I have this scar.

It goes from about here to - here. You could say six inches, but I’m tempted to boast eight. It’s healing nicely, a candy-floss pink welt in the center of my chest. I can feel my skin stretching, pulling itself together, knitting and mending. It’s incredible how the body heals, how it can reorganize and reassemble itself, make itself better.

Make itself whole.

You’re honoured that I tell you. It still feels - well, conspicuous to me. I’m aware of it, even covered up for winter, even under my knitted sweater and blue button down shirt and tight white t-shirt. Even underneath all that, and my black leather jacket, even with the zip pulled up, I know it’s there and imagine other people, people with x-ray eyes, can see my scar. It’s always with me, you see. It’s always there now. Like a tattoo, but it’s not my own design. Some brand that has burned its way into my flesh. It’s part of me now, but I can’t get used to it. Can’t quite feel comfortable with it.

It was good news, it was bad news. That bitter sweet fate. Collapsing, the world falling around me. That beat of my heart, throbbing in my chest, beating inside my head. The lights when I woke. The faces, gowns and masks, telling me about the heart attack. The rush of doctors and nurses and people I didn’t know, pulling and pushing me this way and that. Drips and drains and pills and drinks and smells I could not comprehend. They tried to tell me what was happening and at the time I understood, but now it all drifts past me. I can’t remember a thing, can’t seem to remember what they said, what they did. It seemed forever, and it seemed like seconds. 

I said good news, because it felt like dying. It felt like departing, leaving, letting go somehow. A feeling of fingers slipping, my grasp weakening. And then the knowledge something could be done. Not something pleasant like massage, hot oils, soothing. Something hard and painful, something surgical. An operation, the wielding of a knife, but you see it was hope. It was a hope that through that fire, through that ordeal, I might get better. I might… heal. 

Hope, you see. A little miracle.

They call it consent, but how could I say "no"? How could I not choose the surgery? It wasn’t a choice. It was barely assent. My signature was squiggly, like a spider had crawled across the page, just as my teacher angrily described my handwriting in school that time. I didn’t recognize it myself. I didn’t recognize myself.

I remember the shower beforehand. The hospital bathroom, like a cell, white and antiseptic. I wanted sandalwood and dewberry and lemon and spice, flavoured scented memories denied me in that most sterile of environments. The water, hard against me, but fresh and making my skin tingle. The towel buffing me dry. My body, whole, about to be violated by a knife, by instruments I did not dare think about.

The sleep, it came quickly. I didn’t count to ten, didn’t see sheep jumping or pigs flying. Just lights becoming brighter, brighter, brighter, the chatter of voices around me and then…

Waking, the sudden fear of unknown tubes, of feeling disoriented, lost. The busyness of staff about me, adjusting, checking, poking, prodding. Figures, shadows, looming faces. Blips and beeps and chatter amid my own groans and garbled mush. There was no pain, but no sense either. No knowledge of any sensation except confused understanding that somehow I existed. Somehow I survived.

And then, you. Through it all, you. My eyes closed, then opening to see you at the end of the bed. Checking on me. Your face looking up, sensing my unfocussed gazing. That smile, a bright beacon of white teeth among your sensual, red lips. I saw the dimples in your cheeks. I saw the light in your dark eyes. All of a sudden, I knew I was alive. I felt desire, and it made me feel alive. 

Your hand held mine, checking for the pulse, despite the display on the machines next to me. "Just checking," you joked, blinding me again with your smile.

I couldn’t take my eyes off you. There was nothing else to do, of course, but lie there in the bed, and let you tend me. Let you care for me. I ached whenever you left, even though it wasn’t often. Acute, high dependency. Blissful reliance on you and your masculine charm. I scanned every inch of you. Your closely cut black hairy, buzzed straight at the nape of your neck. Cropped circles shaping your ears, the soft flesh of your ear lobes ripe and hanging like tiny fruit buds. Your white top buttoned across the right shoulder, cut away above your elbow. The short dark hairs so tight on your forearms, a welcome dark scrubland of life, set so perfectly on your skin. Your hands, big, severe, powerful, but so sensitive when you touch. Fingers ending in clean, scrubbed, manicured nails short enough to produce crescent moons. I want to take them in my mouth, kiss them sweetly, gently.

