Your Bed, My Loss
Built-up Desire and a Small Open Window
I wanted to slide into that Restoration Hardware bedding covering your dark wood four-poster bed and never get out.
My head would’ve sunk into that big pillow as I closed my eyes waiting for you to crawl in next to me. I possessed a powerful desire to have you hold me for twenty-four hours — or forever.
I’m broken as if that young girl again longing for an emptiness to be filled, but with your long arms and legs wrapped around me and your head nuzzled in my neck, my heart could grow big as the sea. For long hours, we’d lie entwined in each other’s arms.
You’d gently seal those gaping wounds of trauma with your masculine strength.
Our bodies would have disrupted that smooth, dove-grey duvet on top of your perfectly made bed. The high thread count would have never been the same.
You and I would have never been the same.
I’d have gazed at the manly, dark wood spirals of that bed’s frame, in all its New England coziness, because it added a layer of protectiveness I yearned for.
Alone and isolated during unimaginable medical assault on my body, I’ve needed you.
You’re my friend, Franco, with whom I’ve shared the occasional glass of wine, conversations, and meals for the last couple of years — an oasis — my secret hope for the potential to be more. You didn’t know I wanted the blossoming red lotus of love because you did not see.
On our casual dates lasting four to five hours, I wanted to enjoy time being something other than a patient. I was good at presenting myself as pretty and polished. But you saw that I was pale a time or two. I want to be the desirable woman, not a sickly one.
Vanity has its virtues.
I hid my mangled non-reconstructed left breast and wore that bra that had a slit, so I could slide in a manufactured mound, a filler, for women like me.
I hated it.
I resented the falseness I wore. That’s me. Not every woman would hold such vanity, but I care and I’m single, an enthusiastic romantic. I probably care too damn much.
Why I continue to be optimistic over the age of sixty is not only remarkable, it keeps me riding the wave of life out of pure curiosity to see if great love will land on my doorstep. That little girl in me who grew up on an island chasing sea horses and dreaming of the extraordinary voyages I’d embark on still swims deep within me with the faith that I can have it all.
You were the second Italian man of interest in the small town of Santa Barbara. I genuinely thought there was cosmic significance in meeting you through my first Italian man, a crush that went so awry. I have a way of seeing possibility and romance in my buoyant imagination.
You never saw it or understood.
You never saw me, really saw me, and certainly, you did not see me unclothed. We never got there.
I’m too flighty and liberal for a conservative man — conservative beliefs (other than disliking a traitor in high office) feel like stagnant water to me. You were comfortable floating on the surface like seaweed where I prefer to discover compelling canyons of the deep.
Eager women fifteen, twenty years your junior entered your sphere where it was easy to cruise without need of an anchor. When I first met you just after your divorce from a twenty-five-year marriage, I knew with every on-fire cell of my body, that you’d be making up for freedom you hadn’t experienced since the age of twenty-two.
Where we lived, the ratio was seven women for every man.
And your on-again-off-again girlfriend checked off the uncomplicated, convenience box. You will never have the privilege of knowing the layered waves of intrigue and mystery wrapped in my heart and spirit.
Over the years of your bachelorhood, whenever I spotted you, we’d say our courteous hellos and move on. But then, on that ninety-degree day recovering from my third surgery, I ran into you while you were holding a squash at the farmers’ market. We talked more than we had since the day we’d met ten years ago.
I was really thrown off-balance when you suggested we extend our conversation at a nearby wine bar in a half-hour. I accepted the offer…but walked away from you at a good clip. I went to my car to fetch the new, more attractive shirt I’d bought before escaping into a cool movie theatre and quickly changing into it.
I was pale and looked more haggard than any woman should have to look — even on a date with herself.
I nearly galloped across the street to the mall that held Sephora, hoping to have fresh makeup applied to my face. I told the sales clerk that I needed a fifteen-minute makeover before meeting someone.
She was happy to oblige. With lipstick, mascara, and blush, I felt so much more confident to walk the few blocks for our rendezvous. I’d been marching on the medical road and feeling so invisible that now I found myself close to a sense of floating.
