Elise held Alan's gaze a moment longer, her posture straight but unforced, her hands resting lightly on the table. When she spoke again, her tone had changed—still calm, but sharpened with purposeful precision.
“Alan,” she said, “you described this dynamic as something ‘important.’ But importance is vague. I’d like you to be specific.”
Dr. Morgan shifted slightly beside her, attentive.
Elise continued, her voice neither confrontational nor gentle—simply direct.
“When you imagine the three of us together in this room, what are you hoping we will see in you?”
Alan drew in a slow breath. He had known this question was possible, but hearing it aloud made it real. He sat forward, forearms resting lightly on the table.
“I want to be seen for who I really am,” he said. “Not just someone with a fetish or fixation. Someone who responds to intensity. To honesty. To something raw.”
Elise nodded once, but did not release him from her focus.
“And what do you think we are responding to?” she asked.
Alan hesitated—but not because he didn’t know.
“Each other,” he said.
The stillness that followed was different now.
Not silence.
Recognition.
Dr. Morgan’s breathing had quieted, but her eyes remained steady. Elise did not look away.
Elise spoke again, her voice softer now—but no less incisive.
“You think the pull isn’t only from you to us. You think it’s moving between all of us.”
Alan nodded.
“I do.”
Dr. Morgan exhaled—a subtle, almost imperceptible release of tension she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Elise leaned back slightly, not breaking the line of attention.
“Then the work today,” she said, “is not about naming the pull. It’s about understanding what each of us is bringing to it—and what each of us is drawn toward.”
She allowed the weight of her words to settle.
No one looked away.
Dr. Morgan was the one who finally spoke next, and when she did, her tone had changed.
Not softer. Not defensive. Not retreating.
Curious. Present. Steady.
“Alan,” she said, turning slightly toward him, “when you say that something is moving between us… I feel that too.”
Elise’s eyes flicked toward her—not surprised, only listening.
Morgan continued.
“But I want to understand what form that pull takes for you. Not just desire. Not just fascination. What is it specifically about being witnessed—by two women—that feels meaningful?”
Her posture was open now, shoulders relaxed, hands resting loosely atop her notebook.
She wasn’t hiding anymore.
Alan considered his answer, and she waited—not pressing, not rushing, giving him the dignity of time.
“It’s not about being admired,” Alan said slowly. “It’s about… transparency. I’ve spent most of my life keeping this part of myself hidden. Showing it to you was the first time I didn’t feel ashamed.”
Dr. Morgan nodded once. “And inviting Elise?”
Alan drew in a breath.
“Means I don’t want to go back to hiding.”
Silence again—not empty.
Shared.
Elise’s expression shifted: thoughtful, alert.
“And for you, Morgan?” Elise asked quietly.
Dr. Morgan met her colleague’s eyes. There was no flinch, no apology.
“For me,” she said, “it means I’m willing to look at why I responded. And I don’t want to do that alone, either.”
Elise did not look away. Her attention shifted fully to Dr. Morgan now.
“Then let’s understand it,” Elise said. “Morgan, when you watched those videos—the ones Alan showed you—what was it that stirred you? Not in clinical language. In your language.”
The room went still.
Dr. Morgan’s breath moved slower, deeper, as if she needed to find the answer inside her body, not her mind.
“It was the moment,” she said quietly, “when neither woman would yield. When you could see they were exhausted, straining, flushed, trembling—but neither backed down. There was something… vulnerable in that. Something exposed. I felt like I was seeing a kind of truth people don’t show in ordinary life.”
She paused, searching.
“And the closeness,” she added. “The way their bodies weren’t just fighting but… connected. It felt intimate. Not sexual exactly—but intimate in a way that suggested sexuality without expressing it.”
Elise listened without breaking eye contact.
“And the warmth you described?” Elise asked. “The arousal?”
Dr. Morgan nodded once, slowly. “It came from recognizing myself in that intensity. Wanting to be that unguarded. That present. That seen.”
Silence—the kind that has weight—settled again.
Then Dr. Morgan turned her head and looked at Elise.
“And you,” she said softly. “When I described it to you… something changed in you. You felt something too. What was it?”
Elise’s inhale was almost undetectable.
Her voice, when it came, was calm—but no longer neutral.
“It was the idea,” Elise said, “of two people meeting without pretense. Of will and vulnerability shared rather than hidden. I don’t think I felt arousal.”
A beat.
“That’s not the word. It was… recognition.”
She looked between Morgan and Alan.
“As if something in me already understood the hunger in that struggle. And seeing you feel it, Morgan—made it real.”
Elise let that acknowledgment settle—quiet, unforced, heavy in all the right ways.
Then she turned back to Alan.
“Alan,” she said, “I want you to describe one specific moment. A scene—not vague, not symbolic. Something you remember. Something that stayed with you.”
Alan nodded slowly. He didn’t rush. He let the memory rise.
“There’s one,” he said. “Two women—both exhausted. One had the other in a headlock from behind. Not tight enough to choke… just enough to control. They were both breathing hard. Sweat everywhere. And the woman being held—she tried to stand, to throw the other off, but she couldn’t. She was too tired. The strength was gone. But she still tried anyway.”
He exhaled.
“And the one holding her… she didn’t look triumphant. She didn’t look cruel. She just… held her. Firm. Unavoidable. Like she knew the moment had arrived where resistance turned into acceptance.”
Neither woman at the table moved.
Elise’s voice remained steady. “And what did you feel watching that?”
“Something in me unclenched,” Alan said. “Like I was watching the exact moment when struggle becomes surrender. Not forced. Not broken. Just… real.”
Dr. Morgan’s breath caught—not dramatically, just enough that she knew Elise heard it.
Elise did.
She turned slightly toward her colleague, the shift so small but unmistakably intentional.
“Morgan,” she said, “if you were in that moment—not observing it, not analyzing it—but in it… which woman are you?”
The question did not land lightly.
It landed like gravity.
Dr. Morgan didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers curled slightly against the table. Her gaze dropped—not evasive, but searching.
When she lifted her eyes again, there was no indecision in them.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s the part that scares me.”
Elise nodded once—slow, understanding, and absolutely without judgment.
“That,” she said, “is exactly why we’re here.”
