Chapter 41

“Good relationships are about communication. How can she meet your needs if you won’t tell her what they are?”

Kim peered at her over the top of her glasses, which had slipped a little down her nose. Valerie had seen this look often, during their sessions.

Valerie looked down, away from the screen and the camera. She examined the grain of the dark, oiled wood desktop.

“She’s not trying to meet my needs,” she responded quietly, after a few awkward moments.

“Say more about that?”

Valerie closed the lid of the laptop and laid her head down on the table, breathing slowly. She tried to collect her fragile emotions and safely re-pack them so she could face the rest of her day, whatever it held. She had managed to delay talking about Dana for the first few weeks, but eventually the subject had become unavoidable.

Since then, therapy had felt like dismantling a meticulously constructed fiction— one she had built to keep her safe. It was uncomfortable, and she did not particularly feel better afterward. She knew her relationship with Dana was not a perfect model of two women in love, and her therapist driving that fact home did not feel like healing and support. It felt like a crystallization of her reasons for despair.

She stood and left the office, stripping out of the t-shirt she had worn for the session, as Dana had instructed her that morning. It was a band shirt, old and incredibly soft, the screen printing faded and cracked. It was hard for her to keep track of what day of the week it was— she usually only found out it was therapy day when Dana set out normal clothing for her in the morning.

Aside from the t-shirt, she wore the chastity cage that Dana had introduced her to weeks ago. She was not locked into it every day, but it seemed to be part of her outfit more and more often; it had been set out for her the previous morning, and Dana had had not offered to remove it in the intervening time. Valerie knew better than to ask, even though she had felt anxious wearing it during therapy.

She was alone in the house that morning; Dana had left for meetings across the bay, and she had promised to be back by dinner time. She was not in the habit of sharing many details about her business with Valerie, who did not not pry.

Valerie walked upstairs to the kitchen. Her session that morning had been an early one, and she had not had time beforehand for breakfast. She started warming up the espresso machine while she assembled a bowl of cold breakfast cereal, oat milk, and sliced banana.

True to her word, Dana had taught Valerie how to use the complicated apparatus to make coffee. She was improving— she only had to discard a shot about half the time, compared to a few weeks prior when it took her five to ten attempts to produce something that Dana declared to be tolerable. Valerie suspected the woman had simply said that because she had grown bored of watching good coffee beans go to waste.

Earlier that week, Dana had threatened to add making coffee each morning to Valerie’s list of responsibilities. Valerie did not know whether it was a joke or not.

The day passed slowly. She worked out in Dana’s small home gym, another task for which she was allowed to wear clothes, simply as a practical matter. Her therapist had encouraged her to add some physical activity to her regimen, as an aid to depression and anxiety. It helped a little, but working out did nothing to help what she saw as her very concrete reasons to be sad and frightened.

Her lunch was leftover pasta, garlicky and peppery with diced mushrooms, spinach, and a little olive oil. Dana had cooked for them the night before, as she usually did. She cleaned the house just to pass the time, though there was little enough that needed doing.

Dana did not return that evening, and Valerie ate peanut butter and jelly for dinner. Even if she was starting to get the hang of espresso, cooking remained a strange and foreign land, and she could not even look up recipes or online videos to teach herself. She was disappointed by Dana’s absence, if only because Dana would have cooked dinner or ordered something for them to share.

As night fell, she grew frustrated, and annoyed at herself for feeling frustrated. She felt neglected, that Dana had left for so long without letting her know. She knew she had no right to expect anything better, but the long hours of boredom and not knowing were difficult to ignore.

As the evening stretched on, she grew anxious that something had happened to Dana— she had no idea what that would mean for her, but she was very certain it was nothing good.

She went to bed, eventually, late into the night. Since Dana had given her no instructions on that subject, either, she used the master bedroom, after a long, hot shower. She amused herself by imagining it some sort of small rebellion— but she knew, as well, that she would not have disobeyed any instructions Dana had given her.

She slept poorly, unable to escape spiraling thoughts about Dana’s death in a traffic accident and how her life would unravel from there.

Dana returned late the next morning, wearing the same clothes she had left in the day before. She seemed rested and in a mild, pleasant mood. Valerie was somewhat relieved, but also nagged by a lingering sense of anger, which she felt powerless to do anything about.

