A discussion.

A thought occurred to Joseph. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," Beth replied. "One second."

She went to the bathroom, leaving him to think through his question. When she came back, he smelled mouthwash on her breath. She sat next to him on the couch and put her legs across my lap. Smiling warmly, she gestured for him to continue.

"Well," Joseph said, massaging her smooth, toned calves lightly, "I have a hypothetical. Suppose any time you touched someone it made them your ****."

She sat up, grinning impishly. "Ooh, I like this kind of thing. So who would I enslave first?"

"No, no, seriously. What if every time you touched someone it meant that for the rest of their lives, they would treat your needs as more important than anything else?"

She frowned. "Including their own?"

"Especially their own. And you have no control over it."

"But that wouldn't make them slaves, necessarily. I guess I'd try to see if I could do it without them noticing." She began to lazily twirl his hair between her fingers. "That way, if I touch someone and they walked away without realizing what happened, I can at least go out in public without worrying about accidentally creating an entourage for myself."

Her playing with Joseph's hair was very relaxing. He sighed and leaned back. "But you'd be experimenting with people's lives! What if it didn't work?"

She thought again. "Couldn't I just tell them that I want them to live a normal life, as though it had never happened?"

He thought of Chloe. "You could, but they'd still be out there waiting on orders from you. Their lives would be normal until-"

She cut him off with a worried look. "Wow, you're really invested in this hypothetical. Are you ok?"

Joseph sighed. It was a nice break, but he couldn't leave her ignorant. "Beth, I want you to remember all of the stuff about my power."

She blinked and laughed. "What power? You mean your power in the bedroom? Trust me, babe, I'm not gonna forget it."

"No, seriously. I told you I wanted you to forget about it, but now I want you to remember. Remember all the stuff with Kat and Kate and Chloe?"

She looked at him with confusion. A moment passed.

"...ok?" she asked.

"Ok?" Joseph replied. She didn't move, continuing to stare at him uncomprehendingly.

"Ok. I, um, ok. Alright? Yeah? Ok." She sounded more confident, but something still wasn't right. "Ok. Yeah. Sure. Um, ok..."

"Beth?" She continued to mumble. Joseph was getting concerned. "Beth! Are you ok? What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" she said, raising a hand to stare at it. "Wrong? Ok. I think- ok, um, alright."

He moved her legs off of his lap and they flopped limply onto the floor. She continued to stare at her hand. She was still mumbling gibberish, apparently oblivious to everything around her.

Shit.