“I don’t understand, sweetheart.”
“It feels too simple.” I gestured at the laptop. “I thought it was supposed to be complicated and full of rules and stuff. But people are talking about buffets and menus and picking and choosing whatever they want to do.”
He thought about it before responding. “I’m only an expert in what I want out of life, not what anyone else wants. I’m not an expert in BDSM. I don’t think it’s possible to be an expert in BDSM. It’s possible to be experienced, and it’s preferential to be trained in some aspects, like the rope classes we’re taking. I don’t know how Derek runs his relationship with his wife, although I’m certain if we asked, he’d be willing to discuss certain aspects of it.
“But I don’t want to run my life or our relationship the way Derek runs his; I want to run it my way, the way that makes me happy, and hopefully makes you happy, too. What works for him probably won’t work for us. Can you take care of bunions?”
I scowled, confused by his sudden conversational U-turn. “Huh?”
“Bunions. On feet. Can you take care of them?”
“Uh, maybe? I don’t know, I’m not a podiatrist.”
“But a podiatrist is an MD, right?”
“Well, they’resupposedto be,” I snarked.
“Okay. Do you think a podiatrist can perform the surgeries you routinely handle?”
I started to answer when my jaw snapped shut with an audibleclick.
He stared at me, waiting.
I still didn’t answer because I was… processing.
He finally continued, “A podiatrist, an ophthalmologist, and a pediatric neurosurgeon walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Hey, you three are a pain in my ass.’ They say, ‘Well, the proctologist didn’t make it today’.”
I stared, finally snorting at how hideously awful that joke was. “You wrote that yourself.”
“Well, I’m a firefighter-EMT, not a comedian.”
I stretched out on the bed and reached for his hand, hooking my fingers around his. “No, those other doctors can’t do what I do without training. And vice-versa.”
“But any of you could perform CPR or prescribe meds, right?”
“Well, Ihopethey can perform CPR.”
There went the eyebrow. “And I can perform CPR. I can start an IV and administer meds with a hypo, I can take vitals and do a lot of other stuff, but while I can spot the signs of a head injury or cardiac event, I’m not an MD qualified to continue to treat them beyond basic, immediate, life-saving or stabilizing care to get them to someone like you, right? I can defibrillate a patient, but I’m in no way qualified to perform a heart cath. I can perform an emergency tracheotomy if forced to—and thank god I haven’t had to—but I am not a pulmonologist or respiratory therapist.”
I rolled onto my back. “Yes, okay, I get it. There are differences, specialties, but commonalities.”
“Exactly.” He took my empty bowl, added it to the tray, and carried them out to the table. “Would you like some hot chocolate?” he called back.
“Uh, yes, please! The ‘duh’ is implied.”
He laughed, his head appearing in the doorway. “You didn’t even check out the kitchen, did you?”
I scrambled off the bed and joined him, pleasantly surprised at the extensive assortment of hot chocolate mixes and accessories—holy cow, I didn’t know marshmallows came that big!—and practically danced in place while he prepared us both large mugs of cocoa.
Mine loaded with marshmallows and sprinkles.
Because I’m extra like that.
He grabbed a folder of information from the table, which I hadn’t read through earlier, and we took everything back to bed to review it. I wanted to crawl all over him, but there I sat, in my onesie—okay, it wasreallyadorable—him in his shorts, sipping hot chocolate and reading about sexual torture for fun and profit.
Well, okay, not torture. And not profit. But the listed selection of classes we could watch on TV, or attend in person, ranged from lifestyle 101 classes, to rope, to forced orgasm torture…
I wasn’t sure how that could be classified as “torture” but I had a feeling I wanted to find out.
