It began innocently enough. A simple gesture, a hand reaching across to steady something, to draw his attention, to punctuate her words. Her fingers closed around his wrist, light but firm, and for a moment it felt like nothing unusual. Yet she didn’t let go right away.
The seconds stretched. What should have been a fleeting touch became something else, something heavier with meaning. Her thumb rested just above the ridge of bone, pressing lightly, and in that subtle point of contact he felt the rhythm of her pulse. Steady, insistent, unmistakably alive.
He looked up at her, expecting her eyes to be elsewhere, but they weren’t. They were fixed on him, calm yet deliberate, as though she was waiting for him to notice exactly what she was doing. Her hand remained, her fingers warm against his skin, holding him not as one holds an object but as one claims presence—as though she wanted him anchored in that moment, nowhere else.
It would have been easy for her to release him. A quick gesture, a smile, and the touch would have dissolved into nothing. But she lingered. Long enough that he began to wonder whether the pressure of her pulse beneath his wrist was deliberate, whether she wanted him to feel not just her touch but the very rhythm of her body.
The air seemed to thicken. Conversation continued around them, but for him it blurred into noise, meaningless against the quiet electricity running through that single point of connection. He became hyperaware of the warmth of her skin, the way her fingers tightened just slightly, the way she leaned closer as though her words needed that touch to carry their weight.
When she finally let go, it wasn’t abrupt. She released him slowly, her hand sliding away in a way that made the absence almost unbearable. The ghost of her touch lingered long after her fingers were gone, his wrist still tingling, the phantom echo of her pulse still imprinted on his skin.
She sat back, composed, sipping from her glass as though nothing at all had happened. But he knew it had. That simple act, that prolonged hold, had carried more weight than any conversation could. It had told him something wordless, something deliberate: that she wanted him to feel her, to remember her.
And he did. Long after the night had ended, long after the touch had faded, he could still recall the sensation—her pulse beneath his skin, steady and insistent, reminding him of the intimacy she had left behind.