"Red"

"R-r-red."

Sara paused, taking a moment to run the meaning of the word through her head. It was a color, but what else- oh. The safeword. Sara set down her flogger and went to untie her girlfriend.

"Do I need to grab the rope shears, or may I take the time to untie the rope?" Sara asked.

"N-no, j-just untie me." Leah stammered out in response.

Sara carefully undid the knots she had tied her girlfriend with less than ten minutes prior, worried about what had happened. She struggled to shut down her anxious thoughts worrying about if Leah still loved her, despite her knowing that was obvious. She finished untying her partner before asking another question of her.

"Can I help you another way, Leah? Do you need chocolate or cuddles or something?"

"I-I'm gonna use the restroom. Need to compose myself." Leah said, shortly.

"Okay, Leah. I love you."

Leah signed the ASL for "I love you" in response.

Sara picked up her flogger and put it in her toys drawer, making sure to lay it down properly. She had just been using it when Leah called out the safeword, so she suspected that the toy was part of the problem, and she didn't care to make her girlfriend feel worse just to find out. Sara closed the door and laid on the bed, alone with her anxious thoughts and her attempts to calm them down. After waiting for what felt like an eternity, Sara heard the sound of the sink and saw Leah depart the restroom.

"Could we cuddle? It would help a lot." Leah asked

"Of course, my honey-bun~. Anything to help you feel better."

Leah sat on the bed and rested her head on Sara's shoulder, and Sara wrapped her arms around her partner. The willingness to cuddle helped to put Sara's anxiety at ease.

After a while of cuddling in silence, Sara piped up with a question.

"So... in the interest of preventing this in the future... do you wanna talk about what went wrong?" Sara asked, to Leah's sigh in response.

"Yeah... better to get it over with now, I guess."

"Was it something with the flogger? I know that was one of the last things I was doing before you safeworded."

"No, it really wasn't that, I liked you doing that. What I think it was was... the way you were speaking. I thought I'd like the degradation, but when you were doing it while hitting me..." Leah trailed off.

"Go ahead, tell me, sweetie." Sara said, hugging her girlfriend tight.

"It-it reminded me of my dad." Leah said quickly and softly.

"Ohh, honey..." Sara said, hugging Leah, "I'm sorry."

"I-it's okay, you didn't know! I didn't even know that would happen, and as soon as I expressed it, you stopped immediately! I'm glad you're so respectful of my boundaries."

"I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to express them to me, sweetie. I'll avoid the degradation going forward, Leah."

Leah took her girlfriend's hands and looked her in the eyes.

"I love you, Sara."

"I love you too, Leah."