The regression room contained no windows or other sources of natural light. About the size of a usual therapy room, it was a considerably large space that still felt claustrophobic. The grey cement render that coated the walls prevented noise from drifting down the hallway and inevitably upsetting the other patients, more importantly it prevented any sound from outside getting in during the session. It was a space that few girls in the female wing of the Submissive Reconditioning Programme—SRP for short—spoke introspectively about, between each other or with the wider clinician team. Instead it existed like a ghost at the end of the corridor. An impermanent, large black steel door that only existed when it was time for a girl to be dragged there with a doctor's assistant under each arm, black rubber apron and all.
Once the door to the regression room closed, the world outside ceased to exist. It was simply the patient, the team, and the necessary therapeutic task of regressing her back through any unresolved sexual trauma from her previous domestic service before she was finally approved to go back into the state organised match-making programme. All of the therapy was medicinal, warrant signed and court ordered too, although that didn't stop the procedures being excruciatingly personal and deeply humiliating for each patient. To prepare submissives to re-enter domestic service a strong stomach was required, desensitising the submissives to their previous triggers was not the job for gentle, weak hearts — trauma could not be removed but simply rewired, and the intense sensory response to sexual trauma was greatly reduced through consistent regression, conditioning, reprogramming, and orgasm therapy — usually one session per fortnight over a period of months until considerable recovery was gained.
God have mercy on the girls who were tough cookies to crack, their therapy sessions were long and bi-weekly frequent down to the strike of the evening clock. Sometimes, when a girl was being dragged down the hallway, the fresh intake of new girls peeked out of the tiny port window of their room, morbidly curious about what it was that happened behind that large steel door at the end of the hallway that no one seemed to talk about. The girls who had time under their belt knew better, they just hung their heads and grew uncomfortably silent when it was somebody else's turn to visit the room, quietly readying for bed, filled with dreadful thoughts about when the time would come that doctors in black rubber aprons would come to drag them down there for another round of their own, personal regression therapy.
Tonight, it was Juniper's first turn.
Juniper was one of the youngest residents in programme across both the female and male clinics, barely nineteen, still girlish, delicate and slender like a doe, although that didn't stop her acting like a woman twice her age and build when she felt threatened.
Juniper had been matched with a male dominant who owned a horse ranch south of the county, a farming man who by all accounts was most at home wrangling beasts and cattle. The Department of Domestic Welfare caught up to him eventually after the missed home visits began to add up and the high court finally issued a warrant to search his property. The illegal copy of 'Dark Disciplines' discovered in the back of his desk was enough to earn a prison sentence alone. The old, outdated book of harsh punishment practices was a stain on the reputation of the country's forefathers four generations prior, a now illegal memoir of the way the world once was at the turn of the last century. The physical evidence littered across Juniper's fragile body that proved he had been implementing punishment measures from the dark book of practices ensured he was issued a life-long ban from interacting with submissives, banished to the cold eastern-most colonies to serve out his prison sentence and live out the rest of his days in the company of other dominants who represented a threat to this newer, more accountable world. If that wasn't enough, his land and business was claimed by the government and sold to benefit submissive health initiatives like the reconditioning programme itself.
Of course, those totalitarian punishments alone could never heal Juniper's deep emotional scars.
It didn't take much more than a wayward look for Juniper to become violent with male staff, sometimes the other girls too if she felt threatened enough. In the four weeks she had been settling in, there was only one person in the entire facility that Juniper had taken somewhat of a shine too. A female doctor by the name of Elliott Addams, and there was no doubt in any of the staff members' minds as to why it was exactly that Juniper became so agreeable and calm when good doctor Elliott was around.
Elliott was a fairly new acquisition, highly sort after due to her expertise. She was nearly six foot tall, muscular, long blonde hair, whip smart, maybe on the cusp of forty, with the faint cross-shaped birthmark that signalled her dominant disposition sat politely on her tanned wrist — only occasionally peeking out from behind her leather watch. For a rural-born submissive like Juniper, a female dominant was a wondrous oddity. It helped that Elliott Addams also happened to be timid and quiet as a mouse, keeping to herself for the most part.
While the other doctors and staff congregated in the office for lunch, Elliott always ate in the patient recreation room — happy in her world of broken, healing little women like a toymaker concerned only with her work. The girls left her alone to read her books in peace for the most part, respecting the unspoken divide between patients and staff.
All except for Juniper.
Juniper liked to sit quietly beside the tall doctor, sometimes so close that she almost got underneath her. Juniper would eat her sandwiches, exist peacefully in the silence, catch glimpses of whatever Elliott was reading, until eventually the doctor would roll her eyes and push the gaudy, 60s romance book between them so Juniper could read along too. They did that day in, day out, every meal time, reading and sharing snacks for six days solid before they even uttered a single word to one another. Yet by that point their close connection was already whispered about by the other doctors, mumbled between nurses, disapproval absolutely everywhere as the new girl from room six seemed to permanently traipse within the doctor's shadow.
