Chapter 4Come Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena!
—Christopher Marlowe
Alan was a physical, affectionate person, and always had been. He barely had any friends, and before Grace, there hadn’t been many girlfriends, but once he was comfortable with a person, he wanted to touch all the time. He wanted to hold hands, he wanted to throw his arm around their shoulder, he wanted to touch their knee, he wanted to kiss them. That sort of desire had been mostly contained to his wife, but Simon had always been different. Almost from the beginning, Alan wanted to smother him with attention.
For one thing, he had the most amazingly smooth skin. Alan didn’t know if Simon went through some elaborate ritual to keep
