More Than A Maybe (21 page)

I decide on
now.

I’m wearing a blue hospital gown and an elastic hospital cap. I’m lying on a padded table, looking up at an intense white light and trying to control my breathing.

The nurses are very kind. They put me in a warm bed and give me a pair of squeezy leg socks that are supposed to keep me from getting thrombosis. The socks feel amazing — it’s a leg massage that rivals one of Rosco’s at Beauty World. I almost find myself wishing I could take them home with me.

Dr. Michael Patterson enters the room wearing much the same gown as I am. He looks at me, still kind, still professional . . . and while that puts me at ease a bit, my heart is still pounding. What can I say? I’m nervous. Dr. Patterson asks me if I’m all right, and I force a little smile and tell him that I am.

Then the anesthesiologist is here, an Indian man with a serious face and a formality that contrasts with Dr. Patterson’s gentle cheerfulness.

“Hello . . . Alice White, is this correct?” I give a little nod at the sound of my old name, wondering at just how unfamiliar it sounds in my ears. “All right, so it is now time for you to have the sleep medication. So I am going to give you the special medicine, and you will sleep, and when you wake up you will be relaxing in the recovery center. Is this all right?”

I squeeze my lips together and give a little nod, and he gives me an injection in my IV.

A few minutes later I see darkness.

* * *

I wake up in a warm heavy daze of medicated confusion.

I’m wrapped so tight it’s like there’s a boa constrictor around my chest. Xavier is at one side of my bed, Baby at the other, and they’re both got their Worried Faces on.

Baby squeezes my hand, and Xavier keeps checking with anyone who will listen to see if I’m okay. They keep telling him
Yes.
It hurts, though. I complain about the pain, and they give me a dose of something and the pain recedes into a dull fog.

They tell me that I have to stand, to go to the bathroom. I don’t want to, but the nurses are firm. They help me over to the toilet and wait until I finish, but it’s hard for me to start peeing for some reason. Eventually I can, and I do. Then they bring me back to my bed.

After a while they get me into a wheelchair and they push me outside to the front of the hospital. Xavier has already called a limo, and he puts me inside very slowly and very carefully. Baby’s there too, and they both talk during the ride, and I think they ask me some questions . . . but it’s hard for me to focus on what they’re saying.

We drive in silence then, until we reach our home. We leave Baby in the limo, and Xavier takes me upstairs and puts me into our big new bed.

The pain is dulled but still very real. A wave of nausea hits me, and I begin to worry that I’ll throw up. I tell Xavier, and he looks around in the medications they’ve given me until he finds one that makes me feel better.

Xavier makes me some soup later and he tries to feed me some, but I don’t eat very much.

Soon I am asleep.

* * *

For a while it is very hard for me.

The middle of my rib cage is very sore. Xavier makes a small joke about how it’s like I’ve been in a car accident with a pair of boobs. I smile at him a little bit, though I really don’t think it’s a very good joke.

There are a lot of instructions to follow, so I just try to pay attention to those and not think about how it hurts. There are a lot of pills to take. There’s something called Norco for the pain, and an antibiotic, and Valium to relax my muscles and take the edge off the stress. Xavier organizes them all in a plastic pill case for me and sets an alarm on my phone so I don’t forget any of them.

Recovery comes in stages. There’s a follow-up visit first with Dr. Michael Patterson — he tells me that my new boobs are fine, and even though they look strange and are pointing down a bit he says that it’s temporary. He tells me they’re supposed to “drop” and “fluff”, and after that they will look much more natural.

After a couple of days I feel some flexibility returning, and I’m able to move my arms a bit more naturally. Things are a little weird in the bathroom, but there’s medicine for that, too.

I don’t like to touch my new boobs very much at first. When I brush them accidentally it’s difficult not to find them hard and weird and . . . well, kind of alien. They feel swollen and bad. When I try to sleep they’re in the way, and I have to build a pile of pillows around them to try and keep from rolling over and squishing them. I lose track of how many times they wake me up.

The stitches come out a week later, and the clinic staff teach me some massages that are supposed to make my boobs softer and help with the healing.

