The robe had shifted at the collar. Not dramatically. Just enough. She followed my gaze and then looked back at me with an expression I could not fully read, something between amusement and the careful, measured assessment of a woman filing new information about a man she was still building a picture of.
She said nothing. She stood up, took her coffee and the second dessert, went to the wardrobe, and came back two minutes later in pajamas that were soft and pale blue and covered considerably more of her and were still, somehow, because the universe had apparently decided that tonight was a night for testing the absolute limits of my composure, extremely difficult to look at directly.
She sat back down and finished the dessert.
She fell asleep at 9:52pm.
Not gradually, not with any part
