Dominic wanted to take pictures. We were staying at a hotel in Ripon which he considered far enough from Leeds that it were unlikely we'd see anyone we knew. I told Má that I had a football tournament; she never came to any of them so the risk of her finding out it were a lie were minuscule. She handed me a twenty quid note with a sigh that they shouldn't plan these things for the weekend, that she were s'posed to work and what were she meant to do with Iris now? But she let me go.

Dominic bought us tickets to the Fountains Abbey though I hardly heard a word of the tour. I spent most of it pressed against the ancient columns as he kissed me out of sight from the European tourists who chattered excitedly in their own languages. It made me feel so liberated: kissing him in public. Even if it were still hidden from anyone except the spirits of those who used to live at the monastery. They'd be scandalised, I thought, if they were watching two men kissing and it only thrilled me more.

We held hands as we walked Ripon's empty streets in the evening. The only restaurants in town were a posh steakhouse and an Italian place with a neon open sign in the window signalling its affordability. We ate there an hour before closing when there were only one family present. When we returned to the hotel I told him I loved him and he kissed me with a hunger that were still foreign to me. I should have known then that his hunger were beyond lust, that when he kissed me, what he desired were to eat me whole.

I were so thankful to be wanted that when he pulled out a regular school uniform skirt and asked me to wear it, I did so immediately. The way he looked at me when I put it on were all I needed as a reward. But when he lifted the polaroid camera we'd used all day to photograph the abbey and the town, I hesitated.

Pictures are evidence. They could come back to bite me and there would be no heterosexual explanation for semi-nude photos of me wearing a skirt.

But I agreed, knowing if I didn't, the ice in his eyes would swallow the pupils to make them sharp again, sharp and so cold. The closest his eyes ever got to brown were when I followed orders. I thought, like in one of Bà Ngoại's folk tales, that if I pleased him enough, maybe the ice would melt from his irises and reveal lush earth.

Once he took enough pictures to please himself he handed me one. It were still developing but I looked at it incredulously nonetheless.

'What am I s'posed to do with this?'

'Give it to your next boyfriend.'

            Dr Qureshi looks at me for a long while. I'm so tired of his soaking wet full stops; they leave me drenched in my own sweat, but every time I break and fill them, I end up revealing summat he can decipher within seconds. He pretends he doesn't, that I'm not an open book for him — or open five-page brochure, more like, cause we both know there ain't enough in my mind to fill a book — but I'm pretty sure he already knows everything before I say it — just like Ziri always does.

When he speaks, his voice is as neutral as ever. 'Did you?'

'Aye...' I try to make the creases in my joggers symmetrical on each thigh. 'He liked it.'

'Did you like it?' There's an inflexion in his tone that makes it clear he already knows the answer. Unless I'm just paranoid and imagining it. Am I paranoid? Maybe I always have been, maybe I inherited it from Má, so maybe I am exaggerating.

Thankfully, he hasn't brought attention to the fact that I ghosted him for a month — at least that makes this a smidge easier. Though I'd still much rather not be here.

I try to focus on Ziri. I'm here for him. It'll make him happy. If I fix my problems, we'll finally be able to have sex.

I shake my head even as half of my muscles oppose the movement. 'I've never really been into all that.'

Dr Qureshi don't say owt and suddenly my skin crawls.

'It's fine,' I snap. 'People do things to please their partners all the time — you get pleasure when you please someone. It's normal. And I never told him I didn't like it so it's not his fault.'

Silence.

'Can you remember why you never told him you didn't like it?'

I stop fidgeting with my joggers and wrap my arms around myself. Focusing on my breathing, I tentatively descend the stairs into memory.