When Baby isn’t actually with me she’s calling constantly, and she never gets tired of me asking the same thing:
Just how much of this is normal?

According to her it’s completely normal. She warns me to keep doing the massages.

“They’ve got you on a muscle relaxant, right?” she asks. “They had me on Flexeril.”

“They’ve got me on Valium.”

“Okay. Well, whenever you take it, that’s when you should do them. No joke, honey. The surgical pocket can get too tight and mess up the whole implant if you don’t.”

“I will,” I promise, smiling a little at the Mother Hen concern in her voice.

“Oh! And Scarguard for your incision. It’s the best. Seriously — it’s what I used after my revision. You can hardly see the scars. I’ll send you some. And some Vitamin E.”

“Thanks.”

* * *

While the recovery takes a little longer than I’d hoped, soon my curiosity gets the better of me about a question that’s been burning inside me since grade school:
Just who exactly is Victoria, and just what exactly is her Secret?
I take a deep breath for courage, then I walk inside to find out.

I want a good recommendation, so I’m upfront about my augmentation. The staff doesn’t bat an eye, though — supporting new boob jobs is obviously much of their bread and butter. They help me pick out a gorgeous push-up in black lace. It’s daring, provocative, and . . . miracle of miracles, it fits beautifully.

I revel in the reflection of myself in the mirror. I actually have boobs — I have them, I love them, end of story.
Veronica Kane is all grown up.

I stand there, turning, looking at myself for a long time. Then I take off the bra and leave the store without buying anything, much to the disappointment of the staff. The sight of my girls in a bra
that
hot would turn any man into an animal — and I don’t want Xavier to jump on them just yet.

Not until I’m ready.

* * *

Sex does eventually return to our lives. It just comes at its own pace.

For the first couple of weeks I really don’t want to think about it — I’m simply too sore, inflexible, and self-conscious. Xavier makes a couple of quick passes at my ass, but he’s smart enough to know that the girls are off-limits.

It isn’t long before I find myself really wanting him again, though. And with a man as undeniably sexy as Xavier, how could I not? When that first night finally comes, he goes slow — he’s still cautious about hurting me, so I go on top of him, and though I’m startled a bit by the fact that my boobs don’t move too much yet, there are plenty of other distractions to be had . . . his lips explore every other part of my body, and the old needs quickly return. When he enters me, the feeling of him inside is like water after a long, long drought . . . a gorgeous electric thrill that makes me nearly lose my mind.

It continues like that, the first few times that I’m with him — but then one night I make up my mind.
Okay, girls — you’re part of the team now, and it’s time for you to act like it.
They finally feel ready: the soreness has faded enough, and I want us to enjoy them together.

And so we do. We’re naked in bed together one night, and I take his hands in my own . . . and I guide them to my chest.

Xavier is gentle, but I can see that he’s eager, too.
He’s been waiting for this.
He moves his mouth to my nipple and licks, very lightly. It’s sensitive there, perhaps
too
sensitive, and I feel my front teeth come down involuntarily onto my bottom lip. He moves his warm tongue over the top of my breast then, and upward to my neck. I feel his breath, hot and intense, as it explores its way upward, finishing with a kiss at the supple flesh of my earlobe.

I smile. “You like?”

“I do,” he says. “Every bit of you.”

Even the new bits,
I think, smiling just a little. It’s still undeniably strange to have breasts — I’m just so 
aware
of them, all the time, and it’s a sensation I want so much to pass. Even if it takes a while, I want for them to be me, actually
me
— to feel that maybe there hadn’t been a Dr. Michael Patterson at all, that they had just come to me out of the ether on my sixteenth birthday . . .

Xavier sits up and weaves his fingers into my hair. I moan at the sudden authority of his grip; he guides my head backward with that insistent strength of his. “You are so sexy,” he says, and his voice has a ragged hungry quality to it — a voice with an animal edge, with
teeth,
and then his mouth is at my neck, his kisses coming fast.

His fingers fly between my legs, between the soft wet folds of my sex. I’m immediately back in that limo with him, on that first night so many nights ago. The memory makes me gasp, makes me give a little shudder of pleasure. He slides his fingers out of me again, holds them up to my face, shows me the wetness shining on them.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“I’m wet,” I say, the embarrassment rising in my cheeks. “I’m so wet for you.”

