I don't know if this story is even visible right now... most of the time when I go to look at it, FF informs me that the story doesn't exist/is not available to read. I don't know what this site is coming to. But anyway...
If you've been trying to read it and run into problems, it can be found on AO3 as well. I'm "simultaneously publishing" over there.
Jack Lee Porter is someone I made up. Terminology of the time is just that - I don't want people freaking out at my "insensitivity" because the narration or dialogue contains outdated terms.
Doc liked Dodge City. Sure, some rough idiots disturbed the peace just about every night at first, but Wyatt was doing a lot to set things straight. There was usually business for his Faro table, and when there wasn't, he could always pick up a blackjack or poker game. Wyatt was becoming obviously enamored of a pretty young fallen woman known as Mattie Blaylock, which in a way made Doc feel better about himself. He admired Wyatt, who seemed like an upstanding gentleman among the riffraff of the young Kansas town. If Wyatt saw no issue in consorting with prostitutes, then there was no reason to think he would look down on Doc for his unconventional relationship with Kate.
Speaking of his relationship with Kate, Doc had noticed a man or two eyeing his common law wife with poorly disguised desire. She was an attractive woman in general, her nose notwithstanding, and blessed with ample charms. He had also noticed Kate not particularly trying to discourage the attention. For the first time in their imitation marriage, Doc began to feel a bit insecure.
It would not be unreasonable, Doc admitted to himself, if Kate wished to find pleasure and comfort elsewhere. In his poor health, he could not hope to compete with a robust young man in his prime. The weather and climate seemed to be helping him, but not enough to make up the difference. He told himself that as long as she kept coming back to him, he could stand being a cuckold. As long as she came back, and no one dared admit that they noticed his wife's extramarital activity. But in truth, it made him a little sick. After all, what if those greener pastures eventually caused her to forget about coming back?
Finally, he decided to face the issue head-on. If things were about to get bad, he wanted to get it over with. When they returned to the boarding house together after an early success at Faro, they were both in good spirits, in spite of the issue nagging at the back of Doc's mind. He sat at their little table to recount the money he had won from careless cattle drovers, and Kate hung around his neck, caressing him in a very distracting manner.
"Jack Lee Porter was certainly making eyes at you this evening," Doc said, careful to keep accusation out of his tone.
"Yes, poor soul," Kate said between planting kisses on the side of Doc's neck. "I think he's been out on the Chisholm Trail too long."
"No females but cattle," Doc said with a smirk.
Kate chuckled and flicked her tongue against the edge of Doc's ear.
Doc huffed at the sensation, struggling to keep his focus. "He doesn't seem like a bad sort, though. You like him?"
"Mm..." Kate kissed along Doc's jaw to his mouth. "I like him all right."
"He probably won't venture any more of his hard-earned money at the Faro table after tonight's disgrace." Doc swallowed. He wanted to forget about Porter and take what Kate was offering him in no uncertain terms. "...Had you thought of making a proposition with him?"
"Why would I do that?" Kate kissed his lips again and stroked his hair. "The money's flowing in and we're Doctor and Missus here. You want us to be respectable."
"Ideally... but I told you when we came to our understanding that I wouldn't hold you to my personal convictions or try to take your independence away."
She shrugged. "There's no need. I don't like him that much."
He couldn't help smiling a little. "If you're sure."
She smiled coyly. "Anyone would think you wanted me back in business... a little jealousy good for your soul, John?"
Hell, no. He took her chin gently in one hand. "You little she-devil." He kissed her soundly. "I've no desire to see you with another man. Just wanted to be sure it wasn't what you desired."
"You wouldn't mind if it was?"
"I wouldn't say anything about it, not if it gave you satisfaction."
"But would you mind?"
She was certainly persistent. Doc stared indulgently into her eyes and gave a little sigh. "Of course, I'd like you to be mine alone. But we have an understanding, and I won't go back on it. Of course, it might make a difference who the fella was."
"Jack Lee Porter?"
"I guess I wouldn't mind you taking more of his money, so long as he knew your heart would never be his."
"But you'd be jealous."
He pulled her into his lap. "As an old coonhound with a new pup in the kennel."
She giggled. "What if it were your Mister Earp?"
Doc's eyebrows traveled north for a moment. "Wyatt... Well, he's a friend. I reckon he's the only fella I wouldn't mind too much about," he said with a laugh.
"I'll have to remember that." She sounded half serious.
Actually, a personal friend being intimate with his wife sounded worse than a stranger doing it. A betrayal. "Now... you know I was foolin', right darlin'?"
"Oh, I understand." She stroked his hair again most affectionately while her other hand began tugging at his cravat.
Doc relaxed. He pushed them back from the table, chair and all, to give her more room and set to work on the buttons of her dress. "Well, as you said, the money is flowing in... let's see how 'Doctor and Missus' we can be."
She dropped his cravat on the table and efficiently unfastened his waistcoat. "I think you'll find me very good at my wifely duties, Doctor Holliday."
He pulled open her bodice and admired her corseted bosom. "I always do, Missus Holliday."
