“…and hey, happy holidays,” the barista said. Aaron smiled, accepting his coffee. “Thanks, same to you.”

“Doing anything for Christmas?”

Aaron didn’t visibly react to the question these days. He’d had plenty of practice. “We’ll probably grab some takeout and watch some movies,” he said. “It’s not a big thing in my home.”

“Hey, do it your way, man.”

By that time Aaron had turned and was only a few paces from the door. He lifted his cup and waves it gently in something that looked like a salute, and then he was away, taking the long walk home.

*

Home was an old house converted into apartments half an hour away by foot, and Aaron would much rather have driven the distance - but his car had broken, his wallet was stretched tight, and the part-time job tending bar was the busiest he could afford to be while still a student, but not enough to change that. Honestly, buying a coffee was probably a mistake, but he wanted to stay warm at least for a while.

Aaron shared home with three other postgraduate students, each pursuing an advanced degree they felt was key to what they wanted in their life to come. Rebecca was an archaeology student, excited always about better understandings of ancient cultures; Aaron had his hands full with law, and Danni and Rick were both… something to do with business and economics, he’d been told a couple of times but honestly he could never keep the specifics straight.

They’d met - and bonded - dealing with Spanish as undergrads at the same college, each getting the language credit they needed. Danni and Rick were respectful about the mezuzah hanging from the apartment door, which had been a relief at the time; for the past few years, expressing his heritage in public had felt risky. Thankfully he didn’t need to worry about that at home, and it had given him an immediate, easy connection with Rebecca. The two had privately agreed that he would arrange the hanukkiah this year, and she would chip in a dollar or two, rather than the other way round.

Aaron was looking forward to that far more than he should, and for reasons he knew he should be embarrassed about.

*

On the first night of Hanukkah, the four housemates gathered in the living room a half hour or so before sunset and spent a while chatting companionably. As the sun went down, one at a time, Rick and Danni made their excuses and retreated, giving their friends privacy for their practices. Rebecca and Aaron smiled at each other, both grateful for the respect but not wanting to say it.

They waited for a little while longer, and just before it was fully dark outside, Aaron lit the tallest of the candles and set it, briefly, in the central spot. He took up the first candle, put it into place on the right, and then took the tallest candle back and lit the other’s flame from it, reciting the traditional blessing from rote.

The two of them sat quietly for a few moments, tending to their thoughts, before smiling.

“How old were you when you did more than sit by for one of these?” Rebecca asked.

“Oh, probably eight or nine, I think, Mom let me light the candle one night,” he said. “Although she was holding my hands the whole time, you know.” He smiled. “I might have the age completely wrong. That part of my life is a lot more muddled-together than my teens.”

Rebecca nodded. “Probably twelve, I think,” she said. “But I didn’t have my hands held.” She smiled at Aaron, and it was almost a teasing smile, and he felt inside him that same flare of mixed excitement and embarrassment that had spurred him on to this plan.

“And then the dreidl?”

“We mostly played Apples to Apples to be honest.” Rebecca shrugged. She picked up the foil-covered plate she’d set down beside her when she first came in, uncovered the foil. She held it out wordlessly, and Aaron chose from the offered sufganiot. He smiled his thanks as he bit into it, delightfully light, home-baked.

“I get that,” he said. “A half hour or so of Apples to Apples is still a happy family. An hour or more and not so much. We started with the dreidl and it came back out from time to time, but mostly, Uncle Jake did magic tricks.”

Rebecca’s eyes flashed with a grin of appreciation. “Magic tricks?”

Aaron nodded. “It was never, like, a full-time job, but Jake would get hired sometimes to do them for an evening. He had some pretty amazing card tricks; like, those are still amazing when I see them now and we’ve heard so much about how magicians do this kind of thing. The rings that join together and unjoin, not so much; those are less mindblowing when you know they’ve just been ordered from a supply store somewhere.”

Rebecca laughed, and Aaron reached out and took the shamash from its central point in the hanukkiah. “The really weird thing was the year he decided to show us some hypnosis one night.”

