Today, I came across words about tattooed women that cut far deeper than I ever would have expected. The sentiment was essentially that women who choose to tattoo their bodies are somehow worthy of less respect, that being heavily tattooed says something negative about the woman herself. It went beyond simply finding tattoos unattractive. It reduced a woman’s character and worth to a choice she made about her own skin.
And those words hurt me more deeply than I want to admit. I’m not angry. I almost wish I were. Anger would be easier. I could get pissed off, call someone an asshole, throw up my middle finger, and move on with my day. Instead, I am incredibly hurt. The kind of hurt that makes me want to pull away from everyone for a while. The kind that makes me want to hide myself, cover myself, and stop letting people see the parts of me they might find something wrong with.
I know that sounds like an enormous reaction to a few cruel sentences. Maybe it is. But words don’t land in empty places. Sometimes they land directly on top of every other word that came before them.
I got my first tattoo when I was 46 years old. There was nothing impulsive about that decision, and there is nothing impulsive about any of the tattoos on my body. The front of my right arm has become this dark, elegant piece that feels incredibly representative of one part of me. On my left arm are three vivid watercolor tattoos that represent other pieces of who I am. Every one of them has meaning. Every one was thought about and deliberately chosen. There is darkness in me and there is color. There is softness and intensity. There are pieces of myself I spent decades discovering, and eventually I chose to put some of them on my skin.
And my tattoos make me feel sexy.
Even writing that makes me feel vulnerable because feeling sexy has never come easily to me. I have been judged for my weight for as long as I can remember. It began before I was old enough to understand what was happening. Some of those messages came from my own mother. Others came from society, from boys, from men, from clothes that weren’t made for bodies like mine, from movies and television, from jokes and looks. I learned very young that my body was something I was supposed to be ashamed of.
When it came to men, I learned another lesson. I could always be the friend. I could be funny, smart, easy to talk to, dependable, and one of the guys. And sure, sometimes a man might want to play around with the fat girl. Privately. There could be attraction behind a closed door. There could be touching and sex and desire when nobody else was looking. But owning that attraction in the light of day was something entirely different. In the light of day, I was the friend again. One of the guys. Someone they could talk to, laugh with, and confide in, but not necessarily the woman they wanted everyone else to know they wanted.
You learn from that. You learn to question attraction even when someone tells you it is there. You wonder whether they would still want you if someone else were watching. You wonder whether they would reach for your hand in public as easily as they reach for your body in private. You begin wondering whether you are actually desirable or merely acceptable when nobody else knows.
And then people wonder why you overthink.
I have a lot of feelings. I know that about myself. I feel things deeply, I attach meaning to things, and I can overthink at the drop of a hat. Sometimes I wish I could switch that part of my brain off. But it didn’t appear out of nowhere. When you spend enough of your life being taught that there is something fundamentally wrong with the body you inhabit, you become very good at waiting for the moment when someone else discovers it too.
And somewhere along the way, I learned that my body wasn’t the only thing about me that could be too much. My feelings could be too much too.
There seems to be this strange expectation that a woman should be emotionally available enough to nurture everyone around her, but not so emotional that anyone has to actually deal with hers. She can be compassionate. She can listen. She can soothe. She can understand. She can make space for someone else’s fears, insecurities, frustrations, desires, bad days, and complicated feelings. But God forbid she comes with a full set of her own.
I do.
I am not emotionally detached. I don’t know how to care about someone casually once I genuinely care. Things matter to me. Words matter to me. Changes in behavior matter to me. Connection matters to me. I need communication. Sometimes I need reassurance. Sometimes I need someone willing to sit with a feeling instead of immediately trying to fix it, minimize it, or run from it because now there is an emotion in the room that requires something from them.
And I know that counts me out for some men too.
I have heard enough variations of men saying they don’t want “drama,” don’t want to “manage someone’s emotions,” or want a woman who is “easygoing” to understand what is sometimes hiding underneath those words. Certainly there are unhealthy emotional behaviors nobody should be expected to manage. But having feelings isn’t inherently unhealthy. Needing emotional reciprocity isn’t drama. Wanting someone to care that they hurt you isn’t asking them to manage you.
Still, sometimes I wonder whether being a plus-size woman with a soft heart is simply two strikes before I ever step up to the plate. My body can be too much to openly desire, and my feelings can be too much to openly love.
So you learn to make yourself easier. You try not to ask for reassurance. You swallow the question. You tell yourself you’re overthinking. You pretend something didn’t hurt because you don’t want to be difficult. You become incredibly understanding of everyone else’s circumstances while quietly wondering whether anyone will ever extend the same patience toward yours.
And the cruel irony is that I spend my professional life understanding emotions. I know feelings don’t make someone weak. I know vulnerability is not pathology. I know emotional needs aren’t character defects. I can explain all of that beautifully when I am talking about someone else.
It becomes much harder when the woman needing that grace is me.
That is why words like these can still find me. Because somewhere underneath everything I know intellectually is a much older lesson: there will always be something about me that makes me too much and somehow still not enough.
Too fat. Too emotional. Too independent. Too sexual. Too opinionated. Too complicated. Too tattooed, apparently.
And when something happens that seems to confirm one of those old lessons, some little part of me quietly says, There it is. I knew it was coming.
That is where those words landed.
It wasn’t simply someone saying they don’t like tattoos. People are allowed not to like tattoos. People are allowed not to be attracted to my body. People are allowed to look at me and decide I am absolutely not their type. I can accept all of those things. The cruelty is turning a preference into a judgment about the woman underneath the ink. Believing less of women who choose to tattoo their bodies isn’t a preference. Deciding that their appearance somehow makes them unworthy of basic consideration isn’t about attraction. It is about deciding that something about a woman’s appearance diminishes her value as a human being.
Because underneath the therapist and the writer, underneath the woman who can stand in front of a room and speak confidently, organize things, advocate for people, and get shit done, there is still a woman who sometimes looks in the mirror and struggles to see what other people tell her they see. There is still the girl who learned she was supposed to be ashamed of her body. There is still the young woman who learned that she could be wanted privately and ignored publicly. There is still a part of me that is terrified that no matter what else I become, my body will always be the thing someone eventually uses to decide I am not enough.
I wish I had thicker skin. People sometimes mistake being strong for being difficult to hurt, but those aren’t the same thing. I have survived plenty. I have accomplished things I am proud of. I can advocate fiercely for other people. I can tell another woman that her body doesn’t determine her worth and believe every fucking word of it. But I am soft-hearted. I feel things deeply. Sometimes another person’s words get through every layer of strength I have built and find the part of me that still remembers every reason I was ever given to feel ashamed of myself.
