HABÁNAME                                                 (Havana [Verb Transitive] Me)                                                             by Ana Ortiz                                                     Copyright © June 6, 2002 Ana Ortiz                                                                                       All Rights Reserved Disclaimers: Not written for profit.  Several languages are used profanely. Consensual f/f eroticism. I wish to thank an exceptional team of beta-readers. Prof of Xena Warrior Lesbian, and Jessica Michallet worked tirelessly to make this story more effective and accessible from Chapter 3 onwards. MedoraMacD was kind enough to offer her editorial skills and encouragement beginning in Chapter 6. Thanks to Old Warrior (reading voluntarily over e-mail) and to Laura Briggs (reading in captivity before her morning coffee) for test driving this story. Note to readers: In scenes set in the United States, I use the convention of italicizing dialogue when ? in bilingual contexts ? characters choose to communicate in Spanish. In scenes set in Latin America, I invert that practice: when characters opt for the use of English in dialogue, it is italicized. Esto no puede ser no más que una canción, quisiera fuera una declaración de amor, romántica sin reparar en formas tales que pongan freno a lo que siento ahora a raudales. Te amo, te amo, eternamente te amo. Si me faltaras no voy a morirme si he de morir quiero que sea contigo mi soledad se siente acompañada por eso a veces sé que necesito, tu mano, tu mano, eternamente tu mano. Cuando te ví sabía que era cierto este temor de hallarme descubierto. Tú me desnudas con siete razones, me abres el pecho, siempre que me colmas de amores, de amores, eternamente de amores. Si alguna vez me siento derrotado y renuncio a ver el sol cada mañana rezando el credo que me has enseñado miro tu cara y digo en la ventana: Yolanda, Yolanda, eternamente Yolanda.        Pablo Milanés, ?Yolanda?, (used without permission) Chapter Ten: The Walking Alchemist Mid-October 1993      Boston Barbara felt her every muscle battling exhaustion as she grimly made her way home. She had not anticipated having to walk most of the way back from L Street pulling a damaged bicycle behind her as best she could. Fuck! Fuck! This is the third bike since I got back! And this time it really wasn?t my fault. Friggin? potholes. A whole Cuban family could have lived in that fucker. Crap, I?m just safer in a car. I haven?t had an accident with one since that little problem with the hallucination back when I was sixteen and had that Volkswagen Beetle. Still. Aiming for the mailbox was the best option; a car that small could not have handled a direct impact with a rhino if it had been real. Barbara left the bike out by the dumpster in front of her building: she could see that it was not salvageable. If she was honest with herself, she had to acknowledge that lack of sleep may have compromised her reflexes and judgment. She had spent most of the night at Countway Library trying to do a more extensive search on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis: the neighborhood clinic where she was spending an increasing number of hours was seeing a steady rise in new cases of the terrifying illness. Rather than try to fit in her ritual visit to the beach on her way into seminar that afternoon, she had chosen to make the trip in the pre-dawn hours. Now she was arriving home to her apartment sweaty, tired and bloody. Her left elbow and knee were going to require ice packs if she were to avoid stiffness from swelling. She paused to wipe gravel and dirt off her torn scrubs before heading up the stairs. Ah, well, I needed to get my ducks in a row before the task force meeting on how the city is going to respond  to MDR-TB. Of course, the first thing they will think of is forcing people into treatment and confining them to make sure they are taking their medication. But crap, I am a physician, not a jailer. And I hate surveillance. I hated it in Cuba and I hate it here. That?s not the way to make people feel cared about and invested in their health. No friggin? way. I?ll do what it takes to help show that if you make it easier for these folks to comply with treatment, they?ll do it without being threatened. She was primed for a struggle and the conservative elements among the city?s public health bureaucracy seemed like an ideal target for her in her re-invigorated state. Despite the unfortunate biking accident, Barbara was feeling more confident and optimistic than she had in months. After several unsuccessful recruitment efforts she had finally met a male health care activist with a trip planned to Cuba who would seriously consider marrying Chela in order to bring her into the country. The man was very sympathetic to the plight of the two women but was still concerned about what legal consequences he might face if the deception were discovered. Barbara knew several of the clinic staff had engaged in staged marriages with foreign nationals and was planning on grilling them on how to successfully pull off the charade. Right now, however, she was fantasizing about a warm shower, something to remove the grit she felt caked into every fold of her scrubs and coating the skin on the back of her neck. Still she was dead on her feet: it would take a superhuman effort to not succumb to the temptation to fall into bed regardless of the state of her hygiene. Letting out a loud yawn that echoed in the building stairwell, she stopped before her door to stretch out and lazily scratch her midriff where the top came up too short for her lanky frame. She managed to clumsily insert the key into her apartment door lock, when she felt her toe brush against something. It was a stack of mail thoughtfully brought in for her by her next door neighbor, Jack, who had been fussing with her for weeks to get her broken mailbox fixed.  Right at the top was the item she had been awaiting with some anticipation for weeks.