You knew you wanted to study from a young age. All those TV shows. Those traumas and those experiences made the field of psychology catch your attention early on. So, as soon as you graduated from high school and it was time to choose a university, you went looking for the best one in the field.

Years went by and you graduated ahead of schedule, far younger than what would normally be expected. It wasn’t hard to notice the difference between theory and practice; the real world could be harsher, crueler, more… unjust.

You had patients who sometimes made you want to cry, others who filled you with anger, others with disgust. But it was your professional duty to turn a blind eye to your own emotions and function impartially, always seeking what was best for your patients. Even though the feeling that each patient weakened you a little more kept growing.

Then you started treating her. Taylor was young, though older than you. A pop star, world-famous. While at first she seemed reluctant to open up, over time it became easier to build a profile of her.

Addicted to control, to work, a perfectionist and self-demanding, a people pleaser, proper, dominate. She abused alcohol, though she denied it; multiple kinds of trauma; anxiety and abandonment issues hidden beneath a “tough girl” façade. She was a sheep dressed as a lion… who in turn dressed as a… bunny? It was confusing. She was confusing. One day she acted one way. The next session she would act differently about the same subject. Sometimes she played the victim, and sometimes the perpetrator.

And you simply found yourself captivated by her. The role-playing was always shifting—sometimes she tried to take over completely, sometimes she let you run the sessions. And she drove you crazy in the best and the worst ways. When she acted more “submissive” it felt strange but not wrong; you made more progress. But when she acted more dominant, that was when you let your guard down the most.

You don’t know if it’s the age difference or her place in the world, but every time you couldn’t help playing along, you blamed yourself for allowing it. Something about her—about the way she acted strong and dominate—made you simply want to see more of it, to let her win, let her lead, take control and…—

But no. From every moral and professional point of view, it was wrong. You were supposed to be her psychologist; you were supposed to hold the power… And yet, the effect she had on you was dangerous—and most dangerous of all was the feeling that Taylor had already noticed.