She giggled and picked up one of the nipple clamps. She'd chosen ones with little decorative crystals that hung on short silver chains from the rear e...d of each clamp. With a flat surface between the 'jaw' where her nipple was to go, they opened not like a clothespin, but with a little disk that turned in circles. She experimented, watching the jaws opening and closing.How tight? she wondered.'Experiment, ' the saleswoman had said. 'Just clamp the base of the nipple, not the tip.'Okay!Opening. She held her lipstick in her right hand, poised to touch her lips, but couldn’t her hand was shaking too much. It was clear that Ellen was attracted to her; more than that, Sarah now knew that she was attracted to Ellen. Sarah recapped her lipstick without using it. She turned to the door. As she reached for it, Ellen came in. They stood looking at each other, their faces inches apart. Ellen stammered "I just wanted to see if you were alright." "Yes," said Sarah, her eyes avoiding Ellen's. She. Karen was already home from doing a breakfast/lunch shift and Susan told me that the hotel had given Karen “tomorrow off, as they have a busy weekend and need her for some extra shifts.”I jumped into the bath to freshen up while Susan got all her course work together. I asked “where is Karen?” and Susan said “she is upstairs in her room resting and watching T.V.” I got myself something to eat and kissed Susan goodbye as she left.I had finished my meal and was flicking through the T.V. channels. ”“Because of the opioids epidemic?”“Partly. But companies abandon development of new drugs when patients don’t show any improvement. The thing is ... that can be because of a variety of other reasons — anxiety, depression, pain expectation. Big Pharma is giving up on drugs that could have had high efficacy.”I said, “Why? Their bottom line?”“That, and there hasn’t been an accurate way to measure pain. Nor relief. The community has been relying solely, or mostly, on subjective ratings from.