But Fear Itself (for ishie!!) (Part 2)
But Fear Itself (Part 2)
After dinner, they went into Penny’s colorful bedroom, collected pillows, a floral print from her wall and two care bears. Sheldon took them into his room to arrange them, and Penny waited in the living room, trying not to think about how she had freaked out the last time.
When Sheldon invited her in, she went to him and stood uncertainly in the hallway, alarmed by the darkness beyond the door and by the way her heartbeat began to accelerate.
“Come with me Sheldon,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“Come with me. You said I should be surrounded with familiar things.”
“I think it might be better for you to face the darkness alone.”
“Further along in my treatment, but for now please?”
Perhaps he was thinking of her as a damsel in distress again. At first, he looked like he might refuse, then he said resignedly, “Very well.”
Once the door was closed, she felt her way to the bed and a moment later, the mattress dipped beneath his weight, and she felt comforted almost at once. She groped in the dark, found a care bear and sat quietly with her chin resting on its head. She stared into the dark, breathing softly, squeezing her fist.
She had decided that her positive memory would be her first kiss: the awkward, over moist one she had received from Daniel Peters in middle school one evening. For a few seconds, she was reliving the giddy sensation she had felt and how her heart had pounded and her head felt as if she were flying away, then the vision fled, and she was in the dark.
And it was pressing at her eyes, and she wondered if this was what being blind was like. And she began to imagine that it was not only pressing on her sight, but on her ears, it was so quiet. And she was breathing it in too. She imagined breathing black air into her lungs, and she gave a little gasp and groped around in the dark until she found Sheldon’s hand lying on the comforter. She grasped it firmly.
She felt Sheldon start, and she could almost imagine him in her mind, looking nonplussed and fidgety as he processed how to deal with this situation.
“Familiar things Sheldon,” she said, pleased that she was able to get a word in before he could think what he could say.
“Well,” muttered Sheldon. “Next time, you’re going to have to deal with this on your own Penny.”
“I know. Hold my hand properly.” He had just been letting his hand lie like a dead fish while she gripped it with her fingers, but at her command, his fingers curled around hers and she marveled at how large his hand was. She laced her fingers through his and smiled.
“See? That’s not so bad,” she told him.
“What isn’t?”
“Holding my hand. Maybe we should tackle your fear of germs next.”
“Excuse me. A fear of germs is a rational reaction. Perhaps if more people were more wary of germs, there would be less illness. Productivity would go up. The burden on our healthcare system would considerably lessen.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Penny in a soothing tone, and Sheldon stopped talking abruptly. She could clearly imagine his slightly petulant expression despite the darkness.
“Besides, I have no fear of human contact,” said Sheldon fussily. “I’m just more selective in what I choose to allow. As I said, a lot of human touch passes on illness. I don’t care for the nature of some touches either. Or at least not from certain people.”
“Holding hands is okay right?”
“Amy Farrah Fowler and I held hands for a short while.”
“Oh really? How’d that go?”
“She didn’t seem to enjoy it very much,” Sheldon admitted. “I noted her hand was clammy, and her hands have a bony feel to it. I wasn’t distressed when she let go, but I was quite unperturbed when she kissed me.”
“Amy told me about that, so you’re open to kissing?”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” he said cautiously. “I’m not going to let that sort of information out to the general public just in case people start seeing that as an invitation.”
She smothered a laugh with difficulty.”Good idea, but don’t worry. We won’t be staying here much longer, so don’t get the heebie jeebies.”
“I won’t get the heebie jeebies,” Sheldon replied. “I’m alright.”
“You don’t mind holding my hand?”
His voice sounded uncharacteristically uncertain. “Your hand is not unpleasantly moist, and it’s easy to hold though it’s much smaller than mine. If this helps you, I’ll allow it.”
They sat in the darkness for several minutes longer, hand in hand. Penny clutched her care bear and Sheldon explained that he was doing equations in his head to pass the time. The crushing fear had begun to disperse while talking to Sheldon, but it dropped on her with greater strength and suddenness when they grew silent, and she had to bite her lip to remind herself not to whimper.
“Penny?” Somehow Sheldon was alert to some change in her though he could not see her.
“I don’t think I can take much more of this. I need to get out.” She got up and headed to the door, fumbling for the knob, but Sheldon was behind her, quicker than she would have expected. He reached around her, his arm brushing against hers and unlocked the door.
