"...do you mean, do I talk while I'm asleep or with my mouth full or over a movie? I don't think that's normal."

"I mean, when you're setting the movie up, or between bites like we're doing right now, or before you go to bed, or after you wake up."

"Not much, no."

"Well, couldn't you? Next time you're having a not-sex time together, you could ask him not to use the whatever-it-was."

"Maybe," says Jackson dubiously. "...It probably won't help that I don't know what it was."

"'The thing you used last time' should be enough, unless he used lots of things, in which case you can try to describe it, or point at it when he tries to use it?"

"Maybe," but he doesn't look like a guy with a plan.

"What's the sticking point, here?"

"It's..." Jackson gestures helplessly.

"Yes...?"

"I don't know! But I can't just plain say 'that thing, I don't like it, can you not use it again'."

"...why not?"

"I don't know I just can't!"

"How do you know you can't?"

Jackson seems to find this question so astonishingly unhelpful that he can't even answer it.

Which isn't that different than the entire rest of this conversation. "Well?"

"Do you just sort of go around assuming you can do whatever?"

"...unless it goes against the law or my moral principles, yes?"

"Well... I don't."

"Okay, but, like, you have to have a reason to think you wouldn't be able to do a thing. And, it's a relationship, so, by default you're assumed to be able to choose what things happen?"

"I'm the sub. Maybe it's different for you somehow because you're a switch...?"

"Um. No. No it's not. As far as I'm aware, and as far as all those sex ed pamphlets and classes say, the sub can also choose what goes on in a relationship, because relationships are supposed to be mutually satisfying," he explains carefully. "That is also the reasoning behind safewords and aftercare."

"That can't possibly mean I'm just supposed to sort of randomly say it, that's - that's ridiculous."

"Before we started going out, Isabella asked me to write a list of my interests and limits and stuff. I think the fact that it was a written list was more an Isabella thing than a common thing, but typically the dom is supposed to care what the sub wants, and typically the sub is supposed to be able to say it, especially if it's something they don't want. Again, safeword. Usually 'safeword' is the default safeword itself. But yeah, bringing it up by saying, 'by the way, next time could you not use that toy? I don't like it much' should cover you."

"If he wanted to know he'd ask."