***

Lara was the first one to notice the lump in Dana’s breast while they were making love. She was the one that persisted against Dana’s objections to make a doctor’s appointment to have it checked out. She was the one that Dana turned to for support. She was the one that experienced Dana’s pain.

Sometimes displaced anger served to reduce the pain from ourselves when we project it towards others. Lara understood that Dana wasn’t really feeling anger towards her. She’d done nothing wrong but it still hurt to see Dana that way. The anger also signaled the beginning of Dana’s depression.

A lesser person would’ve been driven away by Dana’s abusive behavior and unreasonable lashing out but not Lara. She was determined to stand by Dana; to be her support in sickness and in health.

The night before the surgery Dana’s demeanor shifted without impetus from hateful, spiteful and angry to the next stage in the grieving process; sadness. Although sadness is a normal reaction to a cancer diagnosis Lara had gotten so used to coping with ‘angry Dana’ that ‘sad Dana’ took her by surprise.

The change in Dana signified a sudden awareness or perhaps an acknowledgment of something that was always there under the surface fueling her anger. It was the awareness of the possibility of great loss: loss of life and loss of career were the obvious ones but in this moment it was loss of perceived sexual attractiveness. She stood in front of Lara and removed her blouse to show her two perfectly formed naked breasts and said one word.

“Please”

It didn’t take more than that for Lara to immediately understand what Dana was asking of her. Unlike Bette and Tina these two lovers communicated on every level especially sexually. They’d worked on their relationship after the reconciliation and dealt with the issues that broke them apart the first time.

It’s apparent that Dana wants to fuck … not make gentle sweet love. Dana wanted the physical contact to feel alive. She needed to feel wanted. She needed to feel desired. Most of all she needed to feel like she had power and control over something. Lara let her body be used to give Dana what she wanted but then she took back the control and gave Dana what she needed.