It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Chapter Length: 5,600~ wordsAn Ill-Fitting Form
It was pretty amazing, the way her mind processed things. When Raqi had threatened to drop Punica into space, she had been completely resolute. Her heart had been beating quickly, but more with anger than fear. The fury and the viciousness she had felt towards the plant in that moment, when she had dared to imply that the affini knew better than Raqi herself what to do with her people had felt like it could have served to manufacture ten thousand knives from the Chimera module with which to slice her apart inch by inch. Then that had all just ceased to exist instantly. The moment she had been injected with the faux-class-E, all of her anger and frustration had vanished in an instant; replaced with a sense of serene and total calm where it felt impossible to be bothered about anything in particular. In her mind prior to being injected with one, Raqi had thought that class-E's mostly just served to calm sophonts down. But whether it was because what she had been given was not an actual class E, or simply because the descriptions she'd heard about them had been inaccurate, the effect it had produced in her was more akin to the obliteration of all negative emotions. Whether that meant all of her anger just came from anxiety or what, she didn't know; but it was still terrifying. Or, rather, it should have been terrifying, but as Raqi stared through Punica, all she could think about was how it was actually pretty damn hot and there were an awful lot of things you could do with a chemical like that. This, in and of itself, made for an interesting topic of observation: it was intriguing the way her mind could simultaneously hate, and be absolutely intoxicated with a concept. Normally, this cognitive dissonance was enough to wear away at the edges of her mind until she was little more than a dissociative mess. Whether caused by this particular phenomenon or one of many others, being very heavily dissociated was what she considered to be her default state of existence. She suspected this had a lot to do with why Punica seemed to be able to more or less disengage her cognitive faculties just by looking or speaking to her in a particular way; dissociation tended to substantially increase suggestibility from her limited experience, and the affini were already psychohazardous enough to sober people. Right now, though, she was noticing an interesting lack of the usual infighting between the two halves of her brain. The part that should have been screaming at her for finding the present situation arousing was deathly silent for reasons unknown to her. Instead, her brain seemed to be entirely preoccupied by redefining her perceived boundaries with Punica in light of the recent change in their relationship (which she could now absolutely no longer deny was, in fact, a relationship.) She was very pleased that an agreement had been reached between the two of them which would allow Punica to tease her without putting her at risk of losing her autonomy completely (well, at an unacceptable amount of risk, anyway-) and she was eager to see if there was now enough wiggle room within it for her to maaaybe be a littttle bit vulnerable around the plant lady and get away with it. She turned her attention back to the vine that was still wrapped snugly around the palm of her hand. She gave it an experimental squeeze, curious to see how it would react. The results were interesting: it produced a sort of indescribable tactile sensation that felt distinctly like an acknowledgement. She squeezed it harder, and the sensation intensified. She tried squeezing it as hard as she absolutely could, and she promptly realised that there was no possibility that her hand was going to be able to damage this thing. It was kind of like a stress ball, in that regard, and she found that her fingers gleefully took to stimming with it even when she wasn't using it for its intended purpose. Satisfied with the results of her test, she turned her attention back to Punica and queried her: "Right. So, uh; where were we?" "If possible, I was hoping we could cover the majority of discussion topics that have continued to elude me today," Punica replied, voice as pleasant as ever to listen to. "The first matter we have to attend to, however, is that of your medication. Seeing as you have already proven yourself unwilling to do so yourself, I will take the task of applying your existing ointment myself." Raqi had exactly enough time to raise one 'Huh?' of objection before vines wrapped around her arms and her legs, stringing her up like a rag doll. "Wait, wait, wait!" She exclaimed, voice immediately rising in pitch. "I- I was joking about wanting to eat it earlier! I can apply it just fine myself!" Punica, however, paid her no heed. She watched as the plant flipped the lid off of the medicine-gourd, and a particularly dexterous vine curled in and extracted a large glob of the substance. Once it had done so, it snaked down towards Raqi's stomach, moving down to the hem of her poncho and beginning to head underneath it- Raqi squeezed with every ounce of force on the vine that was still in her hand, terror filling