She kissed him back, sucking on his tongue, then on his bottom lip. His hands moved up under her T-shirt, and she abruptly let go of his neck and staggered back. He reached out for her.
"
Wait,
"
Jake croaked.
"
Wait.
"
He reeled her back in.
"
Not again. I’ve waited long enough. So have you, from the way you’re reacting.
"
She put her hands flat on his chest and held him off.
"
There’s something I have to tell you.
"
His eyes looked wary now. He was probably thinking she was married, or gay. Or maybe both.
She led him to the couch.
"
What?
"
he asked again. More than a trifle impatient now.
She’d never had to explain before, having avoided it by avoiding any complications like this. Any relationships, any love affairs. She took a deep breath.
"
Two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"
He started to say something.
"
No, wait,
"
she said.
"
Let me finish. Then you get your turn. I’m okay now. So far, at least. I mean, I’m not dying or anything--at least no more than most people. I had treatment and a double mastectomy.
"
There. That was all she had to say. Jake took a deep breath and waited.
Simon’s eyes looked almost entirely gold now, and she couldn’t quite read the expression in them. He sat for a moment, then said softly,
"
Show me.
"
"
What?
"
"
Show me.
"
He took her hands and put them on the bottom of her T-shirt. His eyes didn’t leave hers.
"
Take off your shirt. Please.
"
"Wait," Jake said. "There's something else."
He waited.
"I didn't have reconstructive surgery. I'm just...flat. No nipples, no nothing."
"Show me," he said again.
So she did. She did it because he asked her with those eyes, and he asked her nicely. Then again, maybe six months of treatment had just conditioned her to expose her chest upon request.
Jake slipped off the shirt, and Simon took it away from her. Then he got onto his knees in front of her on the couch and ran his fingers lightly over the horizontal scars that marked where each breast had been. "They've healed well."
"
I...,
"
she started to say, but as she said it, he leaned in and ran his tongue lightly over the left scar.
Geez. She normally didn't have any sensation around the scars, but... Her back arched as he did the same with the right.
"
Equal enjoyment opportunity,
"
he murmured against her.
"Funny." She pulled his head up to eye level. "But you don't mind? You don't think it's--"
"What? Disgusting?" His eyes were soft, the pupils dilated.
"I'll tell you a secret," he said, touching her lower lip. "sometimes breasts just get in the way. Distract you..." He let his fingers lightly trail down her throat, past her chest, along her stomach... "from the important things." He pulled her close.
"One thing," Jake murmured.
"What?"
"Is that a pistol in your pocket," she asked, "or are you just happy to see me?"
"Both, in fact."
*****
Now that they were both disarmed, they made love--first on the study rug and then again in the shower. No small accomplishment, Simon thought, given their difference in height. Good thing she was light--not to mention, athletic.
Afterwards, they slipped into Simon's bed and he pulled the blanket up over both of them, before tucking himself around Jake, spoon-style.
"Are you warm enough?" He ran his hand over her shoulder, feeling the muscle definition, presumably from swimming.
"I'm fine, thanks. Perfect, in fact." She wriggled her butt and he had an urge to go for the hat trick. Before he could pursue it, though, she continued. "I should probably go home soon. It's almost two, and I have to work tomorrow and so do you, I suppose." She twisted around so he could see her face.
"
I’m just sorry you have to drive so far to take me home.
"
Was that a
"
talk me out of going home
"
statement, Simon wondered, or an expression of genuine regret for putting him to any trouble? It was always so hard to tell with women.
Opting for a regretful-yet-chivalrous reply, he kissed her and followed it with,
"
I’m sorry you have to go, but I certainly don’t mind taking you. After all, I practically kidnapped you to take you to the Firenzes' in the first place.
"
She pulled back, studied his face for a second, and then laughed.
"
You did, didn’t you? And for the record, I wasn’t fishing for an invitation to stay.
"
The woman didn’t miss a thing.
"
Let me get dressed and we’ll leave.
"
But all of a sudden, Simon wasn't quite ready to let go of her.
*****
He'd fallen asleep after the third time they made love that night.
Jake knew she should either wake him up, so he could take her home, or go to sleep herself, so she wouldn't be completely exhausted the next day. She didn't want to do either.
What she wanted to do was to enjoy the moment. The feeling of exhilaration...contentment...relief, even. She'd survived something she'd imagined and dreaded a thousand times. The boob confrontation.
Disengaging Simon's right arm, which was draped over her, she slid sideways and away from him and then flipped over on her back to study the ceiling.
There was a time when she had believed she would never be with a man again and hadn't cared a whit. Times when she would lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling like this, and bargaining with God:
"Please God, let the biopsy comes back
"
benign,
"
and I'll never skip another mammogram.
"Please God, let me keep my breasts, and I'll never complain about their size again.
"
Please God, let me stop throwing up, and I'll eat right and exercise every day.
"Please God, let me live, and I'll never use your name in vain again. I swear.
And, some nights, just, "Please God, let me die."
