Caden was a star, so the Mt. Sinai ER took me right through triage. They gave me painkillers, took a scan, and put my arm in a sling. It wasn’t broken, but the nerve damage I’d sustained in basic training had been aggravated. Twenty minutes ice. Twenty of heat. Ice. Heat. Ice. Heat.

It was almost midnight when we drove back from the hospital in silence. He’d wanted to tell them in fine detail how my wrist got fucked up, but I jumped in and told them I tripped on the edge of the rug and fell on it.

He tried to carry me up the stairs.

“I hurt my wrist, not my ankle.”

“I hurt your wrist, Greyson. I don’t care what you told them.”

“I can walk.”

At the door, he stopped before opening it. “I don’t want to go in the house and act like this is normal.”

“We won’t.”

He opened the door. We took off our coats and shoes. Observing a reverent silence, he helped me with both. I went into the kitchen before he could signal where he wanted to go. He wasn’t doing this shit. Not on my time. No gently laying me on the couch or tucking me into bed. If we came at this as if he had something to make up for, we weren’t going to get anywhere.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I want to set something straight,” I said.

“Okay.” His pride was held together with spit and chewing gum.

“You’re not yourself.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“It’s not. But it’s also part of the equation. Whatever’s going on, it’s not going to be fixed today, tomorrow, next week… maybe ever. So we either go through this cycle over and over, or we get control of it.”

“Or we break up.”

“Not an option.”

“You’re really going to take this as far as you can, aren’t you?” he said with a rueful smile, challenging me. I didn’t know how to walk away from a challenge.

“They don’t call me Major One More for nothing.”

I took the gel pack off my arm. It had gone lukewarm. I flung it into the microwave and powered it up.

“Has it occurred to you that I can really hurt you? I wanted to choke you.”

“Was it erotic asphyxiation, or did you really want to kill me?”

“You’re pretty blithe about it.”

“Did you want to engage in risky but pleasurable actions, or did you want to commit murder but stopped?”

“The former, but that’s not the point.”

“What’s the point then? Even when you’re deep in it, you don’t want to hurt me any more than is enjoyable. You’re a doctor. You’ll know when to stop.”

“That’s a shitty rationalization. You’re better than that.”

He rubbed his eyes for longer than a person usually rubs away tiredness. I pulled his arms down. He looked beaten.

“What do you have, Greyson? Because I have nothing.”

“And Ronin’s treatment isn’t going to work?”

“No.”

“Did he say that?”

“In so many words.”

“When Ronin asked—”

“Fuck Ronin.”

I tucked my free hand into his. I couldn’t let disappointment grip me. It was too easy to lapse into depression over ungranted wishes. “He asked if it was a pain thing or a control thing.”

“And?”

“And you never answered him.”

“I don’t know. Both maybe. It’s hard to get a handle on it right after. Give me… at this rate, twelve hours.”

The microwave dinged. He got up and popped it open before I had a chance to assert myself. Flipping the gel pad from one hand to the other while saying hot-hot-hot, he reminded me of a carnival juggler, starting low and getting more daring. He flipped it, spun it, tossed it from one hand to the other before whirling it like pizza dough until I laughed.

He lobbed it high, pulled the dish towel off the rack, and caught it with his hand protected by the fabric. I put my wrist on the counter, and he put the warm pad over it, keeping it steady with a firm hand.

“Ah, that’s nice,” I said.

“Good.”

“I was thinking.”

“Uh-oh.”

“About what Ronin asked, and don’t say—”

“Fuck Ronin.”

We smiled together, and he kissed me.

“Would you be less afraid of hurting me if we tried to focus more on giving you control?”

He looked at my arm, his mouth twisted with consideration, as if he was holding his thoughts back.

“Well?” I asked.

“We could try it. But I’m warning you.” He put an upraised finger between us. “You’d better be controllable, or we’re going back to pain.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

He put his free arm over my shoulder and held me. I buried my face in his chest. I could hear his heart beating, red, warm, alive, and vital, home in its cage.

With my arm in a sling, I had to completely cancel two days’ worth of sessions and truncate a full week to only the most needy patients. The painkillers made it hard to think quickly enough to engage properly, and the orthopedist had recommended a week of elevation and rigidity, which I couldn’t deliver. Two days would have to do.

I spent the time finishing up my proposal for the Gibson Center. A state-of-the-art mental health facility for post-war trauma. Synergy with VA hospitals in three states. Transportation. Outreach and medication stability for homeless vets. A licensed day care center for children while their parents were in counseling or treatment.

