It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Chapter Length: 5,200~ words

Can't Wait Any Longer

It was determined, once again by Punica, that prior to going any further the two of them ought to take another break. This time, it had been several hours in which they had been pressed up against each other, and Raqi was relatively stiff when she extricated herself. It didn't take long to shake off, though, and she soon found she barely noticed it over the drum-like beating of her heart. When she went to get some water, her hands shook as she took the glass, and she very nearly spilled half of the cup down her front. By the time she had returned to Punica, she was breathing through her mouth, and she felt unsteady on her feet. Punica, on the other hand, seemed to be the absolute picture of calm. Her vines swayed steadily from side to side in perfect tandem with each-other, and she radiated an aura of /confidence-desire/. The moment Raqi re-entered the room, the affini fixed her gaze upon her in a way that made her feel like she was a small animal that had just been spotted by a much larger predator. In a way, that was in fact a very accurate depiction, Raqi realised. The plant tilted her head slowly to the side. The tone in which she spoke was soft, and contrasted sharply against the overpowering predatory intent that radiated from every other part of her posture, in a way that Raqi somehow found made it even more captivating to listen to. "So, Raqi. How would you like us to go about this?" /soft-enticing/ Punica had barely even injected any teasing intent into her voice, but the content of her statement alone was enough to push Raqi nearly to the verge of dissociating. The landamaeri felt her breath already starting to hitch. For all that she had asked Punica to fuck her earlier, that had been a spur-of-the-moment decision; one made without any thought for what the process of doing that would actually look like. Now, she had had more than hour to think about what that process might be like, and for all that the image was exciting, it was substantially more terrifying. In the first place, Raqi had never expected to get to the point of engaging in actual physical intimacy with Punica. She had wanted it, yes- she had never seriously denied that to herself- but she had expected that it would always remain far too frightening of a concept to actually ask for outright. While she had a great deal of experience partaking in erotic acts with other landamaeris in the past, every single one of those instances had been conducted over the fleetnet, and ninety five percent of them had been done over text; with maybe four percent including voice chat, and a low single-digit number of times where video had been used. At no point had she ever actually had sex; not in the way that ch'ikan and other 'normal people' thought of it, anyway. Part of the reason why was that Raqi did not actually care for the idea of sex as most people conceptualised it. The idea of simply rubbing her body against another person's was fundamentally unappealing to her. She was not even capable of conceiving why some landamaeris found it appealing, and it ranked slightly below doing the dishes and cleaning cupboard doors in terms of activities she would willingly engage in. No, the part about physical intimacy that she liked was its use in hypnosis. Pleasure was a very useful conditioning tool, and Raqi very, very much liked the thought of having it used to train her. For all that she found the idea of conventional sex unappealing, she did still find herself strongly driven to seek orgasms when aroused, however; and there wasn't really any way (at least for her) to achieve one without physical stimulation. If she or someone else could have found a way to make her body climax through an alternative means- say, perhaps, by being hypnotised- then part of her thought she might seriously consider abandoning physicality entirely. But she'd been unable to achieve any such thing so far, and so she still had to rely on base physical stimulation to convince her body to provide her with reward chemicals. It was ultimately something that she had mixed feelings about. She felt on some level as if having any kind of capacity to enjoy having her body touched sexually made her a plebeian, compared to the legions of transfems she knew who hated the idea of having anything between their legs, hadn't cum in years, and didn't seem remotely bothered by that fact; but for all she was insecure about it, it was not enough to stop her from wanting to be touched intimately. "Are you alright, Raqi?" /concern/ She snapped back to reality to realise that the overpowering aura emanating from Punica had all but vanished completely. The plant was now regarding her with a mixture of concern and confusion, and seemed on the verge of making her way over to check that she was okay. "Uh," was all that Raqi could get out in response at first. Her brain felt like it was a computer with two hundred tabs open in its browser whose processor had caught fire and was now operating at roughly one update per second. The feeling was not at all helped by that fact that a solid fifty percent of the processing capacity she would normally have was currently being taken up by physical phenomena. In addition to the dry throat and shaking, her head was throbbing, her entire body felt unpleasantly warm, and there was this kind of swimming effect before all of her actions that made it feel like she was moving through water. Last but far from least, she was hyperaware of a constant, unremitting desire present in all of her skin to be touched. It was something she had felt many times before, but never while there was any chance of it actually happening. What must have been nearly five whole seconds later, she finally answered: "Y-yeah." No, not at all. F-fuck. She knew how thin the attempt was, but she couldn't come up with anything better right now. Her body was twitching with barely held-back need, openly screaming for contact at various parts, in a way that made her feel almost sick. She knew from experience that 'almost' would become actually sick if she stayed like this for more than about two minutes. She didn't know if other people were like this, but her personal experience of arousal was almost entirely