If that means a little overzealous watching of my movements for a while, I’m okay with it.
“So,” she says. “Let’s get practical. What do you want tonight?”
“Conrad,” I say, before I can lie. “Rough. Careful. Not gentle like I’m broken. I want the others to see me breathing afterward so they stop treating me like I’m going to float away.” I swallow. “And I want to set the rule that when I saymore,they don’t argue or deny me.”
She smiles, the kind that hits the eyes. “Good. What else?”
“I want the door to lock with me holding the key,” I say. “I want one of them outside, not all. I want Atticus to ask me before he turns a camera on me. I want Storm to tell me the truth even when it hurts. I want Maverick to stop trying to make me laugh when I want to cry—and also to never stop, because it works.”
“You want the four of them to be who they are without deciding who you are and maneuvering around it,” she says.
“Yes. That. Exactly that.”
“Then write it down,” she says. “Make it unromantic. Make it a list.Phoenix’s Protocols.You don’t have to get it perfect. You can change it in a week. But you hand them a key ring they didn’t know they could ask you for.”
I sit back, let the wordminerumble through me. It doesn’t feel like greed. It feels like breathing.
“What about the… other part,” I say, lower. “The part where I want them to call me names. The part where I want a bruise I asked for so I look in the mirror and think,my mark.”
“That part is fine,” she says, level. “It’s not pathology to want intensity. Itisa problem if you use intensity to drown feelings you need to feel. You won’t. You’re too stubborn. So we add rails. Pre-scene check-in—where’s your head, one to ten. Post-scene check-in—same scale. If you’re under a five at either end, you don’t go hard; you go soft. They learn your tells. You learn theirs.”
“What about degradation?” I ask.
“Language is yours to define,” she says. “Ifslutrings as worship in your body when it comes out of Conrad’s mouth, then you’re the only person who gets a vote. If it ever rings as shame, you callyellowand they switch togood girlor they shut up and use their hands. You are not an idea they perform. You are a person they answer to.”
I let the heat that answer stokes settle where it belongs, somewhere deep in my chest. “Okay.”
She watches me for a few breaths. “What else?”
I think about clean shoes. I think about Danner’s hand in my hair and Zeus’s teeth. I think about Atticus’s taped-up heart and Storm calling his father and Maverick splitting himself open so the rest of us can breathe. I think about the way the four of them sat in those ridiculous chairs and did not blink.
“What if I want to go back to work? To the floor…maybe to the rooms.”
“You will,” she says. “Not today. Soon. And when you do, you walk in with your protocols and your key. You let the casino see you. The girls who didn’t make it need you to walk there and fill the air with the fact that you still breathe.”
We sit in the quiet. Zeus huffs outside the door like he’s offended he wasn’t invited to therapy. I smile into my sleeve.
“Homework,” she says.
“Of course there’s homework.”
“Three things,” she says, counting on her fingers. “One: writePhoenix’s Protocols—tonight. Short. Clear. Give each man one thing only he gets. Two: choose your key. Physical or symbolic. If it’s physical, wear it. If it’s symbolic, name it. Three: pick the first thing you do that is yours. Shower with the door open or closed becauseyoupicked. Toast with cinnamon becauseyouwanted it. Walk barefoot on the deck becauseyousaid so.”
I let the list sit in my chest until it feels less like orders and more like oxygen. “I can do that.”
“I know you can,” she says, and stands, joints unfolding like she’s been sitting on the floor all her life. “One last thing.”
I stand too. “What?”
“When you ask Conrad for rough sex tonight,” she says, “ask him for slow first, and then give himgreen.That way your body gets to learn thatyouopen the door. Because he’s been through a trauma too, and you don’t want to cause harm or damage to both of you when you do this.”
The flush that crawls up my neck is ridiculous and real. “Noted,” I say.
She smiles. “Off you go.”
I crack the door. Conrad is in his chair on the floor where he promised he’d be, knees up, back to the wall, eyes on the doorknob. He stands the second he sees me but doesn’t crowd.
“How was therapy?” he asks, voice rough like he ran it over the edge of a cliff.
