Veronica 35

I edit novels for a living, which means I spend my days telling other people what is working and what is not. I am good at it. I am also tired of being the only judge in the room. Dean is thirty-seven, patient in a way that is not passive, and he has learned that I do not want vague comfort. I want to be told, specifically, that I am good, and I want to hear it when I cannot see his face and start editing the compliment. We use a dark silk ribbon. It covers my eyes and nothing else. I can talk the whole time. I can stop us. When I need everything to stop I say margin, the way I flag a line I will not let stand, and he stops. What we do is plain. I hand him the ribbon. He praises me while he touches me. I believe him more in the dark than I do in the light, and afterward he takes the ribbon off himself and gives me my glasses back.