negative. It provoked a nausea-like response whenever she was allowed to remain in that state without relief for any prolonged length of time, and the problem was that right now the other half of her brain was freezing up and completely stopping her from doing anything to get that relief. "Raqi." /prompt-attention/ The voice of the affini affini rang out once more, cutting through her thoughts just as it had done last time. The voice demanded her full attention, and she turned once again to see Punica moving closer to her. Her eyes widened. No, no, no no no no- The plant stopped walking instantly. In a gesture that surprised Raqi, she put both of her arms above her head, and the mass of vines that trailed out from her lower body all moved themselves away from her. "I am not going to touch you, Raqi; I promise. I would just like to get a little bit closer, if that is alright." /calm-non-threatening/ The thought was terrifying. She considered turning and running, or calling on the Chimera module once again, but she didn't want to. For all that she was frightened, she knew that this was what she wanted. After a few seconds spent trying to rein in her emotions, she nodded stiffly. "J-just don't touch me." "I will not lay a single vine upon you without your express permission, petal. I swear it." /genuine/ Raqi watched Punica approach in much the same way that a small animal kept an eye on a much larger predator, remaining very still and preparing to run - or, more likely, lash out with the Chimera module - the moment the affini so much as looked like she was about to touch her. She knew that the plant must have known this as well, and that was presumably why she kept her movements slow and predictable. After a quarter-minute of the slowest movements Raqi had ever seen her make, Punica eventually made her way to just a few feet from the girl, where she then stopped, and gradually sat down upon her knees; placing her hands upon her legs and letting them rest there. She then affixed Raqi with a gentle smile, which radiated /compassion/ and /empathy/. It was only then that Raqi noticed that she was still able to feel Punica's emotions when the plant talked. Somehow, despite the fact that the two were no longer in physical contact, she was still getting the same sense of raw feeling being beamed directly into her brain whenever the plant spoke. It should have baffled her, and under normal circumstances, she would almost certainly have been shocked by it; but right now, she was too alarmed still to be anything other than grateful for the reassurance it was providing her as to Punica's benevolent intentions. "I will not pressure you into doing this, Raqi." Punica's voice seemed to wrap softly around Raqi's heart as she spoke, each word stilling its frenzied beating ever so slightly. "If you have changed your mind and no longer want this, then I will not force you into it." /honesty-genuineness-reassuring/ Raqi knew, without any doubt, that she could trust Punica's words on this. If she decided she wanted to stop, the affini would respect her decision. Punica's expression changed from a smile to a look of sincerity and concern. "It did seem, however, as if you were very eager for this earlier; and I admit to being somewhat surprised by this change. Has something happened to make you uncomfortable with the idea?" /gentleness-concern/ Raqi couldn't blame Punica at all for being confused; she had done just about the most severe emotional 180 it was possible to in the past quarter of an hour. In spite of that knowledge, she found herself struggling to formulate a way to explain to Punica what was wrong. The moment she tried to meet Punica's gaze, a jolt of trepidation ran through her, and she was forced to turn her eyes back to the ground. Fuck. How... how do I... To make matters worse, she could feel herself starting to go non-verbal. The act of speaking was rapidly becoming impossible; some sort of invisible and impenetrable barrier having been erected between her consciousness and whatever part of her was responsible for speaking words. Fuck, I hate this, I hate this so much... If we were talking over text, this wouldn't be a problem! Going non-verbal didn't matter very much if you could just type your thoughts out, after all, but she didn't have a keyboard or a computer with which to do that right now. The thought stuck in her head for several seconds after it occurred to her. ...Wait a second. She realised, then, that she had just gotten done with spending nearly half of the day communicating with the affini in a way that was neither verbal nor text-based. Oh, shit- I can just- The only problem was that she couldn't ask her for a vine right now, since her mouth wasn't working. Well, fuck having a mouth; I've got hands. Raqi turned her head towards Punica, still not quite making eye contact with her, and began tapping the floor between them. She made several sharp, rhythmic taps, then waited. Several seconds passed, and the only change was in Punica's expression; which gradually shifted into a look of bemusement. "...Raqi? Are you trying to tell me something?" /perplexion/ Yes, dummy, Raqi thought, resuming her tapping with an element of irritation this time. I'm saying: Give me a vine! Still nothing. When her annoyingly dense plant still somehow didn't get it, she let out an internal sigh, then took one finger on her other hand and wiggled it in a mimicry the way Punica's vines moved, before pointing at the plant. She waited a moment, then turned the finger downwards to point at the floor, before tapping it twice once more. At last, she felt Punica's rhythm shift from /perplexion/ to /comprehension/. "You- Are you saying you want me to give you a vine?" Raqi nodded at once, and upon seeing this, Punica immediately extended a single short vine towards her. The moment it came within range of her hands, Raqi reached out and grabbed it, then brought it upwards and pressed it against her temple. For a moment, the vine seemed to twitch, and it slithered half an inch out of her hands as if trying to recoil, before abruptly falling still. Raqi focused in on where Punica's presence had been earlier in her mind. While she could no longer feel the affini now, she could still remember where she had been. Can you hear me? <calling-out>