I put ten weeks’ of research into fifty pages of narrative and a general operating budget that took two weeks to write. I’d listened to the trials of the vets in my office and tried to find solutions. It was the best thing I’d ever done.

Five days after Caden brought me home from the ER, the sling was an optional annoyance and the proposal was ready. I emailed Tina.

---

Dear Director Molino,

---

I’ve finished the proposal. Thank you so much for the extension.

I am on reduced hours for the next two weeks, so I’ll be free to preview it for you ahead of the board of directors meeting.

I look forward to showing you the project.

---

Dr. Greyson Frazier, M.D.

---

I tidied the waiting room one-handed. The pain in my wrist had gone from a dull throb to a sharp tremor that ran to my shoulder. The nerve had been damaged when I broke it in basic training. As much as my marriage to Caden was the result of the horrors of war, the best parts of my life were the result of falling on my wrist in my first week as a soldier.

The army had always been my goal. My father and older brother, Jake, were in the army. Both had commissions and careers that contained adventure and excitement inside an orderly routine. Only Colin had no interest in serving, and Mom still gave him a hard time about it. Meanwhile, she had been surprised when I signed up. She juggled surprise, pride, and an inability to understand my motivations. That was understandable, since I didn’t really understand them either. Not fully.

I was going to be a medic. There was no war at the time, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing about scrambling through muddy trenches with my kit, telling wounded men they’d be all right, patching them up to be moved under enemy fire. I would be their rescuing angel.

Then I smashed my wrist in basic training. I couldn’t put weight on it. Couldn’t hold anything too heavy for too long. There was no way I could manage the physical demands of a combat medic. Nor could I hold a rifle for a long time, nor squeeze a trigger repeatedly. War or no war, I couldn’t train for jobs I’d never be ready to do.

“You can get an honorable discharge,” the army therapist had said.

He was in his sixties, and I’d never forget his name. Dr. Matt Darling. I’d been sent to him to see if I wanted to be counseled out.

“I’m not quitting.” At eighteen, I was stubborn with a side of petulance.

“But you resist the assignments you’re qualified to do.”

“I don’t want to push paper. I want to help people. This is what I’m here for.”

He looked over my file. “You applied for combat medic training.”

“Yes.”

He closed the folder. “Have you considered nursing school? You can stay in the service while you finish.” He shrugged. “The army pays. You’d be helping people.”

Nursing school. Sure. I could do that. My mother had suggested it too, and at the time, I’d been irritated with her for thinking small.

“Why not med school?” I retorted.

My answer should have slapped back at Dr. Darling the same way it had her. But it didn’t.

“Why not?”

I was surprised he didn’t laugh at me. He folded his hands in front of him and asked me to decide what was possible and what wasn’t. No adult had ever given me that power.

“Why did you become a psychiatrist?” I asked.

“Because it’s easy to fix the body. The mind though? Once that’s broken, it’s hard to set right again, but if you do help someone set it back, they can overcome anything.”

I’d thought about that for a long time. Studying for my MCATs, applying to schools and Armed Forces medical scholarships, I thought about helping soldiers like my dad and brother. Somehow, that first desire had landed me at this desk, with my own practice and a husband I loved more than life itself.

After laying the magazines in a row, dusting the shelves, and watering the plants, I checked my email.

---

Dear Dr. Greyson,

Congratulations on finishing. I’m excited to see the results.

Let’s schedule a time to preview the proposal before the board meeting.

~Tina

---

I gave her a date range and let my hands rest on the desk. I thanked God for the opportunity to make a difference. Success or failure, the attempt was a blessing.

My phone rang. I flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Greyson.” It was Caden, and his voice was shiny, hard stone.

So soon. Every time the days between his needs became manifest shortened, I was surprised.

“Tonight,” he continued. “Now.”

“The control thing?”

The flatness became derisive. “The control thing.”

Pain or control? Some combination of both? We’d gone over the possibilities in fine detail, set ground rules, and waited for the presence of the Thing he now called Damon to become unbearable.

He had no Damon in his past. When he was at work, I’d gone through the list of casualties in Fallujah. No Damon. The name was a mystery to me, but personality bifurcation was a mystery to everyone. It had no real rules.

“Now?” The stack of papers bent in my fingers. I loosened my grip on them and laid the stack flat.

“Where are you?”

“In my office.”

“Get undressed.”

I paused. We’d imagined this differently, but we’d also known to expect the unexpected.

I unbuttoned my blouse and pulled it down my arm, careful of the twinge in my right wrist.

“Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I was getting ready to double-check the propo—”

“With your clothes.”

