Chapter 10

Thursday again.

Mara had begun, in the past two weeks, to bring her own book to the cafeteria rather than the book she had been pretending to read for the first month. She had finished pretending. She was now genuinely reading—a novel she had picked up at the library on the way back from groceries on Tuesday, about a French woman in the 1920s who became a translator after the war. Mara was forty pages in and was enjoying it. She was a little surprised at herself for enjoying it. She had thought, when she picked it up, that she was choosing it for distraction. It was turning out to be more than that.

She walked Kiya to the elevator. She did not go up. She said, “I’ll be in the cafeteria. Text when you’re ready.”

“All right, Mom.”

“Kiya.”

“Yes.”

“You look better today.”

“I slept.”

“Good. Go on.”

Stephanie had Caroline in the room when Kiya came in. Caroline was adjusting the IV and talking quietly to Stephanie about something that was making Stephanie smile. Kiya stood in the doorway until Stephanie noticed her, which Stephanie did almost immediately.

“Come in. Caroline is going. Caroline, this is Kiya, my cousin’s daughter, who you have seen a hundred times and never been introduced to. Kiya, Caroline, who has been keeping me alive against my better judgment for two months.”

Caroline laughed. She was somewhere in her forties, broad-shouldered, with very short gray hair. She had the kind of face that looked at you and saw what you needed without seeming to look. She nodded to Kiya.

“She is the favorite,” Caroline said. “I have been told to bring you better coffee than the family gets.”

“She has not been told that. Stop trying to embarrass me.”

“All right. Buzz me if you need anything.” Caroline went out and closed the door.

Stephanie watched the door close. She looked at Kiya.

“Sit. Bring out the pages. We have the last of this section to do and then I want to tell you about the second checklist.”

Kiya sat. She put the envelope on the blanket.

Stephanie put her glasses on. She turned to where they had stopped on Tuesday.

“Three more items in self-determination, then we are done with the first list. I will accept rules regarding my speech. You marked yes.”

Kiya nodded.

“He will choose what you call him. He will choose how you address others when you are with him. He may, in certain settings, choose whether you speak at all. He may have rules about how loudly you speak, what tone you use, whether you contradict him in front of others, whether you contradict him in private. The rules will not all be heavy. Some of them will be small. He may simply prefer that you not interrupt him when he is reading. He may prefer that you say yes rather than yeah. You will absorb the small rules and the large ones and you will not separate them in your mind, because the separation is artificial. They are all his preferences and you will keep all of them.”

Kiya nodded again. She was watching Stephanie’s face, not the page.

“Next. I will accept rules regarding my movements within the house. You marked yes.”

“I did.”

“There will be rooms you may not enter without permission. There will be rooms you must enter at certain times. There will be a place you go when you are not engaged in a task and he has not specifically directed you elsewhere. With me, the place was a cushion in his study, on the floor by his chair, when he was working in the evenings. I would go there without being asked and I would kneel or sit and I would read or wait, depending on what was wanted, and that was where I was when I was not doing anything else. He may have a different place for you. You will find out.”

She turned the page.

“I will accept the use of physical correction. You marked yes.”

Kiya was still.

“This is not impact play. Impact play is for arousal and bonding and intensity. Correction is for failure. You will fail at things. He will correct you. The correction may be physical. It may be a slap. It may be a spanking with his hand. It may be the cane, if you have moved past the question mark on the cane by then. The correction is not for pleasure. The correction is the price of having failed at something he had told you not to fail at. You will receive it. You will not be aroused by it because the situation will not permit it. You will receive it and you will be grateful for it because the correction is the alternative to him being disappointed in you, which is a worse thing.”

She paused.

“Tell me what you understand correction is for. In your own words.”

Kiya took a breath.