TINY TUESDAY (m)
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TINY TUESDAY (m)
| Tue, 12-04-2001 - 9:44am |
TINY TUESDAY (m)
In rounding up the writing with our senses series, let's write a scene or short story that concentrates on touch/skin.
Happy writing,
Mac

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Thank you - glad you enjoyed it ! (n/t)
I actually never experienced this first hand ...
since both of mine were c-section babies. I think men are too caught up in their own microcosms, so it takes them a while to get it. hehehe Thank you for reading and for your comments. ~Anita
Mac, thank you for reading and for your comments! n/t
Thank you!
Thanks Kat!
a Wednesday TT
It wasn’t a mistake. Suze had felt it, and it raised a lump in her throat.
A lump just like the one she had felt in her left breast.
A few minutes earlier she’d been in the shower. A ritual she’d done countless times before. Her hands were slick and foamy, covered with soap. She gently massaged the soft suds into her skin. First her face, then her neck, shoulders, and arms. Her soapy fingers traced familiar skin, skin that nobody knew as well as she. Even though many others had seen that skin.
Now a quick rinse to remove the soap from her face. Suze turned her face up to the showerhead and felt the warm water splash on her skin. Even on her bad days this usually felt good. Kind of like being quickly covered by a wave of warm light. (Of course it never felt good if soap got up her nose or in her eye. These were usually her really bad days.)
Suze turned her back to the fall of water and felt the warm stream run down her back in swift rivulets. She soaped up her hands again, building up lots of foam. Suze then moved down to her breasts. And that’s when she felt the small lump.
All of a sudden the water felt very very cold. It battered her skin. She shivered.
Suze stopped her shower short (she hadn’t even gotten around to her hair) and quickly rinsed off. But it still felt as if the soap hadn’t left her skin completely. She knew her skin would feel gummy and clammy even without touching it. She just knew it. But no...the shower had in fact rinsed everything off. It was just in her mind. Her skin broke out in goosebumps even before she pulled the shower curtain back.
Suze pulled the shower curtain back and felt cold air hug her body. She shivered and grabbed a towel. She quickly toweled off, rubbing the terry cloth gruffly here and there. She then wrapped the towel around her and walked to her bed.
Her body was still slightly damp when she lay down on her unmade bed. Even through the towel she could feel the coolness of the sheets against her back and legs.
“Don’t panic,” she told herself. “It’s probably nothing. Don’t panic.”
Suze lay flat on her back and placed her left hand behind her head. Her hair was still wet, and this extra pressure from her hand squeezed out a few drops of water, which formed a small, cool pool in the palm of her hand.
Suze undid the front of her towel. She took a deep breath, and started.
Taking the index and middle fingers of her right hand, Suze began to examine her breast. First around her semi-erect nipple (“how could it feel so cold in the middle of May?” she asked herself), feeling to see if anything felt out of the ordinary. No, the puckering and ridges felt just as they had every other time she’d done this ritual.
Suze took another deep breath. She moved in a circular motion from her nipple to the softer skin around it. Her fingertips gently kneaded her breast. A soft squeeze here. A feather-soft stroke there. Then a bit of gentle pressure just to make sure.
And there it was.
Suze swallowed hard as her fingertips felt the small lump on the side of her breast. It was hard, kind of like a small marble, but not as big as one.
“So this is how it starts,” Suze said to herself. She sat up, naked. Her feet shuffled across the bare floor as she moved to her dresser. She took out a fresh pair of underwear and a t-shirt and slipped them on. The cotton felt cool against her skin, but the coolness didn’t seem to bother her as much. Suze never bothered with a bra anymore, not since she was 20 and realized that her A-cup breasts weren’t going to get any bigger on their own.
Suze didn’t bother to dress any more than this. She didn’t have class this afternoon, and she didn’t have to dance tonight. This was one of her rare free days. A day all to herself.
“OK, who had what?” Suze asked herself. “Uterine was Aunt Sally. Cervical was...Cousin Kathy? No, that was Aunt Linda.
“And of course, Mom was ovarian.”
Suze paced back and forth across her bare floor, feeling the slight unevenness of the boards under the soles of her feet. And she thought about her mother.
Suze’s mother’s sickness happened during Suze’s second year in college. A full hysterectomy and chemotherapy had been unable to save her. Suze watched as her mother – a robust woman whose easy yet genuine laugh could light up any room – wither away to a 90-pound shell of herself. Suze remembered how her mother used to complain a bit about her thick wavy black hair ("It’s so heavy, and it gets hot in summer,” she used to tell Suze) but how Suze knew, deep down, that her mother was secretly proud of her hair. She also remembered how her mother lost that hair.
“It’s going to happen to me, too,” Suze said to herself. “I’m going to die. Just like the others.”
Suze let out a deep sigh. She turned and her pinkie toe came into sharp contact with the edge of a bookcase.
Her stubbed toe sizzled with pain. Suze could finally no longer hold back her tears. She sat down next to the bookcase, hugged her legs to her chest, and placed her forehead on the back of her arms. She felt the tears well up in her eyes, roll down her cheeks. She could almost taste the salty trail they left. She felt her tears as they sprinkled down to the tops of her legs.
Suze didn’t know how long she cried. It took the soft meow of her cat to shake her from her sorrow. She looked up and saw her little calico looking quizzically at her. The little cat padded over to her and flopped down at Suze’s feet.
Suze slowly wiggled her injured toe in the cat’s soft fur. So soft. This in turn caused the cat to wiggle around. The cat finally flopped onto her back and exposed her belly to Suze.
For the first time since finding the lump, Suze smiled. The gently stroked the cat’s soft belly. The cat meowed again, then rolled over with her back to Suze’s foot. Suze could feel the purrs against her foot.
“OK, I know what I need to do now,” Suze told herself out loud. She’d never been so scared before in her life. She’d had several other scary experiences: the first time she went “all the way”; the first time she caught her mother crying uncontrollably; when she moved into a new city, alone and with no friends, hoping for a new start; the first time she’d stripped down and danced for a room full of strange men. But none of these scared her as much as what she faced now.
“I know what I need to do now,” Suze repeated to herself.
She got up. She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. The hard plastic of the phone was uncomfortable. Suze punched in the number for the doctor’s office. Wrong number. Suze slowed down her fingers and carefully punched in the correct number.
The earpiece of the phone felt hot against Suze’s ear. Hard and hot. She listened as the phone rang.
Your descriptions and imagery...
were wonderful. You have a real talent bringing emotions to life in your stories. I could feel the anxiety and pain that your character was experiencing. I also felt sad for her. Great job!
Great TT and an important message (m)
for all of us women to do our monthly breast exams.
I loved the way you filled in so many details of the backstory in gently. It made me really sympathize with Suze. When I read she had size “A’s” and a dancer, I thought she was a ballerina. I know I'm stereotyping here but I just thought strippers had big, artificial boobs. LOL.
Thanks for another talent-filled story,
Mac
This was funny and sweet and tender.(m)
My only critique would be to show us a little more of the texture of tings. For example, did the denim feel coarse against her bulging tummy? Was her skin sweaty during the birth? What did the baby's skin feel like when she touched him and counted his fingers and toes?
I love the story. But since the exercise is about touch/texture, I thought you might show us a little more. Great job with this.
Linda
Nice work eyewrite,(m)
Visually and texturally interesting. (And, I learned how to gut a fish--LOL -- something I've never had to do, thank goodness.
Linda
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