It’s strange now with Jim, and the way he loves her. She doesn’t like to think it but he loves her like her mother loves her, like everything she does is precious. It would be refreshing if it didn’t make her remember. But she loves him, now. Pam loves Jim. It’s fact, or something close to it, but it makes the life of Pam Beesly very different. Not so much fancy, like Jim says often enough (like he’s some magnificent Upgrade), just different.

And sometimes she can’t not think about Roy. The differences turn into glaring missteps when she can feel Jim’s breath on her neck, hot and wet and rapid.
It’s just… They fuck her so differently and she can’t put her finger on why.

_____________________________________________________________________________ 

Some unseasonably warm Thursday night and she’s been pouting. He’s said things like “You look so hot, baby” and taken her out to dinner. In a small sundress that hugs her so tightly in some places she blushes to think of it, she’s pretty sure that she wanted him to call her beautiful, to gasp or something like this is a movie.

“Probably Jim would.” She thinks, which is a rare moment she doesn’t usually let herself have. Doesn’t care to allow that to seep in, the fact that Jim might be doing this differently, and that he might be doing it better.

So she lets Roy take her out to some silly dinner at Applebee’s, lets him slide his hand up her thigh almost absent-mindedly at the booth, one of his eyes on the baseball game that’s playing up near the bar. It would be funny if it weren’t sad, probably. It would be hilarious if it were happening to someone else.

Eventually she shifts away from him, and his fingers catch on her skin but slide easily back into his lap. He looks over and smiles.

“You look pretty.” She melts a little but not much. Yes, she does look pretty. He kisses her cheek chastely and that’s almost that.

She goes home disappointed, and the fact that she wasn’t expecting anything specific anyway makes it that much worse. She wants to cry because it’s just this vague feeling of misery that sits in the pit of her stomach all the time now, like maybe she’s doing everything wrong. Roy makes her happy, doesn’t he? He does.

She looks at herself in the mirror in their bedroom, once Roy’s thrown his jacket over the back of the couch and gotten him self a beer. She is pretty tonight, and the fact that he’s not even trying to do anything is making her furious. Getting very close to the mirror, Pam notices that her eyes are bloodshot, and the bags underneath them are getting worse. She doesn’t sleep enough, because sometimes it’s hard with his weight on her. Sometimes she’ll wake up with marks where his arms wrapped around her too tight in sleep, unconsciously

Pam unzips the dress hastily, almost ripping the seams but thinking better of it at the last moment. She hangs it up somewhere in the back of her closet, because it wasn’t really her kind of dress anyway, probably. She slips on a nightshirt that she’s had for years. There’s no point dolling herself up at night if it doesn’t work during the day. She scrubs the makeup off her face without looking, than makes her way down to the kitchen, trying desperately not to think of how loathsomely familiar each step is. She’s seen this carpet too many times, hit her toe on the door frame more then once. She’s achingly tired of it, of everything.

She knows he’s behind her before he says anything. She’s on her tiptoes, reaching up to grab a mug when she feels his hands on her hips, holding her up.

“You really do look pretty.” She can feel his grip tightening, and her legs start to shake at the knee from the strain of standing on her toes.

“Thank you.” She breathes, as he nudges her forward with his hips, so that she’s bent over at the waist, her elbows propped on the counter. She can feel the weight of his chest hot against her back as he puts his mouth to her ear.

“You are pretty.” She’s gasping a little now, he’s very good at this. This masculine sort of taking that he does. His hands are still resting on her hips, and she feels his fingers curl under the hem of the nightshirt as he bunches it up over her ass. She would maybe feel embarrassed if this hadn’t happened before, if she didn’t know that he knew just how much she liked it. It’s a benefit of being together for so long, knowing what someone likes.

She can feel him, hard against her back as his fingers slide around so they’re resting on her lower abdomen. He grips the waistband of her underwear and pulls them down to mid-thigh. His knee comes between her legs and she’s forced to spread them, and maybe her elbows hurt where they’re pressed into the counter but that’s the whole point of this.
He kisses her neck as he slides a finger inside of her. It isn’t enough because it’s too gentle, too nice. He doesn’t fumble though, ever.

“Please.” She whispers, still a little shy after all this time. His hands slip away from her for a moment, and she’s left very conscious of the fact that she’s naked from the waist down, bent over the kitchen counter, and that she can hear him unbuckling his belt.

“Roy-“ But he’s already back, and she remembers why she likes this, the way he thrusts into her once, hard, and how he knows to hold her waist so that her hip bones hit the counter. And how she can feel it already, building in the pit of her stomach. He maybe knows too much about her, how she will appreciate the bruises that will dot her aching bones in the morning. How all it takes for her to come is a slight pressure on the small of her back so that she’s arching backwards and gasping, her hands held tightly in his.

“I love you.” He’ll say softly, when he’s pulling out of her, smoothing her night shirt back down over her legs. There must be a problem if she can’t even muster up the energy to stand up, but she ignores it.

“I love you too.”

__________________________________________________________________________

Jim has eyes like a puppy. The first time he saw her naked she thought he was going to cry. She doesn’t know if it’s a product of him as Jim or of him with her, but it’s all very strange.

“I’m not magic.” She says that first night, when he hesitates to put his hands on her, his eyes wide and his fingers shaking.

“Could’ve fooled me,” he breathes, and she loves his fear enough to help him, enough to grab his wrist and guide him, though she hasn’t had to do this ever, for anyone.
And the first time it was adorable and sad and heartbreaking, and she loved him so much she thought she might explode.

He obviously hasn’t had this problem before, this insecurity in his own performance.

“I just want to do it right…” He whispers in her ear, his fingers stroking down her belly until she’s squirming, until she almost can’t bear it anymore.

“But you are doing it right.” And most of the time he is, if he would just stop acting like she’s going to break or run away.

And it’s like he’s teasing her, the way she’ll awaken to him touching her, kissing her, loving her like he isn’t afraid. But he’s too gentle, and she can’t stand it.

So she tries to change the pace, starts nipping at his neck and scratching a little too hard, and sometimes it’s like he forgets who she is enough to grab her wrists and hold her down, if only for a moment.

So she makes do with his slow, reverential love, because it makes her warm inside. And she’d probably rather be his then anyone else’s, now.