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if this is any shape of love   

You’ve never really even thought about doing this, let alone actually having done it before, but her small hand is resting on your abdomen and you can still smell the scent of her in the air.  She’s got her thumb resting in your belly button, the curve of it dipping in, sloping around and coming to point somewhere over your left shoulder.  She has nice hands, nice fingers, you decide, and lace yours with hers.  It’s almost weird, the way you fell into this, but holding her hand is a lot less strange than other things you’ve done, and you like the spark that shoots through your stomach when she wiggles her knuckles against yours. 

You feel the need to ask.  You stopped yourself from doing it before because of the struggle to breathe and the way your mind wasn’t exactly functioning properly, but now it’s quiet and warm and the words spill out of your mouth like honey.  “Have you ever done anything like this before?”  You roll your head a little to look at her. 

She’s always seemed younger than you even though you’re not even exactly sure how old she is.  You think you might be older, but it doesn’t really matter.  She only seems younger because she might be more timid, more shy.  She can’t really have been as shy as you thought she was, though, because she kissed you first and there was only need and hardened resolve in the way her lips pressed against yours.  Being with her was different from anything you’ve ever done before, but it was hot and cold and everything between; you think you’ll do it again. 

She shakes her head a little.  “No,” she says, moving her fingertips lightly on your stomach.  “Have you?” 

Your pillow crinkles as you mirror her movements.  “No,” you say.  She blinks slowly, absorbing the information, and it reminds you of the way her eyes fluttered shut at your gentle ministrations, at your exploratory pressing and probing.  You used some of the same tricks you’ve used with men (hot breath, wet kisses, slow, achingly slow movements) but it’s different when it’s with her and the womanly body she hides beneath her skirts and her button-down blouses.  You wonder a little what things would have been like if this had been with some other woman, whether it would have started your pulse and your breath going again just thinking about it.  You wonder if afterward you would feel as anticipatory as you feel now, the tension throbbing gently between your legs. 

She’s inching a little closer, coming toward you.  Lying on her side and facing you, with the low lamplight behind her, the light glows on the curves and contours of her body.  You reach over, turning a little so that the hand she has placed on your stomach slides up and over to your hip, and tuck your fingers under her breast, letting them skim around the shape of it.  This is the first time you’ve ever seen her naked, the first time you’ve ever touched her breast, but somehow there’s this intimacy between you like you’ve been doing this forever.  You’re connected to each other and you know neither one of you would deny it:  you love the same man, and if neither of you can have him wholly, you fill yourselves with each other.  It makes a sort of warped sense that sends a blush all down your body, or maybe it’s just the way she’s looking at you like she knows what you’re thinking. 

“It’s… different,” she says.  Her nipple is tight against your thumb and you remember the wetness between your thighs, between hers. 

You nod and smile a little.  “It definitely is,” you tell her.  “It’s…,” you trail off, staring at the curve of her hip, and finish lamely, “not really what I’m used to.” 

She laughs quietly.  “I feel like we don’t have anything to say to each other, and that’s… weird.”  She pauses.  “Or it should be.”  She’s tucking her thumb into the hollow of your hip, tracing the shape of the bone where it juts out and where it plateaus into the smoothness of your abdomen. 

“I know,” you reply.  “Not that this was bad or anything, but it just seems like it would be more… more awkward than it is, I guess.”  Speech is slow and languid and unhurried; you feel saturated, heavy, relaxed.  You flick your eyes up to hers and watch her raise her eyelids, her lashes moving slowly, and it’s such a graceful movement that you pull her toward you gently and kiss the corner of her mouth.  The flat skin below your belly button is pressed tight against hers and it is so warm, so intimate, you can feel pressure building behind your eyes.  She’s the closest you can get to feeling like you’ve found the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle you’ve been working on your whole life.  She wraps her calf around yours, bringing her knee to rest in the crook of yours.  She smells like lavender and you inhale deeply, pressing your chest against hers.  If this is any shape of love, it is sweeter than anything you’ve known. 

You’re lying still together, breathing in the air that each of you exhale.  Sometimes, when you’re feeling sentimental, you think in poetic or perhaps even philosophical terms:  it’s an interesting thought that you share your breath like you share your love.  Your exhalations are mingling, combining, and becoming a more solid representation of this thing you’re in together.  The air is dense with the point of its meeting, and it is in that joining that you are both bound, connected to each other and to him.  He is the bridge between you. 

“Pam,” you say, trailing your fingers down the slope of her spine. 

She shudders and goosebumps prickle her skin.  “Hmm?” she says.  You can feel the vibration in your chest. 

A precipice:  you feel as though you’re perched on the edge, the cliff of desire, of secrecy, of intimacy.  You want her now, hot and fast and over and over, but there are words to be said before her skin is smooth and slick against yours.  You hesitate, then quietly blurt, “Jim.” 

She stiffens, but only for a second.  Her leg is still draped over yours and now her arm is too, reaching around to touch you, to run her fingers lightly over the inside of your thigh.  She shifts and brings your leg up over her hip. 

“Yeah,” she says.  “I know.” 

You’re already so ready for her that you can barely get the words out.  “Should we tell him?” you ask, moving your hips against her just a little.  You’re not at the right angle but you’re so sensitive anyway that a few gentle thrusts elicit a soft moan from the back of your throat.  You hear her breathing harder. 

“I don’t know,” she replies, and her fingers are light against you. 

“Pam,” you gasp, pressing even closer to her.  “We… we should... ” 

“Not right now,” she says, and kisses you hard on the mouth.  You grind yourself against her fingers, and, later, when Pam’s screaming her way through her climax, her knees curved over your shoulders, you wonder if he’d really even want to know.