“This is the best day of my life,” Mel gushed, unable to contain the joy that had bubbled in her ample chest ever since she’d seen the words written in dark relief across her face. She kicked her heels back on her cushy bed, and inhaled the pleasant scent of lavender rising from the candle that sat flickering cheerily on her nightstand.

Hana smiled her familiar open and welcoming smile back at Mel from her little window poking out of the laptop screen. “I know how excited you’ve been, it’s something we’ve been talking about for as long as I’ve worked with you. I imagine this feels like a big moment of self-actualization for you, yes?” 

One of the woman’s cats took that moment to walk in front of the webcam, and Mel took the necessary moment to compliment His Nibs on his lovely orange fur and how pretty he was looking that day before continuing. “You have no idea! I-I’ve always known I’m meant to belong to someone, you know? I mean, of course you know I’ve probably told you that a hundred times in our sessions.” She forced herself to take a deep breath. “It’s a part of me. Like the way I know I’m a girl. Moreso even, I only realized the whole gender thing when puberty hit. For this… I’ve always known, even if I didn’t fully have the words for it.”

“That’s not an uncommon feeling for service marked people in my experience,” Hana replied, idly fingering her left shoulder where the intricate flight of birds that made up her partner mark with her wife sat. “It’s a fundamental part of your identity, and that’s finally coming into relief. Like I said, an actualization.”

“Yeah I guess I did just repeat what you said back to you,” Mel giggled. “I thought that was supposed to be your job.”

Hana smiled. It’d taken the two of them a while to find the right balance for their professional relationship, between affirmation and support and genuinely challenging and gently prodding at some of the more unhealthy patterns underlying the blonde girl’s behavior. But they’d been working together for more than a year, and the joke was an old familiar one.

“Speaking of self-actualization, you haven’t actually told me exactly what mark you got.”

“I didn’t?” Mel asked aghast, worrying the long sleeve of her pink hoodie with both hands. It’s lacy trim was a comforting textural grounding, helping pull her back out of the instant of instinctive shame that overwhelmed her momentarily. “I must have.”

“I believe your words were ‘God finally came through I’m gonna be owned oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh.’”

“Oh. Yes, okay that sounds like me.” She let her fingers relax, making a conscious effort to acknowledge that she hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been excited, and didn’t exactly do the best job communicating, but she hadn’t offended Hana. Not that Hana would be offended, but still. She wanted to be doing a good job in therapy. Or everything. “I’m a Subject? Which I’ve honestly never heard of before? I was going to look it up in the Soulmark Office database, but I kinda got lost in a daze on my way back from work and by the time I made it home I was almost late for our appointment and I didn’t have the time and… yeah.”

“Hmm.” Hana’s dark eyebrows drew together, forming almost a continuous line. “I think I’ve heard of one of those, with a royalty mark. They usually come with something closer to Knight or Servant, but Subject isn’t unheard of as far as I know.”

“Oh my gosh,” Mel said, and she knew her eyes were sparkling with the light glittering in her chest. “Jesus gave me a Princess.”

She couldn’t even comprehend it. How was it possible that she, Melody Freeman, was given a Princess to serve, to worship and to love. How could she possibly deserve that gift? God was too good to her.

“I’m happy for you Melody, I really am. You’ve been through a lot, and you have been dealing with it so well.” The therapist looked at her from the screen, dark eyes meeting Mel’s pale brown gaze with intensity. “I know that you’ve struggled with feeling like you’ve earned good things in your life in the past, but I hope you know that you deserve this. I think so, you think so, and God or the universe or whoever agrees.”

Mel flushed at that, off balance for the first moment all session. She swallowed the instinctive refutation that would always be her first reaction to someone being kind to her, and made herself actually listen and internalize what the other woman was saying. 

I am getting an A in therapy. I’m doing it. I’m doing so good.

They’d given up on “normal to want” a long time ago and settled for “possible to achieve.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, her crooked smile forcing its way back across her face, joy irrepressible even in the face of years of conditioned awkwardness and embarrassment. “I think I know that.”

