Chapter 28: Embrace Someone New
I am heading down the hall one day in my Healer's uniform. I find the required dress code largely ridiculous, as I didn't impose such rules on myself back in 12. But Andrew insists on his staff looking and acting their best, so for him, I would do that.
All at once, Andrew appears. He looks panicked.
"What's wrong?" I ask. "Is it a patient...? Andrew!"
But Andrew is dragging me into a storage closet and closing the door. "Andrew? What's the matter?"
"I need to ask you something!" he gets out. His voice is breathy, almost choked, as if it is a struggle to get the words out. He looks very nervous. I've never seen Andrew this nervous.
I laugh nervously myself. "OK..." I grin.
"Would you like to go to dinner with me sometime... Lillian?" He asks. His eyes are searching, waiting for me to say No.
But I stare at him, smiling bemusedly. "I think you just asked me out on a date," I observe.
"It doesn't have to be that!" Andrew says quickly, as if I might be offended by the word.
"No, I think it's fine," I laugh. "Sure. Let's do that."
Andrew looks elated. Then, suddenly, he pulls me closer and kisses me. Right on the mouth.
I stiffen in his embrace for only a moment. I have never kissed another man besides my first husband. But Andrew's lips are soft and warm. And they are not insistent. He seems to be leaving this up to me, getting ready to pull away should I feel displeased at his boldness.
But I'm not. And I don't let him pull away. I kiss him back instead.
I drape my arms around his neck and close my eyes in pleasure. Encouraged, Andrew's hands wander, up under my uniform, until he is touching very sensitive areas. I let him hoist me up onto a stack of boxes and allow him to feel me up as I divest myself of my uniform. I hate the thing anyway!
Once upon a time, Estes dragged me out to the smokehouse behind our home. It was the middle of winter. He had me there. Thinking back on it, I am convinced that was the counter in which we conceived Primrose. Only who should appear but our little girl, Katniss, just three years old. Seeing something a baby her age was not meant to see, she began to cry. She thought Daddy was hurting Mommy. I gently explained to her that Daddy was doing what he was doing to me because he loved me. She would understand when she was older.
So now, as I kiss this other man and begin to have sex with him, as I let him fill my most feminine of places, I am so glad that my one surviving daughter is far, far away in District 12, unable to see how naughty her mother is being...
"Uh... UH! Yes, Andrew! Harder... faster..." His thrusts increase in speed as he complies. I am now stark naked, my blouse having slipped down past my cleavage.
Just then, the door bangs open. I don't see my daughter, but I do see a young woman who has become like a daughter to me. And her mouth is now open in utter shock. I pull Andrew close in an attempt to cover myself, but he doesn't appear to have seen the intruder.
"Oh, Annie! What's... what's wrong, love?"
She shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. "There's a patient who needs a morphling dose. But I cab get it if you're... busy..."
This doesn't appear to concern Andrew, as he takes one of my breasts into his mouth, forcing me to arch into him. "I'll be right there, dear!" I gasp.
After-hours, Andrew and I spend a lot more time together. Annie graciously allowed me a house in Victors' Village - one of the empty ones, as the homes that used to hold her fellow Victors are now museums. From there, I can see the ocean, and it's not a far walk down to the shore, either. Here, Andrew and I spend our evenings, walking along the beach and talking. They are good dates, better than a fancy dinner. I have never been used to having such plenty and food before, as for years, I was as poor as a church mouse. But I had Estes, and then my girls, so it didn't matter so much to me.
The fisherman are long gone for fishing season, so I am shocked when Andrew suddenly kneels in the sand as one of them would before leaving on a long voyage. Those kind of requests usually occur just before fishing season, but I have only ever had one request like this before. Well, actually two requests, and they were both back in District 12. I can't think of the first one without feeling sad... and thinking of Peeta, that poor boy now all alone...
So for the third time I find myself breathing "Oh my God!" as Andrew asks:
"Will you marry me, Lillian?"
