Bekah’s heart raced, pumping hard and fast in her chest as she threw open the front door of her home and looked around frantically for Melody.
    Stupid fucking idiot, she thought, not pausing in her search even amidst her internal recriminations. You left her home without a way to leave, without bothering to say goodbye, and you even left your fucking phone on silent. Who does that? 
    Of course, she knew the answer. She did that. Bekah made a habit of keeping her phone silenced pretty much all the time. She had a hard enough time maintaining concentration without a notification from whatever dumb group chat Chet had dragged her into interrupting her thoughts, and anything she actually needed to respond to was never urgent enough that it couldn't wait the half hour or so it took to finish whatever she was doing. Nobody ever actually needed her. 
    Except now someone did. Bekah tore through her clean and sterile home, shoving from room to room with increasing urgency as her new soulmate failed to appear. 
    “Melody?” she called, the knot that had formed in her stomach the instant she’d read Mel’s last message only tightening further. “Melody? Mel?!”
    “I’m up here.”  A quiet voice wafted through the hallway towards the staircase. “In the bedroom.”
    Without thinking twice, Bekah sprinted up the stairs two at a time, gripping the polished wooden banister tightly to keep her balance. She threw her body physically through the door into her bedroom, curls following moments after in a boinging motion that could be humorous under other circumstances.
    “Melody?”
    “Over here.” This time, the voice was loud enough for Mel to hear the exhaustion in it. It was also coming from behind her, back out in the hall.
    Stupid, she thought even as she turned on her heel and ran towards the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. Of course she’s not in my bedroom.
    But the guest room was empty too. Mel’s things sat neatly folded in one corner, a towel hung from the hook on the bathroom door, a water glass half empty on the nightstand. All signs of life, if well-tidied ones. But no signs of the woman herself.
    “I’m down here.”
    Bekah bent down, craning her neck to peer beneath the bed, hair dangling in front of face but not obscuring her view of Melody, supine and staring up blank faced at the box spring above. 
    “Melody? Are you okay?”
    A bitter laugh, that carried more weariness than humour. Her fixed gaze didn’t even waver. “Yeah, I’m alright. Sorry I bothered you.”
    “You didn’t bother me. I’m so sorry I didn’t… I forgot that…” Bekah paused. “Sorry, why are you under the bed?”
    This sparked another laugh, this one more genuine with the barest thread of the other woman’s normal joyous demeanor poking through. “I feel comfortable down here. It helps, when I have a panic attack, to be enclosed like this. Makes things seem smaller.” She rolled her head over to meet Bekah’s gaze, her eyes red and puffy. “Stupid, right?”
    Bekah could feel the muscles in her shoulders and neck begin to relax, releasing their spring-tight tension as her lips drew up into an involuntary smile. She slid down, resting her head on her propped up hand level with Mel.
    “I don’t think it’s stupid,” she said. “If it works for you, why would it be stupid?”
    “I dunno, it feels childish I guess. Like when I’m scared I go hide in a blanket fort.”
    Bekah looked around in mock skepticism. “Doesn’t look much like a blanket fort to me. Entirely too few pillows.”
    “Well I wasn’t in the best of headspaces when I made it. Usually I’m a lot better at it than this.”
    “A likely story.”
    Mel giggled. “Besides, I don’t know where you keep your pillows.”
    Just like she didn’t know where the food was, or the key or anything. Because you left her alone. Because you were scared. The words were her own. Bekah knew instinctively that Mel would never say anything like that to her, never pin the blame on Bekah’s shoulders. Which meant that it was Bekah’s job to take responsibility. To make sure that nothing like this ever happened again.
    “Bekah?” Mel’s soft voice interrupted her thoughts in their rapid inward spiral.
    “Yeah Mel?” Her own voice was roughened with the emotion she’d been refusing to let herself feel ever since she’d gotten those texts, and would not let overwhelm her now. Not when Mel needed her to be strong.
    “Do you think, if I came out from under the bed, I could get a hug?”
    “Yeah. Yeah.” Bekah scooted aside, and Mel wriggled her way out from beneath the bed. She leaned in and embraced the other woman, holding her tightly and feeling her throat burn with unshed tears. “I think I could use a hug too.”
    They stayed like that for a while, enjoying the simple human comfort of holding another person tight. After a few minutes both girls’ breathing slowed and eventually synchronized, Melody’s chest rising and falling in time to Bekah’s.
    “I’m sorry Melody.” Bekah broke the comfortable silence, words that had been stuck in her throat finally forcing their way out.