Penny hurried blindly into the hallway, thinking for a moment that she would flee to her apartment, but no, she wouldn’t allow herself to run away. She turned back and suddenly weary, slid to the ground in the hallway. Sheldon had followed her, and without a word he sat down opposite to her once more. His eyes were half covered by his lids in an intensely thoughtful expression, but he didn’t speak or seem to want to ask her anything. Penny felt less anxious under his scrutiny than she might have expected.
She kept breathing deeply and tried to call up her anchor again, and she began to feel calmer after a few minutes. Sheldon waited patiently, drawing his long legs up toward himself, his folded hands rested against his knees.
“You made it almost half an hour this time,” he said after some minutes had passed. She nodded, suddenly feeling very weary.
“How long has the dark caused you so much anxiety Penny?”
“Since I was little. I got better as I got older.”
“Can you tell me about the earliest times you remember feeling this anxiety?”
Strangely she found herself telling him, and he listened. When Leonard came out of his room to get ready for work, his face groggy with sleep, he stood and stared blankly at the two of them sitting on the floor for several seconds.
“Should I ask?”
“I’d told you I was helping Penny with her phobias.”
“I remember,” his roommate said. “You’re not going to head shrink her like you did me when I was supposed to be assisting you?”
“That was a very cathartic experience for you Leonard,” said Sheldon getting to his feet. “I can’t think why you regret it. Tears were a normal reaction. There’s no reason to be ashamed.”
“I’m not ashamed,” said Leonard unconvincingly.
Penny grinned and Sheldon reached down, grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet. She came up close to him, encroaching on his personal space, her nose level with the Batman symbol on his t-shirt. She looked up and found herself nearly brushing his chin, and Sheldon was looking down with her with a mixture of intensity and surprise which sent a strange jolt through her. She stepped backward hurriedly. The moment had been so brief, she didn’t think Leonard had noticed. She saw Sheldon look at her intently for a second more, but then he was talking to Leonard again about the importance of discussing his childhood traumas, and Leonard was looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Maybe she had imagined it.
She was able to pick up some extra shifts that week, but she had dinner with Sheldon every night. They did a few sessions together focusing on breathing and anchoring, but at about the point where she found herself fighting with him over the remote, she discovered that they had both slipped into an almost domestic daily routine in just a few short weeks.
They didn’t even necessarily talk very much. Of course, Sheldon liked hearing the sound of his own voice, but she quickly discovered that when he was working he was absorbed, to the point that he would not speak for hours unless he was interrupted. Strangely it wasn’t awkward. It was astonishingly comfortable.
“What are you writing?” she asked one night as she sat finishing up her noodles and watching her Sex and the City DVD. Sheldon had agreed that she could watch episodes until he was finished with what he was doing. Afterward they would be watching original Star Trek on Blu Ray (without commentary as Penny had requested).
“I’m writing my speech,” he said.
“Oh. Everything okay with it?”
“The writing has never been a cause for concern for me. I have written papers and articles which have appeared in my profession’s most revered journals. I could write a speech that would satisfy that audience in a heartbeat. As you know, I have other worries to occupy my mind.”
“Don’t worry Sheldon. I know you can do it.”
“Well, we won’t really know until we put your theory to the test.”
“You could trust me.”
“You must admit that you haven’t set a precedent in the past with regard to this situation.”
She bit her lip, pained. He was right, and she stopped herself from protesting.
“Then trust yourself,” she told him, her voice sounding a bit harsh in her ears. He turned away from his computer screen, the blue light illuminating the side of his face, giving him a strangely aloof look. “You’re going to be about ten times smarter than anyone in that room. They’re not a bunch of snot nosed kids. They’ll know genius when they see it. You just have to find it in yourself to show it to them.”
He regarded her steadily for a moment, then said simply, “Noted.” He turned back to his computer screen.
Penny finished her noodles and prayed fervently in her mind.
She made him practice in front of a group. She was able to tie down Leonard for a few minutes; Bernadette and Howard had returned a few days before. She got Stuart to come as well, and a few other people who owed her favors.
“This is far below the group number which causes me anxiety,” complained Sheldon to her. “The circumstances are hardly similar.”
“Any practice is better than nothing,” said Penny firmly. She had had enough trouble getting everyone together as it was. “Whether you feel anxious or not, I want you to focus on your anchor. Come on, your speech is this weekend. I want to put everything in place to make sure there are no hiccups. You’re doing so well so far.”
