Page 29 of Releasing Reenie

I swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.” I turned away, looking out the window at the small main street of Porter’s Corner.

When Luna didn’t speak, I turned back to her. She was pointing a finger at me, her lips pursed and her head turned to the side in thought.

“This really scared you. But why?” She wasn’t really asking me, so I didn’t answer her. “This is why you’re such a caring Domme. You can relate. You have underlying subbie tendencies. Unfulfilled subbie inclinations. Hm.” She rubbed her chin, examining me.

I kept my face blank, my breath stuck somewhere near my diaphragm.

“You are a control freak and that’s why you won’t even consider it.” She made another hm sound. “It was your mother, wasn’t it? She fucked you up.”

My eyes widened at her leap, but I shouldn’t have been surprised, I’d made comments before, it wouldn’t be hard for someone as intelligent as Luna to figure it out.

I nodded in answer, once again looking out the window.

“Have you ever seen him scene?”

My head snapped back.

“He’s really good. And if you wanted to try bottoming, I think he’d be a perfect partner. And, Maureen, you can’t even imagine how amazing it is to give up control—the empowerment of it. Your mom was fucked-up, and she took it out on you, but to give up control by choice, to trust someone and be vulnerable; it’s a whole other ball game.”

“Pfft, who’s‘he’?I never told you who it was, and besides, it was a fantasy. Some women fantasize about rape; it doesn’t mean they want to be raped.”

“No, it usually means they want to experience sexual pleasure without being culpable, likely because women were shamed and oppressed for having sexual desires for centuries.”

“You and your damn psychology degree,” I teased. She didn’t actually have one, yet, but she was studying for it.

She shrugged one shoulder, picked up her coffee and said, “Think about it and I’ll shut up.”

“Fine. I’ll think about it.” My eyes narrowed then, my gaze focused on hers. “But only if you consider your feelings for Drake.”

Luna looked down at her watch. “Oh, look at the time.” She rose, grabbing her stuff.

I laughed, picked up my half-full, likely cold, coffee and followed Luna out the door.

“Wanna scene next week?”

Luna turned back to me. “You going to exact revenge on me for psychoanalyzing you today?”

I shot her a half-smile and shrugged.

“I think I’ll wait until you forget about today then.”

I threw my head back and laughed harder before planting a smarting swat on her jean-clad ass. “Such a brat.”

I looked at Mira’s calendar with a frown. Her mother’s surgery was the same day as my class’s exam. If my memory was correct, it was also the day of Trent’s exam.

Mira had come to me after class to discuss her options, but the options were few and far between.

“Can I do a make-up test?” Mira asked, her eyes starting to mist up.

“Make-up, where?” I asked, looking at the rest of the appointments filling up the small squares. There was radiation, chemotherapy, PET scans, and a million other treatment-plan appointments filling her already packed calendar. When I glanced at her, Mira’s eyes welled up. She was overwhelmed and it was breaking my heart.

“I’m free now, but we haven’t even covered all the material in class yet.” She looked down and my eyes followed to her fingertips where she’d chewed her nails down so far they’d bled. “I’m only free now because they admitted Mom today. She was agitated and aggressive.” She glanced up at me and swallowed, and I knew the aggression had been aimed at her.

“The nurses told me to go home and get some rest, but how can I rest? I need to figure this out.” Her breath quickened in panic.

I knew exactly how it felt to be killing yourself to care for someone who shouted and barked insults at you no matter how much you did for them.

“Okay, easy, hon. We’re going to work this out. I promise.” I rubbed her arm and she nodded awkwardly, a tear spilling over her lid and dripping onto the tablet we were using.

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