The Shape of Desire

by Sharon Shinn

  I laughed shakily. I was having a hard time remembering when I’d last kissed anyone but Dante, and I hadn’t slept with anyone else since college. It was odd how what was essentially the same act could taste so different, feel so different. Matt’s lips were fuller than Dante’s, softer. He held back a little more, but I liked that; it made me feel like he wasn’t certain of me, or he wanted to explore me slowly, or both.

  What was odder still was how the body reacted to two such different men. All the physical symptoms were the same, the breathlessness, the rush of blood, the flood of desire, the building urge to press harder, go farther. My body was fully engaged; my body was ready to go the distance.

  But my heart was not. Or perhaps it was my mind. Or whatever part of the psyche that presided over monumental decisions. I could picture Matt in my bed, but I didn’t want him there. Not tonight, anyway. I wanted to think about this some more. I wanted to consider whether I was ready to cheat on Dante.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I’d better say good night and go up to my room alone.”

  “There’s a word for women like you,” he said, but he murmured it against my mouth, nibbling at my lips.

  “Mmm, I know. Always loved that word.”

  He laughed and straightened up, pushing me away. “Don’t wear anything too sexy tomorrow,” he said. “I want to be able to control my lust.”

  I opened my eyes wide as I resettled my shirt over my jeans. “You mean you don’t plan to ravish me in the middle of the Royals’ stadium?”

  “If we’d gotten box seats, maybe, but we’re in the stands, right behind first base. I just don’t think there will be much privacy.”

  I sighed. “And I thought you were getting us good seats.”

  He grinned and patted me on the head. “Scoot,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at noon tomorrow.”

  I glided across the hotel lobby and smiled during the whole elevator ride to my room. There is something about amorous contact, whether or not it culminates in sex. It roils through the body like an intemperate liqueur, leaving the brain pleasantly fogged and every inch of skin sensitized. It blunts your irritations and flushes you with well-being. It just damn well makes you feel good.

  The red light on my phone was blinking, so I sat on the bed and dreamily dialed the hotel operator. “You have a message from Mr. Tay,” she said in a voice bearing traces of a Spanish accent.

  Mr. Tay? Who was that? Someone from the bank? “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Had to go.’”

  “‘Had to go’? What? Who is this message from?”

  “Mr. Tay. Mr. Don Tay.”

  Don Tay. So fuzzy was I from excited endorphins that I had to run the syllables through my head three times before they clicked. Don Tay. Dante!

  “Wait—he said what?”

  “‘Had to go.’ He left the message ten minutes ago.”

  The sense of the words hit me like a punch to the stomach, and all my floaty happiness withered away. “Thank you,” I whispered and hung up the phone.

  I sat there on the bed for the next fifteen minutes, rocking a little, my arms wrapped around my shoulders, my eyes filling with tears. Had to go. It was what he always said when he departed abruptly, impatient of farewell scenes or long, drawn-out good-byes. It meant he wouldn’t be waiting for me when I returned Sunday evening, it meant I would go at least another full week without seeing him—maybe two. It meant that by sitting in the hotel garage, madly making out with Matt Tanaka, I had squandered my last chance to hear Dante’s voice for days and days and days. For a moment, I burned with anger at Matt—the faithless, irresponsible man who kissed many girls and then cavalierly left them—but almost immediately I was angry with myself. What kind of lover was I, what kind of human being, to play games with one man while the one I truly belonged with was hundreds of miles away, missing me, girding himself for a hard and physically risky transition? I was not steadfast, I was not honorable, I was not deserving of either man’s affection.

  But soon enough, my anger turned on Dante. Who was irritable, who was secretive, who went to elaborate lengths to make sure I only got so close to him, and no closer. Who might be lying to me every time I saw him. Who might be betraying me every time he left my house. Who did not love me enough to stay, no matter what shape he took, what challenges he faced. Who would not let me love him as much as I wanted to, which was with all my heart.