He signed audibly, in a manner which suggested he was making a huge concession, then he told her he was just for good measure and got up to begin.
“I know very few of you will have much understanding of my speech,” he explained to the makeshift audience in his living room. “I have put considerable effort into making it accessible to the masses. However please keep in mind that there is only so much I can do before it will be impossible for people of certain IQ levels, and for that I apologize, Zach.”
Everyone looked at him sourly.
“Yeah, I’d pass on the disclaimer for the real thing,” said Leonard.
“Um I heard there was going to be donuts afterward,” said Howard.
“And the amount you paid me only covers an hour,” cried Stuart. “Though of course if you’d agreed to a date, I would have been more flexible,” he added reproachfully.
“We went over that,” said Penny to Stuart in exasperation. “Sheldon, start your speech now!”
He did it without any problems. His audience listened with a semblance of patience, and afterward Penny broke out the boxes of donuts and discovered with interest that the scientists among them actually had been lulled into being interested in what he was saying, and several mini debates broke out over the powdered donuts and soda.
“Since I see him all the time, I actually forget sometimes,” said Bernadette as she was helping Penny clear up afterward. “Sheldon’s really a genius.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“I know he tries to stick it in our faces every few minutes,” said Bernadette complacently, “but when you listen to him, you realize that you really are hearing one of the great minds of this century. He’s like Mr. Darcy in ‘Pride and Prejudice’, sometimes you realize he has a right to be proud.”
Penny did not stop to analyze why she felt a sense of pride and pleasure at this. She only said with a mock groan, “Now I’m going to start imagining Sheldon as Mr. Darcy running around in wet shirts. Stop! Let’s stop right there.”
That weekend, she waited with him in a small lounge next to the hall where he was to make the speech, and she was glad because he was becoming agitated and antsy once more. She made him breathe with her. He stood before her with his eyes closed while she watched him in the suit she had chosen for him. She found herself staring at him whenever he wore it. It was like he was Sheldon and a stranger at the same time, and she felt almost shy of him, but now she firmly took command of herself and talked to him easily and calmly as if it was any other time they were having a session.
“Just think, it’ll all be over soon for better or for worse,” she told him. “You can stop dreading it.” He gave her a wide eyed, sidelong look, and she knew what he was thinking before he opened his mouth. “And there won’t be any horrible YouTube aftermaths, I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Trust me. Stop thinking for awhile or at least stop thinking about that. Remember what I said about you being the smartest person out there.”
An usher looked in to call him to the podium, and Penny watched as he visibly straightened, and she felt the strange sense of awe she increasingly felt whenever she watched him assert himself. She had to admit there was something attractive about it. It was enhanced today by the sophisticated lines and colors of his power suit, but she knew that she would be fascinated by it whether he was dressed up in dark colors and a tie or in brightly hued superman tees.
“Go get ‘em tiger,” she said as he walked to the door and hid a grin. He gave her a wide eyed look, then an almost smile which showed he was impressed. Of course he wouldn’t be expecting her to be quoting from Spiderman, but his expression caused the unexpected shock inside once more which made her own eyes widen. He made as if he were going to step back toward her to say something, but the usher caught his arm and hurried him away.
Penny stood quietly in the room alone for several moments waiting for the beat of her heart to recede. She couldn’t spend too much time wondering why there had been a spark between her and Sheldon Cooper, the sort of spark one didn’t have with the likes of Sheldon Cooper. No, there was no time. He was supposed to start his speech in a moment, and she needed to get a good seat.
She found one on the end of the fourth row. The MC was still giving a very long profile of Sheldon’s accomplishments, one, which she would have bet all of her tips from next week, she was sure had been provided by Sheldon himself.
The guest speaker himself, she noted, seemed very focused on listening to make sure every comment was correct and on being on the verge of raising his eyebrows if anything was mispronounced. That was a good sign: he was distracted and not fixated on his fear
Finally Sheldon got up and came toward the podium, then stopped before he quite reached it and looked around. Penny looked too and as if their bodies were linked, she could feel his stomach sink at the sight of the room which certainly held more than thirty-five adults, probably twice that number.
Come on Sheldon. Don’t do this.
Sheldon took the next few steps to the podium and stood for a moment looking at the prepared speech in his hands. His pale skin was paler; Penny could see that he was not breathing deeply as they had practiced; his fingers were loose before him.