Sensing the need for a change in topic, Hana asked a question that had clearly been on the tip of her tongue since Melody’s burbled confession. Her lips twisted into a grin as she said “So who is your lady love anyways? Maybe I know her.”

***

“This is the worst day of my life,” Rebekah wailed into her phone, pacing madly around the seven foot path she kept clear from clutter for just such a purpose. 

“Hello Rebekah,” her therapist replied. It didn’t seem like she was giving the statement the weight it deserved, taking a deep breath as though to jump straight into the rest of their session. That simply would not do.

“You have absolutely no idea the kind of batshit I’ve had to deal with today. Like this isn’t just the normal batshit.”

“I think I have some idea, which is why I—”

“I got a fucking Soulmark! Me! And it’s a fucking Hypnotist mark,” she said, barely holding back the scream that threatened to tear itself loose from her threat out of the barest thread of her conscious mind that clung to things like I shouldn’t blow out my therapist’s ears, and at some point surely I have to stop hyperventilating.

That at least seemed to get a reaction from the other woman, but it still looked more mildly taken aback than shocked to her core. She wasn’t getting the reaction that she needed, that Chet had given and then Aliyah as soon as the two of them had gathered themselves enough to pull her away from the protest and pass on the bad news. Why didn’t Hana see how insane this was?

“I know.”

That drew a pause from the endless swirl of thoughts that permeated Rebekah’s normally well-ordered mind. “You…what?”

“I know you have a Soulmark, which is why I have to make a disclosure to you.” Hana squirmed. Bekah didn’t think she’d ever seen her therapist squirm before. The woman was a rock, and even in the few months they’d been having sessions she’d made more progress with Hana’s firm take-no-shit attitude than with any of the half dozen wishy-washy have you considered meditation practitioners she’d tried over the past few years. If she was off-kilter, something was seriously wrong.

“A disclosure? About what?”

“I… know your soulmate.”

Bekah stopped short, almost falling forward at the sudden cessation of momentum. “You know her? Like she’s your friend?”

“No, I— she’s a client.” The discomfort clearly visible in Hana’s features intensified.

She laughed. What else was she supposed to do? “Small world I guess. Still, I guess I’d have had to track her down anyways if only to— wait a minute. Aren’t you not allowed to disclose patient information?” Bekah had taken the time to read all the way through the therapist’s various waivers and disclosure forms before their first session, and she was sure she recalled something like that. She wouldn’t have signed on if there had been some insane clause signing away her right to privacy.

“Generally, no. But — Bekah you can’t get mad at me I don’t have any control over this — the two of you have a recognized ownership mark pairing, even if it is a rare one. Which means—”

“Which means she doesn’t have a right to privacy,” Bekah finished for her, her stomach a stone weighing her down to the floor. 

“Which means I have to tell you that she is my client,” continued Hana, bulling her way through the incipient crisis already forming in Bekah’s desolation of a mind. “And I have a legal obligation to inform you that you have the right to request the details of any session.”

“I would never,” Bekah hissed.

“I know you wouldn’t. I know.” Hana held up her hands in a placating gesture. “I said I don’t have control over this. It’s the law, and I could lose my license if I don’t go through the whole spiel.”

Rebekah sank to her knees, all ability to hold herself together rapidly degrading. “Fine,” she said, her voice hollow. “Finish it.”

“Right.” Hana took a deep breath, and let it out in an explosive sigh. “I’m almost done. The thing is that the law treats service marked people in… interesting ways. You don’t need me to tell you. And therapists have always had an obligation to report an active threat of harm. It’s just that harm is a little more loosely defined with… Anyways.” She took another breath, steeling herself before continuing. “If I have a good faith belief that she is in danger of causing significant harm to herself, I am mandated by law to inform her owner. That includes significant emotional harm.”

“The Callahan Act,” Rebekah agreed woodenly. She’d written a paper for her Public Policy program about the law, more colloquially known as the Closed Door Act. “You have to tell me if she’s planning to run away.”

“...right.” 

“Please excuse me, Hana. I think I have to go throw up.”