Surprise coursed through Punica as she felt the words inside of her mind. She couldn't hear them in quite the same way as she had been able to when Raqi had been in direct contact with her core, but she still found herself able to pick up on the sensation of Raqi tensing her vocal chords that she had initially used to identify what she was thinking. "Yes, I can. I can hear you." /surprise/

Raqi's heart immediately soared. Oh, thank paoso. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she had to say next. It took her several seconds to conjure up the strength to verbalise the thought. I'm scared that if I let anyone touch me, I'll die.

/surprise/ turned to /Shock/, and Punica quickly acted to stifle her rhythm to stop it from overpowering Raqi. It took several seconds for explanations to start forming in her mind for what Raqi had just said. Of all the explanations she had expected to hear for why Raqi seemed to suddenly be on the verge of a panic attack, concern that being touched would kill her was not one of them. "Is this a matter of landamaeri biology-?"

Even before Punica could finish the sentence, Raqi shook her head and projected <negatory> outwards. It works the same way as with Terrans more or less. It- it should just feel good, physically at least. No biological reason for it. <angry-at-self; ashamed> She was starting to shake again; the words still enough to evoke terrible shame in her even when thought rather than spoken. Just... scared I'll die if I let anyone touch me there. <scared; frightened; angry-at-self>

Punica did not understand. Her mind raced, trying to attempt to piece together an explanation for what was happening. She could tell just how scared this situation was making Raqi, and it was making her almost equally frightened that she was going to get something wrong and end up hurting her again. She tried to force calm into herself, knowing she needed to remain in control if she was to make it through this. That she would be afraid of touch is not necessarily surprising, given her background. Would that fear really manifest as thinking that touch would kill her, though? It seemed a strange way for her to word it. There was also the matter of the anger present in Raqi's voice. Presently, that was the part confusing Punica the most. Why does she seem angry with herself? She has barely done anything except be frightened; what is there for her to feel that way about right now?

She could feel through the vine that Punica didn't know how to deal with what was currently happening. Fortunately for her, Raqi was quite used to not being understood during meltdowns, and it didn't surprise her in the least that even an affini would struggle to know what to do with her at a time like this. She knew, therefore, that she needed to give her more to work with. For all that she was on the verge of total shutdown, years of practise at trying to teach other people how to help her meant that she knew how to scrape together the words she needed to say even when she was like this. Scared... of... of what it means if I do it, she thought. What it makes me. <guilt; shame>

Punica wanted very badly to reach out and console Raqi then and there, but she had sworn not to touch her. "What do you mean by that, petal? What would doing this make you?"

Bad. Wanting it... already makes me bad. A-asking for it is- Her heart lurched, and the fear momentarily seized her mind. Worse. Worse worse worse even worse- <fear; panic>

"Raqi!" Punica injected a burst of her rhythm into her voice, forcing the xenosophont's attention back onto here. "I am right here, petal. It is all right! You are safe. Nothing bad is going to happen to you; there is nothing here that can hurt you. Whatever you are frightened of - whatever it is that your mind is telling you is going to happen to you; I will not allow it to come to pass." "You are safe." /Prompt-Listen-Accept/

All of a sudden, Punica's voice became filled with an indescribable force, transforming it from mere sound into pure auditory intent that crashed over Raqi like a tidal wave. She could feel the words rushing through her body like water through a riverbed, catching and then pulling away the terrified thoughts that had been on the verge of overwhelming her like sediment being swept away from a bank. The stones that represented the cause of her fear were too heavy to be pulled by the current, but the effect was enough to bring her firmly back to reality, and she soon found herself staring up with wide eyes at her affini; blinking away tears that had been on the edge of forming. For a few moments, she felt a pull against some part of her mind that urged her to repeat the last three words that Punica had spoken to her- but she quickly pushed it away, before nodding stiffly. S-sorry. I'm sorr-