It's my fault. I'm the one who wanted to yield everything to him; the way a passion fruit has thick skin but creamy insides, I wanted him to crack me open and suck every drop out. He were so fit he shouldn't've ever looked at me and I were lucky he did. I relished the way I could feel his fingers digging into my skin in the shower two days later because it were proof he liked me enough to touch me and what were the chances I'd ever find that again? I wanted him so bad, even when I had to bury my whines of pain into the mattress, even when I'd be sore for days, even when I had to feign injury to get out of football so no one would see the bruises around my neck that my school uniform hid but a t-shirt certainly wouldn't.

I must have wanted it. Otherwise, I would've just stopped texting him; it's not like he ever initiated owt.

'He were always buying me food and CDs and that whole trip and I didn't have nowt cause all the money I ever made, I gave my mum, so... I just...' My sentence fades out, unfinished.

'You felt obligated to pay him back with sexual favours?'

I shift in the armchair, trying to relieve the tightening in my chest without revealing that it's there. Phrased like that, I think most people would just call me a whore.

'I guess.'

Dr Qureshi considers me for a moment but despite my efforts, he must recognise my discomfort because he don't ask me to dissect that right now. 'Were there other things he asked you to do that you weren't comfortable with?'

'Well, I didn't wanna have sex with him in...' the first place, did I?

My chest cinches. I've said the words at least a dozen times but they taste rotten now, mouldy cherries crawling up from my stomach. I hear them for the first time the way everyone else has been hearing them for years. The cherry tree pushes against my ribs, the cage far too small to contain it.

Fuck, I'm so stupid.

'Sometimes he'd choke me,' I say in a vain attempt to distract Dr Qureshi from my unintended confession.

I take back what I said; Dominic's eyes were closest to brown when his hand were around my throat. These were the only times he positioned me on my back and I loved it because I got to look at his face instead of the ambiguous mark on the wall right above his frameless bed, not quite a crack or a dent but summat in between. He'd look at me too, intense as a lobotomy. I thought he might dig right through the soil of my eyes and find my brain. I would give him that too if he asked, even if it sometimes scared me when he lost himself in the pleasure.

Dominic wanted me to have my school uniform on when I went to visit him. Once I went over in my own joggers and t-shirt and he were clearly upset by it so I shed them quickly and made sure to put on my uniform even on the weekends. He would kiss me, pushing me to the bed and I'd laugh, tell him I really had to finish an assignment though by that point, GCSEs crossed my mind only the way summer birds might stay a night in France on their flight to the Sahara. Dominic would only press harder into me. Sorry. I just can't help myself. You're so cute in your little uniform.

'But it's normal,' I insist to Dr Qureshi's expressionless face. 'Loads of people have fantasies, like.' Fibreglass embeds into my skin, inflaming it with a rash that won't ease even when my forearm turns red under my fingernails.

Dr Qureshi nudges his open box of fidgets closer to me. 'Please, Miles, I have these if you're feeling restless.'

I stare at them. 'I'm not, like, autistic.'

'You don't have to be.' He smiles gently and though I still feel like I'm taking up space I don't deserve to, I pick out some sort of tangle that looks like a worm. For a moment, both of us watch it squirm, all of its different colour pieces revolving when I move one of them.

Then he allows his disagreement to become obvious and frowns. 'When someone is choked during sex, it's often believed that you need to press down on their throat to stop airflow. That's not right. Under no circumstances, should you block anyone's throat. What is done is gentle pressure is applied to the arteries in the neck—' he demonstrates by pressing his thumb and forefinger to either side of his throat, right below his jaw '—to block the flow of blood — and as such, oxygen — to the brain. That will deliver the desired effect without the risk of a collapsed trachea which is incredibly dangerous.'

'Well, how were he s'posed to know that? That ain't common knowledge, is it?'

Dr Qureshi never gets offended by my outbursts. Instead, he offers a placating smile. 'Don't you think that if someone wants to commit a potentially fatal act on their partner, they have the responsibility to teach themselves to do it safely?'

My body winds even tighter. He's right. Of course, he's right. But as my anger drains, my cheeks burn and I can't admit it out loud.