  The ball game was fun. I sipped Cokes since it was clear by the third inning Matt was going to reach my two-drinks-and-you-stop-driving limit. A man at the end of our row caught a fly ball. Some player hit three home runs in three different innings. The Royals won.

  “So that was a great game,” he said as I drove his car back to my hotel.

  “It was. Great seats, too.”

  “Good enough for you to invite me up to your room tonight?”

  I laughed. “Mmm, good enough for us to sit in the hotel restaurant while you drink enough coffee to sober up.”

  “I’m not drunk.” He leered over at me. “But maybe I should spend the night in your room just in case I’m more hammered than I thought.”

  There was a Starbucks in the lobby. We bought coffees to go and carried them to my room—where they sat unnoticed on an end table while we collapsed on the bed, in each other’s arms. I could not have gotten out a pen and paper and mapped a coherent illustration of the confused thoughts in my head. I was still angry with Dante, angry with myself, sad, aggrieved—and yet excited by Matt’s presence. My nerves and my skin instantly responded to his touch. I was thinking it would serve Dante right if I slept with another man. I was thinking it might be the best thing that had ever happened to me, curing me of the daft notion that I could never love anyone but Dante. I wasn’t actually thinking at all, just reveling in sensation, longing, and heat.

  I wanted to have sex with Matt, I really did.

  But something went wrong. He was drunker than I realized, maybe, and not able to maintain an erection. I was too tense, too nervous, and not able to open myself to him fully. We tried a few times, kissed some more, tried again, laughed a little, and ended up curled together face- to-face, half entwined, like friendly puppies full of affection but absolutely no sexual desire.

  “This doesn’t seem to be working out exactly as I envisioned it,” Matt whispered against my cheek.

  “I expected something a little different myself,” I replied.

  “I swear to you, it’s not because I’m thinking of my ex-girlfriend.”

  I choked on a laugh. “I’m not thinking of her, either.”

  He kissed my cheek. “Can I still spend the night?”

  “I think you better,” I said. “A man who can’t fuck has no business trying to drive.”

  You’d think we would be shy and awkward around each other in the morning, but we weren’t. We made fun of each other’s bedhead, we took turns showering, and I even let him borrow my toothbrush, though I ostentatiously threw it away once he was done. “I’ll buy a new one,” I said.

  I was doing one last glance around the room to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind when he said, “I keep wanting to ask if I’ll ever see you again.”

  I looked over and smiled. “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you want to?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  I kissed him and opened the door. “So I guess we have to keep on living if we want to find out.”

  “You think that’s supposed to be a metaphor for life in general?”

  “It is life,” I said. “It’s its own metaphor.”

  He saw me to my car and I drove away, humming along with a song on the radio.

  I haven’t seen Matt again, in fact. But I do hear from him now and then. Every time I get a new e-mail address, I send it to him, and he always replies. (He’s never changed his old AOL account.) He finds a new girlfriend about every two years. He was engaged once but broke it off. Still not ready, he wrote.

  Now and then he
asks about Dante. It is a relief, sometimes, to be honest on this topic with someone—well, as honest as I can be with anyone. Still seeing him, I reply. Still mysterious.

  Still love him. Still not capable of loving anyone else.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next two days creak past like an old woman clinging to a walker as she navigates an icy sidewalk. There are no more midnight calls from Dante, there is no communication at all. I don’t hear from Christina, either, though I half expect to. Half hope to. I would love another overnight visit from that enchanting little girl.

  The workdays amble by, enlivened by conversations and outings with coworkers. Ellen has continued with her campaign to incorporate Kathleen into our little circle of friends, so she has lunch with us the rest of the week. One day we are joined by Marquez and one of the copyeditors; another day Grant Vance tags along with Ellen, Kathleen, and me, something I can only remember happening once before in the past three years. I think Ellen is trying to make a point to Kathleen, though it’s a subtle enough one that I’m not sure even I get it. I think the message is: Normal people lead a different life than you do.

  What I want to tell Ellen is: Give it up. There are no normal people.