He watched Rebecca blink. “When you say ‘decided’…”

“Oh, he’d set it up in advance, I think.” Aaron was playing with the shamash now, moving it back and forth, setting the candleflame bobbing and weaving. “He’s that kind of guy a lot of the time. Wants everything to come across as spontaneous even if it’s all planned out to the least detail.” His voice was amused, soft, gentle. “You know the type, I’m sure.”

As he’d expected, Rebecca’s eyes had been drawn inexorably and inevitably to the bobbing flame. When something that bright is moving and nothing else is, it’s automatic.

He kept the motion of the candle itself set and steady; there might be unpredictability locked into the fact of a dancing candle flame, but the flame itself was passing through the same points. Rebecca’s gaze was keeping pace, her eyes changing direction moments after the flame itself did.

“Uh huh,” she offered in slightly belated answer. Aaron didn’t bother pointing out that she’d probably noticed the same attitude in himself.

“But he had this idea,” he continued. “He wanted to underline that something that brings friends together, like these celebrations, can be a great time to develop new projects. To see what each other wants, and shape those wants. A community growing closer together.”

Rebecca said something. Made some kind of answer. But her lips hardly moved as she spoke, and it was too quiet for Aaron to make out.

He decided to assume it was agreement and proceed from there. “And a community needs a leader, Rebecca,” he said softly. “A leader its members can follow. Even a small community, like this place. Isn’t that right?”

The response was still so quiet he had to strain to hear it, but it was short, and there was a sibilant ‘s’ to it. Yes, then, not no.

Good.

He remembered to keep the shamash moving in the same steady rate. The same steady pattern. Her eyes were no longer following it but tracking ahead, mechanically following the same loop as his hand. It was like having a puppet on his strings.

“For you and I, Rebecca, I am the leader. And you will follow my lead, because that is what’s best. Isn’t that right?”

This time the voice was a little stronger. A little more certain. Or perhaps he was just getting used to the quiet. “Yes.”

Aaron smiled softly to himself. Almost done for the day. “When you let me take the lead, or when you follow it or support me, you’ll feel stronger for it. Your place in this community is as a follower. And taking that roll empowers you. You’re stronger for it, and better able to push forward in other parts of your life.”

He paused a while, letting that sink in. Her brow furrowed slightly for just a second as she processed his instructions, then relaxed back to a smooth placidity as she continued to watch the flame. “Do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes.” And this time there was no mistaking it; her voice was stronger, clearer, more assured. “Yes.”

He was tempted to reach out, stroke her cheek, but he felt that might be pushing it. He set the shamash back in its place and watched as her eyes fluttered, watering, before she gradually came back to herself. He hefted the remainder of the doughy snack he’d taken. “This is good,” he said.

She blinked again rapidly, but nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and seemed to preen in his approval.

Her attention was on what he’d said, and she picked up as if they’d been discussing the same topic throughout. She seemed to have no idea anything else was under discussion.

*

The following night, they gathered again, and while the plan had loosely been that they would take the task of lighting the candle (and the duty of host) for each night in turns, after she lit the shamash, Rebecca paused, then passed the candle to Aaron, who took the task of the second Hannukiah candle on himself. He gave her a smile and nod in turn, and watched as she averted her eyes, just slightly, from his own. He smiled confidently, and this time, when latkes were offered, took a plate as if it was his by right.

He still held the shamash, though, rather than replacing it in its place. It was an unusual decision, and it did result in Rebecca’s eyes falling on the candle curiously. Aaron chuckled. “I’ve been thinking about flame lately,” he said. “Can’t think why.” She smiled at that, a little shyly, and nodded her head just a fraction in a prompt for him to continue.

“It’s very like having something on a screen. You ever sit in a lecture hall and get distracted from the lecturer because someone’s playing a game on their laptop and you can see the screen?” Rebecca nodded again, her eyes on the shamash flame. Aaron started it moving. “And then you lose track of the words hanging in the air,” he continued. “But the strange thing is… sometimes, those words are the ones that stay with you. The words you never even remember hearing properly…

“I think it can be the same with a flame like this one. Like the one you’re watching while you don’t think about what I’m saying, while those words just hang in the air until they’re fully absorbed into your head…” Rebecca nodded, watching the flame, a listless half-smile forming on her lips.

