Stop it. This is what’s wrong with you. This is why this keeps happening. Just stop!
The doctor poked his head out. “I’m ready for you, Mina.” His voice was a deep lullaby, and she found herself coaxed the few steps into his exotic, plant-filled sanctuary.
“No smoking around the orchids,” he reminded her gently.
Mina snubbed out her sixth half-smoked cigarette, reapplied her lipstick, straightened her long black pencil skirt, and crossed the threshold. Even at the emotional level she was at, she’d dressed for him. She couldn’t bring herself to let him see her in sweatpants with her hair in disarray. She was already about to blubber and cry all over him. There was no need to be even more pathetic.
His inner office was part of what kept her coming back. For all her hesitance about him not being a female doctor, his office created a safe space that few other places did for her anymore. The walls were a soothing lavender to match the orchids that lined the wall. The dark oak desk and coffee table were the only things that kept the room masculine.
Lindsay bypassed the coffeemaker and put some water on to boil in a tea kettle, then he pulled out a notebook and flipped to a fresh page.
“Another nightmare?”
Mina nodded. Her hand shook as she swiped the tears off her cheeks. Shouldn’t all this feel less traumatic by now? Instead of more? She’d been able to cope just as long as she could deny how bad it had been.
He scribbled a few notes. “Tell me about it.”
“I-it’s always the same dream. You know the dream.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud again. He must have twenty pages of notes by now on just this one dream—Jason abusing her in front of his friends. He whipped her, cut her, put out cigarettes on her, then he passed her around. Each time she woke, she could feel the blood running down her back. Each time she panicked and thought it was still happening, but it was only sweat.
It would be so simple if it were just a dream, but it had happened. The worst part was that she hadn’t left him that night. She’d stayed until he’d kicked her out months later.
“You’ve gone a while without the dream,” the doctor commented as he flipped back several pages. “What do you think triggered it this time?”
“I went on a date.”
“With someone in the lifestyle? Do you think that’s wise, given your track record with men?”
Mina looked up sharply. Was he blaming her now? It sounded like a softer echo of Jason’s words—as if it was her fault men had beaten her, like there was something fundamentally broken that lured only dangerous animals to her door.
But she didn’t have the energy to lash out. And in truth, she was afraid to. What if the doctor hurt her, too? He felt like her last hope in the world. If he turned on her, she wouldn’t be able to leave her apartment again.
“N-no. It w-wasn’t someone in the lifestyle. It was just a regular guy.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “I’m not going out with him again. He wouldn’t understand my weirdness. It wouldn’t work.” She left unspoken the fear that he might hurt her, too.
Tony had seemed perfectly nice. He hadn’t done anything to set off warning bells. And he was a cousin of a friend of hers. That made him not a totally random and unknown element.
“Maybe you should be single for a while,” Lindsay said.
“I’ve been single for ten months. I’m broken. I can’t do kink. I can’t do vanilla. I can’t be with anybody without having nightmares, but I’m so lonely I can’t breathe.”
Lindsay passed a box of tissues across the desk as her tears started to spill over again.
“What do you want, Mina?”
She looked at the crumbled tissues in her hands. “You know what I want. But it doesn’t exist. I don’t do well on my own, but I do even worse with somebody. All I want, all I’ve ever wanted is to live in a kink relationship with a gentle master. But it’s not real. They all hurt you.” Even if it was real, she wasn’t sure if she could handle it now. Nobody was going to put up with all her fears or the emotional baggage she’d accumulated.
“That’s not true,” Lindsay said.
“Well, they all hurt me.”
“Fair enough.”
The doctor stared at an orchid across the room as if he’d entered a fugue state. Several minutes passed before his attention returned to her. He stared intently, as if sizing her up, as if trying to decide something. She looked down again.
Was he about to suggest she be with him? It would break all rules of doctor/patient relationships. It would break the trust they’d already formed. And yet, her heart raced at the idea of being in his house. In his bed.
“What if I told you I could give you the thing you’ve always craved?”
Mina felt her face flame. He was going there?
“You mean…? I-I don’t know what you mean.” She saved it at the last second. If she said something about the two of them moving into a different type of relationship and that wasn’t what he meant, she’d want to die.
He sighed. “I mean, this is not the only work I do. I could match you with someone—A master who would provide for your needs and take care of you. I could ensure he wouldn’t harm you. You’d be happy and safe.”
“Oh.” She hoped her disappointment that he didn’t mean him, didn’t show.
“Do you want to think about it?”
She should say no. She should just accept a life alone. She’d been doing better until that date with Tony.
“How would you ensure he didn’t hurt me?”
“I can’t discuss that unless you agree and we get further in the training process. For my own safety.”
The warning bells went off. The way he spoke… whatever he was suggesting wasn’t entirely legal. Maybe not legal at all.
The doctor reviewed his notes. “Would you agree to intercourse with this theoretical master?”
“I, I mean, that’s not an option is it? I can’t just opt out of that.” Even in vanilla relationships she’d known she couldn’t just opt out. She’d never liked intercourse. She liked most other sexual acts—or had liked them before Jason—but that one thing was something she just sort of got through.
She had no early rape history to blame it on. She’d never had a funny uncle. It just wasn’t something she liked, and she couldn’t believe she’d told the doctor about that to begin with. It was the kind of thing you never told anybody because everybody liked it. And if you didn’t, there must be something really wrong with you.
Mina was convinced either other women were lying and faking it, or she’d been broken somehow before anyone ever laid a hand on her.
She couldn’t come that way. And sometimes it hurt. And it always gave her a low-level anxiety she couldn’t explain. But she’d managed to eroticize the fear to cope and keep going forward. Usually. Most of the time.
Was that the root of her kink? Since the only way to do sex was to eroticize fear? She shook the thought from her head. It didn’t matter anyway.
“Do you imagine you’re the only human being on the planet who isn’t fond of that one particular activity?” he asked. “Believe me, I’ve dealt with all sorts of off-beat tastes, both in dominants and submissives. Nothing surprises me, and this is mild. I could even match you in a non-sexual master/slave relationship if that’s what you need and want.”