“What did you do last night?”

Yvonne paused. “Remember when I told you Ruby and I weren’t having sex?”

Madison raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Well, let’s just say we’re doing far more than that. And it was Ruby who initiated it, not me.”

“Ah. I suspected as much. So when you brought Ruby to Lilith’s Den, that wasn’t just for show?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Madison leaned back and crossed her arms. “I think I know what’s happening here. Let me guess. Last night the two of you did a scene?”

Yvonne nodded.

“And this morning you woke up feeling like crap?”

“Yes. Where are you going with this, Madison?”

Madison tilted her head, scrutinizing Yvonne. “This really hasn’t happened to you before?”

“No. And what’s ‘this?’”

“You’re familiar with the concept of subdrop?”

“Of course.” Yvonne had explained it to Ruby that night after Lilith’s Den.

“This is the same thing. It’s like a kind of hangover that sometimes comes after a scene.” Madison crossed her legs. “Let me guess. On top of feeling exhausted, you feel depressed. Guilty. Concerned about hurting Ruby?”

Yvonne nodded. She hadn’t been able to put her feelings into words, but what Madison was describing was exactly how she felt.

“It’s common, and completely normal. As a Domme, you engage in activities that most people consider twisted and perverse, things that are potentially harmful and dangerous. Your subconscious can have a hard time processing all that. Combine that with the physical and mental strain of constantly maintaining control? If you’re not careful, it can lead to a crash. It happens to the best of us.”

That couldn’t possibly be what Yvonne was experiencing. After all, what she and Ruby had done the night before wasn’t anything extreme, especially not by Yvonne’s standards. She was still taking it slow with Ruby, working out where Ruby’s limits were. But there was no other explanation for what Yvonne was feeling.

“So you’ve experienced this?” she asked.

“In the past,” Madison replied. “Now I know the signs so I can stave it off before it sets in. It’s easy enough. You deal with it the same way you deal with your submissive dropping. Aftercare. But instead of you only focusing on your sub’s needs, she focuses on yours as well. Dommes need love too, you know. We make ourselves as vulnerable to our submissives as they do to us, just in a different way. We give them a side of ourselves that few people get to see.”

That was a perspective Yvonne had never considered. “What do you do when this happens?”

“I let Blair take care of me.” Madison lowered her voice, as if to prevent Blair overhearing her somehow. “Of course, she doesn’t know that’s what she’s doing. She’s simply serving her Mistress. I’ll have her give me a massage, draw me a bath, bring me something to drink. It’s a good excuse to have your submissive wait on you hand and foot.” Madison took a sip of her coffee. “There’s nothing as satisfying as getting a massage from a grateful submissive after spending the entire evening spanking her.”