  The potential between infinitely heavy quarks in a color singlet state is of
fundamental importance in QCD. While the confining long distance part is
inherently non-perturbative, the short-distance (Coulomb-like) regime is
accessible through perturbative means. In this paper we present new results of
the short distance potential in coordinate space with quark masses through two
loops. The results are given in explicit form based on reconstructed solutions
in momentum space in the Euclidean regime. Thus, a comparison with lattice
results in the overlap region between the perturbative and non-perturbative
regime is now possible with massive quarks. We also discuss the definition of
the strong coupling based on the force between the static sources.
