Read Out of the Dungeon for Free Online

like jumping out of his skin. The walls of the waiting room
seemed to close in on him a little bit more every minute. Distant
phones rang, the elevator came and went, and the loud 'ping' that
announced its presence startled him every time. He paced. He
rearranged the furniture. He turned the television on, flipped
through channels with the remote control, then turned it off
again.
    Dare asked, "Roman. Can you be still for a
few minutes? You're making me nervous."
    Roman sighed and sat on one of the chairs. Be still, he told himself. Breathe in. Out. In. He
knew how to use stillness and silence to his advantage in the
dungeon. To stretch out time so a minute felt like an hour. But he
didn't want to do that here. He wanted to shorten the day to a
minute, an hour to a blink, so the waiting would be over.
    A tall woman with shoulder length brown hair
and a friendly smile came into the waiting room. She introduced
herself as Katie, the hospital social worker, and invited Roman and
Dare to her office. They followed her down a flight of stairs and
into a sitting room that was comfortable and comforting. She had
the overhead fluorescent lights turned off, and a floor lamp lit
the small room with a warm glow. The seating area was arranged on a
rug of muted brown and cream and green. It was an environment that
felt warm and safe. Roman recognized the psychology of it, and
approved. "An office without a desk. Nice."
    She smiled and gestured for them to sit.
"Everything we do is computerized, and every unit is connected via
desktops and laptops, so I don't need a desk. If I had one, it
would only collect superfluous paper products. Who needs it? My job
is to talk to people, and I don't need a desk to do that. I talk to
people here. I talk to them in the waiting rooms, the patient
rooms, or down the street at the coffee shop."
    Roman nodded. He liked her already. "So. What
do you want to talk about?"
    "Jeff's people," she answered. "He's going to
be laid up for awhile. So who will take care of him? Roman, you're
Jeff's emergency contact, correct?"
    Roman nodded. "And his partner. And this is
Dare."
    "Nice to meet you," Katie said, and there was
a pause, as if she were expecting more.
    Roman felt the unasked question, but ignored
it. "Jeff's other closest friend is Vanessa. We'll all take care of
him, of course. Whatever he needs."
    "Tell me more. Like how long you've each
known Jeff?"
    "I've known Jeff for, oh…" Roman paused for a
moment, thinking. "Fourteen years? Yeah, that's about right."
    "And Dare?" Katie asked. "How long have you
known Jeff?"
    "Ah," Dare almost stuttered. "Um. Maybe three
months?" He threw a questioning glance toward Roman. "Something
like that. Not very long."
    "And Vanessa?"
    "Five years," Roman answered.
    "Okay, so Jeff has a long term partner, and
some close friends. That's good. How about his parents?
Siblings?"
    "Parents upstate. One brother, and one
sister."
    "They're supportive and comfortable with Jeff
being gay?" Katie asked.
    Roman shrugged. "There doesn’t seem to be a
lot of tension about it. They like to pretend we're roommates, but
they know better. Maybe it was a struggle at the beginning, when
they first realized, but it's not something anybody talks about.
Time passes, people change."
    "This is another beginning," Dare said, all
of a sudden, as if he hadn't even been following the conversation.
"We all might be changed forever, after going through this. Jeff
most of all."
    "Absolutely," Katie said. "Trauma changes
people."
    Roman tried to conceive it, Jeff being
anything other than Jeff, and it didn't seem possible. Jeff was an
open book to Roman. There was nothing to hide, because they knew
each other so well nothing could ever be hidden. That was part of
their relationship, the transparency. It was how Jeff could fall in
love with Vanessa, or anyone else, for that matter, and Roman still
always knew the he came first in Jeff's heart. It was how Jeff
knew, the moment Roman mentioned Dare, that