Her body had tensed.

The doctor paused immediately. His pliant, eager, vocal partner was now stiff, still, and silent. The scent of arousal was fading from her skin. Though she had been the instigator, he now sensed he had rushed things by accepting her invitation. She is not ready for this step.

He backed off with care, pulling the open flaps of her dress to cover her bare breasts. Calming his body was a simple matter of deliberate breaths and attentiveness to his heartbeat. Not desirable, no, but relatively easy. Determining the nature of Clarice's upset… that would be the challenge.

Her eyes stared in his direction, but they were unfocused, snagged on some thought he could not discern. He brushed her shoulder with his fingers.

"Clarice."

She twitched away from his touch, her head shaking slightly. But then… then she pasted a smile on her face and reached out for him.

"Sorry… too many thoughts. Where were we?"

He gripped her wrist with enough force to make her drop the false smile.

"Clarice. Please do not profess to a level of comfort you do not feel." His tone warned her against continuing such deception; he could see her reconsidering her reply under his hard stare.

"I… I am sorry. I didn't mean… I don't want to be a tease, Doctor. That's not fair to you. Just… just give me a minute."

Shame colored her face, but there was a hint of anger there as well, an image of self-disgust that he wished never to see again.

He softened his grip and his tone.

"Do you think, Clarice, that fairness, and not your comfort, is my primary concern in this matter?"

She shook her head in what appeared to be dismissal rather than negation, as though the question itself were irrelevant.

"I started things, Doctor. I shouldn't have started them if I wasn't willing to finish them."

"Mmm, I see." He pressed forward, twisting his body to box her in against the sofa. "So if we had engaged in some mutually enjoyable kissing, and you had then said 'no' when I attempted to disrobe you, I would be perfectly justified in continuing despite your protests?"

"What? No, of course not."

"No," he mimicked. "Of course not. And yet your first instinct, upon determining that 'no' is indeed the answer you intended to make, is to label yourself a tease and soldier on despite your discomfort."

"I never said—"

"Your body did, Clarice. It spoke quite loudly, though you yourself did not. Do you think me so discourteous – so driven by the male urge to procreate – that I could ignore your distress?"

"No, I… I don't know what I thought. I just… I…." The look of self-disgust had returned to her face, stronger now. "I threw myself at you and then I just froze."

"Surely you had a thought that precipitated such action – or inaction."

She pushed against him; he allowed her to slide her feet to the floor and stand. Her back turned as she stepped away, the hurried movements of her hands suggesting she was refastening her clothes, hiding herself away from him physically as well as emotionally.

"There will be no solution if you cannot articulate the problem, Clarice."

"Things just moved too quickly, Doctor. I panicked. It won't happen again."

"Only one of those statements is true, Clarice. You panicked, yes, but 'things,' as you say, were entirely in your control – and it will happen again unless you confront the original thought that so distressed you."

"Fine." Her voice was flat, closed to him. "I'll give it some more thought to make sure it doesn't happen again. Satisfied?"

She teemed with loathing and disgust; perhaps aimed at him, perhaps at herself, perhaps at them both. Such a state of affairs could not be allowed to continue.

"Hardly, Clarice. The evening has not progressed as either one of us would have preferred, it seems, and you clearly hold the answer to the question of why or you would not have offered to give it more thought later. I'll have the answer now, my dear."

Her eyes blazed as she turned to face him.

"The hell you will."

"There's no call for foul language, Clarice." He rose to his feet. "And I will have that answer."

"I don't have to tell you a damn thing."

"You never did, Clarice. But you wanted to, didn't you? That's why you kept coming back, hmm? That's why you're here now. Because where I am is where you want to be.

"Do you hate yourself for it, Clarice? Is it Daddy's voice that condemns you? Or perhaps your surrogate father instead – does Uncle Jack whisper in your ears at night and remind you to beware the monster? Do they tell you my voice, my touch, has tainted you?

"Would you scrub it from your skin, Clarice? Will you run to the shower and wash away any trace of me? Do you think it so simple? Is it corruption that rushes through your veins when we touch or merely a higher truth?"

The tension in her right arm and balled fist had turned her knuckles white. His eyes danced as he waited to see whether she would attempt to strike him. Hers was a fiery, passionate rage, the flush on her skin equally as enticing as it had been when arousal had painted it there. But she mastered herself, finally, though pushing the rage aside had made her body shake.

She grit her teeth as she spoke.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I want you. Yes, sometimes I hate myself for it. Yes, every voice of reason in my head tells me I'm disgusting, sick, wrong. You're right, Doctor, about all of it." She laughed, a hopeless, broken sound. "When are you not?"

He could not ease her pain in this. Were he to try, his voice would merely become another in the chorus, as resented as the others that attempted to dominate her thoughts. He had no desire to be an authority figure whom she would come to rebel against; he would not willingly forge that association in her mind.

"You are at war with yourself, Clarice. I have no place in this battle." He resisted the urge to kiss her, to clasp her shoulders, to wish her well, and instead inclined his head in acknowledgement of the warrior before him. "I do hope you'll seek your bed soon, my dear. The hour is late."

He crossed the room and mounted the stairs.

"Good night, Clarice."

Her silence in reply was to be expected.

Clarice stared as the doctor disappeared upstairs.

Did he just…

Wind you up and leave you standing here alone, more confused than before? Yeah, he did. You've met the man, right? You trying to tell yourself you didn't expect that?

But he—

Always has the answers? You saying you can't figure them out for yourself? What's he going to say? He knows you know what he's done. Either he doesn't think he needs to defend himself or he knows you'd just dismiss his words anyway. As a witness, he's biased in his own favor, and it's hardly as though there's a neutral third party you can consult. He won't lie to you – and he won't let you lie to yourself, either.

She sank back down onto the couch. The cushions retained the warmth of his body heat. She curled into them, pulling her body into a compact knot, and tried desperately to shut out the voices crowding her head.