Page 122 of While I’m Still Here

I don't want to document it anymore, and I don't want to fucking study it. I don't want to mourn it before it has even changed. I want warmth. Touch. Want. I want to remember what it feels like when my body is something other than the place where cancer happened. I want one final night where nobody checks it for lumps, talks about surgical margins, or wonders what will be there tomorrow.

And when I look at the three men in front of me, I realise I don't want one of them.

I want them.

All three.

The realisation should probably be more complicated than it is. Instead, for the first time tonight, something feels incredibly simple. “I want you.” Colin's eyes hold mine, then I look at Danny. “And you.” Finally Marcus. “And you.”

Nobody speaks, which is probably a first. Danny isn't grinning anymore. Marcus has gone completely still. Colin looks at me with so much emotion that for half a second I nearly lose my nerve.

So I say the only thing left. “I want all of you.”

The words hang there.

I don't want to perform grief… I just want to feel alive inside the body that is still mine. Colin takes the first step towards me, then stops close enough that I can feel his warmth without him touching me. He gives me the chance to close the final distance myself.

So I do. I take his hand, and then I reach for Danny's. Marcus is last, watching me with that careful expression of his, the one that always makes me feel as though he's making absolutely certain I'm being heard rather than simply agreed with.

I hold my hand out to him, and he takes it.

And standing there between them, with tomorrow waiting beyond the bedroom door and my photographs sitting safely on the bedside table, I realise that for the first time all evening, I'm not counting the hours I have left with this body.

Three bodies shift around me, and the silence breaks into smaller sounds—fabric over skin, a low exhale, the mattress dipping as Danny kneels closer. Colin’s mouth is on my neck, then my jaw, while his hands slide up over my ribs. I feel him pause just beneath the curve of my breasts, his thumbs skimming the soft weight of them.

“May I?” he whispers.

I nod, and his palms cup me gently, as though I’m something he’s afraid to break. I close my eyes and let myself feel it—warm, full, achingly present. When I open them again, Danny is watching, his gaze fixed on the place where Colin’s hands meet my body.

“Your turn,” I say, my voice rough at the edges. “Both of you. I want to remember this.”

Danny moves without a word. He leans over me, and for a second I think he’s going to kiss my mouth, but instead he lowers his head and presses his lips to the curve of my left breast.

I’m bare to them all; I was before, but now it’s different. I can feel three pairs of eyes on me. The air is cool, but the heat between my legs is becoming impossible to ignore. Marcus shifts at the foot of the bed, and I feel his hand on my ankle, steady and sure.

“Keep going,” I whisper. “Please.”

Colin lowers his head to my right breast, his mouth hot and open against the swell of it. Danny mirrors him on the left, and for a long moment they take turns kissing me there, moving slowly, as though memorising the shape and weight and texture of me. Colin’s tongue traces a line to my nipple, and when he closes his lips around it, I gasp and arch off the bed. Danny answers with a low, approving sound and does the same, and I’m caught between them, pleasure spiralling outward from both sides.

“That’s it,” Marcus says quietly. His hand moves from my ankle to my calf. “Let yourself feel it.”

I do. I let myself feel everything—the wet heat of two mouths, the scrape of stubble, the way Danny’s fingers splay over my stomach as if to hold me steady. Colin’s hand slides lower, over my hip. The blush that floods my body feels less like shame and more like light, like my skin is trying to glow from the inside out. Danny sits back on his heels and just looks at me, his lips parted, his chest rising fast. Colin’s hand rests on my inner thigh. Marcus moves first. He slides off the bed and kneels between my legs, his dark eyes never leaving my face. His palms come to rest on the inside of my knees, and he parts me gently. The scar on his chest catches the pale dawn light, and I have the sudden, overwhelming urge to touch it.

“You said you wanted more than one pair of eyes on you,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “I’d rather use my mouth.”

I nod, not trusting my voice.

He lowers his head.

The first touch of his tongue is deliberate and unhurried, a long, flat stroke that makes my hips jerk and a broken sound escape my throat. Colin settles behind me again, pulling me back against his chest, and his hands come up to cup my breasts once more. That’s when I realise what they’re doing—Colin and Danny at my chest, saying goodbye with every kiss, while Marcus gives my body a different kind of farewell.

Danny kneels beside us and takes one of my nipples back into his mouth. Colin takes the other. And Marcus, sweet and steady, eats me out like I’m the last beautiful thing he’ll ever taste.

I’m not quiet. I don’t want to be quiet. I let every moan pour out of me, matching the rhythm of Marcus’s tongue, the pull of two mouths on my breasts. My hands find Danny’s hair, then Colin’s, and I hold them to me as the pleasure builds and builds, hot and bright and terrifying.

“I’m close,” I gasp. “Marcus, I’m so close.”

He hums against me, and the vibration undoes something essential. I come with a cry, my back bowing, my fingers fisted in hair, my whole body shaking. The world goes white at the edges. I think I say Colin’s name, or Danny’s, or maybe all of theirs at once.