And so it would go on, until we reached the inevitable resolution: First, let’s agree to disagree, and, anyhow, just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s right, does it? Jem would never touch another woman; he had chosen monogamy. ‘As have I!’ I’d interject, and he would acquiesce with a nod of his head. Then, the tenor of the conversation would shift when one of us said something along the lines of: The inclination to breed is one of the reasons the planet is fucked, and really, should we have children? Should we do the natural thing, or should we do the right thing by the planet? And with that, the argument and whatever had spawned it would be put behind us and our attention would turn instead to a shared future—to a hypothetical shared child or a shared decision generated by a shared environmental concern—and like magic our lives would open up, entwined and complicit before us. There was a certain grounding solidarity to it all—it was foundational to who we were; who we were as a couple. I don’t know. Somehow, it made us a collective. But the thing is, after the cancer and everything it did to my body—the new breasts, the infertility—that resolution was no longer possible.

‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ Jem said quietly, eyes begging me to back down. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Please. Just come back to bed.’

But I didn’t, I wouldn’t. He was really pissing me off. He started it, or half started it. He’d got his two cents in then wanted me to leave it there—or rather, wanted me to let him leave it there.

No, I thought. He can finish what he began.

God. I couldn’t stand up to Terry that arvo, but that evening I was as petty and pigheaded as anything with Jem. Funny, isn’t it, how there are certain things you can’t let slide when it’s your partner.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You know you want to. Say it: What’s natural for women, Jem?’

‘Why are you doing this?’ He was all but begging. I feel a bit bad thinking back on it. He was more sad than angry.

But the thing was, I wanted him to be angry. I wanted him to shout so that I could shout, so that I could rage and maybe cry. I was in a mood. Terry had put me in a mood, the weather had kept me in that mood, and Jem was keeping me there longer. Because it wasn’t fair that the conversation finish with him all smug with his ‘sexual variety’. Because I wanted to have my say, to have a say. Because I wanted my new body to be acknowledged as more than a body geared towards reproduction (no longer) or masculine pleasure or whatever. I wanted it to be acknowledged as, as a …

That was the thing: I didn’t know what. I didn’t know what it was anymore. I still don’t.