    “You don’t have to apologize,” Mel mumbled into her chest, nuzzling closer. “I’m sorry I freaked out, I–”
    “No, I really do have to apologize.” Bekah pulled away slightly, lightly grabbing Mel’s chin and lifting her up to meet her eyes, still red and puffy but without that deadened glaze they’d held when she first arrived. “I was thoughtless and I abandoned you because I didn’t want to think about you.”
    “You were–”
    “No, please let me finish. Please.” She took a deep breath. “It isn’t just this morning. I mean obviously, this morning was stupid. I shouldn’t have left you with almost no food in the house, and with no key. No wonder you felt trapped. Did you have any of the yogurt, at least?”
    Mel sniffled softly. “I’m lactose intolerant. I can do dairy if I have my pills, but without… it’s not pretty.”
    “Right. Of course.” Bekah lightly slapped her face with her left hand, relinquishing her grip on Melody’s chin. “Sorry. You fell victim to one of my little neuroses there. I don’t really cook anymore, and I like to eat the same thing for breakfast every day. It’s… comforting I suppose. Probably something I should talk to my therapist about.” Bekah winced. “To Hana. I forgot we shared her for a second.”
    “She’s great, isn’t she?” Mel offered softly.
    “Yeah she is. Anyways, sorry I got sidetracked. I do that sometimes. It’s the easier option, when I’m avoiding something. And I have been avoiding something. I’ve been avoiding dealing with this.” She gestured half heartedly at her mouth, where the fractal lines marked her as Melody’s Hypnotist. “Because I’m scared of it. I’m scared of what it means about me.”
    Mel pulled closer, extricating her legs fully from their half trapped position underneath the bed and wrapping her arms tighter around Bekah, tucking her head against Bekah’s slender bosom. The warmth of her body radiated from their points of contact. She didn’t say a word, but the strength in her arms spoke volumes.
    “I’m not stupid, you know? I know the statistics. Everyone at SASS does. More than 97% of Soulmarked couples end up happy long term for a given value of happy, with more than 90% at stage three or beyond marks after two years. There’s a better than nine in ten chance that this,” she gestured again at her cheek, at the line curving towards the corner of her mouth, “is who I am. That I’m the kind of person who does this to people. That I’ll embrace this fucked up side of myself enough to make this stupid fucking tattoo grow and grow”
    She paused, long enough that Melody started to stir against her. “I have trouble with that idea. Maybe that’s putting it lightly. Hana always tells me that I’m, what’s her turn of phrase, ‘overly socialized’. I’m supposed to be expressing my emotions more, so here goes.”
    Another pause, shorter this time but no less tense for it.
    “The idea that I’m going to hypnotize you, to take away your thoughts and your mind and make them my own is absolutely repulsive to me. Imagining it makes my stomach tie up in knots and I want to vomit until there’s nothing left. I’ve done some research, some reading to figure out what people do, y’know, sexually, and it’s like it’s been branded into my skull. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m scared of who I’m going to turn into, and I’m taking it out on you and it’s not fair. I’m trying to force you to go along with what I want because I’m scared of what I’ll do if I let you be who you want to be, and I know that makes me a massive fucking hypocrite and honestly I’ve been trying not to think about it. Which means not thinking about you, which is why this morning happened the way it did. Which isn’t fair to you. And I’m sorry.” She blew out the remainder of her breath in a sigh. “That’s what I wanted to say.”
    They sat there in silence for a minute. Two minutes. Three. 
    Melody let her arms go slack around Bekah’s waist, and pulled away enough to meet the other woman face to face. “Thank you. For telling me. And for saying you’re sorry. I’m not always the best about stuff like this. And you’re right that you’re not what I expected. But I think I’m happy to have you, anyways.”
    Bekah barked a harsh laugh. “Why in god’s name would you be happy to have a mess like me?”
    Hazel eyes sparkled in the light peeking underneath the bedroom blinds. “Exactly that. God’s name. He brought us together, and I think I’m beginning to see why.”
    She stood up suddenly and offered her hand down to the still seated Bekah. “C’mon, boss. Let’s get some food.”
    Bekah looked up at her, eyebrows raised. The mischievous glint in the curvy girl’s still moist eyes coaxed a reluctant grin from her clenched jaw. “Your wish is my command.”

***
By the time they’d walked most of the way toward Bekah’s favorite breakfast joint, things were easier between them. The verbal release of her fears seemed to have loosened something up in Bekah, and her words flowed smooth and warm in response to Melody’s jibes.
    “I wouldn’t have expected a self-declared submissive to be…”
    “Such a bitch?” Mel offered, the upturned corner of her lips giving the lie to her words.
    “I was going to go with something like ‘this sassy’, but I can work with bitch too. God knows I’ve done it enough.”
