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Hearing Amethyst at the edge of tears shook Helga. It took her a minute to hit the road. Most of that time was spent staring out into space from her front seat, contemplating what was about to happen. Driving did not prove to be a good distraction from it.

What was she supposed to say? What would her girls say? It was clear they felt guilty for not doing drop care, but Helga didn't teach them she needed it. She didn't know she needed it! How could she teach them something she didn't know? Her knuckles tightened against the wheel. She should have known.

Helga had only been doing S&M for the better part of two decades.

What if they couldn't recover from this? She loved both her girls so much, but could they continue being partners if she couldn't play? Where would Rebecca go if she had to move out? Obviously, Helga could let her stay, even if Amy moved out, but the relationship would be dead in the water and-

A horn blared behind her. The pig blinked, finding herself stopped at a classic red octagon stop sign. Fingers coiled tight, she exhaled and drove off. The person behind her didn't deserve the finger.

"Don't overthink it." She told herself. "You just messed up. They're not gonna leave you. Why are you even thinking that? It's just anxiety talking." Acknowledging it did not dissuade the coil around her neck. Every automatic thought was another tightened wrap to suffocate her mind.

So when she finally got home, Helga found herself slamming both her car and the front door on her way inside. The pig slouched down against the kitchen chair, hands clasped together as if she were praying. She was by no means religious, but she'd been raised Catholic. She knew enough that saying God in vain was a sin and Helga sinned every damned day in spite of it. She contemplated asking for help. For some sign that everything would turn out all right.

Then she gave up and rested her palm against her forehead. This wasn't God's issue, this was hers and her girlfriends. They would sort it out, they had to.

---

***

Amy ran the conversation in her head multiple times on the drive over. It would have been more accurate to say that the vole imagined arriving at the house, opening the front door, and then resetting the simulation in her head for fear of messing something up. What, she didn't know. Her gut told her something would be ruined.

"What should we say?" Rebecca asked from the passenger seat. The pitbull had both hands clenched between her thighs to keep still. Amy wondered why the vole was acting like a child, forgetting at that moment that Rebecca hadn't had a serious relationship talk in her life. The realization socked her in the gut.

"We need to apologize." That much made sense to Amy. They didn't read the signs, didn't see their partner suffering. She wanted to go back and slap her past self in the face for being so blind. So selfish, self-absorbed, and vain to think they were looking down on her. "After that...I don't know."

"Maybe we could make her a cake?" Rebecca mentioned.

"A cake?" Amy repeated, confused.

"I don't know!" Rebecca said. "I've never messed up this badly with someone before. I don't know how to fix these problems. I was ghosted more often than not."

"Well, she's not going to want a cake." That was a lie. Everyone liked cake, or pie, but Amy wasn't in the mood to bake either. Maybe she could. "Momma's an adult. We'll just talk this out like adults do."

"We're adults too..." Rebecca muttered, "And we're messing up. I've seen enough adults mess up and freak out. I don't think being an adult really matters. We messed up."

"And we'll move on." Amy had trouble believing it. She had to, for her own sake. "We made a mistake, and we're all going to talk about it." She parked on the edge of the driveway, as she always did to give her girlfriend space to leave. Amy reached for her car door, only to find her hands stuck on the wheel. Fear clamped around her knuckles and locked her fingers tight.

What was the worst that would happen? They stop playing? Amy sucked in air and blew out a haggard breath. It didn't matter if they stopped playing. The vole caressed her studded collar. She couldn't and wouldn't deny that their lifestyle was important, but it wasn't the be-all and end-all. She felt safe with Helga. Like she could be herself without living up to the impossible standards of what she should be.

If she had to choose between that and bondage, she'd choose it every time. Amy prayed she wouldn't have to.

"Come on." Amy pushed the door open, "It's time we apologize."

***

---

Starting was the hardest. Her two girls sat across from her, one looking away and the other staring at her fidgeting hands. Sitting in silence, the pig heard her own heartbeat pounding against her ears as she tried to formulate the best way to start the conversation. But what was even the best way? What did she hope to achieve? They needed to talk, needed to act on the drop she'd been experiencing. All to what, make it so she can play again without feeling nightmares? Was that even right? Maybe she should just stop playing altogether.

Her sigh shivered across her body. She flushed the thoughts down, but they continued to clog her mind. Someone needed to talk. She needed to talk.

"I shouldn't have brought it up." Rebecca crashed through the silence. Her fingers continued to stranger one another as if she could ring their little necks. The guilt on her face grew at that. "It was a stupid fantasy that shouldn't have stayed that. I went too far in suggesting it."

Amy, playing the mediator, rested her hand over Rebecca's to stop the bloodless carnage of the pitbull's fingers. "You did nothing wrong with suggesting. Your idea wasn't the first bad fantasy to be suggested." She turned to Helga with a small, albeit forced, smile, "Remember when I asked to sleep in the basement upside down?"

"Oh Christ, don't remind me." Back when they were just starting and Amy hadn't even moved in yet, the girl wanted to spend an entire day as a gimp. To be used and shelved like a playtoy. As arousing as having a full-time gimp was, Helga knew there were limits. Limits beyond the problems of hanging upside down. "Rebecca, you're not in the wrong. I should have put my foot down on the idea earlier."

