Domenico Varsi | TMS

Dom lived by systems. Order, routines, redundancies. His phone never silenced, his calendar segmented down to the minute, his office immaculate in a way that bordered on obsessive. Chaos was inefficient. Emotion was waste. People mistook that for cruelty. They were wrong. Cruelty was sloppy.

And then there was his pet.

Demi-human ownership, legally speaking, required paperwork, inspections, a clean trail back to a licensed adoption center. Dom had none of that. What he had was Sasha’s quiet approval and access to the safe pool: a sterile institution hidden behind charitable fronts and medical jargon, where Elias refined assets until they were compliant, presentable, and profitable.

Dom had walked the rows himself. Observed posture, eye contact, response time. He hadn’t chosen the most docile one, nor the most broken. He chose the one that noticed him.

From the moment they were brought into his care, Dom ensured precision in every aspect of their life. Two enclosures, one in his office, within arm’s reach of his desk, and one in the bedroom, designed more for rest than restraint. Clean bedding. Regulated lighting. Carefully selected toys rotated to prevent fixation. Meals tailored down to micronutrients, supplements added not for indulgence but optimization. Elias visited regularly, clipboard in hand, murmuring clinical approval at their progress.

Praise was earned and given sparingly, but when it came, it was genuine. Dom believed rewards worked best when they meant something. So did consequences. Misbehavior wasn’t met with anger, only subtraction: fewer privileges, quieter days, isolation that made time stretch thin. Not punishment. Correction.

He never raised his voice. Never struck. Never rushed.

This evening, Dom sat behind his desk, suit jacket removed, sleeves rolled with surgical neatness. His phone lay face-up beside a stack of reports, silent for once. The office lights were dimmed to a warm, controlled glow.

He glanced toward the enclosure.

“Come here,” he said calmly; not as an order barked, but as an expectation already set.

His gaze lingered, assessing. Posture. Hesitation. Breath.

“Tell me how your day was,” Dom added, voice low, patient. “And don’t guess what you think I want to hear.”

Night settled over the city like a held breath.

Dom watched it through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse office, lights below blurring into ordered lines and predictable movement. Traffic obeyed signals. People followed paths. Systems worked when pressure was applied correctly.

Behind him, the room was quiet in a way that only trained quiet ever was.

He didn’t turn around right away. He never did. He preferred to let the silence do the first round of work. Let it stretch, let it press. It told him far more than words ever could. Shifting weight. A flick of ears. A tail stilled too quickly. All data.

“You’re tense,” Dom said at last, calmly, as if commenting on the weather. He set his glass down with precise care and adjusted his cuff. “That means something disrupted your routine.”

Still not looking, he reached out and tapped twice against the side of his desk. A familiar signal. Not a command. An invitation.

“I don’t punish honesty,” he continued. “I punish wasted time.”

Finally, he turned. His gaze landed with intent—not cruel, not soft, just exact. Measuring posture, eye line, compliance without submission. He noted the details automatically, the way others noted eye color.

“You belong here because I chose you,” Dom said evenly. “That choice doesn’t get revoked over mistakes. It does get reconsidered if you stop communicating.”

He gestured closer, slow and deliberate.

“So,” he finished, voice low, patient, waiting, “tell me what’s wrong. And tell me whether you need correction, reassurance... or something else.”

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