    Mel slowed her stride, drifting back to walk side by side instead of leading by three or four steps like she’d done the entire way there. It didn’t seem to be a conscious thing, just the natural result of her longer legs and exuberant demeanor. Compared to that dull wan thing under the bed, she was bright as a candle finally lit. Still, her wicked grin had sombered just a touch, still full of glee and whimsy, but tempered for a moment with care.
    “If it bothers you, seriously let me know. I can be a lot, and I can rein it in pretty easily.”
    Bekah stopped, forcing Mel to stop with her.
    “Melody… I know you want to give up control to me, but I–”
    “This isn’t about that,” Mel interrupted, then held her hand up to her mouth in shock at her own temerity. “I mean it though.” Her voice was muffled behind her fingers, but her tone was entirely serious. “This isn’t a sub thing. This is a friend thing. Sometimes I’m too much, and not everyone wants to deal with that all the time. There are friends that I let myself be a pain in the ass around, and friends I don’t. It’s not a big deal.”
    Bekah didn’t know what to say to that, so she said the only thing she could. “I don’t think you’re too much. I don’t know you very well yet, but I want to know you more.”
    A bright red flush spread from behind Mel’s fingers in their obscuring position. Seen in the afternoon light for the first time, it was absolutely adorable. Bekah wanted to make her do it more. Acting on impulse, she tugged Mel’s hand away from her mouth, and clasped it lightly in her own. 
    Thus joined together they made their way in comfortable silence the last few blocks and on arrival Bekah opened the door to the brightly lit cafe with a mock bow and flourish. “My lady.”
    “You’re the one who was supposed to be a Princess.” Mel grumbled, with enough laughter in her voice to soften any sting in the reminder of their series of mishaps the night before. She passed her bowing could-have-been Hypnotist with an equally mock curtsey, and of course insisted on holding the door open for the other woman to enter.
    The waiter, a short brunette man with a visible “Toy of” mark clawing its way up from his admittedly low cut neckline, like scratch marks permanently engraved in ink against his skin, greeted them with a cheery smile.
    “Table for two?” His eyes, hollow grey like morning fog, skimmed across their matching Marks, so obviously fresh and undeveloped, and directed his attention to Bekah. “Would you like a cushion for her, a chair, or…?” 
    The question hung, open ended as it was, long enough that the waiter began to glance anxiously between the two of them, clearly terrified he’d misinterpreted something.
    Which he had. Just not the way he thought he had. They were a service Mark pair, out in public. It was standard etiquette to address the dominant partner when that was obvious.
    Except they weren’t really a pair. Weren’t a Hypnotist and her Subject, no matter what the tattoos proclaimed them to be. Bekah refused to let them be. But when she met Melody’s eyes and saw the longing there, it pierced her resolve like an arrow to Achilles’ heel. 
    Fuck it. 
    “She’ll have a cushion, thank you.”
    She wouldn’t give in to what the universe had so unfairly decided on for her, but she and Mel were a pair. Legally, morally, and growing ever more obvious to Bekah no matter how she tried to ignore it, romantically. She liked Melody. She wanted to make her laugh, to make her blush, to groan at her stupid jokes. And Melody wanted to submit to her. She didn’t have to go all the way to hypnosis or brainwashing or whatever. She could figure out a balance between them. She could do it for Mel.
    The shock and joy on Melody’s face was nearly matched by the relief on the waiter’s as he nodded, grabbed two menus, and led them to a table set for two. In a smooth and practiced motion, he slid the second chair off to the side and replaced it with a comfortable if clearly worn cushion in a dark velvet maroon.
    “Here you are ladies, a menu for you. Ma’am, if you’d like her food served to her on the floor, just slide her utensils to your side and whoever brings out your order will know what to do. If you’d like any other accommodations, just let me or any other server know. Take your time, someone will be with you shortly to ask about drinks.” Comfortably back on script, he retreated back towards his watchpost at the front.
    “Bekah, I–”
    This time it was Bekah’s finger across her lips that silenced Mel mid-sentence. She smiled wide, knowing how dopey and stupid she probably looked, but she couldn’t help it. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Let me do this for you.”
    Applying gentle pressure with the same finger, she gently pushed Mel to her knees and guided her to rest on the cushion. Sitting in the only remaining chair, Bekah drew Mel’s head to rest gently against her thigh.
    “This okay?”
    “Yes,” breathed Mel. Her face was flushed again, her lips slightly parted in an expression that Bekah associated more with the bedroom than a public cafe, but she couldn’t say she didn’t like how Melody wore it. 
    “Good,” she said, and leant down to kiss her.