Her finger trailed down his torso to his boxers and continued its slow, slow pace as she peeled them down his thigh, and Howie noted pleasantly that he was actually doing pretty good. He’d been doing pretty good this whole time. Had a normal conversation over dinner sitting on top of her dinner table, rolled with the natural flirtation, didn’t even quiver when he got into her hand- Chris said she was surprised that was his first date with a human, and he graciously took the compliment. She wasn’t technically wrong.

This was decidedly not Chris’s first rodeo. He could’ve known that just from the way she laid on her bed right now- on her stomach (big enough that it just hung over her pelvis, he liked that), big brown tits pressed between her upper arms, head still low enough that he didn’t have to hurt his neck to make eye contact. Exciting and overpowering, but somehow not intimidating. It was kind of interesting to see all the ways something so simple was different with someone who actually cared about how he was doing. He’d interacted with “nice humans” in the past few years, sure, but never this close up, and never with all their clothes off. 

She watched him warmly with dark eyes and sucked on her lower lip as she slipped his last bit of clothing off his foot. Howie tussled his thick hair and let his curls fall over one eye. He tried a little posing himself as well- sat on his knees, legs spread, chest puffed out to show off the new tats. “Like what you see?” he asked in a mock sultry.

“Oh, I so like what I see.” She giggled. “I am so excited to look all these over up close.” Her pointer finger reached out and stroked along his arm, following a trail of plants and ritual symbols. He flushed.

“So,” she said. “What do you wanna do?”

He started and frowned. “Um. What do I wanna do?”

“Yeah! It’s your first time, you pick first.”

“Oh. Um…” It was like his brain was shutting down. “Well. I don’t really…”

“Oh, come on. You’ve gotta have some ideas.”

A memory flashed in his mind and he tried to shake it out. 

“You… don’t have any ideas?”

“No, no, that’s not-” Howie closed his eyes tight and suddenly his brain was spinning through a rapid-fire slideshow, indexing everything he’d been forced to do, every unique new act, every body part… “Fuck,” he hissed. 

“Howie?” she whispered, almost afraid. 

His eyes shot open and he stared up at her. He forced a laugh. “S-sorry, I don’t kn- sorry, this shouldn’t have… fuck.” God, he was starting to hyperventilate.

“Woah,” she said. “Hey, we’re pausing the situation.” He gulped and nodded. “Just breathe.”

He took slow, shaky breathes and pulled his knees in. Half of him wanted Chris to grab him, gently put some pressure on his chest, his other half knew that he’d start vomiting if she did. Maybe he was down from the ledge by now anyways. He was pretty sure. The panic attacks were weekly at first, but he hadn’t gotten that close in months.

He attempted talking again. “I-I’m sorry, I can’t, I don’t know- I’m sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologize! Do you wanna talk about it, or-”

His mental resistance snapped, and the words came spilling out faster than he could think them. “Well, Mira set this date up because I’m always bitching to her about my goddamn hookups because I’m-I’m with these wonderful girls and I can’t cum. I can’t cum unless I think about humans, because like five years ago I got kidnapped and they used some weird drug on me to mind control me or whatever and it reconditioned my whole brain and it was only for a month but now I guess I’m stuck like this, and she thought I should just give up and fuck a human already and now I guess I can’t even do that because I’m too fucking traumatized!” He threw his hands up in some sort of surrender, then covered his face and immediately got to regretting.

“Oh… Howie, that’s horrible.”

“It’s just- it’s whatever. I’m sorry.”

Howie grabbed his boxers and frantically pulled them back on instead of trying to meet her eyes. Jesus Christ, the shame… How could it be this much worse telling a human? It felt so wrong seeking pity from a human after all that conditioning to just be a mindless toy, and then he felt horrible for feeling like he was less than her, and then he felt horrible for making her feel bad…

She cut off his thoughts. “Can I tell you something, then?”

He eyed her suspiciously. She was quieter, her eyes only made his for a second and then went down to the lilac bedsheets, she fidgeted with her fingers in front of her… genuinely nervous. He nodded.

“I, um… I actually stopped fucking humans ‘cause I got abused.”

“Oh.” He looked down at his feet. “Well, I guess I get that. Not like we can do anything to you.”

“No, no…” She opened her mouth, then closed it, then huffed. “It’s not- you guys are just nicer! My first time, I was sucking this guy’s dick and he stopped me and he said I seemed off and-and then I had a total meltdown! And I totally blue balled him and he was chill about it.”

Howie scoffed. “What else was he gonna do? Get mad at you for being traumatized?”

“Humans do that literally all the time.”

“What?”

“Human guys are, like, insane.”

He giggled and she beamed back. “Jesus…” he muttered. “Hell of a low bar.”

“No kidding. Yeah, have as many panic attacks as you want.” Chris reached out to him, giving him plenty of time to see her coming, and brushed his hair out of his face. He flipped it back over and she snickered. “Hey, tell me if I’m being pushy… was there a particular reason you freaked out?”

Howie shrugged. “They didn’t, um… I guess I wasn’t ready for you to ask me what I wanted to do. They never really gave me a choice.” She nodded and in a moment, fuck, the words were spilling out again. “Honestly, I kind of hoped it would be the same as when I got kidnapped.” He clapped his hands over his mouth and looked up to her with wide eyes. “I mean-” he eked out. “That’s weird. Fuck, that’s weird.”

“Howie, that’s not that weird.”

“What, like I wanna get raped again? That’s stupid.”

“Howie!” He shut up. “It’s not that weird. And it doesn’t mean- well, it doesn’t mean anything.” She frowned. “We’re not doing anything else today, but… I don’t think you’re too traumatized to fuck a human. If you still want to.”

He shrugged. 

“We could go really slow? And you could initiate everything, or if you wanted I could propose stuff and you could veto?”

“This whole thing is starting to feel like a lot of work for you.”

“Whatever. I owe your whole species. Hey.” She stroked his face with her thumb. He reached up to hold it there. “I can take no for an answer. But I already really like you. A bunch of sexless dates wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

He smiled. “Thanks. How about same time next week?”

Chris nodded. “No hard feelings if you ghost. Genuinely.”

“I’m not gonna.”