her eyes. In an instant, the tendril that had been about to slide up under her shirt stopped. A moment later, she was lowered back to the ground, and the vines that had been gripping her released her. Punica quickly knelt down in front of the near-hyperventilating landamaeri, expression filled with concern. "Raqi, dear. Is everything alright? Are you well?" Raqi shook her head violently, flinching away from the plant. "N-No touching. No touching on bare skin, p-please. Th- Through clothes is fine, but not on bare skin. Can't cope with that." The affini's eyes widened slightly. "Ah, I'm sorry; I did not realise that you were uncomfortable with physical touch. I presumed, on account of how you seemed fine having your head touched, that that also applied to other areas of your body as well." The sophont shook her head once again. "Head is different. People touch me there lots, and it's... it's different. Doesn't feel so bad. A-anywhere else, though..." She shivered, and not in the good way. "Alright, I understand. Thank you very much for explaining that to me, Raqi. Would it be okay for me to pat your head now to comfort you?" Raqi stilled for a moment, and then nodded. A moment later, a vine reached out and began to brush through her hair in slow, light strokes. Immediately, the panic attack she had been on the verge of began dissipating, as warm fuzzy tingling spread all throughout Raqi's head and upper body. "Mm, ahh..." Her eyes fell lidded for a moment, and her head seemed to sway softly in time with the vine's touches. Then, a few blinks later, she seemed to try and pull herself together; turning to look at Punica with an expression of guilt. "S-sorry about that. I- I got a bit freaked out there." "You have absolutely nothing to apologize for," Punica replied in a firm tone of voice, increasing the strength of her strokes for emphasis. "Your reaction caused me no harm; the severity of it merely startled me a little." She smiled warmly, the sight kindling a gentle heat in Raqi's core. "If you prefer not to be touched underneath your clothes, then I will do my best to abide by that." She nodded towards one of Raqi's hands. "You have not seemed to react negatively to my touching your hands up until now. Is this another area which you are okay with contact in?" The xenosophont nodded. "Yeah, hands are okay. I'm used to touching stuff with them pretty much all the time; and they're the one place other than my head that I have to touch people. So it's... mostly fine, usually. Depends who it is." She hesitated for a moment, then added: "You're definitely fine though." She was rewarded by the sensation of a vine placing itself back in the palm of her hand. The dexterous appendage squeezed reassuringly against her in much the same way another landamaeri's hand would have, and she saw Punica's smile widening. "I am very glad to hear that, then." The affini stood back up. "I do have one slight concern about this, however. I had in mind to give you a proper medical examination today: doing so would prove extremely useful in my endeavour to synthesize more complex chemicals for you. As part of that, I would need to see you unclothed; and I would likely have to touch you at least a minimum of times." "No," Raqi blurted out immediately, the sense of panic immediately starting to rise within her again. "No, please. Can't cope with that. Can't cope with that at all. Please no." The tendril wrapped around her hand shifted slightly as part of its length wrapped around Raqi's lower arm, squeezing more firmly in order to comfort her. "I very much understand your reluctance, particularly on account of what we just went through." Once again, the affini's voice was entirely sympathetic; with no hint of judgement and, more unusually, none of the regular subtly patronising language. "It is very important that I do this, however. The feather sample that I took from you the other day was a good start, but if I am to synthesize more complex chemicals, I need a more in-depth picture of your body; including doing a basic physiological survey and taking some blood samples. If I do not do this, I will not be able to make the additional medicines that you require." Her voice took on an inquisitive turn. "If it would help, I could give you a small dose of the prototype class-E again? That way you would not have to worry about any of this, and I could quickly get the examination out of the way and then give you an antidote." "No," Raqi said immediately. "No, thank you. I- I'll be okay." She took in a deep breath. "I'm a big girl; I don't need to take drugs just so that I can bear being seen naked." This was an absolutely barefaced lie, but she hoped Punica wasn't going to call her on it right now. "Just give me a second. I'll- I'll warm up to the idea." She felt assent coming from Punica. Even though she hadn't seen her do anything, or heard her speak, the emotion was somehow transmitted to her through the vine in her right hand. She didn't know how she knew it was that, she just did somehow. Tactile stuff, she supposed? It was sometimes kind of like this with cats, too. You could just sort of tell if they liked being touched in a certain way based on the feel of their skin when you touched