The Touch Forecast

Your best friend, Meg, is scared for you. She wants to accompany you to the lake, but you need to be alone, so you drive there and wander the aspen grove, leaves trembling in the light wind. You touch the smooth, greenish-white bark, the rough, eye-shaped branch scars. You hold your hand among the leaves, feeling them flicker in the light wind. You touch the coarse granite boulders. You walk along the shore to your favorite granite slab, remove your clothes, and feel its polished surface on your cheek, tummy, arms, and legs. You dive into the water, welcoming its chill, and then you drive home, where your ex-boyfriend, who still has a key, surprises you.

He wants to make love one last time, and although you hate him now—you’d begun feeling this way even before he reported you— he’s a man with influence who could make things worse for you, and maybe, just maybe, his touch will be tender, and linger in the dismal time ahead. But his eyes are glacial as he touches your neck. You apologize and say this was a mistake, completely your fault. You ask him to please leave, apologizing again and again.

After he leaves, you touch your body. You have no interest in an orgasm. You realize how much of your body you’ve never touched with intention: the satiny inside of your arms, your knuckles’ bony hills– Why did you never notice how irregular they are?– the helix of your ear, the smooth fleshy texture of your mouth’s soft palate, the firm ridges of the hard palate. You pluck a hair and marvel. Only one hair, yet you can feel its silky texture.

Meg comes over and cooks for you: snapper ceviche with jicama, lime, and toasted pumpkin seeds; fresh chickpeas with feta and roasted red pepper sauce; scallops with parsnip puree, fruit tart. Tender, crumbly, crunchy, buttery, creamy, crispy, velvety. You eat and weep at the glorious textures. You and Meg hug throughout dinner. She’s stopped coaxing you to flee. You both know what happens to women who are caught. After dinner, Meg massages your feet with lotion. You object, but she tells you this is what best friends do.

The car pulls up at exactly 7:30 pm, and some official and his driver take you to the hospital, where you change and are led to the chapel, lit with candles, packed with journalists, politicians, and people waving signs. The senator stands at the pulpit in a halo of light. He commands silence. You stand in your hospital gown, facing him.  “Touch,” says the senator, “is the first sense felt in the womb. Even before sight and hearing.” He pauses, looking directly at you, then continues. “Your baby will never feel your loving arms holding her. You’ll never feel her petal soft cheeks. You took her life as she bloomed in your womb.” Silence. Then he roars, accompanied by others in the chapel, chanting: “Your pleasure in touch will be no more. The culture of death—you opened that door.”

Flanked by two doctors, you leave the chapel and walk toward the operating room. You’ll be able to feel pain after the surgery. Heat. No other sensation of touch. Ever. The idea is suffering, not death. The nurse prepping you explains the steps of the operation in a gentle, halting voice. Her eyes tear up when she tells you what to expect after. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I’m new here.” Just before inserting the IV that will put you under, she asks if you’d like to touch her hair. “I used my best conditioner, so it feels extra soft.” “No, thank you,” you say. You raise your palms to your face and stroke your cheeks. You blink rapidly a few times, feeling your lids go down and up, down and up. You kiss every other finger, slowly, then close your eyes.