***

It took a solid ten minutes for Bekah to finish venting the roiling turmoil her stomach had twisted itself into, and to recover enough that she could stand to face her therapist again. Even then, she left the camera off.

“I can’t do this,” she said, speaking aloud the words that had echoed through her head and bounced off the porcelain walls that she’d so recently occupied. “I refuse to do this.”

“Bekah…” Hana replied, her tone thick with sympathy. “I know this is difficult for you. Soulmark acquisition can be a major shock for anyone. Ownership and service marks even more so. It’s a major life adjustment, and that’s leaving aside your own beliefs about the matter. But people do adjust.”

“Yeah, because the owners beat the shit out of their slaves, they isolate them from society, make them fully dependent on them, and wait for Stockholm syndrome to set in. It’s impossible not to acclimate when you don’t have an alternative.” This was easy. The words were familiar, tripping off her tongue the way they’d done in so many arguments.

It didn’t escape Hana’s notice. Very little did. “This isn’t a debate, Rebekah. You don’t have to convince me. You know this.”

She did. It had taken a session or two before she got used to the idea that Hana genuinely didn’t judge her for her beliefs about soulmarks. She wasn’t on Bekah’s side, but she wasn’t there to argue with the woman. She was there to help. Bekah forced herself to breathe, a count of four in, hold, count of four out.

Sensing the change Hana continued, “Let’s leave aside the matter of your subject and talk about you. How can we help you come to terms and adjust with the reality of your new situation? How do we make this something you can live with?”

Bekah’s focus sharpened. “Subject? Not Slave? I’m surprised.”

“It’s an uncommon mark, from what I understand, but it is recognized. I did a little bit of research after Mel– after Melody told me about her own. Subject is most often paired with some kind of royalty though. I’m ah-” She paused. “I can tell you about what Melody is expecting. If you want.”

“No!” The vehemence of Bekah’s disavowal surprised even her. “I don’t want any of that. Please. Pretend nothing has changed. She deserves her privacy.” The idea of violating another person like that threatened to twist her still wobbly insides back into a tight knot. She would never. Never.

“Alright. I can do that. Although…”

“What?”

“You can go to the Soulmark Office if you want of course, but I know how you feel about that place. And, well, how they feel about you.” Bekah wasn’t precisely banned from FOS, but she was certainly unwelcome. You stage one cage-in protest in a government building… 

“If you preferred, I could provide you with Melody’s contact information.”

Bekah didn’t say anything. After allowing a generous moment of silence and it became clear that she wouldn’t, Hana kept going.

“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually, Bekah. You can’t just ignore this.”

***

“Surprise!”

Mel clutched at her chest, balling her hands into the frilly pouf poking out between the double breasted cut. She’d made the dress back when she was in her Hamilton phase, and even if the reminder made her cringe, it looked good on her. When her eyes finally took in the scene before her, shock was quickly overwhelmed by the absolute flood of warm gratitude that filled her body.

“You guys, you didn’t have to–”

“We know, dumbass,” said Viv, pulling the shorter woman in for a one armed hug and rubbing the top of her head with her knuckles. Mel melted under her touch, leaning into the embrace without thinking. “We did it ‘cause we wanted to.”

“H-how did you even know?”

“Well, after you nearly pushed me into a fiery grave and then started yelling ‘It happened it finally happened’ from the bathroom, I sorta figured things out, “ said Jed from his position behind the absolutely ludicrously decorated cake he’d clearly baked for her. “I called Andy and Viv and we did a little scheming.”

“Let the record show I did most of the scheming.” Andy threw his arm around Mel’s other shoulder, pulling her between him and Viv. “Sandwich time!”

“Noooo, no sandwich,” Mel protested futilely, the giggles already beginning to bubble up.

“Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich,” The two chanted as they squished her between their bodies. The pressure  of human contact relaxed her the way it always did, and she gave into the inevitability of sandwich time.

Jed crossed his arms with what Mel was sure he thought was a quiet dignity and sniffed. “If no one is going to appreciate my cake, I will be forced to take it away.”

