The Metronome – Part 2: Presto

It was the longest evening of his life, and it was also the shortest. She was inexhaustible in her patience. She would slow the metronome until the beats were a full second apart, and then slow it again. She would lift her hand and wait, and wait, until the waiting itself became a presence in the room. She told him, in a low, level voice, exactly what was permitted and exactly what was not, and he obeyed, because the obeying was the whole thing, and the room hummed with the extraordinary, unbearable sweetness of being told.

Every ten minutes: "How are you?" "Content, Mistress." "Do you need to rest?" "No. Please. Continue." And she continued.

At the second hour, she let him speak. She asked him what he was feeling, and he tried to tell her and could not. She nodded as though that were the right answer. She laid a cool palm flat on his chest and left it there, over his racing heart, and counted out the tempo with her thumb.

"Beautiful," she murmured. "You are doing so well."

At the third hour she turned the clock face-down again, and stopped the pendulum with one finger. The silence was enormous.

"The Mistress has decided," said Octavia, softly.

She did not say what. She simply bent and kissed him, long and slow, and the formality fell from her voice like a coat from her shoulders. What followed was theirs alone, unhurried and tender, rich with the long slow patience of the evening, and the door stayed shut, and the metronome stood still on the dresser, its brass weight gleaming.

Much later they lay in the dark together, his head on her shoulder, her hand moving in slow circles on his back.

"How are you?" said Octavia.

"Resolved," said Felix, with a sleepy, shaking laugh. "In every sense."

"You were wonderful." She kissed his hair. "A very fine student of tempo."

"May I ask when the next lesson is?"

"When I decide." She smiled in the dark. "I'm considering a slower one. Largo. With a longer beat."

"I will practise," said Felix.

"You will wait," said Octavia, "which is harder."

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