Penny squeezed her fists together and stared hard at him, willing him to look at her, and he did.
His blue eyes met hers, wide and on the verge of panic. Penny raised her fist a little, squeezing so hard that her nails dug painfully into her palm. Sheldon stared at her, for several seconds, his mouth slightly open as he strove to breathe the way they had practised. She saw his hand form slowly into a fist. A few more seconds passed, then he began.
After awhile he stopped looking at her, and his expression took on the rather lordly one she had seen him use while he read his speech to their friends. Once or twice then he looked at her sideways, and Penny gave a small nod each time, as their eyes locked for several seconds, then Sheldon would duck his head a little, but he hardly faltered. He read on until the end.
And he was condescending and aloof and clearly he felt that he was doing them all a big favor being there, and Penny hardly understood any of it, but by the time he was done, she had a big grin stuck enthusiastically to her face, and the crowd applauded for several seconds. Sheldon nodded as a prince would, acknowledging his adoring subjects and walked slowly off the stage.
Penny ran up to him and hugged him. She knew it wasn’t something he did or would necessarily approve of, but it did not seem to her that there was anything else that could be done at a moment like this.
She pressed her face against his tie and made a happy squealing sound, then said, “The appropriate thing is to hug me back.”
“That’s what I was about to do,” he said defensively, and truly his arms were already sliding around her, and he was bending to rest his head against hers with his long fingers pressing into her shoulder.
Penny listened to his heart pound against her ear, and knew he was waiting for her to cue when they should pull away when the appropriate amount of time had passed, but she wasn’t quite ready yet.
“I told you that using a friendly face would be a useful stratagem,” he told her as she drove them to one of his approved restaurants. They were going to have dinner to celebrate. “And you used me,” said Penny, giving him a measured look as they waited at a stop light.
They looked at each other, and Sheldon turned carefully away and looked out the window. “We’re friends,” he said. “You’re friendly. When I look at you things don’t seem so scary.”
“Thanks sweetie,” she said softly, wondering if he would elaborate, but he looked out the window in silence for several minutes, and when he spoke again, it was to wonder aloud if they’d e-mailed his speech to the alumni newsletter as yet.
Everything seemed rather flat and stale after their triumph and….weird. Leonard finished his experiments. Penny unexpectedly got some extra shifts, and she wasn’t spending as much time with Sheldon as she had previously.
This made perfect sense, she told herself. They didn’t need to do their sessions any more. Sheldon was spending time with Leonard as they usually did when their routine was back on track, and perhaps Sheldon wasn’t interested in helping her with her fears. As usual, he was focused on what related to him, and she was not particularly eager to get back into that dark room again. That was it. That was why she was avoiding him.
She considered trying it alone a few times, but at night her hand went automatically to the low lamp she used for atmosphere which really was just a night light, as Sheldon had pointed out. She was a coward when it came to this, she knew it, but she couldn’t bring herself to go it alone.
When she met Sheldon at the mailboxes about a week later, she had decided that he had forgotten about their sessions, and he startled her by remarking after she had gotten through the usual one sided chit chat, “You should come by tonight,” and for some reason, the words gave her a strange feeling as she looked up at him, giving his rare soft, full lipped smile. “Leonard won’t be around to disturb us. He’s spending an evening having dinner with Howard. I’m not going as Mrs. Wolowitz has a predilection for onions in her dishes and seems loathe to make concessions on it, so we’ll be alone. You’re overdo for another session.”
“Oh….we’re still doing this?”
“Of course, Penny! You’re not planning to renege on your promise just because I completed my mission are you?
“No. Of course not, I just thought--”
“I will put in our order for Thai food, and we’ll go to my room afterward.”
Why did everything he said suddenly sound so suggestive, she thought as she followed him up the stairs. When did this start to happen?
She tried to forget that train of thought as they ate later, and he told her gossip about the faculty of the university, and she horrified him with tales of people’s poor eating habits and choices at the Cheesecake Factory. They were learning what kinds of topics interested the other. It was fascinating trying to feel that out. Penny began to feel easy again, but as soon as he had finished, Sheldon cleared away their debris and said imperiously, “Come Penny.”
Looking past him into his dark room, she thought clearly for the first time of how this must look. If it was anyone else, if Howard or Leonard were there, if anyone heard about what they were doing, it would not look very innocent at all.