“Of course, words like those don’t matter to you. They can just live in your head, guiding you into better decisions, better states of mind. You don’t need to notice that. You’re already feeling better for yesterday’s lesson, aren’t you?”

Emboldened, the brief burst of nodding was faster this time. Rebecca’s half-smile grew as she was reminded how much happier she was, which became more happiness and regrew in its telling.

“That’s good, Rebecca. It’s important to accept things about yourself you didn’t realise. And a flame, like this, it can be illuminating. It can bring you the insights you need.

“Insights by the light of the shamash are especially useful, don’t you agree?” His tone was soft and gentle, coaxing, almost teasing; but when you tease, you almost never have that level of need and urgency under your tone.

Rebecca nodded again, slowly. “Yes.”

Aaron smiled. He set the shamash back in its place, and said no more. Rebecca blinked slowly for a while, and as she did, she smiled wider and wider…

*

Before the third night, Danni found time to speak privately with Aaron. Never having been one to beat around the bush outside her studies, she came right to the point.

“This is a really weird thing to say, but is Rebecca alright?”

Aaron’s mind immediately jumped to a dozen or more possible mistakes he might have made. “Uh. Why?” He felt an urge to tread very carefully.

Danni blushed a little. “It’s going to sound ridiculous.”

Which didn’t exactly make Aaron less suspicious. “Go on…”

“I’ve never seen her acting like this, is all.”

He could feel the blood drain from his face. He was sure his discomfort must be obvious, but he decided to try to bluff it out. Clearing his threat, he said “Like what?”

Danni fell silent for a few moments. Her eyes were focused in on something only she could see. “I guess… laid back.”

That was nothing he’d been expecting. “Wait… is this a bad thing?”

“It’s a weird thing. You know how intense she gets.” Which, he had to admit, was actually a pretty reasonable point. “Well… not gets. How intense she is.” He nodded despite himself. “Seeing her chill out like this is just not what I expect. And I know you and her, you’ve been doing the…” She waved a hand, gesturing toward the living room and the hanukkiah inside. “Your thing,” she continued. “You’ve been actually hanging a bit. So… is she alright?”

Aaron forced a smile. “I don’t think that’s so bad,” he said. “She’s happy, is all. Happier. You know what I mean.”

He almost held his breath. Danni nodded slowly. “I don’t think it’s bad,” she agreed. “I’m just… she’s different.”

“Well, I guess,” he said. “But if she’s relaxing for a few days, that’s a good thing, right?”

Another nod, and Danni moved on.

*

Rebecca was seated and waiting before Aaron arrived for the third night’s ritual. She had laid out the lighter and the new candle. Her eyes shied away from contact with his own, a blush colouring her cheeks. Aaron stopped for a moment to enjoy the sight, but now he could also clearly understand why Danni had been surprised.

But it was too late to stop. Obviously. To come this close and not follow through? Unthinkable.

He lit the shamash and glanced across to Rebecca, who was already looking, already happy, her lips parted, a slackness to her features, a vagueness to her eyes.

This was going faster than he’d expected. They were two days from Shabbat, when he would be able to have a longer time within the bounds of the Hanukkah rite, and after which he’d been hoping to get her onto lock. But everything was faster than anticipated; maybe she was enjoying, maybe something else.

Uncle Jake might have known. Aaron wasn’t his Uncle Jake yet, and he knew if he asked him, Jake would ask why he wanted to know. Which…

Well, Aaron sometimes wondered about Jake and Eileen. They were such a weird couple, at first glance, but they were so close and so loving it was hard to question them about it. But it certainly wasn’t a sure thing.

He lit the third candle and sat back, still holding it, to look over his halfway-conquest. Rebecca was sat perfectly still now, and the lower of her beautiful lips was starting to glisten. Was she… salivating?

“You’re doing so well, Rebecca,” he began. “I want you to know that. To understand, and accept. Will you do that for me? All three things?”