When the time came for Juniper's regression therapy to begin, the big wigs who directed the programme knew there could only be one doctor to lead her treatment. It was an official test that bore more weight than the other doctors let on, a punishment intended to remind the quiet, meek Doctor Elliott Addams that interpersonal relationships were deeply frowned upon for a reason. Elliott remained unphased despite the expectation for failure. Four weeks of bonding had provided her with ample opportunity to understand the fine minutiae of Juniper's case that even the psychotherapists had missed, and she had long anticipated she would be charged with doing the difficult work.
Measured and quiet, Elliott walked her rounds and wrote up her orders with utter giddiness hidden away in her stomach all afternoon. Nothing made the doctor happier than an opportunity to defy expectations, and that was precisely what she intended on doing.
***
The orderlies who came for her were hidden away behind black surgical masks, their usual white uniforms traded for black surgical gowns, rubber aprons, scrub caps, and elbow length latex gloves, everything black and ominous. Juniper sat on the edge of her bed in surprise as they strode into her room in a neat line, propelled with a sense of measured urgency. She looked at her roommate in hopes that she would co-opt her surprise. She didn't, her roommate simply turned her head away and stared at the sink basin as though she could barely stomach the sight of them.
"Juniper, come with us please. It's time for your therapy session." It was said with a sense of polite authority.
Juniper felt the urge to fight slip up the palm of her back, she took a deep breath, knuckles clenching, weighing up her options as the three faceless sentinels stood patiently in front of her as though they were equally happy to oblige and do things the difficult way too. There had been the whispering of stories from some of the other new girls about the room at the end of the hall but no concrete evidence, just scraps of information they had heard from unreliable sources. Still, Juniper didn't want to find out why it was girls came back from the unspoken room changed as people. She didn't fancy her chances, but life had taught her that sometimes violence was the only tool of negotiation on the table.
Before she could start to spit and cause problems, a familiar face suddenly appeared at the door.
"Ah, Juni! There you are." Doctor Elliott smiled slightly and stepped inside, her eyes glancing around until they landed on the open copy of Great Expectations placed on the bedside table. "What do you think so far? I always thought Miss Havisham was a very relatable character the deeper you get into the book. Are you far in?" She blinked, sucking the oxygen from the fire with nothing more than quietly-spun pedestrian questions.
"Erm, three chapters so far, I think." Juniper stumbled slightly and relaxed her clenched fingers.
"You're making quick work." Doctor Elliott lifted her brows, utterly impressed. "I'm re-reading Little Dorrit at the moment, when I'm finished you can borrow that too. Here—" Doctor Elliott picked up the dog-eared book from the bedside table and handed it to Juniper. "Why don't you bring it with you? There's an observation room you'll be sleeping in for the night after our therapy session. A little creature comfort might make it feel more homely." She quirked the corner of her mouth.
Juniper clutched the book close to her chest and peered at her shoes, softening and waning despite her own instincts. She had never seen her favourite doctor out of uniform like this before — normally Doctor Elliott wore a long white coat and neat black trousers, her hair scraped back into a tidy bun, make up pristine and light — but tonight she was wearing worn blue jeans, an oversized comfy looking sweater that was pushed up around her elbows, not a scrap of makeup on her freckled cheeks, and brown suede loafers that were square-shaped at the toes. It looked as though she was ready to go home for the evening, far away from this place and all the tragic ghosts that wandered its hallways.
Juniper fantasised that maybe the older woman would take her to wherever she was going.
"Come on," Doctor Elliott whispered, stirring Juniper from thinly-spun fantasies with an outstretched hand. "Let's do this together."
Moments later, they were walking down the long hallway, barely talking but enjoying the small conversation there was to be had about the books they were currently reading. The three black uniformed sentinels followed closely behind, but Doctor Elliott placed her arm around Juniper's shoulder and didn't let her catch sight of them. The closer they got towards the open door at the end of the hallway emanating a low dim, the more Juniper felt like a snake being charmed and hypnotised. The other girls behind the doors halted their preparations for bedtime, staring out at her from behind the port windows in faint shock as she walked calmly beside the tall doctor of her own volition.
"There's a reason girls don't want to go in that room." Juniper stopped dead in her tracks and stared up at the taller, older woman who seemed to have all of the universe's answers. "I'm right, aren't I?"
Doctor Elliott quirked her lips and nodded slightly, exhaling a slow breath. "Yes, sometimes medicine tastes bitter but there's things that can be done to make it easier to swallow." The doctor mused, tersely. "Show me you're willing to try your hardest and I'll try my hardest to make it easy for you. Sound fair?"
Juniper scoffed but began to take measured, small footsteps again. "Nothing is fair in this world," she whispered quietly to herself.
