The Blindfold Hour – Part 2: Light

She took her time. That was the thing he would remember afterwards: how slow it was, and how each small touch seemed to arrive from a different universe. A feather of breath at his ear that the headphones muted to a whisper. The cool edge of a glass against his lip, and a straw, and the sweetness of water. A square of chocolate dissolving on his tongue like a small sun. Her fingers moving across the back of his hand, then not, then somewhere else entirely, so lightly that he could not be certain.

She checked in every few minutes with the double tap, and each time his fingers answered, steady, grateful, certain. Once he squeezed the rubber ball, not hard, only to feel it, and a hand came instantly to his, warm and still, and waited. He tapped twice. I'm fine. Go on. The hand lifted. The silence resumed.

He had never felt so far from himself, or so completely at home.

There was no rush in her. She made no demands. She let him float, held in a dark that seemed to have no edges, while time loosened and slid. His breathing slowed. His shoulders sank. Somewhere in the long middle of the evening he realised he was crying, quietly, without sorrow, the way a tight thing lets go, and a hand came at once and wiped his cheek and rested there, and he leaned into it.

Much later, a slow double tap, three times. We are finishing. The headphones lifted away, and the room rushed back, the sound of the radiator, the faint traffic, her breathing. Then the blindfold slid from his eyes, and the lamplight, which was low, was nearly too bright.

She knelt in front of him in a long robe, her hair coming down, her face open and soft.

"Hello," said Isadora.

"Hello." His voice cracked. "How long was I...?"

"Two hours."

"It felt like ten minutes. Or a year."

"Both are normal." She took the ball from his hand and set it carefully on the nightstand. "How are you?"

"Quiet," said Wes, and laughed, and wiped his eyes. "I am so quiet. Is that all right?"

"It is the best thing I've ever heard you say." She climbed onto the bed beside him and drew him down into her arms and pulled a blanket over them both. "Rest."

They lay together in the lamplight, listening to the rain begin on the window, and did not speak for a very long time.

"Again," he said, at last, into her shoulder.

"Next month," said Isadora. "With a different silence."

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