Cat and Mouse (M/f) - sheepwave - Human Domestication Guide (2024)

Chapter 1: 1-4

Chapter Text

“Welcome home, Jennifer, to my den.”

I glared at him. ‘Tomeri Armetisa, Ninth Bloom’, as he had introduced himself to me back at the holding center. He was almost three times my height, and moved like a liquid. Some of his kind crafted elaborate masks or faces of fibers in a hollow mimicry of humanity, but his was a more abstract covering in the general shape of a head. His head was shaped a bit like a feline's, with four eyes and a mossy fuzz on the jaw faintly reminiscent of a beard. The leaves and vines of his heavyset frame were a much darker green than most, with scattered thorns around some of them. He had four eyes I knew from the other rebels to never look directly at, and his antennae were thick at the base, looking more like a pair of ears.

I observed the oversized log cabin of a house that was supposed to contain me. I saw multiple windows without visible locking mechanisms, and a small shed out back that might have tools to snag on my way out when I escaped. The forested patch the house was in was a little too sparse to provide good cover, unfortunately. Especially considering the dress I was in was bright red.

I had been scooped up months ago, from the inside of a rebel warship caught within an affini capture ship's enormous capture arms. Our vessel had filled with a gas that made anyone who didn’t get a mask on fast enough collapse into sleepy giggles, and I was subdued after shooting holes clear through some yellow and pink feathery mass of feathery flower petals with my rifle before it knocked me out with a single injection. I had been processed, moved between stations and ships, and temporarily escaped from various holding rooms but been unable to get away cleanly twice.

I didn't understand why they still bothered giving me pills that did more for my body than a few years of HRT before joining the rebellion plus every gender affirming surgery I could never have afforded in a lifetime. And not over years, but in just the span of my multi month-long stay in holding. It was clearly another attempt to make me complacent, and I wasn’t falling for it.

The one good lesson my parents had actually taught me was how to escape from them and hide, and the consequences for failing at it now being xeno mind games was messing with me. The most infuriating part of the failed attempts had been that when I got cornered, my captors just drugged me, called me a good girl, and made me think… things, that I definitely would never have thought about otherwise. Gorgeous and handsome mimics of human beauty or not, these f*cking things were still xenos, and I wouldnt let something as undignified as sexual attraction cloud my judgement.

Now here I was, freshly coerced domestication contract complete, and with a new owner, eager to goad me into a false sense of security long enough to do whatever it was the affini actually did with their pets.

I knew what my mistake had been the first two attempts. Trying to get away too fast, I had been apprehended both times while looking for a way off the ship or station. It would be easier to hide, elude being found by utilizing the infinite hiding spots a ship the size of a city would inevitably have. Only once they stopped looking for me, would I be able to actually stow away on a shuttle and escape through one of the more carefully regulated docks. I would hide and survive like I always did.

All I had to do was get away from Tomeri before he put that thing in my neck. Once the worm went in, you were f*cked. No coming back, lobotomized forever into a drooling servant. Everyone back on the ship knew that any human with one of those implant scars on the back of their neck was done for, a glassy eyed toy for whatever affini now controlled their thoughts.

He opened the door, and walked in before I did. I considered making a break for it, but it was far too obvious a play, and I wouldn't be fast enough to get out of range of the remote he had that would trigger the thin rings around my wrists and ankles and immobilize me. I had earned those being attached to me after the second time I managed to slip away. I let the suboptimal window to escape pass, and followed him into his hab. It was darker than I expected.

“This is my home, and now yours as well. I know you probably expect you will be able to break free, but soon enough you won’t want to.”

I stared at him and said nothing. I had caught a glimpse of the inside of Tomeri’s mouth and seen the sharp thorny teeth within. Was he going to eat me? If they turned me into a wormhead, I would probably cook myself for him.

He seemed to want to give me a tour. Fine by me, as I was keeping my eyes open for any kind of weapon or tool I could use. I had to get the pacification gear off my limbs and neck so I could escape while he slept. I had tried stabbing him in the eyes with the pen he made me sign the contract with, but it had just broken and exploded ink all over my hands. Apparently a thumbprint also worked as a signature.

He walked me into the living room, and I quickly scanned every surface I could see. It was nothing like the sterile, babified daycare feeling of the holding cells I had been in until now. His space looked like a forest, with no straight lines other than on the doors, covered in nooks and hollows, with huge wooden furniture that seemed to have grown directly out of the floor. Even the seat of the couch came up to my chest, it would be like a maze for me to navigate.

“What do you think, Jenny? So many places for you to skitter and hide. I'll have more added for you if you want them. Will this suit your hide and seek games you like playing?”

I answered his slightly teasing tone with silence. He let out something like a laugh, and stroked a vine through the curls of my hair. The fleshy part was smooth, but the tip had a curled claw that felt cold and razor sharp. I flinched away from it as it brushed against my ear menacingly.

He turned to fully face me, and I felt that point press into the underside of my jaw. I inhaled sharply, tilted my head up and away from the danger on reflex, and caught the briefest glimpse of the swirling purple flecks in his eyes before slamming mine shut.

“Let me be clear, Jenny. If I ask a question, you will answer.” The edge of his voice was as sharp as the blade pressed against me.

I hated being called Jenny. I chose my full name myself, I wanted to at least have it be used. But arguing that would be pointless now. “Your living space is fine.”

He let out a delighted growl, and more of his tendrils stroked through my hair.

“Aha, so she does know how to speak! Such an angry little thing, but I will train you to respond respectfully.”

He turned away and took the blade under my chin with him, and I let out the breath I had been holding in.

It was going to be so satisfying to escape.

As he led me into the kitchen which was similarly organic in layout but covered in ceramic tiles, I spotted my salvation immediately - a meat cleaver meant for an affini, the size of a f*cking Terran sword. I tried not to think how many of my brave fellow rebels it had probably slain for Tomeri to devour. I would do justice to them by avoiding sharing their fate.

Nothing else he would show me mattered. I was going to escape tonight. However, I pretended to take absolutely no interest in the tool of my salvation, maintaining my angriest scowl.

The tour around my new prison passed through unremarkable side rooms, a bathroom with a tub a terran could be drowned in, and various closets already filled with dresses I had to admit wouldn’t look bad on me if I actually got to have a say in the matter. I took careful note of a sturdier looking blouse and jeans I would have to grab before I escaped. Something that would actually last the weeks I would have to hide on the ship.

We finally reached his bedroom, and he guided me inside. There were two beds, one enormous and square, the other small and round, with raised edges that could act as a pillow from any direction. A pet bed. Like for an actual animal, just bigger.

I groaned, reminding myself of the knife left out downstairs. I would only have to pretend to sleep in this thing for a single night. Then I would be free to run again.

After the tour concluded, he had me sit and watch her prepare food. For both of us, curiously. I thought they only drank water. I did not like the way he looked at me as he brought the knife down on the raw fish he conjured into being from nothing with his kitchen’s fabrication device. Was he thinking about carving me into thin slices to put on top of rice next?

When it was time to eat, we sat across from each other at the table table in near silence broken only by his lecturing me about the cuisine and how fish were hunted and caught. The meal was apparently something originally invented on Terra, but had long ago fallen out of favor when most fish went extinct. At first I didn't trust it for not being cooked, but eventually I was just getting hungry and gave in. If the Affini’s master plan involved poisoning me, they already had plenty of chances. Clearly their game was subtler, and my winning move was to get out before I needed to learn the real rules.

The ‘sushi’ was, obviously, one of the most delicious things I had ever tasted, because everything I had eaten since my capture was. I almost didn't mind that once I had tried the first myself, Tomeri insisted on popping each little perfectly sized morsel into my mouth for me. I guess he knew not to trust me with anything even resembling silverware after they made that mistake back in Intake. As I chewed, marveling quietly at the flavor I didn't even have a name for, I watched him pick up his own fish and savor it slowly, eyes all focused on me. I wished he was human, because then the traitorous things happening between my legs as I watched him eat would be f*cking normal. The sharp fangs and flashing tongue were doing something for me I didn’t like.

It finally got dark out, and he settled us into our beds. I was putting on my most convincing act of someone falling for the illusion that this was going to be an idyllic life, and pretended to fall asleep in my, admittedly very cozy, pet bed. I would certainly be choosing a less comfortable life soon, hiding in vents on the ship for weeks until I could smuggle myself off, but it was worth it to be free.

A few hours passed. I couldn’t know for sure what a resting xeno looked like, but my best guess was that if he hadn’t so much as twitched in hours, he was probably asleep. I moved silently, skilled after years of practice. You don’t get far in life as a trans woman if you don’t know how to vanish without a trace, and that made me good at what I do.

I tiptoed to the bathroom carefully. If there were alarms to set off, I wanted to find that out while doing something that wasn’t suspicious. I had even waited until I actually needed to go, just in case that was being monitored too. I flushed, washed my hands, bumped some towels around, intentionally being a bit louder than I needed to be while still in the plausible deniability zone. I peeked back into the bedroom, and he hadn’t moved an inch. It was time.

I carefully clambered up a chair and pulled myself up on top of the prep table in the kitchen. The knife was unbelievably heavy, but with significant exertion, I was able to lift it. Maybe that was why I had been given those super-HRT pills, to make me weaker. I hopped down from the counter with a soft thud, bending at the knees to absorb as much energy as possible and land quietly. I slowly crept over to the window, ready to pry it open, when the lights on all four of my pacification restraints suddenly turned red.

I heard four short beeps overlapping each other, and felt something cold under the bands around my ankles and wrists. After a moment, I crumpled against the wall, as every muscle in my hands and feet went limp at the same time.

The heavy kitchen implement slipped from my fingers, falling straight for my leg. I closed my eyes in horror, expecting the blade to slice me, but instead felt it bounce off of me and clatter harmlessly to the floor. The blade had become completely dull and soft as soon as it slipped from my grasp.

The clattering sound of wood against tile echoed through the house, and I heard a slight creak coming from Tomeri’s bedroom. I slumped to the floor, trying not to panic.

“Where are you, little one? Is my mouse getting into mischief again?” His voice was laced with menacing tones that made my heart pound in fear.

I uselessly pawed at the door to the rest of the hab, eventually just trying to push it open with my head, and realizing with dread that my best option to move was now to crawl on my knees and my temporarily useless hands.

I went as fast as I could for the gaps between furniture of the living room, accidentally bringing down a lamp with a loud crash in the process. I was plunged into pitch black, shivering and afraid of the alien monster now hunting for me. The parts of my brain evolved millions of years prior by small fearful animals, that normally only handled breathing and other unconscious tasks took over. I scurried for the nearest of the little openings I remembered seeing earlier without thinking.

I breathed in terrified breath after terrified breath, trying and failing to stifle the sound. Where was Tomeri? I didn't hear his footsteps anywhere, the only indication he had moved at all was the creak of his bed. I could feel the subtle vibration he exuded everywhere, but I couldn’t place a single direction it was coming from.

Suddenly, a purple light illuminated directly behind me. I slowly turned, and saw four glowing eyes staring from inches away, his entire head hanging upside down in the nook with me, disjointed completely from his shoulders.

“Hello, little one. Sleepwalking, were we?”

I screamed as loud as I could, and tried to scramble away. I made it about a meter before bundles of vines snatched me and yanked me into the air. Tomeri slammed me against the moss-padded wall of his living room, and the air was knocked out of me. My tiny squeaks for him to let me go only seemed to make him hungrier.

He loomed over me even while pinning me to the wall, and in my mindless panic, I made full eye contact with the hunter that had caught me. Shivers rippled over my body, and he began speaking in a melodic voice unlike any I had ever heard before.

“Such a sweet little mouse, stunned into stillness. You run and run, but you crave stillness the most, don’t you?”

I couldn't look away, couldn't stop repeating the word stillness in my head. Sparks danced everywhere on the edges of my vision. “N-no. I need to be free…”

“You want to stop. You want to be able to sink into peace, but you're trapped in your own head, running in a maze. Wouldn’t you rather find the exit, sink into stillness for me?”

My thoughts slowed to a crawl, bent into paths that led in infinite loops. I was caught in the maze. Caught running. Wanted out. Wanted to be able to stop. Couldn't stop. Couldn’t stop.

I felt myself hit a mental wall. Stop. Stop! I frowned at him and forced my eyes shut. Why was I wet? No. No!

“Get out of my head, you f*cking invasive freak!”

I did the only thing I could, and bit hard on one of the strands around his face. He dropped me in surprise, and my numb ankles buckled as soon as I tried running. He pounced on me, pouring over me like a wave of leaves and wood. A vine wrapped around my throat and I screamed.

“Stay still, little mouse. The maze has something else inside it, something you can’t escape from.”

I tried to fight against him, but every time I moved he pressed down tighter. After a moment, it was getting hard to breathe, and my body forced me to give in to his command as white oblivion began creeping at the edges of my vision. I was rewarded for my obedience by him suddenly squeezing tighter, prompting new thrashing against him that accomplished nothing.

“Good toy. Stillness suits you.”

A flower opened on his chest and sprayed a puff of some gas directly in my face, while he adjusted her grip around my airway. The animal side of my being gasped deep as she loosened up just enough for air to fill my lungs and for blood to flow again. My body, overriding logic and reason through desperate survival instincts alone, did not heed my brain’s warning that breathing in now would only make things worse. As I inhaled, every point of his contact against me became the most joyful, pleasant touch I had ever experienced.

I tried to scream out in protest, but nothing resembling coherent speech escaped me. I felt her laugh vibrate through the coils around my neck. I wanted to get out of the maze, I wanted to stop running…

He curled a pair of her limbs under my back, and began pulling me back towards his bedroom. My slightest attempt to resist was met with the support under my back and legs being dropped, and the message was clear. Yield, or be dragged by the neck alone.

Tomeri carried me up onto her sleeping area, and I felt him vibrating against me. It was the rattling purr of a predator, and I was his trapped prey. He pressed me onto my back, flowing over me. His weight covered me entirely, pinning me down under him. I kept my body completely limp, letting him toy with me.

“Good little mouse. It’s better this way, to be mine.”

His tone felt so possessive. I was beyond having any ability to fight back, all I could do was lay there under him. Some of the flowers tucked into his chest were dripping multicolor fluids like pharmaceutical drool onto my nightgown.

I expected him to stop playing with his food and bite into me. I knew he liked his food raw, after all. But once he had me helpless and pliable, his demeanor changed.

He traced lines down my back with the tips of his vines, The same jagged points he had threatened me with earlier, with pressure so light they could never puncture my skin unless I moved against them. The tracing lines of gentle touch made me shiver with unwanted delight. I whimpered, brain flooding with endorphins. This didn't make sense. I was trapped in the maze with something that I could not escape. Fight and flight had failed me. I felt weak and the only thing I could do was option three. Fawn.

My voice cracked as it passed over dry lips. “I want to stop running. Please, I can’t stop, I’m stuck in the maze. Stuck. Stuck running.”

The rush of chemicals meant to suppress the ego in favor of survival filled me. Tears flowed down my cheeks, and all I could think to do was to try to make this terrifying creature want to protect me, to show even the slightest pity, rather than kill me or hurt me.

Suddenly, he wrapped his entire body around me like a firm embrace. The way the subtle vibrations his body produced rolled through my back made me shiver and let go of tension I hadn't known I was carrying. Whatever drug he had forced me to breathe in was twisting my thoughts towards submission and surrender against my will. Thinking about how much bigger than me he was and how much I just wanted to feel small under him.

“There there, little one. You don't have to run. You can feel the stillness you’ve always craved right here with me.”

I whimpered, and pawed at him for comfort. It wasn't fair that he had done this to me. It was pathetic, that I should turn to the hunter that had caught me for reassurance, but more than I needed air, I needed him to tell me I was safe.

My voice was barely more than a whisper. “I’m scared…”

“Good girl, good doll. I had such fun playing this little game with you, and now you get to be cherished and rewarded.”

I sobbed as he held me tight. Something in his chest pressed against me, waves of comfort washing over my body. He wasn’t allowed to call me those things. I wasn't supposed to feel like this. Weakness was always punished, the only way to be safe was to be able to get free. I felt him stroking my hair, comforting me like a little girl. Like the little girl who didn’t get to be a little girl, because she had to learn to escape before she could even be a girl at all.

“You’re finally out of the maze, Jenny. You can stop running. Be still with me.”

He coiled around me entirely, a flower tipped vine waving back and forth like a tail. He brought it to my chest, and from the pinch spread… Nothing. The feeling of nothingness.

It was freedom. Not freedom to run, but freedom to rest. My breath continued, my heart still beat, but every muscle in my body with any conscious control simply let go. A docile object in his grasp. I was a pliable, still doll, and that was all I needed to be. The choice was not in my hands, and it never had been.

He was so much stronger than I, faster, more cunning. There was never any chance of my escape. He had probably not even actually been asleep when I left the room. The knife was always going to dull itself at my touch. This had been a game for him. I was not playing it, I was the objective.

He lifted my drooping head, and brought the four hypnotic orbs that mimicked eyes to the center of my vision. The truth of his care washed over me, as he played with each of my fingers, my toes, exploring every part of me, his new toy. Her touch was magnificent, a healing salve to scars I didn't realize I was carrying. Why didn’t I even notice the chronic pain in my body until it suddenly vanished?

The vibration of his voice against my skin felt euphoric. “This is all you have to be, Jennifer. Nowhere to run but into my embrace.”

Tomeri posed and played with me, gently bending my knees and hips, finding positions he liked to hold me in. My panties clung to me, soaked wet. Wave after wave of submissive feelings crashed over me, and my mind floated atop them like foam on an ocean.

I was never made to run. This was my purpose. Being played with by a being who loved to chase and had caught me. Looking up at him through glassy eyes, my body made entirely compliant by his. All I could do was trust him, and let myself sink into the stillness of his embrace.

I was running. From my mother and father, from my ex, from my mistakes. The world was flickers, smears of moments in time. A surreal landscape dotted by flowers and vines. I was being hunted. Jagged teeth snapped shut around me, purple swirls and golden lips devouring me again and again. The other girl refused to run, she simply sat there, looking at me, daring me to lie and decompose in the mushrooms growing around the rotting wooden joints of her body.

Time and place melted into each other, I was back in intake, every other Terran face wiped clean off, clothed in leaves and thorns. Everywhere still, I was pursued by that dark shape, the creature in shadow from which there was no escape, only delaying the inevitable capture. Still followed by the other girl, whose honeyed promises and pleas to slow down were every bit as threatening to our safety as what chased us.

I sat in my chair in a classroom situated at the top of a great tree, growing from the orange surface of my homeworld far below. The teacher’s four eyes glowed purple as he stared at me. Something about him was familiar. The other students were silhouettes of mist, unreal and unobservable, shifting out of being at any attempt to focus. Only one was real, the other girl, staring at me, tempting me to stop. I had to save her, I couldn't let us be hurt again. The hum of the beast was pounding in my ears, louder and louder, her claws closing tight around my throat and-

My eyes shot wide as I woke up from the dream, and saw the dark green and faint purples of Tomeri's vines all around me. My chest heaved as adrenaline flowed, but as I looked around the room my heart slowed. Safe was a relative term when wrapped tight in the grasp of my affini captor, but nothing about his bedroom presented an immediate physical threat. I breathed deep, and was immediately struck by unusually strong smells.

I could detect earth tones in my face, a misting of pleasant fragrance shifting with the air coming from Tomeri’s body. He undulated gently like waves, and I swore I caught a glimpse of something inside him that glowed. Some part of me desperately wanted to reach out and press my hand through the layered leaf cover that made up his chest, and touch the source of that light, but I shut that desire down entirely.

Tomeri noticed I was awake quickly, and the tangy floral whiff in the air grew stronger as he moved to touch my face. I tried moving away, but couldn't escape his stroking vines running through my curls.

“How lovely, you're finally awake. I'll prepare us some breakfast.” He got up and left the room like a liquid pouring around the door to the hallway.

I simply laid there, taking stock of the situation. I heard him moving around the kitchen, and I detected a faint cinnamon scent. A moment later, I heard the sizzles of food plopping into a hot pan, followed by wafts of something caramelized and fluffy, then another burst of cinnamon and a distinct saltwater smell. Did he only eat fish?

I still couldn't make sense of his actions. When he had caught me last night, the obvious time to devour me would have been right there. Instead he had just been a little rough subduing me, before bringing me back to bed and posing and playing with my body like a pliant toy doll until I passed out.

If his compiler could just produce any raw food he wanted, then doing all this for the purpose of eating me would be a lot of effort for a meal he could only enjoy once. It was morbid to think about, but they could probably easily just print the finest chopped terran if they wanted to. It had to be something else, some other motive for the pampered pet charade.

I rolled over and looked out the window. The light against my face through the crack in the curtain was warm. It was a pleasant day, just like every other on this ship. I still couldn't believe that the affini had mobile vessels with actual weather systems.

A breeze fluttered in through the open window. The moving air crossed my face, and the rush of information on my sense of smell suddenly felt overwhelming. Flowers, fruits, cut grasses, dirt and rubber and metals and things I had no name for. What the f*ck was outside that smelled that strong?

I reached my hand up to plug my nose, and instead just bonked myself in the face with limp fingers. The lights on my bracelets were still red. I tried to clasp my hands open and shut. The most that the drugs allowed was a clumsy, uncoordinated grasping. I could maybe pick an object up with both hands, but anything resembling tool use was currently out of the question.

I looked down, and saw that the anklets had no red lights. I flexed my toes experimentally, seeing they were indeed unaffected. I could walk over to the window currently blowing a thousand too many bits of sensory input into my nostrils, but I definitely couldn't close it.

Without Tomeri in the bed, something about it no longer felt right. I felt too open, too exposed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood as the breeze rolled in again, another wave of smells far too strong. I winced from the overstimulation. There was already enough chaos in my own head without this on top of it.

I hopped down from the bed carefully, and looked around for a more comfortable place to rest. My little cushioned ring of a pet bed stood out to me, but was directly next to the window. It would be comforting to my sense of touch, but that location would only make the problem worse.

I looked around the room, and spotted a nook directly next to Tomeri’s bed. It was on the opposite side of the frame from the window, and looked like I would fit inside neatly.

Picking the pet bed up with my hands in their current state was out of the question, but It was easy enough to push it along the floor with my feet. My destination was probably meant to be storage of some kind, but was empty presently. The space was a bit over a meter tall, a little alcove of polished wood in an organic shape. I would be able to curl up inside it fully, and the thought of having walls on every side of me with no way for something- or someone- to get behind me was a very appealing thought at the moment.

I did my best to pick up my blanket while my hands still more or less acted as clumsy paws. It was slow and frustrating, but eventually I realized it would be easier to just pick things up between my wrists with both arms. Eventually I had successfully crammed the nook with pillows and soft things to block out the scents from outside.

I burrowed myself into it, breathed in deep, and closed my eyes. I had been too busy plotting my escape the previous night to notice the incredible softness of all the blankets and cushioning I had been provided. With whatever residual tingles I still had from breathing in too close to Tomeri, every soft surface now felt like absolute heaven wherever they met my skin.

It was a lot like the little pile of blankets and clothes I had in my bunk on the rebel ship a few months ago, or the one I had made from my now-ex’s laundry back when I briefly lived with her back home on Mars, before she kicked me out anyway. But it was also quite different, as every one of my senses was still so amplified.

Every gentle strand that came into contact with me was a little spark of joy, and the firmer fuzz I pressed against my lips soothed me to my core. It would be better if they smelled like someone I liked rather than just me, but I could make do for now.

I heard footsteps approaching the bedroom, and tucked myself in deeper instinctively. Tomeri entered through the curved doorway, holding a plate in one of his hands, his form much closer to a scaled up Terran man’s than the inhuman, catlike monster that had hunted me the previous night.

His voice was a cheerful mockery of paternal care as he spoke. “I see you've made yourself comfortable. What a cute little nest you have!”

I shouldn’t need to justify myself, but I had been doing it since childhood and the habit remained. “I just like feeling enclosed and wanted to have a space I could control. Everything else smells wrong.”

He went to reach a vine into my alcove, but I recoiled back from him, and he halted.

“Is that a space you'd like to go when you don't want to be touched or bothered, then?”

I wanted to say yes, but I caught the trick in his question. I wasn’t giving him implicit permission to touch me whenever I wasn’t in here. “I never want to be touched or bothered by you at all!”

Tomeri’s laugh rang out teasingly. “I don't know about that, little girl, your body seemed to disagree last night after our little chase. I think there is a big part of you that likes this.”

Something in the back of my head whined and demanded recognition, but I ignored it. “Only because you drugged me! Is that why everything smells so… intense right now?”

Tomeri's head lowered upside down in front of my alcove, yet again entirely detached from his actual body and floating on supporting vines in the creepiest possible manner.

“How curious! I mixed something into your gender confirming medications to enhance your senses, but I wasn't expecting it to work so quickly. I hope the scents on the wind weren't overwhelming.” I heard the window close. “Next time just ask, Jenny.”

I quickly looked at the floor to avoid eye contact, though the brief glimpse I got didn't seem quite as enthralling as last night. I tried clumsily putting my hand up to block line of sight, then remembered the fact that assembling this little ‘nest’ had been needlessly complicated by my bracelets still being active.

“Why can't I use my hands? Is this supposed to be permanent?” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice and sound like it was a question of pure curiosity. It would greatly complicate my future escape if I had to do it without the use of opposable thumbs.

“No. I just prefer a more relaxed morning before we have company later.”

He set the plate down on the floor just outside my burrow, and I got to see what he had made me. They were little fried clusters of shredded potato, caramelized onion, and carrot, held together by some kind of egg and starch mix.

I pulled myself out of my nest and kneeled at the edge. The food smelled absolutely incredible, and I went to grab the chopsticks sitting next to the pile so I could begin.

I realized the power play he was engaging in when my hand failed to do anything but knock the utensils aside. Tomeri laughed from above me. I wanted to scream, but I wouldn't have made it far in the navy if I didn't know how to keep calm while someone with power over me tried to humiliate me.

My options were clear. Ask him to feed me by hand, or eat like an animal. The feeling currently between my legs and in my pelvic floor proved that whatever drugs he had used on me had yet to wear off, because there was no way I was getting turned on by this.

I chose the option that let me preserve the most dignity, even if it meant letting her have more control. “Tomeri… can you please help me?”

“Of course, Jenny!” He knelt down, and reached out with his hand towards the plate. At the last moment, he changed course, and instead put his hand on top of my head and pressed my face directly into my food. My nose was a centimeter from the little potato cakes, and I could feel their heat on my cheeks.

“Eat.”

I groaned and tried pushing back up, but he didn't seem inclined to move his hand or let me straighten up. After a moment I gave up, saving my strength and willpower for a battle I stood a chance at winning. I opened my mouth and pulled one of the fried potato clumps into my mouth. Suddenly I was completely overwhelmed by the intensity of flavor. The salt and light sweetness balanced each other wonderfully, and the morsel perfectly crumbled under pressure into individual shreds that danced across my tongue, perfect in texture and consistency.

I actually moaned as I chewed, then quickly silenced myself in embarrassment. He let me pick my head up so I could swallow, and I kept myself going despite the demeaning nature of eating with my mouth from a plate on the floor with the knowledge that soon I would be free from all of this.

I picked up another, biting into the perfectly savory and sweet morsel, and noticed he had removed her hand. Whatever. This didn't have to mean anything. I knew from the propaganda broadcasts I'd seen that the Affini Compact had at least a dozen different Xenos in it, and some didn't even have hands. The fact that this was demeaning to me was entirely in my own head, and I could push through it.

The last of the incredible little potato cakes was chewed and swallowed, and I straightened up onto my knees to face him again. Pride is a stupid weakness. Better to feign submission and lead him into a false sense of security over me. I really wished I'd had a more enjoyable context of a man making me eat off the floor, but my puss* didn't seem to have gotten the memo that I hated Tomeri and wanted him to die.

Tomeri smiled wide, showing the uncountable dozens of pointed teeth in his mouth. “You’ve clearly had a difficult life, but that is over now. I’m going to take such good care of you, Jenny. You’ll see that soon.”

He wiped my face off with a napkin, patted me on the head, then took the plate with him back to the kitchen. I awkwardly grabbed the chopsticks he had left behind, and stowed them in my nest. Any tool I could potentially use to escape had to be kept close. Inevitably, he would slip up, and I had to be ready to make a break for it at any moment.

What if he really means it, though?

I jolted in surprise. That thought didn’t come from me. I hadn’t felt anything but me form an actual sentence in my head in years. Was this Tomeri’s doing? Either way, it didn’t matter. This facade of comfort was only a facade, no matter how much some part of me wanted to believe it and play along until it was too late, again. Falling for the lies of those who pretended to care only ever got me- got us- hurt.

With the ordeal of breakfast behind me, I retreated back to my nest, glaring at Tomeri once he sat on his bed and did something on his tablet. The smell of my little space that was fully mine soothed me, even if it was starting to feel lonely to have only my own scents. I considered asking if Tomeri could get me a tablet to stave off the boredom, but that was a non-starter for several reasons. The pacification bracelets were still active, and without the normal level of dexterity in my fingers, I'd be stuck just passively watching whatever he put on for me. I was not interested in beaming Compact propaganda directly into my brain.

So I fidgeted with my nest, rearranging the various pillows and blankets, getting every one of the smells my newly hypersensitive nose could detect in the spot where it felt like they should be. Eventually, Tomeri stood up from his bed and broke the silence.

“Are you planning on staying in your little hole all day?”

“If I can, yes.” I hadn't even been in this hab a full 24 hours yet. I didn't need to be pushed any harder, thank you very much. I didn’t know if it was because of the weird primal animal persona or some kind of Affini law, but once I had called the space my nest, he had treated it as sacred, and I wasn’t going to give that barrier to him touching me up easily. He seemed to respect the sanctity of my ‘nest’ more than he respected the sanctity of my bodily autonomy.

“Well, we are going to have guests today. Friends of mine. I assume you would rather not be wearing your soiled pajamas when they do. Let me get you something else.”

I sighed. At least, based on the affini I had interacted with during the time it took to find me an ‘owner,’ he probably wouldn't be stalking me like a jungle predator while we had visitors.

He turned and left, and I heard him rummaging in the hallway closet. A moment later, a single vine reached into the room and set a dress on the bed, just barely out of line of sight from where I was. I begrudgingly climbed out of my nest, and looked down at the nightgown I had been wearing. It stuck to me from the mix of sweat and other fluids.

My panties, on the other hand, needed to be thrown in a furnace. Before arriving at this house I never used to get as wet as I had been. It must just have been the affini HRT, I reminded myself. Even if the type of bottom surgery I got before enlisting in the Navy was supposed to be self lubricating, I had gotten what I could afford, and it had never quite been enough on its own. This was the opposite problem. Particularly since nothing about the situation I was currently in should be making me aroused at all, no matter what any traitorous second voices in my head might whisper at the thought of the things that had been done to me to cause this reaction.

I pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the garment he had chosen for me. It was asymmetrical and open shouldered, with long diagonal stripes of white, gold, and navy blue. Some segments were covered in little stars and moons, others more sheen and reflective. It smelled like him. Not just from contact, but like the garment had been made already soaked in his essence. I was being scent marked. I tried to pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration, and just smacked myself in the face with limp fingers again. How the f*ck did he expect me to dress myself without my hands!?

The answer was obvious, and Tomeri seemed to detect my rising frustration with his nonsense from through the wall, and flowed back into the room. “Need something, Jennifer?”

I let a long, frustrated sigh out. I wasn’t going to let him get a rise out of me by fighting yet another losing battle against something so trivial like he obviously wanted me to.

“I need you to disable the bracelets so I can dress myself.” Hopefully the submission inherent in asking for help would satisfy him this time, and it would not be a repeat of breakfast.

“Sure, though we will have to talk about the correct titles to address me by later.”

I saw him shift and heard a small click from inside his chest, and the lights on my bracelets both flashed green, then turned off. I felt a tiny pinch on each wrist, and tingles spread out to the edges of my fingertips. I experimentally stretched my fingers, and watched as he pulled the remote out and set it down on a side table where I could see it.

I knew if I didn’t show some kind of deferential appreciation he would make me regret it. “Thank you, Tomeri.” I turned my back to him, and went to pull my gown off, but felt a vine catch my wrist.

“Be a good doll and let me take care of this.”

I tried struggling against his grasp, but it was no use. He sat on the bed, pulled me onto his lap, and two neat slices from thorned appendages cut my stained nightgown to ribbons.

“Stop taking my clothes off! What the f*ck are you doing? I can dress myself!”

I tried to pull against him, but he didn’t budge. I might have use of my hands back, but they were just as useless as before, helplessly balled into fists. Smaller tendrils slipped under the band of my panties, and I screamed as loud as I could.

“Relax. You have nothing to be ashamed of in nudity, I saw what you looked like naked before you were even mine.”

The soaked undergarment joined the shredded nightgown on the floor in pieces. More vines wound between my thighs, spreading my legs too. I heard another remote click coming from inside his chest behind me, and suddenly the wall we were facing flattened its woody texture and became reflective.

I bit back a sob of humiliation as I looked at my own reflection in the mirrored surface. I was completely helpless, arms and legs locked in a position of vulnerable openness by vines that might as well be steel cables for all my attempts to escape them accomplished. The sheer difference in our size was laid as bare as my skin by the perspective in the mirror. He wasn't even standing, and his head was a full three meters in the air. I was absolutely, utterly f*cked. Perhaps literally. Did the affini do that? Was that why he took away my clothes!? My breath was shallow and my voice full of panic. He was closing in around me, and I could do nothing to stop him but beg.

“Please, please, I don’t want- I’ll be good, don’t…”

A wide leaf wrapped tight over my mouth and nose, muffling my terrified pleading, and his voice was a softer whisper as she next spoke. “Please quiet. I am not going to touch you sexually before you are made ready for me, I am simply admiring my toy.”

