“Who decides?”
“Me,” she says. There is no hesitation there.
I stand close enough that the heat of my chest informs the skin at her back without touching. “I’m going to take your sweater off,” I say. “I’m going to lift your tank. I’m going to leave you in what you’re wearing beneath that until you decide otherwise. If you need me to stop, say blue and I will.”
“Okay,” she says. It’s softer than yes but as clear.
I work the hem of the sweater up from her hips, slowly, stopping each time I feel the micro-hold in her spine so she learns that I am listening. When the fabric clears her head, she shivers even though the room is not cold. I fold the sweater and set it on the cabinet instead of letting it drop. There are a thousand ways to be cared for; one of them is to not have your things treated like debris.
“Tank,” I say, my voice lower because hers is. I hook my fingers under the hem and lift. The blindfold makes the worldonly friction and sound—cotton moving over skin, the catch of breath when fabric snags for a second on the line of a bra and then releases. When the tank is off, gooseflesh rises along her ribs, a tide moving at human speed. I don’t touch it. I stand long enough to let her body feel itself and not a hand.
“Arms down,” I say. “Hands to your thighs. Feel the leather. Press into it.”
She does. The cuffs knock softly against her scalp at the first reach, then settle against her thighs. That sound has undone more women than any of the visible implements here. It is the sound of not having to hold everything up.
“You’re doing well,” I say. Praise here is specific. “You’re breathing. You haven’t tried to manage me for the last three minutes. That’s work.”
She laughs, and the blindfold tilts because her cheeks lift. “Is that a compliment or a diagnosis?”
“Both,” I say. “I’m going to touch you now. I’m not going to surprise you.” I step to her left, close enough that my thigh is a heat line against the outside of hers without contact. “Left shoulder,” I say, and my palm lands there. “Down.” I drag it over the slope of muscle, the curve of her deltoid, the hinge of her elbow. “Wrist. Hand.” I lace my fingers through hers for a second and squeeze. “Release.” I let go. Her fingers flex, then relax.
“Right shoulder,” I say, and repeat. “Down. Elbow. Wrist. Hand. Release.”
By the time I have named her sensations for three minutes, her exhale is longer than her inhale and her knees have unlocked. I step behind her again and hover my hands over her waist. “Lower back,” I say. “Down.” I flatten my hand over the place where the curve of her spine changes into the beginning of her sacrum. The sound she makes is almost a sob and almost a groan. I don’t chase it. I ride it.
“This is not about the story,” I say into the shell of her ear, my breath controlled. “This is about the body that had to live through it.”
“Okay,” she says. The word breaks. She doesn’t apologize.
I reach past her to the ottoman and take out the feather in its glass tube. I let the tube click against the leather, so she knows where sound is. I pull the stopper and hold the feather where she can feel air but not contact. Then I draw it over the back of her hand, once, light enough to register as debate.
She inhales. Her fingers curl and then extend. “Again,” she says, immediately.
I draw it over the inside of her wrist where the skin is thin. Over the bend of her elbow. Over the biceps where nerve sings. I don’t move up as if it’s a ladder. I change directions, tempos. I drag it faster over the place her ribs meet the underside of her bra. She shudders. I stop there and hover. “More?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, breathless.
I do not oblige immediately. I bring the feather down her spine instead, centerline, light as a threat. When I reach the band of her trousers, I stop and plant my other hand flat on her sternum, so she feels the bracket. “You’re here,” I say. “Not there. You can ask for exactly what you want and you will not be punished for saying it out loud.”
She swallows. The blindfold shifts a fraction with the movement. “Back,” she says. “Lower. Slow.”
I obey. Reward specificity with service. I drag the feather down the shallow of her back, then up, then down again, adjusting pressure until I hear the low sound that registers as yes for this woman. When I reach the line of her trousers this time, I slide a fingertip under the waistband—not inside, just enough to let the skin there know it is being watched and not owned.
Her head falls back a fraction. The blindfold catches in my knuckles. My hands remember her hair, the feel of it whenI fisted it in the garage and the world shrank to the square of headlights on concrete. This is not that room. That was risk; this is ritual.
“Turn,” I say. I don’t push her shoulder. I let the command do the work. She pivots toward me. The blindfold turns her into the purest version of this posture: chest open, throat offered without awareness, hands bound but loose against her thighs. If I were a worse man, I’d take a picture to show myself later that I didn’t make this up in the dark.
“Chin down,” I say, because the throat is not a place we let the past climb without tether. She obeys. I touch two fingers to the hollow above her sternum. “This is yours,” I tell her. “All of this. You are lending it to me.”
“Okay,” she says, and the word has both teeth and tenderness.
I set the feather aside. I pick up the heavier blindfold—the one with padding that presses a fraction more, not enough to smother, enough to signal that time can blur without punishment. I lift the one she’s wearing and replace it with care, keeping skin off hair, hair off straps. With the new one fitted, the world narrows. I hear the way her breath changes. In the mirror, my face is too intent. I smooth it with discipline. My want is not the point; my governance is.
“Open,” I say, and touch the inside of her left wrist. She lifts her hands away from her thighs. I slip my fingers between the cuffs and the small connecting strap and test the give. “You have range,” I say. “Use it.”
I take the grapeseed oil and warm a little in my palm. The scent is faint, clean. I rub my hands together and hold them open near her face, so her body knows what’s coming by smell before touch. “Neck,” I say. “Collarbone.” My thumbs press along either side of the notch, sliding toward the shoulder, down to the deltoid, working deliberately into muscle that pretends tobe bone. When I hit the place where tension sleeps with its shoes on, she groans. Deep. She tries to chase my thumb with her shoulder; I hold my pressure and my pace until her body learns that the rhythm doesn’t depend on her plea.
“Breathe into my hand,” I say, my palm splayed between her shoulder blades now. She inhales through her nose. I feel the contour of ribs expand under skin and oil. The room holds the sound of it and the sound becomes information. I understand why priests used to kneel for confessions—not for the penitent, but so they could hear.
