Mr. Agency and I were both out of town in early October. I had planned to return from Manhattan on Thursday, but Mr. Agency wasn’t entirely sure when he would get back to DC. Mr. Agency: I’ll see you when I get back over the weekend. Me [always the planner]: Which night? Mr. Agency: Either […]
I felt as though Mr. Agency and I were in a good place. I saw him regularly, he treated me well, and I was content. There wasn’t any urgency to define where we were going, especially since we were a new couple and I had just started chemotherapy. The night after the Gala, I made […]
I felt so sick after my first round of chemotherapy that I didn’t have sex for almost a week. When I finally did have sex, I felt like I was “dialing it in.” To me, “dialing it in” means that I was doing it for the sake of doing it. I’m not one to fake […]
I had let Best Boy know that we needed to take the “benefits” out of our “friends with benefits” arrangement. It surprised me that he cared more about me than he had led on, but my energy – in and out of the bedroom – was focused on my new relationship with Mr. Agency. Mr. […]
Once upon a time, there was a Little City Girl. Her parents raised her with love, support and opportunities. They let her know that she could be anything that she wanted to be when she was older. At 14, Little City Girl told her father that she wanted to go to Wellesley College and become […]
I spent 26 days in the Chemotherapy Room over a period of three and a half months. In that time, I observed a lot and learned a lot. Here are some of my musings: 1. A female always accompanied male patients to the chemotherapy room, whether as a daughter, wife, girlfriend or mother. By contrast, […]
She dresses in layers on a bitterly cold morning in January, as she heads for the doctor’s office for her last round of chemotherapy. Her eye twitches from three months without enough sleep. Her pale face turns beat red with every hot flash. She’s crabby from all the steroids. Her taste buds are almost completely […]
My friendship with benefits arrangement with Best Boy thankfully didn’t bar me from pursuing a relationship with Mr. Agency. I use the term, “relationship,” loosely, though, since I wasn’t able to date Mr. Agency in the conventional sense. “Why not?” you might be wondering. Well, Mr. Agency worked a minimum of 100 hours a week. […]
That first week in August 2010, I let Best Boy set the tone about how often we saw each other. That seemed to work well, as I saw him four times within seven nights. Sex was definitely the focus of our time together, but while he was over, we also managed to catch up, watch […]
She looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognize her own reflection. She’s bald. The bags under her eyes display how little sleep she has gotten over the past few months. She undresses and sees her curves. Since her diagnosis, she’s gained 15 pounds, which is unfortunately the norm for her type of cancer. Much like […]