Forty Mats and Only Hers

In a teak-floored retreat hall scented with sweet almond oil and the blue silence before dawn, two women who have spent nine days circling each other like careful strangers around a shared fire finally close the distance, not through words, but through touch. Priya, blindfolded and stripped of everything but three colors of consent, carries the weight of her own controlled, gracious self, the woman who passes the salt with a cool smile, and the silk band becomes the only thing standing between her and the terrifying freedom of being truly seen. What she cannot allow herself to want with open eyes, she surrenders to completely in darkness, her body going honest beneath hands that know her without looking, until the line between being found and being known dissolves entirely. Readers will feel the exquisite tension of desire held at arm's length for too long and the quiet devastation of finally, wholly letting go.