“Unhooking my bra.” I wiggled out of it around the phone. “Now I’m pulling my pants down.”

Did I sound irritated? I shouldn’t. I should be pliant and submissive regardless of my mood at the moment. That was the deal.

“Leave them around your ankles.”

“It’s done.” Between my desk and the chair, I stood half undressed, waiting. On his side, I heard a whoosh of sudden street noise and the slap of a car door closing. “Caden?”

“I’m coming to the office door.”

One step toward it and the pants restricted me. “Can you get in? Do you have the key?”

“Get on your knees.”

Through the layers of distraction and annoyance, the command was enough to send a shudder up my spine. That was what I was looking for. There was a name for someone who sexualized the enjoyment of pain. It was masochist. There was also a name for someone who became aroused when obeying commands. It was “sexual submissive.” I was that as well.

I got on my knees.

He must have heard my breath change when I got down, because he spoke. “Good girl.”

I didn’t need his affirmation, Goddammit. This was humiliating enough.

A minute ago, I’d been elated over finishing the proposal, and I was a willing participant in this process. But I didn’t have a switch I could flip up or down. I had a dial with a thousand settings that sometimes moved and sometimes didn’t.

Right now, it wasn’t turned far enough to enjoy this.

“On your elbows.”

“I can’t… the phone.”

“Put the phone in your teeth.”

I knew his voice. I knew his levels of detachment and dissociation. He was deep in, and there was only one way out. Through me.

I clamped the thinnest part of the device in my teeth and crawled to the open part of the room so I had space to drop.

Then I thought, There should be a map.

Yes! That was an outstanding idea. A map to go with the transportation guidelines. There would be visual learners on the board of directors, and they needed to see how far the program could reach.

Leaning back, I snapped a pencil out of the cup.

“Is it done?” Caden said over the phone.

“Mm-hm,” I hummed around the phone as I scrawled MAP on a Post-it and slapped it on the proposal cover. A drop of spit fell from my bottom lip to the blotter. I scurried into the position he’d demanded.

“How does it feel?” he asked.

I was in belly crawl position in my office. It felt as though I was dropping to run an obstacle course.

“Ike asic,” I said around the phone.

“Yes,” he said. “Like basic.”

“Oo inoo asic.”

“I know I didn’t do basic. And you’re not supposed to argue.”

“Oh-ay.”

I waited.

And waited.

I was drooling around the phone and my ass was getting cold. I wondered if I should get the proposal proofread before I showed it to Tina. I wanted to present my best face, but if she had a ton of changes, a proofread would be a waste of time.

Finally, I heard his footfall on the back stairs, and his black shoes appeared under trouser cuffs. He stopped in the doorway. I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. I became acutely aware of my position and my choice to maintain it.

He took the phone out of my mouth and snapped it closed before placing it on the filing cabinet behind the desk. “You’re beautiful like this.”

Great. Thanks.

“And it upsets Damon, which I enjoy.”

He didn’t sound as if he was enjoying anything. He sounded as though he was reporting the weather in the tri-state area. All the more reason to play along. He was sick. He needed me. Without me, he’d descend into this hard, brittle personality.

“Crawl to me,” he said.

I put one elbow in front of the other, lowering my pelvis as close to the ground as possible so I could fit under the wire.

Of course, this wasn’t basic, but I’d been trained to do things a certain way.

“Stop,” he said, coming around me.

I put my head down so he couldn’t see my face. He put his hands on either side of my hips and lifted them, then he pressed my lower back down.

“Better.” He went back to the doorway. “Now. Crawl.”

I moved a knee forward, and my butt dropped. When I moved my other knee, it would drop farther. I was supposed to present myself like a cunt-proud peacock and—

“Honestly, Caden?” I got up on my knees and rested on my haunches. “Not today.”

He raised an eyebrow and leaned on the jamb with his arms crossed. Not offended or hurt, which was good, but he’d locked away his emotions so tight, he couldn’t feel insulted. That was not good.

“I just finished the proposal for the hospital’s PTSD unit.”

“Yes?”

“How about… you know, congratulations?”

“You can’t tell me this later?”

I got up. “I’m telling you now.” I pulled up my pants and fastened them. “You could play along for fifteen minutes before dropping this on me.”

“So could you.”

I swung my blouse over my shoulders. “Sure. I could. I could. And I agreed to. But I just can’t crawl around right now. I want to feel happy. I want to feel proud, and I want to be excited for my meeting.”

I got to the top button and realized I’d forgotten my bra. Damnit. I didn’t want to take the shirt off again. I wanted to finish getting dressed. I wanted to tell him all the things in the packet. I wanted his feedback and his joy, not this. Not today.

