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The upheaval of his life after being fired by the FBI was still making itself felt in so many ways. Having his mother close, walking into his place uninvited was annoying but he knew she worried. Of course, she was also pissed at him for signing on with Gil’s team. Malcolm suspected she was jealous of how close he’d been with the Arroyos, but he tried not to turn his profiler’s eye on his mother. That said, he wished she didn’t worry so much about if he was hurting himself that she felt the need to barge in to check on him.
He’d also consider talking to her about not sending over her housekeeper to clean his place. Malcolm knew he should be grateful to have the help, but it felt oddly violating to have her sanitizing the cuffs he lashed himself to his bed with. Needing them, the sheer loneliness of his sleeping arrangements was hard enough. Having someone poking around, wiping down the cuffs was a step too far.
Isolation, that was the worst part of being fired and having to start anew. It wasn’t like he’d made a ton of friends at the FBI and the few he had certainly hadn’t stood up for him when his bosses were calling him a narcissistic like his father. Bureaucrats, not profilers because anyone with a psych class or two under their belt would see he was the opposite of that, though he would allow for a certain amount of pride in his work.
Here, who did he have besides his mother and Ainsley? Gil, of course but his relationship to Gil was complicated, more than mere friendship. He wasn’t sure he’d be comfortable just calling Gil to hang out, but he wouldn’t hesitate if he were truly struggling. How odd was that? Dani might be a friend one day. He’d like that. JT was iffier. He didn’t know how to connect with the man, especially since JT seemed determined to keep Malcolm at arm’s length. They didn’t have much in common that Malcolm could see.
On the other hand, he wasn’t the type to hang out with friends in the first place. He didn’t really date much either. Another of the things he found insulating him from others here was the loss of his…well he couldn’t call Lily a friend. She filled a particular need of his. There was a sense of freedom of letting go, of letting someone else take the reins. It had taken years before he felt entirely safe with her. For that matter it had taken him forever to admit to his masochistic tendencies.
It wasn’t even about sex. He and Lily had never had sex and since he was paying her for her services as his dominatrix that was a good thing. Otherwise he’d have been breaking the law. When he’d been in her hands, the fears and anxiety melted away and he was held firmly in the now, in the light pain she gifted him with. He could be himself and just for a moment not be so afraid. Of course, even in this he had been a bit unusual, trying to find what worked and what triggered his PTSD. Cuffs were fine, further restraints frightened him. Nasty talk bored him. Shockingly, pun intended, he’d taken to the violet ray machine and its modern descendants.
Back home, Lily too far away, he hadn’t had any release. Seeing his father sure as hell hadn’t helped. He desperately needed a session to take the edge off, for however briefly let someone else be in control, protecting him from all the horrible things out there and the worst ones inside his head.
What else could he do? He’d need to give Lily a call, see if she had a suggestion for finding someone new. It wouldn’t be easy. He trusted so slowly, Dani aside, but this wasn’t something he could ask Dani to do. He didn’t want any of them to know about this part of his life. He was so out of practice with meeting new friends and finding a new mistress would be even more difficult.
And if his mother was going to insist on sending a maid, he’d better hide the electric cuffs better than they were now. All he’d need was for her to try and sanitizer those and ruin them. New beginnings might just be highly over rated. So much to do. At least it wasn’t boring.