"...yes, my love, your safety, which I also care about."

(He blushes the slightest bit when she calls him her love.) 

"I... what kinds of safety would I need, though? You're the one... offering up yourself. I'm going to be... in control of you. For a week. And things." 

"You are! And I'm very happy about that!" She kisses him on the cheek. "But—it's important that you feel okay about it too. I'm glad the ritual has a safety valve but—if it turns out to be overwhelming or upsetting or you just don't like it, I want you to be able to back out? And to... feel like you can back out?"

(Okay so while that's technically good and all he shouldn't need it right? Like... what's the worst that could happen here? Nothing. Nothing! He's going to be in control and enjoy himself! Whatever random stuff he might be afraid (no worried about, he's not afraid of this) of isn't... real. Shouldn't be real. Something.) 

"I... I don't think I'll need to do that?" he says, somewhat uncertain. (What even is he scared -- er, worried, about? She's the one who's going to be unable to escape. She's the one who'll have to do... heh. She's going to have to do whatever he wants her to do. (Unless she doesn't want to do them or he's asking too much of her or that sort of thing of course. But he gets the idea.)) "I don't think it'll be a problem but I'll keep it in mind. I... I don't see how it could be, um, upsetting," he says. (He might not be thinking too hard about the overwhelming bit. He doesn't need to, right? It'll be fine.) 

"My love," she says gently, "I sense turmoil."

He buries his face into her shoulder. "I don't, know," he says, muffled. "I just... it might be a lot I guess. But I don't want to stop if it's a lot? I don't want to. I shouldn't have to. You would be sad." (So would he, probably.) "But it'll be fun, and not too much, probably? It'll be fine." 

"John my love, I would be sad if you did the Hunger Games Thing because you were scared of stopping when something overwhelmed you. If you felt like things were too much so you stopped doing them, I would be happy."

Oh right the Hunger Games thing. Damnit. (Fuck the Hunger Games thing.) 

He winces. "Okay I... okay. I will tell you if I'm... I just... fuck. I don't... fuck. I'll tell you, probably?" (He doesn't want to have to stop just because he might be overwhelmed with responsibility or whatever and there won't even be responsibility in the next week anyways it's just a longer term thing maybe (that he's committing to, right now... hush about that) and besides this is going to be hot and relaxing and fun to have a slave to serve him and stuff. He doesn't want to have to stop just because he's having a hard time or something!)  

"I appreciate that!" She kisses his nose again.

(Okay... fuck. He... doesn't want to tell her if that happens but... now he has to, doesn't he. Doesn't he. Fuck, he does. He said he would and she kissed his nose like that so he... can't back out of it. It's... probably for the best? He really doesn't want to Hunger Games her. Fuck.) "I'm... glad." he says, and squeezes her a little, and flops into her arms, face still buried in her shoulder. "Does that... clear things up for you? Probably?" It does, right? 

"Yeah." She squeezes him right back. "I think it does."

John breathes a small sigh of relief. "Okay, good," he says. "I'm glad." He kisses her shoulder (since that's what's accessible at the moment) and snuggles up a little closer. Is it time to continue to go back to resting cozily with his (soon to be very his) Rosy in this enormous and awesome bed? Without having to worry, that is. 

It is, it is that time! Comfy and soft. ❤️

Oh. Oh, good. Well then he'll just stay snuggled up to her and wait for dinner (or whatever other thoughts she might have... say, they've had fun, um, talking about um, things before. They could do more of that again? Maybe not right now though? It's too scary to bring up at the moment and he's had too many... surprises? Disruptions? Something?) and continue snuggling her, very happily (and mostly not distracted). 

This time she really does just stay nestled all cozy with him until a soft, pleasant chime rings out from nowhere in particular.

"I bet that's the dinner bell," she says. "We must escape the bed's all-consuming embrace."

"Alas," John says. He doesn't really want to, but they probably should. (Also the house probably worked hard on the dinner, now that he thinks about it, and he doesn't want to disappoint it.) "How shall we manage such a task?" And then he blushes a little at his silliness. "I mean, that makes sense." He struggles to sit up, though it's a bit difficult after being quite so comfortable, and being entangled with Rosy. 

