Spooning

After coffee and the undressing, and after the second time, finally,
we lay on the bed on our sides like a couple of spoons together.

I thought, Is this spooning?

Is this spooning? I said.

What hon'?

Oh, nothing, I was just wondering if this was spooning, that's
all.

Rachel turned her face back towards mine and I was looking at her ear
now, rather than smelling her hair. Spooning? she said.

Yeah, you know, spooning. Is that what we're doing now?

Rachel was silent for a moment, and I could feel her heart pounding on
my chest through her back. Her hips were hot and she was perspiring
lightly on her arms and hips, and where her hairline meets her neck at
the back.

Spooning, she said thoughtfully. Isn't spooning a euphemistic way of
saying fooling around, doing it?

I was confused. What the actual act of doing it, I said, in the spoons
position like this? Or two people doing it regularly over a period of
time?

Rachel made an umm sound.

What I'm saying is, is spooning a position or a relationship?

Rachel thought about this for a while and said, Mmm ... it's a good
question, honey. And, then, ever so slightly she began to push her hips
back into mine.

Spooning, she said, there's something ... I don't know ... saucy about
it...

Rachel was breathing harder now and I could feel the hard beat of her
heart on my sternum. Under my hand her hip was flushing hot.

Yeah, I said, whatever...

And whatever it was I had thought about the semantics of the euphemism
'spooning', for that moment at least, it was lost.