Forever Is a Long Time

It was a joke, and she'd never called him that before, but it warmed his heart anyway.

Tom and Laura drove home in silence, but they kept looking at each other and smiling. It was a good silence, easy. When they got to their yard, they spent some time just hugging, and looking at the house. It was a house he had fixed for them once they had decided to stay around here. They had picked it together, and he had poured his heart into renovating it, making it just perfect for the two of them.

She hugged him and said, "Some days I really feel like we've achieved something in our lives."

"We have," he said and hugged her back. "We really have. I love my life with you."

That night, when Laura was about to change into her nightgown and Tom was about to leave the room to give her privacy, she reached to touch his arm.

"You can stay," she said.

He nodded and sat on the bed, starting to pull his socks off. He didn't look at her, even when she didn't turn her back to him while changing. They washed up, and got into bed, and she crawled into his arms like she'd done for decades.

"I love you, Tommy," she said quietly.

"I know," he answered seriously.

She swatted him, he laughed, and then he said, "Violence is the solution to everything, isn't it? I love you, Laura. Sleep well."

Things started to normalize between them, after that. There was still no sex, but Laura wasn't quite as anguished over Tom seeing her without the artificial breast. She didn't get offended, if he accidentally touched her frontside in bed. It was slow progress, but it was progress. She still flew to Chicago regularly, and she still didn't discuss her issues with Tom.

-#-#-#-#-#-

"I just still feel like I've betrayed myself, you know?" Laura said. She leaned back on the armchair and crossed her arms across her chest. "I've been so independent all my life. I guess I'm used to thinking none of the crap other people have to deal with touches me. And then my cancer, and losing a breast, showed me I'm just like anyone. There's nothing special about me."

Karl leaned back as well, and tapped his lip with the pen he was holding. He always took notes and prepared each of their sessions with great care. Laura supposed he did it because she was important to Timothy. Or maybe he was just such a great shrink, and couldn't lower his standards, even for this unofficial therapy.

"Well, those are big themes," Karl agreed. "Most people have to face them sooner or later. Mortality. Vulnerability. Dependence."

"Dependence?" Laura asked.

"Being dependent on other people."

"I've got no problem being dependent on Tommy. I was once stupid enough to make him leave me, and it showed me perfectly clearly how I can't live without him."

"And yet you can't confide in him now."

"Well, yes," she said, and then didn't know what to say. "But I love him. I know I would love him whatever happened to him. If he got, I don't know, paralyzed, or demented, or whatever. And I don't doubt he feels that way about me. This is not about him accepting me, this is about me accepting me."

"It's good that you acknowledge it," Karl agreed. "Maybe you could consider letting him help you accept you again. Try to lean on him, to get you through this."

"I have been leaning on him all through this."

"Yes, but does he know that?"

Laura looked out the window, thinking.

-#-#-#-#-#-

Kathy gave birth to a small baby girl with an adorable tuft of black hair on her tiny, wrinkly forehead. It was Sunday morning, when everyone gathered at the hospital to meet the new addition to their small family. Kathy's parents were there, as were Maria and Matt, Tom and Laura, and Mariana and Larissa. They took turns going into the room not to overwhelm the new family.

Laura looked at Tom holding the baby, and felt her heart melt. It was so clear that he was totally, utterly smitten with the tiny bundle in his arms. He held her more carefully than probably anything in his life, and touched her small, small hand with his big, coarse finger. The baby curled her diminutive fingers tightly around his finger, and he sighed in surprise. He brushed the baby's forehead with his lips, and whispered something none of the adults heard.

Finally he lifted his head, looking at the others looking at him, with a sort of puzzled but overwhelmingly happy expression. Devon smiled at him, then at Kathy, then at Laura. He was glowing with pride.

"We wanted you to be the first to hear this," Devon said. "We've decided to name her Laura Juliana."

Laura felt like she could be pushed over with a feather.

"Say what?" she mumbled.

"Laura Juliana," Kathy repeated. "After you and Devon's mom. My grandma's name was also Laura, so it's not even all for Devon. And that's not all. Devon, would you show them?"

