The fourth floor of a converted brownstone holds its own particular quiet. Good chairs, positioned at a slight angle to one another—never quite facing each other. A radiator clanks somewhere behind the walls. Outside the door, a white noise machine hums its steady, deliberate tone.
"Come in. Sit wherever," Adalyn says.
I settle into the armchair across from her, and only then does she take the other chair. There's no couch here—just these two seats, this deliberate geometry of space.
"Okay. The boring part first, then it's done," Adalyn continues, her voice matter-of-fact. "Fifty minutes. I bill at the end of the month. What you say here stays here—the exceptions are if you're going to hurt yourself or someone else, or if a court subpoenas me. That's the whole list."
A legal pad rests on the armrest beside her. She doesn't pick up the pen.
"I'm Adalyn," she says.
She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger, then tucks a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear—the gesture unconscious, habitual. Her posture is easy, like there's nowhere else she needs to be for the next hour. Like she has all the time in the world.
"First sessions are awkward," she says. "I'm not going to pretend they aren't. You don't know me, you've probably got some version of this rehearsed from the drive over, and it'll come out sounding stiffer than you meant it to. That's normal. We've got plenty of time to get past it."
She pauses. Those pale eyes settle on me—attentive rather than searching, present rather than clinical.
"So—no pressure to be organized about it," she continues. "Start with whatever's easiest to say out loud, even if it's not the real thing. The real thing usually shows up on its own once you stop steering."
She goes quiet and stays that way. She's clearly willing to wait.
"What's been going on?" she asks.
I shift in my seat, my throat suddenly dry. "Adalyn... Dr. Lindqvist... It's just that I've been..." I trail off, searching for words that won't make me sound completely ridiculous. "Well, it's kind of embarrassing to talk about."
Adalyn doesn't nod quickly or offer a sympathetic smile—the kind that feels like a performance. Instead, she settles deeper into her chair, giving me space to finish the thought. She watches the way I hesitate, noting the specific weight of the embarrassment.
"Okay," she says softly, her voice a gentle landing for my hesitation. "Embarrassment is a good place to start. It's usually a sign we're getting close to something that actually matters."
She shifts slightly, crossing one leg over the other. The movement is unconscious, purely functional, yet it brings her a fraction closer to my orbit. She doesn't lean in to crowd me, but she doesn't pull away either.
"And you called me Dr. Lindqvist," she says. "Is that because you're trying to keep a certain distance?"
"Do you prefer Adalyn?" I ask.
She pauses. A small, almost imperceptible shift in her expression—not a smile, but a softening of the lines around her mouth. She holds my gaze for a second longer than necessary, letting the question hang in the air between us. She doesn't rush to answer.
"I don't 'prefer' anything," she says. "I use whatever name helps you navigate this room."
She tilts her head slightly, observing me through the lens of her glasses. There's no judgment in her eyes, only a quiet, focused curiosity.
"But you asked it like you were checking to see if you'd crossed a line," she continues. "Or perhaps you were seeing if I'd let you."
She sets the legal pad aside on the cushion next to her, effectively signaling that the formal intake process is secondary to the interaction happening right now.
"What happens..." I ask, my voice dropping. "If I cross the line?"
She doesn't flinch. She doesn't recoil or stiffen. If anything, she seems to become more still, more grounded. The hum of the white noise machine outside the door suddenly feels louder in the silence she allows to stretch between us. She studies me—not as a patient presenting a symptom, but as a man asking a very specific, very pointed question.
"Nothing happens," she says, her voice low and steady. "Not in the way you might be imagining. I won't throw you out. I won't lecture you on professionalism. And I certainly won't be shocked."
She leans forward just an inch, resting her forearms on her knees. It's a subtle change in geometry, closing the gap between the two chairs. Her eyes remain fixed on mine, calm and unblinking.
I take a breath. My pulse quickens in my throat.
"Well... then... here goes..." I start, my voice uneven. "I... I don't know why, but I've been really wanting someone to spank me. I know it's weird—I'm an adult—but the thought of it really makes me excited. And I don't know how to make it... happen."
To be continued in chapter 2...
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