Jon stared in the mirror. It has been so long that he had forgotten the last time he did. What it reflected was not as bad as he remembered from that occasion. But it was a hell of a far sight from the last time he had been naked with her.
He picked up the jar of moisturizing cream that the docs at the VA insisted would help soften the scars, stop the itching, and oversensitivity. Perhaps they were right about that one thing. His reflection certainly would suggest so.
That did not mean he was comfortable with what he saw. He wished for the pressure shirt that he had worn for most of that first couple of years. Including the hood, it covered most of his scars. And it made a great excuse for hiding.
He used his good hand to massage the cream into his scalp. He missed his dark blond hair. Seeing how Chris had allowed his to grow out from the traditional high-and-tight reminded him of just how much.
He added a bit more pressure to his strokes. It was a balancing act. The area was still intensely sensitive. But the more pressure he used, the more it would soften and desensitize the area. He moved down to his neck and then his shoulders.
It was almost impossible to reach certain sections of his back, especially on the right side, because his left hand was virtually unusable. He toyed as he always did with the idea of allowing the damned docs to amputate it. Maybe they were right about that too. But he could not bring himself to that yet.
Because he could not reach that area of his back, it was prone to tears, cracking, and ulcerations. He had ended up with a couple of infections as a result. He tried to check it in the mirror but could not see much.
Not that it mattered. He would not be sleeping naked anymore. He looked over where the boxers and t-shirt lay on top of the closed toilet lid. He was glad that Hope provided the perfect justification for that.
But he had been struggling for the past few hours with how he was going to manage to sleep in the same bed with Alicia without...
Fuck, that was not happening. Well, he was sure it would. She had made it clear that night in the desert. This time there were definitely strings attached. Not that his body wanted to disagree with the woman.
He had not gotten laid since the night that Hope was conceived. First, it was deploying for six more months. Even on his leave, though, he could not bring himself to go to a prostitute or pick up some woman in a bar. That night had plenty of strings attached, even before he realized how he felt about Alicia or knew about Hope. One night in her bed had ruined him for other women.
Of course, after the explosion, that had not mattered. The very idea of being with a woman was off the table. The only women that would look at him, well, he had never been into pity-fucks. Certainly not with her.
He closed his eyes as he began his nightly routine of stretching exercises, which minimized contractures and maximized his range of motion and mobility. Simple exercises that many people used to relieve stress in tight neck, shoulders, back, and face had added significance for him — three times a day or more, depending upon how he was feeling. He was almost religious about them. And except for his left arm, he was doing better than the doctors had expected him to.
But he was not, and never would be, 'normal.' In the way he looked or what he was capable of doing. Even simple tasks like dressing himself, tieing his shoes, or brushing his teeth had had to be relearned. While he was past those initial occupational therapies that had taken him almost two years, he was still learning new adaptations.
But how to make love to a woman had not been one of the areas covered in his therapy. It was certainly not a topic he had covered with the shrinks. They were still trying to get him past the survivor's guilt and occasional suicidal thoughts.
