The Anatomy of Perception

by AJ Rose

  I nodded reluctantly, not wanting to give them bleak scenarios to look forward to. “That they can. Surgery is the swiftest option with regard to eradicating the existing mets, but it doesn’t stop the spread. The chemo does that, and it has to be administered over time so your body doesn’t get overwhelmed.”

  Isabelle leaned forward in her bed, dropping her tone conspiratorially. “I’ve heard chemo is like poison. Is that true?”

  “Well, it’s no picnic. It will kill off the dangerous cells, but it can horribly disrupt your body’s balance, and it does have negative effects on things like hair follicles, digestion, and appetite. It can also throw your sleep out of whack. You’ll feel like crap for a while, Mrs. D.” I squeezed her hand.

  “But she can survive this, right?” Lawrence asked, swallowing audibly. It was the question I’d been waiting for, the one they’d not asked the neurologist or oncologist during the consults.

  “Of course she can,” I smiled as reassuringly as I could. “I won’t lie, this is an aggressive kind of cancer. People do lose this battle. But if you listen to the doctors, do everything you’re told, and most of all, have hope, you can beat this.”

  The familiar determination I’d seen on Isabelle’s face whenever she set her mind to a task fell into place like a stage curtain, obscuring the fear and nerves behind the scenes. She could take on the world when she got that stubborn set of her jaw.

  I let her hand go and stood from her bedside as Lawrence leaned forward to kiss her. He’d noticed her face too, and he beamed with pride and love.

  “That’s my strong girl. Ready for this?”

  She winked. “I was born ready for anything.”

  They were absorbed in each other when I left the room in search of their son, hoping to set things straight. Having found him pacing in the hallway before a bank of elevators, I urged him to go back to his parents’ room to wait for me while I mustered up a cot so his dad could spend the night beside his mom. He glared, but also obeyed.

  The whole ride home was torturously silent. Every time I tried to explain, he said he didn’t care what I had to say.

  “Will you just talk to me?” I finally shouted as he brushed his teeth in our bathroom. He glowered in the mirror.

  “What the fuck do you want me to say? My mother gets cancer and when I go to find you to tell you the tests are done, I catch you kissing that freak of a girl you call a friend, and then she throws it in my face, like you’re her property or something? I swear to god, Dane, your timing fucking sucks.”

  “Craig, Sabrina did me a gigantic, possibly career-saving favor. I went to kiss her cheek. She turned her head. It was an accident, one that won’t be repeated.” I didn’t feel the need to enlighten him about her threat to turn it into more. He didn’t need that right now, and frankly, I was pissed at her for even implying such a thing. If she expected me to trade anything sexual for her continued silence, we could go to Chief Noble the next time we had a shift together. “Don’t make it out to be more than it was.” I turned and peeled off my shirt, for once not bothering to throw it in the hamper. It lay puddled on the floor on my side of the bed, followed quickly by my pants and socks. My shoes, I’d kicked off when we’d come in.

  “More than it was?” he spluttered. “You think I’m just being dramatic when this has been quite easily the worst day of my life?”

  I wanted to go to him, touch and hold him, whisper encouragement that it would be okay, because I honestly believed it would be. But he wouldn’t let me, so I settled for using words.

  “Babe, this isn’t a death sentence. I understand you’re scared, and your parents are, too. But trust me when I tell you it’s survivable.”

  If looks could have killed, I’d have been a smoldering pile of ash on the mattress beside my pillow. “She’s having brain surgery. She has tumors. She’s having seizures. She’s got cancer, Dane! Fuck!” He flung his shoes against the closed closet door and sat heavily on his side of the bed.

  “Lie down for a little while,” I said quietly, ignoring the outburst. “You’ve been up all night, and I’m quite certain a few hours’ sleep will make the rest of this easier to digest.”

  “I don’t want it to be easy to digest,” he snapped, but he lay down anyway, yanking the covers down to climb in and then back up to his chin as he glared at the ceiling. I wouldn’t be the only pile of ash if his mood held.