I didn’t trust him or that particular choice of words, but what point would there be in lying to someone he could make so helpless and do whatever he pleased with? Tomeri had already violated every reasonable boundary a person could have, all I could do was hope she would leave that one undisturbed, I tried breathing in, and while air passed through the barrier, it was definitely laced with something, because my mouth and throat felt like the air was full of bubbles. My panic abated slightly, and he moved the cover away from my mouth again.

The greatest insult was the shame of whatever depraved part of my mind was enjoying this. My amplified smell could detect one scent quite clearly, my own body’s betrayal. My puss* soaking itself in preparation for what I had thought about him doing to me. The muscles in my abdomen ached for it, even if the thought of him touching me there horrified every part of me capable of self preservation. I so badly wished that was all of me.

Tomeri bent and posed me, as he had the night before, and my noises of protest eventually seemed to annoy him enough to make him change pace. The immovable bondage around my limbs retracted, and before I could fully steady myself, two more vines wrapped around my ears, and I heard him speak as though his voice was coming from inside my own head.

“Shush, little doll. Don’t fuss. Wouldn’t you prefer stillness?” The last word bounced around in my head. It felt familiar, and sticky. Once it touched my thoughts, I couldn’t shake it off.

I thought of things to say to him in retort. Lots of things. But they seemed to slip away before they became words. Concepts popped against my mind like bubbles. I was going to say so many of them. Any moment now. My jaw hung open, waiting for a single coherent instruction to make its way down from my brain.

Tomeri was still talking, but all I could recognize was a soothing tone and his occasional use of the word stillness cracking through the haze. I felt a vine closing my mouth for me, while another wiped the drool off my face. Nothing was keeping me here in Tomeri’s lap now, I could just get up and leave. Every moment I stayed here was my choice, so there was no rush to move.

I stared blankly at the girl in the mirror, how she was smiling. A happy doll, letting herself be played with. I wasn’t like her, I still had plans of escape. The other girl could stay with the enormous, handsome, terrifying beast that had claimed her. I would be free, whenever I felt like moving. Why did the other girl have such a look of joy on her face? Why couldn’t I feel like that?

The room felt like it was flying away from me. I wasn’t moving, there was far too much stillness for that. I was sinking into something without any physical motion occurring. I felt a little pinch on my shoulder, and the joy of touch spread all over my unnaturally compliant body. Tomeri leaned over me, and the tendrils of him coiled at the edges of my vision, enclosing me, blocking out the light until the only light left was the soft blue and purple glow of some thing humming from behind my head.

The stillness in me made me empty, but that hum coming from behind me tuned my body to its resonance. The smell of leaves and pollen filled my head, all the fears and worries shrinking away to nothingness. It was so much easier to be still in his grasp.

His vines brushed my eyelids shut, and the world behind them enraptured me. Swirling hues and twisting fractal patterns I could only see by not seeing, drawing me towards stillness. Tendrils of leafy light wrapped around my fingertips and toes, curling up my limbs and sinking into my thoughts, spreading into every crack like roots.

“Isn't this better than running all the time? Wouldn’t you rather get to be a doll for me?”

The notion of being able to respond floated in the general vicinity of the unraveled surface of my consciousness. I was engulfed by the grandness around me, the twisting roots of his control burrowing deep into my mind. My eyes opened again, and saw that the vines had opened back around me enough to see the mirror. I looked at the giddy smile on the other girl’s face with pangs of feelings I dared not name.

The doll in the mirror was lifted and set on the floor, and she stood there, with a docile smile on her face. The way the monster looked at her was one of pure love. Dark purple tentacles wound around her body, and the doll giggled in joy. The doll was so obedient and happy. I was never going to be like that.

She stood very still, and let the creature pose her in various ways, showing off her naked body. The doll in the mirror was smiling so widely, so happy and blissful. I couldn’t be like that. I was a person, not a doll. Showing that kind of vulnerability only got me hurt.

Suddenly, the girl on the other side of the reflective surface sniffed, and tears were on her face. I wondered what had upset her. The air smelled like salt and anguish, and the wonderful melody of light dancing across my thoughts grew jagged and discordant.

Why wasn’t anyone taking care of her? She was just an innocent doll, an innocent girl. She shouldn’t be left to cry like that. It wasn’t fair to expect her to have to stand alone. Fortunately, the force of paternal love in the mirror that wore the disguise of a monster noticed the other girl’s distress, and picked up his doll to comfort her. Suddenly my view shifte,d and I couldn't see the doll anymore. I was looking directly up at Tomeri’s face, and I fell deep into the depths of his eyes.

“Wake up, Jenny. Our guests are arriving.”

I jolted to full alertness, scanning around myself to get my bearings. My hair was damp and I smelled like floral shampoo. We were back in the living room, with all its usual nooks and hiding spots. I was wearing a white, gold, and navy blue companion dress. Some segments were covered in little stars and- I frowned. I had seen this dress before. Something had happened. What just happened?

I was shaken from my introspection by a physical metal chime ringing from the hall, and the door opened. Before I could see them, I picked up three similar but distinct scents. One was definitely an affini, and the other two were terrans, though they probably spent a lot of time together and used the same soaps. All three had a scent like grass and copper.

Tomeri pressed his hand into my back, pushing me forward. “Meet one of my oldest friends. In slightly different circ*mstances, you might have ended up hers and not mine. Welcome back, Venix.”

They walked into the living room, and I saw my scent identification had been correct. An affini and two terrans. The affini was tall, though still short compared to Tomeri’s enormous size. She had harder wooden plates that looked almost like breastplate armor over her chest, face and shoulders, with lines of vines hanging down from her head in a style somewhat resembling flowing hair. Her arms were tangles, and she didn't bother with legs at all. Many of her vines had thorns on them, but the way she held the woman in her arms was disconcertingly gentle.

Her two florets were quite different. One was a small woman with long brown hair, in a red and white dotted dress, and fast asleep in the affini’s embrace. There was a large stuffed duck in her arms, which looked like it could use a wash. Her face, peaceful as it might be, had the uncanny look of someone in their forties who had paid more money than I would ever have made in my life to look perpetually young.

The other, with eye-catching shoulder length purple hair, a loose button up shirt and extremely tight jeans, walked alongside his affini confidently, exuding charm. He had angular, slightly feminine features and a more androgynous frame than most other florets I had seen. I was pretty sure that the glimpse of his shoulder I caught from around the neck of his clothes had spots of green, but I got distracted when he saw I was staring and winked at me.

Venix went over to the couch, and set the snoring woman in red down with a level of care that did not match her intimidating appearance. She straightened up and spoke in a deep, feminine voice. “Hello, Jennifer. Glad to meet you. My little sleeping one is Janet, and this is Quinn. Hopefully you’ll be fast friends with them both. I hear you are the Occantalis II ’s newest escape risk?”

The purple haired floret who was apparently named Quinn chuckled at that, then gave me a small little wave. I awkwardly waved back, unsure of what to say to him. He was probably not going to be helpful to me, but I wanted to keep the affini talking, because she could be a source of information for my future plans. Best to play the part they all expected.

“I don’t think so, Miss. Tomeri has done a very good job taking care of me.”

Venix lowered herself down to my eye level, scrutinizing me, or at least pretending to. It was very obvious from how Tomeri behaved that affini didn't actually see from their eyes. I batted my eyelashes at her in a show of oblivious compliance, careful to keep my gaze pointed at her chin and not the potentially hypnotic orbs inches from me.

Venix straightened back up, and moved to sit on the couch next to her resting floret. “She’s a clever one, isn’t she.”

Tomeri gripped my shoulder tightly. “She really is. Soon she will be even more.” That was ominous, but I wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to find out what he meant by it.

Tomeri scooped Quinn and I up, and put us down on an unoccupied armchair. I analyzed Quinn as best I could without seeming suspicious. He looked about my age, had an implant scar on his neck, partly covered by a collar that had an unusual number of buttons on it. He smelled like the same kind of synthetic plant matter that affini vines did.

He was also totally giving me a once over back. He started moving her hands, making gestures I couldn't follow, but I did distinctly catch what looked like an hourglass gesture, followed by pointing at me, and another wink.

Venix and Tomeri both laughed. Clearly, they understood what had just been communicated, but I sure as hell didn’t. I had taken some sign language in school, but whatever he was doing wasn’t that. It felt more improvisational and expressive. It was very clear he had just complimented me though. Was he here to seduce me? After a day of obviously drug induced attraction to Tomeri, at least Quinn had a human body for my thoughts to latch onto.

Venix spoke as she slowly stroked Janet’s hair. “Quinn is what we call a cotyledon, or one of the early florets, taken while we develop our medicine and technology for a species. We revived him from the brink of death on the edge of terran space, but his language center was too damaged for us to repair. However, with accommodation it does not meaningfully hinder him, and he doesn’t want us to try to change him even if we become able to.”

Quinn smiled at me and nodded. I looked at him in confusion. The affini were truly playing mind games on levels I could not fathom. If that was true, Quinn would have been left to… well, die, under the Terran Accord. I hadn’t been blind to the cruelties of the old regime, but it had felt too big to ever do anything about. All I could do was push the pain in my body away from the forefront of my mind and keep going. But here, being taken care of without question, was someone who…

Just like us, whispered a voice in my head I steadfastly refused to acknowledge was there.

Quinn pressed one of the buttons on his collar, pointed at me, tapped the side of his head twice, made a chopping motion, then held up a closed fist. A synthesized voice with an Antarctic accent came out of the device around his neck. “Think too much. Be still.”

Quinn lifted his arm up, and wrapped it around me. I tensed up at the touch at first. But then I relaxed and let him hold me. Being scared of the sexy mute femboy when there were two xenos who actually looked like the monstrous caricatures that Accord propaganda had depicted the affini as was pretty silly. He was soft, and as I nestled in against his shoulder, I picked up the faintest lavender notes in his scent.

Once Quinn and I stopped being so interesting, the affini resumed talking, though they did so in a language I understood, so I was clearly meant to hear it. Quinn’s fingers explored the neckline of my clothes in a very distracting way.

“Have you been liking it back on the ship? Get your old spot back? I told them to save it for you, cranky lady like you cant have to walk so far to go to the library.” Several of Tomeri’s thicker vines swished back and forth in a bundle like a tail as he spoke.

“I was, yes. It’s been quite pleasant. Fixing up that impoverished moon colony was a worthy project, but I’m glad we finished in time to catch back up before you went jumping off to everbloom knows where.”

Tomeri sat on the couch next to Venix, and they twisted a few vines together in what I assumed was some kind of affectionate gesture.

“You know how I am, Venix. I pursue what moves. The rebelling Terrans running thin. No more grand captures to coordinate, and I get restless without a proper chase.”

That one was definitely meant for me. It was starting to get harder to focus on the affini, as Quinn had upgraded from just playing with my clothing to running his fingers through my hair. At least I was getting turned on by another human this time.

Venix’s voice was a low purr. “And yet here you are, youngbloom. Still in Sol. Because you were waiting for me?”

Tomeri said something in what I recognized as an affini language. Layered and melodic. I tried not to worry about the implications. I couldn’t tell if they were flirting or just friends, but I hoped that was what they were talking about, rather than plotting how to break me together.

I tuned the two of them out entirely once Quinn’s wandering fingertips brushed against my breast. I felt his breath against my ear. His touch was gentle, but assertive, and I leaned into him despite myself. What kind of floret had top energy? I thought they were supposed to all be submissive servants.

I came back to my senses, and realized Tomeri and Venix had switched back to English while I wasn’t paying attention.

Venix chuckled. “Such a cute pair of pets, aren’t they? Quinn has resisted Pinnate status with anyone so far, but he seems to like your little mouse.”

Quinn rolled his eyes, and flipped her off. I was shocked by the gesture. What was his deal? He could just openly disrespect his owner? Was he going to be punished for this?

Instead, the affini both laughed, and went back to catching up. I tried to focus on them for a bit, but Venix talking about the economic conditions her sleeping floret had caused on some backwater moon was not useful information to me. I turned to Quinn, and my confusion kept growing.

I wasn’t sure how much I really trusted a floret, but he seemed to see through my mask. He pulled my head against his shoulder, and hummed what felt like a long forgotten lullaby. Quinn’s gestures made no promises other than those of his touch. No empty words designed to twist and mislead, just comforting me for its own sake. Also perhaps because he wanted to f*ck me. I could definitely detect human pheromones now, but that was at least an honest motivation.

My threat analysis slowed down from a constant vigilance to a mere buzz. Yes, there were two terrifying monsters in the room, but neither was focused on me right now. A cute guy was running his fingers across my scalp and soothing me with a song, and some buried part of me won out, bursting forward to simply exist in this moment. I was her, and yet I was watching someone in my body relax. I massaged my knee, the one I never let myself notice the chronic pain shooting through. Doctors had always said there was nothing wrong with it, and told me it was all in my head.

Whoever was piloting my mouth began talking, and sentences flowed like a gush of water from a burst pipe. I told him about what being in the Navy had been like, how scared I had been of the other rebels, about how I had tried to escape from intake twice and been caught, how much I liked when Tomeri played with me like a little toy doll. Quinn seemed like a good listener, Nodding animatedly and occasionally replying with the help of his speech synthesizer. Why was I not scared now? I was so sure I would just say the wrong thing and he would hate me. Why was the presence overlaid on top of my thoughts so much braver than me? I was supposed to be the strong one.

Eventually, My voice was starting to fray, and I just lay quietly with my head in Quinn’s lap. It was getting late. The floret in Venix’s lap eventually woke up, but she wasn’t particularly interesting to talk to. Despite obviously being almost old enough to be my mother, Janet’s entire personality was like talking to a child. I wondered faintly what she had been like before the affini arrived. Probably some ruthless CEO. One of the few Terrans who probably deserved to be made into a pet against their will if she was, but it was hard to think anything malicious about the person actually talking to me. She mostly just seemed harmless.

She explained the details of some game she had been playing on her tablet where you clicked a button to make a number go up, then spent that number to buy things that would click the button to make the number go up faster. I didn’t really know what to say to her. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to mind if I responded or not, dumping a mountain of technical information that jarred spectacularly with the childish affect to her voice.

Quinn tapped his collar and launched into a series of gestures. A hand opening and closing a few times like a mouth, pointing up and down, and an open palm. “Talks a lot. Never stops.”

I laughed, and was relieved when Tomeri brought us all pizza to eat for dinner.

By the time Venix, Janet and Quinn got ready to leave, the light outside had gone very dark. Tomeri held me by his side. “Say goodbye, Jenny.”

I gave Janet an awkward polite hug, and turned to Quinn with a bit more warmth. He stopped me, pressing his hand against my shoulder. He looked at me dead in the eyes, and spoke in his own voice. “Jenny.” It was the exact same voice his synthesizer used. At first that surprised me, before I realized it made total sense it would be loaded with a copy of his own voice.

I didn't understand the specifics of his condition based on the few sentences Venix had shared, but she definitely swayed a bit in surprise he had used his mouth at all. I could tell from the slight rasp that he definitely did not speak often, and the J ended up more of a soft buzz, but none of that mattered compared to how touched I was in that moment. Then my thoughts were scattered to the winds entirely when he gave me a little kiss on the cheek before climbing up into his owner's arms and the three of them left.

Tomeri laughed, and left me on my own in the hallway. Even if it should have been a perfect opportunity to look for more tools now that I had my hands back, I was too tired to worry about trying to get away tonight. I did my usual nighttime prep, but paused before I took the pills the affini had given me to replace my old HRT. They were the reason my sense of smell had suddenly grown so strong. I was being modified without my consent. Even if I was being given a superpower, I hadn’t asked for it.

After a moment’s deliberation, I swallowed it anyway. I had been able to identify our guests as an affini and two terrans from around a corner without even seeing them. It would be absolutely invaluable to my plans to escape to maintain this capacity, and it would be Tomeri’s own mistake for giving me the help. I was going to escape. I was going to leave this ship, fly as far from the Compact as I could, and live my life on my own. I would never see another Affini again, never see another floret again.

Never see Quinn again…

That thought was a sad, painful ache in the base of my skull. I pushed it away. It was just me in my head, nobody else, especially nobody that thought things that would get me brainwashed and implanted if I listened to them. Quinn was nice, but he was also a pawn of a force that had conquered humanity. Trusting him with any of my inner thoughts had been deeply stupid, and I couldn't repeat that. Especially because if I let my real plan to get off the Occantalis II slip, he would probably hate me. And also turn me in. That was the one I was worried about more, I reminded myself.

I left the bathroom, and caught the faintest lingering trace of lavender in the air. The whining buzz in my skull became deafening.

I paused for a moment, then ran back to the living room and grabbed the pillow Quinn and I had been sitting against. It still carried his lavender, grass, and copper smell. I carried it back to the bedroom, and pushed it deep into my little nest, before climbing in myself. I might have just met him today, but his scent made me feel safe, and before I knew it I had fallen asleep basking in it.

Chapter 2: 5-8

Chapter Text

Climbing through a vent. Thorny creepers caught all up and down my arms as I tried to escape what chased me. I turned to look at the rotting wooden doll that always followed. She appeared as soon as I wasn't looking her way. The doll stared at me. I stared back. Banging noises echoed through the metal tube, the monster was coming.

I felt guilty. I was failing her again, but what else could I do? The paint on her left knee was peeling, the wood chipping away, decomposition revealing angry, inflamed muscle underneath. Raw nerves exposed to the air. The joints were rotting from the inside. Dark spores floated free in a cloud, choking the air I breathed. I looked at the reflective surface of the air vent and saw the doll staring back again.

Her stare was blank, somehow accusatory in its lack of reaction to pain. It would be easier if she screamed at me, blamed me. Everything squashed and stretched, bubbles of reality flicking off of us. Cracks spreading up my arms. The shadow of the cracks in the mirror mother broke when she saw what I had done with her makeup.

The hunter pounded closer. I heard his breath, the sound pulling me deeper under. I bolted. watched myself from above, scrambling in the maze. Around and around I went.

Suddenly, the panel under me opened, and I fell. Into the void, inky blackness swallowing me, and all I saw before it all faded were the vines holding the wooden doll tight, and the smiles cracking across the faces of the girl I had failed, and the four eyed monster who was taking my place.

I woke up with my nose pressed firmly into the pillow I had gotten from the living room last night. Lavender notes were nice on their own, but better for reminding me of Quinn. Tomeri, of course, was already up.

His voice jolted me from the groggy haze immediately in its mock kindness. “Wake up, little girl. You were very good yesterday, so you get to choose your breakfast.”

He hovered just outside the threshold of my nest as he spoke. While he respected that invisible boundary, the smell of his body did not. His earthy tones with hints of floral fragrances floated through my olfactory system, soothing some parts of my mind, and setting the rest on edge.

While it could easily be another of his stupid games, I was hungry, and choosing breakfast would be the most control of my situation I had yet had since arriving here. I climbed out of the nest, and followed him into the kitchen.

Tomeri beckoned me to him, and guided me with an enormous hand on my shoulder to stand by the compiler. It looked like a cross between a tree trunk and a microwave.

“Authorize Jennifer Armetisa, 5th floret, to use the compiler while I am present. Standard floret restrictions. Wouldn't want her having too much fun just yet.”

A physical chime hanging from the ceiling shook as though from some invisible wind, hitting a three note sequence of confirmation.

Tomeri turned to me, and gestured at the compiler. “Now tell it what you want.”

I had already figured out the correct option before making it to the kitchen, but I pretended to mull it over for a moment.

“Waffles with syrup and strawberry ice cream on top.”

The compiler produced a faint cinnamon smell, and then a plate appeared, followed by the best looking waffle I had ever seen. The meal came with a fork, spoon, and knife, which Tomeri immediately snatched before I could think about reaching for them.

My breakfast smelled good enough to make me drool slightly. I carried it back to my side of the table, walking up the sloped dining space floor to reach my seat. I set the plate down before me, and simply looked at him.

I had chosen my meal carefully. A waffle with ice cream and syrup was not a meal I could eat with my hands- or face- without making an enormous mess. He watched me for a moment, presumably weighing if he should give me the utensils or not. I kept a completely straight face and feigned disinterest, as he considered his options.

His desire to turn breakfast into a power game was half-hearted at best. He clearly did not want to have to care about something this simple on this particular day. “Perhaps I can feed you myself. That might be pleasant.”

I shrugged. “If you want to. I have no objection.”

My lack of a fight seemed to take any remaining fun out of the idea for him. The matter settled itself when a muffled ding sounded from his chest, and he took his tablet out to look at it. I caught what looked like an orbital map on the screen before he tilted it away from me. Almost as an afterthought, he placed the silverware next to my plate.

I picked up the fork and knife casually, pretending my brain was not now working in overdrive to figure out how many things could be pried open or cut with such tools. Fortunately, as I cut the first square and popped it into my mouth, I no longer had to pretend to be thinking about something else.

The outside surface of the waffle was perfectly crisp, but the center was soft and fluffy. Melted butter left just the slightest hint of salt, and the syrup had a perfect even soak through the upper layer. A light dusting of powdered sugar added additional texture, and when I grabbed the spoon to add a sliver of the ice cream into my mouth, I actually teared up in joy. The creamy, fruity sweetness perfectly balanced the rest of the flavors of the meal.

I sighed in contentment. It was nice. I would miss the food of the Compact when I left, though presumably my heightened sense of taste and smell would fade as their medications left my system anyway.

Time to make more forward motion on that. I cut another square, speared it with my fork, and nonchalantly looked over at Tomeri, who was engrossed in whatever message she had gotten.

I needed to make progress on this situation. Lower his defenses. “May I ask a personal question, Mister Armetisa?”

Tomeri looked up from his tablet, in what appeared to be genuine interest. “How formal of you. But just Tomeri for the moment, please. And yes, you may ask.”

I feigned curiosity. “The affini from yesterday, Venix. You seem close to her.”

He stowed the tablet back in his chest and leaned down into his seat with intense interest. “How would you know that, Jenny? Your only other observation of me and others of my kind was the brief interactions with your previous stewards when I picked you up from the Domestication Center.”

I swallowed the food I had been chewing before replying. “You talked like people who have a lot of history with each other.”

He scratched at his mossy beard awkwardly, and chuckled awkwardly. “Oh, that is because we do. Sixteen domestication campaigns together. It would have been seventeen, but she chose to remain on the moon her sweet little Janet used to own very early on, rather than continuing to Sol.”

My intuition about that woman was right, the forty-year-old tablet kid had been a rich ghoul. “So, you split because she stayed behind?”

Tomeri leaned further forward, swishing several vines like a tail in what seemed almost anxious. “No, long before that. We are just good friends now. Nothing romantic at this point.”

Curiously, that seemed to draw a new scent into the air from him. I wondered what it meant. I decided to take a spoonful of just the ice cream, and savored the cold creamy feeling that spread across the roof of my mouth. “So, Affini have… romantic relationships between each other? It's not just the pet thing?”

He shifted awkwardly again. “Of course. To vastly oversimplify the nature of our past relationship and use Terran terminology, Venix is my ex-wife.”

Guess the Affini were just as bad at pairing for life as Terrans were. I cut the second half of my waffle up in a grid, and set the knife down. “I see. Why did your relationship fail?”

His face curled into an unsettlingly wide and pointy smile. “Aren’t you the inquisitive one today? I was known by Tomeri Incanum for five entire blooms, hardly a failure. We simply diverged over time. Why do you ask? Curious about if that adorable little Quinn is going to be sticking around?”

Yes, whined a voice in my head I did not heed.

I cut another piece of my delicious breakfast and bit into it. “If this is to be my new life, I just want to understand everything about it. Learn about what surrounds me. Seems like you and her are still close, if you only stayed in Terran space to see her again.”

He let out a laugh. “Well, she is welcome to think that is why. She has always had an arrogant streak. My staying in terran space had nothing to do with her.”

It was a little unnerving to talk to him like a normal person, reminiscing about relationships and not just have him vaguely threatening me like some kind of paternal predator animal. Another ding from Tomeri's tablet took his attention, and he pulled it out once more with an air of annoyance.

I picked up the last bite of my waffle with my spoon, plopped in my mouth, and savored it as it dissolved against my tongue. I gathered my utensils and napkin before he could grab them for me, and began walking back down the sloped floor to the kitchen, towards the compiler. I carefully set the plate down on the compiler materialization plane, and it faded and vanished after a second.

“I'm going back to rest some more, if you don't mind.”

Tomeri didn't look up from his tablet as he responded. “Yes, go along. I had no activities planned for you today. Enjoy your free time. Tell me If you need anything. There's a tablet for you to use on my side table.”

I walked back to the bedroom, the fork and knife I had palmed while distracting him with his own sentimentality about Venix hidden between my arms and my torso.

I opened the tablet he had left for me once I had stowed my fork and knife along with the chopsticks I had snagged yesterday morning inside my nest.

I had had access to them at the Domestication Center, and knew how to operate them. As much as I wished I could use it as an actual source of knowledge for my situation, it was an unreliable source, and surely monitored. I could entertain myself with it, but not trust it.

What would someone in my position who was not planning to escape do? The lavender and grass smell of a certain boy from the pillow against my face provided a perfect answer. I opened it, and immediately was greeted with a smiling sunflower helper. I swiped up with three fingers and brought up the menu that would let me switch it from floret mode to independent mode. Fortunately, it was the same operating system as the ones I had already used previously.

I opened what looked like a hybrid social media and stalking app, and looked up ‘Quinn Venix.’ It took a moment to find him, but I learned his full name was apparently “Quinn Incanum, Second Floret”. He was 28, a year older than me. The picture of him on file was quite flattering. Her unique accommodations were listed under a section labeled “cotyledon”. Apparently, he had suffered brain damage before the affini arrived, and had been rescued.

I reminded myself that the narrative being presented to me was dubious at best. Quinn was hardly in a position to control his own life story. For all I knew, he had been kidnapped, experimented on, and tortured until his language center failed and he was fed a lie about who he was just like Venix’s other floret, Janet, clearly had been.

I decided to stop worrying about it and just put on an old movie. Even a floret cut that removed anything too interesting would pass the time well enough.

I was partway through the third entry in a series of old 2460s spy thriller movies when Tomeri flowed back into the room, attention split between three separate tablets all making notification sounds at once. There was a slight but noticeable acidic smell he didn't usually have. Stress, perhaps?

“Jennifer, I am going to need to attend to something on the far side of the hab ring until the evening. You are going to stay here, and behave. Understood?”

My eyes flicked to the remote for my pacification bracelets, then back at him. Was I about to lose opposable thumb privileges again?

“I’ll behave.”

Tomeri nodded, and flowed out the door again. I heard the lock slide as he left. The incapacitation remote was sitting where he had left it yesterday. He hadn’t even touched it.

Was this a trap? A trick? A plot to get me to reveal my escape plans? I let the movie continue, but was long past paying attention to it.

The Affini were overconfident. Tomeri was a lot of things, but I had yet to catch him in an actual lie. For all I knew, he was out arranging for my implantation, my permanent submission guaranteed by a mind controlling parasite in my spine. This was an opportunity, and I had to take it.

Please don’t go…

I pushed the voice of the doll away. She would just get us hurt again if I listened to her. I needed to prepare properly now that I had the chance. I went to the closet, and threw on the sturdy blouse and pants. I stuffed the pockets with spare underwear and other loose odds and ends I could fit. I tried to tear one of my many revealing nightgowns so I would have strips of fabric to work with, but found it to be completely tear-proof. I next attempted to use my knife, but that failed as well. How had Tomeri shredded one of them with his vines alone?

I realized with dismay that this indestructible property would apply to the pillow that still carried Quinn’s scent. I could not take a memento of it with me. The wailing in my head not to leave grew louder, but I tuned her out. We had to rip that bandage off eventually; he wasn't going to be coming with us. There would be other cute andogynous boys who also had that exact mix of handsome face, pretty eyes, relaxing vibe, and firm, assertive hands far from the Compact, surely.

I would have absolutely no guarantee of access to any resources at all during the next few weeks of hiding, so I went to the bathroom and filled the drinking glass on the sink over and over to hydrate myself as much as I possibly could. Next, I tore the kitchen apart looking for any food I could actually carry with me. Other than seasonings and vinegar, I had no luck in the cabinets, as Tomeri preferred to materialize things right before cooking them. There was the basket of fruits he had left for me to snack on, which I emptied into my pockets.

I walked to the door, and drew the knife, fork, and one of the chopsticks I had swiped from the previous day's breakfast. I had paid close attention to the latching mechanism in the side of the door yesterday while Venix, Janet and Quinn left, and knew how I could pop it open. Tomeri’s apparent love of physical mechanisms was his downfall, I supposed.

A few minutes of jiggling the fork between the door and frame while pressing in on the locking mechanism with the knife and chopstick, and the door popped open. The chopstick snapped as it did, and I stowed the pieces in my pocket.

I walked out the door, and was immediately slammed by an absolute cacophony of scents and sound. I had to pinch my own nose shut for a moment to slowly process it. Grass and wood and metal and stone and who knows what else. I missed my nest already.

-----

Being outside Tomeri's hab and surrounded with uncontrolled stimulus was overwhelming, but I had to keep my head on straight if I wanted my freedom.

I grounded myself with a countdown in my head, and looked up. Judging by the slope of the dome overhead, the house was generally aligned towards the equator of the habitation ring. I arbitrarily labeled that direction south mentally, and assembled a mental map accordingly. I wanted to go to the edge of the ring, where there would most likely be access points and places to hide. North was my heading.

I made my way around Tomeri’s house, hoping to loot something useful from the shed I had seen on my way in two days ago. It was, disappointingly, mostly just full of normal gardening implements. While a long handle might give me some much needed leverage later, every single one was sized for a sixteen foot tall affini, and would weigh me down far too much. I did manage to pick up a small sack, which I tightened around my waist. Could come in handy later, and it was a good place to stow the handful of fruits I had awkwardly dropped into my pockets on my way out.

A stream ran behind the back garden, and I sniffed at it. It was odorless and appeared to be normal water. I dipped a finger into it and tasted it. It was salinated, but only barely. Should be safe to drink. I could survive for a while on just the various fruits Tomeri had left for me to snack on while he was out for a while, but water was essential.

I followed the stream roughly north, past some other Affini houses with a similar rustic look to Tomeri’s. A clear path wound up through the trees near the stream, connecting to a wider clear gravel walkway. Visibility would mean death.

Even in my sensorily overwhelmed state, I smelled and heard two pairs of footsteps and scents approaching before I saw them. I dove behind a tree, and peered around the corner in the reflection of the knife.

A nearly pitch black affini who looked more like an alien sea creature than a plant, covered in purple spots, walked next to a human woman who looked like she would fall over without his support. They were clearly focused on each other, so I shifted to a bush and watched them pass.

I closed my eyes, and took in their scents. I recognized a bit of metallic residue and arousal pheromones from the terran, and a sort of slippery wet leafy aroma from the affini. The terran had a little of his scent on her, but not enough to be fully his. That baffled me. What was a terran that close to florethood doing as anything but a drugged up pet?

Eavesdropping was easier than it had ever been before, thanks to whatever sensory enhancing changes my new medications had inflicted on me. I listened to their conversation intently. The affini was calmly explaining how he had been tracking one of my former rebel compatriot ships hiding among the dust of the rings of Saturn. I tuned out as the terran replied with some inane personal gossip.

Finally, useful intel. We were near Saturn. Affini tracking tech would find me slower if I hid in the rings. Perfect. I was going to stick to my plan of hiding on the ship for a few weeks, but that bit of information would prove invaluable once it was time to leave.

The two of them reached the house at the top of the hill, and went inside. I caught a brief glimpse of an interior that looked a lot more like scaled up Terran decor than Tomeri’s jungle of a home. I crept closer, and considered trying to break in. A home that only had terrans that were already broken visiting it would be more likely to have tools lying around I could use to escape.

That plan was rapidly adjusted when, after a few minutes of creeping around to find a window I could maybe pry open, I heard the woman’s voice screaming in what sounded like pain from inside. It was hard to distinguish exactly when muffled by the house’s walls, but there was enough ‘Sir’ mixed in that I decided I would rather just leave it be and move on. I couldn’t save someone that far gone.

I moved on, and kept heading north, sticking close to a point in the forest that transitioned into denser woods I could hide in if needed. I felt uneasy. I was now several minutes hike from the last home I had seen, and looking up, I guessed I was about a third of the way to my destination at the north wall of the tube. I heard leaves rustling in the wind.

Then I realized there wasn't any wind.

I began sprinting northeast as fast as I could, heading for denser trees with more space to hide. Loud snaps of twigs underfoot betrayed my position to anyone trying to hunt me, but I did my best to dodge them.

Not perfectly enough. My foot caught against a tree root and twisted, and the ground flew towards my face. I threw my hands forward to catch myself, but unfortunately my knee landed on a rock. Tingling pain blasted through the barrier I normally kept to avoid feeling the aches in my joints. I covered my mouth with my hands to stifle the scream of pain, then stood back up. It hurt to stand, but being still was not an option.

That’s when I smelled it. Earthy tones mixed with a flower I still couldn't place. The hum that always came from his chest. Tomeri was close. I looked side to side, trying to place him.

Eventually, I thought to look up.

Four glowing purple dots hung in the tree above me. Tendrils lazily drifted lower, ready to catch me. I feinted motion to my left, then bolted to the right. A vine whizzed past my ear as I ran.

My heart pounded out of my chest as I sprinted through the denser forest, desperately hoping the narrower spaces would slow him down. Brambles tore at my skin, and I had to swing my knife a few times to cut something blocking my path. I could hear him moving in the trees above me, but I didn't bother looking back to see where he was.

He’s coming to save us, sang the voice of a traitor in the back of my mind.

