Page 149 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“I suggest you tell her about the services you offer at the house during a conversation where it comes up naturally. Guide her in that direction and allow her to make the decision herself.”

“Fair point.”

“As far as your concern regarding a scene, you may be right in putting it off. Especially if she’s safewording in her sleep.” Becca hesitated, then shut her mouth and appeared to calculate something. She took another sip of her drink and looked up at me again. “You know... it may be a good idea to set something up at AnchorX. A planned, supervised scene in a place outside of your home and your basement, with me or Simon nearby. Specifically asking her to use her safeword could be really helpful to her. No matter what the scene is.”

I tried to reconcile what Becca was telling me. “We don’t usually do CNC or therapy scenes with people we haven’t built trust with. I’ve spanked her and slapped her around a little, but Becca, that’s... a lot more.”

“It doesn’t have to be. It could be any kind of scene, whether it’s low or high intensity, training or edge play. But if she’s safewording in her sleep, I suspect her subconscious is trying to come to terms with that wordfailingto keep her safe in the past. And you don’t want that.

“Just talk to her about it, get her thoughts. Maybe do something really casual and ask her to use her safeword outside of play sometime this weekend so she can know what to expect from you. Or see if having a public scene with some trusted people around her makes her more confident. I guarantee Simon would agree to supervise if you asked. I would too.”

Becca and I talked a little more, but I eventually cut the conversation off when I looked at my phone and realized Alice had resorted to sending me messages one letter at a time to get my attention.

I showed Becca the phone. “I’m being summoned.”

She laughed. “You’d better go give her attention before she starts sending you nudes.”

“Hm... I could wait around another ten minutes.”

When I got home, therewere bags of groceries on the kitchen counter, half the cabinet doors were open, and the laundry room light was left on. I looked around and called out for Alice, hoping she wasn’t curled up in bed depressed again.

I found her sitting on the ground in my office singing to herself with her earbuds in. “Dark nights, oooh, Dark nights...” She had my laptop open in her lap, and she was clicking away. Beside her were two coloring books splayed open, with a pile of sparkly gel pens and some sticker sheets on the ground.

I’ll eat that sticker book if she’s not a Little.

“Alice... sweetheart? What are you doing?”

She didn’t hear me, so I set my hand on her head. She screamed and ducked, throwing her arms up over her head like she was shielding herself. A moment later, she’d jerked out her earbuds and set the laptop aside. She jumped to her feet and began to pace and speak rapidly, fighting off the adrenaline rush.

“I didn’t hear you come in! I guess that’s my fault, I was listening to music. These earbuds are noise canceling. I’m trying to learn this song. I almost know it! But there’s some lines I haven’t quite memorized yet. But I’m really close. And also, look, I found these! Look how cute they are! Did you get these for me? I love them!” She pointed erratically to the coloring books. She’d finished half of a dalmatian and started on Rapunzel. She’d made Rapunzel’s hair black and purple, and put a glittery sticker inside every single square of the castle she was locked in.

I looked back to her, and saw her wringing her hands, her eyes darting around like she couldn’t fixate on anything. She was breathing fast.

I started to speak, but she cut me off.

“I found them in the bottom drawer of the dresser. There are some pages missing though. Anyway, speaking of missing things, I heard you during your conference call on Monday about how you do your files at The Weston House, and how each girl has a file, right?” She handed me the laptop. Her hands were shaking and she almost dropped the laptop, but I caught it while she continued to speak a mile a minute.

“So I did a thing. It’s not live yet, and I can reverse it if you hate it, but I made it so that instead of having to go into the file and update it, and then go into the master spreadsheet and update that too, I just linked the spreadsheets so now when you update one, it automatically feeds that information into the other. So the Master will always be up to date, and all you have to do is update the profile within the folder of each girl. Is that cool or what!”

I set the laptop down and put my hand over her nose and mouth, holding her face firmly in my hand. She had started to hyperventilate and I worried she was going to throw up.

Her eyes flew wide at my motion, and her hands slammed over mine. But instead of trying to pull them away, she dug her fingernails into my wrist and arm like she was trying to push herself tighter against me. Slowly, I removed my hand from her nose, and then her mouth, and she gasped. Her eyes watered and she shook a little.

“Do you know how to count your breaths?”

She nodded.

“I want you to count with me.” I sat down in my computer chair and pulled her into my lap, making her look me in the eye. She counted shakily, and a little erratically while she inhaled, held her breath, and exhaled. I breathed with her, watching her carefully. After a few rounds, she calmed down.

“Alice. I’m so sorry, did I startle you?”

She clenched her jaw as she nodded and kept breathing steadily. “You just surprised me,” she said. Her eyes filled with more tears, and she rubbed at them, smearing the carefully painted wings on the corners of her eyes.

“I’m glad you like the coloring books,” I said, hoping to distract her.

She laughed. “Yeah, I do. I used to love Rapunzel actually, because I always felt like... well, um, my life got really shitty after Scarlett died, because, you know, she was their favorite. And I always felt like I was trapped, and that maybe one day someone would show up and kidnap me and keep me as their slave or something. And that would be better than being at home because at least that meant that he wanted me.”

Oh. You want me to steal you away, pretty girl?I tucked that particular fantasy of hers aside, vowing to find a way to make that come true.

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