Linking

When I was in my Ph.D. program, for the first two years my closest friend there was a woman, I.C.  She was very different from me in her interests and her way of thinking, working on American Literature and being highly theoretical, but despite this we were very close. We possessed for each other an ability I've never experienced with anyone else:  although neither of us did what the other did, if we were in a classroom situation and one was having difficulty articulating a thought, the other would be able to articulate it for her with precise clarity.  

Being close, we would sit next to each other in class, and sometimes, for no reason at all, I would wish intensely to take her hand and hold it.  In fact, "wish" is the wrong word: really, what I felt was an instinct that to hold her hand was simply the natural thing to do - I felt this to such an extent that it felt strange not to be holding her hand.  This wasn't a sexual feeling, nor exactly a feeling of relaxation.  It was more a feeling of weirdly normalised connection, as if the physical link was simply a natural extension of the mental link.

It seems that there is more than one way of telling secrets.