Need him to make my body work the way it's supposed to.
Need him in order to want.
And that makes me want to scream.
To throw things.
To rage against the unfairness of it all.
Because needing him means he was right about everything.
Means I'm exactly what he's been trying to make me—dependent on him for pleasure, for sensation, for feeling anything good at all.
Means the cage isn't just the house with its biometric locks and motion sensors.
The cage is my own body, trained to respond to him and only him.
And I walked right into it.
I let him build it around me one careful touch at a time.
Believed his lies about choice and agency and liberation while he was actually just making me his.
I spent the rest of that night lying awake, hating myself.
Hating him.
Hating that I still want him anyway.
The third day dawns gray and miserable, matching my mood perfectly.
I drag myself out of bed, shower in water that's too hot, trying to wash away the dreams and the wanting and the desperate need that's eating me alive from the inside out.
It doesn't work.
Nothing works.
I can't read.
Can't focus on anything for more than a few minutes.
Can't stop thinking about Vaughn and that night and what he could show me if I just asked.
If I just surrendered.
If I just admitted that I need him.
By breakfast, I've made a decision.
I'm going to ask.
Going to tell him I want more.
I want him to show me what else my body can do.
I want to understand this thing that's consuming my every waking thought and turning me into someone I don't recognize.
I hate that I want it.