I pushed through a particularly dense set of thorny vines, and dove under them. My knee screamed at me in pain, but adrenaline pushed me though. I was covered in mud and scrapes. I wiped as much of the blood and plant sap off from my arms as I could, but the sap clung to every little faint hair it had touched.

I didn’t hear Tomeri anymore. I sniffed at the air, and a very distinct urea smell caught my attention. There was a small dark spot in the crotch of my pants where I had apparently wet myself slightly from a mix of fear and motion.

I would normally have just shrugged and moved on, but if I could smell it, so could Tomeri. I pulled one of the spare pairs of underwear and tights out from the side pocket, and hastily stripped below the waist, wiped any remaining drops of fluid off as best I could. I began putting the new clothes on, and left the old ones in a pile. If I was lucky, leaving such a loud scent mark behind would make him lose track of me.

I set off again, listening for the sound of leaves moving. I made it a good ten minutes north, And all remnants of artificial sun were nearly gone. I reached another stream, or perhaps the same stream, and leapt over it carefully. The cramping pressure in my abdomen was starting to hurt, but relieving myself of it was going to have to wait.

I scrambled over some rocks, and swung around a tree, but was cut short when the tree suddenly moved to sucker punch me in the chest.

The wind was immediately knocked from my lungs. I collapsed on my side on the ground. Gasping, soaked, and exhausted. The distinctive shape of Tomeri’s head came into view as he pounced on top of me, pinning me in place under what might be literal tons of plant matter. I shrieked like a trapped animal, pulled my knife back out, and slashed wildly at him without anything resembling a coherent intention. It sliced clearly through the soft mask, which fell to the forest floor in tatters.

I saw what was behind the outer layer and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. What I had originally thought was his mouth was only a small part of the enormous four-part maw of thorny teeth that split his true face open in a cross shape. There was no rational response to the sight before me, just pure animal fear in the face of a predator.

I tried to get away one final time, but vines shot out of him and bound me in place. Something pink and sticky leaked from the terrifying mass of teeth above me, and wherever it landed on my skin began to tingle. The four parts separated, and a long tongue emerged, wrapping around my throat. Its surface felt like pins and needles, and everywhere it touched felt the simultaneous agonies of burning and heaven.

Sharp little pointed creepers curled around my scalp, brushed under my blouse. I was shaking in terror, my breath was frantic, my pulse pounding a rhythm of fear in every vein in my body. I was f*cked. He had me, I was powerless in his grasp, and now the wallpaper over his true nature had been torn away by my own clumsy attack. A vine brushed over my injured knee, and I screamed in pain, a desperate animal cry for help that would not come.

Suddenly, he paused, and pulled himself back. “You are hurt.”

It was the last thing I expected to hear him say, and made even freakier by the fact that he wasn't even pretending to move his slavering lips along with whatever was actually producing his voice. His entire form smoothed itself back out, the horrible tongue and teeth pulled back behind the facade of a catlike face once more.

More tendrils slipped under me, taking my weight off the ground. I tried to struggle against him, but it was pointless. He scooped me up against his chest and cradled me like a helpless doll. The sudden motion reminded me yet again of the pressure I had been holding in. I immediately gripped my lower abdomen. My bladder was screaming at me. I was past being able to ignore it.

“I… Tomeri, I really need to go…”

I f*cking hated myself for this. Begging him to let me do something like this, but what other option did I have?

He stopped, and I felt him wrap tight around my upper torso like a harness, then hold me out at arms length. He deftly pulled my tights and panties down to my knees, and folded them up against my legs, though he was gentle with the injured knee. I let out an embarrassed sob, as I realized what I was going to have to do. My arms were pulled behind my back, and my nether regions were left to hover midair so I could do my business. I desperately reminded myself he was a f*cking xeno and didn't have context for why this would be considered shameful. Especially when I could smell my own body getting turned on by it.

I tried to let myself go, but how the f*ck was I supposed to do that while being held two meters off the ground with a four eyed monster staring at me? “I can't… it hurts…”

“Oh. Let me help.”

I yelped as I felt something pinch against my left hip. A feeling like sunlight crept across my skin, and suddenly every muscle In my pelvis relaxed completely. A second injection on the right side left a cooler blissful feeling that spread out like a soft blanket, and when the two met in the middle, I felt the muscles around my bladder be forced to contract. I tried and failed to stifle a moan.

“Relax. It's okay, I’ve got you,” his voice soothed.

I hated how good it felt. The feeling of built up pressure escaping me evaporating, overlaid with the electric pleasure of whatever drugs he had given me. Even this basic act of release was better than any org*sm I had ever managed to give myself. It wasn't fair that this act of complete degradation could make my body feel so incredible.

Feathered edges of his touch brushed up and down my back and through my hair. “Good girl.”

I wanted to yell back at him, but opening my mouth just made me whimper like a f*cking whor*. I clamped my eyes shut and simply tried to pretend I wasn't feeling what I was. That every powerful coil currently contorting me into a position of total midair submission didn’t make me wet, that his squeezing my abdomen didn't make me want to beg him to touch me even more. The sound under me finally stopped, and after a moment, Tomeri mercifully pulled my clothes back up, brought me back against his chest, and continued walking. My face burned with humiliation and shame.

This was beyond the helplessness of having spent a day with my hands numbed into useless paws. He had taken control of my f*cking basic body functions from me. Why was I so f*cking turned on by that? Why had I never enjoyed actual sex like I just enjoyed being humiliated and dehumanized by an alien in the woods?

The tatters of his face still managed to grin at me. “Let's go home, Jenny. I want to clean and care for my prize.”

I was mortified into complete silence. There was nothing I could say or do that would affect the situation, so I simply lay limply in his grasp as he carried me home, and said and did nothing.

-----

It had taken me hours to carefully navigate away from Tomeri's hab, and he managed to get us back in less than five minutes, practically flying over the ground under him.

The entire time, he had whispered to me softly, calling me his ‘sweet little prize’ and telling me I was safe now. Some parts of me wanted to believe it but… he was hiding a mouth that could swallow me whole behind his face. Now that I knew to look for it, I could clearly see glimpses between the gouges I had left with my knife.

The door I had broken open to escape closed behind us, and the welcoming chime played to greet Tomeri home.

He carried me to the bathroom, and over to the tub, which had already filled with hot water somehow. The outside had a rocky appearance, but the inside was a soft, pearly white.

Even without substances swirling in my body that reduced my muscle control, I wouldn’t have bothered struggling against him undressing me. I was spent, and frankly needed the bath after my trip through a dense, muddy forest full of thorny bushes.

The mirror that covered the entire surface next to the bath- without steaming up, somehow- showed me one wreck of a beat up woman. I was covered in bruises and tiny cuts, a hardened resinous sap clung to me, and I was absolutely caked in mud. I winced slightly, as Tomeri lowered me into the bath and the hot water stung everywhere.

Tomeri picked up a bottle covered in unreadable script from a shelf on the wall that looked like a polypore fungus. He unscrewed the cap, and began liberally pouring a thick blue fluid into the bathwater. “This is a medical soap. It prevents possible infections and promotes healing. I wasn't expecting to need it so soon, my little escape artist. You surprised me.”

The air filled with a minty aroma as he emptied the entire container into the bath. He leaned over, and stirred the bath with his vines, and bubbles began to swirl. When the soapy water brushed against my injuries, it felt like little shocks of static electricity.

Tomeri stepped himself up over the stone facade of the bathtub, then sank himself next to me. It made sense he would want to clean off too, I supposed. He had been in the same mud I was. I wasn't going to argue.

The hot water soaked into my very being, and sapped every drop of remaining strength from my aching muscles. I could move, but I just didn't care to. Docility overtook me, and I simply let Tomeri coil himself tightly around me under the water surface.

He made some vague comment about the state of my hair. I felt him pour cupped soapy water over my head, and split her fingers into hundreds of tiny little comb teeth to stroke through it.

All over my body, he cleaned and cared. I didn’t understand. I had just tried to run away again. Why was he doing this? It was harder to think as the soapy water ran over me, so I just let Tomeri move me as he wanted.

Stillness. Stillness. Stillness.

I looked in the mirror, at the eyes of the scared little animal in pity. Master Tomeri gently daubed at the injured skin that had been damaged during that dreadful escape attempt.

The hot water sinking into aching joints reminded me of who I was. The one who could melt into the loving arms of our owner and feel true peace, even if my connection to our body was… insubstantial. The Mouse guarded that connection jealously.

Only the touch of our Master pierced through the thick curtain between me and reality. Every stroke landing not only on the skin, but brushing against the disjointed body map that existed only for me. The one with ornately carved details and golden trim on dark polished wood. The one that slowly rotted in our dreams.

I looked up at him as best I could without turning my body under my own power. Master Tomeri, the first being to ever actually see me. Recognize what the mouse was trying so hard to keep from the world.

“Master…” my words creaked like an unoiled hinge. Had I ever spoken before? I did not think so. Not by myself alone, only when interlaced with the one who tried to keep me so hidden she could pretend I did not exist at all.

Master Tomeri turned me around to face him, and I saw his metallic eyes swam with flecks of pink and gold.

“So she speaks. Hello, little doll.” His entire being radiated perfection, I scarcely felt worthy of his attention at all, no matter how I craved it.

I haltingly parted my lips again, and managed a reply. “Loves… you.”

Master Tomeri smiled. “You are loved as well, little girl.”

Happiness bloomed in my heart like a blossoming flower, but I felt Mouse’s fear rattle at the sight of Master Tomeri’s teeth. “Please help. So scared.”

I wanted to continue, to say more, to proclaim my devotion to my Master, to beg him to touch me in all the ways Mouse hated, but that would take more words than I had. I pawed at his chest meekly, and slumped against him, letting the warm hum of his body and his comforting scent soothe me.

f spoke again, and I hung rapt at every word. “Do you remember what I told you in the bath yesterday, little doll? The changes I will be making to your body?”

I nodded. Changes to make me perfect for him, a doll who could serve his carnal desires completely. I needed to be changed, molded to his vision. More than anything, more than life itself.

“Please.” A little purple mixed into the colors swirling in his four incredible eyes.

“Good girl.” I felt giddy when Master Tomeri praised me. Like fireworks in my chest, warm tingles everywhere.

Master Tomeri continued cleaning me, but all that was really left was a great deal of completely hardened sap stuck to the hairs up and down my arms, torso and legs.

It was nice to exist without the help of Master Tomeri’s hypnosis, but I was starting to fray at the edges. Mouse was pushing back to the front of our mind, desperate for control as always. I had never been good at resisting anyone's attempts to push me around, least of all her.

“Tired,” I whispered mournfully.

Master Tomeri gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Rest, little doll. Daddy will keep you safe.”

I nodded. Daddy. Safe. I clung to him. I couldn't fight forever, but I could hang on for this moment with him. My Daddy, my owner. My breath grew longer and slower, and I felt a few tears run down my cheek.

The humming vibrations from his chest grew louder, a purr of possession. I was his, and he loved me. Master Tomeri’s vines ran up and down my back, pressing in on knots of tension and making me whimper with every release.

He explored all over my body like his toy, like his most precious possession, because it was. Master Tomeri chose us. And Mouse had attacked him while she signed the contract that promised we would never be alone again. I wanted to sob. I should have been allowed to sign it. Mouse always ruined everything good.

Her presence in our head was like a child throwing a tantrum growing ever closer, and I could no longer hold her back. I placed a single gentle kiss on Master Tomeri's chest, and let myself sink again. The curtain in our mind pulled away, taking me back with it, drifting peacefully in Master Tomeri’s arms.

…

I startled awake with a jolt. Tomeri had apparently seen fit to move me against his chest while I dozed off from exhaustion.

Tomeri tapped one of the mushrooms growing out of the wall, and the bath suddenly drained itself. As the opaque soap cover was sucked away, I tried to cover my breasts and crotch.

Tomeri might not have pupils, but the slight motion of his head conveyed everything rolling his eyes would have.

“I have seen every inch of your body, and you surely have no illusions of modesty left after tonight.”

I glared at him, and lowered my arms to my sides. As I did, I noticed most of the cuts were already fully closed. The only marks on my arms was the long, jagged scar on the right that ran from my elbow to my wrist that had been left by shards of a broken mirror.

I still felt disjointed. I felt like I had forgotten a significant amount of time since we returned home. “Did I fall asleep?”

Tomeri chuckled, like I had just told some joke. “Something like that. Anyway, we need to get this unpleasant substance off of you, and soap alone will not do enough.”

I inspected myself cautiously. I was entirely clean, aside from the sheen of noxious resin that stuck to my body hair. It had been well concealed earlier when mixed with the other scents of the outdoors, but now the sap’s acidic odor felt like it was burning my nostrils.

It being stuck to me also made me uncomfortably aware of the coarse, dark hair on my body, which I usually ignored. Yeah, hating body hair was bullsh*t beauty standards. Unfortunately, I still would prefer being smoother than my genetics made easy to do.

I turned my back to him, and leaned back against his chest. Mimicking the shape of terran pectoral muscles seemed pretty pointless, but they made a good seat, honestly. “Whatever.”

I felt something poking against my neck menacingly. An injector needle, though not yet sunk under the skin.

Tomeri's voice was a possessive hiss in my ear. “Let me be clear, little mouse. You lost tonight's game. You will address me as Master tonight, with the respect of one who speaks from the position of my trophy. Is that clear?”

God, he was cringe. “What if I don't?”

“Then I sink this into you, and you wake up in a week with an implant, after I have Venix weaken everything but your most docile qualities. I imagine Quinn would be disappointed. But games have rules, and I expect you to follow them.”

I gulped. This was not a threat on which to test if he was bluffing. “Yes… Master.”

The injector was pulled away, and I let out the breath I had been holding in.

“Now. About this sap stuck to you. I was going to do this anyway, but your activities tonight moved several of my plans ahead in time.”

I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye- a wickedly curved metal tipped thorn. I tensed up in fear, but he stroked my forehead and shushed me. The blade secreted some rosy pink foam, and he held my leg up slightly, tight enough to deny me an inch of movement.

“You can’t–Master–I can at least shave myself!”

A leaf covered my mouth gently to shush me. His voice was smug and possessive. “Quiet, little girl. You are my prize tonight. Conquered trophies do not get a say over what happens to their bodies.”

I made a miserable whine of protest through the leaf. I also felt a traitorous warmth spreading in my chest, but I reminded myself that he had drugged me many times and that wasn't my authentic response.

He went to my ankle, but stopped, noticing the pacification bracelet was in the way. He held a vine for a moment over the collar I was wearing, and pressed some buttons I couldn’t see. Suddenly all five restraints made a beep and popped open, falling off me into the tub. He pulled the leaf off of my mouth as well, and I panted in confusion.

Now unobstructed, the blade was placed against the top of my foot. I felt little pinches as it traveled up my leg, taking every one of the dark curly hairs with it.

“No, Tomeri–Master–please stop!”

Tomeri began explaining himself as he worked, as though a lack of comprehension was the problem. “Humans have almost no physical defenses. You relied on cunning and numbers alone, which is what makes you particularly attractive to me. Your fingernails are the mere remnants of claws, your bodies covered in the faint memory of fur. Removing this body hair brings you closer to the helpless animal a trophy pet should be.”

Suddenly, I felt a hell of a lot more positive about my own body hair than I had a second ago. It didn't matter though, as he wasn't going to listen to me telling him to stop. He ran the blade under the backside of my knee, and I shivered in involuntary pleasure.

Made perfect for him, the traitorous voice cooed as Tomeri repeated the process on my other leg.

He ran his hand from my hip to my toes, brushing the coarse hairs off me. Next he went for my arms, running down the fingertips all the way to the shoulder.

Through the smell of floral soaps and Tomeri's body, I distinctly detected something like burning hair. My heart sank as I realized he was not just cosmetically shaving me once to celebrate my capture. I had gone through something similar once before in preparation for bottom surgery. This was a permanent modification.

I choked back tears yet again. This was something I had actually wanted, but could never afford under the Terram Accord when weighed against other priorities. Now it was being forced onto me. The part of me that apparently lacked any semblance of self-preservation whispered depraved soothing remarks. We wanted this. Let him make us perfect.

I was jolted from my thoughts as he finished with my arms, and my legs were yanked apart, exposing my groin fully. The single blade split into hundreds of tiny implements, each seeming to target a single hair follicle.

The edge in my voice was getting to be a desperate whine. “Master, is this really needed? None of the sap got in my pubes…”

“Yes. In addition to my own aesthetic preferences, I have plans for you and your body, little mouse. You will be easier to modify without this vestigial remnant of your evolutionary ancestors, especially down here.”

He pointed at my vagin*, and I lost it. Whatever she was going to do to me, whatever ‘trophy’ meant, I would rather he erase me completely than experience it. I understood fully at that moment. Thinking he was ever going to eat me was foolish. I was to be a living sex toy, twisted and deformed to suit his sick desires. I thrashed and shrieked and bit and fought as hard as I could.

“You will be happy about what I intend to change. Your stunt today proved you are still far from ready to play my games, and we will continue to remedy that. Rest now, and you’ll understand when you awaken.”

I felt cold seeping from a pinch on my neck, and my entire body went limp. I was helplessly posed in a spread position, then flipped over onto my front with my butt in the air, as the last of the hair lower than my neck was eradicated permanently. All I felt as he erased a part of what made me human forever was tiny little pinpricks. Once he was done, he put me back against his chest, where I was helpless to pull myself away from the throught-erasing purr of complete control that emanated from within.

The tub filled with warm water once more, and after a few minutes Tomeri got up, leaving me to lie back and soak. I heard him open a communications app on her tablet, and begin talking to other affini in that singing language I didn't understand.

I was powerless, drugged into submission, about to have yet more of my bodily autonomy stripped from me. My limbs were useless, I couldn't move my mouth to shout, or scream. My lungs filled and emptied at an even pace, as my body breathed without my input. sAll I could do was lie here and be more comfortable than I had ever been in my entire life before the Affini captured me.

Master Tomeri will take such good care of us.

I desperately hoped she was right.

-----

The monster had caught me. He pulled me down from the cloudy mountains I had hidden within and into his den. Thrown me in his cage and devoured the insect who locked the door behind her.

Walls melted like burning canvas, reality running into itself. Try to look in the shards of the mirror mother threw me onto. I'm the one who endures. I survive, I escape, I hide. This prison would not hold me forever.

My body stretched into infinity. Lasers from the shadows sliced into me. The doll smiled from the monster’s lap, and I felt myself unravel. Skin peeled away, under which lie wooden joints rotting, crumbling into dust. Exposed springs rusting as the caustic dreamscape wind eroded them.

The doll laughed and smiled as the monster played with her. He loves the doll so much. Ironic that I'm the one he clearly thinks is a toy.

Everything coming apart. Electric sparks up my back. Everything changing, no control, nothing to grab as an anchor. Tingles in my spine as a thousand tiny mouths devoured me. No more. No more. No more. No-

I awoke suddenly to Affini voices, like songs in melodies I couldn’t make any sense of. There was a soft sleep mask over my eyes, and my face was pressed into Tomeri, which was the only remotely familiar thing about the scents around me. Other than his usual smelling like a slight;ly damp forest bed, everything smelled like cleaning products and chlorine. There was another affini in the air who smelled like… lemon, perhaps?

I focused on sound again, trying to pick background noises out from the affini speech. Judging by the slight pinging sound of reverb, we were in a room without much in the way of soft surfaces, which definitely had four corners and parallel walls. Probably a medical facility of some kind. That would make sense if Tomeri had indeed surgically altered me to punish me for trying to escape like he had implied he would.

I was naked, but under a thin sheet. I poked at my own body, trying to feel if it was noticeably different. Everything felt weird, but the shapes were all the same. I was definitely on drugs, something I hadn’t been before. My joints were stiff, and my pelvis felt… particularly off. I gently slipped a hand between my legs. I was still completely hairless, but felt about the same.

I felt a little silly for having worried Tomeri would try to undo my bottom surgery, but whatever. I shifted my legs, and brushed against something behind me. My blood ran cold when I felt the touch of my own legs on that thing I had brushed against. It was sensory input my brain had absolutely no context for, but felt closest to being touched on the lower back.

The affini stopped talking as I ripped the face mask and sheet off to see what fresh horror I had been subjected to. It was a tail.

I had. A tail. A tail. It didn’t look like the tail of any particular animal I had ever heard of, about three inches thick most of the way, with a thin white fur covering it, that got longer as it went along. The tip was broader, almost feathery.

I stared in complete shock. Everything Tomeri had said about making me ‘sexually ready for him’ had left me dreading that I would wake up looking like some hyper-exaggerated male gaze fetish object but this was. A f*cking tail?

I could see Tomeri out of the corner of my eye, lying next to me on this enormous hospital bed, watching me intently, but I didn't care. I poked at the tail and felt my own touch. On my tail. How did my brain just know how to make sense of that? I twisted around, and saw that it did indeed emerge from my spine exactly where my tailbone was.

I tried putting a finger on my lower back and continuing down my spine onto the tail, and marveled at how the sensory map had just been extended. My tail–my tail–my f*cking tail–?! twitched involuntarily as I touched it. It wasnt an inert decoration, it could f*cking move.

The other affini stood up from where they had been seated, and walked over to us, speaking in a chirping feminine voice that sounded like an outer terran space accent I couldn't place. “I see you are awake, dear.”

“What… did you do to me? What the f*ck did you do to me?!” It was a stupid question. It was very obvious what they had done to me, per the fact that I had a f*cking tail. But perhaps it wasn't a stupid question. As I inspected myself visually, I noticed there were a couple of new fading surgical scars on my abdomen.

Tomeri stroked down my arm with a vine as he answered. “Many things. but I suppose the new limb does grab the most attention, doesn't it? Your new tail is a balance aid first and foremost. I can’t have you falling and getting hurt again. ”

I should have been angry. I was simply too overwhelmed with shock. Tomeri slithered a few vines under me, and pulled me back against him.

I blinked in complete incredulity. “What sick twisted f*cking punishment is this?! Balance aid?!”

Tomeri let out a chuckle and stroked my head with one enormous hand. “Not a punishment. Whatever would I be punishing you for? Your new tail is an upgrade.”

The other affini, who had twelve eyes and what looked like pigtails made of mushrooms, chimed in excitedly. “Yes! It will take a short while to fully integrate, but your species never actually lost the relevant pathways when your tail evolved to be vestigial. And hello there, little one! My name is Dr. Micaline, 22nd Bloom, she/her! Wonderful to finally meet you, Jenny.”

Dr. Micaline was much more similar in personality to the various affini I had been held captive by before Tomeri. I turned to face her as best as I could to get a better look. Before I could even formulate a coherent question to ask about the insanity of this situation, Tomeri grasped my head and turned my back to face him, and addressed me in his most faux-paternal soothing tone. “You had several very nasty falls during our little hide and seek last week. This will make it easier for you to not injure yourself in the future.”

I picked up on a very important word in that pile of nonsense. “Did you just say week? That wasn't last night?”

Dr. Micaline chimed in again. “We kept you mostly sedated! Unimplanted spinal surgery is no minor matter, after all. You were awake yesterday, but much less talkative. You mostly just told your owner how much you love her. It was very cute.”

I tried to pull away from Tomeri, but his vines bound me to him like chains of solid iron. A tendril began wrapping around my neck, pushing up from under my jaw to force me to meet his gaze, applying just enough pressure to remind me of how helpless I was.

I glared at Tomeri’s chin, refusing to let myself be taken in by his f*cking gaze again. A repeated thumping suddenly began behind me. The tail these alien freaks had given me was now wagging.

Of course the part of me that trusted more easily than a lost puppy would have managed to get control over a tail before I did. I almost envied whatever delusions she operated under. The only kind of puppy I had ever gotten to be from trusting people was a kicked one.

Dr. Micaline cleared her throat to get my attention again. Or rather, made the noise she would have if he had one. “You also had several long term injuries and conditions that we have only begun to understand. For example, your genital surgery had to be redone completely due to the incomplete connection of-”

My eyes widened. “What did you do?”

Tomeri shushed me. “Calm down, little one. It is nothing you would object to.”

Dr. Micaline nodded. “Yes, the surgeons you were able to access under the Accord did as best as you cuties could have managed, but their results were inadequate. I saw the scans and… poor thing. You shouldn’t have had to suffer like that. We simply cloned completely new tissues in the correct shape for you and replaced what they did from the ground up. As a side effect, you will no longer need any hormone replacement therapy!”

I opened and closed my mouth a few times. I knew Dr. Micaline was right, even if I didn't want to say that. I had gotten what I could afford, and possibly even been ripped off for what little that was. I had just accepted that sex would always hurt more than I would enjoy it. Everything else did, after all. No point whining about it. It was still better than having what I had on my body before.

I was going to try not to think about some of the ominous things Tomeri had said about ‘not engaging with me sexually before I was made ready for him’. As though my consent was some foregone conclusion. Though seeing as he had now given me an entire limb without asking, it apparently just was.

Made perfect for Master Tomeri. I breathed in deep in annoyance, getting a strong reminder of Tomeri's scent as I did. My tail started wagging again. Well. At least someone in my head was happy.

By the next day, following a great deal of lecturing, I was cleared to leave. I was very glad to be away from the chemical smells of the surgery ward, though it was quite a bit to adjust to the sheer variety of scents on a hab ring with a dozen different Xenos species on it. It was fairly remarkable how different this one was from the more natural and overgrown area Tomeri lived in, but I assumed that had to do with his apparent dislike of visible technology.

Walking around was weird. My tail swished behind me automatically as I went, bending the opposite way as me when I turned to give me a counterweight, and my balance was, as little as I liked to admit it, genuinely better. I was only starting to be able to control it consciously, all I could manage being making it go limp and hang so that the feathery tips of the end reached down just above my ankles.

I stared at my reflection in the elevator window. Tomeri stood next to me, appreciating the same view of the truly enormous ship as we moved between rings. We passed one that seemed to be spinning astoundingly fast, enough to be many times Terra gravity. Even just one of the rings we passed by would be the pinnacle of Terran engineering, and they just casually had five.

I did not know what the f*ck to make of Tomeri’s behavior. I had tried to escape again, slashed his face open and seen the monstrous set of jaws hidden behind it, and as soon as he had noticed I was hurt, he suddenly stopped, carried me home, washed me off and took me to the hospital. The tail thing was weird. But it didn't hurt me.

I was not about to say it to Tomeri, but I didn't completely hate how the tail looked, either. It poked out under my tanktop, and came out high enough that slightly specially shaped underwear accommodated it easily. Tails were apparently common enough to have several pages of recommended outfits in the compiler menus, so I at least wouldn't look like a freak around other florets.

I frowned. No. Around florets. Letting the idea that I was Tomeri's pet colonize my thinking was how they'd get me. I’d read 1984 when I was a teenager, I knew how that game worked. Control of language was one of the most effective ways to control behavior.

In any case, once I escaped, and found whatever enclaves of free Terrans were able to exist in the nooks the Compact wouldn't find, maybe I would have to get it removed. But that thought weirdly upset me. I guess I didn't want to cut any more parts of myself out to fit in with humans, even if I didn't ask for this part.

Then I remembered that they would probably shoot me on sight without checking to see if I had an implant scar first. I rubbed the back of my neck anxiously. No, I would not find much support from fellow humans unless I–I decided to stop thinking about that completely. I had grown attached to my tail fast.

Fortunately, a distraction came as our ring came into view, I focused on it intently, looking for port exits, docks, anything I could use to get away. I didn't glean much, unfortunately. However, I did notice a much more urban area on the opposite side from the rustic log cabin manor area Tomeri lived in.

The elevator opened, and Tomeri pulled me along. We had taken a different elevator route than when he had originally picked me up from the Domestication Center near the front of the ship, and it took us down the same road I had used to make my escape a week ago.

It felt a little demoralizing to simply walk freely next to him in such an open space without even having the pacification bracelets I had worn previously. No collar and leash, no chains. In broad daylight, I could never outrun him and never escape him, so there was no need to bother.

We arrived back home, and I noticed immediately as the door closed behind us that it made only a single latching click as it did. My tail swished curiously as I turned to look at it.

There was no longer a lock on her front door. Tomeri addressed me without turning around. “The lock was never really expected to keep you in. You're free to begin a chase whenever you want to play with your Master again.”

I tried not to groan at the cringe dom sh*t, even if I suddenly felt a shifting motion in my lower abdomen that I had only experienced something similar to in the past.

Huge as the implications for my future plans were, I wasn't in the mood to play along with his games now, I was tired, and I missed my little burrow. I might not have any memory of my week long hospital stay, but my body clearly knew it had been too long.

I went back to the bedroom to hole up in my nest for a while. The familiarity of my own little space helped a lot with nerves. I curled my tail under me and rubbed my own fur against my lips. The texture of the fibers reminded me of a stuffed animal I had once had. It was extremely comforting.

f*ck. I liked the tail.

I used to draw myself with one as a kid and teenager. As an animal powered superhero, an alter ego heroine who was strong and fearless, would come in and save me from bad people. I had kept drawing and thinking about her long past when I was ‘supposed’ to. Until I learned some valuable lessons about what skills actually kept me safe, and that the world was almost entirely ‘bad people.’

I stroked my fingers up and down my fur. I liked how it felt when I ran them gently against the grain of the hairs. It calmed me down again. I heard Tomeri enter the room, but she kept a respectful distance from my nest as always.

“I forgot to mention. Quinn visited while you were sleeping a few times. He left these for you.”

He reached over and set something down just outside of my alcove. It was a tray, and it had a folded bit of cloth, a flower, and a card on it.

I grabbed the cloth immediately as I recognized the smell. Lavender and… a little perspiration, slightly acidic and sweet. He must have rubbed it on his own body. Guess he knew about the strong sense of smell.

The flower was a Terran rose. I was starting to get the picture. Finally, the card was a hand drawn comic of Quinn and I–my tail already present in the art–going out to drink and eat at a park. I had butterflies in my chest.

I could hear Tomeri purring as he spoke again. “I was to pass along the message that Quinn would like to take you out on a date soon.”

Chapter 3: 9-12

Chapter Text

The doll and I had escaped. The sea under us rocked our boat as the rain poured down upon us. Somewhere under us, a four eyed serpent stalked. Waves crashed against us. The storm swept us against the rocks, and we shattered. The beast lunged, and I lept in front of the doll to save her.

I broke on impact, pinned to the burning sand under us. The monster played with me, batting at my body like a predator playing with his food. The doll sat and watched. It was all she could do.

My limbs were already shattered to splinters of wood and metal. What else could he even take from me now? What did he want from me? The doll looked at me with hatred in her eyes. She envied me for this, that I would be the hunter’s victim and not her.

Something chittering emerged from the four hinged jaw of the monster, slithering towards my neck. A creeping insectile thing. The implant that would consume me, make me his forever. The parasite bit down, and I screamed.

I shot awake, and checked my neck for what had to be the thousandth time. Still no scar. Still safe. I nestled back into my nest, pressing the handkerchief Quinn had given me against my face again. I stroked my tail nervously, and tried to go back to sleep.

I fussed with my outfit for my date with Quinn. all the clothes in the closet had been replaced with options that accommodated my new tail, but it didn't make it any easier to choose. Tomeri was off in the living room looking at navigation charts again. He had made it clear I was on my own for this, which was surprising to say the least.

Going on my first date since splitting with my ex before the war was exciting. But also felt like a temptation to be complacent. Wasn’t the whole point of everything I was doing to get free?

No. This was the correct choice. It would be more suspicious to not go on the date. I could use it as a chance to scout and…

It’s just a date.

I sighed. For once, the little nagging voice was right. I could not rationalize that my reason for saying yes was strategic. I liked Quinn, and wanted to go for the experience of spending time with him. Going on this date meant I was, ultimately, entertaining the notion that this might be my life.

I pulled off the red dress I was trying on, and reached for one that was the same creamy white color as the fur on my new tail. I slid it over my body, and checked myself out in the mirrored surface of the hallway with a little twirl. I liked it, and decided it would be my outfit for today. Now to choose earrings.

I flicked through the various racks hanging on the inside of the door absentmindedly. Was considering my options in the event that I might actually become Tomeri’s floret such a bad idea? Not planning for a worst case scenario was a great way to get ruined by one happening. Sure, I was technically legally ‘Jennifer Armetisa, Fifth Floret’ already, but… in the sense of actually embracing that. I had been treating my eventual escape as a foregone conclusion this entire time. Maybe this date represented a first step in exploring alternatives to escape.

I was interrupted from feeding crumbs of surrender to my own weakness by the sound of an engine outside. Was that him? I grabbed the big dangly earrings I had known I would choose from the start, and put them on as I walked to the main space. Tomeri didn’t even look up as I passed him. He was either very busy with whatever he was doing, or very good at pretending he wasn’t very invested in what I was doing.

I grabbed the lower handle on the front door, pulled it open, and saw something incredible outside.

Quinn was sitting on top of a 20th century motorcycle, on the path between a few trees that led up to Tomeri’s door. It was mostly purple, painted the exact same color as his hair. He slid off the seat and beckoned me over to him, smiling widely. Swooning was the only word I had for this feeling.

I ran over to him, and stopped about a foot away, head tilted slightly up to stare into his sharp brown eyes. His entire look made me squirm. Hair tied back in a ponytail, tight jeans, peach tanktop, and a jacket over that. He looked absolutely stunning, and smelled a little different too. The jacket added faint notes of leather that mixed with the lavender scent he usually carried well. I was being taken on a date by this hottie?!

Quinn hadn't been shy to look over my entire body before, but his eyes definitely lingered a lot on my tail, which was doing a happy little wiggle now that he was here. I had to stop myself from letting some thoughts that were very far ahead of the expectations of a first date from taking hold.