it. It was the same deal here, by the looks of it. She took a deep, steadying breath; closing her eyes for a moment, before breathing out and opening them. "It's two things. The first is: You can touch me, just, please no stroking or anything. Pressure is fine; just being touched once only activates the nerves once, if you don't move whatever it is around. The only thing I feel after that is pressure and texture." Pressure was fine. Texture was sometimes fine. Punica's textures were pretty much all fine; some were better than fine. Punica's pressure and textures combined were generally fine. Holy fuck I hate this so much. She took yet another deep breath. "The second thing is... I really really don't want to be seen naked." She turned a pleading glance up towards Punica. "I- I don't like my body. I don't want anyone else to see it. Is- Is there any way you can do this without-" Before she had even finished her sentence, she felt herself suffused with a powerful feeling of sympathy that stopped her from speaking. She knew, suddenly, that there was no need to say anything more. "Raqi..." Before she had a chance to question what was happening, Punica began speaking. The exact same emotion was reflected in her voice, and it seemed to wash over her in a wave, drawing her focus away from her own anxiety and turning it towards Punica. "I understand how difficult this is for you. Truly, I do. I have met sophonts who have experienced body dysphoria in the past; I have seen how it affected them, and the misery it burdened them with before we were able to alleviate it." She stared at Raqi with a look of genuine compassion, and in that moment, Raqi felt as if she were falling into Punica's eyes bodily. "I do not yet know you well enough to be certain what parts of your appearance upset you, or the reasons for which they do so. As such, I cannot venture any kind of reassurance. But what I can say is this: I would never, ever judge or think less of a sophont based on their physical appearance. Neither would I judge their form itself: for few are the species in the galaxy blessed with the ability to choose their own form. That we affini can is one of the greatest privileges bestowed upon us by our vessels... and it is among those I would most wish to be able to share with other races." A long, leafy finger reached out to softly brush Raqi's cheek. "That you can not look the way you wish to is not a failing on your behalf, petal. It is a tragedy." Tears rolled down the edges of Raqi's face. Her heart felt like it was breaking. Whatever Punica was doing to her, it was at risk of destroying her completely; and she wanted it to. In that moment, she hoped with a desperation the likes of which she had never felt before in her life; longing with everything that she had for her plant to push just a little bit harder, and to shatter every last defence which she had put up to protect against her. She came so very close to mouthing the word: 'please.' But as the thought made its way to the very edge of her mind, something caught. Like the cognitive equivalent of the hem of a shirt catching upon a doorhandle, something snagged, and Raqi hesitated. And one moment of hesitation was all it took for her to step back and turn her face away from Punica, reaching up and wiping the tears from her face. "T-thanks," she muttered. "I... okay. I- I believe you." She was silent for a few more moments as she tried to collect herself and get her breathing under control. "I... I have a request, though. Could you please blindfold me, th- the same way you did earlier? I've done this before a few times- when I was really really anxious- I blindfolded myself, and it made it less scary because I couldn't see the other person's face and that meant I didn't know if they were judging me." Punica nodded immediately. "I can absolutely do that, if it will make this easier for you. I may need to take the blindfold off at certain times in order to perform an eye examination, but I can make sure that the rest of you is suitably clothed when the time for that comes. Would that be acceptable?" She nodded. "Yeah, that's fine." "Very well then. Would you like me to help you undress, or do you wish to take care of it yourself?" Raqi demurred. Both of these options were bad for their own reasons, but one of them probably involved being touched by a lot more things that were not going to be entirely stationary and only applying pressure than the other did. "I'll do it myself," she answered quickly enough. "...Can you at least turn around while I do?" Punica nodded. Raqi was very grateful that she didn't laugh. It occurred to her that she didn't actually know whether the plant could see behind her, but she was just going to have to believe she couldn't. Once Punica had withdrawn her vines and turned away, Raqi did the same herself; turning to face the opposite ship wall, so that she did not have to see the affini while she was doing this. The moment a hand began to move down to her trousers, she felt a lurch in her stomach. This was wrong. She should not be doing this. Raqi detested having to strip at medical appointments, but she'd been forced to get used to it. Part of her coping strategy for that had been to