Sheldon stood holding the door open for her, with an eyebrow raised at the delay. Penny walked into the room as if nothing different was happening. Her care bear had stayed resident in Sheldon’s room for her use with her other stuff, and she caught hold of it immediately, and Sheldon sat down beside her.
She was distracted by his presence, unseen but strong beside her, but after a while the old anxiety came back, and the silence pressed on her and she said hurriedly, “Remember you told me to try to think back to the time when I first started getting scared Sheldon? I remembered. I was talking to my Mom and she mentioned something, and I had a flashback.”
“Go on,” said Sheldon in an encouraging manner after she paused.
“I was little. Maybe six or something. I’d just started sleeping in my own room. I had a night light, but I don’t think I needed it. I remember my brother making fun of me for having one, and I said I didn’t. I didn’t let my Mom put it on a few times, and I don’t remember being scared, feeling like this.
“One night, my Mom and my brother were away visiting his godmother, and I was sleeping and when I woke up it was dark. The electricity had gone out. There was a storm coming. There was a lot of wind. And I hid under the blanket. I was scared. Then a branch fell off a big tree near the side of our house and it fell on the house.”
“On your room?”
“No. The kitchen. It broke through. Didn’t do a lot of damage, some tiles, some mess in the kitchen, but it was loud! The wind was loud. Everything was just…loud. I was so so scared, and it was dark. There was no moon or anything. I couldn’t see a thing. I thought the noise had made me go blind. When my Dad found me, he said that I was just curled up under the blanket shaking.”
“Good heavens. Were you home alone?”
“No of course not. My Dad was in his room all along.”
“Why didn’t you go to him? Scream? Call out?”
“I don’t do that kind of thing with my Dad. He wants me to be tough. I can’t be like that. Weak. Prissy.”
“Really? Has your father every told you this?”
“No, but I know he wanted another boy. I don’t think he knows what to do with a daughter. He wanted me to be able to do things with him, especially when my brother was too young, and then later he wasn’t really interested in things my Dad was, so I was the one in little league. I was the gymnast. I was his athlete.”
Sheldon didn’t speak right away. She could almost feel him thinking in the darkness.
“Penny, I don’t think it’s possible to live up to all of our parents’ expectations. You seem fixated on fulfilling the demands of your father, real or imaginary, but that’s impossible.”
“I know that.”
“But does your subconscious know? I had often been a disappointment to my father Penny, and I never minded or at least, I learned not to mind. I have my own accomplishments, and he eventually learned to have some semblance of pride in what I did. It proved to be better than me trying to conform to whatever stereotypes he entertained of what a son should be. I want you to consider that and internalize it.”
“Ok, but what does that have to do with this?” She waved her arm in the dark though he could not see her.
“It’s okay to be afraid Penny,” Sheldon said simply. “Sometimes it is necessary to be frightened. If you try to suppress those feelings, the fear gets pushed down inside of you in a figurative sense and it gets its hooks into you. What might work is if you allowed it to take you.”
“I’m trying to face it now. That’s what this is all about.”
“And you took a very good step,” said Sheldon. “I want you to go a bit further. When you feel the anxiety coming, face it, but remember to breathe, remember to use your anchor.”
In the dark room, Penny reached her hand across Sheldon’s comforter and found his long fingers resting upon it. She sat with her head bowed over her care bear, and waited, and as Sheldon had suggested when she felt the horror creeping over her, she let it wash over her.
For several moments, she was home again in her bed, the blanket pressing down upon her, the roar of the wind and the falling branches pummeling her ears; her mouth was stuffed with the edge of her blanket so she couldn’t scream and tears were cold on her cheeks. For a long time it was like this, and she clutched Sheldon’s hand as if she were drowning, and she painfully forced each breath out of her chest. She squeezed her companion’s hand, focused her breathing and suddenly unbidden she was on stage at school for her first starring role in Romeo and Juliet.
She was coming forward for her first curtain call and the roaring in her ears was the audience’s applause and the sight of the cheering crowd seemed to sweep the darkness from her eyes. All that cheering was for her.
In the darkness, she squeezed Sheldon’s hand tighter. “Sheldon, I’m having one of those moments in movies….you know, when I realize something? And everything becomes clearer and you think your whole life is going to change?”
“A breakthrough? Even if you have had one, I think pop culture creates false expectations in us in our instant gratification mindset. It can take years for someone to be ‘cured’ by therapy which is why I vastly and justly prefer exact science to this form of----”
Penny listened to the sound of his voice without listening to the words with a peaceful smile.