“That’s right,” he says. “You’re my wet little girl with big tits. Say it.”

“I’m your wet little girl . . . ” I hesitate.
Is he serious?

“Say it!”

“Your wet little girl . . . with big tits.”

“Louder.”

“I’M YOUR WET LITTLE GIRL WITH BIG TITS.”

“Good,” he says, and a moment later I can feel his erection resting hot against my thigh. “You’re mine, Veronica. Mine. Don’t you ever forget it.”

Then he’s guiding himself into me. His erection is throbbing, massive, and I’m full of him,
I’m full of him,
and my breasts are forgotten, I’m forgotten, there is only Xavier and the fast-approaching fury of my own orgasm —

I crack, I shatter, like a crystal wineglass against a black marble floor, and an ocean of sparks dances in the darkness behind my tightly-shut lids, and just as I fall back Xavier comes, I feel it, and the back of my head knocks against the heavy wooden headboard of our bed. But I hardly even notice.

* * *

It’s hard for him to know how to hold me.

Xavier tries to do the position I love, where one of his arms is the pillow and his other arm curls around me, but it makes my boobs hang to one side in a way that feels strange. We end up doing a weird version of it, where I build a little pillow-fort platform to support the girls so they don’t move around so much. He puts his hand on my head and gently caresses the wet locks of my hair.

Still — for the first time since the procedure, I feel like we’ve actually made love in a meaningful way.

It feels like something to celebrate. I’m happy.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“About . . . ”

“My boobs. The sex. Everything.”

He strokes my hair for a while. “I think . . . well, it’s only been a couple of times, right? And I’m sure I’ll get used to it. But,” he says, his voice suddenly hesitant, “it kind of feels like . . . I don’t know.
Cheating.
”

“What!?”
I say, feeling the laughter rising in my throat.

He begins laughing too. “Seriously! It’s like I’m cheating on you. With . . .
you.
”

I don’t say anything for a moment, hoping there’s an explanation coming.

“It’s like . . . I don’t know,” he says, trying to put his thoughts into words. “Part of me knows it’s you. But part of me is like
‘who is this person and what is she doing in my bed’,
you know? Like I said . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m not making sense.”

His voice sounds conflicted. “Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s you. I do. I just kind of wonder sometimes if there’s someone in there with you . . . and I wonder if
that
person might be more than I can handle.”

I smile. “You’re doing just fine.”

I give the girls their big public debut at the beach, on an unseasonably warm Thursday afternoon.

Baby drives over in her convertible and picks me up in front of my apartment building. I’m all set. I get in, adjust my new bikini top, and let my fingers play over the white leather of the passenger seat.

“Honey, you look fantastic,” says Baby, adjusting the rear-view mirror and looking at me over the tops of her sunglasses. “You are going to make them
crazy
out there.”

I laugh. “On a Thursday? I mean, okay, they look good. But they’re not
magnetic.
”

“They are, trust me. Why do you think we’re doing this on a Thursday? If we did this on the weekend we’d need to bring along a couple cans of Mace,” she says, laughing. “But don’t get yourself too worked up, okay? Just follow my lead.”

The drive to the beach is short, but it feels festive somehow, like a parade. The sun is warm and the air is salty and hot, and I take in big deep breaths as I try not to freak myself out too much. Showing my boobs off to Xavier had been one thing. This is quite another.

I’m already in love with my new bikini, though. It’s a fun and funky animal print in pinks and blues and golds —
‘like a leopard after jumping in a box of crayons’,
as Baby had put it. The wind whips at my hair as I try to psyche myself up. I tilt my head back and hear myself say
Woo
as I lift my arms up to grab at the sun.

We park and take our beach bags and towels and suntan lotion out of the trunk. A quick glance in the mirror, and we’re both ready.

We start to walk. I don’t know if it’s because of the massages or the Vitamin E or the Scarguard, but the girls are feeling a whole lot softer now. Not
familiar,
really, but definitely softer, and they bounce a little bit with my gait as I walk and I’m glad that they’re there. I arch my back and push them out a bit.