dehumanize the medical personnel she'd done it in front of; telling herself that they were probably ch'ikan and so didn't really count as people anyway, and therefore she only had to feel like she was undressing in front of an animal. That was impossible here, however. Trying to dehumanize Punica would have been laughable; the plant had already done that to her once today when she'd told her that the smartest members of her species were children compared to even young affini. She gave up on removing her trousers and decided to start with her shirt instead. In the last couple of years, she had come to feel at least marginally proud of her upper body's proportions. Her body had relatively well rounded hips, and a large-ish thigh gap that, while not her personal preference (she would have preferred it to be filled in), she knew some people liked, and so that made her feel a bit more okay with it. Her stomach was... alright. It grew slightly more hair than she was comfortable with (the threshold for which was 'any at all'), specifically in the area just below her navel. She realised with momentary horror that she hadn't thought to shave it: she hadn't exactly anticipated having to be naked around Punica. While her stomach was unpleasant, there were other parts of her form that she was so terrified of being seen with hair growing on that she kept them shaved at all times, regardless of whether or not she actually expected anyone to see them. She did this because she knew that if she was to somehow be seen like that, it would probably leave her with a lingering trauma that she might well never get over, and the thought frightened her enough that she was willing to put in the effort expenditure just to not have to worry about it. Right now, she was immensely glad for having always given in to that compulsion. She lifted her poncho off over her head and let it fall down onto the ground, her eyes instinctively turning down to inspect her torso once she had done so. Her chest was perhaps the only part of her body she could say she was entirely happy with. She had very small breasts by her species standards; with her bust size being somewhere around the Terran conception of an A-cup (which was information she hoped no one ever asked her how she knew.) They were just large enough to provide a slight silhouette if she wore tightly fitting clothing, which helped her to look more identifiably feminine in certain outfits. She knew from disappointing experience that they were not quite large enough to properly squish; but this was something she had long since made peace with. It was worth it in her opinion, because she already had chronic back pain and larger breasts would not have been worth exacerbating that. The most important part, though, was the delightful lack of any and all hair from her ribcage and up. She had won the genetics lottery and managed never to grow any chest hair even before transitioning, and what little wisps had just barely begun appearing when she'd started HRT had died off and ceased growing in the following years. Last but not least, she also thought her nipples were fairly cute; they were small, round, and button-like, and with fairly small areolae as opposed to the much larger ones she had seen on some women post-transition. Large enough as to be identifiably female, but also not so large as to look odd or unfitting against the rest of her frame. Looking a bit further up, her torso also featured a relatively prominent collarbone. She appreciated this on account of the fact that many of the women she found attractive had prominent collarbones, and baseline transfem logic said that looking like the people you wanted to fuck was ideal. The satisfaction was short lived, however, as her chest inevitably lead up to her shoulders: which, though not 'brick shithouse' tier, were broader than she would have liked. She really, really wished they were more slender; trying to find clothes in her style that would accommodate her 47cm shoulders was an abject nightmare. Her neck was also a source of frustration: she didn't grow very much hair there any more, on account of something like two dozen sessions of laser therapy to remove most of it, but she sucked at remembering to shave every single day and so there were often small patches of upsettingly long hairs there. Even when she did remember, her stupid razor often missed a couple, and that made her very twitchy whenever she saw it had happened. Last but not least was the area above her neck. The part of her body she had paid by far the most care and attention to: on account of how it was the one every person she interacted with in-person would have their eyes focused on at all times. Her skin was, by landamaeri standards, pretty much immaculate. Not quite 'rich corporate shithead with a million credits to spend a year on cosmetics' standards, but the closest you could get as a kind-of-not-really-middle-class citizen. There were a series of tiny, needle-sized scars that only she knew how to pinpoint where she'd used a surgical needle on her face to scrape out those stupid white cysts that sometimes popped up under her skin. She absolutely hated how the growths made her look, and so she considered the small