The Shape of Desire Read Online Free PDF Page B

few feet from the door, and then we’re kissing madly again.
    Moving in tandem like mating dragonflies, we’ve taken a few steps toward the bedroom, but it’s too far away and the need is too great. His erection is between us and we rub against each other, moaning in low voices; and then he is inside me, half lifting me in his arms, as he thrusts and pulls back and thrusts again. I feel my fingers biting into the flesh of his shoulders; I must hold on to him with all my strength or get flung into the void. While his hips work, he plants breathless kisses all over my face, but not as if he is even aware he is kissing me. His mouth against my skin is just another form of speech, an expression of desire, as involuntary and absentminded as a gasp of pain or pleasure.
    I come and then he does, and we both fight for air, holding tight to each other as our bodies recollect themselves and our souls filter back inside our skin. He sets me on my feet and I am keenly aware of the cool hardwood floor beneath my soles, the slick sweat that greases my stomach and his, the sharp scents produced by both of our bodies. There is no odor in the world that replicates the smell of sex. There is no rapture that can match it.
    A half hour later, we are lying face-to-face in bed, both of us having showered and brushed our teeth for the night. Neither of us has bothered to put on nightclothes, and we lie side by side in that drowsy, companionable state of affection that usually follows lovemaking. We are engaging in the light foreplay we didn’t have the patience for earlier, though I don’t think it will lead to another bout of sex. He is running his hand idly up and down the curve of my hip and leaning in now and then to kiss me. I am working my fingers into the knotted muscles of his back and neck, pausing now and then just to caress the ridged surfaces of his chest. He is thinner than I like, but in top physical shape.His body is that of an athlete preparing for a marathon session of training.
    My hand tangles in the cord around his neck and I tug on it gently, which obligingly brings his mouth down to mine. I am still holding the strip of leather when he lifts his head, and now I examine it more closely. There’s a little light spilling in through the window—enough for me to see that this isn’t the same cord he was wearing when he returned a few days ago.
    “This is new, isn’t it?” I ask, rubbing the pieces of leather together so that the key twirls in a heavy dance.
    “Yeah. Picked it up this morning.”
    “What was wrong with the old one? Was it starting to fray?”
    “It was too short.”
    It takes me a moment to work that out. He’d been wearing the same cord for the past five years; the key had lain against his chest just at the breastbone. What has suddenly made it insufficient?
    And then I realize: The cord is perfectly fine when he’s in human shape, but not when he turns into an animal. It is still around his neck, of course—it is the only thing he is determined to never lose, though he does try to keep a pack of small supplies with him that he can carry even when he is in animal form. If the cord is too short, he must be changing into bigger and bigger beasts.
    If he becomes an animal whose neck is too thick, too burly, he might be strangled by his single link to his human soul.
    “Dante,”
I breathe.
    He rolls onto his back and the strap slips through my fingers. “Don’t get all fussy on me,” he says.
    I sit up.
Fussy
is not nearly desperate enough to describe how I feel.
“Dante,”
I say again. “Tell me what’s happening to you.”
    He kind of shakes his head against the pillow; his hands make a small gesture of fatalism. “This last time, I was some pretty big creatures. A bearfor at least a week. I could feel the cord tight against my windpipe, though it didn’t hurt and it didn’t bind. But I’ve been moving through Kansas and Colorado a lot over the past few months. What if I turn into a