Borrowed Light by Anna Fienberg

something.
    When I took off my clothes with Tim, I settled into waiting mode. It was like being at the dentist’s, reading about other women in magazines who were having glamorous sex. Women with breasts. Those women had wild cleavage, the kind of deep cleft between valleys that could hold a pencil, a diamond, something useful.
    When Tim put his hand on my breast, I always felt a hot flame of shame. What must I feel like to him, the kitchen table? Empty space? Grandma Ruth would have reminded me that space is not empty at all, but I couldn’t imagine Grandma had ever spent much time agonising over what men thought of her.
    I read once that the human female had breasts purely for sexual attraction. They were for the man. All other females of the animal species had tiny teats, just for their babies. It made me feel ungenerous, that piece of information, like coming empty-handed to a birthday party.
    Tim never did much with my breasts, anyway. He tweaked my nipple, a bit like a shopper at the greengrocer’s, testing for ripeness. But he always passed over that half of my body, as if I were not yet juicy enough. It wasn’t his fault, I knew, because I lay there straight and clenched like a post, waiting till that part of the examination was over. Often I’d whisper words from the language of the universe to myself, words like
isotropy
, or
inertia
, or
cosmic microwave background.
The words were a comfort, like a soft toy or a piece of silk.
    What I did like, was the attention. During that brief timeon the sofa, Tim was thinking about nothing but me. I knew it. He looked at me with such hunger, as if he could eat me, as if he could stuff all the flesh on my bones into his mouth.
    I’d have done anything for him then. It made me feel so important, lit up like gold, the way he looked at me.
    â€˜I adore you,’ he whispered as he unzipped my skirt.
    â€˜Really?’ I’d whisper into his shoulder.
    I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t hungry, like him.
    I wondered if I ever would be.
    I began to think of it as a kind of contraception, this peculiar lack of excitement I had. It was like a world without sound, or smell. Like a planet with no atmosphere—everything floated, nothing made an impression. I supposed that was how moons like me had sex. All reflected heat, nothing of your own. There was no atmosphere on the moon, either. I decided the only benefit about being a moon in this situation was that it allowed all kinds of things to happen to you, without any consequences occurring. Nothing was left behind after these surface episodes, nothing moved, as if I were a sailing boat becalmed on a windless sea.
    I imagined that all my life I would be trapped on this same sea, without the weather. Other people had weather in bed, I didn’t. It was immutable, I decided, as having brown eyes or crooked toes.
    But it seemed now you couldn’t even rely on the weather.
    I DID AS I was told, that Friday night, and went back to bed. But I couldn’t close my eyes. For three nights now I hadn’t slept. Anxiety must be a stimulant, like speed or cocaine. I felt as if there were liquid caffeine running through my veins. I was trying to think, really I was. The trouble was that I just still couldn’t believe it.
    Maybe if someone else knew, it would seem more real. But there was no one to tell. Maybe the doctor was wrong. I’d read about those ‘hysterical’ pregnancies, where women blew up like pufferfish and bought maternity clothes and everything, and then suddenly their bellies went down, like balloons at the end of a birthday party. I felt a sudden lift of the heart. That’d be right—I could just imagine my mixed-up body doing something crazy like that. Maybe I’d go back to that doctor and ask him to consider this. We could consider it together, while we waved compassionately at the lungfish.
    I felt almost excited by this idea—better than I’d