"Please, petal; do not apologise. You are doing, and have done nothing wrong." It was incredibly tempting to just use her rhythm to force Raqi to calm the rest of the way down. Punica knew without any doubt that she could do it; but she also knew Raqi would be furious with her when she recovered. She understood enough about Raqi now to know that, whatever this was, the xeno would want to work through it with her; rather than just letting the affini do it for her. She would tolerate that desire for so long as Raqi remained stable in her current state, but if she showed any signs of being about to spiral again like she had a moment ago, she would do whatever was necessary to keep the girl safe. "I want to help you, Raqi, but I do not understand what it is that is triggering this reaction in you. Please, can you tell me more about what you mean by wanting this making you 'bad'?" /empathy-inquiring-desire-to-assist/

Discomfort surged in Raqi's mind; a life-long self-loathing bubbling to the surface. For a moment, the urge was there to try and censor herself; to stop from saying what she was really thinking. She feared how Punica would react to the true intensity of her feelings about herself, and so she forced herself to water them down when she spoke, as she always did whenever she was forced to admit to their existence. Because I'm trans... because I'm ugly, and I don't look pretty, and- and because of that, I shouldn't want things like this. <shame; guilt; pain> The real version - consisting of the words she had said to herself hundreds of times in the past when thinking about this issue - would have likely contained far more slurs and expletives. But for all that she was doing exactly that, she somehow was still worried about not wanting to look like she was engaging in self-loathing behaviour in front of Punica. And I know exactly how fucking stupid it is- I know I'm not supposed to feel this way, I know that I am a real girl, that girlhood isn't defined by your appearance, that I'm not even that bad looking conventionally speaking but just, fuck, I can't- I can't help it. I'm... I'm just so afraid of what someone would think if they saw me naked, if- if they saw the expressions I pulled, and the noises I made. Those are by far the worst part. It's why I was okay with the medical exam, but this... < anger; frustration; shame; guilt> She was so angry at herself for feeling this way. She knew that she, of all people, should have been better than this; but she wasn't. Even though she knew better, had helped so many other trans people with the same issues work through them, she couldn't do it herself. She was wasting Punica's time by being like this; the affini didn't deserve to have to babysit her through an issue she should well have been able to deal with on her own. For all that it incensed her at her own incapacity to simply get over this, she could not help herself. I can't... deal... with the thought of people knowing that I want these things. For my entire life, I've been told that I'm not supposed to- not supposed to want to feel good. ...It's something for everyone else, not me. I-I'hm- I'm the only one who doesn't g-get to, because I'm like this. <pain; pain; pain> It had been this way since childhood, even before transition. Certain ancient traditions from the pre-spaceflight days that still held great sway within Mobile Fleet culture stipulated that things like same-sex desire, masturbation, and transitioning without becoming celibate were incredibly shameful; and in some cases sinful, depending on who you asked. Though Raqi's family had never said any of those things to her, she had still absorbed those beliefs via cultural osmosis on account of their extreme prevalence while growing up.

Punica was able to catch glimpses of the memories that Raqi was sifting through via their link. The lack of a direct-to-core connection meant that she could not see exactly what the xenosophont was seeing, but she got the gist of it; and the revelation was enough to make her wilt. Great swathes of leaves began falling from her back and sides in clumps, drifting softly to the ground where they almost immediately began to dry up and flake away. Her vines fell to the floor and twitched weakly, and Punica wished in that moment that she had tear ducts with which to cry. She understood, now, why Raqi was behaving this way. When she had first started to realise the alarming amount of similarities between the Landamar Mobile Fleet and the Terran Accord, one of the things that she had hoped desperately would not prove to exist there were the same regressive taboos and stigmas about sex that were present in the Accord. Though she did not know the specifics of what Raqi had been through in the Fleet, she was all too familiar with the effects that life in the Accord had had on Terrans' relationships with their sexualities. The glimpses of emotions and sense-memories that she caught running through the girl's head were enough to tell her that she had very likely had qualitatively similar experiences, and her core ached with terrible sympathy at the thought. In the end, there was only one thing she could think to say: "I am so sorry, Raqi." /agony-genuineness-sympathy-sorrow-regret/

