Read This Body for Free Online Page B

do?
He is the only man I have ever known. He is the only man I have ever loved, who ever loved me … I don't know anyone else but
him. I don't know anything else but him
.
    She remembered how Philip looked the first time he held Ben in his arms, how amazingly comfortable and confident he looked,
already rocking from side to side, a motion, even seventeen years later, he duplicated if he held anything in his arms for
long. Philip had looked down at Ben, then over to her, and there was such incredible awe in his face. “We created this,” they
said to each other virtually simultaneously, which made them laugh, though Katharine's lower half protested such use. Katharine
had loved Philip so then. It was a moment in her life she had framed and reverently centered on the mantelpiece of her mind.
    That's what she wanted back.
    Katharine could feel the fury seeping back into her, but it had a direction.
To go back home
. She would be the lioness fighting for her family. She would be out for blood. She would tear the interloper limb from limb.
What else was there for her to do? She needed to arm herself, though, with information and money. She would infiltrate Thisby's
family, find out how to finance herself back into the world, and find out what that world had become.
And go back home
.
    What else was there for her to do?

    She worried about what to wear for her introduction into Thisby's family. Out of habit she had looked for a dress and stockings,
namely Hanes Alive to help alleviate the varicose veins that had plagued her as a result of her two pregnancies. But this
body had no varicose veins, as Katharine had discovered while shaving in the shower, one heel propped up on the soapdish.
These legs were not webbed with the purple lumps she had hated so much that she wore midcalf styles and pants — never shorts
or miniskirts. She had run her hands up the inside of Thisby's smooth calves, feeling an almost absurd sense of joy.
To be rid of those … It's almost worth it
.
    She had to root through the dresser to find a decent bra — not that Thisby really needed one. Her breasts barely stuck out
from beyond her rib cage. Perhaps with a bit more flesh, they would be more prominent. In Katharine's teenage days, her peers
didn't wear bras regardless of their breast mass, but Katharine had taken to heart the articles she read in the more conservative
fashion magazines. If she could not pass the pencil test — if her breast sagged low enough to hold a pencil between it and
her rib cage — she must wear a bra. Almost right after puberty she could put practically a whole box of pencils under her
breasts, and they would be held fast.
Okay, an exaggeration
. She had tried to go without a bra a couple of times, but it had always felt so uncomfortable that it wasn't worth it. Her
husband never seemed to mind her less-than-upright boobs, but she often eyed with envy the actresses on the screen. Even as
large as they were, their uplifted breasts would have passed the pencil test.
What kind of breasts does that Diana have
?
    Well, now she had breasts that could pass the pencil test —
they could pass a toothpick test; be careful what you wish for, you just might get it
— but it still felt uncomfortable to Katharine to go braless. She found one that looked like a training bra and put it on.
The feel of the straps, the closure hooks, felt
right
.
    She couldn't bring herself to dress as she imagined Thisby would, yet she couldn't make herself dress as Katharine would have.
That was for a body that …
sleeps with the fishes
. She finally settled on an outfit her daughter would have liked: jeans, a white T-shirt, an oversized sport coat with contrasting
turned-up sleeves, and white socks and penny loafers she found in the back of the closet. She looked at TB's reflection in
the full-length mirror hung on the inside of the closet door and felt she was looking at a catalog ad.
Studied casualness
, but it suddenly seemed to fit the current