The Empty Jar(15)

I journey back with all my senses, back to a simpler time. Back to before. Even if it’s just for a moment, for a moment that exists only in my imagination.

Because “before” for me means Before Diagnosis.

********

Later in the evening, Nate and I enjoy a quiet dinner at the Rooftop Restaurant and Bar above the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, overlooking the River Avon. Our conversation is soft and inconsequential, our gazes lingering and meaningful.

I manage to keep my contented smile intact even as I force food into a stomach that threatens to reject every bite. Silently, I pray prayers I don’t really believe are going anywhere. But I pray them anyway.

Out of desperation.

Sheer desperation.

I ask that my nausea be a result of stress rather than the progression of my disease. Because if it’s not…if it’s progression…I won’t last three months away from home. Our trip will be ruined.

So I pray.

I haven’t suffered much with symptoms up to now, and I hold fast to the hope that I won’t.

Surely the universe can give us three short months.

Surely Nate and I can have that.





Six

Lay Your Hands on Me

Lena



It seems odd and counterintuitive that sex would get better after a terminal diagnosis, but I have found that to be the strange truth. Lately, Nate and I make love more often and with more fervor than ever before, even during our youth.

Maybe it’s the knowledge that our time together is limited. It’s ironic really. Life got in the way before, but now that life is being taken away…

Or maybe it’s my sudden lack of concern with my thicker thighs and fuller stomach.

Maybe it’s simply that we are both more open about our love and our feelings and our desires than ever before. (I mean? there’s no reason to hold back now.) Maybe that’s it.

Or maybe it’s just desperation. Because we are both desperate. I can feel it.

Still, I can’t be sure what it is, but something is at work between us.

After we watched Wendy & Peter Pan at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre earlier, Nate tucks me into our rental car and spirits me back to London as though we are being chased. There is an air of urgency about him, one that I shared but don’t understand. Or maybe I do. Three months is an eternity in some instances, but when it is some of the last months, it is but a heartbeat.

And then it will be over.

Back at the hotel, with his fingers wound tightly around mine, Nate pulls me into the elevator and then into his arms, kissing me with an abandon that would’ve embarrassed me at any other time in my life. After all, we aren’t alone in the little car. But I don’t care. I’m as eager to be kissed as he is to kiss.

At our floor, we break apart just long enough to rush from the elevator and to our room, Nate flinging open the door and then slamming it shut behind us. From that point on, it is a beautiful tangle of hungry moans, clinging lips, and seeking hands.

We finally make it to the bedroom. Our lips, our hands, our hearts can’t seem to get close enough, warm enough, deep enough.

We just can’t seem to get…enough.

Nate unbuttons my blouse, tugging the tails from the waistband of my slacks, and then pushing the slinky material from my shoulders. With a fevered mouth, he kisses a trail down the curve of my neck and across my clavicle, easing away my bra straps as though they were made of magic and he is a talented magician.

“Nate,” I whisper, reveling in the feel of my husband’s name on my lips, the sound of it in the room with us, in the air. It’s like if I exhale it, I can then breathe it in all over again, take him inside me. Keep him with this body forever.

Fingers trembling with need, I pull my husband’s shirt over his head. Shakily, I thread the button of his pants back through the hole, hasty to get my hand inside his trousers, anxious to palm his erection.

I wind my fingers around his thick length, stroking a groan from deep in his chest. The sound rumbles from him and into me, shooting through my body and landing squarely between my thighs.

Breathing heavily, Nate bends his head and takes one of my tingling nipples into his mouth, working it with his tongue until he drags a soft whimper from me. I dig the fingers of my free hand into his hair and clench my fist, something I know he loves.

“Shit!” he hisses, backing away from me to run a hand over his face, searching for his composure.

Nate’s green eyes are smoky with passion, and he looks, for the most part, like a horny frat boy. Like my horny frat boy.

“I want to look at you before you drive me so crazy I can’t see straight,” my husband explains as he struggles to catch his breath.

“You are looking at me,” I quip, a languid grin stretching over my face as I reach for him.

He holds me at bay, lacing his fingers with mine and then bringing our joined digits to his mouth. “No. Really look. I want to memorize you.”

Carefully, as though he’s worshipping not only my skin, but the connection we share, Nate kisses each of my knuckles. My heart pounds. It pounds with desire, yes, but it also pounds with a love so profound I can’t describe it. I can only feel it. Revere it. Bask in it.

Treasure it.

Releasing my hands to my sides, Nate reaches down to tease one nipple, his gaze locked on mine and eating me up as he does so. Slowly, deliberately, his arms come up and around me to unclasp my bra. My breasts fall gently from the confines of the cups.