No, sex hadn't even entered into it.
But, boy-oh-boy, had she missed it.
And with Simon it had been magical, she had to admit. He was a sensitive, considerate lover who said the breasts--or lack thereof--didn't matter.
And she believed him, that was the miracle of it.
The other miracle was that Simon didn't appear to be looking for anything serious in a relationship. Look at the way he'd promptly fallen asleep after sex. And that was just fine with Jake.
Rent over buy, individual-serving over economy-size, short-term floating over long-term fixed, six-pack over keg, goldfish over dog. No commitments. No one depending on her.
No one to get hurt.
Just in case.
*****
Simon felt sick.
In his dream, the smoke was thick and the stench overwhelming. Though Simon would never admit it to anyone, the smell of smoke literally turned his stomach. Some fire investigator. The first thing he always did when he returned from a fire scene was to shower and change.
But now in his dream, he was wading through smoke as he imagined Jake would wade through water.
He was thinking of Jake because she was in his dream, too, her hand feeling cold in his hand, despite the flames. He was trying to lead her out of the fire, but she didn't seem to care that she might die--that
they
might die, and his house...his house was...
Simon awoke with a start, but the smoke didn't evaporate along with the dream. Neither did Jake. She was on her back next to him, breathing shallowly.
He reached over and shook her shoulder and she sat bolt upright, like she wasn't used to being touched. "What?!" The blanket fell to her waist as she looked around, probably trying to figure out where she was.
"Fire!" Simon said urgently, sliding off the bed and pulling her down onto the floor with him. "Stay low and follow me."
Now completely awake, Jake nodded. Simon noticed she didn't bother with questions, other than the important one: "Which way?" she asked.
"The window." He crawled toward it and she followed.
"I'll open it," he said when they reached the window. The smoke was hanging about a foot above the floor, filling up the room now. "You stay low."
It was only when Simon turned back after unlocking and raising the sash, that he noticed Jake had dragged the blanket from his bed along with her. Good thinking, since they were both butt naked.
"Throw it out ahead of us," she hissed, as she passed it up to him. "There are rose bushes under your windows."
Okay, so it was
doubly
good thinking.
Simon folded the blanket double and tossed it over the sill and onto the prickly shrub roses. Jake followed, with a tiny "ouch," as she crossed over. Simon was next, and he tugged the quilt off the bushes and threw it over his shoulder, before taking her hand.
Jake's hand was cold, like in the dream, but she seemed as intent as he to get away. Together they ran from the heat and smoke of the house until finally, a football field away, they turned and looked back, coughing.
The window they'd just escaped through was on the north side of the house, and smoke was billowing out that window, along with the one next to it, though there were no visible flames. Simon angled around to the lake side.
It was quite a sight. The lake was still bright with reflected light like it had been earlier, but now that light wasn't from the moon, but from the flames dancing behind the glass study wall.
Simon stood there staring until Jake finally tugged at him. He looked down at her, standing naked next to him, and thought to tuck the quilt around her. "Are you warm enough?"
In the glow of the fire, he could see a scratch on her cheek where the rose bush must have nicked her as she climbed out the window. "I'm fine," she said, like she had to the same question after they'd made love, but sadly this time. In the distance, a siren screamed. "I'm sorry, Simon--your house..."
There was a long, low
craaack
then, and Simon turned away from Jake, and back toward what had been the love of his life.
He was just in time to see the window wall of the house shatter and fall, releasing the flames into the night.
By the time the firefighters arrived, the back of the house was gone. If Jake was the fanciful type, she would have said she heard Simon's heart break at the exact moment the windows of his house had.
Now he would never find just the right color for that room. Never feel the satisfaction--or the emptiness--that comes from finally being done with something that has consumed you.
Simon had scared her a little, standing there staring endlessly, and Jake had pulled him away from the house and eventually back to his Explorer. Simon's brain seemed to switch into gear then, and he'd used a key he'd hidden somewhere under the truck to move it out of the way of both the fire and the trucks converging on them to fight it.
In the back of the SUV, under the binders Simon had brought from the Firenzes, he'd dug up sweatpants and a T-shirt. His running clothes, he said, and she realized how little she knew about the man she had just had sex with and nearly died alongside.
At her insistence, Simon pulled on the pants and, at
his
insistence, she had taken the shirt. He kept asking her if she was cold, seeming to forget that it was early July, and the temperature, a balmy seventy-five degrees.
*****
Hoses were laid out. Firefighters were everywhere.
Simon was enough of a professional, even at his own personal fire, to stay out of the way. He identified himself to the Fire Captain, confirmed that there was no one else inside, and then he and Jake settled on the hood of the Explorer to watch.
Simon was worried about Jake. He thought maybe he should take her home or someplace warm, but she kept saying she was okay, and not to worry.
He was also worried about Irish. He had let her out when he and Jake had arrived at the house and had forgotten to let her back in. A good thing in this case. The Irish Setter finally bounded up at about 3 a.m., apparently having had a fine time prowling the neighborhood.