“You know what I want?” I said. “A celebratory fuck.”

“I can’t deliver that right now. Not in a way you’d find honest.”

“And I can’t let you control me right now. Not in a way I’d find honest.”

Not waiting for his reaction, I left the office and went upstairs.

Living room and kitchen. Didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to sit. I wanted to think about something besides my husband’s mental health, or anyone else’s for that matter. But he was at the bottom of the stairs, a pressure from below, squeezing me into a corner.

Footfall on the steps. A creak. Slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he should come or as if creeping up on me.

I couldn’t deal with his stone-cold face. It wasn’t him. This was a single dimension of the multi-dimensional human I loved. Neither one of us had control over this situation. I couldn’t be mad at Caden any more than I could be mad at a bird for shitting on my shoulder.

“Greyson?” he called from the stairs, raising his voice only enough to make sure I heard, as if he had a complete understanding of the physics of space and sound and used it to make sure I knew he was still in control.

The tone was hard to ignore. The command was so complete, I thought maybe if I went to the top of the stairs and kneeled, we could continue with the game and he’d be pleased. Damon would run. I’d have so many orgasms, I’d pass out in a heap. We could be normal inside of three hours.

Wanting one thing meant not wanting another, no matter how agreeable I made it sound to myself. I went to the foyer and plucked my coat off the hook.

“Greyson?” he called louder as he came up the stairs. I was punching my hands into my coat sleeves when he appeared from the living room. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t do this. Not today. And I can’t be in this house with you right now.”

“I should say I’m sorry now.”

“I’ll accept that as the best apology you can deliver in this state.”

A flicker passed over his face. A lake perfectly reflecting a statue, then rippling. Was it regret? A rethinking of his assumptions? A change in strategy? All of them?

“I keep thinking about you first,” I said. “I keep asking myself what you need, and I’m happy to give it to you. I love you. But today? It’s about me and what I need. You can’t give it to me. Fine. I get it. But I have nothing to give right now.”

I opened the front door, and he came for me, grabbing me at my new favorite spot. The hair on the back of my head. I gasped.

“When are you coming back?”

“Stop.”

The flicker again. The ripple in the cold lake. My Caden was in there.

He let me go, dropping his hand completely. His body was still. No nervous tics. No tells for displeasure or discomfort.

I’d married a fucking robot.

“I’ll come back when I do.”

I walked out, closing the door behind me.

I breathed the outside air, exhaled a wintry cloud, and went down the steps onto 87th Street with no destination except relief.

Colin met me for a movie. It was loud and fast. The sensory overload pushed my sadness and anxiety into a corner but didn’t eradicate it.

“Wasn’t that better than the depressing French thing?” Colin asked outside the theater as he wrapped his scarf around his neck.

“Sure.”

“So,” he said, hands in his pockets, looking up the street for a free cab. “What’s going on with the man of the house?”

“How do you mean?”

“You called me for a spur-of-the-moment movie. You don’t do that. If I want to see you, I have to make plans a month in advance.”

I bounced on the balls of my feet, trying to find the happiness I’d earned. “The proposal I told you about? For Mt. Sinai? I finished it.”

“All right! Congratulations! Are we getting a drink?”

A drink was so much more appealing than dealing with Doctor Robot.

The lighting was minimal and the patrons were all in the hippest years of their twenties. Colin had unbuttoned his coat, exposing his neck. The bartender, a young woman with the flattest, smoothest stomach I’d seen on anyone since treating Iraqi refugees, couldn’t keep her eyes off it. I held my credit card out for her, but my brother pushed my hand away and held out his card. The bartender pursed her lips and eyed his hand, then his face, holding back a smile.

“Oh, for Chrissakes.” My grumble was drowned out by the music.

When she took his card, she touched his hand.

“I could be your girlfriend, you know,” I said.

“You used a card to buy the last round. Same name.” He brought his drink to his smiling lips.

“I could be your wife.”

He waved his bare left ring finger at me with a devilish wink.

“Remember when I had to be your prom date?” I asked. “You asked three girls and they all said yes?”

“You were a fun date.”

“And you made out with all three of them anyway.”

“You were dancing with… what’s his name?”

“I had one foot in a recruitment office, so I was dancing with everyone.”

“Thanks for taking one for the team.” Colin still thought my entry into the military had spared him the pressure to do the same. I wasn’t sure Dad wasn’t aware Colin wasn’t cut out to be bossed around all day. “Mom hasn’t seen you since you came back.”

