Page 17 of Follow Me
“No, thank you.”
“All right,” he said. “Let’s talk ground rules, then. You’ve had more talks with Doyle and Niall, but you’ll be seeing me more frequently than you’ll see either of them, so I get to do this while we’re waiting.”
He ticked off points on his fingers as he talked. “Niall told me you uncollared yourself, and that will be on our discussion list today. For the duration of what we’re doing, we still consider you collared to Kel and will proceed accordingly. Nothing we do will approach any sexual or even sensual territory, excluding, of course, any conversations you feel you need to have about sexual topics regarding you and your husband as part of your therapy.
“You will follow the daily rituals we’ve already started putting into place with you, or safeword immediately to explain why you can’t. If we feel at any time your health is in jeopardy, or we’ve hit a critical snag that is beyond our ability to help you with, we will readmit you to the treatment facility immediately, even if we’re forced to do so against your will.”
He leveled a serious gaze at her, waiting, and she knew what he wanted to hear.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Before you and I leave today, we’ll stop by the dietician’s office and get the meal plan from her that she’s drawn up. You will be expected to follow it, for now. We’re setting your first weight goal at gaining and maintaining five pounds by the end of four weeks, which will put you at one-twenty, correct?”
She nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“With an eventual goal of one-twenty-five as a minimum maintenance weight, for now?”
She nodded again. “Yes, Sir.”
“If you gain it before then, we expect you to maintain, or slowly gain from there. If there’s a sudden and uncontrolled jump in your weight that we can’t track to the effects of medication or in your food log, we reserve the right to bring in medical intervention, or, if necessary, admit you.”
Another pause, and she nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“We understand why you don’t want to tell Kel we’re taking an…unorthodox approach to your treatment. But we reserve the right, if we feel it’s necessary, to tell him before you feel ready to tell him. Not negotiable.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“We expect complete honesty from you about your treatment, too. If you feel something isn’t working, or we need to modify something, we expect you to do exactly what you’d do during a negotiation and tell us that. You’ve been through enough now you will know if we need to change course. Or if you feel something is causing a breakthrough and helping, tell us that, too. Or ask us questions as to why we’re doing something.”
“You guys won’t get in trouble doing this, will you?”
He kindly smiled. “No. While what we’re trying is unorthodox, and skirting a few outer edges, we’re taking into consideration the fact that you’re more a friend than a traditional client. We feel the potential benefits are worth it. If you were just starting initial treatment for anorexia and weren’t medically stable, no, there’s no way we’d be taking you on as a client right now. That’s why Doyle referred you to a specialist in the first place.
“But you’re stable now, you have a solid grasp of what hasn’t worked, you have a desire to overcome this, and you understand the risks. And you’re a friend. If this works, or even if parts of what we do work, we plan on writing a paper about it. You could be helping other people by doing this.”
“Really?”
“Really. We will, of course, withhold identifiable information. But we’ve been working on a series of articles and papers about kink-positive approaches to counseling. There isn’t enough info out there yet from a clinical side. Anything we can add to the available information is helpful.”
“Well, if it keeps anyone else from going through what I’m going through, I’m all for it.”
She heard a rap on the door.
“Come in,” Doug called out.
Niall stepped inside. “Doyle’s not far behind me.” She noticed his accent sounded Americanized compared to what she was used to. “Hello, Mal.”
She mustered a smile for him. “Hey, Ni.”
He arched an eyebrow at her, and her face immediately heated. “I mean, Sir. I’m sorry.”
He laughed and held out a hand to her, also shaking normally with her. “Are you sure you’re comfortable calling me that?”
“I am. Sorry, Sir.” She took a deep breath. “Can I say something before I forget?”
“Of course.”
She looked to Doug. “Out in the lobby, when you called me back, you shook hands with me. Like Niall just did.”