She nodded, just a fraction. Her head fell a little more than it had risen. “Good girl,” he said. “We’re connected now. You must see that, and I’m sure you do.” He smiled slightly. “Are you enjoying our connection?”

Another fractional nod. Again, her eyeline was lower at the end than the beginning. A drop of drool began to form at the centre of her lower lip.

“I think our connection needs to grow,” he said. “To become something bigger. More important. To cover more emotional weight. You already respect me. You already allow me to lead. But now you will see me as more than that. As your anchor, your support, your foundation. A man you want to build your reality around.” He hesitated. “Or at least to try. To spend a year - from now until the end of next Hanukkah - building yourself around. Conforming to. Following. Admiring. Pleasing.” More words had spilled out than he’d intended. Some part of him, giddy at the success to this point, had become excited, carried away. Pushed it further than his plan.

He swallowed, took a breath, watched her reactions, but they were so dulled down they gave him no useful data. “Do you understand?” he asked, and his voice did not crack as he did so.

Rebecca nodded again, and the droplet became a thin line, spooling out slowly down from her empty, open mouth, from her vacant mind.

“Good.” He fell silent there, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, as he wondered how he’d gotten away with it so far. Wondered if there was any chance he’d get away with more.

He didn’t want to risk it. He set the shamash back down into the hanukkiah and sat back, watching Rebecca.

It was nearly five minutes before life returned to those glazed eyes. She blinked, raised a hand, and wiped away the drool before she was properly awake again. Then she blinked again and Aaron watched her features shift once again as she tried to work out what had changed, whether there’d actually been the disturbance she was almost but not quite certain of.

He smiled slightly, a little nervous. Her answering smile was bright and enthusiastic and lit up the room.

*

She was there early again on the fourth night, but not seated. Instead she stood beside the chair, one foot slightly off the floor, hands behind her back, giving the appearance of nervous fidgeting without actually doing so.

Aaron took his own seat and looked up at her, a little confused. She glanced down to the chair beside her, then back up to him. Asking a question? Aaron nodded, and with a relieved flash of a warm smile, she took her seat.

She’d waited for her leader to be seated first. There was a real traditionalist streak in Rebecca that he’d never known about before. He wondered if that was because she’d suppressed it or simply because, before he began this project, she’d never have considered letting her guard down around him. People had to be, by and large, good at concealing their urges and their needs, didn’t they? Aaron had never told anyone all the kinks he enjoyed. Even with partners he felt honest around, he’d held one or two back based on his guess his lover would find them really uncomfortable. And he felt he could easily die of embarrassment if a random passer-by on the street were able to guess his most secret urges.

Maybe this was that, then?

He kindled the shamash and took care of the recitation and the lighting of the fourth candle. By the time he looked back across to Rebecca her eyes were as vacant as he’d expected, her lips parted again, breathing shallow and quiet. On impulse, he reached out and brushed the back of his hand across her cheek. Eyes still locked on the candleflame, her head tilted slightly into his contact, stroking against him as best she could with her constrained, minimal movement.

This… had gotten completely out of hand. He was pushing beyond his intent every day. He hadn’t organised this, hadn’t planned it properly, but every night as he lay in bed, before he drifted off to sleep, he thought about his options the following day - and every time, he didn’t stick to that outline.

Should he embrace that? Should he push it further? Or was that a risk too far, a chance for all of this to explode in his face?

Well… she was happy with it, or seemed to be. What the hell. He hadn’t thought this one through at all, but there was an opportunity. It was time to be brave enough to take it.

“Contact is important to you, isn’t it?” he began. “Contact like respect, but also contact by touch. Touch,” he hesitated, but only for a moment; he felt that giddying excitement of seeing the truth of something hidden, a revelation all at once. Plunging on, he continued “is your way of connecting, isn’t it? You show your admiration through respect, but you want to be shown connection and affection through touch.”

Rebecca didn’t say anything in response, but Aaron swore there was, now, an excitement in the air. Almost a tension. He was pretty sure it came from Rebecca, not from himself.