'As for fantasies, you're right, it is normal, and there's no need to shame anyone for any sexual fantasies or kinks they might have. But there is a drastic difference between two adults acting out a fantasy containing an age gap or a power imbalance, like teacher-pupil role play, and an adult experiencing that fantasy with an actual child.'

'I were sixteen, I weren't a child.'

'You certainly weren't an adult.'

I scowl. 'It were legal.'

'It was, but legality doesn't equate to morality. What Dominic did to you was wrong.'

For a few seconds, I stare at him. Then, I crumble.

Before I have any chance to try to stifle it, I'm crying. Dr Qureshi offers me a box of tissues and I take it, wishing they were the size of a sheet that I could pull over myself and disappear. But because I can't disappear, I pretend he has, and affix my stare onto the tangle as I move it around in my hand.

'Would you like to talk about something else?' he asks. 'We don't have to continue today. You've done so well. Thank you for telling me all this.'

I shake my head. If we stop, I'll go right back to denial, I'll probably quit again. So I need him to keep going, to drag me out of my hiding place in the attic even if I dig my teeth and nails into the floor. And I'm not paying him just so we can chat about the weather.

Dr Qureshi assesses me, contemplating if he needs to veto, but eventually continues. 'What did you mean when you said "have sex, properly"?'

'I'm assuming you know how gay sex works.'

He writes summat down but don't say it. I hate it when he does that. It's summat Ziri does all the time; takes mental notes of things so he can bring them up later when he thinks I'll be less defensive but always catches me off guard. He probably learnt it from his therapists.

'He never forced me,' I say, tears still brimming in my eyes. 'I know you think he raped me but he never forced me to do owt. He'd stop if I asked.'

'Did you ask often?'

The back of my neck burns and I look down at the tangle as I fidget with it. 'At the start, I guess.'

'What would happen when you asked?'

'He'd stop.' Obviously, filters into my tone. 'He'd wanna have sex every time I went over but sometimes I didn't so I'd ask if we could just watch a movie and order a pizza like we used to. And he'd hug me and say of course. And we would. He were never cross... He'd ignore me after. Or maybe he didn't,' I add urgently. 'This were before people were glued to their phones. It's possible he just didn't see my texts.'

'And did you stop rejecting him sexually?'

'No,' I snap. 'Maybe.' He knows I mean yes. Why does he always ask me questions he knows the answers to?

Dr Qureshi gives me a sad smile. 'He got the best of both worlds. On one hand, he'd been nice to you which he could hold over your head — remember last week when I wanted to have sex and you didn't so we didn't? I did that for you, now you have to do this for me. On the other, he punished you for behaviour he didn't like with an easy excuse you'd never be able to disprove, like I just didn't see the texts. All the while, he had plausible deniability because he'd told you it was fine, hadn't he? So when you felt that he was angry with you, it was effortless for him to make you believe it was only in your head. It's highly effective manipulation.'

I almost break the fidget. Placing it onto the table, I blink back tears as I push against the basement door with all my strength. I don't want owt to come out. I don't want to look at any of it.

I once asked Dominic if we could watch Before Sunrise instead of the horror he always picked out. He laughed; he don't watch shitty romcoms. I forced a laugh too — no of course not. I didn't tell him that I missed my dead grandmother and I used to watch with her; it would make me feel better. Why couldn't I tell him that? He were my boyfriend; I should've been able to tell him that.

Ziri never complains. There are months when we watch nowt but Imagine Me And You and Before Sunset on rotation and nowt else.

'Did he ever do that — ignore you — after other things than you rejecting him sexually?'

I shake my head even as I speak. 'Sometimes he'd get jealous. He thought I were cheating on him. Which I obviously weren't — it were a miracle I'd found one man who could be attracted to someone like me, there were no chance I'd find two. Sometimes he'd do the silent treatment thing. But that were because I argued. When I learnt to admit to it — even though it weren't true — he stopped doing it.'