Wyatt had procured Mattie's services a solid four times in less than two weeks. It was about time he started a formal courtship. He wanted to ask her to some social event or other, but the only thing scheduled for the near future was a church picnic, and that seemed like a completely inappropriate way to begin. Still, he had determined not to pay her anymore, and that meant that he had to make a move. Either they were "seeing one another" or they were not. So far, technically speaking, they were not.
The conundrum had Wyatt actually avoiding Mattie for the moment, because if he was with her, she would wonder why they weren't heading off for a tryst. They couldn't just stand around talking. So now, avoiding her, Wyatt stayed in the alcove by Doc's Faro table late into the night, until everyone else went away and the two friends played a slow game of poker with Kate looking on.
"You going to tell me what's on your mind?" Doc suddenly asked after their second hand.
Caught off guard, Wyatt looked at Doc over his fanned-out cards. "What do you mean?"
"You didn't used to hang around so late. Haven't you got assistant marshaling in the morning or some such? Or an appointment with a certain lady friend?"
Wyatt felt like he'd been doused in ice water. Obviously, he couldn't expect Doc to be blind, but he hadn't thought their friendship was close enough for him to be so blunt.
"She cut you loose?" Doc persisted.
Now feeling hot under the collar, Wyatt shifted in his chair. "No. It's not like that."
"What is it like?" Doc's drawl sounded particularly lazy this evening.
So irritating. Wyatt struggled to recall where they were in the game. He looked at his lousy hand of cards and put two cards face down on the table. "Two."
Kate dealt him two fresh cards from the deck. They were no better than what he'd had before.
Wyatt sighed. "It's personal."
"Ten dollars," Doc said, tossing the bill face-down into middle of the table.
Wyatt's slightly perturbed expression changed to a grimace. "Ten? I thought this was a friendly game."
"You just made it personal."
With a shake of the head coupled with a roll of the eyes for good measure, Wyatt said, "Fold" and dropped his cards.
"You had nothing."
"Not a thing."
"Neither had I. Just a high queen."
"High ten. Worst hand of the night, almost."
Doc pulled back his ten-dollar bill, along with his previous bet of twenty-five cents and Wyatt's call. "You going to tell me what's eating you?"
I told him it was personal. Why's he being so damn nosy?
"Tell me," Kate put in. "Who understands woman trouble like a woman?"
She had a point. Wyatt glanced at Doc, who made no sign of objecting to his talking directly to her. "Well..." He swallowed. He had made some stupid mistakes in his time - confiding his personal difficulties to these two probably wouldn't rank very high on the list. "It's like this. I've got quite a torch burning for Mattie Blaylock."
Doc smirked but said nothing.
"She's a... um..."
"A working girl," Kate supplied.
"Yes. But I want to make her my girl. I don't wanna just ask her. I want to make her a..." He frowned, trying to find the right word. Offer?
"Gesture," said Doc.
"Right. But there aren't any flower shops in Dodge and the restaurants aren't fancy, there's nothing in the theater this week, and I think the saints would all go marching home on the spot if we showed up at the church picnic together."
Doc's smirk became a smile.
"I don't see how you can be a lawman," Kate said, shaking her head as if worried for a sick child.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, first of all you don't know how to think creatively. You need to do that to outsmart people. And the second part of that is that you don't know human nature. At least, not the feminine nature."
Wyatt sat up and leaned on the table, looking at Kate intently. "I'll listen to whatever advice you can give me."
"There is a haberdasher in town."
"Yes... but isn't a hat sort of a very personal first gift?"
Doc's smile grew to Cheshire cat proportions.
"The haberdasher uses silk flowers to decorate many of the ladies' hats."
"Yes... oh. You think I could get artificial flowers there and make a bouquet of them."
"I don't see why not. And this very saloon offers Russian caviar..."
"I can't have dinner with her here - she works here."
"Who said you have to have it here?"
Doc had begun to chuckle quietly, which Wyatt found irritating.
"Get a room in the Dodge House and pay someone to serve the two of you a special meal," Kate went on. "If it means enough to you, you can set up a very nice table with a dinner the like of which she's never seen."
"That could work," Wyatt said, trying hard to ignore Doc.
"And as for entertainment, borrow the Long Branch's fiddler for the evening. It shouldn't cost you too much."
"Yeah... that is an idea." Wyatt looked at Kate with much more appreciation than he'd given her as of yet. "And you think she'll like all that?"
"I think she'll be very impressed because men don't usually think of the sweet things like that."
That felt like a little punch to the gut. She was right, of course. "Missus Holliday, I don't know how to thank you."
"Call her Kate," Doc put in. "We're friends, I believe."
"Thank you, Kate," Wyatt said sincerely.
"Not at all," she answered sweetly. "Doc tells me you're the only one he doesn't mind me flirting with, so I have every reason to keep you in good spirits."
Wyatt's mouth fell open.
"Just a little joke between us," Doc said, shuffling the poker deck overhand. "Now, since your troubles have evaporated, can you focus on the cards?" He dealt them each a fresh hand.
Wyatt picked up his cards with enthusiasm. "You got it... I need to win some money to pay for these things."
Woops, Kate said it out loud! lol that was a fun conversation to write. I hope you liked it. Sorry to tease you with the previous scene... heh. Use your imagination.
There's a sort of historical Easter egg in this chapter. Just a little-known fact. I'll be impressed if anyone spots it.
