Well he can hold her any...time? Possibly this hasn't occurred to her or possibly it's very bad or something. Humans are confusing. 

He participates in some more dancing that is not slow.

She's going to spend a little more time hanging out at the snack table and... thinking about stuff.

She is honestly super unclear on what she wants from Connor in general. Probably she should not want anything? This seems not in line with how she is actually feeling. She has almost no idea what it is that she's feeling, but it's probably not nothing, it seems kind of like a something.

She could... want to date him....? Except she is not even really sure what this would consist of or what it would accomplish, given that he already lives in her house and stuff. And she doesn't actually know whether he likes her in a way that has to do with dating and it's hard to tell because he's trying to pay down his debt and a bunch of being happy about doing stuff for her is maybe just being happy about getting to be unentangled, and even if he did like her and did feel like he could tell her if he didn't and have that respected, she is still, like, super unclear on what she would be trying to get out of this.

Everything is weird. 

Eventually she will maybe give up on figuring this out right now and go back to dancing.

He watches his older brothers with their dates. They look very confident and comfortable and good at this and he is jealous. This is dumb because he knows for a fact that Matt is not even attracted to the pretty cheerleader he invited to the dance because Matt doesn't even like girls. Humans just have a thing about boys inviting boys to dances.

Matt looks very happy. 

He hangs out near Karen and feels confused about everything.

That works. Sort of. Eventually after a few more pop songs there's another slow dance. There probably won't be very many of them but there is apparently more than one.

"Do you... wanna dance again, or...?"

It seems like maybe the wrong moment to remind her that he is her slave so -

"Yeah."

"Okay."

Her brain is not really less confused this time but it is at least a little less loud. Nothing obviously awful happened last time, so her brain is putting a little less effort into screaming. She is a little bit surer that one of the feelings involved is nice, probably.

He notices this! Well, the debt system does. That's pretty much what he's going off because her body language is confusing.

Yep, that's because she's super confused.

They can... probably just keep cycling between dancing and occasional snack table trips until the dance winds down?

Sounds like a success to him.

Okay then. At the end of the night they can head back to the car. Some of the kids are gonna go other places and break curfew, but she's pretty sure doing that would not result in a great end to the evening, and also she doesn't know anyone, so she's just gonna go home.

"...did you have fun?"

"I think so? Honestly I am confused about some things."

"Like what?"

"Uh....

...what you want from me, what you realize you're allowed to have from me, whether it's a terrible idea to talk about that, why you are scared by - dances and things - whether I am only allowed to touch you at dances, whether you got the thing you wanted tonight, what that even was..."

"I think... I don't know a lot of those things. I - don't really mind if you talk about it, I think?"

"I think telling them to touch you is a pretty traditional thing to do with slaves though I don't actually know much about this personally and I know humans are different about lots of stuff."

Ugh.

"I don't want a slave. Or, like - I am pretty sure the more I act like I have one the more things are gonna get - bad."

"I don't want you to be unhappy."

"Is that, like, a bad thing to say, that I don't want a slave?"

"No? I mean, it'd be pretty upsetting if I thought you meant you were sending me away on that account but you don't mean that. I kind of think you mean you want things to go like they are but as if it's just what we happened to decide to do but - I don't really like the idea of acting like that. Even if it'd be a favor. 

And so I'm not doing it, notice."

"I notice. 

"I don't want to act like I don't have a bunch of power over you? That's - inaccurate? But I also don't want to - make use of it, in ways that won't - I want you to do stuff that's good for you and not do stuff that's bad for you, mostly, unless I guess this leads to us not being able to take care of my niece and nephew, and I wish I didn't need you for that, either, but I do, so I guess you have to keep doing it regardless of how you feel about it. But I don't want to - be selfish. Or, like, forget that I don't actually matter more than you do, or that I think it's a stupid quirk of fairy rules that because I did one thing for you half a year ago the universe thinks you should have to listen to me, or whatever."

"I don't think I would do things that were bad for me. I guess if you tell me to we'll find out but - I think I wouldn't. But - you're so far away from that it's silly to even think about, nothing you've done has come anywhere near anything that'd be bad for me -"

"I don't wanna think about people like that. Just in terms of what they could do to make me happy or make my life easier, or how I could get and maintain power over them so they'd have to keep doing it, no matter what it was. Maybe something in me does, but that thing is - scary, and I don't like it. And if I were in your position I'd hope that whoever I had to listen to barely even had that thing, and if they had to have it I'd definitely hope they wouldn't be listening to it."

"People like feeling safe. And - 

- I don't actually think feeling safe because someone's yours is different than feeling safe because the door locks, or feeling safe because there's money in the bank, or feeling safe because Matt will totally arrange for horrible things to happen to anyone who bullies you at school - that might not be the best example - but I don't feel scared that you have a thing that wants me, because of course you do. It'd be bad if it were the only thing you had, I guess, but it's not."

"I just - 

"So there are multiple things going on here, right? There's like - the fact that I need you to pay the bills, and the fact that I wanna be your friend, and wanna be a good friend and not a terrible friend who leaves you way worse off, and I wanna be a good person and not do awful things, and I want you to - feel safe, and I also want you to like me I guess, and I also feel like that's kind of pathetic of me because given everything else about this situation that is probably really not what I should be focusing on, especially because, like, I don't even know what wanting you to like me unfolds out to, or what I'd do about it if you did, because I don't even actually know how much I want to touch you, or how, or when, and then apart from all of that, there's like -

" - if you were stuck being my - slave - forever, or until I died or whatever, then - 

" - I kinda think no one's ever gonna really like me? And - I can't make you keep really liking me. But I can maybe make you do some of the stuff you'd do if you really liked me regardless of how you actually felt about it. And that seems really bad? Like it'd be really bad for you and really bad for me and really bad for our friendship and really - humiliating, to even admit to wanting it on some level, because it's pathetic and bad to care that much about being able to pretend that people care about you, but the stupid thing won't shut up about wanting stuff, and just - at least if I never tell you to do anything that I want for me and not for other people then I'll know I'm not doing that. I guess."

It is a good thing she did not decide to have this conversation while driving because she feels suuuper incapable of driving right now.