  “Okay, easier to conquer, then,” I said, knowing military analogies seemed to motivate people who were inducted into the cancer hall of fame. “The stronger you are, the stronger you can be for your mother.”

  “Fuck you,” he said wearily, with no heat to the words. Even if he’d wanted to lie there and shoot laser-eye daggers at everything under the sun, his body wouldn’t let him, such was the depth of his exhaustion. He wasn’t used to pulling all-nighters like I was. Against his will, sleep began to pull him under.

  I thought he was gone, off to slumberland, when he spoke, his words slurred as he fought the pull of oblivion.

  “I don’t want you to be her friend anymore.”

  “What?” That wasn’t possible, especially after she’d just saved my ass. How was I supposed to turn my back on her when my career literally could have been over but for her quick thinking and her loyalty? And he wanted me to repay that by turning my back on her? Now?

  That’s not fair, I chastised myself. He doesn’t have a clue what she did for you, and he never will. No one will.

  “I can’t do this, watch my mother go through brain surgery and chemotherapy, and be worried about her dying, for fuck’s sake, if I’m also worried about you fucking your fag hag behind my back. I can’t go through the worst thing that’s ever happened to me if you’re not one hundred percent by my side.”

  I bristled. “This isn’t happening to you,” I snapped. “It’s happening to your mother. She’s the one who’s going to be getting cut on, getting chemo sickness, and having months of hospitals and doctors ahead of her. Not you.” Part of my biggest struggle with patient care was family members of the patients imposing their will on the patient, judging their handling of the treatments or our handling of the patients. I had very little tolerance for the family members who claimed the patient’s diagnosis affected them more. “This is the worst thing to happen to your mother.”

  He rolled over and looked at me. I expected more fight, but there was sadness and fear shining back at me. I reached for him, but he flinched.

  “You don’t think her sickness is the worst thing that’s happened to me, too? She’s my mom. I can’t lose her. She’s too young. Jesus, Dane, she’s only fifty-two. They should be trekking across Europe or buying a motorhome and living in whatever state takes their fancy. Not strapped down in hospital beds with tubes in her arms, hoping the medicine kills the cancer before the cancer kills her.”

  “I know, babe,” I agreed softly. “It’s not fair. Of all people, it’s not fair that it’s her.” I considered those words. “Or maybe it’s best that it’s her.” He glared and started to protest, but I cut him off. “When has your mother ever backed down from anything?”

  “Never,” he conceded.

  “When has she ever done anything less than perfectly?”

  “Never.”

  “When has she set her mind to something and failed?”

  “Never.”

  “There ya go. Hurricane Isabelle is not going to die of cancer. And you are not going to lose your mother. And I am not fucking around behind your back.”

  His eyes glittered, and when he blinked, a silver contrail of a tear rounded the bridge of his nose, trekked across his other eyelid, and finally got sucked into the fabric of his pillow.

  “You swear to me?”

  “I swear to you,” I said, holding up my right hand, then crossing my heart. “I’m not even thinking about her. I’m worried about you. You’re right, this will be very difficult for your family to go through. I’m sorry for saying it isn’t happening to you, because even though you
’re not the sick one, you’re still affected. I promise I will be by your side through this, but Craig, you cannot let fear take you down this badly. You think your mother will be able to concentrate on getting better if her son falls apart?”

  He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath through his mouth. His nose was too clogged. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “It’s okay to fall apart sometimes, baby. I will hold you through it. I’ll find you and your dad a cancer support group for families if you need it. But you can’t fall apart through her entire treatment, or you’ll be a basket case, and she’ll be too worried about you to get herself better.” I’d seen what total failure to cope did to a person. It drove them to drink and kill off the rest of their family, one nasty word at a time.

  “I’m not the strong one,” he whispered. “I don’t handle pressure well.”