You turned, your shoulders broad and strong. The line of your back so perfect, so straight, a slight indentation running all the way to your buttocks. Black tight trousers clutching a perfect ass, buttocks full and fleshy, a full bosom of a backside. I couldn’t move, couldn’t touch, couldn't kiss, though every nerve in me fought for sweet blissful relief in your arms. 

You caught me watching. The quizzical look, a disbelieving gratitude. Your lips broke, your grin teased me where I lay. Did you know? Did you care? 

You fed me tea through a straw, gently cradling my head, bringing the plastic tip to my lips. I almost cried at your touch, bringing me around, bringing me back to life. I felt your heat next to me, warming me, warming and burning me at the same time. So hot, so white flame hot. 

You cleaned me. Soaked me down, warm flannel massaging my aching skin. When you cleased me, I wanted to be dirty. I wanted to be covered in your grime, to let you spend hours washing me down, every inch of me tended to by your healing touch. Thinking, when I’m clean, when I am ready for you, I'd want to feel your kisses over me, your lips against my chest, your warmth against my scar.

I thought, Kiss it for me, make it feel part of me, make it tingle with desire. Bring it life with your tongue. Let me look into your eyes as you smother my wound with your love, devour it in hunger. 

I wanted you to let me see you. Let me see your perfect skin beneath the clothes. Let my eyes wander over your chest, unshaved for operating, dark wisps of hair growing from intact flesh. Bring your flesh close to my lips as I lie here. Let me feed on you. Let me tongue the sternum, unbroken and whole, lick the small beads of sweat running off you. Allow me to softly bite your nipples, take them in my teeth and tease them until you moan, so softly, so, so softly.

I needed you to unburden yourself from clothing, reveal your glory. Kneel over me, bring yourself close to my lips. Let my lips touch you, suckle on your heart-throbbing glory. To let me bring you ecstasy, here, in this sterile and frightening hell, where desire is outlawed, where pleasure is banned. To ride with me on waves of forbidden bliss. Hold me, love me, desire me. Make me feel free and whole and healed, not imprisoned and broken.

None of this you know. You think only of duty and care and nursing. In your eyes there's no desire or passion or want. There’s no spark or flame from you, only the true devotion of your profession. You can not realize where I truly ache, where I really need your healing powers. You see only my scar, something physical and real and vulnerable. You tend only to that part of me of which I am ashamed, embarrassed. That part that marks me out from you, makes me the wounded animal to your conquering huntsman.

And you don’t hunt alone. This I realize at the end of your shift, the end of our intimacy together. I'm not ready to say "goodbye", to bid farewell to you, my love. I watch as she approaches you. I see your face light up, your arms opening. In a heartbeat she is with you, and without you realizing, my hearts breaks again. All the talk of weddings does me no good, you know. It impedes my recovery, actually, you selfish lovers, you courting bastards. I thought I’d be happy, were you to find love, but no. NO! It hurts, and how it hurts.

Tears fall, and you ask about the pain. You administer, oh-so-gently, "a little something, to ease the pain." My eyes close as you wish me well, a speedy recovery. You leave with your love on your arm as I again lose my consciousness.

I have this scar. It remains with me, from here to here. I try to pretend it is a badge of honor, a sign of my remarkable survival in the battlefield of life. I even joked that it was a shark bite, there being only one set of teeth marks because "I'd punched its bloody lower jaw out."

I laugh, but when I touch this scar, when I trace its line from here to here, I think of you. I, who know only too well how broken hearts are mended, know also what fragile things they are. This healing scar belies a mended heart, so quickly and so easily broken.

Copyright © 2001 Lukas Scott. All Rights Reserved. May not be re-printed in any form without express written consent of the author. Do not copy or post.