This time, it's my voice that floats from the basement, so shrill and pathetic: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Please let me make it up to you.

The dam breaks again and I bury my face in my hands as my whole body shakes. Summat sharp claws at my chest. Everything hurts.

'Why did I need his attention so bad?'

'I don't know that, Miles.' Dr Qureshi's voice is kind, much kinder than I deserve. 'But I feel that it was certainly influenced by the fact that you didn't get enough attention at home or from your friends and he made you feel less invisible.'

A sob wrestles out of my throat even as the organ is hellbent to strangle itself. So I'm a fucking attention whore too.

'Everyone needs attention,' he says firmly, as if reading my mind. 'Everyone. All humans need to feel loved and valued. There is nothing wrong with you. It wasn't your fault. Like I said last time, if it wasn't you, it would've been someone else.'

Pause.

'Do you think you could practice saying that: "it wasn't my fault"? Just saying it to yourself in the mirror.'

'I dunno,' I croak. The cherry tree is reaching out of my throat and I don't know how I could blame anyone else when I swallowed the seeds. Anyone with half a brain would know to spit them out. Isn't that what parents always warn us against, accidentally eating cyanide when it hides in sweet fruit?

'I'd be very pleased if you tried.' I say I will and he changes tracks so abruptly I almost lurch in my armchair. 'Do you feel loved and validated by your current boyfriend?'

I cut my eyes to him. 'Of course, I do. He loves so much I can't proper comprehend it.'

Dr Qureshi smiles though I can't tell if he's doing it just to indulge me. 'In a hypothetical situation, if he went on a business trip abroad for a week and you had driven him to the airport and everything seemed fine, but then he didn't respond to any of your messages or calls, how would that make you feel?'

I think back to the first time Ziri got depressed after I met him and he stopped answering his phone. I spent nights on end trying to figure out what I had done wrong, which were a stupid question because, of course, I knew.

For the first two years of our relationship, when he were at uni in Brighton and I lived with Má in Sufsdale, he'd go radio silent whenever an episode convinced him that he were too much of a burden in my life and needed to weed himself from it. And though I know it weren't owt personal, I'd be lying if I said it didn't agonise me. Especially after he promised me he wouldn't do it anymore, that he'd let me know he were depressed and needed space. I always thought I had fucked up when he suddenly disappeared, that I weren't good enough for him in't first place — which, well, ain't that true?

I'm overdramatic but it felt like the whole world ended every time, just as it did with Dominic.

When I tell Dr Qureshi this, he remains silent for several torturous breaths. 'What do you mean when you say "someone like you"?' When I stare blankly, he elaborates. 'You said that it was a miracle that Dominic could be attracted to someone like you, that Ziri deserves better than someone like you. What does that mean?'

I shrug, wiping my nose with a napkin. 'Dense... I have the personality of a cardboard cut-out.'

'I highly doubt that's true.'

'It is. People think they have go get to know me but there's nowt to know. I've no opinions on things or skills or interests. I just work, go on runs, and listen to my boyfriend ramble about things I'm too stupid to understand.'

He hums vaguely and writes summat before he focuses his eyes on me. They're a kind russet brown, infinitely patient.

'Sometimes when people repress trauma for a long time, they accidentally repress all their thoughts and feelings.' Dr Qureshi uses his this is a hypothetical situation but it's really about you, I'm just trying to make you feel less alone voice. 'Your brain can't quite distinguish between a good feeling or thought and a bad one, so it's safest to get rid of all of them. There's no doubt you have emotional burnout from doing it for so long. In a state like that, it can be difficult to cultivate or keep interests. But there's nothing about you that makes you incapable of them.

'Also,' he adds with a laugh, 'I'm pretty sure other people aren't as interesting as you imagine them to be.'

'You've never met my boyfriend.'

'You're not a very objective source on that.'

No longer crying, I down the glass of water that I abandoned at the start of the session and pick up the tangle fidget again. The only reason I don't voice my disagreement is that I'm afraid my voice would break and I've been pathetic enough for one day.