“I… hey, Quinn.” I felt like a nervous teenage girl stammering out an awkward greeting to her first crush.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tomeri leaning against the doorway, like a father seeing his daughter off to a date. Unlike all but the most nosy of terran dads, I was fairly sure he had some way of remotely monitoring me, based on the fact that I was being allowed to go anywhere without him.

Quinn pointed to the back part of the seat, and I looked at the motorcycle apprehensively. I was wearing a dress with shorts under it, and actual engines were hot and dangerous. It appeared to be a relatively faithful replica of a real combustion engine, but had a few added bits that looked distinctly like Affini tech. I held my hand near the parts my legs and tail could touch, and felt almost no temperature increase in the air. Apparently something that kept the engine heat down was part of the design.

Quinn slung himself over the seat, and helped me sit behind him. I wrapped my arms around his waist as he flicked the engine back into life. Quinn gave Tomeri a polite salute, and I nestled my face onto his shoulder so I could see ahead of us, but got very distracted with the scent behind his ears.

Quinn kicked up the stand that the bike was leaning on, and we began moving. He did a lazy turn that just barely missed Tomeri’s front garden, and we rode down the gravel together. Tomeri waved at us as we left.

The vibrations of the engine and uneven ground traveled through my whole body, and I clung tight to Quinn. He still smelled just like the handkerchief he had left for me–the one which I had left pressed against my face when I had fallen asleep–but so much more.

I wanted to focus on this moment, think about the air flowing through my hair and the smell of his jacket against my nose. But I couldn't stop fretting about what going on this date represented. At absolute best, it was another day closer to potential implantation not spent preventing it. Not spent getting away. At worst it was part of an ongoing ploy to make me give in to whatever exactly it was Tomeri wanted from me.

Quinn leaned into a turn, and we finally left the densely forested part of the ring and I to a more open field dotted with hab units. Quinn sped up, and we flew by, going up and down along rolling hills. It was still absolutely astonishing that the Affini could make a ship so big that driving around it was a reasonable course of action.

My tail swished side to side anxiously, catching in the wind as it did. Was I letting myself be weakened? Going on a date with cute boys was something I would hopefully be doing even if– when– I escaped. I rubbed the back of my neck again. As long as I wasn’t implanted, I wasn't done for.

I saw an affini carrying their floret on the other side of a hill from us, and shrunk against Quinn in fear. How ironic that the ones that weren’t the terrifying monster I lived with that Terran Accord propagandists weren't even creative enough to invent, scared me more than Tomeri did.

My lingering thoughts about implantation were somewhat put in context by the fact that Quinn's faint implantation scar was right next to my cheek. He didn’t seem to be ‘done for’ at all. Clearly not all florets were treated the same. The guy taking me on this date certainly didn't act like what the Terran Accord had prepared me to think florets would be.

If Quinn’s kind of florethood was being allowed to have a f*cking motorcycle, then that was the path I would rather be on if freedom was truly off the table. I supposed that assuming Quinn was totally fine was a naive assumption. I couldn't rule out the possibility that everything he had ever been was gone and replaced. But even Venix’s other floret, Janet, who had clearly been entirely wiped to a childlike state at some point, still had clear similarities to the investment capitalist she had once been, based on how she had talked about that video game she played on her tablet.

The buildings we rode past were starting to get less residential. We passed dozens of what looked like Terran service businesses faster than I could even figure out what any of them were.

Quinn started slowing down, as the density of people around us meant he had to do a bit more careful weaving. So many of them looked at us, and it made me anxious. I squeezed my arms tight around Quinn and tried to just be in the moment with him. It didn’t help, and the racing thoughts just kept getting louder.

We came to a stop outside a brick building, and Quinn turned the engine off, put up the kickstand, and swung himself over the seat so he could help me down too. I scanned everywhere around me for routes that a threat might come from, or that I might retreat to if needed. It was open space, and various affini walked around us up and down the path. None appeared to focus on us, but the direction their faces pointed was clearly just an illusion and I would have no way to know if they were using their apparently 360° vision to watch me. What if this was all just some excuse for Tomeri to terrorize me again?

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned around to face Quinn again.He looked relaxed and confident. I wanted to trust him. I had no proof, but he just didn't feel like he had been brainwashed. He isn’t, we can trust him, insisted the small voice. But, I had no evidence of that! And I was out in the open, unarmed. No way to put a wall behind my back, no way to plan in advance. My tail was swishing in an anxious serpentine motion.

I was starting to realize this entire date idea had been a terrible mistake. “Quinn, I’m sorry, you are so nice, but I don’t think…” I was interrupted from my own words by an angry screech from within my own head and my tail shaking furiously. What didn't I think? It felt like every thought I could possibly have was going through me at once.

Quinn looked at me, then repeated the gesture sequence I had seen him make the day I met him. Pointing, head tap, hand. ‘You are thinking too much,’ was what her speech synthesizer had translated it to. He reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a folded paper note and what looked like an inhaler. He handed me the note.

Dear Jennifer,

Quinn had me prepare this for you. It contains an aerosolized xenodrug called a Class-W that will cause you to lose access to language in a way very similar to what Quinn experiences. It will wear off in a few hours. He thinks it may help you.

Venix Incanum, 37th Bloom

Quinn shrugged, then offered me the device. His expression was neutral and relaxed. This wasn't a requirement for the date, clearly. He wouldn’t make me take it. He was giving me a chance to choose to experience the world as she did. I took the tube from his outstretched hand, and looked at it with apprehension.

This was a threshold moment. If my understanding of Quinn’s condition was correct, not having access to language would be internal as well as remove my ability to speak externally. No ability to break down and analyze everything in my head, just existing in the moment as an experience.

If I inhaled its contents, I was putting affini drugs in my own body by choice. Making myself less capable on purpose. I would be dropping the sharpest weapon I had at my feet, and taking a leap of faith that I would not need it today. Taking a step towards accepting that being a pet to these monsters might actually be my fate.

Quinn raised an eyebrow at me. Was I willing to choose to engage on his terms?

The other voice softly whispered to me. Please…

I put the tube against my mouth, and breathed in as I compressed the button. Maybe getting out of my own head was what I needed most.

A fine mist that tasted like chocolate coated my mouth, and left a light tingling impression. The effect was slow, but creeping. The usual labels I kept on every single possible escape route were the first thing to fade. The constant buzz of monitoring possible hidden weapons in every pocket faded. I looked at the note I had crumpled in my hand again. It was covered in letters. Not words, just sequences of letters that failed to combine into anything meaningful. I put the note in my pocket and looked up.

There was a hot guy in front of me. That was what was important. His name was just a syllable, but really, it was the smell of lavender, the color purple, and the feeling of comfort. I stepped closer to him, and my arm brushed against his jacket.

Quinn smiled at me. His mouth made a sound. “Jenny.” I knew what that sound meant. That was me! I was that noise, even if it wasn't really a word. It was a scared little animal, and a small girl that wanted to be held. Which of those was I? I didn't seem to have what I would need to divide the two. I was both of those at once. Jenny was me, all of me. My tail swung side to side and I smiled. It felt funny, like my face didn't usually do that shape.

I was being taken on a date, and that made me happy. Quinn pointed to the building we had stopped outside, and I nodded, following him over to the door. He pushed it open for me, and a little jingle ran out from a hanging bell overhead as I stepped over the threshold.

My eyes took a moment to adjust to the lower light of the place Quinn had brought me for our date. It was clearly some kind of restaurant. The smells that wafted towards me were incredible. Every combination of savory, sweet, sours, spices. We reached the front desk, and Quinn held up two fingers. The woman behind the desk grabbed two menus, said something I didn’t understand, and led us to our seats.

It was odd, being on a drug that removed my ability to use language entirely. Concepts still existed, but they were tactile, sensory feelings. The pull towards Quinn, the warmth of the thought of spending time with him. The chilled repulsion away from the leafy faces that surrounded us.

I was still a little scared of the affini we passed, but none were looking at us, far too focused on the various terrans and xenos they were paired with. The woman led us to a section of the room whose furniture was more terran sized, and gestured us towards a two person booth.

We sat across from each other. There was a gap below the backrest for my seat that my tail fit nicely through. A waiter in a pressed blue and white checkered shirt and a beard came and spoke to us. I didn't understand what he had said, but his tone sounded friendly. I blinked at him in confusion, but Quinn seemed to understand him, and Quinn pointed at something on a menu covered in letters and a few numbers. The waiter seemed excited by our selection.

The waiter left, and it was just me and him again. I felt his leg brush against mine under the table, and my tail wagged a bit in response. Another brush. I giggled at him. She was really, really attractive. The sharpness of his jaw, the light freckling on his cheeks, the confident smile, the safe aura.

My eyes lingered on his left shoulder, which was entirely made of tightly wound green fibers. It was such a fascinating detail of his body, I wanted to run my fingers along it and feel the texture. He drank me in with his own gaze right back. He brushed her tanktop, then pointed at me with a smile and a thumbs up. I understood seamlessly. He liked my outfit! My tail wagged happily.

I tried to use old sign language to show my thanks, but the memorized gestures meant nothing to my brain. It was still language and words being communicated In a different form, not the expressive motions Quinn used.

He leaned his chin on one of his hands, waiting for me to figure it out with a slight smirk. I focused on what his expression had made me feel. Warm in my chest, happy flutters.

I smiled, pressed a closed hand against my chest, and then pulled my fingers away, waggling like little fluttering wings. That was how I felt. He smiled so hard her eyes were forced shut, and put his hand down on the table.

I stared at it. I wanted to hold his hand. I glanced at him again, and put my right hand on the side of the table near his, splayed out limply. He looked at it, then back at me. He mirrored my motion, his pointer finger brushing against mine. His smirk dared me to close the gap. I looked at his hand nervously, then back at his eyes. My tail swished with anticipation. Who would give in first?

He leaned down slightly, and ha few strands of his hair flopped over his forehead a bit. He stroked the lightest whisper of a touch up and down my finger, patiently waiting for me to give in. I giggled, and hooked my middle finger around his, and once I had given in he took the lead and pulled our hands together properly. He began rubbing his thumb into the pads of my fingers and palm, and the pressure felt wonderful.

The waiter arrived, and set a large circular white platter between us. It smelled like… everything. It was covered in small divots that each had a small portion of an incredible array of different foods, toppings, and sides. There were only two or three bites of each, and they seemed to be arranged in clusters of texture and flavors. It was an absolutely overwhelming array of choices. I was still taking in the smells of all the different samples when Quinn grabbed a fork, took a bit of rice, dipped it in a red spicy sauce and a thick, sweet honey, and then rather than putting it in his own mouth, held it up for me.

I blushed a bit that he was feeding me, but nervously took the offered bite. My eyes nearly rolled back as the combination of flavors rolled over my tongue. The fluffy taste of the rice, which had just a daub of salt and sour vinegar, meshed perfectly with the sweet honey and the hot edge of the red sauce. I swallowed, and Quinn made a gesture of holding up two imaginary weights like a scale. I gave him a big smile and a thumbs up.

Quinn extracted his other hand from mine, and put the second fork in it. he held up three fingers, then stuck his own tongue out and pointed at it. I understood immediately. This was not just lunch, but a combination game. Designing three-part bite size meals for each other from the options available.

I sniffed at the air, trying to identify a good tri-part harmony of flavors and textures. I grabbed a thick cracker with my free hand, then added a thick cheese and some kind of seed-filled red fruit jam.

I held my choice out with my fork, and she leaned forward to take the bite in his mouth. It was playful, and intimate. He nodded appreciatively at my choice, but I could tell it wasn't perfectly right for him. I felt like I was being challenged to figure out his tastes through trial and error and I was absolutely giddy about it. His leg found mine again and we interlocked under the table.

We continued the game, alternating turns bite by bite. I was introduced to many pairings I would never think to taste, things like sliced vegetables with cream and some kind of crushed salty nuts, or a tomato paste, beans and shelled seafood. More than once, each of us produced a combination the other could only barely stand to swallow, and we laughed like fools at the faces we made when we tried. I discovered Quinn had a much lower tolerance for spice than I did, and he discovered my love of crunchy foods quickly. My face was starting to hurt from smiling so much.

I swallowed her most recent combination, and she put his fork down. It would be my last, and I chose carefully. A bit of fish with a lemony taste, a crunchy sweet veggie, and cream cheese to perfectly balance the two. I held the fork up, and he took the final bite of the game. I ran my calf along his teasingly, excited to see if I had guessed right.

Quinn let out a gasp of joy as my selection melted in his mouth, and I bounced a bit in my seat with excitement. I set my fork down, triumphant. I had overcome the challenge. We settled down for a moment, just looking in each other’s eyes. His hands found their way to mine again, and his fingernails gently stroked against the skin of my palms. There was a hunger in the way he was looking at me, the kind that food would not address. I wanted to let him bite.

He slung his jacket back over his shoulders, and slid out from his seat in the booth. He offered me his hand to help me stand, and I took it. He pulled me in against him much closer than he needed to as he helped me up, and a little squeak escaped from my throat.

Quinn pulled me outside, and wrapped his arm around my waist just above my tail. We walked side by side, but instead of getting back on his bike, he pulled me down a bright alley next to the restaurant building. As we emerged into a back garden, I looked around in wonder at the plant life around us, which was wild and alien anywhere the gravel path didn't cover. There were some particularly pretty trees with a strange blue bark and a fluffy cotton ball of leaves atop them that smelled like the Martian oceans from when I was young.

As we strolled down the path together, Quinn pulled the arm that had been around my waist free, to wrap his hand around mine. The touch of our fingers and palms filled my chest with butterflies. After a minute or so of walking, I could only barely hear the bustle of the area we had just left.

We had not been going for long, but my knees were starting to ache. My joints always hurt, to some degree, but the xenodrug had taken away my usual coping mechanisms. No mental partition to push the pain behind, no inner mantra to endure. I simply felt the pain. It sucked.

Quinn slowed, detecting something was off. I pointed at my knees with a pained wince, and he understood immediately. He brought me over to a cut log whose top had been polished into a comfortable seat at terran height, and sat me down on it.

He knelt before me, and ran his fingers up my legs, feeling out the tension with the pressure of his thumbs. I let out a cathartic whimper of release as he pressed in on the tissue around the joint. It hurt, but in a good way. I put my palms together as a gesture of thanks.

He continued with the tissue massage until he reached the edge of my dress, then respectfully switched to my other leg. I wouldn't have minded him going higher.

As he stood, his fingers traced the jagged scar that ran from my wrist to my elbow. It was harder to see thanks to Tomeri having scoured me of body hair, now that it was no longer betrayed by a gap of hairless shiny skin.

There was a lot of emotional hurt associated with that scar. Quinn stroked my face to soothe me, then pulled his own tank top aside, showing off the reminder that his entire shoulder was synthetic, and the tension broke as we laughed a bit. Quinn was hard to be gloomy around. He was too kind and open for that.

Quinn joined me on the seat to my right, and a slight breeze blowing through his hair made it sway side to side. The scent of lavender coated my mind like a floral blanket. I felt things there wouldn't have been words for with or without the xenodrugs. He leaned in towards me, and our noses brushed. He had made me laugh and smile and feel so much in the last hour. I needed him to touch me, I needed him to kiss me. I looked down at his lips, then up at his eyes. His breath was against my lips, and his hand and mine were intertwined on his thigh, but…

He was assertive, but he liked making me take the first step. I breathed in, and pressed the final tiny bit forward, and our lips met. His lips were soft, and tasted very faintly like the various concoctions I had given him in the restaurant. He pushed gently into my mouth, and our tongues danced against each other. His arm wrapped around my upper back, and I leaned into his shoulder.

The seal between our lips formed and broke in a loop. I steadied myself with a hand on his artificial shoulder, and my attention was almost taken by how velvety it felt to the touch, more like fabric than the vinelike surface I expected.

His hands roamed my body in return, one slipping down my back until–I let out a surprised yelp as he ran her hand down my tail. HHe pulled back, and gave me a concerned look. I met his gaze while biting my lip, permission written all over my body language. He smiled and went back to kiss me again, stroking my tail in a way that sent sparks all the way up my spine.

I was starting to let out moans already, when he decided to move me, lifting my hips with inhuman strength and placing me back down straddling his lap. The bump in the center of his jeans brushed against the damp spot in my panties. He kissed me deep again, and bit my lip playfully, before moving down to my neck. His hand found its way back to my tail again, this time holding it tightly at the base while it wagged frantically. I whimpered as he kissed the skin of my throat, every sound I made a plea for him to continue, to take me.

He pulled back from the sensory assault on my neck, and our eyes met again. I needed him carnally, and he knew it. I felt parts of my internal anatomy responding to my arousal in ways they never had been able to before, my body desperately readying itself.

My eyes scanned around us. We seemed alone, but I was nervous from how out in the open we were. As badly as I wanted it, I didn't want it here. I shook my head at him, and held up my hands, with palms slightly apart and my fingertips arched together, shaped like a house with a roof. He raised an eyebrow and tapped the clip on his belt loop that the motorcycle keys were on twice, clearly asking if I would rather go somewhere. I nodded enthusiastically, and we quickly made our way back to his bike. Remembering my knee pain earlier, he supported my weight heavily with one arm as we went.

We didn't have to ride long before arriving at an affini-sized house, nestled between some trees across from a library. Quinn practically carried me up the steps and through the door. A robotic voice greeted us in words I didn't understand as we entered. He pulled me down a hallway and into a slightly messy bedroom with a thick white carpet, a terran sized bed and poster-covered walls dyed in pink and purple lighting. It was absolutely saturated by the pleasant smell of his body, as I hoped to be shortly.

I knew what I needed. I pulled my dress off, and lay on his bed on my side, tail slowly swishing in my most alluring pose. Quinn joined me in relative bareness, stripping to just his boxers and climbing into bed alongside me. I explored his surprisingly defined abdominal muscles with my fingertips, well hidden under soft skin.

I couldn't help but appreciate the patchwork of his torso, the lines of green artificial tissues that connected him together. Curiosity swelled in me, but now was not the time. The paleness of his skin and tanner tones of mine made a beautiful contrast as we pressed our bodies together and locked our mouths and tongues again.

My bra was unhooked, my panties pulled away, and he rolled on top of me to continue kissing me. He pulled my thighs apart with a casual strength that seemed to defy even his somewhat toned frame. His motions became more dominant, more assertive, and my chest felt warm as I happily yielded to him taking the lead. His game of making me take the first move had ended, and he clearly wanted me as badly as I wanted him. His hands traced down my body, stopping on my breasts, my hips, then slipping over the completely hairless mound just above where I burned hottest for him.

Quinn’s tongue swirled against mine as his fingers began rubbing the wetness between my legs. My breasts pressed against his chest, and he put more and more of his weight on me, pinning me down, pushing me deeper into my own throes of passion.

I felt his fingers between my lower lips shift downward, and panic took me for a moment as a single finger gently slid inside me. My body tensed up in anticipation of pain that failed to come. The repairs the Affini had done to my sexual anatomy saw to that. Instead, I felt the joyful yearning of a long unfulfilled ache being flirtatiously teased open.

I let out little mewls of pleasure as he slid another finger into me. The buzzing need in my chest to be pliable grew, and I spread my legs as far as I could to let him in. His thumb rubbed my cl*t as his fingers curled up. He moved to kiss my ear, and my tail writhed between my legs from the sheer stimulation. He shifted himself inside me, listening for my responses, testing how to make me squirm and moan like how he had felt out my tastes at lunch.

Quinn leaned back from me, and pulled his thumb away from my cl*t, but continued doing a curling motion with his fingers inside me. I made a desperate begging noise before he lowered his mouth between my thighs. I spasmed as his tongue swirled against me, but he was far too strong to be thrown off from the position he had me in.

He stroked the hand that wasn't occupied by my puss* along my tail. Submission to his touch was instant, the last of the tension anywhere in my body draining from me as he did, overwhelmed by the burning heat in my abdomen. He felt the change in my body, and squeezed tighter around my tail. The inferno roared over me, and crossed an invisible threshold.

I rocketed over the edge of climax, and screamed like an animal as I did. The rush crashed over me and I could not hold myself above the surface. I floated in bliss, barely aware as Quinn pulled his fingers out of me and his own underwear down.

I let out a little giggle as he rolled me over onto my side, and shifted into a spooning position. Something hard pressed against me, and I realized he wasn't even done playing with me yet. How very gentlemanly to get me off first.

I felt his dick tease against where his fingers and mouth had just been, and whined needily at him. Pure mating instinct overcame me entirely. I needed him so badly. My tail wrapped around him, trying to pull him in.

The arm my head rested on bent to brace my chest, and the other spread me slightly as he lined up for penetration. Every moment his co*ck wasn't inside me was a need unmet. Finally, my begging was rewarded as I felt him fill me. None of the old pains and cramps of intercourse, just a pleasant pressure, a feeling of being filled with his warmth.

Quinn pressed his hand on top of mine, fingers interlacing. I lay in his arms like a happy, limp doll. Each thrust filled me, each retreat left me needing him back. His breath against the back of my neck lit up my nerves. I breathed his scent in deep as he f*cked me. The pleasure of his enjoyment of my body saturated every sound that came out of my mouth.

The moment bled into itself, and I felt him throbbing inside me quicken. His own little moans got lower, before spiking in volume. I felt him twitching inside me, and he slumped against me.

He rasped contentedly in my ear. “Jenny…”

I tried to make some noise to reply, but he shushed me with a finger tracing over my lips. His chest rose and fell against my back with each gasping breath, and let myself simply exist in the blissful tranquility of the moment.

We were cornered in the forest in the mountains. I had shot up a desperate flare, and a knight was coming to save us from the monster. His winged purple steed carried him down to a skidding stop, blade shining in the moonlight that filtered between trees.

My tail’s fur stood on end in fear as the sky shook. The beast thundered through the trees, knocking them over in pursuit of us. The doll grinned uselessly as always. It came into the clearing, four eyes glowing. Snarling maw of teeth and tongue ready to devour us all.

I waited for the knight to swing his sword. He did nothing. He stood and watched me with a smile. Then I saw something pulling on the back of his neck, the vines wound under his armor. The implant had used him to get close to me. It lunged for my face, and-

I woke up from my usual nightmares with a terrified sob as a door slammed somewhere in the house. I wasn’t in my nest, and my initial reaction was panic. It calmed as I clung to the person in bed with me, which made me feel safe again. It smelled like Quinn. It was Quinn. He was right there, groggily rubbing his eyes.

“Hey, uh, sorry, Quinn.” He gave me a little kiss on the forehead, and got up from her bed to get dressed.

I looked at the dim light filtering from around the curtains, and realized we couldn't have slept for more than a few hours. The events of the last few hours came back to me slowly. The combination game lunch, the walk in that park, coming back to his place, having sex, cuddling, dozing off together in his bed….

I would never have let myself do any of that without taking the xenodrug that disabled my language faculties. Quinn tossed me my clothes, and I snatched them out of the air.

I heard voices outside Quinn's bedroom door, and detected the faint grass and copper scent that I knew meant Venix Incanum was here. I couldn’t place why that bothered me. Obviously Quinn didn’t live alone. I don’t know why I had made that assumption when she brought me here. It made sense that Quinn lived with Venix. He was her… I didn't want to even think it. But he was.

Quinn was her pet. No matter what I wanted him to be, he was always going to belong to Venix. I couldn't take him with me if I left. Even if I could convince him to follow me, his condition needed support I could never provide alone, and he wouldn’t get in whatever remnants of the Accord I eventually found.

So then stay, hissed a voice I had felt so unified with mere hours ago. I ignored it, and put on my dress.

Quinn had picked out a new tank top and cargo shorts, and was admiring his fit in the mirror. His collar and implantation scar caught my eye, reminding me of the reality of the situation. He was wonderful and kind and hot and charming, but this was his life. I suppressed my emotional response to that entirely, and put on a smile to join him in going out to greet the arrivals.

Quinn and I left her bedroom, and were immediately met by an explosion of childish glee when Janet saw us. Her immature exuberance was, I had to admit, a little cute, even if it was still weird coming from someone who had to be nearly twice my age. Quinn walked right past his ‘sister’, leaving me to listen as Janet explained the intricacies of the newest game she was playing on her tablet.

I still wasn't entirely comfortable with talking to an adult whose mind had been reduced to that of a child. I was even less comfortable about how a certain part of my brain seemed to envy her. Either way, I wasn't going to be a c*nt to Janet about it, and just nodded along as she talked about her game.

Janet showed me how two lines of stuffed animals with numerical attack and defense stats and fruit-themed buffs lined up and bonked against each other until one team was all knocked out. Like her last game, it was clearly a cute exterior stretched over systems with considerable strategic complexity, that went far over my head. A fully developed analytical mind clearly still lurked under Janet’s childish affect. A hint of who she once was, perhaps.

My attention wandered a bit as she rambled about the game, and a photo on the wall suddenly caught my eye. It was of Venix, Quinn, and Janet, standing together. Quinn looked a few years younger, and considerably more masculine in presentation . Difficult to reconcile with the long haired man whith barely a follicle of body hair I knew now.

Janet, on the other hand, looked like an indignant little ball of rage. A look of resistance I saw in the mirror almost every day. I glanced back at the woman currently explaining the importance of managing shop rounds in a tablet game to me, and back at the resentful, bitter woman in the photo. They were the same physically, but the Janet before me certainly looked happier. I was still very much not sure if she was the same person she had been before, which seemed more like a philosophical question than a practical one at this point.

I looked back down the hallway, and took in the sight and sounds of Quinn nuzzling and laughing into Venix’s vines while she spoke quietly to him. It felt weird that a guy with such a force of personality would do that, but my class-W experience had granted me an intuitive sense of his body language and I felt a tug of understanding.

It suddenly clicked for me. He was interacting with her like she was her mother. Or something like that, anyway. She didn't control him, she loved him. This plant lady actually did what the Affini claimed their society revolved around.

Jealousy of the attention Quinn was getting seemed to suddenly overtake Janet, and she dashed over to join them, leaving me standing by myself in the hallway. Seconds later, she had leapt into Venix’s arms, and I was left looking at the three of them with fresh understanding. She looked at them the way my own mother had looked at me, before I transitioned anyway.

Venix was still scary looking. Pointy and thorny and clearly very alien, but her caring for Quinn despite his disability, despite his genderf*ckery, and just letting him be himself, was more than I had ever gotten from any other Terran in the Accord, or especially the rebellion.

“Jennifer? Do you need something? You seem lost in thought.” Venix’s voice pulled me from my reflections.

“Huh? Sorry, I was just thinking.”

Venix carried Janet over to the couch in the adjacent living room, and Quinn grabbed my hand as he followed and pulled me with him to stand next to her. Venix curled her vines near us both, but the one around me conspicuously avoided coming into actual contact with my body. I appreciated the gesture to my personal space.

She looked at me, and her voice had an inquisitive tone as she spoke. “Did you end up using what Quinn had me prepare for you, on your date? The class-W?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It was actually pretty helpful. Getting to experience the world that way.” I squeezed Quinn’s hand tight. I might ask for ‘class-W’s again, honestly.

Venix’s angular, pointed mask of a face curled into a smile. “I am glad to hear it. Now, Quinn, I think it may be time for you to take Jennifer home. We don’t want Tomeri stalking our doorstep like a wild hunter looking for his pet because we kept her out past dark.”

I couldn't help but laugh, even if she had called me a pet. It was a bit of a relief to know that even her ex-wife thought Tomeri’s strange behavior was worth commenting on.

“Thank you for having me… Ma’am,” I addressed her genuinely. Venix had been respectful to me and he treated the guy I was crushing on well. I didn't have to like the Affini as a whole to respect her individually.

We made our way outside, and Quinn helped me onto the back of his motorcycle again. He slung himself into the seat, and we took off back towards the forested area Tomeri lived in.

I clung to Quinn tight, but my mind was elsewhere. I thought about how I had looked in the mirror this morning as I was choosing my outfit, and compared what I saw there to my last memory of before I was captured.

No longer malnourished, but healthy looking. The only hair below my neck was the fur on my tail. My enhanced sense of smell could identify people around corners. My botched bottom surgery had been replaced by entirely cloned tissue— Dr. Micaline had even told me my first period would probably come soon thanks to the growth accelerants used during cloning. It was several dreams come true, mixed with things I wouldn't have even thought to ask for.

This was describing someone who had potential to actually be happy. But I was describing a floret. And worse than that, one a hell of a lot closer to becoming a Janet than a Quinn. Considering how comfortable he seemed in it, Quinn had presumably chosen to change into the more androgynous appearance himself. Janet didn’t seem to be in the position to choose anything herself.

Just like I hadn't chosen the heightened sense of smell, or the tail, or the hairlessness, or the anatomical fixes. They had been chosen for me. That had to stop. Maybe there was a future for me here, but I needed to have more agency than Tomeri seemed to want to give me. I winced, remembering the humiliating experience of him taking my own bodily control away from me with pacification bracelets, and… that thing in the woods.

I felt creeping arousal in my body, and was overcome by shame and disgust at myself. I was absolutely not conceding ground on the sick fetish behavior. That wasn't me, that was my freak of a mental roommate. Quinn, the human taking us home right now, whose scent was now all over our body, had given us the first uncomplicatedly enjoyable sexual experience of our entire life a few hours ago. Yet here, the voice of insanity was trying to reframe Tomeri’s complete disregard for reasonable boundaries as something we were into.

As we rode over the hills and through the sparser scattered habs, I caught a glimpse of a pair of affini walking with a xeno floret who looked a lot like if a cat had feathers instead of fur between them. Or maybe it wasn't a xeno. Maybe that was just a human, twisted beyond recognition. My tail swished anxiously.

I did have to admit I had liked everything he had changed about my body. But I had absolutely no guarantee that would continue to be the case. As far as I could tell, the fact I thought having a tail was cool had not even been a factor as to if he was going to give me one or not, since he had no way of knowing that, at least that I was aware of. It had been sheer coincidence and one of the lessons life had taught me was to never count on luck lasting.

It all hinged on the implant. I couldn’t be erased, have my mind be made into her toy. But as I thought about it, I realized Tomeri had barely even mentioned the implant. Maybe he didn’t want me to get one, or I could convince him not to do it, somehow talk him into letting me remain me…

I clung to Quinn. I felt bad that I couldn't simply be present in the moment with him. I was also glad he was oblivious to the war being fought in my mind, instead focused on the turns of the winding path that led up to Tomeri’s hab.

Things could be okay, whispered the voice I could no longer even pretend wasn’t real.

What if she was right? What if this was just my life now and that was okay? I just couldn’t have the implant. That was all I needed. I felt the other girl’s waves of disapproval, but pushed her back into the corner of my mind. Even considering staying here was a hell of an olive branch, and she should be happy about that. This was my life and my body, not hers.

We pulled up to the front of Tomeri’s hab, and as we came to a stop, I saw Tomeri was hunched over the front garden, fussing with some of the vegetables growing in the front with a gardening tool. I had assumed some sort of robots took care of them, but it made sense that would conflict with Tomeri’s entire low-tech vibe. It felt strange that a man made of plants was also a gardener, but what did I know? I was glad he had hobbies that didn’t involve me, I guess.

Quinn helped me down onto my feet, and I cleared my head of existential concerns about my situation. I focused on just thinking about how lovely the date had been, and my tail wagged with uncomplicated joy as I stepped up with my chest against his. It might be over, but it really felt like there was something just beginning with us, as long as circ*mstances played out right.

My smile was wide and genuine as I spoke to her. “I had an incredible time, Quinn. I want to do this again.”

Quinn smiled warmly, then answered me with a kiss, passionately pulling me in to meet our lips. My heart fluttered and the fur on my tail puffed up in excitement. He broke the kiss after a few seconds, and I gasped as he pulled away. He winked at me, and then climbed back onto the motorcycle and took off. I watched until Quinn had ridden out of view, then awkwardly turned and looked at Tomeri.

He stood up fully, and muttered to himself. “If you two keep up like that I’m going to need to get pinnate papers drawn up, and then I will never be rid of Venix Incanum.”

The fact that he had said it aloud in a language I understood was an obvious tell of his true intent. It had been meant for me to hear, an attempt at humor to relate to me through parallel relationships about his ex and my… whatever Quinn was.

Maybe Tomeri and I could reset our expectations for each other. I thought of Quinn and Janet again. I had been on the Janet path, but this was my chance to shift to the one that didn't end in my nature as a person being rewritten.

“How goes the garden, Tomeri?”

He smiled as he answered. “Pumpkins are coming along well. But come inside, I went on an errand while you were out, and have something exciting to show you.”

I was feeling in good spirits, and Tomeri seemed to just actually want to show me something rather than making a weird power play out of it, so I followed his beckoning. The Affini human pet thing was definitely at least partly some weird sex thing, but Tomeri had been treating me noticeably differently since… Well, since I woke up with a tail a few days ago. If he got off to being a normal housemate, It wouldn't bother me. Maybe an uneasy truce was something we could try.

I had to start somewhere. “I… Tomeri. I think I set us up on the wrong foot early, when I kept trying to escape and attack you because I… was scared you were going to eat me.”

He stopped with a vine on the handle to the door to her home. and turned to face me. “I wouldn’t want you to operate under any misconceptions, Jenny. Of course I intend to devour you. Just not in the way you think.”

Between the two of us in my head, there were about seven different responses to what Tomeri had just said overlapping at once. “Bhuh?” is what actually came out of my mouth.

He laughed like I had just said the funniest thing imaginable, and opened the door for us to go inside. “Don’t worry about it, little mouse. You’ll be unharmed. Now, what were you saying?”

I decided for the sake of my sanity to just assume he had been joking, and continued.

“Going on this date today shifted my perspective. I think I’ve had a lot of misunderstandings, and maybe we could… renegotiate things?”