“It’s OK to give respect and want something else. You don’t need me to respect you; you need me to give you what you want.” He paused. Dared he? Yes. At this point, how could he not?

“Tomorrow and on, you’ll give me more opportunities for contact. Be around me in private more, and dress so skin to skin contact is easier. It’s the next logical step in our association. I can give you a figure to follow, but you now need to give me opportunities for contact.” Aaron drew in a breath, watched her lack of reaction, waited for something. Her glazed eyes should give nothing away but all the same, he thought he saw something in there. Some sign.

He set the shamash back in its cradle, let out his breath. The moments after the lighting of a candle, where Rebecca let herself slip back away so easily, felt like frozen time; he honestly wasn’t sure how long he’d had the shamash moving for any of these. But he was still riding the wave of impulse; his head darted forward and his lips met hers.

It was a fleeting, chaste kiss, and once he broke the kiss he hurried away in case he had somehow broken the spell. He would spend the evening lying back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying those few moments over and over in his head. He would almost convince himself she’d been beginning to react before worrying it was the wrong reaction, and then start all over again…

*

Rebecca spent the fifth day in something of a daze.

She’d had what felt like a sleepless night, even though she knew she hadn’t; so many fragments of dreams, none of them making any clear sense, which made her feel as if the night’s sleep had put as much strain on her as any day of pre-exam cramming.

Thankfully it was Shabbat, and while that didn’t necessarily mean much to most of the people around her, it did mean there were no lectures, no tasks assigned, and as much as her observation of the Shabbat was best described as sporadic, it was an excuse she readily welcomed to spend the day doing very little.

She rose late and spent much too long in the shower; it should have been quicker, but the drumming of the water against her body reminded her of the touch of gentle but insistent fingers, the clumsy but exciting caress of her last lover, and in turn that led to her eyes closing, the better to picture…

…to picture…

Fundamentally, this was the problem. Rebecca saw herself as a woman who would one day be envied, so long as she put in the work; she was lucky enough to have been born smart, and to have been well-educated, and to have discovered an aptitude for a professional field which, while not exactly providing superstar money, offered the opportunity to make a name for herself, and in due course - the book deals (fleeting but lucrative), the lecture tours (exhausting but expenses paid) and the holy grail - a chance to put out a textbook that might be sold at insane prices to a small but captive audience.

None of those would make Rebecca rich, as most people saw it; but they could make her comfortable, and with sound investments, she’d never know hunger again. But she was gifted. She was smarter than most people she hung out with, and she hung out with other postgraduates and proto-academics (on one of the rare occasions she’d let her hair down, she and Danni had got drunk and ranked the various students they knew, and it wasn’t ego that had them both in the top five). She was also, she knew, stunning; the flaws she saw in her body, the men in her life were blind to. They only saw the better aspects.

She’d pictured herself with a series of equally-gorgeous male lovers for much of her early life, planning to settle with someone who made her happy when she decided it was time, and not before. That final partner might, as the stereotypes often had it, be less attractive than the men she’d enjoyed before, but honestly Rebecca didn’t see any reason he’d have to be. There were plenty of good, decent men who were also stunning out there, and she’d be in a position to give one the full treatment by then.

And yet for the past half a week all her fantasies had been stuck on Aaron, even when she actively tried for them not to be. Even when she chose someone specific to focus on, her fantasy might start out with them, but before too long the details would shift and change as her mind went back to Aaron.

This was the problem. This was not how her life was supposed to go. And especially not someone she’d been friends with, enjoyed the company of, for the best part of two years without a single pang of either romantic or sexual yearning, without a single fleeting thought.

It wasn’t Hanukkah, because nobody thought like that, she told herself. It just felt like it had started with the lighting of the first candle, because human brains liked patterns. Somehow he’d worked out what she’d always privately thought was his worst problem, and started solving it.

Aaron had always hidden himself at the back of the pack whenever attention might be the result. For all Rebecca considered herself smarter, he was far from dumb. He could work together well with other people, and as a law student, he was good at putting plans together - but he hung back every time. Followed the lead of others. Rebecca was convinced he did just enough to make sure projects he was involved with succeeded, and exactly no more; enough that he didn’t stand out.

