She pulled out the prescription her dad had written out for her before she headed to Liberty. Anti-psychotic drugs. A useful therapeutic when prescribed responsibly. But she couldn’t help but feel like he’d given them to her to try to shock her into changing. It was so hard to know with him.
‘Right, Tammy. Stop dawdling. Time to get down to work.’
There was a click, and the front door opened. Good.
‘Conor, that was quick.’ She swiveled around to greet him, but it wasn’t Conor. It was her father.
‘Tamsin.’ His tweed suit looked a lot dustier today. She wondered what kind of a night he’d spent in the old shack. ‘I’m glad you’ve returned.’
‘Had to get on with my work.’
‘I’m afraid not. The time has come for you to head back to Connecticut.’
She laughed with disbelief. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not coming. This is my home now. I’m the doctor to these people.’
‘You’re doctor to men who you’re in a relationship with? Besides the fact that being in a relationship with two twins is… disgusting, you don’t genuinely think that this is an ethical situation, do you?’
Tammy paused for a moment. Technically, she was breaking moral guidelines. But it didn’tfeelwrong. If anything, treating her Daddies felt even more special to her. Besides, Liberty was a very small, very special place. Normal rules didn’t apply. ‘I do, actually,’ she said.
‘So, you admit you’re dating your patients?’
She felt a sudden crackle of danger. Why was he pressing this point? He knew the facts already. What was the point of this interrogation? ‘You know I am.’
He shook his head. ‘Right, come with me, Tamsin.’
‘No.’
She was prepared to stand her ground forever if that’s what it took, but to her dismay, another figure stepped into her surgery. Looking even more stressed than she’d ever seen him, it was Haze. ‘I’m sorry, Tammy. But your father’s right. This isn’t ethical. You can’t stay here. I’m really sorry.’
Her father smiled.
CHAPTER 14
TWO WEEKS LATER
‘So tell me, Tammy, in your own words, why it is that you feel as though you have to play with children’s toys and pretend to be a baby?’
Tammy slumped forward, rubbing her eyes. She couldn’t believe this was her life. Again.
Since arriving back at her family home, Tammy had been treated as a problem that needed to be solved. When the long, painful talks with her father had broken down into screaming matches, her old man had insisted that she work with a therapist he recommended.
Tammy had never gotten on with therapists, especially — for some reason — male therapists. This one in particular was terrible. She could point to a hundred technical mistakes the guy was making: implying blame and fault in the questions he was asking, being overly familiar and yet strangely cold, not looking Tammy in the eye. But it wasn’t just that. The problem was that Tammy did not, for one moment, believe that being a Little was a medical problem thatanyoneshould attempt to ‘cure’.
‘I don’t really like the framing of that question,’ she replied.
‘Well, how would you like me to have framed it?’
Tammy sat back, crossing her arms. The chair was so weirdly soft that it felt as though she was going to sink all the way in and never escape. ‘You could ask me how I feel about being a Little.’
‘Well, seeing as there’s no such thing as being a Little, I hardly think that question would be appropriate.’ The therapist, Dr. Richards, smirked. He mirrored Tammy’s movements, crossing his arms and leaning back. It was a technique designed to build rapport, but it made Tammy feel like spitting.
‘Of course there is,’ she riposted. ‘I should know because Iamone.’ It felt good to say that, in spite of it all.
‘There is such a thing asparaphilic infantillism,’ Dr. Richards said, in that know-it-all tone of his. ‘A psychosexual malady, in which fully grown adults enjoying defecating—’
‘Being a Little isn’t a sickness!’ Tammy cried out, exasperated. She felt as though she was still responsible for all the Littles and Bigs at Liberty. If she wasn’t going to stand up for them, who would? She stood up, gesticulating. ‘As for it being pschosexual, for some Littles, there isn’t a sexual element to age play at all. People like you — attitudes like yours — cause so many problems for people in these marginalized communities. Don’t you see how harmful this kind of talk is? Not just to me, but to society in general.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Dr. Richards said coldly. ‘I agree with your father. People like you,’ he said pointedly, ‘need togrow up.’