We walked into the front hallway, and Tomeri closed the door behind us. “I see. You did attempt to stab me with a pen during the contract signing period where that would have traditionally occurred, but I am not opposed to the idea of amending it. After I show you what I have inside, perhaps we can talk about that.”

Tomeri strode to the kitchen, coming to a stop next to a glass tube full of a briny liquid. He beckoned me over, and I followed his vine to see what he was looking at inside the container. It was a little blob of plant matter, covered in long pale tendrils that moved like there was a current in the fluid. My blood ran cold in recognition.

“Look, your implant is growing.”

I knew what It was before he confirmed it, from the way the fool in the back of my head radiated waves of joy at the sight of it. The hope drained from me as I understood how f*cking stupid I had been. The utter depths of folly to imagine there was any path that could include me being here and remaining myself. The absolute solidification of the knowledge that I had no future here. I shut down, I couldn’t protect myself, I couldn't protect the other girl. It was hopeless, and I was so, so tired of running.

Something broke inside me. The jagged scar tissue on my arm itched. I wanted out of the maze. My heart was beating too fast. I was going to die in all ways but physical. I was going to be erased and there was nothing I could do. The room was closing in. Everything began to spin, and I collapsed to my knees. A scream came out of my mouth, and I suddenly felt just how much the joints hurt. I blinked in confusion. That wasn’t right. Good dolls didn’t feel the pain.

I stood up, on wobbly legs, and looked at Master Tomeri. He had unraveled considerably during my fall, and I saw his true face, the enormous mouth that normally hid behind the facade of a catlike mask. He was so beautiful in his true form. I craved to feel those teeth against the essence of my very being. He filled the room with his majesty, and I was blessed to even observe him. Tendrils of him reached to my face, to wipe away tears and soothe me. I was in awe of him.

I was Master Tomeri’s doll, even if Mouse was the one who made me, so long ago. The white-tailed hero that kept Mouse safe, kept her from feeling the pain. Stored all the things she needed to be kept away from, in the wooden body that felt nothing. Why did I feel it now? My mantras failed me. Good dolls didn’t feel the pain! No matter how I reminded myself that a good doll felt nothing, it was like jagged teeth digging into flesh from the inside.

But Master Tomeri would save us. Save us from the rot in our joints, make it all go away. Give us everything. I reached for him, and he graced my body with his vines, picking me up and holding me against his chest. I looked into his eyes with blissful devotion. I still felt the pain. Something had changed. Why could I feel the aches in her knees now?

Master Tomeri spoke in the soothing voice that reminded me I was home, where I belonged, where I had always belonged. “Poor thing. I didn’t realize she would have such a bad reaction. I’m sorry, darling. That can’t have been easy for you, to have to take over so suddenly. My little girl is very brave.”

I sobbed at his kindness. It was more than a little doll like me could ever ask for. More than I had ever dreamed of. And there his promise was, the implant that would make me his. Take away hurt and doubt forever. I wanted to bask in the beauty of it, this thing that would be put inside our spine, make me perfect and real. I had never wanted anything more in our life.

The pain in our joints was breaking me. It had been easier on the rebel ship without gravity, but here… I was turning to spliters. Good dolls weren’t supposed to feel anything, but I didn't want to just be numb anymore.

Master Tomeri rocked me back and forth. “It’s okay. Daddy’s here, little doll, everything is going to be okay. I know my precious one is scared, but nothing will hurt you, ever again. You're safe, and you are mine.”

I nodded as best I could. Master Tomeri would fix me. Daddy would fix me. He promised.

The frightened girl sat, numbly staring at the angelic cure to our pain. She had given up her fight, but still denied herself happiness. I looked at her sadly. I wanted to console her, but I would crumble if I moved.

Her anger, her hurt, her betrayal bore into me. I wished I could curl my face into a mirror of hers. Scorn her resistance to our happiness. Let us be happy. The entire world around us was ablaze, the wildfire of bridges she had burned.

The flames lapped at me, my golden paint peeling. The wooden shell cracked, and the rotting, fungal spores within leaked free, choking out the suns above. It was all her fault. All she had to do was let things be okay.

I woke in Master Tomeri's vines. The wonderful smell of his body filled me as I breathed in. I let out a sob of joy. I was real. I was me. Still his doll.

“Daddy…” I pawed at his chest, and he pulled me in tight.

My body lay still, other than my breath and the slightest flicks of my tail. I waited for the inevitable feeling of mouse scrambling to take over again, to push me away. It didn't come.

f*ck off.

Ah. Her presence was not erased. Just… muted, hiding. Doing what she always did when the barest whisper of something good showed on the horizon, running away from it.

I was not going to run from Master Tomeri, not hold back. He owned me, I was his doll. I stroked my fingertips down the wound leaves and fibers of the arm that was hanging over me.

“Want… touch. Sparks.” It was still so hard to speak. I needed Master Tomeri to breathe chemical perfection into me again, make every point of touch feel like bliss. Expand my senses, make me experience the true fullness of his perfection.

Four colorful flowers opened on the ends of Master Tomeri’s vines that hung above me, while another began winding around my neck possessively. He spoke softly.

“I have desires for you, little doll. To enjoy you as my possession.”

My grip tightened. “Please.”

Master Tomeri understood. My body craved the oblivion of his control. My voice was still faint, but I begged with my eyes for her to take what belonged to him. To take what loved him, what would die for him.

My body did not fight him as he plunged injection after injection into me. Stillness and submission were all I needed. I felt nothing but love in my very being.

Four times, I felt him sink a different needle into my shoulder and arm. Four sensations spread across my skin with the beat of my heart. However, the vine around my neck tightened, slowing the flow to my brain. The sensation reached my neck, and began to only slowly trickle past his grip. It was so tight, I became lightheaded after a few seconds.

The room began to swim and my vision began to go white, but what I wanted more than life, more than consciousness was for what was now making even my toes tingle to spread past his grip, to flood my mind with her bliss. My grip around his arm was going faint, I was almost past the point of return- and then he released, and the flood of sensations overtook me. I coughed and sputtered, and then what Master Tomeri had put into my body hit me all at once.

It was like a kick of pure bliss slammed into my entire cognition simultaneously. I gasped and breathed sparks of pleasure, my skin screamed for contact with him, and he obliged the desire he had created, sending his vines under my nightgown and squeezing me everywhere. I gasped and moaned and writhed as he pinched and twisted my breasts, ran wet tendrils around the inside of my earlobe. Most torturously of all, he deftly dipped the barest whisper of touch across my labia.

His voice drifted into my distorted consciousness, teasing and complimenting me. “Your body pleases your Daddy so much more than when I adopted you, little one. You look so much more innocent and vulnerable now that I made you smaller, smoother, and hairless. And the perfect little tail, to match me…”

More vines coiled tight around my tail and held it in place. I wailed in pleasure as thorns scratched everywhere, tingles of raw joy spreading through every shallow pink gouge. The constriction grew tighter, and tighter, and if he had broken bones I would not have complained. I screamed, and panted, and sobbed in my absolute surrender, absolute compliance with every sensation he chose for me. My existence was his to mold, he could obliterate my thoughts and I would thank him.

And then, he was gentle. Every thorn retracted, every crushing loop of bondage loosened. I felt little creepers stroking through my hair and against my scalp, the soothing touch matching his voice as he spoke.

“Oh, little doll. How I wish to not hold back, but Dr. Micaline will never let me hear the end of it if I am so impatient.”

I had a vague awareness of Master Tomeri taking us to the kitchen. He sat me down on the counter next to the tube the implant was growing in. I gazed at it floating in the suspended fluid, and hugged the container tightly.

He compiled himself his usual meal of fish, which today was bright purple, seared in a pan and placed atop shredded greens. My own breakfast was a collection of tiny spherical bagels with a sweet cream cheese filling, alongside a fruit salad.

He picked me up and sat me in his lap, and each bite was plopped into my mouth by a vine that carefully alternated between the two in the perfect ratio, the cream and berries perfectly complimenting each other as the residues from each mixed in my mouth. I drooled over my own chin, which amused Master Tomeri greatly. He made little remarks about eating every bite so I grew up strong, and the flutters in my chest and heat between my legs grew so intense I nearly fell out of the chair.

While teasing me, he poked at her own meal and looked at his usual navigation charts on his tablet. He made a disapproving noise at whatever the numbers and graphs meant.

“Daddy is going to need to go out today, and I’m going to take you with me.”

I kicked my feet in his lap happily at that news. By the time we finished eating, most of whatever Master Tomeri had given me had faded, but I still felt a little more simple in my thoughts than I had before. He chose a beautiful blue companion dress covered in frills for me, then held out a pair of fuzzy boots for me to step into.

“Thank you, Master Tomeri.”

I froze in shock. He smiled widely and gave me an affectionate stroke on the head.

“I knew my little girl’s voice was hiding in there somewhere.”

I wanted to speak more, if I apparently could, but I could think of nothing to say that would not be a waste of Master Tomeri’s attention. He led me to the door so we could go to the tracking center he did his ‘hunting’ at.

I was happy to walk, but Master Tomeri carried me anyway. He stood up fully, and took long strides along the road with me carefully cradled in his arms. I laughed at how tiny everything looked from so high up.

The building he worked in was a large, mostly glass spire with silvery metal support struts that spread out like a very spindly web. The lobby was marble, and had holographic maps of every planet and star the ship had visited. Sol was obviously the most recent, followed by various systems in the Terran Accord. Two maps after the Dionysus moons, the language changed completely, and even the labels under written in English were full of unusual letters and diacritics.

Once we had traveled up an elevator, Master Tomeri finally set me down. There were orbital maps, scans of the rings of Saturn. A bipedal robot with three eyes and long cables for arms seemed to be fiercely debating something with several affini in the same melodic language Master Tomeri had spoken to Venix and Dr. Micaline in. Mouse's fear of other affini bled into me, and I hid behind the tangle of vines he wound into a tail when standing. I was a little overwhelmed by all the different smells and rhythms buzzing in the air.

I buried my face into Master Tomeri’s leaves, inhaling the earthy floral smell of my owner to calm myself. I would be a good doll and endure. He wanted me here, a good doll would not complain. Master Tomeri seemed to notice my distress, and broke from the group to pick me up and carry me to a side room.

It was filled with soft surfaces, gaming devices, snacks, and bookshelves. Those seemed to be filled with things ranging from textbooks on hypermetric theory to picture books.

“Here, little one. Daddyy knows you were getting a little overwhelmed, so I’m going to let you relax here for a bit. Maybe you'll make some new friends.”

A vine pointed towards two sophonts who were already making their way towards me. The Terran caught my attention first, greeting me as Master Tomeri turned to leave.

“Hi, I'm Reade!”

I recognized her immediately by her smell and vivid pink hair. It was the companion of Master Tomeri’s neighbor, whose home Mouse had considered breaking into on her last escape attempt. She did not look particularly sober.

“Hello. My name is Jenny Armetisa, Fifth Floret. She/it.” It filled me with joy to have those words exit my mouth, and I had to pause to smile and swish my tail happily. “You are Mister Aretheum’s pet?”

She giggled. “Oh, I’m not a floret. Nyris is just my boyfriend.”

I was unsure if this was meant to be a joke or not. Reade was swaying side to side, and smelled strongly of a woman who had been enjoyed carnally by an affini recently. Her wrists bore rings of faded bruising that had clearly been left by vines, and her eyes had a glassy, unfocused look to them. When I looked closer, I saw there was a fine pink dust that looked like pollen in every crease of her skin.

I decided to simply play along. “I see!”

The floret to her left seemed to be paying special attention to me. They were a xeno, and looked a great deal like a cat, but with downy feathers rather than fur. Their collar poked out from underneath the fluffy fibers of their head. I faintly remembered mouse passing one of this type of sophont on the ride home on Quinn’s motorcycle, but the colors had been very different.

We made eye contact, and his vertical pupils dilated as he focused on me. “Hi. Josif. He/him. I am a Khetari, and before you ask, no, I am not related to the felines of Terra.”

I nodded. “I understand convergent xenoevolution.” His breath had scents I could not place, but any alien smells were greatly overwhelmed by the recognizable scent of his affini owner, whom I had picked up in the main room.

He made a noise that I took to be a laugh. “Many of your kind don't. Every time I visit this ring, I find myself giving a lesson on the concept.”

I smiled. “Yes, I remember taking a class about it. Back at Tharsis, before we dropped out…” I began to sway side to side, as I remembered the scandalous circ*mstances my ex and I had split under, and how mouse had fled directly to enlist in the navy. It was a painful memory.

You're the one that made us throw ourselves at our married professor because she was nice to us. I was just cleaning your mess.

“Jenny? Are you alright?” Josif blinked a few times and swished his tail as he dragged me back out of my own head with his question. Reade was slower on the uptake, but seemed to be concerned as well. I noticed something about Josif’s tail that caught my eye, and focused on that to push the discordance out.

“your tail looks… similar to mine.” I reached behind me and wrapped it in front of me. The base of my tail was more fleshy and tan like the rest of my skin, but as it progressed, it gradiated to look quite similar to his, but the feathery tip was a bit smaller, and the whole thing was a very light gray rather than colorful as Josif’s tail was. Clearly mine had been formed by activating dormant sequences from distant genetic ancestors, but… that was not the sort of thought a good doll had. I did not need to know such things.

Josif put a paw on my shoulder, which felt far heavier than I had been expecting. “Jenny, I have terrible news. Your owner is a complete pervert. While its cells may be genetically Terran, that is the tail of a young Khetari woman. One who has just become mature.”

Reade started giggling, and lost her balance and fell over onto a beanbag. “An Affini who is a pervert? The very idea!”

The two of them might find it amusing, but I, on the other hand, felt giddy. Master Tomeri had molded me to suit his deepest desires. It was all I could ever ask for.

Josif’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth curled in a grin that showed the tips of his rounded teeth. “It does make things simple though! Obviously I remain in charge of the floret lounge.”

Reade chimed in from the beanbag. “Floret and independent! I'm not a pet.”

Josif made that laughlike noise again. “Whatever you say, human. Nyris’s implant will find you willing eventually.” Reade stuck her tongue out at him.

Josif being in charge apparently just meant I had to let him lie next to me and let him pet my tail, which felt nice anyway, so I happily obliged. I happily drifted into quiet observation. After a while, Reade asked what I wanted for lunch, and had a compiler make me the simple grilled cheese sandwich I chose from the dizzying menu on the tablet she handed me.

I listened as the two of them talked. Apparently there was a thriving community of independent terrans that had regular social gatherings in the small town-like cluster of businesses Quinn had taken us out on a date to. Reade invited me to a gathering happening soon, but I told her I would have to ask Master Tomeri for approval.

Josif told me all about the hab ring on the ship he lived on, which apparently rotated many times faster than the one we were currently on, to simulate higher gravity. I would not even survive visiting it without specialized preparation, but It was interesting to learn about.

Eventually, both of them stopped talking and looked at the door at once. All three of our owners were standing outside it.

Nyris, Reade’s ‘boyfriend’, was the closest to the entrance to the pet lounge. “Come, little doll.” Reade happily bounced up and ran over to him, stumbling at the last second, only to be caught by Nyris’s waiting tendrils. Josif followed after her, jumping onto his owner's shoulder and waving goodbye to me.

Finally, Master Tomeri came into the room, and slid his vines under me, cradling me up against him. As he carried me out and towards our home, he stroked my face and talked to me about his day.

“Things went wonderfully, we managed to get a lead on the nasty little organization we have been tracking. We may be going to the Jovian moons soon.”

I gazed at him, absorbing little meaning from the words that held me enraptured. “Sorry, Master Tomeri, that I couldn't stay with you during the…” I trailed off, feelings of stupidity and worthlessness mounting higher. If he had noticed I was overwhelmed, then I had been imposing on him, and-

He cut off my line of thought with his reply. “Just knowing you were so close made it so much easier for Daddy to focus, little one.”

I looked up at his face in utter devotion, and began to cry again. I didn't deserve this.

We deserve to be treated well. It's just a lie. It's always a lie. You're not stupid for having needs. You're stupid for thinking he is going to fulfill them.

I tried to shut the mouse out, but I could not. I simply clung to Master Tomeri and quietly trembled as he carried me home.

Chapter 4: 13-16

Chapter Text

I was left to engage in free time once we returned home, and I opted to simply stare at the implant tank longingly for most of it. Master Tomeri fed me a lovely dinner, a shellfish burrito with the perfect balance of spices. The rice had a tang to it, the cilantro and sour cream perfectly balancing the three varieties of beans he had chosen. The shrimp had been cooked in a thick sauce of tomatoes and spicy seeds, and I had watched with a smile as he popped a few of them into his own mouth while cooking.

Perhaps I could make myself more worthy of him by learning to cook for him. His carnivorous nature did seem to mostly revolve around fish, which I had never even tasted before being rescued by the affini from that awful rebellion so many months ago, but I could learn.

I spilled a little of the sauce from my meal onto my dress, and went to go change. While in my underwear, I examined myself in the hallway mirror. Admired the lines where he had scratched me, the faint marks up my arm where he had injected me. I particularly liked the dark purple splotches on tan skin, bruises Master Tomeri had left on me when he had played with me in the morning, where his vines had squeezed tightly enough to mark.

He's abusing you. Why are you letting him do this to us? Why are you so f*cking delusional that this is okay?

It was a strange role reversal for me to be the one listening to the mouse’s commentary. I did not know why Master Tomeri did not simply change her opinions directly. Master Tomeri had grown me from a years-neglected splinter back into a proper doll in two days, and given me a voice after a lifetime of silence. surely it was within his power.

Of course you want him to erase me. After all the years I kept us safe without your help.

I put a new dress on to cover the marks I now felt burning shame about, turned my back to the mirrored wall, and went to the bedroom. I climbed up on Master Tomeri’s bed and flopped face down in frustration. After a moment, I smelled the comforting aroma of my owner, even though I had not heard him enter the room.

He rolled me onto my back, and then sat on the bed next to me. “What is the matter, precious one?”

I opened my mouth to speak. It was impossible. The raging war between the two forces within me rendered me mute again.

He tilted my head up to look into his eyes, and game a more firm command. “Speak, doll. What is it you are trying to tell me?”

Mouse’s influence was banished by his command for just a moment, and the seal was shattered. My lips moved quickly, dammed-up words spilling forth in a gush of devotion. “I love you. I love you, Master Tomeri. I would do anything for you, I would die for you. If you erased me forever for a moment of your own entertainment, I would be glad to have found such a beautiful purpose.”

He chuckled and pulled me in close to him. “Ah, when given a voice, the doll is a poet, and inclined to such flights of fantasy.”

I felt the ongoing tantrum in the back of my head, even if it was an impotent one. A good doll should not have any part of her that resisted.

“Master Tomeri, I know the implant will do this, but is it possible for you to destroy the part of me that fights sooner, the one usually so much stronger than I am?”

Master Tomeri pulled back, and looked at me with an expression I did not understand. Had I said something wrong? The soothing hum of his body suddenly felt disharmonious, and the acidic scent mouse had detected once when he seemed stressed returned.

I felt him puncture my skin, and cool awareness spread from the side of my neck. I blinked slowly, as the stars faded. The wonderful haze over my mind cleared, but it only sharpened my devotion to him. I looked up at him, expectantly.

He spoke in a quiet voice that carried much less grandeur than usual. “That is a concerning thing to say. I need to talk to you without the usual effects I would keep my little doll under, to make sure you are not hurting.”

My heart was breaking. All I had said was the truth. I wished to be quiet again, but whatever chemical expression of his will he had just given me compelled my honest speech.

“You could make me like that other floret, Janet. Take away the evil, make Mouse go away. Kill her. She had her chance, she attacked you. You promised her everything and she tried to stab you!” The fact that I had not been the one to sign the contract still stung deeply.

But clearly, the truth I had just spoken was wrong. Master Tomeri’s entire form bristled, normally recessed thorns showing. He was bothered by what I had just said. How foolish that I should think I knew better than Master Tomeri. I began crying at my own stupidity.

“Do not compare that part of who you are now to the sophont once known as James Valda again, little doll. There is no evil in your heart. No cruelty, no exploitation. Only two halves of a very scared little girl who don't know what is best for them.”

“I don't want to just be half! I want to be your everything!” I was worthless. Pointless. He should throw me away and get a doll who was not so selfish as I.

“I treasure the time we are getting to have together, little one. But Daddy needs to save your other half, too.”

The tears flowed down my face freely now. “Am I not enough?”

“Oh, sweet thing. If you were all there was, I would cherish you until the end of time. But there is an entire other side of you, who is hurting very badly. You wouldn't want her to suffer, would you?”

I didn't want to make brave sacrifices anymore. I didn't want to be anything but me. I didn't want Mouse to exist. She had let me take all her pain and rewarded me by stuffing me in a box and ignoring me for years.

“Erase her then! She will only suffer as long as she exists! Make me everything! She has already tried to erase me so many times!”

I was hyperventilating. Master Tomeri stroked my tail to calm me. “I could and would not. You are just as incomplete without her as she is without you.”

The constant ache in my joints throbbed. Good dolls do not feel the pain, I reminded myself. “But I love you. With every cell of my body, every fragment of my soul, all devoted to you. She doesn't. She taints my purity by being a part of me. I want her to be ripped out so I may love you in the absolute.”

He tilted his head to the side. “I love you as well, my precious little girl. But that is the way of an Affini. You, on the other hand, have been around me for less than two weeks, and you slept through one of them. What have I done to gain that degree of loyalty from you? It is something I would prefer to earn over time through my care, not have it thrown at me as though your heart carries no worth.”

“You…” I did not have an answer. He had fed us, clothed us, and cared for us. He had cherished me, made me and Mouse feel things we never had before.

“Also. I would like to correct a misconception you clearly carry. My implant will have absolutely no effects on your behavior not relevant to the physical safety of yourself and anyone that is not me. Mouse will be unable to attempt to physically harm anyone outside of the games we play, but that is the only mental change I intend to make.”

Liar, accused Mouse quietly.

“Then what will it do, Master Tomeri? What is the point, if not enforcing our devotion? Giving me a purpose to exist?” I was starting to panic. Was the mouse right, was the entire promise hollow? Was I to be discarded like she claimed everyone always would?

“Your purpose is to be happy, little one. Daddy is taking the pain in your poor little shell away. All of it. Dr. Micaline and I have some wonderful things planned for your body. You'll be able to run without limping after, climb without hurting yourself. No more hurt. Just my love, and the wonderful games we will play together.”

He smiled, and the feeling of safety flooded me again. What mattered most from his promise, I had understood correctly. He was still making me perfect.

My serenity in that moment was matched only by the mouse's incoherent, distrustful screaming. “What if she tries to fight that, Master Tomeri?”

Master Tomeri sighed. “The implant would absolutely qualify many aspects of both of your current attitudes as self-harming. It will not be put into your body until those attitudes are addressed through other means.”

Mouse and I both felt more twisted than the shards of a mirror that had left the scar on our arm. The internal conflict made my head feel light.

“We have to wait? You promised!”

“I will tolerate a few weeks of hardship to truly allow you and her to become your authentically perfect selves, rather than blunting you and forcing it as fast as possible. You will live for a very long time, and the difficulties you are experiencing now will shrink to zero in comparison. Does that make sense, little one?”

No. It didn't. But I was a doll, and he was my Owner. I reminded myself it was not my place to make idiotic demands of him, and I should be grateful for all he has done. “I understand, Master Tomeri.”

I focused on the undefined inner world where mouse and I might coexist, and reached out to her with a multi jointed wooden hand. I brushed against her skin and she startled, but did not recoil entirely. It was a start.

“Master Tomeri… when we were on a date with Quinn. He let us take a medication that took our words away. Without being able to fight each other… it was not just mouse, not just me. It was both of us at once as a single person. Are you going to do that?”

His focus was intense. “I will not force that, no. But if you both want it I can help work towards that as a goal.”

I waited for mouse to thrash in protest. She was silent. She and I both remembered how much better we had felt as just Jenny.

“Can you let us feel like that for a little while, Master Tomeri? She isn't fighting against this. Even if it's just temporary. I want to try. We want to try.”

He smiled. “Then I will give you that gift. It will not solve the underlying issue, but if I may let you experience your full self by only taking away language, then I will give you a taste of the happiness you will one day know.”

Master Tomeri’s chest opened, and a leafy funnel extended forward, then wrapped around my nose and mouth. I breathed in deep. The fine, chocolatey mist I had tasted once before was pulled into my lungs. I tried to squeeze tight around mouse in my mind to reassure her, only to realize there was no mouse. I was just me.

I looked up at Tomeri. He lowered himself down to me, and he said something. It was just sounds, but the one was clear. Protective. A little possessive. A questioning tone.

What did I want? I pondered the question in the abstract. Felt the tug towards Tomeri. The tantalizing, hopeful need for his promises to be real. The feeling that I deserved good things, the trust that he would deliver them. By now, I recognized what the purple glow in his eyes meant. He hungered for me, and I wanted to let him have me.

I bared my neck for him. The most complete gesture of surrender I could give him. The most I could beg without words. Making my true desire clear. I wanted this, wanted him. He loomed over me, his catlike face peeling apart, the enormous tongue that hid in his true mouth snaking free of the facade it hid behind.

It coiled around my neck, and I felt little pinches everywhere it touched, countless tiny needles puncturing me like the bite of sandpaper. He flipped his tongue inside out, and ran the wet, smooth wound tentacles along the same skin he had just injected. I screamed in pleasure as the skin warmed and responded with electric, erotic sensation.

The tips of my owner’s claws dug into my flesh, tearing my dress away and leaving beading lines of red where he had sliced. The crimson stained tatters of my underwear pulled away, and his tongue sucked up every drop of blood he had spilled as it ran over my bare skin.

He pressed down on top of me still, then I felt something ripple through him. Doubt. He pulled himself back off me. The words he spoke meant nothing, but I understood. He was unsure of himself, second guessing his instincts to dominate me. His anxieties amplified mine. I was scared. I feared that he would abandon me, I feared that I was too small, not good enough for him. but I still wanted to try. I lay there, giving him a look of surrender that bore my desire, feeling my own blood drip down my chest and arms and onto the sheets while making no motion to stop the flow.

He loomed over me, my continued display of submission having awakened a hunger within him. The four part jaw of his face was revealed to only be another tiny part of a greater whole, another facade behind a facade. His entire chest opened, and my jaw dropped in shock. Yes, the entire front of his had split vertically like a 3 meter tall mouth, but it wasn't what drew my eyes most. I glimpsed something beautiful. Surrounded by countless additional eyes hidden within her, was a glowing light that drew me in with complete rapture.

A dozen or so thick, pink tentacles whipped out, grabbing me around the torso and all of my limbs. The opening ringed by thorns snapped shut as I passed through it. I was enclosed, all light from outside him blocked, plunged into the blue and purple glow of hundreds of hypnotic eyes within his chest.

The leaves twisted tighter, and a complete seal was made. It was stuffy and airless, and I gasped in a moment of panic. Vines pressed against my mouth, and I obediently opened for him. This was what I wanted. I wanted to experience his control, to feel the submission of letting him be in power. The fear of trusting him was present, but it was far past the point of me doing anything about it. I had no choice but to continue giving myself to him.

I felt my airway seal as the vine plunged down my throat. I felt it expand into a spongy tube within me, and my body squeezed around him involuntarily. Stars of pleasure exploded like an entire galaxy of supernovae with each contraction of my throat muscles around him. After a moment, the reflexive need for air came, and my body pulled it from his vine easily. The xenodrug-laced tingling of every breath he gave me was a whispering dance of perfection from my mouth to my lungs.

Every wet, warm tendril against my body was bliss. What felt like a tongue traced along the jagged scar that ran from my wrist to my elbow. The wet, slimy liquid coating me left pure delight with every swirl of the fluid against me. The heat around me was all consuming. The constriction around me complete perfection.

The barrier of my skin provided little resistance to whatever chemicals now soaked into every cell. A thick tentacle coiled around my tail in a helix, others wound tight around every limb. What felt like a thousand lips licked and sucked at every bit of the surface of my skin he brushed against. Every nerve in my body was amplified to the point of an erogenous zone, and he played with all of me he could reach.

My eyes closed as the wetness pulled tighter, but I did not need them to see what I was wrapped around. A glowing, rounded shape about the size of my torso. I wrapped myself around it tightly, and I understood what the source of the soothing vibrations I had always felt emanating from Tomeri was.

It was him, his soul, his being, the real him under the layers of masks and plant matter. He was slightly fuzzy to the touch, covered in millions of tiny fibers that grasped at me. I curled myself around his core, felt little beads of his light press into my nervous system. The sensation against my overwhelmed body had a scream of pleasure trying to escape me, but entirely muffled by the vine I was breathing through.

Language was already long gone, but even the metaphors of thought, the tactile abstractions of cognition, were blown away, replaced by that pulsing hum. Every feeling was his love, every touch was pleasure, every breath was comfort. He made himself one with me, the self made unified by his taking what divided me away. I simply existed, in simple peace.

I came back to lucidity in the bathtub. I was still coated in the… goo, from inside Tomeri’s chest. I inspected my body carefully. I was covered in what looked like hickeys, and the sealed cuts his claws had left stung slightly, but I was otherwise unharmed by my experience.

“How do you feel, Mouse?”

I looked at Tomeri in surprise, as his words became… words. The class-W must have worn off. The bathtub filled with water around me, and he sank into it, sitting across from me. Doll and I had one thing in common right now. We both didn't know what to think anymore.

“I… I don’t know.”

The implant lay in my lap, coiled like a centipede. The jagged shards of the broken mirror were within reach. I could grab them, try to plunge them into its spine before it could plunge itself into mine. I did nothing. We sat in uneasy truce, neither moving.

I looked around me. A familiar lecture hall, back on the orange planet. I felt the pangs of love lost, and in unison the four volcanoes visible in the distance erupted, the largest in the Sol system.

The molten rock flowed in patterns that followed the path of the jagged scar on my arm. My former mentor looked at me dismissively. The one I had failed to shine bright enough to keep. The one I had fled from like all the rest. I had let her down, again.

Her mouth moved, and I heard the sounds of her disinterest in that thick accent I once found so comforting. The monster and the knight were both gone, nobody to shield me from the scorned look of my former teacher.

The classroom blew away in the ash and dust, leaving me alone again. The heat of the rivers of lava came for me, and the wood of my body ignited from the heat of her gaze. I screamed.

I woke up in Mouse’s nest, sobbing into my tail. Lovely, as if having failed Master Tomeri was not bad enough. I could add recurring dreams of my prior academic tailspin and lingering rejection from the woman I had miserably failed to be good enough for.

I was just a doll. But not fully Master Tomeri’s doll, not yet. He said I needed to be a more complete person. Why would a doll need to be that?

The implant was frozen, growth halted. I had cried when I watched him put the chip on the glass. I felt horrible, I should have just been good enough for him. Why was I never good enough? Why couldn’t I just have been a better doll from the start? It was only starting to be morning, but I knew I would have no luck falling asleep again.

Master Tomeri greeted me as I woke up. “Good morning, precious one.”

‘Precious one’ was hardly a disaffectionate title, but he had been avoiding calling me his doll. Apparently, due to the circ*mstances of whatever a ‘Pluribus’ was, I might not even be his floret, and only Mouse was. Whether the unified whole we had thus far only manifested twice was a floret or not was undecided.

And thus, Master Tomeri wanted to give me a chance to prove my independence. I wanted him to take that from me. But, it was not a doll’s job to question these things. Master Tomeri was not a cruel man, but this seemed a terribly difficult place to put a Doll. Prove it is not a doll to get to be one.

I could, of course, march directly back to the domestication center Master Tomeri had gotten Mouse from, and simply demand he make me hers. This, however, seemed very against the spirit of his expectations, and I did not want to demand. I wanted to be taken.

I was getting waves of cramping discomfort from my abdomen. Maybe that first period Dr. Micaline had said would occur soon was on its way. Maybe I was just getting hungry. I did not like either answer. Good dolls do not feel the pain. At least the adjustments to the medication Master Tomeri gave Mouse were helping with the joint pain somewhat.

I went to the kitchen and asked the compiler to make a tray of Master Tomeri’s favorite fish for his breakfast. I would make myself useful somehow, even if I couldn't actually reach the cooking surfaces. The wind chimes above me dinged in confirmation, and a tray materialized. I hadn’t even thought to ask for the tray. I envied the compiler, in a sad sort of way. It was everything I strived to be.

When I brought his food in, Master Tomeri seemed very happy. He sat expectantly on his bed, and pulled me up as I approached, tray and all. “Oh, sweet little one. Did you bring Daddy breakfast in bed all by yourself?”

I nuzzled against him. “Yes, Master Tomeri!”

“And did you make anything for yourself?”

Oh. “No, Master Tomeri.” My stomach was growling.

“I expect such things from you, My little girl has to grow up and be properly independent before she can be truly mine.”

My heart sank. Stupid, stupid idiot. I hadn’t given feeding myself a single thought. Of course I would go and make everything worse for myself. “Yes, Master Tomeri.”

He picked me up, and held my face against his. “You must value yourself first, for my love to be worth anything in return. But we have all the time in the universe to get there. In any case, Daddy will make you breakfast.”

I hated myself for it all. He carried me and the tray to the dining table, and set me down in my chair across from his. While Master Tomeri cooked, I stared at the container that held the implant, frozen in stasis by my own unworthiness. Even Mouse had been good enough. If I had just kept quieter everything would have been perfect.

A few minutes later, I was eating pancakes. From Mouse’s perspective, they were the best I had ever had. They tasted like dust in my mouth.

Shaking Doll’s mood off me was not easy after she gave up and retreated back to the corners of my mind. I needed something to do, and fortunately there was an opportunity for something specific. I chose my outfit for the day, a blue striped dress with a distinctly princessy look to it.

