Chapter 8
When you arrive at your house and your girlfriend is sitting at your kitchen table looking solemn with your boss slash girlfriend slash…whatever Kim is, I think having some degree of apprehension is perfectly reasonable.
“Em, don’t freak out, this isn’t anything bad, just…” Vi pulled the chair next to her out a little bit, giving me a place to sit.
I stopped, not even letting the door close fully, giving myself a way out. “You two know how this looks like absolutely something bad, and something I need to freak out about, right?”
Vi and Kim looked at each other, wincing when they realized just how much this kind of setup hits every trigger for me.
“Shit, ok…sorry…god, this does…this looks bad.” Vi said, scrambling to save the situation, and in my mind barely doing so. “Maybe we should do this over dinner?”
“I’m not very hungry since you two just created a lead ball in my stomach.” I said, putting my backpack down and staring at them warily.
“Korean BBQ, my treat?” Kim said, a pained smile on her face. At least she was probably now realizing how fucked she had made this situation.
“Ice cream afterwards too…and the good vegan place, not the shitty one next to the BBQ place.”
Kim rolled her eyes, as if my particular tastes were any kind of surprise to her. “Yes, ok, fine…”
—
“Alright, what were you two trying to tell me in the most ominous fucking way possible?” I said, now a little calm since I had a sizzling hot grill pan in front of me.
“We just think that after the…breakdown you had, you need to do something about your stress levels.” Vi said. Her expression was strained, as she knew how tough it was to bring things like this up to me. And, to be honest, that was my problem, not being emotionally open to her.
A different version of me would have fought back against Vi right now, told her my stress levels were fine and that I know myself better than anyone else, but Dr. Mitchell and I had been working on tempering my responses to things, especially when it was quite clear that someone was trying to help me.
“Right, so, the vacation thing…I said I’d think about it.” I tossed a chunk of steak onto the grill, a dramatic plume of steam rising.
“You said you would do it.” Vi said, her lips pursed. She was actually mad at me, which took a lot for me to get her that far. I shrunk down, feeling defeated and small. I hated that I put myself into such self-harming situations like this.
“And I say, Emma, as your boss, you are required to take one. If you want to continue work at Pallas, you’ll take at least a week off.
” Kim gave me a stern look. It was clear she and Vi had been prepared for battle here, and they were more than ready for all my bullshit excuses about how I didn’t really need to do the things I promised I’d do.
“We were asking you before, now we’re telling you. ”
“Nicely…telling you…” Vi tried to soften Kim’s severity, which was nice, but I needed Kim’s severity right now.
The irony was not lost on me that despite being into BDSM, being into a practice that involved me giving and following orders precisely, that I was absolutely shit at doing those things in my everyday life.
I would twist myself into perplexing loops to try to avoid confronting something head on, and I would find ways to evade any advice others gave to me, even when completely sincere and completely valid.
But I’d lick a domme’s boots in a second if she asked me to.
The duality.
“Yes, ok, sure…” I said. “I might have already called up a couple of friends to see if we could visit for a weekend.” I plucked a cube of sticky tofu from the bowl. “Which I would have gotten to if you two hadn’t been staging an intervention in the apartment this afternoon.”
“I told you it was too intense, Kim.” Vi said.
“She usually buckles pretty quickly when two women sit her down and tell her what to do.” Kim shrugged.