Maybe tomorrow I will look at the dark elegance covering my right arm and remember why I chose it. Maybe I will look at the vivid watercolors on my left and remember what each one represents. Maybe I will remember that at 46 years old I finally started making choices about my body based on what made me feel beautiful instead of what might make my body more acceptable to someone else. Maybe I will feel sexy again.
I hope so.
But tonight I am simply acknowledging that someone’s words hurt me deeply. Not because their opinion defines me, and not because I believe what they said is true. They hurt because they sounded just enough like all the other voices I have spent a lifetime trying to silence. The voices that taught me my body should embarrass me. The voices that taught me I could be desired, but perhaps not claimed. The voices that taught me to expect friendship in the daylight and desire only behind closed doors. And now, perhaps, the voices that tell me even if someone can accept the body, eventually they may discover that the woman living inside it comes with too many feelings.
I hate that those voices still live somewhere inside me. I hate that a handful of words can wake them up again. And right now, I don’t have a beautiful ending for this. I don’t have a lesson or some perfectly packaged declaration about loving every inch of myself regardless of what anyone thinks.
Tonight makes me want to be away from other people. To retreat into myself, bury myself under the covers, shut everything out, and hide away from everyone for a while. Not because I want someone to come looking for me. Not because I am trying to make some dramatic statement. I just don’t want to be seen right now.
Because underneath all the complicated explanations for why this hurts, there is also a painfully simple truth.
Not being wanted sucks.
It sucks to feel passed over. It sucks to feel like you can offer intelligence, humor, loyalty, affection, sexuality, softness, depth, and every other complicated piece of yourself and still somehow be the woman who isn’t chosen. It sucks when you have spent so much of your life wondering whether your body makes you undesirable, only to reach an age where you have finally started finding pieces of yourself beautiful and discover there are apparently still new reasons you can be disqualified.
And sometimes I get tired of trying to convince myself that it shouldn’t hurt.
It does.
Tonight, it hurts enough that I want to hide. Maybe being honest about that is enough.
I wonder what it would feel like to stand between Daddy’s knees while he sat in that chair, close enough to feel the warmth of him before he ever touched me.
My dress falling softly around my thighs. His eyes on me. Waiting.
Until his hands found the hem and slipped beneath it, slowly, deliberately, like he had all the time in the world to discover what was waiting there.
I wonder if I would breathe his name or forget how to speak entirely. If his hands would wander higher, drawing me closer until there was nowhere left to pretend I didn’t want him.
God, I want to know what Daddy’s hunger feels like.
Not careful. Not measured.
The kind that makes him reach for me before either of us has decided what happens next.
I want to know what it feels like when he grabs me and suddenly my back is against the wall, his body close to mine, his mouth finding mine with all the longing we have never given words to.
A kiss that isn’t polite.
A kiss that says, there you are.
His hands roaming over me like he has imagined this too, like there are places on my body he has wanted to touch and tonight he has finally stopped telling himself he shouldn’t.
I want to feel wanted without having to wonder. To feel his fingers tighten around me because closer still isn’t close enough.
To kiss him until the rest of the room disappears, until there is only Daddy, my body against his, and all those quiet, impossible things we have never said.
But maybe that isn’t the part I want most.
Maybe the fantasy that ruins me comes later.
When the night has softened, when I straighten my dress and find my shoes and reach for the things that mean it is time to go.
I imagine Daddy watching me.
And for once, he doesn’t simply let me leave.
Stay.
One word. Maybe quiet. Maybe almost reluctant.
Stay.
And I look at him because surely I misunderstood. But he reaches for me again.
Not because he wants another kiss. Not because he wants my body. Not because there is something else he wants from me.
Because he wants me there.
Stay a little longer.
So I do.
Maybe we talk. Maybe we laugh. Maybe I curl against him with my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat without wondering when I have overstayed my welcome.
Maybe he tells me things I have never been allowed to know. Small things. Ordinary things.
The pieces of him that exist outside closed doors and stolen moments.
Maybe Daddy lets me see the rooms inside him I have only ever stood outside of.
And that is the fantasy I almost cannot bear.
Because I already know what it is to want his hands. I know what it is to imagine his mouth. I know what hunger does when I think about Daddy wanting my body.
But this?
This is something far more dangerous.
Daddy wanting me to stay. Daddy making room for me.
Daddy opening the door instead of meeting me on the other side of it.
She does not know exactly when the breaking began. There was no great collision, no single moment violent enough to explain the wreckage. Just small fractures.
A silence where there used to be words. A hand that stopped reaching. A place beside someone that slowly stopped feeling like hers. Another moment of realizing she had mistaken being wanted for being chosen.
Another person who could find her when they needed warmth, comfort, laughter, softness, something easy to reach for, but somehow never learned how to reach for her when she was the one who needed something.
And somewhere beneath all of that, the first crack appeared.
She covered it well. She has always known how. She smiled over it. Worked over it. Wrote beautiful things over it. Held other people’s pain with hands already trembling beneath the weight of her own.
But cracks do not disappear because no one notices them. They spread quietly through the places where hope lives, through every tender part of her that still believed someday someone might look at all that she is and decide she was worth the effort of staying.
Not visiting. Not reaching when lonely. Not remembering her when convenient. Staying.
And God, she is tired of pretending that wanting that does not hurt.
She is tired of being strong enough to understand everyone’s reasons. Their lives are complicated. They are busy. They have responsibilities. They are tired. They have their own wounds.
She knows. She always knows.
She can explain every absence until it sounds almost reasonable. But understanding why someone does not choose her has never made it hurt less to remain unchosen.
So another piece loosens. Then another. And another. Until she can feel parts of herself falling away while she stands perfectly still, trying not to make a sound.
Because there is something humiliating about breaking over things everyone else seems able to survive.
So she gathers the pieces. Of course she does. She tucks them beneath her ribs and carries them with her.
She goes to work. She answers messages. She laughs. She creates. She shows up.
And no one hears the tiny sound of another piece hitting the floor. But she does. She hears every one.
And today she does not want to turn this into something beautiful. She does not want to be told the cracks are where the light enters. She does not want gold poured into the fractures.
She does not want a lesson. She does not want resilience. She does not want to become stronger because something else managed to hurt her.