Why he hid himself like that, she didn’t know. But - and perhaps it had started with Hanukkah, perhaps it had started when he got the chance to be the person taking the lead - he seemed to have realised life couldn’t always be hiding. That as they emerged from college into adulthood, they would all need to be their adult selves, just as hard as they could be.

She’d decided to encourage that thinking by holding back, letting him light the candle on the second night. And it had worked, too.

But by that stage she was already fantasising about him, much to her own irritation…

*

The other thing about the lighting of the candles was that it seemed to make time strange for a few moments. Rebecca hadn’t realised how much the story of the menorah had meant to her until she had to confront the strange emotional whirlpool and dizzying strangeness of time that she’d experienced around each day’s light this year.

She’d done a lot of introspection around all this. For whatever reason, she was thinking hard about who and what she was. A number of her conclusions had surprised her. They didn’t even seem to have much to back them up; it was like she’d started having hunches about herself. And yet they rang true; they came to her as flashes of illumination, their sudden clarity enough to convince her of their accuracy.

She’d prepared latkes again, putting more effort into it than she was entirely happy admitting, but they were into the second half and it was Shabbat - there weren’t many better reasons to treat herself, and it was easier for her to pretend she was treating herself, not him.

(For all her recent introspection, she’d been able easily not to think about what was causing certain impulses.)

She was a little nervous anyway - she’d had to turn the heating up, purely because of her decision to wear shorts and a low-cut halter top for tonight’s lighting.

Waiting by the chair, as she had the last night, was a new wrinkle. But Aaron had to be persuaded to keep acting like a leader, and telling him directly that she’d noticed might shatter a fragile confidence before it was ready for that. So she was telling him of her respect as openly as she dared, by offering it.

Aaron arrived in the living room after her, because of course he did; she was there early precisely so she could wait. Unlike the previous night, he didn’t hesitate or falter. He took his seat and smiled up at her, looking confident, in control, hotter than he ever had. Where was this coming from?

Rebecca smiled back and waited for permission to sit in the chair. Aaron cleared his throat, and her heart sank. Was his confidence going? But then he pointed to the carpet in front of him.

“Something different tonight, I think,” he said. “Kneel.”

Well, her knees practically buckled before her brain had even processed the direction. It was as if the command had gone straight in without her needing to think about it.

Rebecca stubbornly pushed aside just how good that felt, but then Aaron reached out, stroked her cheek with one warm hand, and she felt a strange light-headed euphoria. That was like the dream the night before. Like her fantasies that night.

But there was, of course, no way for him to know that. No way for him to see her fantasies. They emerged after each session, but they were never related to any actual conversations the two had.

She looked up at him from her kneeling position and swallowed, trying not to think about how good it felt to be on her knees around him. Or was it that she’d followed her leader, showed him respect, that felt so good?

She noticed, as Aaron kindled the shamash, that the weight of her usual mundane concerns lifted from her shoulders instinctively. Sitting back in her chair, she was aware of her body settling into a more relaxed attitude - her shoulders dropped slightly, her arms going from their usual light tension to instead loll, as relaxed as a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her spine settled slightly forward, but didn’t let her collapse. She parted her thighs without thinking about it, leaving herself better balanced.

Her eyes never left the shamash. Rebecca had been playing a game with it for the past few days; as soon as he lighted it, she started watching, trying to understand the patterns he seemed to move it in.

She wasn’t sure he’d noticed he did that, to be quite honest.

She knelt patiently through the lighting of the fifth candle, then looked back up to Aaron for guidance. He made a flourish with the shamash.

Time must have passed, because she was now in her chair and the candles had been burning low. How that had happened, she wasn’t sure, but the shamash was starting to burn low now. On Shabbat, the time after the rite that you stayed in the light was much longer, and somehow Rebecca had missed it.

She wasn’t at all sure how. Aaron was a captivating personality, or had become one since he got his confidence back. And yet somehow she often couldn’t remember anything he’d said.

