"Shakespearean stage directions—it's Latin for 'everyone leaves'. Or maybe 'all depart'? 'Exit everybody'? You get the picture. I'm just being cute, that wasn't a serious suggestion, though I suppose it does have the advantage that it's really unlikely to come up organically in most scenes we could reasonably be doing."

Aha! "Yeah, that could work fine," John says, grateful that she's coming up with ideas for the thing that he had already forgotten about, somehow. Or, wait, didn't she just say she was joking? "Or, well, it works okay for me? But possibly we could come up with something better. I do like it for not coming to naturally in whatever fun things" scenes she called them which works as well as anything "or scenes we're doing. And yeah, I get what you mean for the other thing, I'm just not sure how to keep it from sounding really dumb and being awkward at the same time. And thinking about, um, stuff I've read, it's um, usually approached differently." He blushes. "Has, um, different parameters or requirements or that sort of thing." He blushes more. 

"Different parameters?"

Fuck. John blushes more. "Um. I just mean, um, they're usually not asking for permission, they're, um, telling. And don't really need to care about being understandable either. Which isn't what we're looking for. Right?" 

"I see what you mean." Also she's kissing him on his adorable nose.

John blushes and grins, despite himself. It's always good when Rosy is cute and loving towards him, even when he's being dumb and awkward. (Possibly especially when he's being dumb and awkward even.) "We could go with a nonsense phrase, I guess?" he says. "But I don't think we're looking for like, a mind control trigger here. Just something to point out that um, we're going to be acting differently. For a while." 

"Yeah. The one we have is good on a lot of levels! I think a nonsense phrase wouldn't be as good."

"Agreed, yeah, I just don't know how to say it that's it's not, like, technically correct." Maybe he should just say it, even though it's inaccurate? He keeps coming back to it. "I've been trying out things like 'act like you're mine' or something," he says, shrinking a little, "but I can't figure out how to make the phrasing not sound dumb. Maybe... maybe you have a better idea?" He shrinks a little more. 

"Oh, 'act like you're mine' is a good thought even though you're right that it's a clunky phrasing." Snug. "What if, hmm... how about 'are you ready to serve me?'? I can't decide if it's silly or exciting and I think it might be both."

Oh, that works. John, um, twitches a little. In a specific part of his body. "That, um, works," he says, blushing a little. "It's exciting to me at least." 

"Goodness, doesn't it just."

John decides not to say anything further and just blushes some more instead. (And also maybe possibly twitches a little more when thinking about it.) 

She kisses him.

John kisses her back, letting his hand slide into her hair on the back of her head so he can kiss her more closely, pulling her close and enjoying the image playing on loop in his mind. (Him: "are you ready to serve me?" Rosy, naked, dropping to her knees: "yes, Master.") John kisses her a little bit harder. 

Cozy snuggly kisses. Cozy snuggly sexy kisses.

"—I should probably explain us to the house before we have much more opportunity to get carried away," she says, disengaging reluctantly. "Do you still want to be there for it? You really don't have to be. I could scamper off to see what it's made of the Tub Nub and have a quick chat. Maybe mention my opinion on poo closets while I'm at it."

John is also reluctant but understanding, and also maybe it's a bad idea to get carried away for other reasons (ritual soon!). "Yeah, we probably want to um, save being carried away for later," he says, sitting up. "And I don't mind being around for that, it should be fine." It might be weird but he still wants to see how it goes and hear what she says and having done all this has helped with his feelings about it, oddly enough. "I also wouldn't mind overhearing you tell it what you think of um, poo closets." He smirks a little. 

"Okay," she says. "We should make sure ahead of time that we have everything pinned down, though. Like, are we actually going with 'exeunt omnes' or should I come up with a more serious suggestion? You seemed a little tentative about confirming it."

Oh right. They never did confirm that in detail did they. "That's fine with me," he says, a little bit eager for the house to be told things so that other things can happen. (Though it's important to do them right!) "Though it is a little silly, though we're unlikely to say it by accident. Do you have another idea? Otherwise that's probably fine for now." 

"No, I think that's the best I've got on such short notice. We can always change things later. Okay, so to recap: the safeword is 'safeword' and if either of us says it we shut things down immediately, the exchange to start things is 'are you ready to serve me' and 'yes sir' or 'yes master' as appropriate, and the normal ending cue for when nobody's having an emergency and we're just done for now is 'exeunt omnes'. While we're outside of the altered state we shouldn't do anything that a concerned sports referee would object to. That was a terrible metaphor and I'm very sorry. While we're in the altered state we can do what we like, and in particular you can order me around or hurt me or ask me to hurt myself, and we can do all sorts of elaborate things with costumes and backstories, and none of this will alarm the house because I will explain that we're doing it on purpose with safety procedures. Am I missing anything?"

Concerned sports referee! His Rosy (or at least his in the very near future) is very cute! He's so glad she's going to be his (soon!). "Nope, that sounds like everything," he says, grinning at the metaphor. 

"Okay."

She takes a deep breath.

"...I think, now that I'm really facing up to it... I expect it to be pretty hard to explain all this to the house, and I expect it to be harder if I also have to make sure I sound coherent and non-alarming to you at the same time? The way people think and the way spirits think are... different. I think it would be easier for me, to just make sure we have everything straight between us, and then convey those results to the house, than to have to make sure everything I say makes sense to both of you and means the same things to you both. I... guess I had a hard time noticing that because I just sort of expected myself to manage it somehow if it came to it, but maybe I should be letting myself take the easy route instead."

Oh. Oh. But if he doesn't hear what she says then how can he know for sure that it's going to be okay? That he understands the rules exactly? (They're pretty simple rules...) That he's not going to accidentally violate them? (That the house doesn't mind that they're going to be getting up to weird stuff?) "Oh, okay," he says. "I... I can go somewhere else if that'll be easier. I didn't realize me being along would make it more difficult." 

"...you sound like you have concerns. Please tell me of your concerns."

"My concerns are pretty silly," he tells her. "They're not anything to worry about." Wait, no, she wants him to tell her, damnit. "I... I just want to be sure that there's not some nuance in what you're telling the house that I'd miss by not being here and then accidentally violate the rules without meaning it. And also, um," he blushes a little. "Extra silly but that the house will be disgusted by what we want to do and, stuff. I know you said it doesn't work that way and also it doesn't have a face, so I can't really see how it feels about us, but it's still a concern I have." 

"John, my love, my darling, I'm the Blake here. The rules are what I say they are. If we work out the rules between us, those are the rules, and any inaccuracies in what I convey to the house are my fault or the house's, not yours."

She takes his hand and squeezes it.

"As for the house being weirded out by us... it won't. I promise. I'm sorry that... things are so weird around this because the communication gulf between you is so huge. But I promise the house is friendly and not going to get tripped up by a little thing like our sex life."