" Phil started to sob. "She was talking about going away to university. She was so excited."I put an arm around him, his distress distracting me from ...y own."I'll help in any way I can," I told him. "I can try to get back at weekends." Thanks," he sniffed. "You're a good lad."The next few days passed in a blur. David looked like a zombie when I next saw him. Phil told me that he was taking prescribed medication to help counteract the shock and the intense guilt he felt at being in the wrong. The first year was pure hell for me because allfreshmen had to live in a dorm. I shared a room with two other girls. We gotalong just fine, and they are dear friends even now thirty years later. But Ihad absolutely no privacy to indulge my self-bondage. Each time I went home ona break I would spend nearly the entire visit tying myself up. I was so frustrated the first time I went home from college that I wentto the barn stark naked, set up my rack and indulged in several hours ofself-torture. I. "Actually, it's brand new, not rickety," I said, getting a severe eye roll out of Sheila. I was obviously clueless.They argued for a bit more neither girl changing her position even a little, so I jumped in, "I don't want to ruin anything you guys had planned but if you don't want to fly, I can drop you off someplace." Fine, I'll go home, and I can walk," she turned on her heel and set off with a determined stride and nose in the air.Kristine shook her head, "She'll get over it. She does that,. And something else. Rage, perhaps. His teeth were bared and clenched, his features drawn into an animalistic snarl. His eyes were full of the pain of the burning. And something else. Something more. Something, or someone very different from the Rael she knew. As the Gnari girl wondered if the strange, frightening flame was going to spread and swallow him entirely to burn him to ash, they extinguished. Rael stood, panting, his eyes darting around the cave suspiciously. Tendrils of pale smoke.