Sky is half disbelieving, half speechlessly horrified.

She has no mental model or context for what that statement means, beyond that he and Eelesia are probably the only two people in the city not having sex in the last few hours, despite both being visibly aroused and needy. She shivers as she tries to come up with some kind of response, but she can't even come up with a coherent question.

After a moment, she gives up, and decides that she doesn't need to understand. Laurent wasn't in the habit of fucking any of them anyway. She'll just mentally file this under miscellaneous existential dread and keep cuddling.

"...I could explain further but I don't know that you'd benefit from hearing it. I'm sure I'll end up explaining it to Coventina whenever she gets in, anyway."

"That's okay."

She runs her hand over Eelesia's skin in a slow caress, enjoying the feel of her.

"...doesn't it hurt, though?" she asks him in a small voice.

"Doesn't which?"

"I mean... don't you need to... isn't... not-cumming, even worse for boys than it is for girls?"

"Oh. Um... it doesn't... normally when I have this problem and am not in the mood to indulge it I just ignore it until it goes away. It is admittedly not responding as well to that approach as usual. But I don't... have any better ideas."

No better ideas? Sky thinks this is dumb, but doesn't say so.

"Okay. Um. Okay."

She pulls into herself a little, nuzzling her face into where Eelesia's and Laurent's chests are pressed together.

"Just out of intellectual curiosity and on a purely physical level would you expect your erection to be more comfortable or less comfortable for you if it was inside me or attended to in some other way?"

"...physically I think the current state of affairs is a pretty good one. I don't know that there are any benefits to be gained from here in physical comfort without making greater sacrifices in psychological comfort to get them."

Eelesia nods and gives him a reassuring smile.

"Hey, you wanted to talk to Sky, right?" She kisses Sky's hair. "Here we've got her."

"True!" He applies a gentle squeeze with the arm around Sky's shoulders. "Sky, I want to be your friend. I want to be a good friend to you. As such I have enlisted Eelesia to help me interrogate you about how being good to you works."

Blushing smile. "Eeep?"

"I said something earlier... when we were talking about Laurent's trust issues. I said you would want to be trusted the same way an inanimate object is trusted, and he said that you weren't an inanimate object, and I said that means that we could ask you questions that couldn't be asked of an inanimate object, so we're gonna ask!"

       "...okay?"

"Was I right?"

       "...maybe? It... does sound kind of nice."

"What does. Be specific, cutie."

       "I... do want to be trusted like that. If... if Laurent is worried about something I might do, I want him to... do to me what he needs to, to feel comfortable? E-Especially if, that's like, tying me up so I can't look at him when he fucks me."

"It's not so much about being seen as about... being perceived at all. And it's pretty difficult to get someone into a state where they can't perceive the person who's fucking them. Although monster eggs do seem to help." He gives Sky another squeeze. "I... liked trying that, even though it didn't quite go as planned. Maybe someday I'll be able to try it again."

Sky makes a cute affirmative noise.

"Is... that all you wanted to know?"

"...hmm. I think... what I want is to understand you well enough that I feel confident I know how to interact with you in ways that have the effects I intend and not ones I don't. But it's hard to achieve that by asking specific questions."

"Well... what effects do you intend?"

"I want to be your friend and be good to you and make you happy and not upset you. And if I manage to fix my sexuality I expect I'll think of some more things to want."

"I think, you're already a good friend to me? You, I mean, you don't use me for sex yourself but you don't... um... get in the way of it? Like not even in a passive way where I feel guilty and selfish for being hornier than you? So um, the part where you don't feel comfortable using me to get off is, um, the only part that, y'know. The way you are with us, as, as a... roommate and party member? Is nice."

"...well, good! I'd hate to get in the way of you doing things you enjoy. I like when my friends have a good time." Squeeze. "...hmm, now that I'm thinking about it, it occurs to me that... while I'm trying to fix my sexuality I might end up wanting to do things that... escalate toward sex but only very very slowly? And I don't know whether that's the sort of thing you would enjoy, or not enjoy, or enjoy but only complicatedly, or something else I haven't thought of."

Blush.

"Um... you can... I mean, being useful to you in that... as a thing-that-is-for-sex, that's..."

       "Even if the details are unfun in the moment you would find it fulfilling?" Eelesia suggests.

"Um, yeah. Not that... um, it might be pleasant all around, I don't know, I just... it sounds like exactly the kind of thing I, um, want to be for?"

       "You want to be a good friend to us, too?" Eelesia tries.

Shy nod. "Not just that. It's... hot. As a thought. Using our friendship like... emotional bondage, to hold me down while you... because, I do, you are. My friends. So."

"...I'm not entirely sure I understood that, but what I understood, I liked," he says.

When Sky doesn't ask for herself, Eelesia does it for her. "Which parts are unsure-feeling?"

"I don't think I know what you mean by emotional bondage? And the—pieces of the sentence around that—I'm unsure of those because I'm unsure of it?"

"Um... I just meant... you don't have to hesitate out of... concern... that, um, I won't like sex things that you're doing to me, because..."

      "Because you would do anything for your friends?" Eelesia suggest in a light, half-serious tone.

She thinks for a moment. "Someone I didn't like would have to tie me up, or at least hold me down somehow, and the part where they're forcing me, making me helpless to stop them, that's... I crave that. It feels really good... even when it doesn't. If you're using me for a sexual purpose I'll definitely feel good about that; I'll enjoy it even if I don't enjoy it."