.

listen, smell, touch, taste

.

Steven said: "Well, we've all heard a lot that we wouldn't have heard if we would have been just looking at each other, haven't we? That was one sense, our ears, the sense of hearing. Now what about our nose? Amanda, I do smell a nice perfume on your jumper. Citrus and... something like nut meg. Very clever combination. What do you smell on me? Don't be shy. Just come a bit closer."

"Your aftershave is very male, Steven."

"Thank you, Amanda."

"And it makes me a bit nervous."

It caused another laughter among the listeners.

"And... Sorry, Steven, but... is this the smell of onion?"

Steven laughs apologising. "Yes, I'm so sorry, that was rude. I've just grabbed one from my bag."

In the room everybody laughed loudly. Everybody except for the two people sitting in the back row. These two people were glad that they were not seen by each other. The rest of the people there were faded into the background anyway, and secretly Barbara was glad that she had an excuse to get so close to Tommy. Secretly Tommy had not wished anything else for years. His negative prejudgement of this event was wiped away in an instant when he heard the rustling of her clothes getting nearer. He inhaled deeply. Her beloved scent hit his system like a crushing wave in a storm but it was far more pleasant. It made him unable to say anything at first.

This adventure had turned out to be not as bad as he had thought, in fact it turned out to be very interesting, if not highly alluring. Tommy smiled to himself.

Unfazed by the onion incident the two of them up in the last row still were engrossed in tentatively sniffing at each other. Eventually they had turned completely towards each other and had moved very close. Quietly they kept on telling what they smell.

"You smell like tea with milk, Sir." She chuckled lightly.

"I've had one before we've driven here. And I guess if you breathe at me I'd smell coffee, wouldn't I?" His grin was audible.

"I spare you my breath." Barbara deeply inhaled. "Mmmh... There's a bit of leather scent in your... after shave. Plus some musky spice I... rather like. Oh, sorry."

Her forehead had bumped against his chin as she had leaned forward to him.

"Mh." Tommy answered. Her openness somehow had made him speechless, not to mention the accidental touch, and he actually did not trust his voice therefore. To his own surprise Barbara was making him entirely nervous at the moment but he was not unpleased by this strange new, still so familiar feeling.

Barbara seemed to be similarly moved. She cleared her throat again. "And a touch of wood." she continued. "Cedar wood, isn't it? Very... warm."

"Is it?"

"Mhm..."

Now it was Tommy's turn to tell what he smelled. He said it with a low voice. She would hear him anyway because he was so close to her that his nose suddenly even had touched her cheek. "And you smell a bit like... Well, it's just the right touch of... it's assuasively delicate, Barbara, I have to come another bit closer."

The corner of his lips accidentally brushed her ear. And then her ear swooshed across his hair. He did not bother. She did not bother either. Quite the opposite.

"Mmmh... Vanilla?" he breathed into her ear.

"It's my shampoo." Her voice trembled.

"And there's a hint of seaweed."

"That's just my soap."

"I know." His voice was husky.

For several seconds their faces were so close to each other they could not just hear but also feel the other one's breath on their skin. They sat completely still and did not move a single muscle. In fact Barbara expected him to kiss her. She nearly willed him to kiss her right now and right there but Tommy only waited for what she would do now. A flood light could have been lit with the elctricity between them. They would not have recognised it anyway, even without their blindfolds on. They just sat there, listening to each other's tiny sounds, feeling the warmth coming from the other and smelling each other's alluring scents.

It was just then when Steven broke the spell.

"Well, that was the sense of smell." he loudly said. "I'm sure we all have recognised something nice, or maybe not so nice, about our neighbours. Now, let's get a bit creepy. What about our tactile sense? If you don't mind, and only then, let's try to 'see' the other one with our fingertips. Of course you don't have to take part if you don't want to be touched, just say stop here." A few actually did but most of the listeners were too curious where this would head. Especially the two persons in the back. "I can tell you, it's a nice experience. Just start with touching your hands, then work your way upwards across the arms to the face. Again: no offensiveness, please! Oh, you have really warm and soft hands, Amanda, that's so wonderful."

