Page 48 of Bratva Bride
"Tell me when you want little time. Tell me when you need big Anya. No hiding when you're hurting."
"What if I don't know what I need?"
"Then you tell me that. 'I don't know what I need' is completely valid communication." I leaned forward slightly. "The rule isn't 'always know what you need.' It's 'tell Daddy where you're at, even if where you're at is confused.'"
Her pen scratched across paper for several seconds, then she looked up. "What about honesty? What if I tell you something you don't want to hear?"
"Then I thank you for trusting me with the truth." This was crucial. "Honesty is never punished. Ever. If you tell me you broke a rule, we discuss it calmly. If you tell me you're angry with me, we work through it. If you tell me you ate cookies for breakfast when I wasn't watching, we figure out why you needed cookies for breakfast."
She actually smiled at that—small, but real. Then wrote: "Daddy doesn't punish honesty. Ever."
"Screen time limits," I proposed. "Not because screens are bad, but because you'll research until your eyes bleed if no one stops you."
"Two hours of work research per day?" she suggested. "Unlimited reading for pleasure?"
"Deal. But if you're reading until four a.m., we revisit."
She nodded, adding notes. We worked through more minutiae—shower at least every other day (negotiable during depressive episodes), no self-harm (with clear definitions of what that meant), check in via text if leaving the house. Each rule got discussed, modified, agreed upon. She had opinions. Preferences. Boundaries. And she was voicing them.
"What about little space rules?" she asked quietly. "Different from big Anya rules?"
"Completely different," I confirmed. "Little Anya might need simpler structure. Daddy chooses your clothes. Daddy decides meals. Daddy sets bedtime. But only when you're little, and only after we've discussed what little-you needs."
She was relaxing incrementally. Shoulders dropping. Pen moving more freely. This wasn't her father's authoritarian regime. This was collaborative. Consensual. Constructed together.
"Can we add one more rule?" she asked, so quiet I almost missed it.
"Of course."
"No locked doors. Unless I'm using the bathroom or explicitly ask for privacy. But no—no locking me in. Or out. Ever."
The weight of that request—the history behind it—made me want to drive to her father's house and show him what locked doors felt like from the inside of a car trunk. But I just nodded.
"No locked doors. Ever."
She wrote it down, then looked at our collective pages. Two notebooks worth of structure, but structure she'd helped build. Rules that were guardrails, not prison bars.
"This is really okay?" she asked. "All these modifications? All my additions?"
"Anya." I waited until she met my eyes. "This only works if it works for you. Every rule can be revisited. Every structure adjusted. This isn't about me controlling you. It's about us building something that helps you heal."
She clutched the pen tight enough her knuckles went white, then deliberately relaxed her grip. "Okay. I—okay. What's next?"
"Now we talk about consequences," I said carefully. "What happens when rules are broken."
Her entire body tensed, but she didn't run. Didn't shut down. Just nodded and flipped to a fresh page.
Progress.
This conversation required more coffee—hers with extra cream to replace the one gone cold, mine black enough to keep my hands steady while we navigated territory that could either build trust or destroy it completely.
I moved to the kitchen, giving Anya space to breathe, to process what we'd covered so far. The coffee maker gurgled and hissed, filling the silence with something neutral while she flipped through her notes. I could see her in my peripheral vision—pen tapping, fingers occasionally finding Peanut's ear under the table, her whole body a testament to years of conditioning that said consequences meant pain.
When I returned with fresh mugs, she'd written "CONSEQUENCES" at the top of a new page in letters sharp enough to cut.
"Anya, look at me." I set her coffee within reach but didn't sit yet. Needed her to see my face, my body language, everything that said this was different. She looked up, and I saw it all—the fear, the expectation of violence, the muscle memory of whatever punishments her father had used to create this particular terror.
"Discipline in our dynamic is never about punishment or pain or making you feel bad." I kept my voice low, steady, the tone I used when talking someone through a panic attack. "It's about teaching, redirecting, helping you make better choices. It's care with consequences."
