“It’s not that one side is flat and the other sticks out,” she said to Ace when he arrived after class.
“That’s for sure,” he said, with the big smile he’d worn since he had stuck his head in the door and grinned at her in speechless delight for nearly a minute.
“It’s more that there’s a nipple on one side and a line on the other.”
“How about under the arm?”
“I asked Eliopoulos that yesterday morning while he examined me. I can’t see under there without getting up and looking in the mirror and I haven’t felt like that yet.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said there’s a small depression there which will fill in as soon as the fatty tissue begins to rebuild.”
“I’ve never had any trouble at all regenerating fatty tissue,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But the front part, what I can see, is just a little scar. I mean it was sort of an anticlimax when I looked. I’m not sure what I expected exactly, but what I got was... just a scar.”
“ ‘He had been to touch the great death,’ ” Ace said, “‘And after all it was but the great death.’”
“Who said that?”
“Stephen Crane. And me.”
“There’s something bizarre about being a one-boob person, obviously, but there’s nothing repellent.”
“When do I get a look?”
“Not yet. The incision is pretty fresh. I’d just as soon give myself every break I can.”
“Whatever you say. I’m ready when you are. I don’t care whether I see it or not, but, you know, I think it would be better for you when I’ve looked and not shuddered.”
“I know. I want you to see. But not yet.”
“It won’t make any difference, you know.”
“I know. And to you I believe it. I really do. I know it won’t make any difference to you, and you don’t need to be told how much that helps. But to everybody else it will matter.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never discussed it with anyone, and who would tell me the truth now. No one’s going to tell me that they can’t get it up for a woman with one breast. Unless they didn’t know. And letting them say something like that to me and then find out later, that would be lousy. I couldn’t do that.”
“I know. I’m not asking you. I know that to anyone but you the idea that under my bra is one breast and one falsie... I know that it will turn them off.”
“Like I said, I don’t know. I don’t know that it’s not true, but I don’t know that it is. I could get it up for a one-boobed woman but I’m not unbiased. But other one-boobed women... I could lust after them.”
“Probably. But because of me you’re educated. You love me and lust for me, and would have to lust for others too or admit that I wasn’t desirable.”
“Yeah, true. So we don’t know. We don’t know either way.”
“But I feel that it’s true. Which is about the same thing.”
“True. If you had to prove something to yourself I would understand that.”
“You mean have an affair?”
“Affair seems a little extended. Let’s say, poetically speaking, if you wanted to do it with someone else to prove that you were desirable, I could take that.”
“No, I think I can deal with that. I think I can accept the fact that from this point on I will not be viewed as attractive, seductive, appealing... whatever. I can do that by having some other things going for me.”
“It’s not a fact. It’s only a possibility.”
She gestured that aside with her hand. “You know what I mean. I like to be viewed by men, and women too, as sexy, seductive, intelligent, humorous, articulate; I like people to see me in all those ways. Walking around a one-boobed person, I don’t think many people will see me that way.”
“Say you’re right. I don’t necessarily think you are, but say you are. So what?”
“So, not many guys are going to say, ‘Hey, I’d like to hop into the sack with her,’ and not many women are saying ‘Hey, I bet a lot of guys want to hop into the sack with her.’ Especially because of what they think is under the bra. If I could show them the scar it would be easier, but remember what you imagined. Maybe you still do.”
He shook his head.
“But lots of people will be imagining ugliness under there, mutilation.”
He nodded.
“And those people are not going to want to screw me.”
“Say you’re right. It’s not like you are giving up an active extramarital sex life. If it weren’t for me you’d still be a virgin.”
“If you’d get more than thirteen inches away from me at a party maybe I could have done something about that.”
“Thirteen inches was just the right length.”
“Hah.”
“Never mind Hah. It’s a goddamned howitzer.”
“Derringer.”
“Well, close enough. But the point remains, you don’t really want to screw around.”
“I know, but I want people to want me to. It has always been my choice. Now it’s theirs.”
“Yeah, I understand that, of course. You just find yourself in the condition I’ve been in all my life.”
“Despite the howitzer.”
“I guess the word wasn’t out. Come to think of it neither was the howitzer.”
“Well, if I have to rethink myself as a nonseductive person, I can do that. I can substitute taking this well.”
“Nobility,” he said. “Instead of sexy you can be brave, and a fine example.”
“Yes. Even though I am giving up forever being, for lack of a better term, a sex object.”
“Except to me.”
“Except to you. Even though I’m giving that up forever, I can replace that with some valuable things. I can be perceived as someone who has faced a scary thing and done it bravely, and stylishly. People can admire that. People can be helped by my example.”
“Yes,” he said.
“People can think ‘Wow, she’s some lady, look how she dealt with this and overcame it and incorporated it into her life.’ ”
“I think that some myself,” he said. “I also think about slipping into the hospital bed and belaboring you with my howitzer.”
“You remember how you said all your life no one considered you a sex object?”
“Yes?” He fed her the straight line, feeling the old delight.
“Well, you were absolutely right, Bob.”
“Without exception?”
“Everyone who knows you would agree.”
“Absolutely everyone?” He could feel the laughter bubbling up inside. It was a game they had played a thousand times.
“Everyone,” she said.
“And you came across for me, why?”
“Pity,” she said.
He laughed aloud, the smile that had never left his face expanding into a roar of pleasure.
“You know when I said you could screw somebody else to restore your confidence?”
“Yes.” It was her turn with the straight line.
“Well, if you do it’s best you choose someone you don’t like, because I’m going to kill him afterward.”
“Oh Bob,” she said. Bob was a code word. She was always kidding when she called him Bob. “You are an understanding person.”
“You better believe it,” he said.
Chapter 22
Saturday, April 26
And the visitors came. I need this, Joan thought. My decision to be brave rather than alluring needs an audience. I need feedback to make it work. Every visit was, for Joan, a performance. Everyone who came had to be put quickly at ease. Yes, I lost a couple of ounces of boob over there, but I’m still what I was and you needn’t worry.