"Yeah. When you can ride on your own, I'll let go. But until then, I'm helping you stay upright."
Over the next hour, he completely reorganizes my payment system, setting up automatic charging and creating a waitlist system so I stop letting random people drop in and disruptclass. He even makes me a basic spreadsheet to track income and expenses, his fingers moving over my phone screen with surprising efficiency.
"You're good at this," I observe, watching him work with a kind of fascinated attention.
"I'm good at systems. Structure. The military trains you for that." He glances up at me briefly before returning to the phone. "What I'm not good at? People. Being nice. All that touchy-feely crap you do naturally."
"It's not crap!"
"Either way, I'm not good at it. You are. We're just balanced differently." He hands back my phone, now organized with apps and systems I would've never figured out alone. "We balance each other out."
I think about that as he gathers his things to leave, about how I'm all softness and accommodation, and he's all edges and boundaries. How my weakness is his strength and maybe, just maybe, vice versa.
"Geoff? Can I ask you something?"
He pauses at the door, turning back to face me. "Yeah."
"Why are you really doing this? You don't even know me."
He's quiet for a moment, and I watch something complex move across his face - consideration, maybe, or the weighing of how much truth to offer. "Because I know what it's like to need help and be too stubborn to ask for it. And because..." He finally meets my eyes. "Because watching you let people walk all over you pisses me off. You're better than that. Your business deserves better than that. You just need someone to believe it until you do."
My eyes sting with sudden, unexpected tears. When's the last time someone believed in me? Really believed, not just offered empty encouragement while secretly thinking I was too soft,too accommodating, too much of a pushover to ever succeed at anything?
"Thank you," I whisper, my voice thick with emotion.
"Don't thank me yet. This is just the start." He heads for the door again, then pauses with his hand on the frame. "Next class is Friday, right?"
"Right."
"I'll be here. And Lilah?" He's already walking away when he calls back over his shoulder. "When someone tries to negotiate the price down or shows up late or doesn't pay, what do you do?"
"I... tell them the rules?" It comes out as more of a question than a statement.
"Wrong. You tell them nothing. You point at me. I'll handle it."
"But—"
"No buts. You focus on teaching. Let me focus on protecting what you've built. Deal?"
"Deal."
After he leaves, I sit in the empty studio, looking at my newly organized phone. At the payment system that will actually function. At the spreadsheet showing how dire my financial situation really is.
Then I open my phone and scroll to the romance novels I've been reading. The ones about dominant men and submissive women. About power exchange and rules and structure. About women who feel safe for the first time in their lives because someone else is making the hard decisions.
I've always thought it was just fantasy. Something I'd never actually want in real life.
But the way Geoff said "good girl". The way he took over my payment system without asking permission. The way I felt relief instead of resentment when he started making rules...
Maybe it's not just fantasy after all.
three
Geoff
ThankstoLilahfollowingmy informal rules, and the studio is making actual money. She's eating real food because I text her to check, and she's standing up for herself more, though she still needs backup when clients push.
But the real problem: I'm falling for her and my body's too broken to do anything about it. Every class, I watch her move with that effortless grace while my back screams in protest. I want to touch her outside of form corrections, want to hear her say "yes, Sir" instead of just accepting my orders with relieved gratitude. Want to take her to bed and show her exactly what it means to give up control to someone who'll actually take care of her.
