You don’t notice. And I relax. Your touch does it, on my shoulders, my back, and now—are we moving this fast?—my chest.

“Is this okay?” you ask.

“They’ll be gone soon anyway,” I say.

“What’s gone?” Your voice is groggy, like you’re asleep.

“My chest,” I say, because I can’t pronounce any of the smorgasbord of the other goofier and more vivid terms available. “I’m getting surgery. On December third.” And then I add, “2020,” like the year was ever in question. Like anyone could forget this year. Like I’m not aware of all the new ways along with the old that the procedure will put me at risk.

“Can I touch them now?” you ask. “While they’re here on earth?” which is bold, but maybe you feel the way I feel, that certain things are possible now, with you, that cannot happen anywhere else. Like this is the whole point.

I should say no. My therapist would advise me, in her firm, intimidating way, to say no. I tell my girlfriend no, which makes her sad. She loves that part of my body, and her love haunts me at every stage of surgery: taking tawdry pictures of myself for the remote consult—my bathtub in the background, containing one dusty puddle—the remote consult itself with the hold message about liposuction and eye work, the before-and-after pictures of strangers baldly lit and uncomfortable, shoulders hunched around bruises, the follow-up to the remote consult. Collecting a letter from my therapist, pushing on my insurance, pushing on the surgeon, scheduling a date, buying compression vests and scar strips and shea butter and silicone and pineapple, all this effort just to steal some of my girlfriend’s joy. Especially now, it seems cruel, when she’s all alone, when we’re without each other. When I have very little to offer as it is. But, December third. It’s not certain, but I’m proud of it. Knowing all this, I still say, “Yes.”

You peel off my T-shirt. You toss it on the couch where you approve citizenship. On your sunset cushion, under the painting of a neon tiger, it’s a withered casing, like how could it contain me? Then the binder. You use your nails to pry it from my skin, where sweat has sealed it. My binder that has broken a rib or two but that makes me ecstatic anyway, in an embarrassingly childish way, whenever I pull it on, so much so that I’d never take it off if it didn’t stop me from breathing and digesting food. You do not hesitate in any of this. I want to be clear. You remove both layers with a hard set to your mouth. And since you’ve used my right pronoun, which my girlfriend can’t always quite get, which I can’t always quite get, which confuses and upsets my friends, to what extent they think about me or it at all, which my family won’t know about until they read this story, whatever final form it takes, I assume what you are doing is right. That you, older than me, living this queer, fatherless life in the Mission, full of friends that light you up when you talk about them, because they are your real family, so much more so than your mother who’s a hermit and your brothers who treat you like a child, that whole constellation back in Coney Island where you never, ever visit, that you might know better than I know what I need right now. Or maybe I need someone to follow.