Today, she is simply breaking.
And maybe the saddest part is that some small piece of her is still standing among the wreckage, still listening for footsteps, still hoping someone will notice she is falling apart before she has to learn how to put herself back together alone.
She has heard it in different words her entire life. Sometimes spoken. Sometimes implied. Sometimes delivered through the slow disappearance of people who once seemed certain they wanted to know her.
She is too much.
Too much emotion. Too much intensity. Too much presence. Too much body occupying too much space. She laughs too loudly, cares too deeply, notices too quickly, remembers too much and feels everything long after everyone else has moved on.
People seem to like her best in pieces. The funny part. The useful part. The reckless part. The part that answers the phone, makes things easier, or becomes whatever the moment requires.
She can be a good time. She can be the name remembered after too many drinks, the curiosity someone finally decides to explore, the person reached for when ordinary no longer satisfies.
She can be wanted.
God, she knows she can be wanted.
But wanted and chosen have never meant the same thing, and she learned that distinction slowly, painfully, through enough almosts to recognize the difference before anyone has to explain it.
Chosen belongs to daylight.
Chosen gets ordinary mornings and inconvenient afternoons. Chosen gets a place that does not disappear when circumstances change. Chosen does not have to wonder whether silence means busy, overwhelmed, bored, finished, or simply forgotten.
She has never understood what makes someone become that person.
The one people stay for. The one they make room for instead of fitting into whatever space remains. The one whose absence is noticed before she has to announce that she has stopped showing up.
In love, she has been convenient. In friendship, she has been convenient. Reliable enough to call, independent enough not to require much, strong enough that leaving her rarely seems cruel.
She makes it easy for them.
Perhaps that is her greatest mistake.
She understands circumstances before anyone explains them. She forgives distance before anyone apologizes for creating it. She finds reasons for silence, excuses absence, lowers expectations, and makes herself comfortable with whatever portion is offered.
She never wants anyone to feel trapped by her.
So she leaves every exit unlocked.
Then watches people use them.
Maybe that is why she loves the darkness.
There are no promises hidden in it. No expectation that morning will suddenly make everything different. No requirement to become smaller, quieter, easier, or less complicated before she is allowed to belong.
The darkness has never asked her to explain her size.
It has never flinched at the enormity of her emotions. Never called her intensity exhausting. Never asked her to soften the sharp edges or tuck away the inconvenient pieces so someone else could hold her comfortably.
It simply takes all of her.
The beautiful. The difficult. The excessive. The body she has spent years apologizing for. The heart she has repeatedly tried to teach to need less than it does.
All of her.
Maybe that is why she stopped fearing the night long before she stopped fearing abandonment.
Because darkness does something people rarely have.
It stays.
It surrounds her without asking her to earn the space she occupies. It asks nothing of her except that she exist inside it, exactly as enormous and complicated as she has always been.
And when morning comes, she already knows what happens.
The darkness will retreat. The world will begin choosing again.
And she will stand quietly at the edge of the daylight, wondering what it might feel like, just once, to be too much and still be chosen.
She almost sent it. Something funny, something strange, something that would have earned exactly the response she already knew was coming. Her thumb hovered. Then stopped. It was such a small thing to notice.
There had been a time when she never thought about whether to send something. She just did. A ridiculous video. A song. A headline. A random thought that required exactly one person to understand why it was funny.
Somewhere along the way, someone had become part of her daily language. Not dramatically. Not intentionally. Just through the accumulation of ordinary things. Conversations. Opinions. Sarcasm.
Advice she sometimes asked for and sometimes received without asking. The occasional brutal observation she did not particularly want to hear but usually needed. There was comfort in knowing there was someone she could throw a thought toward and trust that something interesting would come back.
She valued that. More than she realized until it became less frequent. She knows life gets complicated. People get overwhelmed. Families need them. Responsibilities pile up. Some people become quiet when the world gets heavy.
She knows all of this. Understanding, however, does not make silence feel less silent. And friendship is a strange thing. There are no contracts. No required number of messages per week. No attendance policy.
No official notice when something changes. Sometimes it simply does. One person notices first. She noticed.
She also noticed that she had begun doing something she never used to do: wondering if she was bothering someone. That bothered her more than the silence itself. Because friendship had never felt like asking permission to exist in someone’s day.
She considered asking about it. Directly. No drama. No accusations. Just: What do you need from me? Space? Fine. Someone in your corner? Already there. She could work with almost anything except guessing.
But eventually she realized she had already provided all the information necessary. She had shown up. She had checked in. She had cared. Nothing more needed explaining.
So the next time something made her laugh, she didn’t send it. When she saw something that would have started a twenty-minute argument neither of them actually cared about, she kept scrolling. When a thought appeared that belonged naturally in an old conversation, she let it remain only a thought.
Not because she was angry. Not because she had stopped caring. And certainly not because she wanted the friendship to disappear. She simply stopped initiating. There is a difference.
She hopes someday she stops noticing every unsent thing. She hopes even more that she doesn’t have to.
But for now, the funny video stays in her phone. The thought goes unshared. The conversation remains quiet. And for once, she lets someone else decide whether to start it.
Depression does not care which side of the slash you occupy. ㅤ It does not care whether you kneel or whether someone kneels for you. It does not care whether you hold the leash, wear the collar, switch between the two, or want absolutely nothing to do with power exchange at all. Depression does not disappear because the dungeon door closes. It does not politely wait outside while we pick up the flogger. It comes inside with us. ㅤ And sometimes, it changes what happens there. ㅤ Depression is often reduced to sadness, but sadness is only one possible part of it. Depression can look like exhaustion, irritability, numbness, difficulty concentrating, loss of pleasure, changes in appetite or sleep, withdrawal from other people, difficulty making decisions, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt. It can feel like a body that is impossibly heavy and a mind that seems determined to convince its owner that nothing is going to get better. ㅤ For kinky people, those symptoms do not exist separately from kink. They can affect desire, negotiation, service, dominance, submission, pain tolerance, libido, communication, aftercare, rituals, protocols, and the ability to connect with partners. ㅤ And sometimes depression creates a much more complicated question: ㅤ When depression changes what you want from kink, how do you know whether kink is helping you feel more alive or helping you hurt yourself?
