Chapter 5 Elanie
Dodging a gaggle of one-legged Vorpols hopping down the hallway, I made my way toward the med bay for my appointment with Dr. Semson. Rounding the corner toward his office, I slowed, then stopped, then grumbled.
What were Freddie and Sunny doing outside his office? And why were they openly groping each other in the hall? In the middle of the day?
For a moment, I considered canceling my appointment and going back to work so I could avoid the public display of their perfect relationship.
After my disastrous date with Blake last night, watching Sunny and Freddie together, so in love they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, made my jaw clench and my stomach twist into a tight, envious knot.
Deciding my appointment was more important than my annoyance, I commed Sunny. I rolled my eyes when she leaped away from him like he’d poked her with a kurot prod.
I was half a breath away from suggesting they leave the PDA in their pod when I noticed the tears streaming down Sunny’s cheeks.
One more thing about non-bionics that didn’t compute.
How could someone be so sad that they cried, yet still sexually aroused enough to want to make out in a public hallway?
Not knowing how to respond to this Sunny-crying-while-kissing situation, I decided to treat it the same way I treated most things about non-bionics that confounded me, by ignoring it completely. But when I tried to edge past them, Sunny’s arm snapped out, snatching my elbow and holding me back.
“Wait a moment, darling.” She wiped her eyes. “Are you on your way to see Sem again?”
With a fastidious scowl, communicating as efficiently as possible that I did not want to talk about it, I answered, “Yes.”
Freddie’s arm was still wrapped around her waist, his gray-blue eyes round and glassy while he stared at her like she’d hung the moons. Like he loved her more than anything or anyone else in the entire Known Universe. Like she was his everything.
What was their secret? What did they have that Blake and I didn’t? What variable in the romance equation had I been failing to solve for?
“What are you doing in the med bay?” I asked, shifting my gaze between them, remembering Sunny’s slightly green face yesterday after our morning meeting, her tears today.
Was something wrong with her? Non-bionics were so prone to illness and injury.
So fragile. So easily hurt. I didn’t like it at all. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” she said, but my internal lie detection program rated her response as a six: moderate probability of deception.
While I narrowed my eyes at her, Freddie said, “I just needed to pick up some supplies from Sem.” With his wavering eye contact and the way he ran his hand through his hair, he scored a seven.
Why were they lying? What supplies would the languages and customs expert need to “pick up” from the ship’s physician?
Before I could ask, Freddie’s lips curved upward as he leaned in close to place a kiss on Sunny’s neck.
My eye twitched. That kiss. It was so soft, so tender that heat rose into my cheeks and a shiver cascaded over my neck and down my arms. While I rubbed my agitated arm hairs back down, I realized that Blake never looked at me the way Freddie was looking at Sunny.
Blake never kissed my neck softly or tenderly.
He never did a single thing to me that resulted in my need to flatten my arm hairs back down.
“Will we see you at the party tonight?” Freddie asked.
I’d almost forgotten about the staff party.
I’d also forgotten to ask Blake if he wanted to be my date.
I knew I should invite him, but I thought I’d have a better time without him.
And even though I was the least adept being in the entire Known Universe when it came to romance, I was fairly certain this wasn’t a good thought to have about the person I was supposed to be falling in love with.
“I’ll be there,” I replied, absent enthusiasm.
Sunny kissed my cheek, and while I watched them walk arm in arm down the hallway, happy, close, visibly in love, an ache bloomed beneath my ribs.
Whatever Sunny and Freddie had, the thing that made them so perfect together, the thing that had made me want to upgrade in the first place, Blake and I definitely didn’t.
“I’m broken.” I stormed past Dr. Semson into his office. “We tried it, and it didn’t work.” Tears stung my eyes until I slammed them shut, refusing to cry while I took his outstretched hand and climbed back up onto his table.
“Okay,” he said slowly, turning around to slide his door closed behind me. “What didn’t work?”
“Sex,” I practically shouted, overwhelmed by a flood of relief to finally be able to talk about it. “I can’t do sex. Blake and I tried last night, and it was a disaster.”
“You tried to have sex? Last night?” He blinked, his expression frozen in confusion, like I’d just tossed him a live flash-grenade and he was trying to figure out what to do with it before it blew. “Wha—How—Why?” he finally asked, his voice pitching up an octave.
