Page 31 of Oh, Sacred Dark
That didn’t make any sense. Roman didn’t make rules—he only followed them.
Dr Elise seemed sad, much more tired than when they had met, and guilt lurched in Roman’s stomach. She ushered Tyler outside and told Roman to rest as the IV dripped into him.
Roman closed his eyes and imagined an enormous eraser hovering over him, pressing down on his toes, back and forth, again and again, until the colour of his shoes curled into little balls of nothing. His legs, his waist, his torso, his head. Slowly, scratch by scratch, he was made to disappear.
**********
When the IV was done, Dr Elise explained everything in detail. She described what, exactly, happened to his body during a Drop. She laid out what scening consistently and healthily did for Dom and sub physiology—how it regulated dopamine and serotonin levels and improved the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, stabilising the stress response in the body.
She told him about how without proper scening, the body remained filled with such a high amount of stress hormones that it started damaging crucial systems, leading to Dropping, which further destabilised the general function of internal elements, from the brain to the intestines to the heart.
She laid out the dangers of keeping the body in that state for years—heart problems, neurological problems, skeletal issues, ulcers, a low immune system.
The list was longer, but Roman had barely been able to process the rest.
“We can treat long-term effects as they pop up, if any do, but for now, the treatment is to have regular, healthy, consensual, negotiated scenes.”
The whole night, it had felt like Roman had been on some violent journey of fear and hurt, and finally, it came to an abrupt end.
There it was—where all roads led. To being owned by a Dom.
A white, thick apathy coated Roman. “Okay.”
“Is Tyler your Dom?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay if we call him in so we can discuss what’ll be needed?”
Roman nodded.
Tyler went to Roman’s side again, checking him over with his eyes. Roman tried to straighten his posture, but he was so, so tired.
Dr Elise looked between them. “Roman says you’re his Dom.”
Tyler shot him a surprised expression, opening and closing his mouth a few times. “I mean…okay.”
Roman watched quietly as they discussed what would be needed—for Tyler to be in control. For Roman to give himself up to yet another person. Tyler agreed readily to everything suggested—the scenes between them, the ‘making sure Roman got what he needed.’
Of course, the Dom would decide what that was. They always did. Roman wondered if they even knew he was a Worm. If this was just a retraining.
Roman wasn’t going to bring up what he was—not to them, not to anybody.
At the end, Tyler frowned at Roman and asked, “Is that all okay?”
Roman wanted to laugh. “Yes,” he said instead, as if he had a choice.
Roman had lost all sense of what hour it was by the time they left. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You don’t have any reason to apologise.”
Roman didn’t argue.
“You don’t have to answer, but…did this happen before you came here? The Dropping?”
Roman might as well be truthful—any resistance had been beaten out of him by the events of the last few hours. “Yeah.”
“Oh. Your last Dom, was he…?”
