Read Forbidden: A Standalone for Free Online

Episcopalian, first off, so celibacy isn’t on the table. And I just haven’t been ordained.”
    “Why not?”
    “This is really all going to be about me, isn’t it?” he said.
    “If you tell me why you’re not ordained, I’ll tell you something dirty I did.”
    I felt the weight of my mistake instantly.
    He got dead serious. “I know that’s how you’re used to being valued, but that’s not what you’re here for.”
    “Sorry,” I said. “It came out before I thought about it.”
    “That’s allowed. There was some discussion with the board about whether or not you should have a male therapist, but from what we could understand, it wouldn’t matter.”
    “So I got the hardass, unordained priest who knows I’m bisexual.”
    “You got the guy with the MDiv and PsyD who spent three years in a hospital chaplaincy in Compton. After that, I go where I’ll do the most good, not where I get the most authority.”
    “Ah. Compton. You must have seen some bad shit.”
    “Very bad shit.”
    “Then why are you at the rich kids’ retreat?”
    “I can do good here as well as there.” He wasn’t thrown. Not an inch. I respected that.
    “I need you to do some good for me,” I said, feeling suddenly less vulnerable. “I want to go home.”
    “To Maundy Street?”
    Trick question? Maybe. Deacon was on that private road. Second house to the right. First house on the right, his shibari students. Only house on the left was where the parties were. Where the art was made. Where I surrendered to whomever my master allowed, and my hunger was sated for days at a time.
    “I figure I’ll stay with my parents for a few weeks, then decide. I mean, unless the prosecutor decides for me.”
    “Will you try to see Deacon?”
    “Why?”
    “It could be dangerous.”
    “Dangerous?”
    “I don’t know if it’s safe for you.”
    How much longer was this session? Because it would take me that long to describe how fucking off base he was. Despite needing to get the fuck out of Westonwood, despite wanting to appear sane and stable, I couldn’t for the life of me let Elliot Chapman misunderstand my lover.
    “I’m more afraid of you than I am of Deacon,” I said. “I’m more afraid of this chair. The sky would fall before he’d hurt me more than I could take. He is the only man, the only person in the world who has made me safe. And I mean, not safe from some boogeyman or earthquakes or random shit happening. I mean I had a place. I had things I had to do. I had rules. He was in control, and the only time things got fucked up was when I disobeyed him because I just had to fly off the fucking handle. And before you ask, and you will, he tied me up good. He gagged me and hit me. He made me cry a hundred times, and he wiped my tears and I thanked him for breaking me. I. Thanked. Him.”
    I expected my speech to disgust him, to give him cause to judge me, call me sick and out of control. Instead, he waited, expressionless.
    “Do you want to remember what happened?” he finally asked.
    “Yes.”
    “You might not be ready to remember.”
    “I don’t feel right in my head. There are black spaces where feelings should be. Like someone came and erased stuff. I don’t know if it was the drugs or the Librium you people put me on or what. I can’t put stuff together. It’s like I have the horse and I can see the track, but she’s bucking, and the tack’s in pieces all over the barn. Does that make sense?”
    He sat back, putting an ankle on a knee, elbows on the arms of the chair. He rubbed his lip with his middle finger. “Have you ever been hypnotized?”
    “You’re joking.”
    “Best case scenario, you recall enough to release some of the pain you’re in. Worst case scenario, you create a false memory that includes a unicorn and Jim Morrison in drag.”
    I laughed. I couldn’t help it. That was the most ridiculous thing, and anything more ridiculous than what was actually happening deserved a laugh.
    “Do I have