Page 80 of Ruined Vows

Which obviously doesn’t help, because Moira clearly already blames herself, as well. Whatever problems she had before are only exacerbated by this additional layer of shame.

“Fuck you,” Moira spits at Domhnall, then she turns and stalks out of the club. Anna starts to stand up, but Domhnall catches her forearm.

“Don’t,” he says. “She doesn’t deserve it after what she did to you.”

“That’s not fair,” Anna says. “She didn’t know.”

“She knew there were rules and that it was dangerous to break them,” Domhn snaps. “But here she is, doing it again, with no care how it affects anyone else. She’s just as selfish as our mother.”

Anna looks desperately at Quinn, who nods and jogs after Moira.

Anna just wraps her arms around Domhnall’s waist. “She’ll be okay.”

Domhn draws her close to his chest, back into his lap. “I just don’t know what to do with her. She had it so easy compared to all we went through, and I just can’t put up with her bullshit anymore.”

My chest clenches in sympathy for both him and Moira. It’s always like this when it comes to her. Anna and I have both suggested therapy to Moira, but she won’t hear of it. I guess she had some bad experiences when she was younger with in-patient treatment, and now she won’t even consider it.

But it’s so clear she’s spinning out. I know enough from my studies that her behaviour won’t change without intervention.

It’s the curse of studying psychology. You learn about the way human brains actually work. Like, my whole life, I swore I’d be nothing like my mother. But me saying that and knowing in my head that I want to be different don’t mean shit.

I was born a naïve little animal in a confusing world, and the only way I could learn was by mirroring what I saw.Her.

My mother swore she would be nothing likehermother. She’d tell me. She thought she could accomplish that if, once she had a baby, she told it she loved it once a day. Granted, she never picked it up, held it, cradled it, or showed it any affection. It was like this for me and my older brother, who might as well be a stranger to me. But she told us once a day that she loved us when we were babies. Of course, that was just incomprehensible gibberish to us little animals that only needed to be picked up and held.

But she thought it meant she was doing everything differently from her own cold, indifferent, unaffectionate mother.

We’re all such fools.

It was only halfway through my degree that I realized if I didn’t start going to therapy myself, I’d end up the same way. I have difficulty maintaining close friendships, just like my mother. My mother has a thousand acquaintances, and everyone loves her, but she has no best friends. I can be the charming life of the party if I want to, but it’s so difficult to fight through the OCD drowning my head with questions about what everyone thinks about me, I usually choose to just sit quietly in the corner.

And just like my mother, I choose men to love who can never love me back.

So, really, I’m choosing to stay alone forever. Just like the untouched baby in the cradle always was.

“All right, my sexy little gamblers,” says Caleb, the club’s owner, as he walks to the center of the room in a full tux, including a vest coat, cummerbund, bowtie, and top hat. “Welcome! We’re playing Texas Hold ’Em. Best of all, there are no losers tonight! Under your chair, you’ll find a discrete bag for discarded clothing. Anything left on the floor at the end of the night will be available in the lost and found. Let the games begin!”

I tug the beret down on my head as a dealer sits at the head of the table with a fresh deck of cards and begins to deal.

But I’m here, aren’t I, being vulnerable and making friends? Real friends? I believe what I tell my students. I believe conditioning and old patterns can be broken.

New neural pathways can be paved. There’s still hope for Moira if she asks for help one day, and there’s hope for me.

I can still change from who I have been into who I might become.

TWENTY-NINE

ISAAK

“So that’s it?”I ask Marcus after our twenty-minute recap session in the office. He’s sitting in Caleb’s leather chair with his legs up on the desk and a Dr. Pepper in hand. I’m in the chair in front of him. “Just drop her down the levels every ten minutes?”

“Yup. Every ten minutes or so. You don’t have to be on a timer or anything. You’ll get to know your sub and see when they’re ready to go to the next level. Just be careful to watch how she’s doing, especially as you get deeper. She might lose the ability to verbalize her safeword. That’s why you should only go there with a sub you’ve really established trust with. It’s not shit to play around with. And don’t forget to praise her while she’s deep in it. Anything you say to a sub in that state can land extra deep, so be careful of every word. It’s not the time for humiliation play, for example.”

I nod but frown. “Will you be there the first time we do it? I can’t chance missing anything.”

Marcus nods. “It’s the only way we learn. We got you. Now, do I get to meet this mysterious woman?”

I stand up, muttering as I go, “It’s my new client.”

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