She giggles and kisses him on the cheek. (And gets distracted nestling cozily on him just a tiny bit more. So comfy...)

"Okay. Okay. Up we get!"

She heaves herself out of the bed. Free at last!

Much of the reason for staying in bed is gone now. (Alas. It was a very good reason.) He stretches for a moment, and then pushes himself upwards and then slides onto his feet on the floor. "Alright, I'm up then," he says. "Okay. Shall we go to dinner?" He isn't sure which way the dining room is; Rosy should probably lead the way. 

"Mhm!"

She happily leads him back into the sitting room and out into the hall and down it to where the grand stairs spiral their way up from the basement, and between those, and then the dining room is on their left, the whole wall between it and the foyer completely absent with only a couple of pillars (one at each end) to gesture at the existence of a threshold.

The dining room itself is lovely, wood-paneled and warmly lit. The table is huge, of course, and piled high with baskets of flowers. The head place and the one to its right have been set with gleaming plates and silverware; Rosy skips right up to the head and sits there, gesturing John into the adjacent seat. There is not actually any food in evidence just yet but Rosy seems unworried.

(They're probably not going to get singing dishware and candlesticks serving them food like in Beauty and the Beast, right? No, that's silly, it'll probably just appear like magic. Which it will be.)

John is... a bit amazed at the way the table looks, and the room for that matter, gigantic and covered in pretty flowers (and the baskets are a nice touch). But he isn't about to stand there staring. He follows Rosy and sits next to her, checking out the lovely plates and silverware (and trying to determine what they're in for by looking at just how much silverware has been set out. How many forks are there?) along with the table and room and everything. 

There are three forks, all a matched set but in slightly different styles, and three knives mirroring their arrangement on the other side of the plate. There is a soup spoon next to the knives, and a cute little dessert spoon laid horizontally just above the plate on the table, and a bread plate with its own butter knife above the forks section, and above the knives section are three very pretty glasses. It's not immediately clear what he'll be needing three glasses for.

"How familiar are you with fancy dining?" asks Rosy. "Do I need to explain about the outside-in rule? I guess no one here will care if you do unintended things with your cutlery."

"I have heard of the outside-in rule!" John says. "I don't know much more than that, though. If there's any special rules for what gets used when... I'll probably follow your lead, honestly. If that's ok." She's probably been to plenty of formal dinners, even if they probably don't have them every night at her house (right?) she still probably has... charity dinners or something? Or political things? (Maybe she hasn't been to that many things, actually. Still, she probably knows more than he does.) 

"I think following my lead will work fine."

There's a rustle from behind John and to his right; if he turns to look, he'll see a discreetly curtained doorway in the middle of the wall, and the curtain parting as a little serving cart trundles through. Atop the cart are two lightly steaming bowls of soup, and a wicker basket lined with a white tea towel, its flower-patterned corners folded up to wrap around the basket's lightly steaming contents. The basket matches the style of the flower-filled ones on the table. Rosy is charmed.

John had (perhaps foolishly) expected the food to just appear on their plates like magic, but if the kitchen is actually preparing the food somewhere, possibly this makes more sense. Teleporting objects is probably hard or expensive or something. (Though didn't Rosy say something about laundry disappearing and coming back smelling of lavender or something? Something to find out another time.) 

The food's approach is in fact charming. John is warming to this house more and more (and really wishes he could compliment it, or something. Plus he's probably going to especially want to do that when he eats. Maybe he can pass them through Rosy? That still doesn't feel great though for some reason. He'd rather do it himself). "So we just... take the food off of the cart ourselves?" he asks as it approaches. 

"I expect not," says Rosy.

The cart passes by John and parks itself neatly at the corner of the table, between the two of them. The soup bowls take flight and sail gently onto their plates. The basket lifts off and sets itself down on the table, in a space clear of flowers where either of them could reach past their plates to access it; Rosy leans forward to peel back a corner of towel and unveil the mystery within. (The cart, now dishless, trundles silently away.)