“Hey,” murmured Dana, her voice quiet and comforting but nonetheless
laced with very obvious desire. “What’s the matter? Why did you stop?”

“Is this what you want?” said Alice in the barest of whispers. She
looked up at Dana with large and questioning brown eyes that to the
athlete seemed to hold fear and want and love and so many other things
that it was almost impossible to see them all unless she stared for
hours that turned into days that turned into years. “Do you really want
to be in there with me?” Swallowing hard, she looked towards the
bedroom at the top of the stairs. “Because I never want to do anything
that you don’t want, Dana. I never want that again.”

“I want you, I want this, I want us,” said Dana in a feverish chant,
saying one after the other quickly and in between short but fierce
kisses, cupping Alice’s face in her hands. The blonde laughed and
smiled into her, appearing so relieved and in this moment Dana felt
that tiny piece of her, well, it wasn’t a tiny piece. That large piece
of her that was beginning to hate her body for turning against her,
resenting the way she looked and how she felt. Weak and unattractive
and helpless and the athlete found herself wondering if maybe Alice
didn’t really want this. If she didn’t want her when her body was stuck
this way. “But do you…” Dana trailed off, unable to look at Alice and
she shut her eyes tight as she went on. “Still want me?”

“Dana,” Alice said her name as a verbal caress and the moment that Dana
heard it she opened her eyes and found herself struck by the look of
love and desire that met her. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen it before,
the love and the desire but it had never been this much and it had
never been this clear. Or perhaps this raw and powerful. The blonde
pressed into her, kissing her cheek softly as she unbuttoned Dana’s
shirt and murmured, “Jenny was right. We are beautiful.” Pulling away
to trail of kisses onto Dana’s skin, she pushed the shirt off the
athlete’s shoulders to let it drop on the floor. Looking up and into
Dana’s eyes, she held her gaze steady while she reached down to unclasp
the brunette’s bra. Diverting her attention when Dana’s hands
instinctively moved to hide her breasts as the bra fell open and Alice
tenderly covered the athlete’s hands with her own. Gently urging them
lower until the material fell down and tanned breasts were revealed.
“You’re beautiful,” Alice breathed this more than said it. The writer
wasn’t sure what the tennis player had been so scared of. What did she
think would repel Alice? Was it the way her skin was bruised because of
the lowered platelet counts? Or how she had lost what little ability
she had to gain and keep weight, making her look malnourished? What was
it that Dana was afraid to show her? Alice wasn’t sure that she wanted
to know right now. Later, yes, so she could soothe those worries. But
not now, not with the beauty that was a living and breathing Dana right
in front of her. And so she ducked her head and dropped to her knees
almost reverently. “I’m beautiful,” Alice said, her voice hoarse and
thick with passion while she wound her arms around the athlete’s back
as she left a path of kisses on the tanned stomach. Moving upwards
until she kissed the underside of each breast, darting her tongue out
to lick and trace the nipples, before cupping the weight in her hands
and looking at Dana with dark eyes. “And you make me that way.”