by Teddy?”

Price glowers. Carter chuckles, raising his hands in defeat.  

“Right, right, right.” He’s still basically pinning Price to the desk, but Price hasn't tried to push him away again. Carter wants to undo a few of those corset laces for him. The man could probably use the breath. But maybe it's better to keep him breathless a little longer. “You like theater, doc?”

The doctor blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“Plays. Musicals. Drama .” 

Price's face scrunches. He shifts his weight anxiously, and then stops when the movement presses his crotch against Carter's knee. “I’ve never been.” 

“ Never–?” Carter gapes at him in actual shock. Well, now this is an emergency. He snorts and begins patting his pants pockets, then his jacket where it's laid over the table. “That's first on the docket, then.”

The doctor watches him warily until Carter pulls two tickets from his back pocket with a hoarse crow of triumph. 

“Here ya go,” he says, holding one out. “Brightridge Theatre. One of the more respectable ones, even. This is, uh–” he checks the stub, “Gilbert and Sullivan. Pirates of Penzance , it's an operetta. Start you out easy. Don't even need to dress up much.”

“Do you make a habit of just keeping tickets on you at all times, or…?”

“Friend happened to back out,” Carter lies smoothly. No need for Price to know he always buys two tickets, on the off chance he finds someone to go with. He usually gives the extra to some kid hanging outside the theater around showtime – even if they don't watch the play or take their seat, at least they've got a valid excuse to be warm inside. 

He gives the ticket a shake of encouragement. “Come on, doc. Humor me.”

Price stares at the ticket. He plucks it from the detective’s fingers with careful hands like one might handle a feral kitten — curious, but also wary of claws. 

“I don’t…I’m afraid I don’t really own any clothes besides my work clothes these days, detective,” he says, frowning. “I don’t wear dresses anymore.”

“What part about not needing to doll up did you not get? Two men can go to the theater, can't they? I can always wear the dress, if you’re that worried about it.”

The doctor’s mouth twitches. “...Do you wear dresses?”

“Guess you’ll have to come to find out,” Carter says, winking. Price rolls his eyes as he tucks the ticket into his coat pocket.

“I’ll…um. Consider it,” he says mildly.

“That’s all I can ask.”

“If I have time,” Price clarifies. “With, er. Work of course. And errands.”

“Of course.”

“And other things that might come up. My schedule can be…a bit unpredictable.”

Carter raises a hand to keep him from rambling on. “I’ve overstayed my welcome, doc. I’ll be on my way then. You’ve got my card; you can give me a call. Telephones , as you reminded me, do exist. There’s just one more thing.”

“Oh?” Price asks. Neither of them have moved away from each other. Carter can feel how the doctor wants to shift again. That one lock of hair is stubbornly out of place. 

"Let me put it this way, doc," Carter says, in the gentle voice he uses to break bad news to victims’ families. "I see a coupla options here, and they're all up to you. You got it? Your decision.” He rests his hand back on Price's hip. The doctor flinches, just a little. Skittish. “Your evening just took an unexpected turn, and you're a little mixed up. That's understandable. You're feeling some kind of way, aren't you? Now, here comes the choice. Number one: I take care of you right here, right now, before the old bat comes back and tries to give me a new one. Number two, I walk out of here, and you get yourself off later, thinking about me." He grins up at Price's shuttered expression. "That's not some kind of order, you understand. It's just how it's gonna be. Number three, I walk out of here and you don't get yourself off. You spend as long as you can stand the distraction thinking about how my fingers feel inside you until you can't stand it any longer.” He strokes his thumb over Price’s hip. “So, what's it gonna be? You don't need to tell me your whole choice, of course, but just know that I'll know, next time we meet."

Price slaps him. Not hard, it doesn’t really hurt, but the sound reverberates in the room like a gunshot pinging off steel. The doctor’s nostrils flare in fury. Carter can hear as his teeth drag against one another. Okay, so he might have walked right into that one, considering he’s already been walking a line finer than a cat’s whisker. 

“Get out of my clinic,” Price snaps. Probably says something about Carter that that tone makes his spent cock twitch yet again.

Carter puts up his hands. He slides his knee from between the doctor’s leg, not missing the way Price’s hips chase the friction, but also not willing to address it, and takes a step back. 

“Alright,” he says in a conciliatory tone. 

“ Out!”

“Alright, alright, I’m going, doc.”

He rounds the table and picks up his coat where it’d fallen off the side of the examination table. It’s only once he’s pushing his hat back down atop his curls that he becomes aware of just how much oil is still between his asscheeks, how his spend is drying on his thighs. Christ, he needs to walk home like this. Does he dare call a cab? Either option sounds uncomfortable. He suppresses a shudder, his cock twitching again.  

The doctor’s already at the door, holding it open with his polished shoe, which is the only thing keeping him from tapping his foot impatiently. It’s clear to Carter just how often the man uses his glasses as a shield, given he’s very clearly attempting not to make eye contact. Carter considers digging out a cigarette to be an ass about it, but decides to leave Price with at least a fraction of his dignity. He picks at the box’s peeling edges in his pocket as he nods to the doctor, steps through the threshold. 

“Good evening to you then, Dr. Price.”

“Good evening , Detective Finley,” Price says shortly. His lip twitches. He clears his throat, and Carter turns back at the top of the stairs, eyebrows raised. “And for the record,” he begins, “assuming…assuming you were sincere about wanting care, I would prefer you used the door around back next time for…discretion, of course. It connects to my apartment.”

Carter shrugs on his coat, using it as an excuse to dawdle while he searches Price’s face for some hint of what might be churning away in that scientific brain of his. Price is inviting him back after all that? That's a quicker turn-around than he'd anticipated. Maybe the doctor is really that professional; can really compartmentalize his work from the rest of his life like that. Or maybe he's already regretting turning down Carter's offer of reciprocation.

Price picks at a loose thread on his lapel like a grifter guilty of a multi-million fraud, though his face stays pointedly, suspiciously neutral. If there’s a catch here, Carter can’t seem to pull one together with the evidence he’s got. “Sure,” Carter says. “Whatever you say, doc.”

Price nods curtly. He finally seems to have realized what he’s doing with his hands, frowning down at the loose string before snapping it and sticking it in his pocket. “Detective?”

“Yeah?”

“What brand of cigarettes do you smoke?”

Another unexpected question. The detective sucks his teeth and then leans his elbow on the bannister, trying to find Price’s angle. “Lucky Strike. Can’t go breaking the bank on a bad habit, now.” He cocks his head to the side. “You looking to pick up a new vice, doc?”

“Hm?” The doctor looks up finally. “Oh, no. I was just thinking that Miriam will probably ask what brand they are when she cleans out the ashtray.” There’s the smallest, nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips as the words leave his mouth, not quite a smirk but not subtle enough to deny its existence. 

That old wound in Carter's leg begins to ache again as he strains his ears for any sign of life from the floor below — can you even hear anything out here from inside the clinic? Can people downstairs hear inside?

“Look now, doc–” Carter begins, beseechingly, already starting to laugh. Fuck, the doctor had gotten him good. Maybe they were on more even ground than he'd thought. 

“Good evening then, detective.” Price takes a step back, and the door swings closed with a firm, weighted click.