Steven had talked so much it even made Tommy and Barbara withdraw from each other and listen to him at one point. Now Barbara did not dare to make a start with touching her boss but then she felt Tommy's right hand. First he just put it over hers on the table. After a few seconds he began to caress it. Immediately her skin reacted and sent a wave of goose bumps across her complete left side. For a moment she even stopped breathing. When his fingers caressed the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist she lifted her other hand and searched for him. She found his chest. Rather clumsy her knuckles bumped into him.

"Mh... sorry."

"No bother."

She moved her hesitantly groping fingers to his arm where she squeezed his bizeps.

"Workouts?" she asked approving. She had wanted to sound cheery but the words came out seductively low.

"I just do something for my health." Tommy's voice was not much louder.

"Mh, ok."

Not seeing each other did not only improve their other senses, it obviously also made them step over lines they had carefully not overstepped all the years they had been colleagues and friends.

For a while Barbara and Tommy touched each other avoiding personal areas, of course, but their fingers wandered and stroked and even caressed each other's hands and arms and shoulders. Barbara even dared to swipe the back of her hand across his chest when she moved it from his left shoulder to his right. From there she went to his neck and finally found herself bold enough to tentatively touch his face. His fingertips had touched her jaw already for a couple of times but always returned on apparently safer grounds like her ear or neck. Still his touches had send shivers through her she hoped he would not recognise.

Involuntarily they had moved another bit closer though.

"You're very handsome, Sir," Barbara murmured eventually. "but you haven't shaved today."

"I have." Tommy answered. "Just not again after lunch."

"You're a bit... prickly." They both snickered soundless. It sounded nervous and they were. Her fingers touched his cheek's soft pad of flesh right under his eye. "And this is so soft..."

"Like your entire skin..." he said cupping her cheek with the palm of his hand. His thumb fondled the corner of her eye and her temple. Barbara almost leaned into his touch. "You just feel... utterly beautiful."

"Bollocks!" she mumbled.

"You do. And your skin is so... soft... I... it's... marvellous..."

"Sir..." she shyly whispered. He could not be serious, could he.

On his podium in the front Steven gently ended the touching experience of his audience with a calm voice but the two detectives did not care what he said. The young man began to talk about the sense of taste without them really listening.

"Go ahead now." he encouraged his audience. "I suppose you've all been curious about what's in the boxes in the box."

Steven made a small pause in which he clearly could hear from the direction where Barbara and Tommy sat that they apparently were not curious. They still were engrossed in touching each other. He could not hear any shuffling in the box from up there. That was why he grinned. He was able to hear Barbara and Tommy still quietly talking to each other but sadly he could not understand them since the other people of his audience started to rummage through their boxes rather excited and loud.

"Except for some, it seems... Well, in these small containers there are a few examples you should try to taste. Don't worry, it's nothing too extreme. Any Allergics? Amanda?" There were none so they could go on with the tasting. Four differently shaped things were there to take a bite of. One was salty with a hint of lemon and it was soft. One was sweet and with a hidden taste of nuts and cinnamon. This one was creamy inside. One was not especially un-tasty but very strange indeed, tasting sour with a touch of asparagus. It even cracked like fresh vegetables when bitten. The fourth was slightly spicy and surely tasted of dark chocolate. It also left an oxalic feeling on the palate. "There's also a cloth so you can wipe your fingers if... well, I think I don't reveal too much when I tell you that these things all are chocolatey treats."

The sounds of the other people opening the containers and tasting what was inside had ripped Tommy half off his enclosed proximity with Barbara. Keeping one hand on her face he carelessly opened one of the containers with his other and took a random treat. His carnal instinct had given him a tempting idea and now he wanted to see what would happen. His hand left her face but then Barbara felt something on her lips. She had not recognised that Tommy had taken a chocolate so for a moment she thought it was him kissing her. Surprised she jerked backwards.

Of course it was not his lips. It definitely smelled of chocolate.

"Try this one." he whispered.

.

...