First, Kink Is Not the Pathology
ㅤ Before discussing depression and BDSM together, something needs to be made very clear: being kinky is not evidence that someone is mentally ill. ㅤ Historically, BDSM interests and behaviors have been heavily pathologized. Contemporary research paints a very different picture. In a large study comparing 902 BDSM practitioners with 434 control participants, Wismeijer and van Assen (2013) found that BDSM practitioners generally demonstrated psychological characteristics that were at least as healthy as, and on several measures more favorable than, those of the control group. The authors concluded that BDSM could be understood as recreational leisure rather than an expression of psychopathology. ㅤ That distinction matters. A person can be kinky and depressed. Their depression does not make their kink pathological, and their kink does not automatically explain their depression. The question is not whether BDSM causes mental illness. The more useful question is what happens when someone who already lives with depression also lives within kink.
When Depression Enters Kink
ㅤ Depression can change our relationship with things we ordinarily enjoy. Psychologists call one of its hallmark symptoms anhedonia, or a diminished ability to experience interest or pleasure. ㅤ For a kinky person, that can be confusing as hell. The toys are still there. The fantasies may still exist somewhere. The collar may still matter. The partner may still be deeply wanted. But the internal response that normally accompanies those things may suddenly be absent. ㅤ Someone who normally craves impact may find the idea exhausting. Someone who loves bondage may not want to be touched. Someone whose submission is deeply meaningful may struggle to complete even simple acts of service. A Dominant who normally delights in planning scenes may stare at a toy bag and feel absolutely nothing. ㅤ That absence can easily become personalized. Maybe I’m not submissive anymore. Maybe I’m failing my Dominant. Maybe I don’t want my submissive anymore. Maybe something is wrong with our dynamic. ㅤ Sometimes something has changed within the dynamic. But sometimes depression has simply turned down the volume on nearly everything that once produced pleasure. ㅤ
Depression on the Submissive Side of the Slash
ㅤ Submission can involve service, attentiveness, rituals, protocols, obedience, sexual availability within negotiated boundaries, emotional vulnerability, or countless other expressions depending on the people involved. Depression can interfere with nearly all of them. ㅤ A submissive who normally finds satisfaction in completing tasks may suddenly struggle to begin them. Rituals that once created comfort may feel overwhelming. Executive functioning can become impaired. Energy can disappear. Concentration can become difficult. ㅤ And depression has a nasty habit of turning difficulty into moral judgment. I didn’t complete my task can quickly become I’m a bad submissive. Then, I’m disappointing my Dominant. And eventually, They would be better off with someone else. ㅤ That progression matters because a depressive symptom has quietly transformed into a judgment about worth. ㅤ A Dominant who does not understand what is happening may accidentally reinforce it. If every missed task is interpreted exclusively as disobedience, laziness, carelessness, or lack of devotion, discipline may land very differently than it normally would. ㅤ This does not mean expectations must disappear whenever someone is depressed. Nor does it mean accountability becomes impossible. It means context matters. Sometimes maintaining a familiar protocol provides desperately needed structure. Sometimes modifying the protocol is the healthier expression of the dynamic. Knowing the difference requires communication rather than assumption. ㅤ
Depression on the Dominant Side of the Slash
ㅤ We do not talk about this nearly enough. ㅤ There is a persistent mythology in some corners of BDSM that Dominants are supposed to be endlessly composed, confident, decisive, sexually available, protective, competent, and in control. Depression does not give a damn about that mythology. ㅤ A depressed Dominant may struggle to make decisions. Scene planning may feel overwhelming. Libido may disappear. Maintaining protocols can begin feeling like another obligation in a life already overflowing with them. Even providing reassurance may become difficult when someone is struggling to reassure themselves. ㅤ And that can produce its own shame. If dominance has become intertwined with someone’s understanding of strength, what happens when getting out of bed feels difficult? What happens when the person accustomed to saying kneel barely has enough energy to stand? What happens when someone who is normally responsible for creating structure cannot create it? ㅤ A Dominant experiencing depression has not suddenly become less Dominant. They have become a Dominant experiencing depression. ㅤ That distinction sounds simple, but it matters enormously. ㅤ Research examining BDSM interactions has also demonstrated that Dominant participants are not psychologically or physiologically detached observers of a scene. Wuyts et al. (2020) found measurable biological responses among both Dominant and submissive participants during BDSM interactions. Submissive participants showed increases in cortisol and endocannabinoids, while Dominant participants showed increased endocannabinoids when power play was involved. ㅤ The researchers were studying biological mechanisms associated with BDSM, not depression. Their findings therefore should not be interpreted as evidence that BDSM treats depressive disorders. What they do remind us is that both sides of an interaction are having an experience. ㅤ The person holding the implement is still human.