Devon took the baby from Tom. He didn't object, although he clearly wanted to still hold her. Devon walked over to the changing table, and gestured for Tom and Laura to come closer. He unwrapped the baby's minuscule one piece, and spread it open for them to see, pointing at her tummy. There was a small mark that looked darker than the rest of her light brown skin.

"It's a birthmark," Devon said proudly. "So, you see, we didn't have a choice, right? The doctors don't know if it's gonna stay, but they think so. It's sorta shaped like a heart, isn't it?"

In a minute Laura sat in the armchair, carefully holding her puny namesake. She felt her world fall apart and come back together again, prioritized differently from before. She touched the baby's wild, black hair with her fingertips, and felt the love for her grow, filling every imaginable nook of her soul.

Little Laura turned her little head and nuzzled her shirt with her tiny mouth. It was the side of the prosthetic breast, she hadn't even realized before this.

"Aww, she's getting hungry," Devon laughed and came to collect the baby. "She's trying to feed off you. Daddy's little milk monster, aren't you?"

Laura and Tom took it as a cue to leave. They walked out of the hospital, hand in hand, smiling stupidly.

Tom stopped beside the car and looked at her, closely and long. "I'm gonna take you somewhere now," he said. "I love you, okay? I hope you can trust me."

She nodded and got into the car. She didn't know what he was up to now, but she had an inkling what it was about.

They stopped in front of a crummy motel, and Tom signed them in as Mr. and Mrs. Holstein. He had a small bag with him. Laura didn't remember seeing it before.

The room was very basic, like every one of thousands or millions other rooms. Tom went to the window and closed the curtains. Then he switched the bedside lamps on and the main light off, and came to where she was standing. He opened his bag and took out a tub of lotion, which was used on her birthmark, and set it on the table. Then he took out a bottle of lube, and set it next to the lotion. There was nothing ceremonious about it, it was just what their life had become after her menopause, it was so mundane it went almost unnoticed by both of them.

Next, he took out a magazine, and handed it to her. She took it and looked down at it. She knew what it was, she had seen it before. Years and years before. When she lifted her eyes, he pointed to a post-it marking the place. She opened the magazine.

It was an old lesbian erotic magazine she used to read, way back when. This particular issue she had ordered to the library she was working in at the time, taken it home for recreational purposes, and it just so happened it burned down with the rest of the building. Tom had helped her secure a new copy to replace the burned one, so her colleagues at the library wouldn't find out she'd had it. He had claimed she looked like one of the pictures, and then shown her how, using the long mirror on the door of the motel they had stayed in. All her life, all the sex she'd had, and it was still the most intimate thing anyone had ever done to her.

She looked behind her, and sure enough, there was a long mirror on the backside of the door. She recognized the room layout now. It was exactly like that room had been, back then.

She turned to look at the magazine again. There was the picture of the young woman, arching her back to display her perfect breasts to the viewer. She looked at it evaluatively.

"You know, this really does look like I did, when I was young," she said. "I didn't see it then, but I see it now."

"Such is the look you cast upon yourself," he said tenderly. "Can I show you how I see you?"

She considered, but not for long. This was it, this was the end of the road for her self loathing and body issues. He wanted to love her until she was unbroken again, and he was asking for permission. There really weren't that many ways to answer that kind of a question.

She put the magazine down, and nodded at him.

He started by taking the lotion and applying it to her birthmark. She had used it rigorously, when she was young, and even well into her adulthood when they'd met. Maybe she had upheld the childish hope it would eventually make the mark disappear, and she would simply wake up one morning, unblemished and compatible with the rest of the society.

Later in her life she had lost that hope, or maybe she had just stopped longing for it, and she didn't even remember when she'd last used the lotion at all. Her mark was the same as always. She suspected that the doctor who had prescribed it, when she was a child, had just wanted to give her - and her mother - something to focus on. But for a few years of her life it had been Tom, who had rubbed it in, every single day, always as tenderly and patiently.