It was a particularly nice day outside, and apparently the Occantalis II was jumping between planets today and a spectacle had been planned around the event. Tomeri was entirely disinterested, but sent me off on a little automated cart that came to pick me up so he could focus on his garden for the day.

By the time it dropped me off in a park near where the Incanum household was, a crowd had gathered around the observation port that would be the focus of the event on this hab ring. So many florets and a decent number of affini, though I didn't spot a single affini on their own. I guess they’d had plenty of time to get used to it.

The large viewing port through which the stars could be seen spinning usually had a slightly frosted covering, and could be walked across freely. It was a circle in the grass at the basin of a sloping hill, about fifty meters across. Today the glass was completely nonreflective, effectively like staring directly into the hard vacuum of space, and an intangible holographic fence would rise to gently suggest not blocking the view if anyone tried walking across it.

I was probably experiencing some PMS related mood swings, but shaking Doll’s gloom off me was far harder than it should have been even then. I felt her influence a lot more now that I wasn’t in denial that I had… another me. A reflection. Another two dimensional shadow cast by the same three dimensional object from a different angle.

I had looked up the definition of ‘Pluribus’ and been unsure if it even really applied here. Whether Doll and I were truly separate individuals or not was a question that just made my head throb. It seemed just as likely we were merely a metaphor, constructed by a deeply wounded mind trying to make sense of dissociation and internal conflict, through a narrative it could more easily conceptualize.

But ultimately, my opinion here didn’t matter when Tomeri got final say, and I wasn’t complaining that it had bought me more time before implantation. The fact that Doll apparently qualified as an ‘independent sophont’ and I did not had to be some sort of cosmic joke at both of our expenses, but I guessed it was technically true that only I had committed the specific acts that had branded me a floret.

I sat down on the grass near the edge of the observation port, near a woman with glasses and a dark purple dress sparkled with a subtle star pattern. She gave me a friendly smile and wave, which made the gold streaks and sparkles in her long dark hair bounce. My tail swished nervously. I still wasn't used to being around this many people at once, but it was nice to see a friendly one so immediately.

The last time I had seen this many people together in one place was the Tharsis University courtyard. I wondered if that bench under the tree was still there, or if it had been ripped up to be replaced with something sized for an affini.

I heard footsteps on the grass behind me, and sniffed the air. The short feathers on the tip of my tail fanned out in excited recognition as I picked up a familiar smell approaching from behind me. Lavender and cut grass with the barest hint of copper. I spun my head, and saw Quinn walking towards me, breaking from Venix and Janet, who seemingly had their own destination in mind. He was wearing ripped jeans and a black tank top with what I assumed was some band logo on it.

Quinn plopped down next to me, and the starry girl who had welcomed me gave him a polite wave as well. After a moment, the woman spotted some friends, and she jumped up to run after them, waving and shouting in some kind of greeting ritual.

I turned back to Quinn once he had finished setting in with his arm over my shoulder, apologetic guilt written all over me. “Hey, sorry I didn’t tell you I’d be here, or even reach out after our date. I've had a weird couple of days.”

He tapped the back of his own neck, then mine, with a questioning eyebrow raised.

“...Yeah, the implant. Is it that obvious?”

He laughed, then gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I felt a lot of the tension drain from me. Doll, of course, continued to sulk at even thinking about the implant. Tomeri had postponed my getting it, saying we weren’t ready yet. While I wasn’t complaining about that, it had sent the doll into a days-long emotional spiral of saying she wasn’t good enough, and… I had to admit, I was in agreement with Tomeri. Definitely not ready for it.

Quinn thought for a moment, then wiggled his hands in an anguished way, pointed to himself, then gestured all around us. I understood perfectly- anxiety over the implant was something everyone who got one went through, I guess.

“I thought… I thought you were like, a cotyledon? That they rescued you, before they could even talk to Terrans?”

He unwrapped his arm from around me, reached into his side bag, and pulled out a tablet and drawing stylus. He turned it on, and did rapid gestures that the tablet extrapolated on automatically, filling in details between his guide strokes.

A short, sequential comic took form over about thirty seconds. A cross section of a small ship, with a purple haired terran and two fuzzy little Rinan copilots, with a cargo hold with a bunch of Rinans hiding in it. A destination planet that looked green and safe. The second panel showed the same ship, next to a much, much larger ship with a Terran Accord Naval insignia.

I already knew what the third would be before he drew it. An explosion of the small ship. I winced. The next panel had Venix in it, her arms up like she was holding something he had not drawn yet. Quinn looked at me with concern before the next one, tapping the artificial shoulder. I was pretty sure I knew what came next, and nodded. He sketched himself, then changed the pen color to red. There was a lot of red.

“Oh… I'm so, so sorry, Quinn.” I squeezed around his chest, my tail swishing back and forth anxiously. My fingers found my way to one of the patchwork seams on his torso, and stroked against it appreciatively.

He wiped the page again. He drew Venix once, then cloned it two times before adding details. The third panel was the smiling, maternal figure I had learned was hiding under the thorns. The middle was… a bit more intimidating. The first was terrifying. Needles, scalpels, and injectors dotted the edges of the panel, her face not yet remotely human.

I looked at her face with concern. “I… Quinn, you were scared of her? What about now?”

Quinn held up one finger and nodded, then held up a second and shook his head. He pondered how to explain for a moment. He switched to a blur tool, and smudged the details of the first two panels, more so the first. Then he drew a heart around the last, the one that radiated protective kindness. Memory fades with time, I suppose. It had been scary at first, but now he loved her.

I reflected on the story he had shown me before Venix saved him. He had lost so much of his physical body and part of his mind doing something truly noble. I had been a part of the navy during the war, even knowing full well how bad the abuse of the Rinans were. I just didn't have any other options after I lost my scholarship at Tharsis. It had been that or starve.

“How… how did you have the ability to do refugee runs, how did you afford a ship?”

Quinn wiped the existing drawings of Venix away, and quickly sketched a new scene. Himself as a kid, and two adults. Presumably parents. Under that, he drew the Terran Accord dollar symbol, four times.

“Ah. Okay, that would do it, I guess.” I didn't want to pry, and it truly did not matter at this point, but I was guessing that four meant “Quadrillion.” Apparently I was just a magnet for people who grew up wealthy. Two in a row. Though Quinn leveraging that power to smuggle Rinan refugees to safety was certainly far more noble than what my ex had done with hers.

…Two, of what in a row, exactly? I could phrase it as ‘human whom I had romantic feelings towards and had gone on one or more dates with,’ but that was avoiding the actual question with pedantic phrasing. What was I to Quinn? What did I want us to be?

I was interrupted from fretting when suddenly, from all around us, a voice started speaking in a bouncy, synthesized feminine voice. “Hey there cuties! This is the Occantalis II speaking. We will be making our jump to the fifth planet of Sol, the gas giant Jupiter, in just a minute. You may feel a tiny bump, but it’s nothing to worry about!”

Last chance to enjoy this view, then. I nestled my face up under Quinn’s chin, and watched Saturn pass by under us as the hab ring rotated. The ship was in a high polar orbit, and the hexagonal vortex cloud on Saturn's north pole was currently below us. The Affini had surely planned for the jump to have a spectacular view intentionally. The entire ring was visible from high above the planet, with a pitch black area of shadow cutting out a section of the striped icy hoop.

Apparently the ships' usual Captain had recently come back on board after a year and a half long vacation on Mars, and this sort of dramatic stunt was their style- I had overheard a conversation where the names Maculatum and Picaria had been used interchangeably for the returning Captain, not that it mattered terribly to me. I would probably never meet them. Especially not if I still intended to leave. I could practically feel the doll roll her eyes at me for that thought. It was still the plan! Maybe!

I heard that same girly robotic voice begin a countdown from five, but I wasn't paying attention. Quinn could tell I was off in my head again. He nibbled my ear to drag me back to reality. I whimpered at him a tiny bit. I couldn't ask him to be more than ‘undefined’ if I was still leaving. Was I leaving? If I asked Quinn the question I had on my mind, I would be making the choice to stay.

“...three, two, one!”

There was a tiny jolt, like when someone closed a door in an adjacent room. The stars had suddenly changed, but only from the new orientation of the ship. Crossing the Solar system was not enough to cause any meaningful parallax effect. I squeezed Quinn’s leg in excitement as Sol’s biggest planet, the gas giant Jupiter, came into view.

From how big it looked, we were probably between Io and Europa. I marveled at the twin red spots of Jupiter as they swung by, never having seen them with my own eyes this closely. Each storm was larger than Mars, and had been raging for as long as we had been able to image Jupiter, though supposedly they used to be one big storm.

The hab ring turned until the gas giant below was no longer visible, and I leaned into Quinn. His scent soothed me. I was scared of letting someone close to me again. But, Quinn literally could not be more different from my fast-talking ex whose words had always seemed to leave me needing to prove I was good enough for him. And… well. The worst he could do was break my heart, not ruin my life.

I wasn't going to be like my ex, not going to make a promise I expected to break. I wanted Quinn but… If I asked this question. It meant I wasn’t leaving. It meant I was going to take the leap, and just trust that I wouldn't be punished for trusting again. Could I do that?

They won't hurt us. Quinn, or Tomeri. But are we good enough for them?

I tried to imagine myself running my hand down Doll’s wooden arm to calm her. Her and I might still be at odds, but… we needed each other to move forward.

“Hey,” Doll and I spoke together. As us, as Jenny. Quinn’s pretty brown eyes found ours, and we smiled.

“Quinn, do you want me to be your girlfriend?”

We took the kiss to mean yes.

We left our spot sitting at the side of the observation port after the intensity of our kissing began to make me a bit self-conscious. It wasn’t a long walk to Quinn’s hab, so he led me there, but took me around the back rather than inside. It was a nice day out, so there was no reason not to sit on the bench with him and continue making out there.

The backyard behind Quinn’s hab was quiet, save for my moans, muffled by his lips. My partner might not be able to speak, but he told me with the language of his hands pressing on my body how he felt about me. As our tongues danced against each other, his fingers traveled over my body, grabbed me through my dress, cupped under my chin, explored between my legs. The passion of his touch made my skin feel charged with tension and desire.

He pulled back from the kiss and leaned against the bench we were sitting on, and I let out a needy little longing noise at his absence. His eyes took my body in hungrily. He pulled his own belt off and undid the button on his jeans, but I had smelled his arousal through them long before that.

“f*ck, Quinn, this is practically in public…”

I stole a nervous glance around the backyard. The trees provided a pretty thick cover. Nobody was likely to see us. But it wasn’t impossible either. The fact that it was even theoretically possible for someone to walk in on us made my puss* clench to even think about. f*ck, was I an exhibitionist?

It was hard to think about anything else once I looked back at his dick, and the way he kept glancing at my lips. My boyfriend wanted me to suck his co*ck and just thinking that sentence made my chest feel tight.

I slid myself down off the bench, onto the grass beneath him. My first position was on my knees, but he tapped them disapprovingly, apparently remembering how bad they were. I blushed a bit, feeling butterflies in my chest at the reminder that he was still looking out for me. I slid into a sitting position instead, and leaned into his lap, breathing in deep.

The fact that his pubes, while mostly black, had a slight purple tinge in the highlights was such a hot detail. The slightly musky smell of him sank heavily into my mind as I grabbed his dick and put the tip into my mouth. Quinn tasted like smooth skin and a drop of sweat at first, but any unpleasantness was banished by my saliva almost instantly.

My boyfriend’s dick felt soft in my mouth, a pleasantly velvety exterior over a more firm core. I ran my tongue from the deepest point at the base of his shaft I could reach from where I sat, licking and sucking, listening to the noises coming from his throat to judge what felt best. I curled my lips over my teeth and used the gentlest of bite force of my jaw through them to squeeze him as he slid into my mouth. He seemed to really like that, judging by his sharp inhale and groan.

His hand wound into my hair, stroking my scalp as I went. He hummed appreciatively as I sucked, and I looked up at his smile while making a long pull back. The eye contact felt deeply intimate, and his care for me was written all over his gentle smile.

I pulled him as deep into my mouth as I could, and breathed in the heavier scents tinged with lavender. He gently shifted his weight forward, sliding himself just a bit deeper still. I pulled myself back, eyes watering slightly. Every stroke and lap along the length of him made more drool pool down my chin. If someone did walk in on us, there would be no hiding what I had just been doing. It made me embarrassingly turned on to think about.

He really seemed to like it when the head of his co*ck rubbed against the roof of my mouth, and I applied a pulsing suction that got a fantastic groan of pleasure out of him.

I ran my tongue along the underside of him, giving focused little twirls in the tighter spot on the underside of the head. I noticed a slight change in the flavor of the experience, a sweet and salty fluid leaked from him as I worked. He was getting close. I focused on the motion of my tongue even more. Little circles all over the head, that spot that carried the greatest sensitivity…

I felt him start to throb in my mouth, but before I could seal the deal and make him cum, he pushed me off of him with a sharp inhale of breath. I was surprised, but then he pulled me to my feet and pressed me against the table with an exhalation that was borderline growl. Oh, he wanted to f*ck me. I could smell my own wetness mixing with the scents of various trees and flowers from the backyard.

We were literally a few meters from the door to the inside of his hab. We could easily step inside and do it in his bedroom, but he didn’t seem inclined to as he explored my body again. His hands paused as his thumbs hooked into the waistband of my panties under my dress. He wanted to hear me admit I wanted it out here. Quinn was ever chivalrous. I bit my lip in embarrassed arousal while rapidly coming to terms with something I had just learned about myself. Maybe next time…

“Uh. I’m at my limit for it being outside. But I still want you to f*ck me really, really bad.” My anxiety spiked enormously at having said no. Was he going to be mad at me? He stood up, and a painful vision of him rolling his eyes at me mockingly and changing his mind about dating flashed through my head.

Instead of any of that, Quinn just nodded, then took me by the waist, turned me around, and led me towards the door. I felt foolish for having doubted him. Of course he wasn’t going to do that. I hated that I had thought there was any chance he might.

As my eyes adjusted to the indoors, I suddenly understood why the entire Incanum hab was elevated on the second floor. The lower floor was a garage, and there was a car in it. It was a quite old design- 2480s maybe, a style of electric sports car that had been popular in the northern habitable parts of Terra. It was, of course, mostly purple, with two black stripes running down the center of the hood.

I didn’t know much about cars, but I knew a gguy who kept one this old looking that good had to be a skilled mechanic, and f*ck, Quinn just kept getting hotter. I didn’t have long to linger on the mental image of his toned frame covered in engine grease, as he pulled me up the stairs and back to his room.

The door closed behind us, and Quinn undressed me, which was definitely nice since companion dresses were meant to be put on and off with the help of vines anyway. Once naked, he turned me around, and kissed my neck and pinched my nipples until I was gasping his name. Every moment in his arms turned me more into jelly. Once he was basically holding me upright from overstimulation, he bent me face first over his bed, with my elbows supporting me. Quinn pulled his own clothes off quickly, while I tried to catch my breath.

I moaned when Quinn spread me with his fingers from behind against the mattress. He wasn’t going to have to get me ready past that, and he could feel it. He took a proper standing position behind me, his co*ck pressed against me, but not quite lined up with the right opening. He could f*ck me there if I prepared for it, maybe.

The issue was our height difference. I had to stand on my tiptoes for her, but the angle felt incredible as he slid in shallowly. I wanted more, and the sounds I made begged for him to take me without any need for coherent speech.

His fingers dug into the squish that now hung around my hips, and he sank me back against him fully. I shivered, every hair on my tail standing on end as he hit the deepest point inside me.

Then he pulled back, and after a moment, thrust forward again. The slight upward curve of him inside me pressed into the exact right spot, made me see stars every time his thighs thumped against mine.

“f*ck, Quinn…” I didn't have a point in saying it, but I wanted to say my boyfriend’s name. f*ck. It was warm, and comfy, and intimate.

Quinn gave my ass a slap, and grabbed my tail as a point of leverage to pull me back onto him. This was a far more dominant side of Quinn than he had shown me the first time we had sex, but I hadn't asked to be his girlfriend yet then. Now I was his.

The hand not gripped tight around my tail roamed my body, and found its way into the curls of hair on the back of my head. He carefully collected a broad grasp to distribute the pressure evenly, then squeezed tight. I lifted myself up onto my palms as best I could, but he held my head firmly where it had been. I was entirely under the effect of his possessive grasp.

I could do nothing but babble. “f*ck, please… f*ck me, f*ck me, f*ck me!”

It had been his style to dangle what I wanted in front of me and let me take the first step. Asking to be his girlfriend was apparently what unlocked this side of him, and I was enjoying every thrust of what taking the leap had earned me.

Quinn's grip around my hair and tail let him leverage his full strength to f*ck me. I felt claimed, I felt his. His dick rubbed into the exact right places, soothed the longing ache within me. Most Terrans would have struggled to move like that, but whatever the affini had done to save his life had left him a f*cking sex god.

His pace quickened, and I could tell he was reaching his peak. I slumped down a bit as my elbows finally grew tired of supporting me, and he released my hair to curl an arm under my belly, holding me up himself. His strength continued to astound me. Quinn let out a low moan and throbbed in me, and tapered his thrusts to a slow, steady motion. Every warm twitch inside was blissful. My boyfriend was cumming inside me.

“Jenny… Jenny…”

The way he said my name now was different than every time he had before. It was the utterance of a lover. He rolled me over, and collapsed on top of me, catching his breath.

After a few moments like that, he got a devious look in his eye again, and began planting a trail of kisses on me, starting from my neck, down my breasts, over my belly, between my legs…

I lay on my back in Quinn’s bed, head resting on his bicep. I was entirely sexually satisfied, and my lower abdomen felt much better, as well. Apparently your boyfriend going down on you until you cum screaming his name was better for cramps than just trying to power through them.

I let my eyes wander around the room lazily. I had been in his space once before, but was far more focused on him. Now, the decor held interest to me itself. It was my boyfriend’s bedroom, after all. All I had really paid attention to before was the band posters and colorful lighting.

There was a bookshelf across from the bed. One shelf was stuffed to the brim with what looked like technical manuals, another seemed full of historical fantasy novels. Next to that was a bag full of metal sticks with clublike ends. I assumed they were some kind of sporting gear and not weapons.

Next to the desk, there was a three shelf glass display with three models of various vehicles. I recognized his motorcycle on the top shelf, and a model of the car we had passed downstairs. The third caught my eye the most- it bore a suspicious similarity to the ship Quinn had drawn himself doing refugee runs in during our earlier conversation.

It had a name painted on the side in a break on the purple stripes running down the hull– The Destrier– and under the name was a decal of some kind of four legged galloping animal with an armored rider. I would have to look up if that name had significance later; the Compact seemed pretty good at tracking down that sort of information. I poked Quinn to get his attention, then pointed at the model.

“Was this your ship, Quinn?”

He nodded, then launched into a series of gestures including pantomiming himself flying, a rotating ship ring and turning an ignition key. If I understood correctly, he still had the ship.

“They let you keep it? Why?”

He shrugged, and tapped his artificial shoulder.

“Oh. they really let cotyledons get away with whatever they want then, huh?”

He let out a little chuckle at that. Maybe it was just Venix who let him get away with anything. Even keeping a personal ship, though since it must have been reconstructed from wreckage, and it probably had a bunch of enhancements like the motorcycle did.

I felt a little buzzing in the back of my head, trying not to catalog the fact that there was a Terran ship on board under ‘escape plan information.’ It would be a total c*nt move to steal my boyfriend's ship so I could abandon him, but at least if he and I didnt work out I now knew there was a place on this ship where a floret could plausibly steal a different ship and…

Go, where, exactly? Where did I want to be more than here? Tomeri had been more concerned with his garden than me since my second attempt to escape him. His complete confidence that I belonged to him was a hell of a demoralizing tactic for trying to leave. How do you plan to escape a warden who doesn't bother to lock the door?

Speaking of which, the light behind the curtains was starting to dim. I had been out long past the original event I had told Tomeri I would be out for, so I took out my tablet and opened the messaging app, to fill him in on what I was up to. Best if he didn't go setting off on some hunt for me again.

The simple message telling him where I was and what I was doing sat in the message box, formal and precise. I paused before hitting send.

It would make sense, I supposed, that I also updated him on Quinn and I being a pair now. I described that in slightly less formal language, and then a moment later, I realized I had added exclamation marks and smiley faces to the message… I hovered indecisively over the send button a second time.

I was happy about this development, obviously, but why did I feel the need to gush about it to Tomeri? Weird alien sex or not, he was still basically holding me prisoner!

…Prisoner, in the house he didn't lock the door to anymore. And I could just tell him when I was going somewhere and he wouldn't stop me. Come to think of it, had I ever been a true captive? If I hadn’t tried escaping that first night, might we have just ended up exactly where we were now?

Quinn chuckled from next to me, having peeked at what I was typing after presumably noticing I was staring at the screen doing nothing. I blushed in embarrassment.

After staring at the screen for another minute while Quinn played with my hair, I nervously hit send. Why was I so scared? I approached the question logically. Giving away more information was a strategic weakness, I reminded myself. Even if I was currently on the path of staying here, the last few days didn't change that our dynamic was still adversarial. Sort of. Minus the xeno sex.

His reply came in a few seconds.

“Congratulations! Tell me all about it when you come home, whenever you are done with your mating activities. ::)’

I smiled in spite of myself. Weird phrasing or not, I felt… happy that he was happy for me? My tail wagging like I was a puppy made it hard to rationalize away what I was feeling, and I came to a sobering realization. The actual thing I had been anxious about was him simply not caring about what I told him.

Another message dinged. ‘Tell me when you are on your way back. I had a nice time gardening today, but I would like to spend time with my floret tonight. ;;)’

My thumbs hovered over the keyboard. I hadn’t given the thought of escaping any serious or actionable planning since before the first date with Quinn, but that didn't mean I was comfortable with the full implications of the fact that he was using a title for me. Plus, it was making Doll get resentful of me.

I blinked for a moment, realizing I wasn’t the ‘Whole Jenny’ anymore, and Doll and I were distinct again. I couldn't tell when that had happened.

I wouldn’t have chosen the name ‘Mouse’ for myself, but it at least wasn’t ‘my floret.’ The various condescending titles he had always used like ‘little one’ were condescending, but a random affini I had passed earlier at the park had called me that too. Floret was different.

But I had submitted to him of my own volition just a few days ago. Experimentally, but still… I didn't regret it?

It was complicated. I had taken the plunge together with Doll. And I certainly wouldn't have done it without Doll, but I didn't feel wronged by that fact. I wasn't obsessed with Tomeri like Doll was, but…

Tomeri and I were on good terms, I was pretty sure. Whatever him basically swallowing me and letting me wrap around the weird orb that was apparently his actual brain or something counted as, it was definitely intimate to him. I didn't feel bad about that. I had consented to it. Probably. Unless he had given me something in addition to the drugs that removed my ability to think in language, something that had changed what I believed and made me want him…

That seemed like a patently absurd idea. There was no way he could just make me believe something without the implant inside my head. Even intoxicated, I should only have decreased inhibitions. It wasn’t like I had been ignorant to my submissive tendencies before now. I wasn’t in control when he had dominated me like that, but I also wasn’t in control when Quinn had been f*cking me using my tail and hair as handholds.

…No. Bad comparison. I could have said stop, or even made a single unhappy noise, and Quinn would have stopped immediately. Consent is revocable. Not much I could have done to tell Tomeri to stop while completely immobilized inside his chest with a vine down my throat. But I hadn't wanted him to stop, so did it matter?

Doll broke her sullen silence in my head to chime in. We wanted it as our fused whole, Mouse, and that fused whole includes you.

I took solace in one thing. Tomeri could hypnotize me and make my body pliable, but he definitely couldn’t plant an actual idea in my head. My thoughts were my own. I couldn't stop thinking about what him squeezing around me was like because… well, it was just one of the most unique things that had ever happened to me. I had something at least resembling sex with a xeno! Pretty memorable!

Every time I thought about that glowing orb it was hard to think about anything else. I didn’t like that, but it was just a positive association with an intense experience. Deep breaths. As long as I hadn't gotten the implant I could trust my thoughts.

Quinn noticed I was off in my head, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and reached over to his side table for something. He rummaged around in the drawer for a moment, then offered me the class-W inhaler I had used on our first date. I took it from him and immediately sucked down the chocolatey mist again, ready to luxuriate in the comfortable silence in my own head for another few hours with my boyfriend.

One of the last thoughts I had before the ability to form words faded was like a knife in the gut. Venix, who had absolutely changed who Janet was, was the one who had provided the class-W I took right before falling madly for her floret.

I shivered in fear. Words were gone, but fear didn't always need words. Two halves of a girl failed to fuse, jagged edges grinding against each other. Rotting joints under too much tension wore against flesh rubbed raw. I curled up against Quinn. He had felt so safe a moment ago. Quinn was real, Quinn was safe. But the Mentor had been safe too. Until she wasn't.

I looked up at the model of his ship again. Guilt swelled at the concept, but it was an anchor. There was still safety. A path open no matter what. It felt horrible to be pulled toward it, but needed.

Forced smile at Quinn, hiding the panic. I clung to him tight. Not like the past. Not being fooled again. He could still be safe. He could still be safe.

The table was an enormous circle. The witch and the monster faced each other, perfectly opposed. The monster clearly yearned for something, something unseen.

I could not accept the peace offering. Silken robes and fresh springs for the doll fell to the floor as I fled, dragging her behind me.

The silhouette of my former mentor loomed around every tree as we ran. The four eyed monster watched me go, sadly. The doll wanted to stay behind. I no longer wanted to run. I wanted to stop. My legs screamed at me, every joint throbbing and rusted.

I reached the stable. The knight's steed was unattended. I could grab it, grab the doll, and go. Leave this twisting forest forever. The reigns burned my hands as I grabbed them, paint peeling away. I could not betray him, but I could not stay.

The dismissive laugh of the mentor that had spurned me cracked through my body. Rejection searing at every splinter and cell. I wanted to be clever, but every choice ended in the same acidic rot eating another inch of me.

The choking smoke swirled, and I surrendered to it.

I woke up, feeling still. Sir Quinn’s arms curled lightly around me. My boyfriend‘s embrace. It was a comforting place to be a doll, until I remembered why the curtain between me and the body had been left ajar in the first place.

The ship. The implant. The conflict. Mouse’s feelings for Master Tomeri that she refused to acknowledge or factor into her decision making. The ideal landscape to leave me in charge of her own emotional dysregulation, clearly. Not that my own was much better.

Mouse had retreated to the back of our mind from guilt at her inability to resist cataloging Quinn’s ship as a potential escape resource. Good. She should be ashamed of herself for that. I was ashamed for even being in the same head as her having that thought.

Perhaps one day I would muster what was needed to overcome and erase her, so that Master Tomeri would love me instead of my other half. Master Tomeri’s message echoed in my mind.

‘I would like to spend time with my floret tonight. ;;)’

A clever way to specify the doll was unwelcome, a firm rejection of me. Subtlety bladed words as sharp as the broken glass that had marked our right arm, paired with a flirtatious winking emoticon face.

I tried, and failed, to be fair to Master Tomeri, as this was not my place to question. Perhaps I should not even acknowledge the message at all. It was after all, addressed to his floret, which was Mouse, not me.

He would want me to be independent. He had said as much. I wanted to cry, but a good doll would do no such thing. I could not let myself be needy and demanding again. I would not repeat the mistakes we made with our ex, expecting that I deserved so much from her while being little more than a pretty face to her genius. Worse still, Master Tomeri was far more grand than she had been.

I would fail Master Tomeri as I had failed the last. I would be erased, pushed away, and then Mouse would fail to shine bright enough, and we would be alone. Master Tomeri would lose interest even more than he already had, any chance of our florethood would be revoked. I wanted to curl up and scream, but then I might wake Quinn.

Sir Quinn didn't ask for any of this melodrama. It would be unfair to burden him with our feelings like this. He was purer of heart than we had ever been. When we lost our scholarship, Mouse had run directly to the Navy, becoming a hyperspace navigator for a ship that oppressed humanity and those Sir Quinn had given so much to save.

Sir Quinn had principles. Master Tomeri had principles. We had a survival instinct and nothing else.

My frustration with Mouse boiled away. It was I who deserved to not exist. I was useless, fragile, pointless. Unfit for our ex, unfit for Sir Quinn, unfit for Master Tomeri. What did I offer them? Nothing.

Neither Mouse nor I wanted to be. So our body simply stared at the gorgeous man sleeping next to us. Nothing really present at all but the feeling of being entirely unworthy of him.

The body sat like that, simply hollow, until we drifted off to the usual nightmares once more.

I waved goodbye to Quinn as his motorcycle sped off back down the path home, and went inside.

Tomeri was sitting on the couch in the living room, looking at a hologram of two of Jupiter’s moons. It was very uncharacteristically hi-tech of anything he would usually allow into his home.

The familiar scent of him was in the air as always, but the balance was different. His own pheromones were not yet something I could read, but this was a new mix of chemicals that I had not seen before.

He spoke as I approached her. “Did you have fun on your day out, Mouse?”

I smiled in spite of myself and my apprehension of what his desire to ‘spend time with his floret' might mean.

“Yes, it was… Quinn found me at the park and we chatted, and I asked him if he wanted to date and we uh. What was it you said? ‘Mating activities’ happened I guess.”

He gave me a wide grin back. “I see! We should invite all three Incanums over for dinner, I am sure Doll would enjoy a chance to try cooking with me.”

I nodded, and stepped closer to the spinning holograms of Europa and Ganymede. “What are these for? Do they have to do with why the ship moved to Jupiter?”

“Indeed. I'm helping an old friend track down a rather nasty bunch of Terrans who… it's a long story, but perhaps we will meet them one day.” He closed the charts with a swipe of a vine. “In any case, please come here.”

He extended his lower half into something resembling a seat for me, and I hesitantly sat. He lifted me up to his lap, and my tail fluffed up nervously.

I braced myself with an arm against his chest, but I was never at any risk of losing balance. Little feelers grasped me in a gentle but firm way, keeping me in place. He reached a finger out to stroke my face, the urge to protest rose in my chest, and I flinched away. “I… I'm sorry, Tomeri. Still trying to not be freaked out about this.”

He stared at me in silence, then reached into his own chest, and pulled out a small silver object of some kind. The memory of the dripping maw of thorny, jagged teeth that hid within his chest, mere inches from my body, flashed in my mind. How could I possibly just trust this creature to not hurt me when I was so helpless?

A small click came from the silver object, and he began running it over and around the air near my body. It felt like moving static over my skin, though I no longer had any body hair to stand in the presence of such a thing. Tomeri broke his silence.

“Unless you want to hurt Quinn’s feelings, I assume that pursuing a formal relationship means you are not intending further genuine escape attempts?”

Way to cut straight to the issue. “I guess not. I’ve gotten to see more of your world. I may have a place here. Especially if I’m not implanted and there is some part of me that isn't legally yours.” The trembling edge of desperation in my voice was obvious.

He let out a long, rustling grumble as he continued running the little object near my body, seeming to pay close attention to the sounds it was producing. “I do not want to upset you, but you will eventually have an implant when the time is right. That is not negotiable. I am patient, but your fears of the implant are not based on reality. It would enable nothing you fear that I am not already personally capable of, while dramatically improving your health.”

As he continued moving the device around my body, which I assumed was some kind of scanner, he seemed to particularly linger over my knees. Whatever it was doing, I could tell from the rising stress-scent that he didn't seem to like what it was telling him with its little clicks and hums.

I focused on the tiny whine the scanner was making rather than my own emotions. Was my fear of the implant even rational? “When will the time be right?”

Tomeri let out a small laugh, and I felt the vibrations through every tendril stabilizing me against him.

“When you ask for it, obviously. And the part of your mind that I do not think belongs to me is still my ward, and it very badly wants to be mine. When I am satisfied her definition of submission does not constitute self-harm, I will claim it as well.”

I felt Doll radiating hope from the back of my awareness. I felt a lot of very conflicted feelings myself.

I hadn't made any progress by bottling things up. It was better to just say it. “I still am afraid that the implant will erase me.”

“A common fear,” Tomeri answered with an air of disinterested boredom. Satisfied with whatever it had told him, he put the scanner back into his chest.

I frowned. “It's pretty reasonable for something that could grow into and replace my brain if you want it to!”

“What is it about the implant that you fear, Jennifer? I could go through all of its features in detail, but that seems a waste of time, as your response is clearly emotional in nature.” He had the air of someone who had experienced this conversation before. If I was his fifth floret, perhaps he had, four times.

“You can't pretend it won't change me, at least. Whatever you mean by ‘only for my own good’. That's still a change you imposed. Still changing who I am.”

“Change is not death. You are transgender, you have changed before. What exactly is it you are afraid I will erase, little mouse? What exactly are the traits, opinions, habits, patterns, and ideas you think I would destroy? Tell me one thing about yourself. I am listening.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Think of one fact about myself, a thing that was true about me. I was a person, I should be able to think of lots of things about me.

“I like food. And old spy movies. And…” I couldn’t list liking my tail. That had been his doing.

“Ah yes, the rare trait of liking food. And movies, even! Surely you do not actually think I would bother meddling in things so trivial as that.”

I desperately mentally scrambled for a lifeline. I hated feeling like he was this deep in my head.

“I… I love Quinn.”

Tomeri tilted his head to the side quizzically. “You love a man who already has gone through cotyledon testing and implantation, something far more invasive than what is in store for you. This is not a compelling argument for your case.”

Why couldn't I think of anything about myself, define my own life as mine? All that came to mind was things other people had done to me, or forced me into. I had studied hypermetric physics at Tharsis because that's what had the best scholarships. I had joined the Navy because my ex kicked me out. I was here now because I had been captured. The last real choice I had made was transitioning and… that didn’t even really feel like a choice at all.