She woke up knowing at once that she was in a strange bed with someone, in a strange position. It was dark, and sand she felt nervous for several seconds until she remembered, and then she relaxed. At least she hadn’t started to panic.
She sat up carefully, groping around in the general direction of where she supposed Sheldon’s lamp was, and she found it. The light made her squint, though fortunately it was not very strong and didn’t wake Sheldon.
They had fallen asleep in his bed. Penny was huddled into a fetal position facing toward the lamp. Sheldon was on his back though not in his usual mummy like position. One hand was on his chest, the other rested on the bed. His head was turned toward her. She smothered a laugh as she reflected that this was the Sheldon Cooper version of being sprawled across the bed.
Carefully she turned toward him, marveling at how peaceful his face looked though thoughtful, as if he was contemplating the mysteries of the universe in his sleep. He was prince like again. Not the haughty prince, but the noble one in repose.
He woke on his own, and that was probably the reason he didn’t spring up yelling “Danger” in his usual manner. Instead his eyes opened slowly, and Penny experienced the little spark again. For several seconds, he really looked as if he had seen amazing secrets in his dreams, and his eyes were beautiful and ethereal. She thought she saw the moment that the secrets fled beyond his grasp and were lost again. Then he looked more normal, and slightly puzzled.
“Was I asleep?”
“Yes,” said Penny coming closer to him and lying on her stomach. “Sheldon, I think we really made some progress with me tonight. I’m going to try on my own next time, and I’ll keep at it. I think I’ve found the key to helping myself. You did it. You should be a psychologist.”
He licked his lips, and she was fascinated at how relaxed he was, still warm with sleep, his more hyperactive side still at rest. “That is highly unlikely. I told you, it’s not an exact science. This whole project has brought that home to me. After all, after all your work with me, it was you that proved to be an important catalyst in the process, an unlooked for variable. Who knows what would have happened if you weren’t there?”
“Mm. Well, I still think…in fact I know we touched on something important. The old looking for my father’s approval thing. I guess you never know when it might come up.” She sighed and stretched a little and realized he was watching her with a mild expression. “My Dad wouldn’t like this too much either.”
“Like what?’
“Me. Lying in bed with you.” She brushed some of his bed hair from his forehead as if it was necessary and not a reason for her to touch him. “Contemplating kissing you.”
His eyes turned toward her where she lay, propped on her elbows looking down at him. He was in an extremely vulnerable position, completely at her mercy. At least he didn’t jump up to get away from her.
“Kissing me? Why?”
“Cause I want to. Cause I can’t help it. You should be grateful. I’ve given you fair warning. I don’t want anyone saying I took advantage of you when you were half asleep and didn’t know what you were doing.”
Sheldon scoffed. “I am always in complete control of all my faculties.” He paused. “Except when I’m inebriated.”
“Mhm.” The angle was not perfect, coming at him from the side, but she didn’t want to get on top of him or make him uncomfortable or even to move too much and break whatever spell which was letting Sheldon Cooper allow her to get a taste of him, to mould her mouth against his full lower lip and to feel him press back against the pressure, uncertain though not reluctant.
Her pulses raced, surprising her with her own excitement, and she surrendered to it with a happy sigh. She cradled his head in her hands, angling herself to vary the sensation, and his hand came up and caught her wrist, not as if he were trying to stop her, but as if he wasn’t sure what to do. Her skin came alive at his touch. His mouth moved against hers, and Penny smiled as she felt the reaction, his body guiding him since his brain was still trying to catch up to the experience.
She pulled away at last and propping herself up again, unable to stop herself from grinning unabashedly. He lay in almost the same posture from when he had woken up, his breathing hurried, his pupils dilated, his hair gone wild from the touch of her fingers.
“That wasn’t quite the same way as it was with Amy was it?”
“No. I --- I thought it would have been, but apparently the variables make a great difference to the outcome.”
Penny stifled a giggle. “Excellent, doctor. There can be a lot of outcomes. I’m interested in exploring more with you if you’re not scared.”
“I am not scared. I told you I have no phobias in connection with touch….I’m just careful”
“That is a relief,” she murmured, leaning in for more.
“It’s fortunate I was not really your therapist,” he told her later. “Following our sessions with a romantic relationship would have been highly unethical.”
“It looks like you picked the right kind of science after all,” Penny agreed solemnly.
- END-