She moaned with delight and guilt, helpless. He was not supposed to touch her, but she couldn’t help it. Dolly was supposed to make him titillate with the friction of her skin and the softness of her curves pressed against Harry—an ancient dance between her fair sex and his manhood. Yet, she writhed overcome with the pleasure delivered by his touch, the first gentleman’s touch to ever grace her being. His hands explored the geography of her body, finding the deep canyons of her humanity and soothing the stormy oceans of her discomfort.

Other men had grabbed her, pinched her, slapped her. It all came with the job. She didn’t like any of it, but she had ceased to notice. Harry was the first to touch her. She noticed. She cared. He was not complimenting her with the words of other men, those words that praise looks while pruning dignity. He was not speaking a word. Instead, he was writing a love letter to Dolly in strokes of intimacy and genius. Their language did not need dictionaries—it strove with each caress in their silence.

The background song then ended, and Dolly pulled herself apart from Harry, following the rules and failing her heart. Harry’s hand lingered on hers she stepped away from his lap, his grip trying to hold onto her fingers like grasping a fistful of sand.

Harry remained among his friends, while Dolly walked away, wondering if anyone else would touch her ever again and wanting to tell Harry that her real name was Jane.