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I blink. Gathering that she is trying to cause retaliatory damage to my feelings because I have damaged her (however inadvertently) emotionally, I calmly state, “Please explain what I have done in terms that I can understand.”
Her brows crash down. Her chin juts. She bursts out, “I feel fat, William. Iamfat. But it hurts my feelings foryouto call me fat.”
Startled, I stare up at her. “But I didn’t call you fat.”
“Yes, you did!”
I frown. “No, I did not.”
“You freaking did!” she insists hotly.
Defensive irritation is rising in me, which is ridiculous. I don’t want to be defensive with my mate. I shouldn’t have to defend myself—I wasn’t attempting to harm her. “I commented on the size of your ankles.”
“Yeah!”
“I did not label them as fat,” I assert. “I simply observed that you have very large ankles—which is precisely the words that I used. I never said fat.”
To my relief, Becky calms a little.
Hoping to soothe her completely, I add, “I only made the observation because your build is so different from the female humans I was introduced to through vids. The females portrayed had a leg to ankle ratio much smaller in circumference than yours—”
Becky’s brain lights up in the areas for disbelief, hurt, and anger.
I close my mouth.
She notes this and begins shaking her head, her tears renewed. “You just made it WORSE!” she yelps.
“I can see that I have… somehow. I am so confused,” I admit.
She covers her face. She cries for several more minutes.
I glumly move my ministrations to her other foot.
When I shift my weight, the rug is not enough padding to prevent the clunk that each of my knees make against the floor. Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt. Biofeedback informs me of the pressure my kneecaps are experiencing as they bear me up, but I feel no discomfort.
Becky’s tears slow. Yet her brain activity is chaotic. It stays lit in the anger and pain sectors for some time. Then moves to the thalamic paraventricular nucleus, a brain region partially responsible for regulating emotional processing.
It doesn’t seem to be doing a very effective job. The color of the area leads me to surmise that she’s experiencing a surfeit of negative emotion.
Her brain cycles through activations for despair, shame, and self-loathing, if I’m reading her properly. These thankfully wind down. Then, more confoundingly—but gladly received, at least as far as I’m concerned—the sector for humor begins to glow faintly. It’s an odd dark purple light, but activity in this area must be a good indication, surely.
“William?” she finally says.
My hands still and I look up at her. “Yes?”
“Never mind.” She waves at my hands on her lower limbs, indicating I should continue my attempts to minister to her.
“At least I can do this for you,” I say with a sigh.
She nearly weeps when I move my attention to the muscles alongside and behind her shins.
Brow furrowed with concern, I state the obvious. “The back of your leg muscles harbor many pain sources for you.”
“Calves,” Becky says through a hiss as I press into an area that makes her leg twitch. “The backs of human legs are called calves.”
“Hmm. I have heard them referred to as this, but it is a confusing label,” I admit.
The strain on her face eases, and she sighs. “Thank you. You can stop now.”