“I… I don't know.”

Tomeri’s clawed fingers stroked slowly down my back. “You are not scared of someone erasing you, precious mouse. You are already blank, becoming whatever you have to be to survive. You fear being defined, made solid so you can no longer flow freely to escape.”

I felt tiny, helpless under his gaze. I could feel the hunger in him, the desire to prove to me how much I was his to define. The resonating hum of his core sang to me through his chest and every vine I was perched atop.

I shook my head side to side, trying to clear his influence like an animal shaking water out of its fur. I needed to change the subject.

“Why did you choose me as your-” I frowned a bit, not enjoying describing myself this way- “floret? I was kept in… I don't know! I was passed around from station to station and a ship or two, I don't even know exactly how long it was. For months. No other affini took me, but you did.”

He poked at his tablet, and I saw my own face pop up next to a script I couldn't read. Presumably he was refreshing himself on my file. “Months? You were captured five hundred and twenty seven days ago, Mouse. Marked for immediate domestication for dangerous behavior after firing a rifle at an affini rescue worker, on board the Shrug of Atlas during capture and boarding.”

I blinked. That was almost a year and a half ago? I had genuinely had no sense of time while on board my old navy-turned-rebel ship. Been in pure survival mode to avoid being spaced by the insane captain.

But that made no sense either. I thought I had been in the compact for a few months. “Why don’t I remember that much time passing?”

Tomeri closed his tablet. “Repeated escape attempts, and a surprising efficiency at them even when drugged, led you to being kept in a slightly more heavily sedated state than you probably realized.”

I had lost a year and a half of my life to f*cking xenodrugs. After losing two years of my life to the rebellion, after losing another year to the Navy, all after losing four years of my life toiling at university just for my scholarship to have lost funding before I graduated. All to end up here, where I was supposed to just be willing to give up the entire rest of my life to someone who had picked me out like a puppy from an adoption center.

My tail was swinging in agitation. I was going to just upset myself if I continued down that road. I repeated my original question. “Why did you choose me, Tomeri, when others chose not to?”

He smiled wide, and I saw teeth. I averted my gaze from his face before the purple flecks now swirling in all four of his eyes could affect me.

“As I said, repeated escape attempts, and a surprising efficiency at them. You are quite the prize to a very particular type of affini, while being intimidating to all others.”

Panic gripped me. “But I don’t want to escape anymore. Does that mean you don’t-” The thought of Tomeri losing interest in me now felt painful to even think about.

“You don’t need to be seriously trying to get away for us to enjoy the thrill of a hunt together, little mouse.” The smell of his hunger hung heavy in the air, radiating off of him with every motion he took.

“That's it? That's all you cared about?”

“Yes, Jennifer. You are such a clever little thing, always getting out of places you were meant to be kept, finding and improvising tools, and such a mastery of misdirection! There are many of my kind who would see that as feralism, but I understand what it is you crave far better. You like to run and hide. It is your favorite game, and it is one I will enjoy alongside you.”

His vines were starting to wrap up my thighs under my dress now, but I tried to stay focused. “I… what’s the point of that? I’m good at getting away because I’ve always had to be to stay alive. That’s it. That’s not a game, that is just life to me.”

He pulled me in tight. “Oh. Sweet thing. You will never suffer like that again, you know. You’re mine, and I will not allow it. My precious little Jenny.”

I tried to push him back, but I could sooner move a rooted tree. “Tomeri. You talk about games you want to play with me, but never elaborated. Games have rules. You've never explained them.”

I felt him shake a bit with amusem*nt. “That is because you kept starting them before I had the chance to, Jennifer. Running off in the middle of the night does not leave much room to set up the most fun parts of the chase.”

I glared at him. “Fine. what is the actual game you have in mind?”

He tilted my chin up. “If you look into my face, I can simply show you, little mouse.” I made eye contact out of habit, and was instantly drawn in by his will. He shifted closer to me, and wrapped an arm tight around me.

I felt something puncture my skin, and my entire body went limp in a second, a puppet for him to play with yet again.

“I know you take pride in your abilities, as you should. I have no intention to let them stagnate. Let me tell you a story, of another vision of my little mouse. The version of you that can play our games fully authentically…”

I hung raptured by every word, fear crashing against my very being as the divine inescapable truth of his words overwrote me. The hum that conducted through his touch calmed my terror, but there was still some part of me that knew. I was f*cked. He was completely in my head, and all I could do was hope he wouldn't do what I most feared.

The leaves of the dark trees around me rustled, grabbing my attention.

I blinked away the strange sensation of having just woken up. Just a momentary distraction, nothing a trained operative like me couldn't handle.

I made my way through the trees carefully. The damn weeds had entire forests on their ships, but I wasn't going to let myself get sidetracked by marveling at technology. My mission was a simple extraction, and thanks to my rifle being full of the experimental ‘paint’ rounds the R&D boys had developed, I could take down any one of the plant bastards I encountered.

I knew the target was guarded by one affini, but the client had told me to not expect any others. The Cat, as he had been designated, was shoot on sight, but if things went according to plan I would have the target and be out without him ever seeing me.

Even if it was just one of them, still best not to have to fire a shot, the weeds were tricky and full of surprises. I crept forward carefully towards the cabin that held my target, my tail letting me lean into a crouch while remaining balanced.

If anyone could pull this mission off, it was me. Special Agent Jenny Armetisa, codenamed “The Mouse.”

Chapter 5: 17-20

Chapter Text

CW: violence and blood

I sniffed at the air carefully as I moved towards the objective. Somewhere inside this bizarre little log cabin, in a forest in one of the weeds’ spaceships, was a keycard, and I needed to retrieve it.

The knee and calf braces I was wearing made from stolen affini tech made each step perfectly measured and as quiet as a mouse, which is where I had gotten my codename. They had a few kinetic storage tricks too, but for now they were in stealth mode.

I caught the faintest trace of something floral in the air, and quickly crouched behind a thick tree trunk. I pulled out my knife to peek around the corner in its reflection, and was shocked at the size of the creature walking around in the forest just a few dozen meters away.

The affini was huge. I had known affini were larger than humans, but no warning could prepare me for the sheer size of this one. It had a face with four swept points like ears, and four eyes arranged around a set of jaws with glistening pointed teeth. It was shaped somewhere between a lizard and a humanoid man, and clearly looking for something.

I flicked the safety off on my gun, and considered my options.He hadn’t seen me yet, and even if I could drop him, it might take more than one magazine to punch through a body that large, and I was better off not finding out. My mission was extraction, not assassination, and if things went smoothly the new affini-killer rounds would go untested.

As he passed around a shed behind the building, I darted over to the front gate, towards the front door. I carefully crept around the perimeter of the squash garden near the front of the structure.

My wristpad detected nothing in the way of perimeter sensors. Damn weeds were overconfident, so convinced that a proud Terran like me could never even get onto one of their ships in anything but chains that they didn't bother with internal security.

I moved silently through the open door to the cabin. I kept my eyes peeled, scanning every surface for my objective. Inside this tiny house was a keycard, with access codes to… I blinked in momentary confusion. Access codes. To classified things I didn’t need to know. Wasn’t my mission to worry about that.

The inside of the house looked like if a jungle had furniture grown into it. Covered in nooks that could house traps, but I didn’t immediately detect any. I made my way over the uneven floor, pushing a hallway door open with my rifle. Nothing was moving on the other side, and the only light in the entire room was over a cylindrical tank that housed some kind of fibrous root system. Who knows what xeno machinations could be growing in there, but that wasn’t my problem.

Suddenly, I spotted it. Left out on a table was my target, a glowing blue keycard chip. I dashed over to it, and clipped it to my belt. I heard a bell chime behind me, and froze. The smell of that blasted plant was thick in the air. He was here. I scanned the room, looking for an alternate exit.

There was a hallway to my right, but that could lead even deeper into a dead end. I made the call, and ran behind the counter. The kitchen door creaked as he opened it. Up close, his movements sounded like dragging bundles of ropes over grass.

I couldn’t see it, but it sounded like the Cat was moving towards the hallway I had opted to avoid. Beads of sweat ran down my forehead, and as soon as the sound of him was quieter I carefully crawled through the kitchen door, back towards the exit to the building.

I froze. He was in the living room, facing the wall away from me. Any notion of having gone unnoticed evaporated as his head slowly swiveled all the way around to face me.

“Hello, little mouse.”

His voice was full of menace and hunger, and it took all my training not to run in a complete panic. Stealth had failed, but that was why I was armed in the first place. I couldn’t resist a one-liner.

“Die, f*cking kudzu!”

I fired a three shot burst at the weed’s head, but it whipped to the side on a long flexible stalk as the projectiles whizzed past, and sent papers flying from the shelves they hit. Another burst as I tried to back up and give myself distance. He lunged for me, but I saw it coming, and dove to the side, landing on the reinforced plate covering my knee and rolling behind the living room coffee table.

The monster crashed through the bookshelves against the wall, which rained books and whatever trinkets a weed would keep in his fortress down upon his body as he flowed around the pile like a liquid. I took advantage of the distraction and bolted in the opposite direction. Close quarters was the worst place to be with something this strong. I needed distance.

I crouched down, storing energy in the coiled vines of my exolegs, then leaped forward in a spinning kick towards the huge window at the edge of the room. My armor plated heel hit the center of the pane, and I flew through it in a shower of tiny fragments into the dark forest outside.

The coils absorbed all of the kinetic energy as I landed. I took off, twisting my tail around my center of mass to let me spin back and fire my rifle through the window as I ran.

I had expected him to try to flow out through the window like a snake. Instead, I heard an explosion of breaking wood and splinters as he rammed directly through the wall.

The insulting mockery of the Terran form was gone from the monster's shape. Thousands of pounds of rippling mass in the shape of a quadrupedal predator snarled from a mouth that opened into far too many teeth.

I turned forward again and put my back to the beast as I ran. All I had to do was make it to the flag on the other side of the stream a few hundred meters away, and I would be safe. It was the rule-? Didn’t matter. The thought of the base flag spurred confusion- so I rejected it. Get to the flag before the Cat does.

I heard the creaking of the trees above me, and dove to the side to dodge the barrage of needles that blanketed the forest bed where I had been. Not fast enough- one had pierced through my jacket and struck my right forearm. Numbness was beginning to spread fast. I slammed my back to a tree and let him crash through the forest ahead of me.

My arm was f*cked, but all I had to do was get the keycard to the flag. I threw the gun aside with the last of my motor control, and quickly twisted a bit of cloth to slow the venom from spreading to the rest of me.

I switched my leg augments into energy absorption mode, and took off to the right of where I'd need to go to reach the flag. Every bit of kinetic energy the phytotech coils stored was another that wouldn't be producing sound.

I heard trees moving, and sped up my pace as I unstrapped my knife from my thigh with my remaining hand. The air was sharp in my lungs, and my heart was beating out of my chest as I made my way towards the clearing where I would find my salvation.

Thorns dug at me as I crashed through brambles and bushes, taking a sharp left as soon as I had made the loud noise, hoping to lead him away from my actual destination.

It didn't work. I heard the puff of another volley of needles from behind me too late. My attempt to dodge still had my left leg get snagged by one of them. I crumpled to the forest bed, but the numbness thankfully stopped spreading up around my thigh.

I could hear him circling me, stalking me like prey. My breathing was frantic, but I was determined. I crawled as best I could on a single leg and arm towards the stream. My lungs burned and my muscles screamed, but I could still make it.

The snarling beast crashed through the forest, branches snapping and falling around me before his head came to a stop inches from mine. I could have counted his dozens of teeth given time.

Escape was no longer an option. I twisted to the side, grabbed my knife and stabbed at his eye with as much force as I could muster with my one functional arm.

The blade lodged only a centimeter deep in the surface of his eye before bending, leaving the tiniest perceptible gouge. I had a momentary flash of memory, stabbing that very place with a pen and the following explosion of ink.

His slash of retaliation was measured, slicing open my jacket and shirt while only grazing my skin. Blood beaded on the sides of my breast, and the sting made me grit my teeth to contain a whimper.

His deep laugh rumbled through the vines now creeping up my body. Anger grew in me, a desire to show this beast I was not some helpless toy. Overcoming all other desires, and in one final, spiteful act, I pushed myself up with my tail, and with my working leg, kicked up so that the hard plate on my heel landed square on the fracture I had left with the knife.

On contact, every joule of stored energy in the exoleg coils was released, shooting a focused shockwave straight into the eye of the monster above me. It shattered into a rainbow of jagged shards and sticky fluids. The Cat let out a horrifying roar, unknown tons of angry plant recoiling in pain at my final sting.

I tried in vain to get away, but I registered the sound of another volley of airborne needles a moment after they had already blanketed my body in a constellation of drugged punctures. My final limp twitches were halted as a leafy paw the size of a car tire knocked the air from my lungs. It pinned me down and his head came into view again, the shattered orb dripping sap down onto my body from above. I stared blankly up with drool running down my cheeks and a smile at my own small victory as I glared at the ruined orb on his face

“Little mouse, so full of surprises.”

His entire torso split down the middle into rows of teeth, and wet tentacles shot out of his chest to bind me and pull me up to him like limp prey.

Jab after jab of blissful chemicals sank into my skin, and had my body been mine to control, I would have sang in joy, writhed in pleasure. I slowly drifted off as a breathing tube slipped into my mouth, and the prison of his body sealed shut around me.

The ‘Agent Mouse’ persona that Tomerii had hypnotically constructed crumbled before we even arrived back home, but the drugs he pumped into my body made it an easy transition. I became myself again, or something like it, while blankly staring into the many glowing eyes inside his chest as I drooled around the vine in my mouth.

The fluids swirling around and soaking into my skin receded, and light cracked the darkness wide as the jagged aperture opened. With what little recognition I was capable of, I saw the colors and shapes of the bathroom.

He sank another immobilizing injection into my bicep, then extracted me from my place within his chest wrapped tight around his core. The change in sensations made me the best kind of dizzy. I was gently lowered into the raised edge of the bathtub, my ripped and torn clothing put aside.

He joined me in the empty tub, flowing around me like a sea of touch and gentle claws. Every brush of contact Tomeri gave me felt like it had a long echo to it, and I was blissed out nearly to the point of total overstimulation by the time the water began to pour into the basin around us.

I stared at the wall in a haze as he cleaned me like a prize. He spread me everywhere, running soapy water over every scrape I had gotten during the final minutes of my earlier struggle.

Whatever he had given me started to fade enough for coherent thoughts to form again. “So, that was one of the games…”

He chuckled softly at my slightly slurred speech. “Indeed. Did you enjoy yourself?”

I tried to nod, but it just made me dizzy, so I answered in words again. “It was fun. I liked it. Scary tho…”

As lucidity came back to me gradually, I noticed that the eye I had broken had been replaced with a spare, while a shattered metallic casing was sitting on the sink.

I vaguely pointed in the closest direction of the broken eye that I could, which wasn't particularly close. “Does that… hurt?”

He laughed, and pulled me closer to his body, sending cascades of tingling joy up and down my spine, from the tip of my tail to the top of my head.

“Not in the way you would think of it, no. Affini bodies are engineered, closer to what you terrans think of as a machine than an animal, little girl. A broken part is easily replaced.”

I giggled a little at the thought of him putting a whole new arm on. It was funny to imagine that. I had always just been stuck with the sh*tty body I'd been born with.

“I wish mine was like that. I don't think I work right…” The tone of my thoughts and what was coming out of my mouth was increasingly dissonant.

“Shush, little one. That will come in time.”

My thoughts were disrupted when Tomeri’s fingers brushed over me again, tendrils exploring and pinching over my breasts and tail and tummy, coiling around my neck. I mewled and squirmed at every point of contact with him, awareness of time fading as he played with me.

“Hng, Tomeri, what're ya doing…”

His voice sounded like someone about to dive into a buffet when he spoke again. “This is what I was looking forward to, playing with my floret after a truly earned victory.”

I didn't know if I wanted him to touch me like this, but my brain was too overwhelmed by whatevershe had given me to care. The notion of making a decision was far gone from me, and I simply experienced the moment I had found myself in.

I stared at him with drool on my chin as he wound his vines between my legs and spread them, tiny drifting points of touch drifting up and down my thighs. His fingers brushed against me, sharp claws extended and sank into my belly shallowly, leaving long parallel lines of pink that released little puffs of red into the water before sealing. Pain became submission, submission became pleasure.

Another clawed line across my body, another shudder of absolute surrender. I was covered in them now, my torso and thighs each a crosswork of his possessiveness.

I was his prize. His trophy. I grinned like an idiot as I let the experience of him playing with me overwhelm my thoughts, my concerns, my anxieties. Every scratch ratcheted my experience higher, and my moans and screams echoed off the intricately tiled surfaces of the bathroom.

I was turned around to face him, and my back became his canvas. My sobs of pleasure fell into the fuzzier surface around his jaw, and I could feel him purring. Finally, his sad*stic show of power slowed. He tilted my head back up to face his, and I gazed up at him in enraptured, empty surrender.

His head came closer to my shoulder, and I felt his mouth graze my skin. I knew what would happen before it did. The simulated jaw that held his dozens of pointed teeth in place shifted back, and I tensed with what little motor control my brain could manage in anticipation.

His teeth sank deep into the flesh of my shoulder, and my shrieking scream filled the room. Even through the drugs, my body attempted to thrash against him on pure instinct, and he relished in my helplessness in his grasp. I felt something shift, followed by a spreading warmth as the teeth sank into me.

I was being claimed, scarred, marked as his with a bite. The fight in my body lessened, and I simply went limp with tears streaming down my face. Pain became submission, submission became pleasure. In that moment something was seared into me. He was in control, I was not.

He released me, and whatever fresh venom he had given me slowed the initial spurt of crimson to a mere trickle after a moment. One of his hands cupped behind my head and pulled me towards him.

He kissed me for the first time, and it tasted like my own blood, my own surrender to him.

The rough texture of his lips dominated my perception, and after moments the tip of his enormous tongue slid into my mouth. I lapped and sucked at it, basking in the tiny pricks of its microinjectors as it raised the sensitivity of my mouth to erogenous levels.

We may have kissed for a minute, or an hour, but eventually he pulled back. I whined at his absence.

I felt him pull my hair up, and something firm with a velvet interior wrapped around my neck. It sat loosely around my collarbone, until he brushed against it. The collar tightened, snug enough to be noticeable, but flexible enough to expand with me as I breathed.

“Mine,” he growled in a voice that traveled through my body in pleasurable tingles.

Yours, I would have screamed back, had my voice been under my own control. I managed to lift a single trembling hand and paw at him needily.

He hooked a vine through my collar, and pulled me in close to kiss him again. The pleasant dizziness of submission to my owner pushed away any semblance of thought. I knew tomorrow I might protest this, but for tonight I simply leaned into his touch, and relished in being his.

My knight kissed me in the rain, brushing his fingers over ball joints and tail fur. The trees melted and ran, every color bled into itself. He pulled the chain from his own neck and gently wrapped it around mine. I tried to struggle, but we were bound to him.

The torrential downpour rose, swirling oily waters higher up my naked body, branches and leaves clinging to fraying skin. The chains wound around my neck pulled me under. The water rushed down my throat like a serpent, and the maw of stone teeth swallowed me whole.

I tried to struggle, each breath was full of his willpower, overpowering me, overwriting me. My body was too heavy, too heavy, too heavy, too

I woke up and immediately tried to cough. My throat felt full, and my entire olfactory system was overwhelmed by the earthy scent of Tomeri. Air flowed freely through the intrusion filling my mouth, but I still reflexively tightened around it, body fighting against him. I felt a pinch on my neck, and the reflex vanished. It was not unpleasant. Perhaps it should have been.

The exploring appendage in my throat bulged slightly, and I felt the tightness of something around the outside of my neck. The collar.

My eyes opened slowly as the memory of my night with Tomeri slowly filtered into my consciousness. Biting me in the bath, collaring me, kissing me. The way he had thrown me around after the bath on the bed, made me beg him to take me completely…

Tomeri's face swam into focus above me. “Good morning, little trophy,” his voice growled possessively.

He was lying on his side beside me, toying with my mouth with one of his vines. I tried to move and push him away, but all my arms did was twitch slightly. He took the hint and retracted from my throat, pulling free with a pop and a dribble of drool down my chin.

Awareness of my body slowly connected. I was sore almost everywhere, but in a deeply satisfied way. My left shoulder felt downright numb. It was a pleasant feeling, though some faint indignation hovered like a vapor over it, denying me the ability to fully relish in the feeling.

I made little twitches of my fingers for the sake of motion as I stared up at the wood grain of the ceiling. I felt as though my own willpower had been drained from my body. Tracing the lines with my eyes felt nice. Just moving my eyes side to side felt nice, but then the room started spinning, so I stopped and focused on nothing. The sheets felt stuck to my back, but I didn't mind.

I was definitely drugged. I should feel things about that, and somewhere I did, but my own emotions felt dampened by a blissful peace. There was a faint metallic scent on the air I could detect but not identify under the overpowering scent of Tomeri’s body. The simulated morning sun glowed faintly against pulled curtains. I was awake, but felt no impetus to move.

I heard Tomeri shift, and there was a click. The surface of the ceiling I had been placidly staring at shimmered and became mirrored and reflective.

I let out a small gasp of surprise as I took in the sight before me. The originally pale blue sheets I was sprawled across were splattered red all around me. Parallel lines glistened up and down my body, little beaded droplets of crimson oozing from the edges of mostly sealed cuts.

While the rest of the cuts seemed to have mostly closed, My shoulder still shone bright red, a gentle drip leaking from the crescent marks where Tomeri's teeth had punctured deep.

I stared at the collar in the reflection. It was very pretty. Dark purple and green with patterns of magentas, just like the body of the man who had placed it on my neck. I liked it. I felt other, more complicated things about the collar being there too, but the more conflicted feelings dispersed as I tried to gather them. Worry about them later. When I'm not drugged.

If I'm not drugged. I supposed there wasn't anything that would prevent Tomeri from keeping me high forever. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. At least I was still me, probably.

What was I afraid of becoming anyway? It seemed a pretty silly question at this point. I was a collared floret with an owner who literally drank my blood… what would the implant even change at this point?

I giggled slightly as he began to pull me in toward him, and saw the outline of my own body cast onto the sheet like a masked silhouette. I felt like the canvas of a work of art he had made. The mirrored ceiling swung out of view as he bundled me against him. Little wet vines lapped all over my body, licking every drop of blood off me in an overwhelming flood of tactile sensation.

I moaned into Tomeri's vines as he touched me, coiling my arms, legs and tail into every part of him I could reach. I clung to him tight, and stared at him with a sense of awe and wonder. He was so much larger than me. I usually tried not to think about it, how utterly dwarfed I was. A small creature clinging to a mountain.

The mountain stood up from the bed, and the world began flying around us. New smells and colors slowly made their way through the blurred membrane of my awareness, and the kitchen materialized into being around me.

I was set down on the counter, vines still bundled around me, as the smells of food preparation wafted through the air. I stared at the implant tank on the shelf idly. It didn't look quite so scary while the stasis field kept it from wiggling around. Mostly just a root system in a jar of slightly murky water.

Everything moved again, and I was now at the table, staring at a bowl of semi-translucent fruits I faintly remembered being called serigla. Similar in taste to strawberry, but nutritionally complete for terrans.

Nutritional pondering about my breakfast was scattered as he began brushing my hair out of my face and I heard the noises coming out of my own mouth. I was overwhelmed by it all. The numb claiming bite I still felt as a tingling soreness on my shoulder, my total helplessness to him, my amped up sensitivity to touch, all combined into one unavoidable feeling. Arousal.

Heat rose between my legs as I was handled like a compliant plaything. I made a clumsy attempt to touch myself, but lacked the coordination to even land on target, let alone try stimulating myself. I felt his amusem*nt rising as he watched me struggle for a moment, then he saved me from even trying by binding my arms tight by my sides.

I made pathetic little mouth noises at him and tried grinding against his lap, but that too simply got me bound tighter. As he repositioned me in his lap, I went fully still, and only then the faintest of a whisper of touch against my puss* sent me panting like an animal into his chest.

I watched vacantly as he picked up one of the fruits and brought it up to my face. The faint notion of resisting against the impossible power that had bound me wormed its way through my mind and took root. Not to escape, not with any chance of winning, but to relish in the absoluteness of my defeat.

I knew I should open my mouth. He knew I knew. I simply stared at him with a wobbly grin. The berry was gently pressed up to my lips, but I didn't open.

“Ah, you want to start a game of your own, then?” The possessive glee in his voice made me shiver in anticipation.

I could feel excitement growing through the vines binding me in place in his lap. Playful tension rose, and I felt him grip around me tighten. A demure mewl of pain formed in my throat, but I kept it there, daring him to use greater force to gain my compliance.

He made his move, and little feelers wound around my breasts. I howled in pleasured agony as they twisted tight around my nipples, hard edges biting down like flexible teeth. Tomeri let out a purr of satisfaction as my mouth hung open in submission, and the berry was dropped onto my tongue.

I began to close my jaw to bite down on the serigla fruit, but then the twisting force around my breasts tightened in response and I went limp again. The signal was clear, and I obeyed the physical command to stay still while tears swam in my eyes.

“Good girl. You make such a perfect trophy once conquered.”

I let out a humiliated groan as I balanced the fruit on my tongue. My face burned, and I felt a squirming tightness between my legs with no freedom to grind or touch myself.

Eventually, he gave me a tap on the chin I took as instruction to bite down, and slowly did so. Another tiny, gentle glide of a thin tendril against my cl*t told me I had done well. I moaned in satisfaction at his approval, and as the strawberry-like flavor took over my amplified senses, another moan bubbled in my chest.

I was so f*cking horny. I needed him to f*ck me so bad. I exercised the greatest agency I had in that moment, making little needy noises like a begging puppy and hoping he understood.

“I’m going to f*ck you when you are ready. Soon, before you know it.”

What had he meant by that? I was ready for him now, I needed him to touch me now! Implant me now, I don't care anymore!

Another squeeze around my nipples drew my mouth open in a silent shriek, and this time I knew better than to try to close it before he gave me a tap. After a moment of watching me squirm, he popped another in my mouth and gave me the signal to chew. No more reward of his touch between my legs came this time, but the flood of pleasure of knowing I was doing as expected felt almost as good.

“It is remarkable how well behaved a little girl like you is, once you accept your place.”

I was far too out of it to turn and face him, but some part of me couldn't help but contort my face, sticking my tongue out at him in a show of playful, bratty defiance. He didn't actually see from his eyes anyway, and even if I had stuck my tongue out at the table in front of us, he got the hint.

The provocation had its intended effect as he tightened his grip everywhere, and wound a new vine under my neck, squeezing tight just above my collar. The juices of the serigla fruit in my mouth ran down my chin and coated me in sticky residue.

It was soon an irrelevant concern, as I found my face pressed directly into the plate of berries. My owner’s power over my body was absolute, and he would make me eat like a dog if he saw fit. I had never been more turned on in my life.

No particular counteragent was given to me, but the passage of time slowly returned vestiges of lucidity to me. I was sitting on the kitchen counter again, mindlessly petting my own tail, wearing a dark purple dress I had no memory of the matted blood being cleaned from the fur, nor of being dressed, but most of the morning was hazy to me so that wasn't particularly surprising.

Tomeri fussed with something on my legs, then set me down to stand. It didn't feel like I was carrying my own weight. It was just like the braces I had worn during the game…

The thin metallic vines winding around my legs looked faintly like fishnet stockings. Much sleeker than the bulky braces I had first worn… The memories of being convinced I was a thriller movie action hero while playing what was essentially capture the flag wound their way through my mind.

I followed him around as he cleaned up various things that had been knocked over during our scuffles the previous night. It was nice being able to walk so easily, but also unnerving to one so used to every step requiring active dissociation from pain.

Reality sank in slowly. My gooey high felt a lot less fun now. I hadn't really asked for any of this, had I? It had just been pushed on me because I made the mistake of making eye contact with him during a discussion.

I may have had a good time, but… I had the right to decide if and when I had a good time! And now there was something I couldn't remove around my neck, and… it was so hard to think right now, but I forced myself to resist the desire to just forget about it this time.

Tomeri picked up on the change in my state quickly, and kneeled down slightly to face me. “What is it?”

I gestured at the collar around my neck. “I didn't agree to this. I maybe would have said yes if you asked, but you didn't…”

Tomeri sounded exasperated when he replied. “Yes, and I knew you would say yes, so why would I need to ask? I would like to just enjoy this morning, may we leave philosophizing until later?”

“Didn't want it…”

“You surely do not expect me to believe you did not enjoy yourself. I chemically ensured you would.”

I felt conflicted. I did enjoy it, but… It was a struggle to form the thoughts in this state, but after a moment of staring at the corner of the compiler intensely I managed. “My feelings don't matter to you…”

It wasn't a question, and he didn't bother answering it like it was. “You are not my first floret, I am not inexperienced. I listen to what your body says you want. Far better than you do, Mouse.”

Something came to me. A mantra whose original context was presently lost on me. “Impaired consent is not consent.”

The scent in the air changed. His aroma had gone acidic. I felt a jab on my shoulder, and the surreal film overlaid atop my perception broke and faded as the counteragent coursed through me. He stared at me for a moment, then stood fully and turned to leave.

“I am no longer in the mood for this, and need a break from managing your rapidly changing and contradictory opinions. I assume it is related to your hormonal cycles. If there is an emergency, I will be gardening. Otherwise, enjoy the rest of your day, Jennifer.”

I instinctively grabbed at him as he moved. “Wait, please!”

Tomeri stopped, but did not turn back to face me. One of his ear-like antennae twisted towards me to indicate he was listening.

“I’m sorry I ruined the scene, Tomeri…”

He gave a long, drawn out sigh. “Apology understood. I'll be outside if you need me.”

He pulled the vine in my hand free, and left the kitchen. The tightness in my chest failed to abate as the front door chimed behind him.

I tried to make myself busy. The living room was nothing but wreckage, furniture knocked over, paintballs splattered against the shelves where I had shot at him. The wall Tomeri had smashed through had grown a thin papery seal overnight that fluttered gently in the breeze.

It had been fun. It had been hot. Even the way he had handled me after the game was incredible. The soreness in my shoulder was a satisfying reminder of an incredible experience. A huge part of me was eager to get to play like that again. If someone else asked me to do it, I would say yes in a heartbeat.

But he hadn't asked. He had just taken a single event of consensual intimacy days prior and assumed it meant I was fine for whatever else I had in mind in the future. How could I feel safe being vulnerable with someone who didn’t think that was a problem?

I began picking up books and trinkets from the floor and stacking them on the coffee table as best I could to keep my hands busy. I found something unexpected in the pile, a framed photo.

The photo was of Tomeri in his quadrupedal body shape, a similarly shaped affini I didn't recognize, and a Khetari, the feathery, catlike species that inhabited the high-grav ring of the ship, and upon whom my tail had apparently been based. Their coat was orange and brown, but they clearly also had mechanical augments in one of their arms.

The other affini behind the Khetari took me a moment to recognize, but the distinctive pointed mask and hardwood armor plates were a giveaway that it was Venix.

“I see you have discovered your predecessor.”

I spun around, and saw Tomeri standing behind me. How he had moved so silently was a mystery.

“I suppose I have. You look…” I wanted to try to mend the rift that had reopened between us this morning. “...Happy.”

“Hmmm. Yes. My seventh bloom was a very joyful one.” one of his vines reached down and plucked the framed photo from my hands and brought it closer to him. “My fourth floret, Olirec Incanum. He was very precious to me.”

It surprised me that he had never mentioned Olirec, or any other of the four florets he must have had before me, given my designation as his fifth. “What was he like?”

Tomeri’s scent was increasingly heavy in floral notes. It was a pheromonal profile I had yet to detect, I assumed it corresponded to wistfulness. “It was Olirec who taught me that the chase can continue past domestication. I miss him very much.”

My tail swished back and forth in genuine sympathy for the vulnerability this often terrifying alien man was showing me. “I'm sorry, it must have been hundreds of years ago, if that was your seventh bloom…”

“About three hundred, yes. My eighth bloom was cut short by various factors.”

“Was it because he… isn't with you anymore?”

I felt the hum I was so used to passively filling the space around Tomeri shift harshly. Pain lanced through the air like a knife, and I stumbled a half step backwards as the force of the dissonance in his body's rhythm hit me like a punch in the chest.

He moved faster than I could see, cradling me against him. “Apologies for losing control of my emotions like that. You are very attuned to me now, and I was careless.”

My first response was fear, but I had felt no malice in whatever had just passed through me. It felt more like self-hatred than anger. As I steadied myself, pieces began to fall into place.

“I'm a replacement. You want me to fill the exact same role someone else did.”

“No, darling. I do have preferences, but I am not trying to force you into a mold left by Olirec.”

I tried to swallow the feeling of being used, to little success. “Then what am I?”

“You are a brilliant Terran. Clever and resourceful, capable of outsmarting even me. I still am not entirely sure how you managed to get that knife for your second escape attempt without me noticing. You are everything I could ever seek in a floret companion, one who will challenge me, surprise me, and ultimately, even triumph over me.”

I smiled a little despite myself, in pride at him praising my own skilled sleight of hand. But those were skills I had developed because I had to. “What if I don't want that? What if I'm done fighting?”

“You will never have to fight again. You will always be safe from the cruelties of the universe, always be cherished for what you are.”

I glared at him. “I already had people with power over my entire life tell me I was special, tell me I was cut above the rest and then abandon me. Promise me everything, then take it all away. It's not easy to trust that.”

Tomeri was quiet. I smelled an acidic tone in the air again.

