“After care doesn’t have to require touching at all, Ryan. In the simplest form, it’s purely one individual spending time with another individual after a session.” I took another sip from my mug to give him a moment to recite that in his head. “The session doesn’t need to be physically rigorous, but it can be mentally or emotionallyrigorous.”
I set my mug down and leaned forward, resting my forearms on the patio table and looked at him. He had been taking all of this info in and hung onto everyword.
“Our session yesterday was a bit of all of those things, Ryan. It had probably been twenty years since you were last hit by a parent, or your brother. I put your body through a beating, but not quite like what you had been used to. Mentally, you stepped backwards some as I told you things that were probably the opposite of what you’d heard before.” He nodded. “All of this led to an emotional release. I know you aren’t comfortable with crying, or showing emotions, but please believe me when I tell you that it’sokay.”
“So, outside on the patio yesterday, that was aftercare?”
“Yes. You had had quite the release yesterday and you needed some time to settle backdown.”
He nodded as the wheels were moving in his head. But he talked and asked questions, so the wheels moving had been a goodthing.
“They were right, then. I had been wrong. I’llapologize.”
A lesser man, a man with little integrity, would just shrug it off. Making things right had been important to Ryan. Many people in his young life had failed him; teachers, coaches, neighbors. None of them tried to make their error right, yet here he was, accepting his error and wanting to make itright.
As we sat across from one another, I could see all of the turmoil going on in his eyes. Ryan, was a book for me. A book that I was so interested inreading.
“Did you go to bed after you talked tothem?”
“Yeah, I felt like I had been coming down with something because I was so tired and cold. I thought I had fucked up the thermostat and that’s why it was so cold, but when I woke up in the night, I had been freezing. I had thechills.”
Ryan had started dropping before bed, I deduced. He felt that he had something to hang his hat on with each telltale clue that it was drop. I couldn’t be angry with him for not calling me. He simply didn’t know or understand what had happened to hisbody.
“Allow me to explain what had happened, Ryan. With the drop, everyone reacts differently to this. Basically, during an intense session—again, it doesn’t have to be just physically intense, there can be a surge with endorphins and adrenaline in your body. You commented yesterday about how good you felt as we sat here. You said you felt so good that you wanted to experience itagain.”
Ryan nodded and confirmed, “Yeah, I feltincredible.”
“Good. Your body still had the spike of those chemicals racing around. Well, when those chemicals crash, that’s when the drop settles in. You end up feeling ‘off’ as your body tries torebalance.”
“Okay, I think Iunderstand.”
“You mentioned that you felt cold and tired. Those could be signs for you to look out for in the future. Irritability, can also be a sign. Or impatience. Anytime you start feeling ‘off,’ I want you to call or text me.Okay?”
“Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t last night. I just didn’t know it was that bad when I went to bed. I felt horrible though when I woke up from thenightmare.”
It troubled me that he had a nightmare on top of experiencing his first bout of drop. I made a mental note to ask him about the nightmare via email. I didn’t feel this was the best time to compound what he had already struggledwith.
Ryan sipped his coffee and peered over the rim of the mug at me. “I’m sorry about the email I sent last night,” hesaid.
“Why are you apologizing? I received it, asasked.”
“Yeah, but, I messed itup.”
“Howso?”
“I gave you two things that I liked and wanted more of. You only asked for me to tell you onething.”
I considered Ryan for a moment. He genuinely was concerned about following directions. So many of my friends would adore this youngman.
“Ryan, your email pleased me last night.”Genuine happiness. “I had been happy to see that you enjoyed being flogged andtouched.”
Ah, there’s my bashful Ryan. He could admit it in writing and email that he liked the touch, but face to face caused him distress. His hand had begun to rub on the back of his neck.Dig.
“May I ask you what about either of those aspects did youlike?”
He sat there and rubbed on the back of his neck as his eyes moved from side to side. I knew he struggled with vocalizing certain things, but I thought I’d give him the benefit of thedoubt.
“Uh, the flogging helped me feel better. It helped get some stressout.”
