Touch

by Claire North

“Do you love her?” “You say ‘love’ too easily, Kepler.” “No, not really–please don’t call me that. The idea that love has to be a blazing romantic thing of monogamous stability is innately ludicrous. You loved your parents, perhaps, because they were the warmth you could flee to. You loved your first childhood crush with a passion that made your lips tingle, your flesh grow light in their presence. You loved your wife with the steadiness of an ocean against the shore; your lover with the blaze of a shooting star, your best friend with the confidence of a mountain. Love is a many-splendoured thing, as the old song says. So, Pam, do you love her?”