marks created by their removal a worthwhile price to pay to stop them from pulling peoples' gaze away from her eyes. There was one scar in particular, under her left eye, that was slightly longer than the others: a memory of when she had only just begun experimenting with doing the process herself, and she'd made an incision that was both too long and too deep. No one else would be able to tell it apart from the natural deviations that made up the surface of her skin, but she knew how it had gotten there. She liked looking at it. Her face felt like a project: it was something she'd actively worked on, and for that reason, she was relatively proud of it. It was perhaps the only part of her body where she felt like she actually got to have some agency, and where she could work to meaningfully improve it. While bone structure was still a limiting factor - her FUCKING nose, for example; which ruined any possibility she would ever be able to pass in a portrait shot - it was amazing just what hormones, a good facial care routine, and really obnoxiously long hair could do for her. And of course, who could forget: Her hair. Her piece of shit hair. Even as she was lifting her poncho up and over it, she felt her long feathers getting tangled up and pushed apart; the sensation triggering tingles of irritation and a compulsion to fix it. She hated her hair. She also loved it. In a manner of speaking, she was her hair: it was by far her most distinguishing characteristic, and the one that - as far as she was concerned - defined her visual identity. The one and only surgery that Raqi had ever been able to pay for had been to get this hair. When she'd been born, she had boring brown feathers; the same as something like 60% of the landamaeri population. When she'd gotten older and had managed to claim benefits (a miracle that shaved several years off of her life through the rigours of the application process), she had saved up money until she'd been able to afford the genetic rewriting process that would cause her to begin growing long, vibrant peacock feathers. Long hair was a sign of immense prestige among the Fleet's social elite: caring for feathers was not easy, and the ability to have long ones in the first place was something you could only do with genetic engineering. Otherwise, their natural feathers had a length limit of about a foot or so. She had worked so unbelievably hard to maintain those feathers. They were so delicate: in the first years after she'd had the rewriting and begun growing her hair out, she'd had to learn to feel her ponytail as if it was an extension of her actual self. If she got it caught in anything, one of her feathers always got yanked out. And then she had to deal with one that wasn't as long as all of the rest; which was absolutely infuriating. Cleaning them was also a process directly from hell itself: her scalp didn't produce quite enough natural oils to reach all the way to the end of them, and so she had to oil parts of them herself. She had to clean them, straighten the individual strands out, make sure they were all in the right direction and none got tangled or bent, avoid stressing or putting pressure on the spines- it was awful. On a good day, washing her hair took half an hour. On a bad day, it took three times that. Managing an aesthetic like this was one thing if you were able-bodied, but with her disabilities? The agony that standing up for an hour and a half in the shower put on her body would usually leave her chair-ridden for the rest of the day. This often meant that functionally, she spent one day a week immobilised and only able to do work at her desk; with any physical duties like cleaning or tidying off the table. There had been numerous times when the pain and frustration had gotten so intense that she had considered giving up, and just cutting her feathers to be somewhat shorter; but she had persevered for nearly two entire years now, and her hair had almost reached what she thought was probably its maximum length. It was a miserable thing to have to live through, but she was fiercely proud of having done and continuing to do so. Looking beautiful was the price of admission for people like her to be accepted as 'real' women: and it was a price she had fought and bled to be able to pay. Yes; overall, she was relatively happy with her body from the hips and up. If that was the only portion of her corporeal form that existed, it might have been sufficient for her to be okay with her form overall. But reality was rarely that kind; and so it was that she continued to exist below her waist. The first thing one noticed about her legs were the thin, pale pink stretch marks that ran down her upper thighs like the roots of a tree; pointing almost directly to her genital area. There, of course, was the seat of most trans individuals' disgust with themselves. In her case, it was more a sort of odd apathy. The thing that existed there served a biological function, and she couldn't easily - key word easily; with more money, it would have been possible - just cut it off and get rid of it. She also, she was fairly sure, did not inherently despise it in the way that many of her kindred did. It was more a thing that, under certain