Precisely as he was doing now. His fingertips were rubbing her red ear tenderly, his palm sweeping over her red cheek, never hesitating to touch her, always full of love.

After he was done, he kissed her. It took some time, but it was just the continuation of the gesture with the lotion. "I love you," the kiss said. "I love you just as you are."

He looked her in the eyes. When she returned the gaze, not objecting, he turned her towards the mirror.

She could remember how they had looked, back then. Her dark hair, not mostly silver like it was now. And his dark hair, not sprinkled with silver, like it was now. But their stance was the same, he was still the same amount taller than her, the look in his eyes was the same concentration and...need. Back then, it had been mostly lust. Now it was something more complicated he was longing for.

Laura couldn't remember all the details from how it went down that day, so long ago. She just remembered the atmosphere. She remembered his concentration. She remembered awe, and nervousness, and exhilaration of being touched like that, worshipped like that. It was the one scene from her life she had never written to a story or script, even when it would've made damned good erotic footage. It was hers, hers and his. To her, that memory was the very definition of personal.

He pulled her shirt off, carefully and slowly, caressing her skin on the way. He avoided touching her breasts, but when he had gotten the shirt over her head, he wasted no time in unclasping her bra. The artificial breast was attached to the bra, and carefully he set the whole thing down on the table. He let her hair down from her perpetual ponytail, and let it flow down her back.

He looked over her shoulder, at her image in the mirror. She looked at him. It was the same concentration, the same touch. She could almost see the young - or, okay, younger - versions of them in the mirror, mingling with who they were now. He spread his fingers to cover more of her skin, and she felt narrow and small in his hands, although she wasn't by any means petite. He slid his hands up, slowly but very purposefully. He cupped her breast, and covered the scar on her right side.

His eyes met hers in the mirror. There was a strange expression in them, dark, serious, almost desperate. Maybe he was afraid she would push him away. He slid his hands up to her armpits, guiding her arms up to cross them behind her head, like the girl in the magazine. He altered her posture, tilting her head, arching her back. Eventually, he stopped, and whispered into her ear.

"You see it now?"

Back then, he had positioned her so that her birthmark was clearly visible in her mirror image, despite it being in reverse compared to the magazine. Now he had done the opposite, which indeed almost hid her birthmark. The position set her nonexistent breast to be the central point of the picture he had created of her.

Laura looked at herself. The scar was still hideous, elevated and reddish, if not as angrily red anymore. Her other breast looked almost like it was a prop, something unimportant and disinteresting. Tommy pressed against her buttocks, extended backwards when her back was arched like that, and she felt the hard bulge of his penis. She looked him in the eyes via the mirror. She saw his love, and the worry he had carried ever since the cancer diagnosis. She knew what he was trying to say.

To make it abundantly clear, he stepped away and reached for the opened tub of lotion. He pressed back against her back, closer now. She could feel his breath on her raised arm. He took a glob of lotion and started to spread it on her scar.

She focused on the feeling, and the look of his hand on her skin. It was really weird to feel his caress directly over her pectoral muscle, it came so close somehow. She realized no one had ever touched her like this. Before she had developed breasts, nobody had caressed her like this, and after she grew a pair, she had always had ample breast tissue between herself and the world.

It didn't hurt, but the sensation on the scar was not like the rest of her skin. He lowered her left arm down with his, and kissed her neck. She looked at the mirror to see what the feeling on her skin looked like.

He lifted his head up sharply, to look at her, and only then did she realize she was crying. A tear had dropped from her jaw, to his hand resting on her breast, and startled him.

She turned towards him and pressed into his arms.

"I love you," she whispered.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He was still so strong, she could feel his muscles so close to his skin. He might be wrinkly, his skin might be a little looser, but there was still very little fat on him.

He guided her towards the bed and guided her to lie down. He opened her trousers and pulled them off, and then he undressed himself. She looked at him, his familiar body, how his strong thighs still made her hips look so slim. He reached for the lube and put it closer, on the bedside table.

