Before we'd confirm the relationship, she insisted we go get tested together — a full physical.
So I wouldn't be late for work afterward, she shook me awake at 6:30. There wasn't really a choice. She's my Dominant. I listen.
At the clinic she walked me straight to the dermatology desk. She said it's the least-busy department in a big hospital, but the one that can still order the test that matters most — the pre-intimacy panel. She'd "worked the system" like this every time.
Every time. I don't remember most of what she said that morning, but that word stuck with me.
I'd had two relationships back in college, but I'd never once thought about getting tested. I didn't understand how she'd built this habit.
She read the question on my face before I asked it. "People don't learn from being told," she said. "They learn the first time something happens to them."
Two years ago a previous partner gave her HPV. It took a long time to clear, and even now, whenever she catches a cold or her immune system dips, it can flare back up.
Ever since, the very first thing she does in any new intimacy is this: get tested together.
Everything of mine came back clean — healthy, no infections. So she laid out the rules: no deep kissing, no sex yet, and every toiletry, every utensil kept separate — minimizing any chance of transmission. She didn't want to pass the HPV to me.
I'd read up on it later — men who contract HPV usually have no symptoms, and 90% clear it on their own. So I told her, trying to be sweet: "Honestly it's fine, I'd be willing!"
What I thought was romantic got me a scolding instead. "If you're going to be my sub, you have to love your own body. I treat you like something precious — what gives you the right to throw yourself away?"
It was the exact opposite of what I'd believed — that a sub is supposed to sacrifice everything. It honestly left me a little stunned, and a little moved.
Three months in, a small bump like a pimple showed up at the base, down there. She tensed up instantly and walked me — for the first time in my life — into a men's health clinic.
The exam room had a female doctor and a male nurse. I nearly combusted; I wanted to disappear into the floor.
She calmly told the doctor her HPV history while shooting me a teasing look. "A second ago it was 'no big deal,' and now you're blushing? Stop hiding — drop the pants, let the doctor look."
After ten minutes of close inspection, the verdict: just a pimple, nothing wrong. The doctor even praised her isolation measures as careful and genuinely professional.
Outside the hospital she sagged against me, drained, and asked if I'd been scared.
She said she'd been the scared one — that if I'd been infected, if I'd developed symptoms, she wouldn't have been able to face me.
We sat by the entrance for a while. Far off, the edge of the sky glowed faintly — not the moon, just the lights of this enormous city lighting up the clouds from below.
I rested my head on her shoulder. In this cold-blooded steel beast of a city, I felt a warmth I hadn't felt in a long time.
She patted me. "Don't be scared. I'll take care of you, carefully. Come on — let's go home and eat."
Her voice was certain. Certain enough to make me believe she was the best Dom in the world.