by Brianna Hale
“I know I screwed up this week,” I say quickly. “Please don’t send me back to the ward.”
Doctor Loftin finishes making note of my weight in her records, and looks up. “I think it’s time for a reassessment of your goals. Tell me your goals, Lacey.”
“They haven’t changed. Maintain my weight. Never go back to the ward.” The Dawnstead Anorexia Inpatient Ward was where I landed myself just over a year ago when my anorexia was at its worst. I lost so much weight in four months that I couldn’t walk, and I temporarily lost my sight and hearing. Everyone around me was terrified, from my roommate who found me collapsed at the bottom of the stairs to my parents when they rushed to the hospital where I’d been admitted. It should have been the most frightening experience of my life, but I felt nothing. You can’t feel anything when you’re starving. My anorexia silenced everything. The memory of not having to feel pain, sadness and fear is an alluring one.
I spent five months on the ward, slowly gaining the weight back. I was getting better, but all the shame and unworthiness came back as I ate. That’s something people don’t tell you about recovery. It makes you feel much, much worse than the actual disease. Suddenly you have the calories to think and your old tricks, the ones you used to pacify your anorexic half, aren’t allowed anymore. So you eat while she screams and screams at you, and you fantasize about tearing the flesh from your bones with your nails because your head is full of agony.
Slowly, it got easier. My treatment taught me how to painfully unstitch that other Lacey from my psyche and admit that I was ill. I could distance myself from her and put her away in that box. I reached a healthy weight and maintained it, and I became an intensive outpatient for four months. That was reduced to weekly therapy and weigh-ins with Doctor Loftin. The therapy will probably never end. Not for years, anyway, and only then if I don’t relapse.
I’m not going to relapse. This week was just a blip.
So far, I’m one of the lucky ones. A lot of people with anorexia backslide and have to become inpatients over and over again. I’m determined to never, ever let that happen. Structuring my life carefully is the way I cope now, not restricting calories. Structure is my deity.
“How does Mr. Blomqvist fit in with these goals?” Doctor Loftin asks.
I look at her sharply. I’m always searching for hidden meaning in her questions because she never tells me outright what she’s thinking. Is she implying that he’s somehow counter to my goals?
“What we have together is straightforward. I have an hour with him every day after our work is finished. It’s something just for me. Just for us.”
It’s heavenly saying us. I’ve never been an us before, even temporarily.
Doctor Loftin’s silence feels like judgment. I hate her silences so much. Does an hour with him sound weird? I wish she’d just tell me what she’s thinking.
I haul a cushion into my lap and start working at a loose thread, scowling down at it like it’s done me a personal injury. “Are you telling me not to do this? Are you implying I’m making a mistake?”
“I’m trying to help you to gain some perspective on something new and important in your life that’s affecting your recovery.”
Oh, she definitely thinks I’m making a mistake. Hearing Mr. Blomqvist be medicalized like this makes my temper ratchet up to a thirteen. The words start spilling uncontrollably out of my mouth. “It wasn’t even Mr. Blomqvist who made me lose a pound. It was worrying about telling you about him. Other people get the luxury of making mistakes in private, but because I’ve got disease everything I do gets trawled out here in front of you. It’s not fair.”
“Do you think sleeping with your boss is a mistake?”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second. I walked right into that one. I was dreading this all week, and now I’ve done exactly what I feared and made a mess of this. I’m twenty-four, and I have the dating experience of a thirteen-year-old.
I throw the cushion to the other end of the couch, wishing it was a vase I was hurling at a wall. “No. I phrased that wrong. I think he’s very good for me, actually.”
“Masking difficult feelings with sex can—”
“We don’t have sex, actually. He hits me.”
Doctor Loftin hesitates, and then closes her mouth. I know I’m only making it worse, speaking of my relationship with Mr. Blomqvist like I’m too immature to know what I’m talking about, let alone doing. Wanting to shock her rather than communicate. But the unfairness of it all is so wretched. Why can’t I just be normal and choose what I want for myself? Why does everything I do have to be a symptom of my anorexia instead of something precious that’s mine?