  “No, you’re the one who burns bright and feels everything deeply enough to paint it all for the world to see. Babe, there’s a reason artists are notoriously unstable.” He snorted, finally reaching out to lay his hand atop mine where I’d left it. “They didn’t have awesome boyfriends to help them,” I finished.

  “Awesome boyfriends who don’t have friends who kiss them inappropriately on the mouth,” he scowled.

  I sighed. “We’ll talk about it in a little while, okay? After we’ve caught up on some sleep.”

  “Fine,” he gave in. “But we’re not done with this.”

  I gathered him into my arms despite his stiff reluctance to let me. Kissing his temple, I urged him to sleep.

  “I love you,” I whispered, just as his muscles let go of all the tension and exhaustion swallowed him up.

  Present Day

  “Craig,” I said against his lips as we kissed, our hands scrabbling at clothing and breath coming faster. “Shower, remember?” I still had paint in my hair.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he answered, shoving his fingers in my waistband and pulling me toward the stairs, his lips on my jaw and sliding down my neck. The slick of his tongue on my skin had me shivering with need, my dick heavy and full between my legs. Our progress up the steps was a stumbling flail of limbs and laughter, but eventually we made it, sans a few more pieces of clothing, which peppered the floor.

  I’d always thought the trail of clothes from the front door to the bed was a cliché reserved for chick flicks and sitcoms, but apparently it really happened. My jeans hit the floor just as we passed the bed, the change in my pocket jingling. Craig’s pants soon followed, and his beautiful body, interrupted only by a lacy pair of bikini underwear that made me groan at the sight, was laid out before me and mine to freely touch. I’d always loved his long leanness, the stringy muscles that spoke more of running or swimming or yoga than lifting weights.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” I blurted, taking in the sight appreciatively. Unable to keep my hands off, I went at him again, desperate to brand his touch on my soul once more. I’d once taken him for granted, thinking I’d get to wake up to him every day of my life. Now, I realized just how bad the drought created by his absence was, how touch-thirsty his heat and scent made me. I needed to drink him in, get intoxicated by him, infused with his body and energy and affection.

  Pushing him into the vanity, I skimmed my hands down his shoulders and back to the firm swell of his bubble butt, grabbing a meaty handful and squeezing. He whimpered into my mouth, and I had to lick and taste. The lace of his underwear scratched at my palms, barely enough to cover his ass cheeks, the top of his crack peeking over the top. I teased my middle finger into his cleft and he threw his head back, rutting against me.

  “If you don’t take these off, my dick is going to rip right through them,” he warned.

  “That would be hot, if tragic. I like this pair.”

  “I do too,” he said. “That’s why you should take them off. So they live to be worn another day.”

  “As you wish,” I said, dropping to my knees and taking my sweet time pulling them down. The shape of his cock was hinted at through the lacy floral pattern, and it was almost better than raw nakedness, leaving pieces of his anatomy to the imagination. But in the end, I wanted to play, and the underwear were in the way, so I peeled him like a banana, immediately taking his prick into the back of my throat.

  “Hnnngh,” he hummed above me, his hands clamping on the marble counter behind him. Still hairless, his skin beckoned to be licked, and I didn’t just attend to his shaft and head. No, I suckled his balls and flicked my tongue along the creases where his thighs met his pelvis, behind his sack to his taint, and around the base of his dick back up to the head. I spent time playing in the slit where pre-come pooled, then tongued his frenulum to the tune of his ever increasing encouragement above me.

  “Look at me, Dane,” he begged. I did so, but didn’t take my mouth off my prize. “I’m close, but I don’t want it to be over.”

  “What can we do about that?” I asked innocently, teasing him with hot breath across the wet crown.

  “I want to feel you everywhere,” he said, rifling his fingers through my hair. My Craig-starved skin sang with the touch and smell and taste of him. Frankly, I didn’t care what he wanted to do, as long as he wanted to do it with me. Repeatedly.

  “We can do this the first time. And something else the second time. Something more the third. It’s all up to you.”