I waltzed into the café as if breast cancer never happened.
I decided not to tell you what had been going on with me over the past year. I didn’t recognize myself as I dug deep for the charm I’d been known for — and it fell open like a blooming peony.
Transforming into this other part of me I hadn’t revealed for a long time, I hid my emotions.
The prosthetic hid my battered left breast.
I wanted to be a woman in these moments — not a patient.
Aware that I had more medical work ahead, I had no desire to disclose what lay behind the layers.
The free makeover and attractive top became a costume for the part I played. I loved feeling like an actress. I loved feeling like I’d found new breath outside my small apartment — a place that felt more like a post-op space than home.
We sat outside during a balmy evening in downtown Santa Barbara. Spanish tile roofs arched over fountains without water, due to drought conditions. You and I talked about Italy, wine, architecture, and your family.
We covered an array of topics — but not the truth of me.
The cool Chardonnay felt right. But after two sips my head swirled at the effects of alcohol after another kind of drought in my life.
The only high I was used to was an IV drip of pain meds. My bed had been an island; my close friends, a support system, and unbeknownst to you, you became the man who provided a temporary escape outside my strict and isolating routine.
Night deepened, and food nourished.
Everything was going to be all right.
In the beginning of our outings, I had to stay on the surface.
I felt insecure, so I hid my secret. I always dressed nicely with makeup perfectly applied — like a duvet — when we went on our outings so I could be in synch with your arrestingly handsome presentation.
The truth of multiple surgeries and complications of infection led me down an extended path beyond anything that would be the norm. My life has inspired swimming through high waves and surviving.
I couldn’t begin to explain the lengthy details of cancer. Nor the inevitable loss of genetically flawed breasts inherited from my mother, who died when I was the fragile age of three.
Several outings and several months passed before I revealed my secret to you. It took place on an evening when we met at our original spot, sipping a VIP-selected Grenache. After catching me up on architecture projects, kids, and grandkids, you asked, “So, what’s new with you?”
It was the question I’d usually skirt around, and I began to squirm.
I felt like a fraud. When you asked me to continue the evening over coffee at a place around the block, my anxiety grew. At the coffee shop, I held a mug of chamomile tea. You drank full-caffeinated coffee at 10:00 p.m., and I confessed.
My heart was racing while I spoke. I envisioned you running for the Santa Barbara Riviera hills.
Instead, you took me by surprise. I heard you take a breath as you leaned forward in your seat. Your long legs were spread under the table, but they brushed my own long legs like vines. You put your hand over mine and said, “This was going on this year?”
I nodded my head yes as the tears stung my eyes.
You held my hand tighter and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Your espresso-colored eyes stared straight into mine, adding, “I could’ve offered support and helped you out.”
The only thing that rose from within me to answer your sincerity was, “I just couldn’t.”
But now, I’m nearly physically healed, and I’m reconstructed on both breasts. They’re not perfect — those reconstructions — and they’re not my beautiful breasts that were discarded long ago in a bin for medical waste.
Now, without any erotic feeling, my breasts are just there to fill out a bra, having the superficial appearance of womanly breasts.
And here we are just before you’re about to move away from Santa Barbara, staying on the familiar surface of fun banter — your zone of safety from one as complicated and formidable as me.
I couldn’t find a way in and realized I could never live life staying on the surface.
Still, there’s an attraction, and our saucy repartee is seductive. I’d be happy to take advantage of the moment (where our worlds and politics fall away), realizing a fantasy to dive deep in the waters of mutual desires — vastly preferable to planting my feet in the concrete practical.
Love and lying in your inviting bed with you next to me could have mended broken parts of my feminine being more than meditation or yoga ever would.
BIO — Valerie Anne Burns has had essays from her book, Caution: Mermaid Crossing, Voyages of a Motherless Daughter published in Grande Dame Literary, Sea to Sky Review, HerStry, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Rituals Anthology. She has a workshop “Living and Healing Through Color” for breast cancer survivor retreats. She lives in Santa Barbara with her therapy cat, Lucia. https://www.valerieanneburns.com/