“Don’t you dare Jed. I’ll fire your ass so fast.” Andy broke away from the Mel sandwich, leaving her and Viv to spin out into a laughing dizzy puddle as they collapsed to the floor. “Mel gets the first slice but if I don’t get the second I swear to god–”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Mel squeaked out from beneath the weight of Viv’s form draped over hers, trapping them both on the ground.

“Yes, excuse me, Mel. My point is, gimme. Viv, let her up. We can’t have cake till she does.”

“Fiiiiiiiine.”

Melody pulled herself to her feet as the other woman removed her weight from her back. Really she could probably have lifted Viv with no trouble, but she wasn’t going to pass up on the chance for some casual bondage-type restriction with her friend. She might be stronger than she looked, but God did she love to be weak.

She took a moment to catch her breath and wait for the room to stop spinning, then focused in on the cake. Her breath caught in her chest. “Jed, it’s beautiful.”

It was. A triple layer cake frosted in sunset pink to swirly perfection, with little carrot roses dotting the top in shades of orange, purple and yellow. The pattern of icing gave the illusion of a wave, swelling across the entirety of the cake and yet never breaking. The sense of motion imparted was almost hypnotic. And across the top was a stunningly realistic depiction of a black leather collar, unlocked and awaiting its recipient, rendered in some matte material Mel didn’t recognize, but gave the whole thing a wonderful sense of dimension. 

“One of my famous carrot pecan cakes, with cream cheese frosting of course.” Jed beamed at her. Nothing made that man happier than someone appreciating his baking. He leaned towards her as though passing on a secret. “The collar is marzipan.”

“Jed… I don’t deserve this. I– Ow!” A hand slapped across the top of head and she let out an involuntary squeak.

“Kiddo. Hey.” Andy spun her around and grabbed her by the shoulders, looking down with fondness in his eyes. His mop of hair that he insisted was “rakish” swung over one eye, and he hastily brushed it to the side. “We love you. You know that, right?”

She couldn’t help it. Tears started to bead at the corners of her eyes, and drip their way down her cheeks. “Y-yeah. I know.”

“Then shut about deserving and eat some damn cake before I die of starvation.” Andy laughed, breaking eye contact just a hair too slow to hide the sadness behind the joy in his eyes.

“What’s wrong, boss?” It was her turn to comfort now, a much easier role for Mel that she slipped into in the blink of an eye. She tugged his shoulder back towards her, and moved in for a hug.

“Awww, nothing’s really wrong. Today is a happy day. We’re just – I’m just gonna miss you. That’s all.”

Now the tears came in earnest. “I’m gonna miss you guys too. So much. So so much.” She turned to take in the bittersweet gaze of best friends in the entire world. “Jed, I’m gonna miss trying out your terrible baking experiments. Stick to the classics.”

He started indignantly, but before he could get in a word she continued. “Viv, I’m gonna miss gossipping with you about Mrs. Potts and her insane polycule.”

“I’ll send you a weekly newsletter, I promise.” Viv was starting to cry too. They all were. 

“And Andy… you took me in when I was just a kid. You saw what I needed was to serve, and you gave that to me. I know I wouldn’t be who I am today without your kindness. I love you, boss.” She pulled him tight into another hug, squeezing as hard as she possibly could. From Andy’s grunt, it was harder than he expected. 

“I hope my owner lets me come visit you guys sometime.” Mel smiled, still teary eyed. “But even if she doesn’t, know that I’ll always remember you.

The room was silent for a second. Then Jed cleared his throat. “I believe I mentioned something about how if no one was going to appreciate my cake I would have to take it away…?”

The tension broke, and Andy let out a rueful sigh that morphed into a chuckle. “Well we can’t have that, can we. Give Mel a slice already you bastard.”

Before she could accept the offered slice, Mel’s phone dinged. That was a surprise, since most of the people who texted her were in the room at that very moment. She held out a hand to Jed’s outstretched plate, and pulled out her phone. Its case was old and worn, but she had loved the pink glittery thing so much when she’d first seen it that she’d use the case till it broke down completely. The text was from a number she didn’t recognize.

“Hey

This is Bekah

Rebekah Mourning, I mean

We should talk”