I mash my hands over my face so I don’t have to look at Doctor Loftin. She’s silent, and for once I’m grateful. I lean into my palms, wishing I was far away from here.
Good job, idiot. That’s not even my anorexia talking. That’s just me.
I take a deep breath and sit up a little straighter. This is hard, but I can’t act sulky and resentful. That will only convince Doctor Loftin that I’m too immature for something that I know is making me happy.
“I want to start again. I didn’t tell you this in the way I was hoping to. I’m defensive about him, and so I sound childish.”
Doctor Loftin waits for me to continue. I remember a conversation we had several months ago about my need for approval, and I know she’s probably remembering it, too. How I want approval from her. How I want approval from everyone. She’s tried to teach me ways to distance myself from that need, so putting into words why I think a man who spanks me and says good girl is good for me is going to be impossible. Worse, it’s going to sound unhealthy, and I’m never, ever allowed to have anything in my life that’s unhealthy. If Doctor Loftin thinks I’m engaging in destructive behaviors she can have me sectioned and sent back to the ward against my will.
I take a deep breath, trying to quell the panic that’s rising up. I’m risking so much by getting involved with Mr. Blomqvist, but I can’t go on merely existing. I have to find ways to live.
Doctor Loftin says, “There was a Dutch study a few years ago that indicated people who engage in BDSM activities report less neuroticism and a higher sense of well-being.”
I look up at her. Instead of the face of professional judgment I expected to see, Doctor Loftin smiles at me mildly.
“I’m concerned that he’s your employer because there’s already a power imbalance in play, but you’ve said that you’ll only be Mr. Blomqvist’s assistant in the short-term. It’s not inherently harmful to engage in BDSM activities with a partner who is aware of your treatment. Does he know?”
I sit back, feeling stunned. “Um. A little bit. I told him I’m in therapy and he knows it’s food-related, but I haven’t talked to him in detail about it. I think he’s waiting for me to bring it up. Every time I tell him something about it he listens and says thank you. And—and I kind of love that about him.” I scratch my forearm, not looking at her.
“I can see why you would.”
I feel the corners of my mouth curl up in a sheepish smile. All right. I take back every crappy thing I’ve ever thought about Doctor Loftin. “Thank you. I guess it’s safe with him. I’m not talking just about the kinky stuff. I mean, it’s safe in that room with him. No one’s going to make me eat anything. He’s in charge. I don’t have to speak. I don’t have to think. I get to feel what it’s like when a man wants you. I didn’t think I’d have that because to get close to a man you have to go on dates first, and I can’t do that. With Mr. Blomqvist, all that’s completely irrelevant to our arrangement. It’s such a relief.”
Doctor Loftin nods and doesn’t say anything.
“I think that’s all I want to say about it today,” I tell her, and she nods again. What I have with Mr. Blomqvist is special and private. I don’t want to make it clinical within these four walls.
“I want to see that you’ve gained the weight back by next week, Lacey. You know what that means. The weigh
t-gain meal plan until you’re back to where you were.”
My heart sinks, but I nod. The weight gain meal plan has cake and ice-cream on it, two incredibly scary foods that I’ll have to face for a week, maybe two, because I slipped up. It’s going to be demanding, but at least I got through this hour, and I still have Mr. Blomqvist. I still have something that’s mine.
At six o’clock that evening, I head into Mr. Blomqvist’s office. Instead of going to my usual spot in the middle of the room, I go and sit at his feet. I need to talk to him, and this is the time when I feel the bravest.
Mr. Blomqvist turns to me and puts a hand on my cheek. “Käraste? You can speak.”
“I’ve had trouble eating this week. I haven’t eaten as much as I agreed with my therapist and I lost weight.” He waits for me to go on. “That’s not allowed, and I didn’t want to lose that pound, but part of me is glad. The cruel half. She tells me that you’ll like me better if I’m smaller.”
