He presses me down into the couch, our hands searching each other’s bodies, his fingers tugging my dress up. My scars chill in the new air.

His mouth roves down to my stomach, and I catch my breath: Soon he will see the marks on me. He pauses over the lines and looks up. Our eyes meet.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” he says.

He slides back up and our mouths meet again, then our clothes are gone, our skins pressing, our bodies becoming the same trembling arch.

◆He grew up on the coast

◆His parents are still married

◆He has a garage at the edge of town full of parts of engines. I smell grease on his hands when he comes to me. In the garage, the metal parts gleam even in the dark. I watch him work: Squinting eyes, rapid-fire tooling, the precision with which he moves until it roars to life

◆He is an only child

◆His favorite color is silver

◆He once climbed the world’s greatest mountain

◆He tells me an octopus has three hearts, nine brains, and blue blood, then he runs his hands over my body

WHAT THEN IS A WIFE? I TWIST THE word over in my head.

I try to find her in town. I check the post office, the grocery store, the small shop which sells both jewelry and pipe supplies. The husband and wife each own half, eye me suspiciously over their metals.

“What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” I say and leave.

I spend nights picturing her: Brunette, then blond, then raven-haired. She has phases like a moon.

STILL, WE PERSIST. WE MEET AT THE small bar or he arrives at my cabin with offerings: Small donuts, wines, fresh cherries by the handful.

It begins the same way each time: My door opens, then I am in his arms, our mouths against each other, unable to speak, only the rushing pink language of our bodies.

I stare up into the wild sky of his face and a new chamber of my heart expands, a fresh gust of wind through the red chambers.

THERE ARE SIMPLE SCENES TO COMPRISE a love: His body against mine, another definition of skin and pleasure. After, head against his chest, his hand dangling over the small of my back, fingers trailing lightly there, a place even the wind rarely touches.

WHEN HE TOUCHES ME, HE NEVER HESI-tates to touch my scars.

◆The word wife is of Germanic origin, from Proto-Germanic wībam, meaning woman; unconnected with marriage

◆The word adultery derives from the French avoutre, which evolved from the Latin verb adulterare, meaning “to corrupt”

◆In parts of the world, adultery may result in honor killings; women who committed adultery were often stoned to death or given 100 lashes

◆Men who committed adultery were often imprisoned for one year

◆In pre-modern times, it was unusual to marry for love alone