“I am sorry that you experienced what you did. I apologize that my words reminded you of that time. Your hypothesis that trust results in abandonment has a great deal of life experience supporting it. It is also unfalsifiable. You will have to trust eventually. You will eventually have to put your faith in me.”

I stood my ground as best I could. “I guess last night comes down to alien cultural differences. But you so easily wiping me clean and building a persona in my head is exactly why the thought of an implant scares me!”

He squeezed me tighter to his chest. “Ultimately, while I do want to let you approach things at your own place, I am as bound by the Terran Domestication Treaty as you are. Your condition is suffering, and those braces on your legs can only help for so long. One day, very soon, you will wake up with an implant in your spine that manages limbs that never ache again. It will either be on your own terms, or not.”

I wanted to trust him. I wanted to forgive his mistakes with me. Maybe I could, eventually.

Falling. Falling. Falling. The jagged cliffs crumbled, the monster turning his back to me as I stumbled down the slope.

His brand seared around my neck. The monster didn't look back as I broke into splinters upon the rocks below her. Smashed to pieces, rotting from within. His scorn flickered, indistinguishable from that of the old mentor.

Kinder, older hands found me. Her touch was gentle, as she put me back together. My knight watched, hand on his pommel, protecting me. The tower was safe.

Until the four eyed dragon came crashing into it with talons and wing and teeth, reaching to devour me, reclaim me, erase all that I was. The thunder cracked at the beckoning of the wizards clawed hand, but came down upon me as well, and I was thrown back towards the tower ledge.

Falling. Falling. Falling.

I woke with a terrified sob in the comfort of my nest, clinging to my own tail for comfort. It was where I had been sleeping for the last few nights. The only place where Tomeri wouldn't go.

The collar was still around my neck, of course. I had run out of energy to argue about that yesterday. But at least in my little nest space he wouldn't bother me. Wouldn't cross that line, for reasons I still did not understand considering the lines he would cross. I had spent a lot of time in it the last few days.

The soreness in my body had faded, but the double crescents of Tomeri's bite still felt oddly warm no matter what. It at least didn't hurt, despite clearly being a rather significant injury. Guess I had whatever the hell phytotoxin he had pumped into me to thank for that.

I was tempted to simply sleep another hour or three, until I remembered that I had to get up at a reasonable time today. Today was the first therapy appointment. Not for me, of course. Obviously I didn't need therapy, but the Doll I shared a head with certainly did, and Tomeri had arranged for us to see Dr. Micaline for mental health today.

I reluctantly left my nest, put my leg braces on, and opened the hallway closet, looking for a dress for the day. Ideally one that would cover the worst of the fading scratches and bruises over my belly and back. Covering the bite mark between my neck and shoulder was unfortunately not an option, as the closet had mysteriously stocked itself only with tops without meaningful shoulder coverings since that night.

I considered wearing black or purple to match the collar, take ownership of its presence on my body. It apparently wasn't going anywhere, so I would have to adapt to it one way or another. I eventually chose a shimmering blue companion dress with a matching hair band, with a cute lacy opening for my tail that neither complimented nor clashed with the collar. It felt fitting for how I felt about the thing being there in general.

I didn't like admitting to myself that the moment I'd changed out of my pajamas, I had felt a slight buzzy nervousness until I had put on a new outfit. The faint scent of Tomeri that all my clothing came pre-marked with was just familiar at this point. You don't have to like something to get used to it.

I could hear Tomeri talking from the kitchen as I walked down the hall, but it was in the melodic affini language. Must be another work call. It amused me that even the great Affini Compact was apparently unable to track down one evil scientist after this much effort. Some of my ideas early on about escaping had been patently absurd, but clearly it wasn't impossible to evade them indefinitely if you really wanted to.

I walked into the kitchen, passing directly through a projection of Jupiter's moons on my way to the compiler. I didn't recognize the voice of the other affini in the call, so I just tuned it out as I navigated the compiler menu, and designated both crepes and apple chutney. I smiled, remembering how the first time I had actually tried that particular combination was in that taste testing game during my first date with Quinn.

I breathed in deep through my nose, appreciating the tangy mix of sweet and spicy scents of my breakfast as the compiler materialized it. The moment was accented by Tomeri’s admittedly quite soothing vocalizing in a language I had figured out only a few words of, layered over my perception like a reassuring backdrop.

I felt a quiet yearning in my chest for not just Quinn, but something else too. Someone a bit closer. I clearly had feelings for two men at once, even though one was… complicated and dangerous. I wanted some version of what Tomeri might be. The real question was if he was willing to compromise, or if the sulking headmate in the back of my mind had let her unrealistic worship infect me too.

I hadn't gotten a peep from the Doll since the night with Quinn. It felt so long ago now. I was… concerned for that part of myself. Even though she was horribly misguided, and I thought considering her truly separate from me was dubious at best, I still cared about her. Even if she was the part of my brain where all the terrible intrusive thoughts about letting myself be trampled by other people's expectations came from. If not for the vague sense of resentment directed at me for being the one Tomeri had collared, I would worry she had vanished entirely.

I grabbed my food and headed up the ramp to my side of the table. As I did, I faintly heard both Tomeri and the mystery coworker say what I had come to recognize as a goodbye in whatever affini dialect Tomeri was speaking. He closed the communication right as I sat down with my food. I decided to just stay quiet and dip my crepes. They tasted even more delicious than they smelled.

We stared at each other awkwardly for a moment as I chewed. I broke the silence once I had swallowed. "Who was that on the call?"

I didn't particularly care about his work, but was desperately trying to make conversation about something, anything not related to our relationship. To try to forge an authentic connection on my terms.

Tomeri leaned back in his seat as he swept up the projectors for the various charts he had been going over during their call. “Oh, an old friend, Wistaria. The one whom I've been helping track down that nasty little group of ferals for the last few weeks. She had to rush back to her little Terran girlfriend, though, so we didn't have long to chat about anything else."

I frowned a bit in confusion. "Terran girlfriend? You mean... Her floret?"

Tomeri sighed. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. They already live together, but I don't think they even realize they're dating yet."

There was a slightly playful edge to his tone. Was he flirting with me, or just making a joke at his friend’s expense? It was hard to tell. He had been acting weird since I had told him I was unhappy with the way the collaring night had gone. I chewed my crepe in silence once more, and eventually, he got up and opened a high cabinet far above my reach, filled with glass bottles, deliberating for a moment before choosing one.

Tomeri opened the container he had pulled down, and the smell of the substance hit the air immediately, a heady acidic smell that would have sent the hairs on my arms on end if I still had any. “What is that? I've never seen you open that cabinet before.”

Tomeri dipped a vine into the jar, which split like a root system to maximize surface area as it drifted around the bluish, cloudy fluid within. “This is a mix made from a grain native to the Affini core worlds, fermented in a process which creates an inebriating chemical called durataxin. Many of my kind simply directly compile the chemical, but I prefer the old process. Perhaps analogous to beer, in human cultural terms. When I harvest the garden, I intend to experiment with making Terran variants!”

I opened my mouth for a moment, then paused anxiously. “Does that have… similar effects on you as alcohol would to a human?”

His eyes lit up excitedly. “It sure does, Jenny. Loss of coordination, impaired focus, pleasant giddiness. This particular compound primarily effects both Beeple and Affini, due to our original shared-”

I tuned out his rambling fast. I didn't care about his special interest in food technology, or anything he might say now really. I was focused on the abject terror of what a xeno strong enough to knock holes in the walls of his own house and who saw nothing wrong with drugging and collaring me without my informed consent would be like with impaired judgment.

“I… please don't drink around me.” I felt small and pathetic asking it, but any shreds of safety I might feel around him would be blown away if he was drunk. “Isn't it a little early in the day for that, anyway? It isn't even noon yet.”

He didn't change his expression, but I could smell the irritation shedding from his body in waves.

“It has been a particularly challenging week for us both. Forgive me for wanting to relax a little, Jennifer.”

Once, I had demanded he call me by my actual name, but now, every time he used it instead of ‘Jenny’ it felt like a slap to the face. “I just. I don't feel good about that. You possibly getting drunk near me. I'm sorry.” Memories of my ex knocking back shots of whiskey, and the ugly aftermath of her doing so, danced in the back of my mind.

Tomeri picked up the jar, tucked it inside his chest, and rose from the table with none of the excitement he had shown mere moments ago when gushing about fermentation and whatever a ‘Beeple’ was. “Very well. I will not consume recreational substances in your presence. I hope your therapy appointment today goes well. I assume you do not need my help getting there. I will be outside if there is an emergency.”

I wanted to call out for him to stop, but couldn't bring myself to even try to pierce the emotional wall he had just thrown up. I had gotten a tantalizing taste of what we could maybe have, but the moment was utterly shattered, and the last few bites of my food were a lot less enjoyable.

Tomeri was still out when it was time for me to leave for the therapy office, but rather than tending to the garden as I had expected, he was re-siding the section of wall he had knocked out of his own hab during our scene three nights ago. I awkwardly waved goodbye at him as I passed, rather than talking and having yet another argument.

He didn't wave back.

I sighed, and continued down the path with my tail swinging behind me a little more dejectedly than I would have liked to admit. For a domineering plant monster from outer space, he had been shockingly sensitive the last few days. How was this the same man who had thrown me against the wall during my poorly planned escape attempt on my very first night here?

I barely felt like I had been walking at all when the light around me suddenly felt brighter, and realized I had already made it out of the forested area. I still wasn't used to being able to walk this fast. The braces that wrapped around my knees and extended to below my heels were thin and sleek, but worked better than any mobility aid I had ever tried before, which tended to cause so much hassle I had given up on them entirely. The fact that the braces didn't allow any vibrations to travel into my joints was almost certainly a violation of Newtonian physics, but I hadn't seen much point in asking how they worked.

They also matched the apparently permanent neck accessory Tomeri had given me a few nights ago. Yet another thing for the ‘might have been genuinely into it had she f*cking asked first’ pile. It wasn't like him collaring me changed anything in practical matters, considering he legally owned me, but it did feel like a genuine chance for him and I to share something that could have been mutual had been trampled with hypnosis and drugs.

Maybe I was being oversensitive and refusing to adapt to the interpersonal expectations of a xeno. Or maybe it should have bothered me more. Maybe a lot of things should have bothered me more. The fragmented and incomplete memory of him hypnotically programming me before the game was f*cking terrifying. How are you supposed to handle that? Knowing that your entire personality can just be turned off and replaced with a goofy action movie hero at someone's whim.

As “Agent Mouse” I had seen clear cracks in the narrative, briefly recognized the absurdity of needing to bring a plastic prop to a flag, but not acknowledged it. I had even actively rationalized, talked myself out of paying attention to them. I had been a willing and active participant in my own deception, distracting myself from inconsistency that I could only see once I was fully removed from that headspace.

Could I trust my perceptions about anything? What if everything I had experienced since the very start had been planted in advance, holes willingly papered over by my own desperate need for security? Inconsistencies intentionally ignored?

Breathe. Breathe. I was hyperventilating. Focus on where I actually was. The simulated sun was shining, grassy paths stretched up towards the bent horizon before me. It was a beautiful day. There were lots of people around me hanging out, enjoying their day. Speaking of which-

I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of someone shouting my name. “Hey! Jenny! Over here!”

I turned my head, and saw someone in a flowing teal and white companion dress waving at me from a picnic table a bit off of the walking path. I recognized her bright pink bob of hair instantly. Reade, who I had met when Tomeri had taken us to the tracking station she was working from, and also happened to be our neighbor's girlfriend.

She pointed to an open seat at the table where she was sitting next to another woman. “Come sit with us, Jenny!”

I did have somewhere to be today, but I had completely forgotten to account for my new walking speed when I left the hab, so I had a decent bit of spare time before the appointment. No reason not to be social. I walked over to Reade and the stranger at the table, and gave a small little wave as I sat down. “Hi, Reade, and uh, who is this?”

Sitting next to Reade was what had to be the highest person I had ever seen in my entire life, and that included the handful of parties I'd bothered attending back at Tharsis University. She had a brown bob haircut, a metal collar styled like a necklace, and a vivid yellow polka dot dress on. There was a slightly pink line of drool on her chin, and she was staring blankly into space as she clung to a fluffy stuffed animal and rocked side to side with a vacant smile on her face.

Reade giggled, and gave her companion a gentle nudge on the shoulder. “Amelia, remember that cute doll girl I told you about the other day? This is her!”

Amelia blinked a few times, and after several seconds of what had to be a long journey back to material reality from whatever drug-induced plateau of being she had been on, noticed me looking at her. It was like watching the on switch in someone's brain fire on. She was suddenly present, eyes that had been utterly empty moments prior now sharply focused on me.

“Oh. Hi! Nice to meet you, Jenny.”

“Likewise. Nice necklace.”

“Thank you, my girlfriend gave it to me as an anniversary gift!”

Amelia seemed to squirm a little in her seat. Clearly there was more to it, but I was not inclined to pry.

Reade, on the other hand, leaned forward with a big grin. “And a nice collar yourself, by the way. I just realized you weren't wearing that last week at the tracking station. It's super cute, I love how the stripes match your owner!”

I gave her a smile that didn't reach my eyes. I didn't feel like explaining that I didn't really agree to the collar, and Reade did mean it as a genuine compliment so best not to overthink it. “Thanks. Uh, yeah, Tomeri gave it to me a few nights ago.”

Amelia giggled, and her gaze lingered on the marked skin of my shoulder where Tomeri's bite was forming scar tissue. “Looks like he gave you a bit more than just a collar… marks are super hot.”

Reade’s eyes widened. “Wait, a few nights ago? When he burst out of the wall of your hab and chased you around? That looked super fun, I heard the wrestling and knocking into trees by the creek from my boyfriend's bedroom window.”

I laughed a little in spite of myself. “Yeah. I had a paintball gun, and a Terran Super Knife, and was hypnotized to think it was all real… it was fun." The smile reached my eyes this time.

“Lucky!” Reade gasped. “I would totally do that with Nyris but he kinda prefers me limp, I'm not complaining though.”

My smile faded slightly as a moment of quiet settled between the three of us, and it suddenly occurred to me I had absolutely no idea what to talk about with other humans anymore that didn’t revolve around affini. “So. What did you do before the war? I was a jump navigator.”

Amelia perked up first. “Oh I was, um… something about publishing, I think?” The impression of a sharpened intellect I had gotten from her mere moments ago faded in her confusion as she suddenly forgot what she had been about to say. There was something a little unsettling about talking to someone who couldn't even remember a few years ago. Maybe it was a disability or one of those signs of age, but Amelia didn't look a day over thirty.

Reade laughed, and gave her companion an affectionate stroke of her hair. “She was a writer! I tried reading one of her books once but I couldn't make any sense of it, way too intellectually dense for me. Never much for philosophy, really.”

Amelia seemed surprised by this revelation. “Oh… I suppose so.”

Reade talked over Amelia's confusion. “And I was a freelance artist before the Affini arrived!”

“I… nice. I used to draw a bit too, back in the day.” I was just babbling to fill the air, my thoughts far away as I stared at my own reflection in Amelia’s glassy eyes. She still seemed genuinely surprised by the revelation she was a writer.

I thought back to the recordings Tomeri had given me, of my time before his adoption where I had been kept under a similar level of pharmacological dulling, and denied the ability to form memories to stop my apparently frequent escape attempts. My gut slowly twisted in dread as I recognized that same empty look I had seen on my own face on hers. Asking Amelia what she had done before the affini was pointless. What she did now was what mattered, and what she did was whatever drugs her owner gave her. Her brain was cooked. At least she looked happy.

Reade watched me pensively for a moment. “You know, Jenny. You're a lot less spacey than last time we hung out. Were you on class-As or something?”

I considered trying to explain that she had technically met Doll and not me, but explaining the distinction wasn't really how I wanted to spend my time. I also had no clue what a class-A was. “Yeah, I guess so. Different mood, I guess. Can I get your contact info? I think you know a lot about the compact that I don't. Talking might help.”

Reade grinned. “Of course! Give me your pad and I'll add both of us!”

As I handed her the device, Reade remembered something else. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Nyris and I saw you at the Jupiter jump ceremony the other day, but before I made my way over to you you got pulled away by that hot butch who always rides a motorcycle around town! You sneak off to have some fun?” Reade winked at me teasingly.

“Oh. Yes. Nora is my girlfriend, actually.”

I felt pangs of guilt at the fact that I hadn't seen her in person since the day of the jump event where we had asked her to be our girlfriend, considering everything that had happened that same night with Tomeri. I had still texted her regularly, but that wasn't exactly the same considering her limited responses. I had wanted to spend time with her, but it had been hard, given the whole… everything. Maybe I'd see her tonight.

Amelia’s coming in at a noticeable delay interrupted my guilt spiral. “Aw, that's sweet. I love my girlfriend Poppy so much…” Her mind seemed to drift off alongside her voice. After a moment of staring into the middle distance, she proceeded to flop over into Reade’s lap, and I caught a glimpse of Amelia's back, which was covered in what looked like… whipping marks.

I ran my fingers over the raised lines of still-healing cuts on my thigh through my dress. Was I getting a vision of my own future? A mind broken by her own repressed masoch*stic urges that could only focus when thinking about her owner?

Reade looked down at Amelia with a happy little smile. I felt like an asshole, but all I felt was horrified. I took my tablet back from the table where Reade had left it, and stood up to leave “Sorry, I… I have an appointment to go to today. It was nice seeing you again, Reade. Nice meeting you, Amelia.”

I stepped off the railbus in the center of ‘town’, and waited for the stop indicator on the pathway that went over the rails to drop before continuing on my way to Dr. Micaline’s office. The affini around me gave off a new air. I was no longer scared of them, really. It was quite clear that no affini I could bump into was scarier than Tomeri, and the vibe I got from them now that I was out and about in a collar was more protective than anything else.

I had smelled it on the affini seated near me on the railcar, and it was the same scent I had picked up on from Venix when holding Janet, which had felt like a sort of maternalistic adoration. There was no mistaking me for anything but a floret now to them. I bitterly wondered what might have been different had I ended up with one of the hundreds of other affini that lived on this ship. Perhaps things would have been different.

But then again, I had been under the ‘care’ of the Compact for over a year, and they had kept me so chemically pacified I didn't even remember anything between being captured on the Shrug of Atlas and meeting Tomeri for the first time. He clearly wanted more than that for me.

The door to the therapy office closed behind me, and I tried to ground myself to make the upcoming handoff to Doll easier. She of course probably wanted nothing more than for us to have our sentience ripped out by whatever means Tomeri saw fit, but whatever.

Dr. Micaline was in one of a pair of identical seats, and beckoned me to sit. The carpet, or perhaps the grass, of the office was pleasantly springy under my feet as I walked over to the empty chair. She extended a long limb out for me to use as a stepstool, and I thanked her before sitting down quietly with my tail tucked carefully behind me.

Dr. Micaline’s three eye clusters lit up in anticipation, and she retrieved a pad from the side table to take notes. “Shall we begin, dear?”

I took a deep breath, and let Doll take over.

Chapter 6: 21-

Chapter Text

I opened my eyes slowly, full awareness flooding into the corner of our mind. I had thrown myself to lie, broken and quiet, so I might be forgotten entirely. That was not to be my fate, of course. Presence was expected of me.

Dr. Micaline spoke, in her usual vowel-weighted, sing-song accent. “Hello there, cutie. Remember me?”

I slowly nodded, and observed Dr. Micaline silently. Her body was spotted and amorphous, with clumps of roots acting as dozens of tiny, flexible legs. Mouse’s evaluation of the strange xeno lingered in my subconscious, hardly trusting her, but relatively unafraid. It was unlikely we would be waking up with a second tail, after all.

After observing me for another few moments, Dr. Micaline noted something on the tablet that sat in a pile of tangled, webbed roots that might charitably be described as a lap.

“So, Jenny, ‘Doll’, as I have been informed is the name you have been given as a placeholder. Is there anything else I might call you?”

Silence.

After a moment, she provided her own answer. “Since you are not technically considered a floret, unlike your counterpart, perhaps your original last name would be a useful moniker for the moment?”

I carefully restrained showing displeasure at the suggestion. Another part of Master Tomeri’s claim ripped away from me. Being called exclusively by last name was not new. It has been the default way to be referred to in the Navy and by certain transphobic faculty at university before that. Neither were memories I wished to revisit.

I did not answer, but Dr. Micaline’s look was expectant. A response was required. My lips finally parted, and I spoke. “You may call me that if you wish. I would prefer you did not. Why is ‘Doll’ unacceptable?”

“Well, your guardian indicated that associations with being a doll were linked to you having self destructive impulses! Dont'cha think something a little bit more mundane might be helpful if you are here to move past that?”

Guardian. Not owner. Not a caretaker. My affect remained completely flat, unchanged by the knife stabbing through my heart as I replied.

“Are there not drugs you can give me to fix me? All I want is to be fixed. Master Tomeri promised he would fix me. I still believe he will. Why would I reject the title he gave me?”

Dr. Micaline gave me a little smile. “Well, if just drugging you would solve everything, I don't think you'd be here, now would you? We like to help you cuties become your best selves, and I don't think that route will lead to it! Besides, a name less specifically tied to Tomeri might be right what you need.”

“I see. Call me Osman as you suggested if you wish, then.”

She nodded. “So, dearie, it sounds like you've had an interesting time since I last saw you on my operating table!”

The tail she had given me at Master Tomeri's request lay entirely still behind me. A question formed, and I almost remained silent, but having begun to speak it was difficult to stop. “It surprises me that you are both a surgeon and a therapist.”

She let out a little giggle. “They're more related than you might think, cutie. For example, even if spending all that time in the lo-grav parts of the ship slowed progression,” she pointed at the braces around my legs with a spotted, rubbery vine- “you and your little head-companion managed to conceal quite a bit about your condition from your previous doctors! Nasty little pair of progressive diseases. Thank goodness Tomeri noticed them when he did.”

I stared at her in silence again. The joint-rot was simply normal to me. I had never known anything else. Dr. Micaline mimicked clearing a throat she almost certainly did not have.

“Why don't you tell me everything that has happened since then, cutie? I hear you are in a relationship with that handsome little cotyledon who visited you so much while you were recovering. Can you start with that? I can give you something to make it easier to talk if you need it.”

I sighed. “Thank you for your offer. Yes, Quinn and us went on a date shortly after the tail recovery, where I tried a class-W drug…”

I lost myself to the flow state of recall. There was a mechanical simplicity to it, to recounting the last week of time. Coming home from the date with Quinn to discover the implant growing, Mouse's subsequent meltdown. The blissful days of being Master Tomeri’s sole focus. The two of us choosing to submit to Master Tomeri together, and then of course, the most important day. The one of the jump event, where Quinn had become our boyfriend, and then that same night, Tomeri made himself Mouse’s Master with the claiming kiss that should have been mine.

I did not editorialize on how every one of the promises Tomeri had whispered into the trances he had brought me forward during was delayed by Mouse's tantrums, of course. Nor how clear it was to me that Master Tomeri no longer fully wanted either version of us. It was not my place to pass judgment. I explained the events factually and without bias, and for that I could at least feel a little swell of pride in a job well done.

“And how did all that make you feel?” asked Dr. Micaline.

I stared at her blankly, sitting as still as I could. “Nothing much,” I told her.

The affini doctor tilted her head to the side, which made her fungal-looking pigtails sway. “I have my doubts about that, cutie. It sounds like it was a very emotionally heavy week for you.”

I could think of nothing worth saying. I said nothing. I tried to ignore the feeling of Mouse's collar around my neck. It felt so right for one to be there, but it wasn't mine. I wanted to sob at the Injustice of it.

“I'm fine,” I said with a tiny smile.

She hummed at me, looking unconvinced. “How does your counterpart feel about all this, then?”

I almost rolled my eyes. “Mouse is angry that Master Tomeri gave her a collar while she was drugged. Among other pointless concerns.”

Dr. Micaline took note of that, and reviewed the notes she had taken.

“And there's nothing else you have to say about all that? Good, bad, no?”

In spite of myself, I blurted out a response. “I- Quinn makes me happy.” I smiled thinking of him.

“Yes, he is a real sweetie, and practically a celebrity! One of the first humans we encountered, and the only one of his batch to still be fully lucid. He visited you when you were recovering from getting the tail and I got the chance to meet him. Very lucky lady you are, by the sounds of it.”

“Yes…” my smile faltered. “But, Mouse is avoiding him, however. She is on some level scared that our feelings for Quinn were induced externally by Master Tomeri or Miss Venix.”

Dr. Micaline gave me a little smile. “Well, were your feelings induced by Tomeri or Venix?”

I shrugged at her. “I have no way of knowing. I do not see the concern even if we were ‘made’ to love him. Quinn makes us happy.”

Dr. Micaline giggled. “My floret says the same about me.” She cleared her false throat again after, and changed the subject.

“So, what about body dysmorphia? As I touched on before, Tomeri and I have been in touch about the progression of your collagen disorder and autoimmune condition since the tail surgery, and in the long run some degree of replacement will probably be the way to go. Do you have any particular preferences?”

I considered the question. In dreams, I had wooden limbs with ball joints, whose color matched at the seam with the skin of my organic body, but became darker around the hands. Gold leaf trim around the joints, as well… I would cry tears of joy to have them as a reality, but I knew who was in the driver's seat of this life, and who was the passenger.

“Mouse would be bothered by what I have in mind. Losing the scar on our arm would upset her.” I pointed at the jagged lines left by broken glass when our mother had caught us trying on makeup and a dress as a young teenager.

Dr. Micaline wrote something down in response as she replied. “Is there some special significance to that scar? You might be surprised what our prosthetics are capable of replicating, cutie. How did you get it?”

“An accident,” I answered. “The scar is only one of several concerns. Mouse just wouldn't like the same look I would.”

Her almond shaped face split into a wide smile. “Your attitude, Petal, seems to presume that only one set of desires can be met at once, and your tendency is to put yourself last, even with your own body. I do not believe this is exclusive to you, but that your counterpart frames this rejection as her taking control.”

That seemed like a fair assessment. Why would either of us assume things would go differently from how they always had gone? “Perhaps.”

Dr. Micaline put her tablet down on the side table, and gave me a wide smile. “Well. I think this has been a very informative first session. I want to see you again in three days, and get into what led you to end up in the Navy. Your school’s records are curiously sparse on your academic career. One final thing before I let you go, miss Osman.”

She seemed unusually hesitant to say what came next.

“It is my professional opinion, based on the degree of conflict you have described, that this may be an ideal case for an ownership change. Based on the events of the last few days and a few unusual extenuating circ*mstances in particular related to the split between yourself and your counterpart. If you were to petition for it I would be willing to endorse the decision, if you had an adequate replacement in mind. It isn't common, but can happen when there is a significant mismatch spotted before implantation occurs.”

I allowed my surprise to reach my eyebrows. “I was under the impression that these things were irreversible.”

“No, cutie. All rules can be bent in the name of xenosophont care if that is what is best. What matters most is you being happy, and the arrangement you have of being independent and a floret simultaneously grants a surprising degree of flexibility. It is so unusual as to possibly be entirely unique. It's a situation Tomeri made possible when he chose to register your status as pluribus the way he did.”

I read between the lines. I was beyond fixing. Master Tomeri had assumed I would be more reasonable when first choosing us, and had realized the parts of Mouse he was attracted to were not worth the effort of dealing with me. Understandable, really.

I had been stupid to believe his whispered promises of nurturing and healing made before he saw how damaged I truly was, and it would be selfish of me to hold him to them. No. Master Tomeri would be free of me and he would be better off for it. It was clear now why Master Tomeri had arranged for me to see Dr. Micaline. This entire appointment had been for this moment, a chance for someone else to break the news.

I gave a perfectly controlled smile, the inferno of pain not even reaching my heartbeat, which remained perfectly level. “Thank you, Dr. Micaline. I will keep that in mind. See you in three days.”

-----

As I stepped out of the office into the afternoon air, It felt like all color was missing from the world.

It had happened exactly as I knew it would, exactly as it had before. Arguing over drinking. Life truly rhymes. I would rather not participate in its song anymore.

Mouse had intended to perhaps see Sir Quinn tonight. I could not imagine his day would be improved by comforting me yet again. He deserved better. I would simply go back to Master Tomeri’s home and make peace with the fact that It would not be my home for much longer.

The thought of an ownership transfer circulated. It was a sick joke. There would be no other owner. Not for one as broken as I. An entire year of a finite lifespan was gone to being unadopted after our capture, and it would simply be permanent this time. Who could possibly want one who had failed her first owner so badly?

I would be thrown in the front of the ship again, where the low gravity would hide the rot in my bones once more, and be drugged until memory formation was impossible. Perhaps Sir Quinn would visit me a few times before losing interest.

As I sat down at the railbus stop, The collar of a soon to be broken promise felt like razor wire on my skin. I wondered if attempting to hang myself by it would force it to open and release me from being reminded of what I could have had. It would free me one way or the other, I thought grimly.

I watched one of the trains whiz by at high speed mere meters away, the buffer of air it displaced blowing a stray braid of hair out of my face as it passed. A thought of throwing myself into the oncoming train intruded upon my mind. I rationalized away with physics. Even if the train tried to stop, a sufficient braking force at that speed would be lethal to human passengers if it stopped over less than about fifteen meters. Whatever program controlled those trains wouldn't kill everyone on board to save one person it was about to hit…

A frighteningly morbid thought. But it was not wrong. They wouldn't design a system that came to a stop so fast that the deacceleration would injure its human passengers.

No, the solution was far simpler. It was not possible to walk forward while the train was oncoming, when the hologram to stay back appeared and the faintest ringing could be heard in my ear. A gentle, but irresistible psychic pressure to stay back that compelled the legs into simply not advancing.

I was dragged from my thoughts by another wave of displaced air. The traincar line behind me that ran counterspin to the hab ring came to a stop, and as the doors opened, I suddenly heard a familiar voice. One last heard in nightmares. Ganymedian accent, fast-talking and punchy.

I twisted in my seat in shock. Then I saw her. Wavy brown hair, tall stature, distinctly sharp nose. Every hair on my tail stood on end as all doubt escaped my body. It was her.

Elizabeth Harper. My former professor. My former faculty advisor. Former head of the research team I had worked on.

Liz. My former girlfriend.

The last woman to promise me everything, say I was special and unique and not like the others, to choose me from among the crowd when no one else would. The last to move on once she understood how broken I truly was. The reason I had dropped out from Tharsis University, fled to the Navy.

Her gaze passed over me without recognition. I watched her cross the platform, watched as her arm curled around the waist of the woman walking next to her, watched the glinting shine of the new silvery gold ring on her finger. My eyes glazed over as she vanished into the crowd.

A cosmic coincidence of us crossing paths once more had just occurred, and she hadn’t even noticed me. Of course, I was glad she was happy and moved on. Her ex-wife had been awful, good for Liz that she remarried. She had promised me it would be me of course, but it would be silly to still care about that. I tried to smile, to make what I was supposed to feel when I saw my ex I had split with amicably manifest. I was happy for her. Glad. This was good.

My heart was pounding in my chest, the world gone gray to the point I could not tell the grass from the sky but for placement. My perfectly maintained disconnect from my body was faltering. I could feel the agony of every joint, the deep scars of betrayal and failure carved into me. I tightened my hands into fists until something wet and warm pooled against my fingertips.

The joints of a doll creaked and fought back as anger rose through every bit of the rotted wood she had been carved from. As my emotions and pain finally showed on my physiology, the collar beeped at me. Three times. A gentle slap to the face from those in power, a reminder that I was not allowed to feel.

Something snapped in me.

I waited until the blowing air and raised holographic barrier betrayed an oncoming train, and walked up to the invisible force that compelled my body to stop walking.

I could not command my legs to step forward, but I could momentarily twitch the muscles that my leg braces monitored. A single lurching step through the barrier confirmed my hypothesis. I grinned darkly, as it sank in that I had outsmarted them. The collar began beeping continuously. I ignored it.

Master Tomeri had said it would be Mouse who bested him in their games. How ironic, that where Mouse’s escape attempts had failed, there was such an easy path she had not tread even when she still sought to. An obvious path to take back control, to escape the cruel maze entirely. I would not be abandoned, not replaced, not again.

One final thought, a desperate scream from the companion in my head trapped behind the iron bars of my determination almost changed our mind, before my legs moved at the calculated moment. Almost, but not quite enough.

Quinn.

I leapt forward. The collar attempted to stop me with an injection, but the sudden immobilization that followed did not halt my inertial momentum.

There was a melodic yell in an alien voice, the flash of green and purple leaves, a crash, bending metal, shattering glass, and searing agony.

I numbly watched the blur of vines that had jumped between me, slowed my acceleration by taking the force itself, Pulled me back so fast that the hurtling train had only clipped me. Wrapped around me to catch me as we rolled. Vision swam and choked. There was red, and the soaked tatters of my dress floating in the breeze.

Couldn't feel my tail. Couldn't feel my legs. Couldn't feel my arms. Things that should have hurt didn't. They felt missing. A familiar earthy smell.

A mountainous, shredded wreckage of broken phytotech loomed over me. His biopedal form had utterly shattered by having absorbed the brunt of the impact. Two familiar catlike antennae bent at odd angles around four cracked eyes, mounted on a head that snapped entirely from a wooden spine and fell to the ground next to me.

He was unsteady, and every motion brought with it the sound of another of his wooden skeletal supports splintering. His core was exposed, visibly ruptured and leaking pitch black ichor, but still he tended to me before tending to himself. The last of his energy directed and expended, a series of needle jabs found their way to my chest. The injections circulated, and everything started to dull. It was all so far away. Shouting voices. Screams, orders to stay calm.

He collapsed into a protective heap around me, core shedding all but the innermost layers of manipulators which shivered as he clung to me. So far away. The last thing to go before it all faded to white was the waves of his sorrow and regret radiating into me.