“Turn around.”

I do as I am told, shivering as his fingers brush against my skin. He gently lowers the zip while nuzzling into my neck.

“God, you smell so good,” he says huskily. His hands wrap around me, over my stomach, as I tilt my head to kiss him. Then I feel him unhook my bra and he turns me easily so that we are skin against skin.

“Wait,” I say, pushing him slightly away to cover myself protectively with my arms.

He pulls back. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

“I haven’t been with anyone. Not since, you know.” I hate the vulnerability in my voice, but I can’t help it, nor can I hide it. I am terrified that he will be repulsed by me.

“Do you trust me?” he asks softly.

I nod.

He reaches out and gently lowers my arms to my sides. My first instinct is to close my eyes, that I won’t want to see his face when he sees the damage wrought upon my body. But my heart tells me I have to do this. If I truly trust him as I say I do, it will be OK. His eyes hold mine until he is sure I am comfortable, and then he lowers them, slowly. Down past my collarbone, where they linger on the jagged scar from where the chemotherapy port was placed under my skin to administer the drugs directly into my veins. He holds out a finger and touches it lightly.

“Does it hurt?”

I shake my head. “Not anymore.”

“Are you OK with this?”

I take a shallow breath and nod.

His eyes follow the contours of my skin down. I am too thin, and the bones of my chest protrude more than they should. He traces them lightly. Then with one last look to make sure I am OK, he looks directly at my breasts. I hold my breath.

I couldn’t look at myself for the longest time, neither during nor after treatment. In fact, I actively avoided it, turning my head when the nurses changed the dressings, and removing the mirror from my bedroom so I couldn’t accidentally catch a glimpse when getting dressed. I didn’t want to see or know what my new “normal” was. As far as I was concerned, nothing would ever be normal again. When I finally did muster up the courage, I cried for two days, only pausing when I was so physically tired I slept. Then I would wake and remember, and I would cry some more. My breasts before the cancer weren’t the kind of breasts that grace magazine covers. They most likely wouldn’t have inspired any ancient carvers into chiseling a statue in their honor. But they were mine. And according to ex-boyfriends they were pretty nice to look at. Average size, C cup. The right one slightly bigger than the left. After the surgery this changed, and lefty become the superior. Righty was misshapen now, and slightly floppy. There were two scars, a big one that ran right from under my armpit and down the outside, and another vertical one that circumvented my nipple and left it permanently pointing to the side after it healed. The skin was puckered and dry like a deflated party balloon, and bright red from the radiation treatment. Sometimes I wished they’d just done the mastectomy from the get-go; then I could have had reconstruction surgery and maybe boosted myself a size or two in compensation. But they didn’t, and I hadn’t, and it was all moot now anyway because the cancer was stubborn, and had decided to inhabit other parts of my body as well.