This is the tricky part about telling people about the anorexic voice. Sometimes people hear what I’m saying and get defensive, thinking I’m blaming them for my disease. I can still hear my mother saying to my doctor, back in the first days after my diagnosis, “I never told her that she needed to lose weight. How dare she put this on me?”
Mum didn’t tell me to lose weight, but the voice said it’s what she wanted, a daughter who isn’t so disgusting and greedy. Doctor Loftin once asked me how often the nasty voice talks about what other people think of me. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I told her.
“Why has it been hard to eat this week?” he asks me.
“Because I had to tell my therapist about you. And now I have to tell you that I told her.”
I bury my face against his thighs and wrap my arms over my head, seeking to hide as much as I’m seeking comfort. I feel again the unfairness of it all, that I can never just enjoy something. It always has to be raked over and analyzed.
Mr. Blomqvist strokes my hair and doesn’t say anything.
“I’m scared because if I slip, she’ll send me back to the anorexia ward,” I say, my words slightly muffled against his thigh. “It’s the worst place in the world. You have no idea what it feels like. Not because of what they do to you, though that’s bad enough. Because of the shame you feel in your heart.” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “But I’m not going to slip.”
He goes on stroking my hair.
“I looked up this daddy dom thing online the other day. It’s called daddy dom, little girl. You never call me your little girl. You probably made a mental list of danger words never to use with me. I’m grateful, but it’s hard, you know? Realizing that you’ve had to censor yourself around me.”
Finally, he murmurs, “Being my girl is not about your size or the way you look. I don’t feel censored because it’s easy to call you other things.”
I lift my head and look up at him. “Convince me, please. Convince me of everything, in that way you do. Especially, convince me that I haven’t just made you hate me because I told you the truth about me.”
Mr. Blomqvist stands up and helps me to my feet. His mouth descends on mine in a kiss that takes my breath away, and he pulls me so tightly against his body that the heat from his chest envelops me. He’s kissing me like a lover, and I need that so badly, and when his hand creeps up to take tight hold of my hair, I need that even more.
“Take off your underwear,” he orders me.
I do as I’m told, and he grips my hair the entire time, and each movement I make tugs sharply on my scalp. He holds out his hand for my panties, and then spins me around so I’m facing away from him.
He picks me up and sits me on his desk, and ties my hands behind my back with my underwear. “Open your legs.”
I draw my knees up to my chest and open them while he takes vicious hold of my ponytail again and pulls me back against his chest. His other hand reaches down and strokes my thigh. The play of his fingers is gentle at first, and he trails over the seam of my pussy and back again. Then he grips my thigh, hard, his fingers digging in, and I hiss in pain.
“Do you think I would stand for anyone hurting my käraste?”
I hesitate, not knowing if I’m allowed to speak or not.
His tongue curls up the rim of my ear. “You may answer me. Is that what you think?”
“No, daddy.”
His hand travels back to my sex and delves between my pussy lips. I’ve grown wet while he’s handled me roughly and sweetly and then roughly again.
“Good. I would have to be angry with you otherwise. Do you know what I do to girls who start believing dirty little lies?”
“I—”
I start to answer, but he takes his hand away and then smacks it against my sex. Bright pain fizzles through me. I try to curve my body around the pain, but he grips my hair mercilessly and pulls my legs open again.
“Did I say you could move?”
“No daddy,” I whimper.
“I won’t stand for you disrespecting yourself. Not looking after yourself is disrespecting you, and it’s disrespecting me as well. I expect better than that from you. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
He smacks my pussy again, harder than before, and it makes a wet, smacking sound. “What was that?”
Fuck, that hurts so bad. He’s spanking me far fewer times than if it was my ass, but it’s ten times more intense.
