The second, and final part of the story of love between a cancer survivor, and her longterm admirer. All characters are fictional, in their 20s & 30s.
I would recommend reading the first chapter first.
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Mum put both hands over her face, she wouldn't look at me but just said, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," over and over.
"Mum, look at me!" I sternly said and she turned, "I'm kind of freaking out here," I said.
"Didn't you....didn't you sleep with her?"
"Yes! Yes I did."
"Didn't you, you know.... see her naked?" Mum asked, and I noticed her lightly touch her own right breast, in what I now realise was a soothing, instinctive movement.
"No Mum, she kept her top on throughout. What is this about?" I asked, with impatience, dumbfounded at the turn in conversation.
"Jack, Denise had to have her right breast removed," Mum said, as the colour drained from my face at my adolescent harping on about her breasts.
Then I remembered that text message I sent, the resulting silence and then I covered my face, only mine was in shame. "I gotta go," I said, throwing on a t-shirt, socks and shoes.
"Where are you going?" Mum asked as I lifted my keys from my bedside table.
"Denise," I said. "I've did something really stupid."
Mum tried to stop me and asked me what it was, but I wouldn't tell her, such was the enormity of my offensive text. I shook my head and looked at her as I got in the car, hearing Mum shouting, "Drive Carefully," as I wheel-spun away.
After driving for a while I was on the main road, opening up the car at speed. Keeping my foot planted, I was doing 115mph by the time I realised it wasn't worth losing my licence over, or killing myself.
Pulling up outside her home some hours later, I got nervous as, full of adrenaline, I had no idea what to say to her.
I put my knuckles up to knock twice, and nerves made me recoil before I, "Put on my big boy pants," as my Dad would say, and knocked three times.
Denise answered the door dressed in a knee-length, white night shirt with vertical brown stripes down it, and it buttoned down the middle. "What....Why are you here? She asked, holding her shirt in her left hand at her chest, and folding her other arm around it in protection.
She was clearly settled in for the night, braless underneath, and I almost melted when I saw the bulge of her left boob, contrasted by the flatness of her chest's right hand side.
"Denise, I had no idea, I'm so sorry," I said.
She didn't speak for what seemed like a year, just fiddled with the shirt, trying to disguise the area of nothingness.
"Who told you, Sarah?" she said, briefly looking at me before looking away.
"I did my usual trick of flashing my scars at my her, she naturally assumed we'd......Can I come in?" I asked, but she said the kids were there. "Isn't it Andre's weekend?" I asked, and she shrugged, turned and said, "Come in."
Closing the door behind me, I turned to see her walking to the kitchen, and she turned with arms across her chest and said, "Now you know....one-titted troll, that's me."
I was starting off by being on the ropes, I didn't know what to say. I moved to her and initially she moved back before we both stopped and she looked up at me. "It doesn't matter," I said and she smirked, shaking her head. Then I moved to her again, taking her silence as a small positive. "Denise, last weekend was something I've not experienced before, and I only want to experience it with you. I don't care, you are beautiful."
"That's what my husband said, before I suddenly wasn't," she all but murmured.
Now I moved right in front of her, "Listen to me," I said, gently gripping her shoulders as she assessed my hands being on her with a look to her right shoulder, "I've wanted this since I was a stupid little boy, now I'm a stupid man, trying to say sorry for a stupid joke."
"It's not just the joke, not just a text, but imagine you'd met my kids last weekend, only to then see my body and run."
I fixed her eyes, never have I looked so serious at another human being when I said, "I'll not run. I've driven here immediately when Mum told me, I'm stupid, I'm immature, I'm 27, but I'm....."
"But what? Sowing your wild oats with a MILF? Wanting to see what made my husband, my lover of 16 years, leave?"
"No," I said, not wanting to say what I was going to, in an argument.
"What then? Why are you here?"
"Because," I said, tilting her chin with my right hand, "Because I'm in love with you."
"No you're not," she said, turning away.
"Don't banish me like some sort of child," I said, going after her and feeling her shoulders tense as I touched them from behind.
"Well what an I supposed to do, Jack? You all but told me you're a boob man, and I've just got one, do I keep my top on forever?" Turning to face me, "Do I just sleep with you and pretend you're not going to run away when you see me for the first time?"
"Show me," I said, needing to do something to prove to her she could trust me as I gestured to her chest that she was now stroking, self soothing.
"No!"
"Please," I said with some authority, "What have you to lose? You show me your scar, I piss off and leave, and you get proven right."
"And if I don't?" She said, her tone slightly less dismissive.
"Then I don't get to stay a while, I don't get to prove to you that you are my absolute, on-par with no one, dream woman."
She shook her head, she looked away, she looked at me again, and then with a sigh, she reached for her top button.
She got to second oversize button, before lowering her eyes to her fingers again, as she too was watching her ebony skin emerge. Button three came free, only two to go, and taking a deep breath, button 4 parted to leave just the bottom one keeping her long shirt closed. I was so close to her that I could feel the heat radiating off of her between us.
Ridiculously, I was right back to my wildest fantasies about this woman, as even the sight of her opening her shirt had given me a budding erection, and as she had now reached up to her right shoulder and had began to lower her clothing down to expose more skin, more beauty, more territory that I never in a million years thought I'd see, and an almost perfectly horizontal, sizeable, dark scar where her breast had been.
I looked at her eyes, she was almost daring me to be repulsed but I definitely wasn't. Stepping right up to her, wordlessly, I put my fingertips on the top of her naked shoulder, and keeping my eyes fixed to hers, I lowered my hands to the little bump above her wound before gently, carefully, running my fingers along what was she saw as an ugly imperfection.
"Huhhh!" came from Denise's lips as she inhaled in a gulp whilst I ran my fingers from right to left, then left to right on her scar.
"I haven't ran away," I said, looking at her trembling lips and her questioning eyes.
I then ran my hand back to top her shoulder, and she followed my head and lips with her eyes as I leaned down, holding her shoulder blade in my hand, and placed a soft kiss on it.
"Jack," she said, as I kissed lower, down her skin that had been resigned to be covered up forever, by the actions of her ex-husband rejecting her. I kept silent as I kissed down to the site of her greatest ever battle, and gently kissed across it as she brought her hands to my head. She had stifled, staccato breaths before she groaned, as I lightly flicked my tongue along it, all the way from near the centre of her chest, all the way down to her armpit.
Point now proven, I kissed up her body, fighting myself not to explore the other side, as that would hopefully come. "You might not believe this, but I really like you," I said, pulling her in towards my groin by the waist, giving her no time to respond by closing my lips over hers, with them still trembling into my closed mouth.
"Oh god, you're hard for me, fuck you're hard! How can you be hard for this?" Denise asked me, after breaking off and gesturing towards her missing breast.
"Like you should," I said with a hand either side of her neck, "I hope to focus on what you have got, rather than what you haven't," and I kissed her lips again, properly and with slightly open lips to lap gently on hers with my tongue.
"Smooth-talker," she grinned, pulling back with a softening smile. "Is that like what you say to all the girls?"
"Absolutely," I replied, kissing her again before focusing right into her eyes, "I'm well renowned for fine-tuning my lines for chatting up stunning, amazing, black mothers of two kids, obviously all of whom having had a mastectomy."