Nicholas looked at Serena and smiled gently as she all but harumphed at his question, then he thought for a moment and took a sip of his coffee.<br/><br/>"Christian's personal record -- and yours -- are written in the way you are with each other," he said. "I didn't need to go into a file drawer to see it; all I had to do was watch you for five minutes last night." He looked at Serena intently. "You have rules. You always have had them. They tell you the right way to be, the right way to dress, and how people close to you should be. They are strict and inviolable. And they give you order, certainly, but I would suggest that they don't allow you very much pleasure."<br/><br/>The waitress came by and asked if Nicholas wanted his coffee topped up. He gave her a winning smile and the young woman smiled back, looking for all the world as if she'd won a prize. When she walked away Nicholas noticed an attractive but most inefficient rolling of her hips that he pointed out to Serena.<br/><br/>"Waitresses don't walk that way," he said. "Not when they're thinking of carrying the next plate or pouring the next cup of coffee. What we just had at our table was kind of a dance, a half-minute waltz if you will, in which a shared smile and the merest signal of requited sexual interest served to validate that young woman and will warm her for at least several moments throughout the day. I enjoyed it as well. You may notice that neither of us was disgusted. It is part of life, our human desire for a little frisson of excitement, something a little out of the ordinary. Something that makes our heart beat a little faster and makes us moisten or harden between our legs, just a little."<br/><br/>One more sip of coffee.<br/><br/>"I notice as well that you are not wearing a burka. You dress to be attractive, even if you make sure that nothing about you is overtly sexual. You would dress differently if your desire were to be completely unappealing, so I know that<em>some</em>desire to be admired for the way you look lives somewhere in you, even if your conscious mind rejects it. I don't think you're unique, although I do think you punish yourself unfairly."<br/><br/>He bit his top lip for a second, thinking.<br/><br/>"My point is that some people hold themselves in a prison in which they reject excitement and pleasure in order to live by rules that don't necessarily suit them or their interest in a happy life, rules that they've never questioned. If you think about it, maybe you'll discover that those rules, those prison walls, were not solely of your construction but built by other people who sought to control you. Your parents, your school, your church. All those rules, all your life, followed without question and having led you to a place where your husband's mere glance at a woman's truly inspiring cleavage can set you off into a small rage. And so, who do all those rules benefit? Your parents, your school and your church, but not you, not all the time and maybe not very much of the time at all."<br/><br/>He smiled, and his short laugh was not unkind.<br/><br/>"You have nothing to be insecure about. You are quite beautiful and I think very intelligent. But your slavish adherence to rules that do not serve you has led you to a life of unhappiness -- or at least, much less happiness than you deserve and could easily have, and if you don't question them those rules will condemn you to a future of passionless misery, in which every tiny glance outside your prison walls -- by you or Christian -- will be met with a searing rebuke from your mind and mouth, and the slamming sound of the jail cell you have made for yourself."<br/><br/>He looked into Serena's eyes, now deadly serious.<br/><br/>"That's what I see in your personal record, and it's written as clearly as if it were typed on paper. Your decision is whether you want to condemn yourself to that, or whether you want to strike your blow for happiness by questioning your rules, perhaps throwing some of them out and either making new ones or trying a little bit of life without them."<br/><br/>One more sip of coffee.<br/><br/>"I can help you with that."