And Then There Are Switches
ㅤ The slash was never quite that simple anyway. ㅤ For switches, depression may affect different aspects of kink at different times. Someone may not have the emotional energy to lead but desperately crave surrender. Someone who usually wants to submit may suddenly find vulnerability intolerable but feel safer occupying the Dominant role. Another person may want neither. ㅤ That does not necessarily mean their identity has changed. Needs change. Capacity changes. Depression can change both. ㅤ The healthiest question may not be Which role am I supposed to be right now? It may be: What do I actually have the capacity for today? ㅤ
When “Hurt Me” Changes Meaning
ㅤ This may be one of the most important conversations in this entire discussion. ㅤ Masochism and self-punishment are not synonymous. Someone can enjoy pain because pain is erotic, pleasurable, cathartic, challenging, intimate, grounding, ritualistic, or simply because their wonderfully strange nervous system says, Yes, more of that. ㅤ But depression can introduce another voice: I deserve to hurt. ㅤ Those sentences can lead to similar requests. They do not necessarily come from the same place. ㅤ That means a masochist experiencing depression may occasionally need to ask themselves questions they normally would not: Do I want this because I enjoy it? Do I want the connection that comes with it? Do I want intensity because I feel numb? Am I chasing catharsis? Or am I asking someone to punish me because I currently believe I deserve suffering? ㅤ There is no universally correct answer. Wanting intense sensation while depressed does not automatically make a scene unhealthy. Pain can still be pleasurable. Impact can still be grounding. Kink can still belong to someone even on their worst mental health days. ㅤ But when the motivation changes, the negotiation may need to change with it. Because sometimes “hurt me” means exactly what it always meant. ㅤ And sometimes it doesn’t. ㅤ
Degradation When the Cruel Voice Is Already Inside
ㅤ Degradation creates another complicated intersection. Consensual degradation can be enormously erotic precisely because the participants understand the frame surrounding it. Words are negotiated. Meaning is contextual. Someone may become aroused by being called something in a scene that they would never tolerate outside one. ㅤ Depression, however, is already very good at degradation. ㅤ Worthless. Useless. Burden. Failure. Unlovable. ㅤ When someone’s internal dialogue already sounds cruel, negotiated humiliation can interact with those cognitions differently. Again, this does not mean people experiencing depression cannot engage in degradation play. It means awareness matters. ㅤ A word that normally produces arousal may suddenly reinforce something the person is struggling desperately not to believe. The question becomes not simply, Is this normally a kink of mine? but What does this word mean to me today? ㅤ
Consent Does Not Disappear With a Diagnosis
ㅤ People with depression retain sexual autonomy. Having a depressive disorder does not automatically make someone incapable of consenting to BDSM, sex, power exchange, pain, bondage, degradation, or anything else. ㅤ Treating people with mental health diagnoses as inherently incapable of making decisions about their own sexuality is not protective. It is infantilizing. ㅤ At the same time, responsible kink has always required us to consider capacity. Severe hopelessness, significant dissociation, intoxication, impaired judgment, acute self-destructive impulses, or an inability to communicate or protect one’s own limits may change whether a particular activity is appropriate at a particular moment. ㅤ That is not unique to depression. It is part of ethical consent. ㅤ Sometimes the responsible decision is to continue exactly as negotiated. Sometimes it is to modify a scene. Sometimes it is to put the toys away. Knowing which one applies requires knowing the person in front of you rather than relying exclusively on the role they usually occupy. ㅤ
When Kink Helps
ㅤ And yes, sometimes kink helps. ㅤ We should be able to say that without immediately turning BDSM into medicine. ㅤ For some people, ritual provides structure when everything else feels chaotic. Service can create a manageable task when the rest of life feels impossible. Submission can temporarily quiet the exhausting demand to make decisions. Dominance can create connection, purpose, creativity, and engagement. Bondage can create stillness. Impact can demand attention from a mind that has spent hours trapped inside itself. Pleasure can remind someone that their body is still capable of experiencing something besides heaviness. ㅤ A scene can create an hour in which someone feels present, wanted, connected, useful, powerful, held, or alive. ㅤ Those experiences matter. ㅤ There is also evidence that BDSM interactions involve measurable biological processes associated with stress and reward. Wuyts et al. (2020) observed changes in cortisol and endocannabinoid levels during BDSM interactions, with different patterns between Dominant and submissive participants. A later systematic review similarly found evidence implicating stress and reward systems in BDSM experiences (Wuyts et al., 2022). ㅤ But biological reward is not the same thing as psychiatric treatment. A scene may make someone feel better. That does not mean it treated their depression. ㅤ Both things can be true. ㅤ
When Kink Becomes Harm
ㅤ Kink becomes more concerning when it stops being something someone is choosing with their depression and begins becoming something depression is using against them. ㅤ That might look like repeatedly violating one’s own limits because personal safety no longer feels important. It might mean seeking increasingly dangerous pain because nothing feels like enough. It might mean using consensual punishment to reinforce genuine self-hatred. It might mean refusing necessary aftercare because comfort feels undeserved. It might mean accepting treatment from a partner that would normally violate established boundaries because depression is whispering that this is all someone deserves. ㅤ It might also mean using the dynamic to avoid seeking help entirely. ㅤ That distinction can be painfully difficult to see from inside the darkness, which is why partners need to be able to ask uncomfortable questions. Not Are you too mentally ill to do kink? but What are you needing from this tonight? Does this still feel good to you? Has anything changed? Do we need to adjust? ㅤ Those are kink questions. ㅤ They are also care questions. ㅤ
Drop Can Be Complicated When You Are Already Down
ㅤ Subdrop and Dom drop can involve emotional and physical changes following intense BDSM experiences. For someone already experiencing depression, distinguishing ordinary post-scene vulnerability from worsening depressive symptoms may be difficult. ㅤ That makes knowing someone’s baseline especially useful. What is typical after an intense scene? What is different this time? How long does the emotional crash normally last? What kind of aftercare helps? And what is happening outside kink? ㅤ Aftercare also does not have to mean cuddling under a blanket while someone feeds someone else chocolate. For some people it does. For others, aftercare means water, food, medication reminders, quiet, reassurance, a shower, sleep, space, checking in the next morning, or simply hearing, We’re good. ㅤ The important part is that aftercare should respond to the actual people involved rather than some universal script about what BDSM participants are supposed to need. ㅤ That includes Dominants. ㅤ The person who held the leash may need care too. ㅤ
A Dominant Is Not a Therapist
ㅤ Neither is a submissive, a switch, a Master, Mistress, Owner, slave, Daddy, Mommy, Handler, pet, brat, Top, bottom, sadist, masochist, or play partner. ㅤ A power exchange dynamic can provide extraordinary intimacy. It cannot ethically require one person to become another person’s mental health treatment. ㅤ A Dominant can encourage someone to eat. A submissive can notice their Dominant has withdrawn. Partners can modify protocols, offer reassurance, help make appointments, sit beside someone through a difficult night, or remind one another to take prescribed medication. Those things can be beautiful expressions of care. ㅤ They are not psychotherapy. ㅤ And loving someone does not make anyone solely responsible for keeping that person psychologically well. ㅤ
Finding Mental Health Care When You Are Kinky
