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me. Maybe she was, but she was also spot on about my ‘special’ educational needs. My dad’s RAF career meant we moved a lot and schools just thought I was reacting to that, never getting settled anywhere. It was only after he died, when we moved to London and stayed put at last, that my mother paid for me to be assessed by a private school specialising in gifted children. They repeated the tests three times before they accepted my scores. Then they offered me a place, on a scholarship because I was a ‘special case’. From then on I was fast-tracked through the education system. I started taking GCSEs at around nine years old, passing them, obviously, and then A levels. By the time I was thirteen I had armfuls of GCSEs and A levels. My school said I was wasting my time there and I needed to move on. To university.”
    “How did you cope, at university so young? How did you make friends, take care of yourself?” Typical Nathan, straight to the heart of the issue.
    “I didn’t. That’s why I’m the screwed up mess I am now.” At his puzzled look I press on, anxious now to get all this out. “I went to universities in London so I could live at home, like any other thirteen-year-old.” I noted his eyebrow quirk again at the mention of universities, plural, but we’d come back to that. “I was so much younger than the other students, I had nothing in common with them. I couldn’t go to bars. I had no interest or talent for sport. I hadn’t even started my periods so how could I relate to the other girls, much less the boys. Actually, I was terrified of the boys. My mother always warned me to stay out of their way, that they were dangerous and would take advantage of me because I was so young. Looking back I understand her concerns, but I got it fixed in my head that boys, men, were to be avoided. So I avoided them. In fact the other students, males and females, were generally kind enough, when they took any notice of me at all. But mostly I was the little nerd at the back. The strange, brainy kid, who went home every day for her tea.”
    “What about other kids your own age? Kids at your school?”
    “At my special school I was okay, I did make some friends there, although the catchment for the school was so wide—most of southern England—that I had no friends living near me, no one to socialise with outside of school. So I never did socialise. And in any case the friends I had were left behind when I went to university. I’ve had acquaintances since, colleagues, but no friends. Until now. At Black Combe. That’s partly why I so want to keep my job. Please.”
    “The jury’s still out as far as your job with me’s concerned. I want to hear the rest of this then I’ll decide. Please, continue.” He stands, walks around me to the table, squeezing my shoulder as he passes me. I take that as an encouraging sign and listen to him pouring coffee, before he brings me a cup. Instead of sitting back behind his desk, though, he grabs a chair from the meeting table then turns it to face me. He sits down just a foot in front of me. Feeling more vulnerable, more exposed than I have during any of our sexual or Dom-sub encounters, I sit still, staring at my hands. I can feel his eyes boring into me as he considers. Then taking my hands in his, he squeezes them until I look up at him. He smiles.
    “I can see this is difficult for you. Take your time. I’m listening.”
    I close my eyes briefly, starting to relax—slightly—and I rush on before he thinks better of it. Best to get my academic CV dumped on the table, so to speak, and let him pick over it. Work out just what sort of a weird bitch he’s got mixed up with.
    “I studied music at King’s because I loved it. It was easy, light relief really. But music was the second string in my bow if you’ll pardon the pun. Really, I was a mathematician. I got the first class BMus, but I also got a first in Mathematics the same year.” His eyebrows shoot up