Dana found Valerie curled on a couch in front of a window, looking out over the landscape view— bored, tired, and sullen.

“Good morning, little toy.”

Dana’s tone did not hint that she had done anything unusual — much less anything wrong — by returning so much later than promised. Valerie wanted to rage, to vent her fear that had become anger. Adrenaline trickled into her veins, but she swallowed it back. She reminded herself that anger was an emotion meant for someone who had transgressed, and Dana had indeed done no wrong, by the terms of their relationship. Could do no wrong, she reminded herself, bitterly.

“You said you would be back yesterday,” she replied, trying to keep her voice neutral.

Dana tilted her head slightly, regarding Valerie. Neutral tone or not, the statement held traces of accusation. She gestured open-handed, something like oh, well.

“You lied to me?”

Valerie blurted it out without thinking, her frustration getting the better of her. Lying was the one thing Dana had promised never to do.

“I didn’t lie. I meant it when I said it.”

Dana sounded slightly angry, and defensive. Valerie shrank, icy fear knotting the muscles in her back. Her anger withered. She looked away and down.

“S— sorry, I just…”

Dana pressed her lips together, and apparently decided not to pursue that line of conversation.

“My meetings went well— we landed a major contract for the co-op.”

“Oh, uhm.. that’s good?” Valerie was nervous; the change of topic felt abrupt, and she thought Dana’s tone had chilled.

“Lucca decided to stay in town so we could celebrate.”

“I… I didn’t know they were here.”

Valerie was surprised by how much the mention of Lucca hurt. She had not heard about them — much less from them — in nearly two months.

She had thought that she and Lucca had connected, something more than opportune playmates. As the days ticked by, Valerie wondered that Lucca had not communicated with her, somehow, or visited. She told herself a story that they were traveling, busy with work, as Dana often was. Hearing that they had been just a few miles away, and with free time, poked a very large hole in that story.

“They’ll be leading a team for the new project… it’s a big promotion for them.”

Valerie nodded in acknowledgement, unsure of what to say. Her head was ringing with a kind of emotional white noise that was impossible to disentangle in the moment- all she could tell is that it felt bad.

“We had dinner and a few drinks,” Dana went on, apparently unaware of Valerie’s inner turmoil. “…and then a club after that. We were both a bit drunk, so we spent the night in the apartment.”

The first— and only— time Valerie had been to Dana’s city apartment flashed into her mind. The last time that Dana had given her the luxury of choice, and the first time they made love— no, she corrected herself. The first time Dana had played with me. This, too, hurt, even though Valerie knew that Dana had had previous partners there— she had said as much— and certainly would again.

It hurt even though she knew that the feeling would be unfair, even if she and Dana had been in a more normal relationship.

Did you talk to them about me? Valerie longed to ask. Did they ask about me?

“I’m— I’m glad. That’s good. I’m glad they’re well,” she said instead, certain her voice was betraying how broken she felt inside.

Dana gave her an unreadable look, silent for a moment. She looked awkward.

“Okay. I’m going to go grab a shower and change into some clean clothes.. why don’t you make me a latte?”

Valerie knew better than to interpret Dana’s words as anything other than a command. She nodded, chewing on her lower lip.

“Yes, mistress,” she replied, her voice quavering.

She wanted to say more— to apologize, to take back what she had said earlier. Some subtle shift in Dana’s demeanor felt dangerous to Valerie, and she could not understand why.

She could think of nothing to say; she stood, and Dana nodded, turning to head for the bedroom.

Valerie thought about Lucca as she preheated the boiler. She thought about the way their hands had felt on her body, as she carefully weighed out and ground the espresso. She thought of what they had said to her, as she tamped the ground coffee into the portafilter; and thought of how they had seemed to care what became of her.

Perhaps they did, she considered, but only in the way that nobody wishes to see a stranger hurt, or an animal.

She ruined the first shot, the water flowing through too easily, too quickly. Espresso required a certain amount of difficulty, of resistance, to extract correctly. She sighed, and started the process over again. Valerie felt like a fool, which had nothing to do with the coffee. A small flame of something like hope, barely bright enough to be recognizable, had been growing inside her. It flickered and dimmed.

She felt alone, but at least it felt comforting in its familiarity. She knew how to be alone.