I sipped my drink. Not bad. They didn’t have wine, so I’d ended up with a whiskey and mint concoction, and Colin had gotten something with a vanilla bean sticking out of it. The bartender dropped the check in front of us with his card on top.

“I’m waiting for Dad to get back. She knows that.”

Dad was in Japan, and Mom was doing what she did—waiting for him to come back. It was the gender-reversed version of the life I’d avoided by retiring with Caden.

“Well, she’s not telling you, but she’s talking about coming here.” He signed the receipt before showing me that his copy had her number on it.

“Jake was in North Carolina for how long before he saw them? Was she chewing off your ear then?”

“You’re the baby girl. You weren’t supposed to be in the military at all.”

“I wasn’t supposed to have my own life at all.”

“And she’s wound up about you guys being in Medical Corps. From what Dad says, the surge is still going and they’re deploying doctors and nurses whether they like it or not. He said you guys dodged a bullet leaving when you did. Anyone with a medical license and a pair of boots is getting stop-lossed.”

“I’m not going back. Neither is Caden. We’re both done.” I slapped my hands together to illustrate the done-ness of our service obligations.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You loved the army. I thought you wouldn’t be able to adjust to having your own life.”

I couldn’t tell him that my life wasn’t my own or who it belonged to. I knew what the warning signs of abuse were, which was why I’d lied to the hospital staff about my wrist. Isolating the victim. Mercurial personality changes. Sexual demands. A rising tide of injuries.

No one would understand what was going on in my house, especially not my little brother.

“It’s hard,” I said. “I’m used to knowing what I’m doing every day and having this huge support system.”

“That fails constantly?”

“At least when the pipes broke on base, Mom knew who to call. I don’t know where the boundaries are out here.”

“Is something going on I should know about?”

“No. Everything’s fine. But like with the bartender here? Of course she saw the names, but I promise you she was eyefucking you before you handed her your card. And that’s not even the thing. Sure, it happens in the service, but it doesn’t feel so strange because I understand the context. Multiply that by a billion little things.”

Colin finished his drink and pushed the glass to the back edge of the bar. “Sister, dear, you are the most competent person I know. That’s the only reason you’re doubting your competence. We doubt what we’re gifted with.”

“And what do you doubt?”

He smirked. “I doubt you could walk a straight line. You’re swaying like a boat. Should I get you a cab?”

I finished my drink and plopped it on the bar, flicking two fingers against the bottom to slide it over to Colin’s. They clinked together. “Let’s blow this shithole.”

“We have to talk about Mom,” he said when we were outside. “If she comes, she’s staying with you.”

With me? Where Caden did violent, painful, intense things to my body?

I agreed to talk about it, but no more.

The house was empty and quiet. Caden’s coat was gone. A note sat on the counter.

Short, businesslike, to the point.

“Roger,” I said with a little slur on the edges, tossing the note on the counter.

Fine. It was fine. I needed to get to sleep anyway. I could worry about my husband tomorrow. I trudged up the stairs, hanging on to the banister. Colin had been right. I couldn’t walk a straight line to save my life.

The empty bed was made; an accusatory rectangle with military corners and sheets so tight a quarter would bounce twice on it.

You failed him.

Having let in the first thought I’d been avoiding, the next ones came without being invited.

He needed you and you failed him.

You’re the healthy one. You need to step up.

I stripped down, leaving my clothes on the floor, and put on a big army T-shirt.

You enjoy it anyway.

You need to just let go.

“I do enjoy it,” I grumbled, getting off the toilet. “But not today. Not today.”

I saw myself in the bathroom mirror.

“You,” I said with all the authority the whiskey-and-mint drink let me muster, “you are awesome. You did a great job.”

I opened the medicine cabinet, retrieved the toothbrush and toothpaste, and snapped it closed to see my face again. “No. Really. No arguments.”

I squeezed toothpaste on my brush and got to work. Despite my mouth being occupied with daily hygiene, the woman in the mirror wasn’t finished talking.

“Ou can ‘ake a ‘ight ‘or-ooself. Ou did-a’ight ‘hing. ‘Oor no ‘ood ‘oo him ‘essed uhp.”

The woman in the mirror was right. I was useless to Caden if my resources were depleted. We’d worked out sexual boundaries and needs, but we hadn’t talked about the toll his condition, or whatever it was, was taking on me.

I spit the toothpaste.

I could call the shots too. The man I’d married was going to have to live with that. The man he became in the weeks—no, days—between demanding, painful, orgasmic, boundary-pushing sex was going to have to live with it too.