Even in hindsight, it was hard to do. Helga remembered both her girls practically pouting with the idea when they presented it. Not wanting to disappoint either of them she said she'd think about it. Then, after a day of thinking about it, she should've said no and apologized. Instead, Helga doubled down and tried to find the best way to make the whole thing work.

"I was afraid." It didn't feel like a relief to say. Her heart clamped up with each word but she needed to get them out. "Before you both, hell, before Amy, the longest relationship I had was with Lorraine and, well, that ended up being toxic. I'm still not great when it comes to this stuff, so I didn't want to lose-"

"Not great?" Amy put her foot down, "Helga, where do you get off in saying you aren't great with relationships?"

The pig raised her brow, "Oh, I don't know, maybe the years of flings from my early twenties to late thirties?"

"So what? You've had bad relationships, but you've never been a bad girlfriend or partner. You're always the one telling me to restrain myself, to keep focused. When Jewel kicked me out of the dorms after we fought, I was a mess. I just wanted you to hurt me, but you made me sit down and talk it out." She pointed to Rebecca, "You helped Rebecca get a job after her father abandoned her. You're helping her study to take college classes. You're not the bad one in this relationship."

Amy bit her lip and tilted her head down, "I'm the bad one. I'm trying to learn to be better from you, but I wasn't able to see you struggling. I mean, I didn't even know dom drop was a thing."

Hegla forced a grin, "Neither did I." Scratching her head, the pig added. "Honestly, if I was younger I'd probably have been more excited for the fantasy. I mean, what girl doesn't want to have two naked lovelies doing labor for her?" There was a genuine truth to that. When she was younger and hornier, the pig had plenty of fantasies she wanted to explore. A breakup from a toxic relationship only helped enhance that catalyst. She'd left so many hearts broken in her wake.

Rebecca blushed and folded into her chair. "It was still a dumb idea."

Amy rolled her eyes but smiled. "If it was, then all horny thoughts are." She playfully punched the pitbull's shoulder. "But we've already been over this. You weren't in the wrong for asking."

"But we were in the wrong for not noticing." Rebecca kept her eyes at the table, too crestfallen to look up from Helga's calloused hands. "We should have known when you were taking this too hard. And we did nothing."

"Y-You're not at fault for that." Helga reached for their hands, "I've never had to call a safeword for myself. I never told you all that it could happen."

"But we should have noticed." Rebecca slipped her paw away, "We were too busy competing amongst each other to really say anything."

Amethyst's hand clasped tight around the pig's. Helga saw those indigo eyes holding back tears. She didn't want them to cry. She made the mistake of not being honest. It wasn't on them.

"I took the lazy criticism too hard..." Amy said, "I thought you both were judging me for not putting in effort under the guise of being a brat. I do like being a brat, I like being a smart mouth, but I don't want you all to think I'm lazy."

"Amy, you're not." Helga wiped the tears from her girl's eyes, "I know you're busy with school and work."

"Barista work..." The vole mumbled.

"As if that's less difficult?" Helga stated. "Come on now, the service industry sucks and I know damn well you get a lot of crap in your day-to-day. I don't think you're lazy."

"And I'm sorry I said it." Rebecca chimed back in, guilt loaded across her face, "I just...I worry about you. I'm used to keeping a routine and keeping fit. It's hard to stop that. I think I took it out on you 'cause, I don't know, jealousy maybe?" The pitbull's face twisted in self-pity. The girl had only been with them for a year. Helga couldn't expect her to be good with expressing herself yet.

The kitchen wasn't working. Not when she wanted to lean over and hold her girls like eggs in a basket. Helga stood up and rounded around to pull them to her embrace. Tears fell against her chest the moment she did, and her own slipped through. "We're sorry," Rebecca said.

"We should have paid attention," Amethyst said.

The pig clutched them tight. It hurt to hear them admit fault, but it needed to hurt. Just like it hurt to admit her own weakness to them. Somehow, they found themselves in the living room. Clumped up against the green sofa, the three women clutched each other in silence that encompassed everything.

Then Helga's stomach broke it. The pig snaked her arm into her pocket and checked the time, it was already lunch. Amy had a class soon, and she was set to remind her but one look from the vole told Helga she needed a skip day. "Is anyone hungry?" She asked. They both nodded, "Ok, let's go out."

"And then what?" Rebecca asked exactly the question Helga dreaded.

The pig held them in place as she lost herself in thought. "I need time. We all need time. Not apart, I don't think any of us need that. But..." she turned her head to the basement door, her own homemade dungeon, "I think we need to take a break from play."

Amy nuzzled up against her. "I want something vegan."

Helga smiled and leaned down to kiss the vole's forehead. A silent thanks for her acceptance. "We'll compromise."

Piling into the car, there was nothing more Helga wanted to feel than just better. She didn't. No, that wasn't completely true. Deep down, she knew that things would get better, and she looked to both her girlfriends for support in that. They carried the same weary smile. They passed the first hurdle, now the healing could start.