Recovery (Doctor Dom Volume 5) (A BDSM & Medical Play Novella) Read Free

here.”
    Jackie kindly ignored my insane metaphors, and concentrated on what I had said. I had no secrets from Jackie. She knew all about my sexual preferences, my kinks of choice, the role it played in my marriage. I never held back with Jackie. She wasn’t my friend. She was my therapist. If I was ready to be helped, Jackie would help me.
    “Talk to me some more about the day in question. The day she didn’t use her safe word,” Jackie suggested. “You said you feel guilty that you punished her.”
    I nodded.
    “Why?”
    “When I punish Lisa in a session, it is more play than punishment. The safe word is part of that. It keeps the dynamic between us consensual.” Another sip of my water. “Without a safe word, it tips into abuse.”
    “And you think you abused her that day?”
    I shrugged. There were two responses. One came from my head, and the answer there was No . I’d spanked her with no greater intensity than any other play session. I hadn’t known she’d been unprepared to use her safe word. I’d been annoyed that she’d been ignoring my phone calls, but when she walked into my house, I’d let the anger go.
    However, t he other response came from my heart, from the place in which I always felt far too responsible for things. Like the day Andrea’s ankles had bled after a session. And there was only guilt in that place.
    “Did she cry out in pain?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    “Did you break skin?”
    “No,” I said immediately, my voice shocked. I looked at Jackie, slightly aghast. “Of course not. It’s never about pain for pain’s sake. The play session, it was a release for me, a cathartic symbol through which I could close a door and move on. But I don’t need to hurt her for that. The punishment was more symbolic than anything.”
    I got a level look from Jackie. “It seems to me, Patrick,” she said carefully, “that she trusted you and you trusted her, and nothing untoward happened. Is this all a big storm in a teacup?”
    Jackie was British. Every once in a while, she’d say something that sounded so classically English it skirted close to parody. When she said ‘storm in a teacup’ , it was almost like the Queen was talking or something. I hid my grin – choosing not to share that particular thought, and pondered what she said.
    “Do you blame Lisa for what happened that night?”
    “No. I blame myself.”
    “For what? Was there any impact from that session? Did your relationship suffer because of it? Or deepen?”
    I started speaking, then stopped. What did I blame myself for? Until Lisa had mentioned that she had been unprepared to use her safe word, I hadn’t been bothered by that night in any real way.
    Sure, we’d both fucked up in a variety of ways. But also, we’d known each other for a while. Maybe we’d assumed, correctly, that we had nothing to fear from the other person. I felt the tight band of fear around my heart ease slightly. Perhaps, as Jackie said, it was all a storm in a teacup.
    “ It mattered to me that she reached out to me when her mother was ill,” I said. “It mattered that she wanted to lean on me.” My heart clenched as I said it. I loved Lisa so much. “I’m having dinner with her on Friday,” I added.
    “How do you feel about that?” she asked me.
    “Excited. Afraid. I don’t want to fuck this thing up.”
    “Why?”
    Ah, therapists. The endless probing until I got past the avoidance, and exposed the heart of the matter.
    “When she sent me the drink at the bar, it was flattering being approached. But then, she was so unexpected. She wanted to be spanked, but she wasn’t passive about it. She owned it, you know? She was so very much her own person.”
    A sip of the water. “Then, you start falling in love. Not because of the sex, though it’s hard to ignore the sex. You fall in love because you find out what people go through, and it is astonishing how people can come through situations still whole. With scars, but yet