ㅤ Unfortunately, telling kinky people to seek mental health support comes with another problem. Some kinky people have very good reasons to worry about what happens when they tell a clinician about BDSM. ㅤ In a survey of 1,398 kink-involved people, 49.6% had not disclosed their kink involvement to their therapist or mental healthcare clinician. Nineteen percent reported delaying or avoiding healthcare because of anticipated or experienced stigma related to kink (Waldura et al., 2021). ㅤ Earlier qualitative research similarly found that kink-oriented patients often wanted to discuss kink openly with healthcare providers but feared judgment, stigma, or having consensual BDSM mistaken for abuse (Waldura et al., 2016). ㅤ That matters. ㅤ A clinician cannot competently help someone examine whether depression is changing their relationship with kink if the client is terrified that saying I’m a masochist will result in the clinician deciding the masochism is the disorder. ㅤ Kink-aware therapy does not mean the therapist participates in kink. It means they understand enough about consensual BDSM to distinguish consensual sexual expression from psychopathology, abuse, self-harm, coercion, and clinically significant impairment. ㅤ That distinction should not be extraordinary. ㅤ It should be basic competence. ㅤ
The Client Should Not Have to Educate the Therapist
ㅤ There is another piece of kink-aware care that deserves to be said plainly: a client should not have to educate their therapist in order to receive competent care. ㅤ Certainly, clients educate therapists about themselves. Every person has their own language, relationships, identities, practices, dynamics, boundaries, and experiences. Two people who both identify as submissive may mean very different things when they use that word. A client may need to explain what a particular protocol means within their dynamic, how their relationship is structured, what a specific ritual represents to them, or why a particular form of play is personally significant. ㅤ That is different from having to teach the therapist what BDSM is. ㅤ A client should not have to spend valuable therapy time explaining the basic difference between consensual BDSM and abuse, defining common terminology, defending the legitimacy of power exchange, or reassuring a clinician that enjoying consensual pain does not automatically mean they want to harm themselves. They should not have to become their therapist’s continuing education course simply because their therapist encountered something outside their existing knowledge base. ㅤ For professional counselors, this is more than a philosophical preference. It is supported by the ethical expectations of the profession. The ACA Code of Ethics states that counselors practice within the boundaries of their competence and are responsible for developing the knowledge, awareness, sensitivity, and skills necessary for working with diverse client populations (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014, Standard C.2.a). When counselors move into specialty areas that are new to them, the Code requires appropriate education, training, and supervised experience while taking steps to protect clients from harm (ACA, 2014, Standard C.2.b). Counselors are also expected to seek professional consultation when questions arise regarding their practice and to engage in continuing education so they remain informed about current scientific and professional knowledge and the populations with whom they work (ACA, 2014, Standards C.2.e–C.2.f). ㅤ In other words, professional competence is the therapist’s responsibility. ㅤ Therapists are not expected to enter the profession already knowing everything. No ethical clinician does. Competence includes recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge and then doing something about them. When a client brings an unfamiliar aspect of sexuality, kink, relationship structure, culture, or identity into the room, the clinician’s responsibility is to seek appropriate education, consultation, supervision, and professional resources. ㅤ The therapist’s knowledge gap belongs to the therapist, not the client. ㅤ There is also an important difference between curiosity about a client’s individual experience and curiosity that asks the client to educate the clinician. What does wearing your collar mean to you? is clinically relevant because only that client can answer it. So what exactly is a collar in BDSM? reflects foundational knowledge the clinician can obtain elsewhere. ㅤ The therapist should be learning the client, not using the client to learn the subject. ㅤ Therapy is supposed to center the person seeking care. Someone who comes to therapy for depression should be able to talk about depression, including the ways it intersects with kink, without spending half the session establishing that consensual BDSM exists and is not inherently pathological. The client is paying for clinical care, not providing unpaid professional development. ㅤ Kink-aware therapy does not require a therapist to personally share, practice, or even understand the appeal of every client’s kink. It requires enough professional competence to approach consensual BDSM without automatic judgment or pathology, enough humility to recognize when additional education is needed, and enough professional responsibility to obtain that education without placing the burden on the client. ㅤ A client can tell a therapist what kink means to them. ㅤ They should not have to teach their therapist how to be a therapist. ㅤ
“Kink-Aware” Is Not a Credential
ㅤ There is another uncomfortable reality worth discussing: “kink-aware” is not, by itself, a professional credential. ㅤ Therapists advertise. They maintain websites, write directory profiles, identify specialties, and choose search terms that help prospective clients find them. Words such as kink-aware, kink-friendly, sex-positive, and kink-affirming can attract clients who have struggled to find accepting mental health care. Unfortunately, seeing those words on a therapist’s profile does not tell a prospective client what education, training, supervision, consultation, or clinical experience actually sits behind them. ㅤ Sometimes a clinician may sincerely consider themselves kink-aware because they are accepting of BDSM and would never intentionally judge someone for practicing it. Acceptance is valuable, but acceptance is not the same thing as competence. ㅤ There can also be a business component that deserves acknowledgment. Therapists need clients, and identifying specialized populations can make a practice more visible and marketable. Occasionally, clinicians may hang out a virtual shingle advertising themselves as “kink-aware” because it helps bring people through the door without having developed meaningful competence in working with kinky clients. ㅤ The problem is not marketing. Therapists are allowed to market their practices. The problem arises when the promise being marketed exceeds the competence behind it. ㅤ The ACA Code addresses this as well. Standard C.3.a requires counselors to represent their credentials and services accurately rather than in ways that are false, misleading, deceptive, or fraudulent (ACA, 2014). That matters when clinicians publicly represent themselves as having expertise with particular populations or specialty areas. ㅤ A therapist’s goal should not simply be to book clients. It should be to book clients they are appropriately prepared to serve. ㅤ That is why prospective clients should feel comfortable asking what “kink-aware” actually means to the person using the term. What training have you completed? How much experience do you have working with BDSM practitioners? How do you distinguish consensual power exchange from coercive control? How comfortable are you discussing impact play, degradation, ownership dynamics, service, consensual non-consent, or other forms of BDSM without automatically treating those practices as symptoms? If you encounter something within kink that you do not understand, where do you go for consultation or education? ㅤ The answers do not need to sound like someone reciting a BDSM encyclopedia. In fact, a therapist who confidently claims expertise in every possible expression of kink should probably inspire a few questions of its own. ㅤ What matters is whether there is substance behind the label. ㅤ There is a tremendous difference between a therapist saying, I don’t personally practice BDSM, but I have completed professional education in kink-affirming care, regularly work with kinky clients, understand the clinical distinctions between consensual BDSM, abuse, and self-harm, and seek consultation when something falls outside my competence, and someone saying, Oh, sure. I’m totally cool with that stuff. ㅤ One describes clinical competence. The other describes an attitude. Both may be accepting. Only one tells you anything meaningful about the therapist’s preparation to provide care. ㅤ So when a profile says kink-aware, do not be afraid to ask the next question: ㅤ What does kink-aware mean in your practice? ㅤ A therapist who genuinely understands competence should not be offended that you asked. ㅤ
So, How Do You Find a Kink-Aware Therapist?
