Page 151 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“ADHD Brain. Caffeine doesn’t make me hyper. It just makes me poop. Ooh, also, I was wondering. When can we go to The Lounge? And also, I texted Simon and told him I was back in town and that I owed him an apology and he said I could come by the shop whenever. I’d really like to finish that tattoo I started. Do you think that’s something I could do this weekend? You said we were going to scene this weekend, right? You said you were going to flog me!” She bounced in place.

“Is there any possible way to reduce the amount of energy you are exuding right now?”

“Yeah. Drugs.”

“What kind?”

“Melatonin, Adderall, Wellbutrin, and Prozac. Weed helps too, sometimes, but it also makes me horny. And I should probably start getting my birth control shots again. I tend to have really bad crashes and dissociation when I get my period because I also have premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Also, I was wondering why you like Giraffes.”

Giraffes?Where had she gotten that? I shook the question out of my head. “Go sit on the couch, I want to talk about this weekend.”

Her face went from animated and excited to blank and withdrawn in less than a second.

“Don’t freak out on me, I’m not canceling it. I just want totalkabout it.”

“Okay...” she mumbled cautiously, and she slunk away to the living room and settled herself on the couch.

A little while later, I had brewed her a cup of chamomile tea with some honey, and poured myself a shot of Woodford Reserve. She tasted the tea and made a face, setting it aside.

“What, it’s good!”

“It tastes like butt.”

“Okay. Listen. You’ve been having nightmares where you’re shouting your safeword and clawing at your neck.”

Her face fell and she started picking at her thumbnail and rubbing her feet together.

“I worry you’re going to have a panic attack on me if I go dark. I want to bounce a few ideas around with you, okay?”

“But I like you dark,” she whispered.

“You’ve never seen me dark, Alice. We’ve never done anything more than what I consider very light play, and I worry I’m going to freak you out.”

We talked a little more and I told her Becca’s idea of doing a scene at AnchorX with someone supervising. “I want you to know that you’re not alone, not in danger. That I’m not going to ignore your safeword if you choose to use it. And... I thought a little more about the fact that you’ve been safewording in your sleep, and how it was ignored so many times from the events of eight months ago, and I worry you won’t be able to use it if you need it.”

She didn’t answer. Her eyes were unfocused and she lifted her finger to her mouth to chew her nail. Slowly, so as not to startle her, I let my hand come into her field of vision before taking her hand out of her mouth and holding it between mine.

“What are your thoughts on that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if you’re onto something or not. The only thing I’ve done sincehimwas when you spanked me. I guess I’ve been blocking it all out, not thinking about it.”

“The more you force yourself not to process it, the more your subconscious is going to have to do it while you’re sleeping. Youhaveto process trauma, Alice. If you don’t, it will physically begin to hurt you.”

I felt her trying to pick at her fingers, even though I was still holding her hand. She struggled slightly and then gave up, staring at her hand in mine. I brought it to my mouth and kissed her wrist, wanting desperately to open my mouth and let my teeth glide across her skin, just to see her reaction. But I was trying to keep her focused on our conversation, and that would probably just make her horny.

Finally she spoke. “What should I do?”

“Only you can answer that. But, I’ve done a lot of therapeutic scenes before, and I have some ideas.”

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