He came to lay beside her, and they kissed. She could still remember the haste of their younger years, but it was mostly gone now. They had once laughed at the idea of tantra sex, but now they seemed to naturally develop towards something like it. Or slow, sensual sex anyway, neither of them had ever actually tried tantra sex.

She reached for his hand and pulled it between her legs. She was so wet it astonished both of them. He fingered her slowly, looking down her body, then back at her.

"Well damn, girl," he said in awe. "We oughta do this more often."

She reached for his cock, and there was nothing flaccid about it, but then he still never had trouble getting it up. They caressed each other slowly, and kissed again.

"Uh huh," he said and pulled away. "Any preferences?"

"I'd like to see your face," she said. "And for you to see my...breast."

He nodded. He took a pillow, and gestured for her to lift her butt, stuffing it under her. It lifted her pelvis just perfectly off the bed, and she felt the first rush of more urgent arousal. He played with her, slipping his cock around her labia, spreading the lubrication she had so unexpectedly produced in quantities not seen in years. He was enjoying himself, there was a small happy smile on his lips as he looked down to what he was doing. She watched him, almost mesmerized.

All these years with this man, and he was still so new. She could feel an intense cramp of feeling inside her, and knew she loved him more than she could ever express. She wondered what her life would've been without him, and couldn't think of anything that could've been better. She was so completely one with the world right now, and first and foremost she wanted to be one with the man she loved.

"Please, Tommy," she said. "Give it to me."

"I love you," he said, and started to push in slowly. His smile widened when he felt how wet she was. "I love you, Laura. I will always, always love you."

She let out a moan, it felt just too perfect to feel him reach so deep inside her.

"I love you more," she said. "I'm just crappier at expressing it."

He laughed, and pulled almost all the way out, then slid back in. There was passion burning inside him, she could feel how he controlled it. She loved the feel of his strong thighs working under hers. He pushed in a little faster, and filled her up.

"Uh, uh huh huh," she said. "Oh God."

"No God, just me," he said, and accelerated a little more.

"Oh just shut up, and fuck me, grandpa," she said and urged him on, pressing his ass with her heels.

He laughed again, and it was so happy she couldn't help but join in. They laughed until they got too winded, and then they just moved together, looking at each other's eyes. He was on his knees so he couldn't kiss her, but he let his hands slide on her skin, touching her everywhere he could reach. He couldn't quite reach her breast and non-breast, but he did look at them. His smile never faltered until he searched for her clitoris with her fingers. Then the smile was replaced with an expression of acute concentration.

She thought it looked a little like he was playing an instrument. He tilted his head and listened to her. And then he found just the spot, just the correct movement, and the smile came back as she moaned low and arched her back.

"Don't stop," she panted. "Just there...ah..."

Words left her, and she felt the wave inside her, gathering strength. And he didn't stop, he moved inside her, and she tensed around him, and when she came he kept going, slowing for a few moments and then intensifying again. After a while he got her to cum again, something that hadn't happened in many years. When he finally let out his small groan, and thrust deeper, she felt a feeling of completion, like all was now done that needed to be done. Soon after came a feeling of loss, knowing they couldn't stay this close all of the time.

He pushed the pillow away from under her, and leaned forward, keeping inside.

"Look, love, it's not all bad, now I won't crush your breast," he said giddily as he settled on her right side.

She laughed and pulled him closer.

"I'm sorry I've been so difficult," she said.

"I'm sorry this has been such a difficult time for you," he answered.

"I meant all our lives."

"Oh," he said, and kissed her neck. "Well, I'm not. I love you for being just the way you are. Always have. Actually, let me show you one more thing."

He untangled himself and got out of bed. There was one more thing inside his bag, a stack of printed papers. He brought it to her, and crawled back close, pulling the covers on them to create a wonderful, small cave for them to snuggle in.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you this time, that you couldn't talk to me about it," he said. "But what's important is that you talked to somebody, and that you feel better now. And meanwhile I did my own soul searching and literary therapy, and wrote down what you mean to me. What you've always meant to me."

He scooped her into his arms, and kissed her face all over.

"I'm so happy you're with me again, I don't think I've ever been happier," he said seriously.