Patience's Virtue

"Are you glad we found each other, Langdon?"

He smiled down at her. "Yes. Yes I am, Patience. And now you're stuck with me."

She looked up at him, her eyes shining with love and heat, and said, "I like the sound of that." Then she bent to her task again, taking him into her mouth, sucking his cock deeply into her throat, working for his climax. She wanted desperately to swallow him, swallow his come, swallow his essence. For Patience, there was no man for her but her brother, her lover, her Langdon.

Langdon grunted and thrust upward. Suddenly Patience felt the hot spurt of his semen against the back of her throat. She was inundated with his effluence. All she could do was suck and swallow, suck and swallow.

When he was totally drained, she smacked her lips, crawled back into bed with him, and went to sleep.

* * *

A couple of hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, a strange sound awakened Langdon. He opened his eyes and saw that the bathroom light was on. He raised up in bed and called, "Patience?" No answer. No sound but a funny, hoarse whining sound. "Patience?" he called again. Still no answer. Then he heard a thud as something fleshy hit the tiled floor.

A heavy, hard knot of cold fear settled in Langdon's chest. He threw the covers back and jumped out of bed.

Patience was crumpled on the bathroom floor. In her hand, she clutched her asthma inhaler. Langdon knelt beside her. He shook her, hard. "Patience!" he said loudly. He turned her over. Her face was gray; her lips were blue. She felt cold, but there was an almost imperceptable motion of her chest.

"Oh shit!" he said. He ran to the phone and dialed 911. He mastered his terror long enough to give the address and the nature of the emergency. Then he dropped the phone, went back to his unconscious sister, and began CPR.

* * *

Two days of hell followed. The paramedics arrived, put a breathing tube down her throat, and carted his Patience off with them. He followed them to the hospital. They pulled a curtain around her, blocking his view. At one point, a young man in a white lab coat rolled a ventilator behind the curtain. A few minutes later, he heard the unmistakable sound of a machine breathing for her.

The doctor, a harried young man with a day's growth of beard and green scrubs, came out to see Langdon. "Are you family?" he asked.

"I'm her brother," Langdon replied.

"Well, it was a close call. She's not out of the woods yet, but she's stabilized. It's a good thing you were so close."

"We both go to school in town. We share an apartment."

"Well, if you hadn't started CPR when you did, she might not be here now." The doctor was already writing in a chart. His eyes moved to his watch.

"Can I see her?" Langdon asked.

"Yeah. She's asleep for right now. We usually sedate them for intubation. But you can see her. They'll be moving her to ICU later this morning."

"Thanks, doctor." Langdon shook the doctor's hand, and went to stand beside Patience's gurney.

The tube was ugly, poking out of her mouth like that, but it was breathing for her, so he would deal with it. Langdon leaned down and whispered into her ear, "I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

That had been two days ago. It was now ten o'clock Monday morning. They were allowing her to wake up, and were planning to pull the tube soon. Langdon went into the ICU and stood beside her bed. He took her hand and squeezed it. Patience's eyes fluttered, then opened. They seemed unfocused at first, but then she looked at him. She managed to smile around the tube. Then, she closed her eyes again. The therapist came up to him and said, "Sir, we're going to pull her tube out. Why don't you wait in the waiting room? We'll call you when it's out."

Langdon left the ICU and returned to the waiting room. Lauren and Melody were there. They had been there off and on all weekend, but Langdon had sent them home several times. It wasn't that he didn't want their company, it was that this was something he felt he had to do himself. Once again, it was him and Patience, facing a disaster together.

The breathing tube came out without incident. All three of them came into the ICU and visited with Patience. She was still on oxygen, and her voice was hoarse, but she could talk. After awhile, the therapist came back over, told them firmly that Patience needed her breathing medicine, and that they should come back later. Langdon started to protest, but a look from Patience quieted him.

"Come see me later," she said.

They moved Patience out of ICU later that same day. She was put into a private room, in a general nursing ward. Langdon came visiting just as the sun was going down outside. He knocked on the door and went in.

Patience was in a hospital gown. Her hair was lank with sweat. Her face was pale, her blue eyes tired, her lips swollen from the tube and the tape used to secure it. An oxygen tube stretched across her face, under her nose. Langdon thought her perfectly beautiful. She smiled weakly when she saw him.

Landon sat down beside the bed, and pulled the chair up close. He took her hand.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"A little better. At least I can breathe now."

"You really scared me, Sis, for the second time."

"And once again, you saved me. If I had been alone in that apartment..."

"But you weren't. And you'll never be alone again. I'll be here to take care of you." Langdon kissed her hand.

"Oh Langdon, I love you so much," Patience whispered.

"I love you too, Sis." Langdon said. Then he leaned across the bed and kissed her gently on the lips.

The End