ㅤ Knowing that kink-aware mental health care exists is one thing. Actually finding it can be another. ㅤ One place to begin is the Kink and Polyamory Aware Professionals (KAP) Directory, maintained by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. The directory includes licensed mental health professionals and other professionals who have identified themselves as knowledgeable about or sensitive to kink, BDSM, nonmonogamy, and other forms of alternative sexuality. It can be searched geographically and includes internet-based providers for people who cannot find someone locally. ㅤ There is an important caveat, however: being listed in a directory does not automatically establish competence. KAP itself explicitly states that NCSF does not screen, verify, recommend, or endorse the professionals simply because they appear in the directory (National Coalition for Sexual Freedom [NCSF], n.d.). A directory is therefore a place to begin the search, not the end of it. ㅤ Another resource is the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). AASECT Certified Sex Therapists are licensed mental health professionals who complete substantial specialized education, clinical experience, sex therapy skills training, and supervision. Current AASECT certification requirements specifically include knowledge of diverse sexual expressions and lifestyles, including BDSM and kink (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists [AASECT], 2026). ㅤ That does not mean every AASECT Certified Sex Therapist will automatically be the right therapist for every kinky client. It does mean the credential represents something substantially different from simply typing kink-aware into a directory biography. ㅤ Psychology Today also offers a Sex-Positive, Kink Allied search category, which can make identifying clinicians who publicly welcome kinky clients easier. Again, a profile category or a few words in a biography should begin the conversation rather than end it. ㅤ And interviewing a therapist before committing to treatment is entirely appropriate. ㅤ A prospective client can ask: What experience do you have working with clients involved in BDSM or power exchange? What professional training have you completed related to kink? How do you distinguish consensual BDSM from abuse or self-harm? How do you approach BDSM when kink itself is not the reason the client is seeking therapy? What do you do when a client brings something into therapy that falls outside your current area of competence? ㅤ Pay attention not only to the answers but to how the therapist answers. ㅤ A competent therapist does not need to know every obscure piece of kink terminology from memory. They do not need personal experience with BDSM, and they certainly do not need a client to disclose intimate details merely to prove that they are kinky. What matters is whether the therapist responds without judgment, understands consent and power exchange, recognizes the difference between BDSM and pathology, knows the limits of their competence, and is willing to obtain appropriate education or consultation when necessary. ㅤ There is nothing wrong with asking directly, Are you kink-aware or kink-affirming? ㅤ But listen carefully to what comes after yes. ㅤ Ultimately, finding a kink-aware therapist is not about finding someone who will automatically approve of everything that happens within a client’s kink life. A good therapist should still be willing to explore unhealthy behavior, coercion, boundary violations, self-destructive patterns, abuse, or situations in which kink and mental health have become dangerously intertwined. ㅤ Affirming care does not mean unquestioning care. ㅤ It means the therapist begins from the understanding that consensual kink itself is not the problem and then evaluates what is actually happening in the client’s life. ㅤ Most importantly, the client should be able to spend therapy talking about the reason they came to therapy. ㅤ They should not have to spend it teaching BDSM 101. ㅤ
ㅤ American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists. (2026). AASECT requirements for sex therapist certification. ㅤ American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA code of ethics. American Counseling Association. ㅤ National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. (n.d.). Kink and Polyamory Aware Professionals Directory. ㅤ Waldura, J. F., Arora, I., Randall, A. M., Farala, J. P., & Sprott, R. A. (2016). Fifty shades of stigma: Exploring the health care experiences of kink-oriented patients. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 13(12), 1918–1929. ㅤ Waldura, J. F., Arora, I., Randall, A. M., Farala, J. P., & Sprott, R. A. (2021). Rates of injury and healthcare utilization for kink-identified patients. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 18(10), 1721–1734. ㅤ Wismeijer, A. A. J., & van Assen, M. A. L. M. (2013). Psychological characteristics of BDSM practitioners. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 10(8), 1943–1952. ㅤ Wuyts, E., De Neef, N., Coppens, V., Fransen, E., Schellens, E., Van Der Pol, M., & Morrens, M. (2020). Between pleasure and pain: A pilot study on the biological mechanisms associated with BDSM interactions in Dominants and submissives. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 17(4), 784–792. ㅤ Wuyts, E., De Neef, N., Coppens, V., Schuerwegen, A., De Keyzer, F., Van Remoortel, S., & Morrens, M. (2022). The biology of BDSM: A systematic review. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 19(1), 144–157.
I am not a sometime friend. I don’t know how to be.
If I call you my friend, particularly if I call you one of my best friends, there is weight behind the word. I am a ride-or-die kind of friend. I show up. I listen. I remember the things you told me three conversations ago. I check on you when something doesn’t sound right. I celebrate your victories without needing to make them about me, and when your world falls apart, I will sit down in the rubble with you without asking how long we’re going to be there.
I don’t require constant communication. I don’t need daily texts, weekly phone calls, or proof that I still matter to you. Life gets busy. People get overwhelmed. Sometimes we disappear into our own lives for a while because there simply isn’t enough of us to go around. I understand seasons.
What I don’t understand is silence used in place of communication.
There is a difference between needing space and quietly removing someone from your life while they are still standing there wondering what changed. And maybe that distinction matters more to me than it does to other people.
Because I am an adult. I understand boundaries.
You can tell me, I’m going through some shit right now and I don’t have much to give. You can tell me, I need to pull inward for a while. You can tell me, Something has changed for me and I don’t know how to explain it yet. Hell, you can simply say, I’m going through a season. Please be here when I get back.
And I will. That’s the thing. I will.
I will give you room without punishing you for needing it. I will not demand explanations you aren’t ready to give. I will not make your difficult season about how inconvenient your absence is for me. I will leave the porch light on and trust that when you’re ready, you’ll find your way back.
But you have to tell me you left.
Because there is something uniquely painful about watching someone quietly step out of a friendship without ever acknowledging that they’re doing it.
The responses get shorter. The conversations become different. Things that once would have turned into an hour of talking suddenly get a reaction or a couple of words. You stop reaching out first. Then you barely respond when I do. The warmth changes. The curiosity disappears.
And eventually I realize I’m no longer having a friendship with you. I’m maintaining the memory of one.
Maybe you have reasons.
Maybe you’re overwhelmed. Maybe your life is complicated. Maybe something happened that has absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe you don’t have the emotional bandwidth you once had.
And yes, maybe it does have something to do with me.
Maybe I inadvertently said or did something that upset you. That’s possible too. I’m human. I fuck up. I misunderstand things. I can say something with one intention and have it land completely differently. And I am a lot. I know this about myself. I have a big personality, strong feelings, strong opinions, and I don’t expect everyone to experience me exactly the way I experience myself.
But if I have done something that hurt you, talk to me.
