Page 18 of Touch of Class

“The studies are everywhere,” Daphne answered enthusiastically. “I first came across the core concepts in neonatal care. The benefits of skin-to-skin contact with newborns are off the charts. From there it wasn’t hard to find connected studies in areas from immunology to attachment disorders.”

“Fascinating,” Robin said sleepily.

“Lately, I’ve dipped into a lot of the work connecting to cardiology,” Daphne continued. “That’s where some of my most regular clients at my old practice came from.”

“Cuddling has heart benefits?” Tegan jumped in.

“Very much so. Physical touch has been proven to lower stress on the heart by regulating pulse, stabilizing intravenous pressure, and recently it’s even been proven to lower cholesterol.”

“I do feel my blood pressure dropping,” Robin said, happily ensconced in a near stranger’s arms.

To be honest, Gillian should’ve seen that one coming. Robin had always carried a loose sense of boundaries around personal space. Until Sawyer’d come into her life six months ago, she’d often ended up in similar situations with women she’d just met. But for Brooke to engage said stranger in professional discussion during the encounter bordered on absurd, and Gillian had such a low threshold for absurdity.

“Platonic touch has been widely shown to lower cortisol in the bloodstream, which in turn soothes the nervous system,” Daphne continued evenly, one arm looped under Robin’s shoulder and the other across her midriff. “Does this position work for you?”

“Working wonders.” Robin stifled a yawn. “I usually sleep half on top of Sawyer in some kind of sprawl wherever we happen to crash. Being held deliberately is a different thing.”

“It’s also different for every person,” Daphne said. “I haven’t finished outfitting the office yet, but there will be a futon and some floofy beanbag chairs to give clients options.”

Gillian silently congratulated herself on not mentioning that she’d prefer touching options didn’t require a down payment, or strangers.

“Do most people come in wanting something specific?” Tegan asked, once again giving rise to a slew of images of which types of physical contact Gillian feared people came in hoping for.

“Some do,” Daphne said. “Most seek cuddle therapy because of a need that’s not getting met, whether it’s regular hugs, snuggles, or a specific hold after a breakup. Some are looking to cut the edge off long-time loneliness. Others are searching for new ways to get their needs for physical touch met after changes to their bodies from injury or age. A smaller number find their way to me as part of their recovery from trauma.”

Gillian’s chest tightened, and a question slipped from her lips with more tension than she cared to hear in her own voice. “What makes you qualified to assess and treat trauma?”

Daphne just smiled. “I don’t suppose anyone is ever qualified to treat all aspects of all traumas in all people, but I have a niche where I can offer support. For instance, one client approached me with a very detailed set of requests for replicating her mother’s touch.”

Brooke’s eyes narrowed as if she shared Gillian’s misgivings. “Like a reparenting experience?”

“Somewhat,” Daphne said. “Her mother had died slowly of Alzheimer’s, and in the last five years of her life, she no longer recognized my client. She said horrible things, then became physically violent. When she passed, my client had trouble grieving because the good memories and gentle touch she longed for had been clouded by memories of verbal and physical violence carrying the strength of recency.”

Gillian’s stomach twisted at how easily a young person in such a vulnerable position could be abused or manipulated by someone accepting financial payment in exchange for mothering by proxy. Before she could say so, Daphne extracted herself from behind Robin. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Robin agreed without so much as blinking, which was simultaneously one of her best and worse qualities in Gillian’s mind.

“I would sit cross-legged, and the client would rest the back of her head in my lap.”

Robin didn’t require any more instruction before assuming the position. Daphne looked down into her eyes with such an easy kind of affection, Gillian’s stomach clenched for an entirely different reason. There was a peace and acceptance in her gaze that had always come so naturally, and though Daphne had never pointed any of her effortless grace in Gillian’s direction, she’d seen it offered liberally to others all through high school.

“We’d sit like this, and I’d drag my fingers through her hair from front to back.” Daphne demonstrated by sinking her hands into Robin’s thick, dark mane. “And she’d tell me stories from her childhood, little memories of her and her mother cooking together or throwing rocks in the water or playing hide-and-seek.”

“I’m not sure I understand how the exercise reauthored trauma,” Brooke pressed, and Gillian could’ve hugged her for displaying even a fraction of the skepticism coursing through her own veins at that completely lackluster explanation of playing with someone else’s hair. “Or why a more traditional form of therapy couldn’t have worked?”

“She’d already done tremendous work in therapy, both throughout her mother’s illness and in the aftermath of her death. I’m not sure we could’ve achieved the same results without her deeply understanding the trauma and where it lay in her body, but neither could a therapist bridge the gaps that came from disconnecting an intellectual awareness from her physical experience since her brain and body weren’t working in tandem.”

“I think we’ve all run into disconnects between theory and practice,” Tegan mused.

“And to be fair, parental touch is virtually impossible to replicate on your own.” Daphne’s voice remained even and gently confident in a way Gillian could appreciate even if she found her assertions questionable. “It took almost a year to reestablish the connection between memories of her mother’s emotional nurturing with physical sensation of nurturing touch. Only then could we connect the kind of care and grace she was offering herself in those moments to the kind of nurturing she’d been able to offer her mom at the end, which transformed a circle of trauma to one of nurturing.”

“Wow.” Tegan’s eyes watered as she reached for Brooke’s hand. “That one hits hard. When something ends badly but you still have so much good mixed in, it’s nearly impossible to make all the pieces fit together. You feel guilty for remembering the bad, but you don’t fully trust the good. Soon you don’t even trust yourself to know which is which.”

“Exactly.” Daphne beamed at her, and Gillian felt the twinge of a new emotion she tried to push behind her most logical brain. There were holes in Daphne’s explanations big enough for whole humans to slip through. Of course therapists could help reestablish mind-body connections. There were also appropriate and well-governed paths for physical therapy, but having a person work through trauma with someone who’d been trained only to hug, or hadn’t been trained at all …

“Obviously, my client could’ve told stories to her therapist, and she could’ve sought touch from others,” Daphne went on, as if anticipating the argument Gillian hadn’t yet given voice to. “I simply gave her an opportunity to exist safely in the fullness of both instead of fragmenting her needs.”

“What an incredibly compelling example,” Brooke said, then dropped a kiss atop Tegan’s head. “I’m sure we all have plenty more questions, but this a good primer, and I want to be mindful of the fact that we derailed your evening plans.”