No Kissing Allowed

Chapter 11: Proprioception

Chapter 11: Proprioception

Cora lay beneath the covers with Jamie's hands cupping her face. She sensed that he was looking into her eyes, though how he could see them in the pitch-black darkness was anyone's guess.

She'd always had terrible night vision. To this day, Cora kept her childhood nightlight in her apartment back at home. In total dark, she lost not only her sense of sight but also proprioception—the sixth sense most people took for granted. The sense of one's position in space, guided by the pull of gravity on the tiny structures of inner ear. The sense that makes us dizzy when we spin.

But Cora's brain relied on visual stimuli more heavily than most to tell her where she was. Here in the total darkness, the sensation was not unlike swimming underwater, losing track of the surface, not knowing up from down. A disorienting sensation, but not entirely unpleasant. It was relaxing to float through space this way, as long she wasn't in any danger of falling.

No chance of that, she assured herself.

Jamie's fingers against her cheeks were the main thing keeping her anchored. If only she could see the expression on his face, she might have some inkling of what was going through his head. She knew better than to rely on his words to tell her. Without her sense of vision, she was lost.

Maybe it was sleep deprivation catching up with her, but she was having trouble keeping track of what was real and what was only an act. Was he attracted to her or not? She thought he must be from the way he moved and touched her in the darkness. But he kept stopping and pulling back, throwing her off balance, like a dance where she didn't know the steps.

In front of the cameras, he'd said he wasn't that into her. That was fake, of course. All part of their "storyline" for the show. She'd said insulting things about him as well, and she hadn't meant a word of it.

But this game they were playing at night, away from the viewing public... Was it any more real? His movements toyed with her, making her pulse race and then leaving her hanging, again and again.

Real desire, or just a shadow play? She felt like one of her research subjects in the lab back home, unable to tell the color red from green. They all suffered from a common form of color blindness, or "protanopia" as she termed it in her scientific papers. Red or green. Real or fake. It all looked indistinguishable. All a muddled, muddy mess.

It was giving her a headache.

"Is it your turn again?" Jamie asked. "I've lost track."

Join the club, buddy.

He let go of her face, casting her adrift once more. Cora tried to keep the frustration out of her voice as she posed her next question. "Answer me this," she began. "If you encountered me in any other context besides this show, would you ask me out?"

The rustling of the sheets told her he had rolled away from her onto his back. She groped, sliding her hand forward along the surface of the mattress until it encountered his elbow. She latched on and held to it as she waited for his answer.

"Depends on the context."

"That's not an answer." She moved to pinch him as she had before, but he anticipated her this time. He removed his elbow from harm's way and caught her by the wrist.

"Give me a moment to think!" he protested.

But he was taking more than a moment. He was taking his sweet time, and the hesitation wasn't lost on her. "It's a yes or no question."

"No, it's not. I need to visualize."

She twisted her wrist to free it from his grip.

"Right," he said as he released her. "Let's say if I walked into an optometry shop and you were fitting me for a pair of glasses."