Aaron was standing now, as she sat in the chair, and he was tucking something into his pocket. He smiled at her and left the room, and she smiled back at him, watching him until the door closed behind him. Only then did it seem right to stand and to go off to her own room.

As she walked back down the corridor she noticed her body was balanced differently. Glancing down she registered for the first time that her bra was missing from beneath her halter top. When had that…

She’d definitely been wearing it just before, because she’d chosen it carefully when she picked out the halter top to go to the living room and wait for Aaron. But she’d taken it off… and…

Now that she thought about it, whatever Aaron had been pocketing had been the same colour.

It was an odd thing for her to have done, but perhaps he’d requested it. She’d have given him whatever he requested, of course. He was a leader. She was his follower. It would only make sense.

…That was right, wasn’t it?

*

On Sunday Rebecca and Danni stopped for coffee themselves. Rebecca bore the “Merry Christmas!” the barista gave her with a cheerful smile, but the way her expression changed as she turned away - well, Danni clearly saw it. Saw something. And realised for the first time that those two words were more specific than she’d thought.

The conversation was almost awkward. It was always nice to see someone realise that what they’ve taken for granted as normal pushes others to the side, but the things they’d say were almost always identical to every other time you had the conversation. It could be some of the most profound deja vu.

But in time, talk turned to Rebecca’s Hanukkah. She braced herself for more of the same kind of awkward exploration of a new culture, but was pleasantly surprised.

“I was talking to Aaron about this,” she began. “It seems like you’ve… I don’t know. I hadn’t realised how important this was to you.”

And to be fair, this was probably the year she’d given Hannukah the most focus now. It wasn’t something she was present for while her parents carried it out. She was as much a part of each night’s rite as Aaron.

Rebecca smiled, and nodded, and said “I think it’s one of those things. You don’t tend to notice that your friends get that kind of support from their worship. I know you go to your church about once a month, but even if you miss most weeks that doesn’t make it an afterthought for you. It’s just that this is as often as you can get there.

“Sometimes you get reminded that it matters to you. Although, honestly, as well as Hanukkah itself it’s been fun to…” She trailed off, groping for the words she wanted.

“Wait,” Danni said slowly. “You and Aaron?”

Relieved not to have to find the way to put it, Rebecca nodded.

Danni set back and smiled. “Well, I think he’s embarrassed,” she said, “because he just tried to change the topic. But it’s good to see you happy, so I’m not sure I care too much.”

Which was when Rebecca realised she’d been taken as not just interested in Aaron, but actively dating him. She flushed, partly because Danni had the wrong idea but correcting her would be embarrassing. Partly because she was suddenly confronted more closely with the idea of more than fantasy.

Perhaps she’d given Aaron her bra herself, without it needing to be requested. Perhaps it was an offering, a reward to her leader for his leadership. She didn’t remember any of those decisions, but then decisions around Aaron were always easy ones, almost instinctive. It didn’t feel unreasonable that she might make some without noticing. That would be the next logical step…

…wouldn’t it?

*

She hesitated as she dressed for the ceremony, standing in her underwear in her room. After a few moments of consideration, she shrugged and slipped her bra off, draping it over the chair. Much better, she thought, not just because it would save Aaron the need to take it from her, but also because it was one of the many rituals she used to mark the end of a busy, frustrating day.

Just setting her bra aside was one of the cues that told her body it was time to relax and unwind - exactly what she was wanting, at that exact moment.

She chose the same shorts as the previous night, but a different top; an old, much-loved T-shirt, a little too tight now for the woman she was though it had been baggy for the teen who bought it, worn almost transparent by years of use and kept soft by being choosy about her fabric conditioner. Her mind told her this was about comfort, though if pressed it might have conceded to the presence of an ulterior motive or two.

She hurried downstairs and took up her usual place beside the chair facing his.

Aaron was there not much later. It was probably just her imagination, but she pictured him holding off a little, knowing that if he let her wait, she’d be pushed even more toward her respect for him. But as much as he’d be doing that, she liked to think he felt impatient to get back there, to join her…

To admire her.

It was pretty clear to her by this point that her feelings for Aaron were mutual. Well, as far as featuring in each others’ fantasies went. Privately she hoped that his ideas of what to do with her were much less meek than her ideas of what she’d like to do for him.

