Katherine tried to forget about Rick Burman in the unpacking, cleaning and arranging she did all day.  She washed the kitchen window inside and out and then put away all the remaining kitchen stuff.  As a break, she returned to the stable for the box of jars, and washed the old sealing jars, setting aside the commercial jars for recycling. Then she picked a small bunch of wildflowers, put them in one of the old jars and placed it on the kitchen woodstove.
     In the living room she tugged the heavy furniture around until it formed an inviting arrangement around the coffee table and across from a wooden storage unit, where she set up her TV and stereo.  When Ray Charles was playing softly from her CD player, she unpacked more boxes.  By suppertime she was feeling distinctly exhausted, but pleased with the results.  She was starting to feel that she could live in the house.  She put a frozen macaroni and cheese casserole into the oven, and when it was hot and oozing a golden liquid, ate it from a separate plate and drank a refreshingly cold bottle of beer. Craving something sweet for dessert, she had part of a large Swiss chocolate bar.
     At the end of the day she had her first bath in the house after wiping out the clean tub yet again.  She ran the hot water, added a large capful of camomile extract for the mass of bubbles, and then eased her way in, the water so hot that oddly, it almost felt cold, and her skin quickly turned red.  When she was used to it, she scrunched right down so that her head rested on the back of the tub rim.  Cautiously, she lifted one leg straight in the air like a Rockette, and watched the bubbles slowly slither down.  She turned carefully onto her stomach, bending her knees, her feet above her, luxuriating in the wet heat, and wishing the tub were bigger.  She felt like swimming naked in hot bubble bathwater.
     When she finished her bath, she stood up and reached for a large, thick bath towel but dried herself only slightly.  One of the guests on her Health and Healing radio program had once told her the benefits of using moisturizer while her skin was still wet, and she now tried to remember to do that.  She reached for her bottle of cocoa butter.
     After smoothing lotion on her shoulders and down her arms, she put more into her palm, rubbed her hands together and then stroked her breasts, first the tops, then around, and then lifting their heavy weight to get underneath.  She slid her hands down her torso, swishing around her belly button and polishing her round belly, cradling the lower portion that swelled above her pubic hair.  Love your body, she was thinking, remembering another guest’s declaration that your body should not be loathed but cherished whatever its shape.  Secretly, Katherine loved her round belly, the warmth, the safe heaviness, the place that could carry a child. 
     Taking more butter, she slid her hands down her thighs, noting with distaste the dimples and puckers, and wishing for the sleek perfection of children.  She almost forgot about her buttocks, and quickly patted some lotion on her hips, cheeks and the crease below.  With the little lotion that remained on her hands, she swiftly stroked between her legs.
     Her face in the mirror was flushed and her damp dark hair was curling in ringlets.  She didn’t quite recognize herself.  She liked the way she looked.  And felt.  Thoughtfully, she put on her robe.  At her bedside, she turned out the light and then dropped the bathrobe into a chair before sliding naked under the cover. 
     She remembered she should examine her breasts, and did so, gritting her teeth while feeling the mysterious and nauseating cords, filaments, nodes and glands, her insides swooping in terror whenever she felt something round.  If it moves and hurts it’s okay, she repeated to herself.  The deep medical probing done, she relaxed, letting her hand rest casually on her nipple. 
     One finger gently ran over the centre, and her nipple grew interested.  She rubbed around the edge, and obligingly, a series of tiny bumps raised up.  She flicked the nipple harder now, and found herself wanting to be bitten there.  She pinched herself sharply, and then rolled onto her side, offering her breast to a phantom child or lover.  Rick Burman’s smiling face and brown eyes flashed into her mind.  The dampness between her legs grew and her hand slid down her side and over the coarse hair and into the heat.  She nestled her hand there a moment, and the phantom Rick stopped smiling and his face changed to look aroused.  She carefully stroked herself, testing the moistness at the opening.  But Rick faded away and she remembered a deserted beach long ago, and a boy’s hand between her legs until he took it away for a moment and then brought himself up against her, and she rolled onto her back and concentrated on the feeling of him inching inside her while her finger mimicked the memory, but that wasn’t satisfying, so she rolled onto her side again, squeezing her legs together to increase the sensation. 
     She thought of Lady Chatterley’s lover in the woods urging her to lie down and lift up her skirt, and he looked down at her and it was Rick Burman again, in his cloth cap, and he entered her as she smelled the crushed pine needles and from far away began to feel the rumble of the D. H. Lawrence ocean, and her fingers stroked steadily and slid in the wetness and it was beach and woods and dark stable, and she arched away from the phantom body, big hands, hot wet mouth, until she felt the shudder begin below and then streak narrowly and swiftly through all her body. 
     Then she felt pins and needles pricking all around her eyes, and hot tears dripped onto her pillow because it was so inadequate compared to the real thing.

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