“What do you mean ‘why?’” I snapped. “Because that’s what couples do.
They have sex. I know this is true. Couples have sex,” I restated firmly.
Sunny and Freddie had sex all the time. Blake wanted to have sex all the time.
That was just the way it was. And yet the second it was my turn to have sex, I had a complete systems failure.
“Wait, wait, wait. Let’s back up a minute.” He shook his head as he searched along his counter for the same antiquated pen and pad of paper he’d clung to during our last visit. “Let’s just back up all the minutes.”
“You know you can just use the notes app in your VC—”
“Yes, I know that,” he said, sounding flustered.
“I like taking notes by hand. It helps me think.” Clutching his pen and paper to his chest, right over his crisp, white, well-fitting button-down, he took a breath, met my stare, and said, “I’m not going to lie, Elanie.
You caught me off guard a little. But I’m—”
“How?” I asked. “You knew I was coming. I arrived precisely on time.”
A muscle along his jaw flickered in a way I found strangely captivating. Watching him, I waited for it to happen again, thinking that it might be a good idea to record it and store it in my memory banks so I could watch it later.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, and when that muscle in his jaw flickered a second time, my pulse flickered right along with it.
“I knew you were coming. I just wasn’t expecting you to tell me you and Blake tried to have sex already.
I thought the plan was to slow down and learn more about each other before being intimate again. ”
I shrugged. “I tried that. It didn’t work.”
“It didn’t work?” His silver brows huddled together.
“Yes. I tried talking to him. I tried telling him what I liked. I even tried showing him how to touch me the way you touched me—”
He cut me off with a sudden, barking cough.
“Do you need water?” I asked when he wouldn’t stop, wondering if I’d have to get up and smack him on his back.
“I’m fine,” he spluttered, still coughing, his face turning bright purple. Motioning for me to continue, he said, “I’m okay. Go on.”
“Like I said, I tried. Because when you touched me, it felt nice. But when Blake tried to touch me the same exact way, it didn’t feel like anything.
Like someone had muted my sensory feedback.
When I told Blake as much, he suggested we just try having sex instead.
I thought maybe that would finally make me feel something, so I agreed. ”
Dr. Semson’s voice was softer now. Probably because of the coughing. “And did it?”
I found this next admission surprisingly difficult. But if I couldn’t tell my doctor about this sort of thing, then who could I tell? Forcing the words out of my mouth, I said, “It hurt.”
He set down his paper and his pen. Then he walked to me, close enough that my thermal sensors detected the heat radiating from his body.
“It’s not at all uncommon for a being’s first sexual encounter to be uncomfortable, even painful.
Depending on species, genitalia, and specific sexual customs, it can take time before a being’s body adjusts to their partner. ”
“But that’s just it. My body didn’t even try to adjust to him. He just couldn’t. It…wouldn’t go in.” Humiliation blazed through me, but when I closed my eyes, a warm hand wrapped gently around my wrist.
“Elanie, are you sure you’re comfortable talking about this with me? I can set you up with virtual visits with a female doctor. A non-Portisan. Whatever you’d like.”
I grasped his hand when he tried to pull it away, like it was my lifeline, my power source. “I don’t want another doctor. I just want answers.”
When I let him go, he backed away again. “I understand,” he said, grasping the counter behind him and holding on tight. “Our bodies are designed to fit together, depending on the species,” he amended. “But we all still need to be ready for sex for it to be enjoyable.”
Leaning forward, listening intently, I asked, “Ready how?”
“Again, it varies based on the species and the partners involved. But for penis and vagina sex, a penis needs to be erect, or hard.” That little muscle in his jaw flickered again. I recorded it this time. “And a vagina needs…”
“What?” I wanted to grab him by his shoulders and shake the words out of him. “What does it need?”
Biting his cheek, he said, “Okay, you told me that Blake’s touch didn’t make you feel anything, right?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“But you felt something after—” He cleared his throat. “After I touched you.”
The skin at the base of my neck drew tight, my sensory fibers tingling at the memory of Dr. Semson’s hands on my body, his fingertips grazing over my nipple. “Yes.” I hadn’t meant to whisper it, but that was how the word came out.
“Do you remember how it felt between your legs?” We were both whispering now.