  Now and then Ellen is more blunt than sly. On the day that Grant has joined us, we’re back at the pizza place, which turns out to be his favorite venue, so he’s smiling widely. Well, of course he is. He’s Grant. He’s always smiling.

  I wonder if Ellen has decided to try to rescue Grant from Caroline. How many people does she think she can save at one time? Maybe she hopes to promote a romance between Kathleen and Grant. I actually like the idea, since he seems gentle and she seems like she could use some kindness, but I think there are far too many hurdles in the way—primarily the fact that they’re both in love with other people.

  Ellen is wearing an electric blue blouse that’s tight enough to show the lines of her bra. It looks like she’s just had her hair touched up, because it’s as blond as a Dolly Parton wig. Still, she looks five times better than I do today in my drab black and washed-out pink outfit, which was all I could find in my closet after I got up late because I failed to set the alarm last night. She’s holding a copy of the newspaper, and she rustles the pages of the metro section as she reels off the headlines. “‘Priest Accused of Sexually Assaulting Four Boys’…‘Bank Robber Holds Ten People Hostage for Eight-Hour Standoff’…‘Young Couple Killed in Suburban Park.’ I mean, each story is more depressing than the last.”

  “Yeah, I read about those people being killed,” Grant says, his cheerful face drawing into an expression of sympathy. “They were mauled by animals.”

  “And then, here’s another one—” Ellen starts, but Kathleen interrupts.

  “What? Mauled by animals? In a suburban park? In St. Louis? Are you reading the local news?”

  Somewhat grudgingly, Ellen turns back to that story. “Well, it’s extreme suburban. Out past Wildwood.”

  “What kind of animals?” I ask. “I know there are coyotes around here. Foxes. I saw a fox at the Botanical Gardens once.”

  “Hey, I saw that same fox!” Grant exclaims. “It was cool.”

  Ellen is frowning at the paper now, clearly annoyed at being sidetracked. “No, not foxes. Not wolves. It says—well, it says they still need to do forensics to determine exactly what kind of creature killed them.” She reads a little further into the article. “Also, apparently they were dead for a few days before anyone found them. So there’s been some decay. We won’t know all the details for a while. Like how they were killed or even when.”

  “I don’t want to know the details,” I observe.

  Kathleen shivers a little. “I don’t, either. That’s creepy.”

  “But we know all we need to know about this article,” Ellen continues. “‘Father of Three Kills Wife, Children, Self.’ Boy, seems like every time you open the paper, there’s some version of that story in it.”

  I realize what Ellen’s trying to do, so, feeling clumsy about it, I try to support her. “You always wonder if maybe the women in those situations don’t realize they have somewhere else to go,” I say. “Like, maybe they have a friend who could help. Or there’s a hotline they could call.”

  Ellen taps the paper. “It gives a number right here. But if I were a woman in an abusive situation, I’d tell a friend. Someone who knew the right resources. Hell, if someone came to me when she was in trouble, I know I could help her out.”

  I can’t tell from her expression if Kathleen realizes what Ellen is saying. Her eyes are shadowed; it’s clear the tale is affecting her. “I feel sorry for that woman’s family,” she says in her soft voice. “Her mother and her father. Just think. Last week they had a daughter and three grandchildren. Now they don’t. How does something happen so fast? Everything wiped out in a minute.”

  Grant makes a strangled noise. “Can we talk about something else? I’m never having lunch with you guys again.”

  Ellen raises her gaze and gives him a considering look. “Sure. Let’s talk about something more fun. Didn’t I see your name on the wall calendar? Aren’t you going on vacation pretty soon?”

  Grant’s smile returns, a bright curve against his dark skin. “Yes, I am! Italy.” He waves his hand at the restaurant around us. “Where I can get real pasta, straight from the source.”

  “Have you ever been there before?” I ask.

  “No. I’ve wanted to go my whole life.”

  “Who are you going with?” Ellen asks innocently.

  He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t look self-conscious. Either he’s practiced this lie a hundred times, or he’s telling the truth. “A buddy from college is meeting me in Rome. He lives in England now, and I haven’t seen him since—wow, since grad school.”