  He bit his lip and closed his eyes. “There’s always been something I wanted to do, but you used to urge me away.”

  I had a feeling I knew what was coming, and I hid my smile in a kiss to his stomach, his cock bumping my chin as I laved wetness across his skin and blew on it.

  “What’s that?”

  “I want your ass,” he hissed fiercely. “I always have. I want to suck and finger and fuck your ass so bad, Dane. Please say I can.”

  I chuckled and stood, stealing his breath with a kiss so scorching I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear sizzling in the bathroom’s echo. When I broke from his lips, swollen and dewy and perfect, I smiled wickedly and stepped toward the shower to turn the water on.

  “I’ve never had a dick up my ass,” I admitted.

  His eyes widened. “Never?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?” he demanded, following me into the warm cascade of water. “I always thought it was me you didn’t want fucking you.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I said, grabbing him around the waist and hauling him into me so I could lick water droplets from his jawline. “It still scares the piss out of me. But whenever the moment presented itself, I was always too far gone wanting to plow your greedy ass.” His dick bumped my thigh when I spoke those words. “So many times, your obvious enjoyment made me vow to do it next time, or the next time, or the next. But when it came to it, you were too beautiful bottoming for me to resist.”

  He smiled wryly. “I’ll try to be uglier this time.”

  “This time—” I reached behind him for the shampoo to get the paint out of my hair, which had run close to my eye and was beginning to sting “—I’ve discovered my prostate for myself. It’s my new favorite toy.”

  “Hnnngh,” he said again, resting his forehead on my shoulder while I sudsed up my hair.

  “This time,” I murmured, leaning into the spray to wash it out quickly so I could refocus on driving him crazy, “I want you to fuck me so hard I can taste you. I want you to fold me in half and take me to that heaven you always found when I fucked you. I want you to love fucking me so much there’s no other option but to be with me again and again, to wake up with me, and to paint that beauty on our souls for as long as we both shall live.”

  I let the chant of those words hang between us, making it clear what I was angling for here: not just his cock rhythmically petting my prostate until I howled out a climax, but a future where we loved and lived into old age, when the memory of our shared pleasure was all we had left because we couldn’t get boners anymore. I wanted our papery-skinned, wrinkly fingers tangle
d together while we sat in matching rocking chairs on some front porch overlooking a beach in Florida, because we’d retired there, reminiscing about the time we left a trail of clothes from the door to the bedroom.

  I wanted the whole happy ending, and not just the orgasmic kind.

  And I was willing to do anything with him to make it so, including shutting out the reverberation of my father’s voice calling faggots pussies for taking it up the tan track, declaring it the most disgusting thing possible.

  If I ever find out you like dick, son, I’ll shove one of them baseball bats up your poop chute and see if you like being the girl then. You’ll never walk right again.

  Slamming the iron door in my mind on that raspy, slurred voice so it didn’t taint the perfection standing before me, I smiled at Craig’s wide-eyed wonder at my words. The thing was, I’d been happy with Craig before. I liked to think he’d been happy with me. And my old man was a miserable drunken wreck, so he was hardly an expert whose advice and opinions mattered.

  I’d give myself over to Craig ten thousand different ways if it meant we could stay together, and I would be stronger for having taken the risk.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. I was fairly certain he didn’t quite mean the promise of forever over the promise of that evening, and I didn’t hold that against him. He’d said earlier we were dating exclusively. Becoming boyfriends was the next step in commitment, and then perhaps at some point, husbands. I didn’t need all the answers. Just his desire to follow through with the now.

  “Yes.”

  He lunged, backing me up into the warm tile and searing me with a kiss so passionate, so full of tongue and hope and need and soft, demanding lips, I nearly melted.

  “Not in here,” he said. “I hate fucking in the shower.”

  I laughed, and it bounced around the cubicle. “I remember. It always looks so fun in movies, but it never works out very well, especially since you’re shorter than me.”