circumstances, amounted to being... tolerable. Once or twice, in very specific situations, with people whom she had trusted a great deal, it had actually been something she had been glad to have; if only for the function it provided of forcing her brain to release pleasant chemicals. In that vein, she considered it, and the associated reward systems tied to other similar areas of her body, as largely vestigial: They served no purpose in the evolved world that she now lived in. How could they, when something like the affini existed; who could simply prick you with a flower in the neck and make you feel more pleasure in an instant than you would in twenty orgasms? No, it was stupid and vestigial. Nothing more than an outdated tool that ought to be replaced with a superior version. It was a part of her body that she was content to experience a simmering disdain for. Then there were the rest of her legs. Her upper... legs? She didn't actually know the correct word- were whatever. She had kind of thick thighs, which was nice, but her legs were where the HRT had not done nearly enough to stop her body from growing hair. By the time you reached the point just above her knees, they were disappointingly hairy. And everything from there and below was downright disgusting- no, worse; aesthetic-ruining. As for her feet, those were just straight up unforgivable. The idea that some landamaeris were attracted to that portion of the body was downright incomprehensible to her. No, as far as she was concerned, if a time was ever to come that she would actually have sex with a person, she was going to wear socks during it. Probably thigh-highs, but at the very least socks. She realised as her hands passed over it while pulling down her underwear that she had mentally completely passed over her backside. That was yet another part of her body that existed, but she just really wished it didn't. It was just a thoroughly, near-objectively-as-far-as-she-was-concerned unpleasant region of the body. Ignoring any of the obvious reasons related to waste disposal, the skin there was spotty and refused to ever not be garbage no matter how much moisturiser she put on it; probably on account of how much time she spent sat down. It was also covered in stretch marks that ran from the middle of her buttocks all the way down to her upper thighs, where they connected on her back with the other ones. Wretched area, she thought with disgust. The last thing of note about her body were her markings. Raqi was covered, not quite from head to toe, but from roughly torso to ankle in dark purple-blue splotches that contrasted heavily against her otherwise pale skin. Terrans apparently had similar markings on their bodies, apparently called 'Blaschko's Lines', but they were invisible unless viewed with ultraviolet light; which Raqi found rather strange, because what was the point of having markings if you couldn't actually see them? Hers, on the other hand, were perfectly visible to members of her own species. The ones on her body were of a disuniform colour, varying slightly in hue, and some were also interlaced with yellow spots the same colour as the 'eyes' upon her feathers. Landamaeris' marking colours tended to correlate with their natural hair colour, but Raqi had been somewhat unusual in that her feathers had been brown at birth, and she had opted to change their colour through genemodding to match her markings. She stared with moderate disdain at the patterns ornamenting her body. For all that they were less garish now that they at least matched her hair, she'd never had the money to get them tattooed into proper shapes; considering it unnecessary on account of how she never intended to be seen naked. That, and because she'd already needed to commit loan fraud to afford her hair mods, and she hadn't been able to steal any more money for tattoos before coming to the Compact. The thought irked her now as she realised that Punica would see her in what she considered a decidedly 'unfinished' form, and she regretted not being able to present the proper version of herself to the plant. Just one of a dozen things that aren't quite right, I suppose. She paused for a moment to wonder how much money would have had to be spent on cosmetic surgery to correct every facet of her body that she didn't like. Facial feminisation surgery to fix her nose would be several thousand real on its own, then there would be literally uncountable sessions of electrolysis and laser hair removal for her body hair, then all the tattooing... By the end of it, she wondered how close the final sum would be to being able to pay for a hab. Why does it take so much effort, just to make your body not feel horrible? She stared off into the distance for a few moments, but no answer came. Ugh... Finally, she took in a deep breath, and called out to the plant. "Punica, I'm done. Blindfold, please."
TerraTranslate :: Raqi Marr :: Punica Granatum :: The Affini Compact :: Landamar Mobile Fleet :: Hormone Replacement Therapy :: The Chimera Module :: Affini :: Intersidera :: Posters :: Magnesium :: Wonderland :: The Hundredth Time: Part I :: Communication :: aftermath :: Physical Confrontation :: Garments :: Interspecies Comparisons ::