'You're horridly mean when you talk about yourself,' he observes. 'Have you noticed that? You call yourself stupid several times a session. Sometimes we adopt self-degradation as a shield — if I call myself stupid first, it has no power when other people do it. But it often ends up hurting our self-image rather than reclaiming it.'

I still don't say nowt.

'It's something I think we should work on. To start, I just want you to start paying attention to it. If possible, count — maybe on your phone notes since you probably have that on you at most times — every time you catch yourself calling yourself stupid, whether that's out loud or in your head.'

My mouth has progressively contorted into a deeper frown with each word. 'But it's true.'

'You wouldn't talk about anyone else like that.'

I guess he's right so I tell him I'll do it. He smiles though I think there's a hint of scepticism in it. Unless I'm just paranoid... Paranoid like Bà Ngoại, paranoid like Má.

Then Dr Qureshi stabs me with another awful question. 'Are you satisfied in your current relationship?'

I bristle. 'There's nowt wrong with my relationship.'

'Okay,' he says, not unkindly. 'So there's nothing you would change, nothing you would add or take away? Nothing you wish you, as an individual or as a couple, could do better?'

I slump against the leather. Refusing to look at him, I speak to Minni Begum's dreamy face on the cover of one of the vinyl records behind him. 'Well, I s'pose I wish I were... That I could...' I mimic pulling summat out of my chest as words fail me.

'Be more vulnerable?' he suggests. 'But you feel like the caregiver?'

I'm ready to disagree but the protests dissolve in my mouth. 'I s'pose.'

'Because your boyfriend has real problems and you don't?'

I scowl.

'Have you talked with him about any of this?'

'Aye. I mean he knows about Dominic, he's the one who wanted me to come to therapy,' I say, twisting the tangle incessantly in my lap. 'But not, like, in-depth. To be honest, I don't wanna go over the details again. Once with you is enough.'

'You don't have to,' Dr Qureshi assures instantly. 'You don't have to tell him any details about anything that happened. But I highly encourage you to talk about your feelings regarding all this with him.'

'I don't wanna be, like, a...' I struggle to find an appropriate word and eventually settle for, 'killjoy.'

'See, now you're protecting other people's feelings at your own expense.'

'It's called being a decent person,' I snide though Iris's comment resurfaces in my mind. You're a fucking doormat, you know.

'In moderation, yes,' he agrees. 'You're a self-described people-pleaser and self-awareness is an important step but you also need to work on that. If you want your relationship to be emotionally fulfilling you need to dedicate a room in it to your emotions too. I'm sure your boyfriend wishes you let him take care of you sometimes. It can't feel good to be the only one with "real problems".'

I glare at him but when my anger fails to burn hot enough to incinerate his words from my memory, I go slack. It's exactly what Ziri said.

Idly playing with the tangle, I turn to the window. There's a yellow plastic swing set in Dr Qureshi's garden, a foam football forgotten under one of the seats.

'I dunno how to do that,' I mumble. 'It's different for him cause his parents... We don't talk about feelings in my family. Even when my dad or my grandma died, nobody talked about it, nobody told me how to deal with it so I guess I just... didn't.'

He nods in understanding. 'You can start by allowing yourself to feel things. If you're not comfortable releasing all that in front of others yet, you can try to do it when you're alone and talk with your friends or your boyfriend when you're comfortable.'

'I'm afraid.'

'It is scary,' he validates. 'You have years' worth of trauma and grief locked in the basement and I can't tell you it'll feel good to release it but it is necessary. Otherwise, it'll all explode when you have no control over it. I think you'd prefer to let it out in an environment where you feel safe and validated.'

I nod. He's right. I know that he's right but my bones fill with static from the need to move, to run and I've never been able to resist it. 'I'll try my best.'

Dr Qureshi smiles. 'That's all I'm asking for.'