"That'd count as losing count."

"Safeword, then."

"Don't have one."

"Will 'stop' not suffice? Will he punish you for saying stop when you haven't even decided on a safeword?"

"...Yeah? If I'm not supposed to be talking or only saying certain things."

"I get off," Jackson objects.

"In a sustainable way," she insists.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That if every night he treats you like this and doesn't take care of you, eventually you won't be able to get off. Not to mention that it's very suspicious that you have neither a safeword nor the understanding that stop means stop."

"It's not always like this, usually I'm good."

"That's play. It shouldn't matter whether you're good or not, he shouldn't actually hurt you more than you want to be hurt."

"...you want to be hurt more than you want to be hurt? That makes no sense."

"I want it to be real, I don't want it to be some stupid game I can call time out on, I want someone to want me and have me, and I finally found somebody who'd have me and you think he's, I don't even know what you think."

She folds her arms. "I think he doesn't actually care about your wellbeing."

"My well being is better off than it was before I met him, so if you think you 'actually care about my well being'..."

"I didn't reach out to you with some bizarre ulterior motive, did I? I may be factually wrong about what's good for you—I don't think I am, of course—but I don't think you can say I don't care. Of course, you're the final arbiter of what's good for you, so I may not believe you if you tell me you're fine but I won't actually do anything about it."

"Good," sighs Jackson. "Just - just - It's so much better for me to belong to somebody, so much, I can't freak out over every little thing because a sex ed teacher might have told me to if I'd been in school that year."

She sighs. "Just take care of yourself, 'k?"

That might be a nod.

"Well. Bye, then."

"Bye," mumbles Jackson.

Sadde closes Jackson's door and gets back to her room.

Isabella's up and dressed; the door's open. "What was up with that, lovely?"