  “Oh, I think I’d rather go to England if I was going to travel,” Kathleen puts in. “London—and Stonehenge—and Bath—”

  We all look at her in surprise. “Bath?” I repeat.

  “Haven’t you ever read Georgette Heyer?” she asks. The rest of us shake our heads. “Well, if you’d read Georgette Heyer, you’d want to go to Bath.”

  “I was in Paris once,” Ellen says. “Went with some of the girls from the sorority. We—”

  “You were in a sorority?” I interrupt. “I thought you’d be the type of person who picketed Greek Row because they were so elitist.”

  She glares at me. Clearly she was about to make another point and I derailed her. “It was a service sorority,” she says stiffly. “We did charity work around the city. Let me finish.”

  “I was in a frat,” Grant offers.

  “I thought Greek stuff was stupid,” I say. “Though now I wonder if joining a sorority then would have helped me with my social network now.”

  “I got my associate’s degree at a community college,” Kathleen says. “I don’t even know if they had sororities.”

  “Well, my sorority went to Paris during the summer between junior and senior year,” Ellen says, wrenching back control of the conversation. “And we’re standing in line at the Louvre, waiting to see the Mona Lisa, when I hear somebody call my name.” She glances around at the three of us, making sure we are ready to be impressed by her revelation. “And who is in line about ten people behind me but the guy I went to prom with in high school! In Paris. At the Louvre. Isn’t that the most amazing coincidence? I hadn’t even thought of the guy in three years.”

  It takes me a minute to realize the message she is trying to deliver with this story, and then I get it. She is warning Grant that if he secretly meets Caroline in Rome, he is bound to encounter someone he knows. She is telling him that he can run to the ends of the earth trying to keep his forbidden romance a secret, but the most unexpected coincidence will expose him no matter what precautions he takes.

  “Oh, I have a similar story,” I say, fluttering my hands to show how excited I am to tell this anecdote. “I was on a plane once, flying back from—Boston, I think. It doesn’t matter. There was
a guy sitting next to me and we started talking and it was all the usual, where are you from, where do you live, what do you do for a living? And at the time I was working for this little accounting firm that no one had ever heard of, but when I named it, he said, ‘Oh, my friend Nancy Kelly works there! Do you know her?’ And I said, ‘Know her? We carpool together! What’s your name?’”

  I take a sip of my Coke and go on. “So he tells me he’s Tom Marcus, and I almost fall out of my seat. You know how, when you spend a lot of time with friends, you start talking about other friends, and pretty soon you feel like you know those other people? Well, Nancy had told me all about Tom, and how he and his wife were going through this nasty divorce. I knew everything about him. Everything. I knew he and his wife had been trying for years to have a baby, I knew they’d considered in vitro, I knew his sperm count, for God’s sake. So then when his wife got pregnant, he started to wonder if the baby was really his, and he had her followed, and it turned out she was having an affair—I knew all of it.”

  Everyone at the table actually looks sort of amused. “What did you say?” Grant asks. “‘Sorry about your boys being such low shooters’?”

  Kathleen seems confused; Ellen chokes on a laugh. “No, I just said, ‘Oh, you know, I think Nancy might have mentioned your name. I’ll tell her I met you.’ And then we talked about movies for the rest of the flight.”

  “See, that’s exactly my point,” Ellen says. I can tell she’s pleased with my contribution. “You never know when you’re going to run into someone you know. Or someone who knows you, even indirectly.”

  “When I was in summer school my junior year, three of my friends and I cut class to go see a baseball game,” Kathleen says. “And my best friend Audrey? She was this really cute blond and she was wearing this halter top and one of the TV guys kept turning the camera over at her. So she’d wave and kind of do a little dance.” Kathleen offers a discreet shimmy. Nothing bounces on her tiny frame, but we get the idea. “They showed the footage on the evening news, and we were all busted. My mom grounded me for the rest of the summer.”