Don’t make me guess. Don’t quietly punish me for something I don’t even know happened. Don’t change the way you speak to me, withdraw your warmth, or slowly remove yourself while expecting me to somehow decipher the offense from the change in your behavior.
Give me the opportunity to own my shit. Give me the opportunity to apologize if I owe you an apology. Give me the opportunity to hear your perspective, explain mine if there has been a misunderstanding, or change my behavior if I’ve genuinely hurt someone I care about. I don’t expect friendship to mean we will never disappoint, irritate, misunderstand, or hurt one another. We’re human. That’s going to happen.
I expect friendship to mean we can fucking talk about it when it does.
And then, if you need space, take it.
I can respect that too.
Because whether you’re overwhelmed, going through something I know nothing about, angry with me, reevaluating things in your own life, or simply realizing you don’t want this friendship anymore, I can deal with the truth.
What I cannot do is understand something you refuse to communicate.
So instead, I am left standing outside a door I didn’t know had been closed, trying to figure out whether I should knock, wait, leave, or wonder what the hell I did wrong.
That is the part that hurts. Not necessarily the distance. The absence of honesty.
Because if the friendship mattered enough for me to be invited into your life, I would like to believe it mattered enough for me to be told when something changed.
And maybe that’s where I am different.
When something matters to me, I talk about it.
It might be uncomfortable. I might stumble over the words. I might need time before I know exactly what I want to say. But I believe people deserve communication, especially people I have allowed close enough to know me.
Friendship is intimacy.
Sometimes I think friendship is far more intimate than being romantically or sexually involved with someone.
We give our friends pieces of ourselves without the scripts that come with romantic relationships. There aren’t always anniversaries or labels or expectations telling us what we’re supposed to mean to each other. We choose one another repeatedly without contracts, obligation, sex, shared finances, or a relationship status holding us together.
We just choose to stay.
That makes friendship sacred to me.
Which is exactly why I don’t take its disappearance lightly.
When someone I consider a friend slowly changes their behavior toward me without explanation, eventually I stop asking what happened.
Eventually I believe the behavior.
I stop reaching. I stop checking. I stop trying to resurrect something the other person seems determined to let die quietly.
Not because I suddenly stopped caring.
That’s probably the hardest part.
I can still care about you and stop reaching for you.
Those things can exist together.
I can miss the friendship and accept that it no longer exists in the form I knew. I can remember conversations fondly and still decide I won’t chase another one. I can hope you’re okay without continuing to knock on a door you’ve repeatedly chosen not to open.
And if you come back someday, I won’t be cruel.
I’ll be cordial.
I’ll probably even be genuinely glad to know you’re okay.
But I won’t necessarily be standing exactly where you left me.
Because while you were gone, something happened to me too.
I learned what it felt like to be pushed outside without explanation. I learned what it felt like to watch someone gradually withdraw while pretending nothing had changed. I learned that when given the opportunity to communicate with me, you chose silence instead.
And I don’t open myself up to that twice.
Not with friendship.
People sometimes think loyalty means remaining indefinitely available to someone regardless of how they treat you.
I don’t.
My loyalty is enormous, but it isn’t unconditional access.
Being a ride-or-die friend doesn’t mean I’ll stand beside an empty chair forever.
It means that when you’re my friend, I’m there.
Really there.
And if you had simply told me you needed to disappear for a while, I probably would have understood.
You didn’t need a perfect explanation. You didn’t need to tell me everything. You didn’t need to apologize for having a complicated life.
You could have given me one sentence.
I’m going through a season. Please be here when I get back.
I would have left the porch light on.
But when you leave without saying anything, when you slowly turn warmth into distance and conversation into silence, eventually I have to accept what your behavior is telling me.
So I turn the light off.
Not because I stopped caring.
Not because the friendship meant nothing.
But because it meant too much for me to keep standing outside in the cold pretending I haven’t noticed that you closed the door.
Sometimes she dreamed of a place where no one knew her.
She could never quite see where it was. There were mountains in the distance, trees close enough to make the world feel hidden, and a balcony overlooking something beautiful she never managed to remember when she woke. It always rained there. Not the kind of rain that made people rush indoors, but the heavy, steady kind that gave permission to stay exactly where they were.
There was always a fire burning.
And there was always someone with her.
She could never quite see his face.
Maybe that was because the dream wasn’t really about him.
It was about waking slowly beside someone without immediately wondering what time it was. About coffee poured into mismatched mugs and carried onto the balcony while the rain fell beyond the roof. About conversations that wandered nowhere because there was nowhere else either of them needed to be.
Mostly, she dreamed about time.
She had spent so much of her life measuring it. Watching clocks. Counting hours. Learning how much of herself could fit inside the spaces other people had available for her. She knew how to make something meaningful from fragments. She knew how to treasure an afternoon because it would end, how to memorize a touch because she didn’t know when another would come, how to say goodbye while some part of her was still reaching backward.
In this place, she wouldn’t have to be good at that anymore.
There would be time to waste.
That thought felt almost decadent.
Coffee could grow cold because they had forgotten about it. A conversation could drift into silence without either of them rushing to fill it. She could fall asleep on the sofa with her feet in his lap and wake hours later to find him still there.
And because this was her dream, it was never entirely innocent.
There was a balcony where he could bend her over the railing while rain hammered against the roof and the mountains disappeared behind sheets of water. There were hands that knew when to be gentle and when gentleness was the last thing she wanted. There were mornings when she would find yesterday’s fingerprints still written faintly across her skin and have absolutely no reason to hide them.
But even that wasn’t what made her ache when she woke.
It was afterward.
The imagined weight of his hand resting on her thigh while they watched the rain. Her head against his shoulder. The fire slowly dying behind them because neither had bothered to add another log.
No urgency.
No countdown.
No wondering when she would see him again.
Just someone who stayed.
She didn’t know who he was.
Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to.
Maybe somewhere inside her, she simply needed to believe there could be a person whose presence wasn’t measured in borrowed hours. Someone she wouldn’t have to miss before he had even left. Someone who had nowhere else he was supposed to be when morning came.
She never dreamed about forever. Forever had always seemed too large a promise for something as fragile as human beings.
She dreamed about ordinary things instead.
Rain.
Coffee.
A fire.
A balcony.
A man’s hand reaching absentmindedly for hers because he could.
And time.
So much time that eventually she might stop being afraid of losing it.
The Secrets of Wynter Rayne 