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Visceral memories flooded my mind as I raced upstairs to meet with Catherine. I burst through the door, panting like acrazy person and pressed my back against the cool wood, trying to pull myself together. I focused on the beautiful statuesque woman who was my counselor and wondered why I had never noticed how pretty she was. In her forties, Catherine Denton was like a calm breeze cutting through my hurricane of emotions as she stood up from behind the desk.
“River. You are just on time. Please take a seat.”
Holy crap, couldn’t she see me panicking?
“I, uh. Um, my heart is racing.”
“I see that. Sit down and lean back, River. Place one hand over your heart and one on your belly. Breathe into those two spots.”
I sat, trying to focus and do the exercise she’d walked me through many times, but I could barely remember my own name. Remembering what order numbers went in was beyond me. “I can’t… I can’t think.”
“I’ll count for you, okay? Inhale, one-two-three-four-five, hold, and exhale, one-two-three-four. Good girl.” Her voice was low and hypnotic. “Again.”
I repeated the steps with her counting and began to feel my heart rate slow down. This was why she was the counselor and I was her crazy patient. I’d been coming to see Catherine for a few months. The sessions with her were hard but even I had to admit they were working. I felt more in command of myself. More like the person I’d been before I’d given everything over to someone who hadn’t been able to take care of me. She’d even helped me to start making conversation with the staff and a few other women who were service subs.
I was getting better. But hearing and seeing Cade sent me spiraling backward, feeling helpless and unimportant again.
“How do you feel now, River?”
I let out one more deep breath before answering. “Better, thank you.”
Catherine smiled. “Good. Now tell me what has you in such a lather.”
“He’s here.” It wasn’t the most descriptive sentence but she seemed to understand my emphasis on the word “He”.
“He? As in your ex, Cade?”
I nodded vigorously. “Yes Cade. I was doing a pass-through of the Dungeon area to make sure it’s perfect.” At her raised eyebrow, I had to fidget. My obsession with perfection was one of the issues we were working on. “There are lots of guests coming this weekend, so I was just double checking.”
“We’ll talk about that later. Tell me what happened with Cade.”
“I was in one of the private rooms and heard him. He’s here with a friend who is encouraging him to find someone to play with. I waited till they were walking away to leave, so I don’t think they saw me.”
“I see.” Catherine leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers. “And how does that make you feel?”
How did that make me feel? I hadn’t stopped long enough to process through the panic to know how I felt.
“I don’t know. Terrified.”
The word was out before I could really think about it. A normal person would probably feel jealous or angry, but all I could think about was what if he told people what I was really like. What if Cade shared what he and I used to do at clubs?
“Interesting choice of words, River.”
I swallowed and shrugged. It wasn’t that my kinks were odd or even unusual. But I’d built a life here around being the quiet, sweet service submissive. Would people look at me differently if they knew what I wanted from a Dom?
“What about Cade makes you feel terror? You’ve refused to talk about your relationship other than to say you were his slave.Was he abusive? I’ll have him removed from the grounds if you don’t feel safe around him.”
“No!” The fierce protectiveness I saw in her eyes forced me to say more. “He was never abusive. He just stopped noticing me. His job became his world and I wasn’t important enough to hold his attention.”
Catherine’s scowl could have cut glass. “I don’t like the way you phrased that, but I still need to know why he terrifies you.”
“He knows things about me that I haven’t shared with anyone here. I’m afraid if people find out, they won’t like me anymore.” Emotions tightened my throat. “I ran away and violated our contract because I wasn’t strong enough to argue with him. I still love him, but I was disappearing more every day I stayed. Not turning into something different but vanishing because I didn’t know what to do to make him see me anymore. I wanted to get stronger before talking to him again but now he’s here, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Let’s take this one item at a time. I doubt there is anything about you that would make anyone here think less of you. Have you abused anyone?”
“No.”
“Are you a wanted criminal?”
