Chapter Seven – The Safe Word
1152 Words
The circle gathered again, chairs squeaking faintly against the worn carpet. The air was heavy with late-evening stillness, fluorescent lights humming above. Elena arranged her clipboard on her lap, fingers smoothing the cover more times than necessary. Her voice, when she spoke, carried the calm authority they had come to expect.
“Tonight,” she said, “we’ll talk about boundaries. About the point where you stop. Everyone has one—or should have. A safe word, a safe action, something that protects you from slipping into places you can’t climb back from. I want each of you to share what that is for you. What stops you when desire feels uncontrollable?”
There was a pause, as though the group collectively waited for someone else to go first.
Chloe, shy as ever, surprised them by raising her eyes. Her voice trembled but didn’t break. “That’s the thing… I don’t think I have one.”
Elena tilted her head slightly. “You don’t stop at all?”
Chloe shook her head, then laughed nervously. “I can’t live without it. s*x. Minimum two or three times a day. If I don’t… I get restless. Sick almost. Like withdrawal.”
The room stiffened. One of the men shifted uncomfortably, the bold Jessica smirked, and Holly looked horrified.
Elena forced her voice to stay neutral, though her brows pulled together. “Two or three times… daily?”
“Yes.” Chloe’s cheeks flushed, but her smile was sudden, oddly bright. “And before you ask—no, I don’t always have a partner. My toys keep me company. Sometimes their batteries can’t keep up.”
A ripple of laughter spread unevenly around the circle. Jessica chuckled outright. The men avoided eye contact. Holly pressed her lips tight.
Elena’s stomach clenched. The mention of vibrators landed like a dart, sharp and personal, dragging her thoughts back to the white box waiting in the closet of her home. The pink device wrapped like a secret, the card that read Have fun. Chloe’s words twisted it into something pointed, almost deliberate.
Her grip tightened on her pen. Coincidence, she told herself firmly. Chloe couldn’t know.
But the laugh, the sly note in the girl’s voice—was it really a joke? Or had the reference been meant for her alone?
She forced her tone steady. “Thank you for your honesty, Chloe. That’s… an important reminder of how compulsion can overwhelm limits. This group is here to help you find a safe word, even if you don’t have one yet.”
Chloe shrugged, still smiling faintly, as if pleased with the effect she had caused.
Elena gestured to the next in line. “Vincent?”
He had been leaning back casually, one ankle balanced on his knee, arms loose at his sides. At the sound of his name, he straightened just slightly, enough to signal attention without surrendering ease. His eyes flicked around the circle, resting a half-second longer on Elena.
“My stop,” he said slowly, “is work.”
“Work?” Elena repeated. “Can you explain?”
He nodded, the corner of his mouth curving. “I dance at a club. When I’m there, when I’m on that stage… everything stops. Desire, tension, even fear. It’s all controlled. I can be in the middle of chaos, but I know exactly when to end it.”
Her pen stilled. “What kind of club?”
He didn’t flinch. “Elysium. You’ve probably heard of it.”
The name dropped into the room like a stone into water, rippling outward. Jessica’s eyes widened, then gleamed. Chloe’s lips parted, intrigued. Holly blanched. One of the men coughed, muttered something under his breath.
Elena’s chest tightened. She knew the place—reputation whispered in half-jokes at dinner parties, murmured about in circles of people who claimed never to have been. A strip club. Male dancers. Women lined in rows of candlelit tables, bills tucked into waistbands.
Her throat went dry. She pictured it without wanting to: neon lights spilling across glossy floors, rain machines misting down as music thundered. Vincent onstage, shirt clinging to his body before he peeled it off, droplets running over his skin, muscles tightening under the pull of movement. His hands sliding the fabric slow, teasing, as eyes in the crowd devoured him.
The image slammed into her mind with such clarity that her body betrayed her. She shifted in her chair, legs crossing quickly, as if the physical adjustment could erase the thought.
“Elysium,” Jessica said, almost reverent. “You actually dance there?”
Vincent’s smirk deepened. “Every weekend.”
Chloe giggled nervously, and Holly whispered, “Oh my God,” as though scandal alone were a contagion.
Elena fought to recover her composure. She tapped her pen against the clipboard. “Thank you for sharing, Vincent. That’s… unique.” Her voice was calm, but inside, the ground tilted. How do I guide them when I can’t even control my own mind?
His gaze caught hers then, steady, unblinking. He didn’t need to smile; his silence was enough. He knew. He had seen the way her breath had caught, the small betraying shift of her body.
Heat pricked at her neck. She dropped her eyes to her notes, scribbling nonsense just to have somewhere else to look.
Around the circle, others continued. Peter admitted his stop was exhaustion—he only quit when his body failed him. Jessica, with a shrug, said hers was boredom: she left men behind the moment they couldn’t keep her interest. Holly whispered that her stop was guilt—she froze the second she remembered her married coworker’s children.
But Elena barely heard them. Her ears rang with Vincent’s words, her mind replaying the imagined scene over and over, each time more vivid, more unbearable. She nodded where expected, added soft encouragements, but every movement felt like acting from behind glass.
When the session ended, chairs scraped back and the group dispersed with murmured goodbyes. Chloe lingered with a smile too sly, Jessica swept out with her usual confidence, Peter shoved his hands in his pockets, Holly avoided eye contact.
Vincent rose last. He adjusted his jacket, moved with that same fluid grace. As he passed Elena, he paused just long enough to let his eyes lock with hers again.
No words. Just the echo of that smirk, the silent knowledge that he had planted something in her mind she couldn’t shake.
When the door closed behind him, Elena exhaled sharply, pressing her fingers to her temple. The room was empty, but she still felt the weight of his gaze, the shimmer of imagined water sliding across his skin.
She crossed her legs tighter, ashamed of the heat coiled low in her stomach.
This cannot continue, she told herself. But even as she thought it, she knew—he had already begun.
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