I am not afraid. I storm the hall, bold until I see I’ve gone the wrong way and scuff back slower. Words and memories cluster in my head. Anesthesia can be like that, spotty with what it erases. The past two nights are foggy to me, but I remember fifteen years ago with greater clarity. I remember the Arizona mansion, the warm clasp of Jake’s hand around my hand; I remember the moment I awoke from my first surgery, the implants Jake bought me, 450 cc silicone I’ve since swapped for grafts of my own fat, harvested from my midsection and “flanks.” Which feels purer somehow. My breasts are constructed, but it’s all me inside them. All me, only rearranged a little.

The trade—implants for fat—felt, when I made it, like a final fuck you to Jake. My breasts, molded out of my own material, would feel more like mine, I thought. But the fuck you part didn’t last, and only sometimes do I love the abundance of flesh and fat that took the place of prosthesis. Natural is better than prosthetic. Natural is moral. Natural connotes a certain kind of woman, a peaceful wise-woman, a woman like my mother. This is the logic I’ve let guilt me, guide me; this is the woman I’ve been trying to become. I have long considered Aesthetica™ the last step in returning myself to this better, natural state. Even if I could be natural only artificially; even if I could be natural only in death. But I survived.