It hurt even more to hear the words from Punica. Raqi was too numb to her own situation- too far gone in feeling like it was her own fault- to accept words of pity. Instead, hearing the sorrow in her plant's voice only made her feel more frustrated with herself for allowing the issue to continue on to this point. I hate this. I hate this, so... so much. She poured every bit of built-up grief that she could muster into her words; imbuing them with every ounce of vitriol and bitterness which she felt for the circumstances that had left her in this position. I'm... so sick... of feeling this way. I've ruined... so many chances to d-do this... because I end up feeling this way. I can't... I can't stand it any more. Her next thought was directed inwards. I want it to stop. She was sick of this. She was tired of feeling this way. She was tired of being furious with herself for feeling this way, and for feeling even worse because of being angry at herself. She was exhausted from the vicious cycle that this guilt placed her in, and she wanted it to stop. In the past, it had proven beyond her ability for her to deal with this on her own; she had tried everything, and even Straessa had not been able to conquer the rot inside their mind at her prime. If her better self had not been able to do it, then she most certainly could not. But it was that fact - the realisation there were certain things she was not strong enough to overcome alone - that had been why she had come to seek help here in the Affini Compact. Up until now, she had been so caught up in the almost automatic process of berating herself for her inadequacies that she hadn't even realised that this time was different. This time, there was someone else who could help her. She stopped crying. Slowly, she turned her head towards Punica, and met the plant's gaze. I want this... to stop. The moment her thoughts reached the plant, she felt the affini's demeanour change. The depth of the sorrow radiating outwards from Punica's rhythm seemed to shrink, and a rustle ran down her leaves in a wave. The dull colours in her two crystalline orbs shifted colour subtly in a way that Raqi had never seen before, and for a moment, she saw something within them. It was an emotion that she had thought to be not present in Punica, unlike all the rest of her kind: the urge to change. The fear that the sight sparked was enough to momentarily push down her self-loathing, and she quickly barked out a clarification. Not- not like that. Please. I don't want you to just- hypnotise it out of me, with biorhythms or your eyes or whatever. Peop- people aren't supposed to get better like that, it's- it's not right. It's cheating. The affini's expression did not change. "Raqi-" Please, Raqi repeated, her mindvoice filling with desperation. Please, Punica- please don't. I- I don't want to resort to that. Please, let- let me try it the normal way first. She focused her will together. Help me. Help me to do this. I can't do it on my own; it's why I'm here. But I don't need fucking magic to fix me; I just need another person. To listen to me. To tell me the things I w-want- *need* to hear. I swear to you, Punica, if I have that, I can do it. There was a moment of hesitation. Raqi could feel Punica measuring her, the plant searching through her words to see if she genuinely believed what she was saying, or whether this was just a reaction born of fear. As the instant dragged on, another voice spoke in her mind.

Please. Please believe me.
You, of all people, should now understand.
Do not...
Do not make it all for nothing.

The twinkling in her eyes shifted. For a moment, there was curiosity, mixed with the slightest hint of confusion- and then, acknowledgement. Punica's demeanour relaxed, and she closed her eyes; giving Raqi a slow nod of her head. "Very well, Raqi. If that is what you wish for, then I will abide by the boundaries you have set." Her tone was stiff at first, but eased up with each successive word. "I did promise that I would help you only so much as you wished me to. If you therefore do not wish for me to use the other tools available to me, then... I will respect that." In a change that surprised Raqi, her tone suddenly grew even lighter, and the corners of her lips curled upwards into a faint smile. "The reason I am willing to do this is because I believe in you, Raqi. After what I have seen you do today, I have no doubts that if you have set your mind on this, you will achieve it." At those words, all of the pain and the self-hatred that had been roiling in Raqi's chest suddenly seemed to fall still, and in their place blossomed a faint, sedative warmth. Her body relaxed, and she couldn't help a small smile forming on her own face. "I couldn't, if it was just me on my own. But I have you now. If- if I have you..." She nodded. "Then I can do it." Her smile widened. "Together." One by one, flowers began blooming across Punica's body. The hues in her eyes shifted to a mixture of pink, bright yellow, scarlet, and a myriad of other warm colours. The movement of her leaves slowed, and several patches changed colour to autumn hues. Taken all together, her rhythm came to resemble something that Raqi's mind could only interpret as /Love/. The same emotion was reflected in her voice as she spoke a single word: "Together."

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A L E R T : : t h o u g h t f o r m s_d e t e c t e d

I D : : Grooming ::

Show list of previous thoughtforms

Book 2

withering away :: The Prism System :: Intoxicants :: Plurality :: please believe me :: Landamaeri Domestication Guide :: Hypnotic Centres :: The Domestication Initiative :: Affini Maturity :: bullying :: Memory Maker :: chronic fatigue syndrome :: Uplifting :: lingo :: optimisation :: Digitisation :: Iterations of the Self :: Conflict :: eat ::

Book 1

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 :: Touch :: Equality :: Hypnokink :: Speaking :: ahftrojn,lpijmnhfkg :: Pretheya :: Magic :: scared :: Materas Marr ::

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