She smiled in welcome, and glanced to the floor between the chairs, then back up to him. Prompting, but still asking permission. It felt most right.

She was expecting Aaron to point to the floor, or to nod, or something. What he actually did was take three quick steps forward, leaving him firmly inside her perimeter, claiming her personal space as casually as if he knew it belonged to him. Which idea was currently really, really hard for her to fight, because some part of her head was whispering that it was true, that it was accurate, and most of all that it was somehow right.

He brought his hand up and placed it on top of her breast, over her T-Shirt. She sucked in a breath in uncontrolled, unexpected shock and surprise. At the same time, his touch was suddenly everything, was all she felt, all she noticed. Her eyes were on his face, but the intentness, the eagerness, the delight he took in the feel of her body, was something she would remember later, not something she had knowledge of beforehand.

He went from a light, gentle touch to a fierce, hungry grasp, and it seemed to shock through her. She shivered and moaned as he squeezed, his fingers slowly letting her breast slip out of his grip until at the end he was tugging briefly on her nipple and no more. And then he let go entirely. She realised she’d gone up onto her toes during his tug only as she bobbed back down onto her heels.

Aaron sat down, leaving her standing, waiting. He kindled the shamash and spoke the words while she waited, still. Rebecca realised, much to her own surprise and confusion, that she was content to wait as long as it took for his direction. She would move to his pace; it was his right to set it.

She watched the shamash dance as she stood, and her head felt a little dizzy, but it soon passed. She then felt, and experienced, nothing at all.

*

On the final day of Hanukkah, Rebecca half-woke when she felt her bed move slightly under her. She rolled over from her side to her back, one hand sliding over under the covers, and her eyes opened when she realised the other side of the bed was warm.

There wasn’t much light in the room; it took her a few moments to make out the figure approaching the door, and only when the door opened and his naked body was lit by the corridor lights did she recognise Aaron.

Aaron had been in her bed; had been naked in her bed. Still half asleep, Rebecca stretched as she turned the idea over in her mind, and found that, far from being upset over the idea, it sent a blissful shiver down her spine. She shifted again, realising only then as her mind became more awake just how wet she was.

Had they…?

How could she possibly not remember that?

And yet, the more she thought about it, the more that made sense to her. That pleasure was for Aaron, as the leader. Her duty in the bedroom was to follow, to please. Her own enjoyment, and for that matter, her own memory, was irrelevant to that.

She cast her mind back over the past few days, considering all the times she half-remembered, or less. There was much of her life now that she didn’t recall, but each gap was bookended by Aaron’s presence in her life.

And that was comforting, ultimately; she could confidently assume that these were times she didn’t need to remember, didn’t need to know about.

That wasn’t her role and that wasn’t her purpose.

She still wasn’t entirely sure that this was best for her. But she told herself she could give it another year; that she could decide, next Hanukkah, whether this had been the right decision or a mistake.

Of course, that meant that this wasn’t the right place for her. Aaron might have use for her at any moment.

Slipping out of bed, she winced slightly when her bare feet rested against the cool floorboards of her room. She stood, and realised only as she did that she was nude - not at all usual for her. She paused at her wardrobe long enough to find the white silk teddy she’d bought a year or so ago to surprise her then-boyfriend, slipped it on, and tiptoed across to Aaron’s room.

She knocked, then entered, enjoying his shocked expression as she did. He’d slipped under his own sheets, leaving her to her own sleep - and this wasn’t part of his plan. That was OK, though; he was still the leader in her eyes, she just wanted to show him her initiative could be trusted.

She slipped to the side of the bed and settled to her knees, folding her hands demurely over her thighs, her head bowed.

After a few moments she heard Aaron chuckle. With her eyes averted from his, she smiled, knowing her gambit had paid off.

“Alright,” he said, and flicked the edge of the quilt back, offering her a space. “Put your mouth to good use, and you can come in.”

She nodded, but did not move.

“Begin,” Aaron said.

Rebecca remembered nothing more.