I try to curl up to protect myself, but he growls in my ear, “Keep your legs open or I will bend you over this desk and strap you with my belt. Then you’ll really have something to fucking cry about.”
I shuffle my feet open again, taking deep breaths.
“I’m still waiting for you to answer my question.”
What was it? Oh, yes, that he expects more from me. “Yes, daddy.”
That seems to assuage him because his fingers find my clit and he’s gentle once more. He softly kisses my throat. “Are you ever going to please everyone?”
“No.”
“Are you going to please me?”
“I hope so.” I’m going to try my hardest.
“No.” He spanks my pussy again. I gasp through the pain, but I don’t move. He grips my hair and angles my ear up to his lips, and snarls, “I said, are you going to please me? Just as you are. Just like this.”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Do you believe that you can?” He spanks my pussy again, and I jump in his arms. “I need to feel that you mean it.”
I look up into his ferocious blue gaze. “I do believe it, daddy.”
He bites down on my earlobe and then sucks on it. “I believe it, too. Good girl.”
My eyes close as he sinks a finger into my pussy, and then goes back to working my clit, as sweet as can be now, his hand stroking my hair and his lips against my throat. A tight bead of pleasure grows through the heat and pain, and when I come, he wraps his arm around my waist so he can feel my climax with his body, and buries his face against my throat.
“Beautiful,” he says raggedly. Mr. Blomqvist unties my hands, shoves my underwear into his pocket and helps me off his desk and into his arms. He holds me tightly, cradling me with his whole body.
“I’m proud of you for telling her. And then for telling me.”
I bury my face against his chest and wrap my arms around him, eyes closed. The realization dawns on me. I actually did it. A hard, scary thing, and I didn’t fall apart or let her out of her box. I smile up at him, suddenly feeling high. On life. On achievement. On him. “Yeah. I did it.”
We’ve still got half an hour together, so we sit quietly together on the sofa. I love these moments together, warm and happy in his arms. He plays with my hair, watching me without saying anything. I showed him a little more of what a basket case I am and he still hasn’t freaked out. His hands on me are only loving.
“You know who you remind me of?” I say, looking up at him. He raises an eyebrow questioningly. “The Laconians of Ancient Greece.”
His mo
uth twitches. “A whole people?”
“Yes.” I lace my fingers through his, playing with them and tracing his tattoos. “They were a very taciturn people. After Phillip of Macedon conquered lots of Greece, he sent a message to Laconia and asked if he should come as friend or foe. They replied, Neither. That pissed him off a whole load, and so he sent them an angry letter. You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city. Do you know what they replied?”
He raises his eyebrow again.
“They said, If.”
He grins at me, but still doesn’t say anything.
“Laconic, that’s you.”
“Is that fancy talk for grumpy and shy?”
“Shy? You?” He’s surely the least shy person I’ve ever met.
“How can you tell if a Swedish man likes you?”
I giggle and twist my fingers through his. “How?”
“He’s looking at your shoes and not his own.”
“Swedish men? Really? Aren’t you all supposed to be incredibly sexually liberated or something?”
“The women are. The men dress nicely and hope that a pretty girl approaches us.” He kisses me gently. “Like you did. Asking to be one of my bonsai.”
I bury my face in his chest, my face burning with embarrassment. “I still can’t believe I said that to you.”
“I’m so glad you did.” He reaches an arm behind the sofa, retrieves a carry bag and sets it on my lap. “Happy birthday, by the way.”
I lift my head and look up at him in surprise. It’s not actually my birthday until tomorrow, and I’ve been trying my best to ignore it. “How did you know?”
“Your father texted me the other day. He said you don’t want to celebrate this year but that I might like to know. He was right. I did want to know. Why didn’t you tell me, käraste?”
I shrug awkwardly. “Birthdays are…difficult.”
My last birthday was on the ward. I was made to eat birthday cake. The nurses actually stand over you while you eat and all the toilet doors are locked for half an hour afterward so you don’t go and throw anything up. Happy birthday to me.
