"Okay. Anything - you think you need to talk about, right now?"

Shrug. 

Snuggle.

"Wish I were better at talking."

"You're pretty good at it.

It'd be good if you told me when you're - trying to give me what I need up, instead of just trying to force my hand -"

" - I don't know if I followed that."

"So, let's say I asked for something, and you haven't refused but you're yelling and crying. That might be - that you're trying to give me the thing I asked for and it's very hard. Or it might be that you're trying to make sure I can't enjoy it and don't want it, and then you can yell at me for hurting you. And it might help if you said which it is."

"I have never done the second thing. I have no plans to do the second thing. If things are bad enough that I would even consider doing the second thing then you have already hurt me very very badly. At least with crying. I might - it's hard to disentangle some things because so much of what I do is trying not to make you angry so you won't hurt me, right - "

"Mmhmm."

"I am - at any given time I am giving you everything that I expect I can give you without breaking. I offered you all that I have and so far I am keeping that promise. But I don't know how much I have."

"I can sort of - translate that to something that feels good to hear."

Snuggle.

"I'm sorry. I don't - I don't know exactly what you need or whether it's something I'm capable of giving you."

"I know bits of it but sometimes they seem to contradict. This is good, you're being very good."

"Okay.

"Do you want to - keep hearing how I'm feeling about things, right now, or not think about it until later?"

"Depends on whether they're things that'll break if I say the wrong thing in response, I think."

"If you say the wrong thing it might hurt but I think it will be manageable if - if I ask you to talk about something else after and then we don't talk about it until we have more words."

"Then go ahead."

"It is really scary to think about you reading involuntary pain responses as attempts to manipulate you."

"Hmm. Since you couldn't avoid them even if you expected to be punished for them, so knowing I might read them that way doesn't help?"

"It means - it feels like trying to do a very costly thing and then being punished for experiencing the thing as very costly. The only thing it incentivizes is not doing costly things for you, if I worry that you'll punish me either way, and that if I've already been hurt very badly I'll have fewer resources to deal with the punishment. Or if I worry that you'll punish me even more when I do costly things for you, for not being able to hide the costs from you."

"I - appreciate it when you do costly things for me. I know I've asked you to do costly things for me. 

I hate that having sex with me is apparently about as bad as getting stabbed or something."

"I assure you that I also really hate this."

"I will try not to accuse you of exaggerating. I - wasn't trying to punish you, the other night, for exaggerating, I just thought if that was how you wanted to do this then it wasn't worth trying to do."

Nod. "Thank you.

"It's also pretty scary to think of - needing to consider whether I'm technically manipulating you at any given time, when I'm always going to be trying to prevent you from hurting me more than I can stand. It's really really scary to think of not being allowed to object to things or talk about or signal that they're costly until I am no longer physically capable of hiding my suffering. But - even more scary to think that suffering will be punished. That trying to help you will be punished, if it hurts me."

"I don't intend to punish you for suffering. I haven't punished you for anything - well, I haven't done anything I intended that way - because you haven't done anything to deserve it."

"Okay."