One of the critical, classic differences between the genders is the reaction of the other party to a sudden escalation, with declarations such as "I love you." Although men from my own world are more likely to make such a declaration first, this is often used as a strategy to obtain sex, whether consciously or unconsciously. As such, women generally are on the defensive regarding a man's declaration of love, particularly if it should occur relatively early in a relationship. For men, on the other hand, such a declaration is typically viewed as entirely positive, even in the case where the relationship is only relatively short-term, since it normally signals that sex is coming.
It may have been the ease with which I acquired sexual access at play, or else perhaps my own realistic outlook, but I certainly didn't feel particularly enthused about the possibility of post-confession lovemaking. Rather, I was attempting to figure out the logistics of Xico's suggestion and how it related to the many other relationships I currently had going. Nora, Xico, Kate, Esther, Lope, Priscilla, Mira, Tsuru, and May... most of them were largely casual situations, with only Nora, Kate, Esther, Priscilla, Mira, and May perhaps hoping for more... wait, that was the majority of them.
Accepting Xico's love confession in earnest would likely force many of those relationships to an end. Or would it? Kate was already very definitely fine with sharing; and Esther, Mira, and Priscilla seemed like they might be fine with our relationship becoming entirely casual, something purely sexual. That still left Nora and May as people who probably wanted something more intimate, permanent, and exclusive, which fully accepting Xico's affections would close off as a possibility and perhaps lead to the end of those two relationships...
"Oh..." Xico said, in a soft voice. "I don't want... Nora hurt... but she does really... like you..." she said. "She can have... different thoughts... for each body... but generally... if there are at least four... one is thinking about... you." That would suggest she spent a full one fifth of her time thinking about me, which was touching but also quite high. I think? I suppose it might not, if you incorporate masturbation, which is going to be at least five minutes per body per day... Xico flushed with color at that thought. "A-anyway... I said it... you can do what you want..." Her tentacles were wiggling behind her - I reached for her hand, gently drawing her inside, closing the door behind her.
"Come in, Xico. Take a seat." If I considered it rationally, Xico's confession had only revealed a problem that had long existed: the girls I was going out with could not 'all' win. While many enjoyed casual sex with me, and perhaps could be satisfied with that, I also had known for quite some time that others wanted more. Xico wasn't Nora, either; she was eighteen and in love for the first time, not a mature if blunt twenty-something who was deciding that she would wait for my opinions on sexual exclusivity to change. Was it right to string her along?
"I-it's okay, to... string me along," Xico said, her tentacles fidgeting nervously. "I just... wanted you to know... I shouldn't have said anything..." she said, looking downcast. "You can... keep sleeping with... other people... and if you do like Nora more... that's okay... I'll be happy for you... both."
"Firstly, I think that you will be heartbroken, and secondly, why did you pick Nora?"
Xico looked at me for a second, her lips wiggling on her face before breaking into a quiet smile, one hand reaching out to pat my cheek. "I won't... be heartbroken. I want the person I like... to be happy."
If someone was to intentionally construct the most effective turn of phrase to ensure that an individual would not do something while saying the opposite, it would be hard to come up with one better than what Xico had just given out.
The reality was... women didn't like sharing, any more than men did. Kate and Xico might have gotten something out of me sleeping with other women - arguably, Mira, Tsuru, and Priscilla too, in their own ways - but Nora, May, and Esther definitely didn't. I wanted to keep fucking all of them at will, since they were all hot and fun to fuck in their own ways, but that would be probably be impossible in the long-term.
I mentally arranged my three options: firstly, to go for something more intimate with Xico and explain to all the other women what I was doing; secondly, to break things off with Xico since I wasn't ready to meet her affection with an equivalent amount (that one made her tentacles tremble a bit); and thirdly, to do neither and just keep doing what I had been doing so far, having fun sex with Xico and spending time with her, but also with Nora and May and Mira and Priscilla and Lope and Tsuru and Kate and Esther.
The first and second made intuitive sense due to the culture in which I was steeped. On the one hand, when a girl confesses, the guy is supposed to immediately reciprocate, as long as there isn't any obvious rule-out criteria like she's abusive or ugly or mean, and Xico wasn't any of those things. On the other hand, it would be irresponsible to pretend to reciprocate her feelings if I didn't, and although I liked Xico a lot, and enjoyed her company, and sex with her, I knew - really knew, thanks to us igoss-ing - that my feelings for her weren't as deep as hers for me.
"That's... okay," Xico said, in a soft voice, a melancholic smile on her lips, her tentacles strangely stiff. "That you don't... love me as much... I kind of... figured."
I felt really bad at those words, because I did like Xico. I could easily imagine myself happily married to her, even if threesomes and sex with other people went entirely off the table- but I could do the same with Nora, who had also been extremely blatant about wanting me. Even trying to objectively weigh the two options felt wrong, like I should 'just know' which of the two I wanted, and I didn't.
So I abandoned any attempt at rationally or emotionally analyzing the possibility of something with Xico versus something with Nora, or perhaps getting in a menage a trois with Mira and Tsuru, or whatever other routes were possible. Forget all that. What I wanted was to keep doing what I was doing right now, except, to not feel guilty about stringing Xico and Nora along.
"I'm... not upset," Xico offered, "and Nora knows... she has a..." she trailed off, trying to find the words, "uphill battle?" She squeaked out the phrase, like she wasn't quite sure if it was right.
"It's right," I noted. Those assuaging words didn't actually improve my guilt. I suppose the guilt was that, inevitably, I would wind up having to go with one or the other girl, and the one who lost would have spent all that time and energy trying to woo me, only to fail. I had a great deal more sympathy for girls trapped in various love triangles in my own world's fiction for their own failures to quickly and promptly resolve the situation. Was there any way to assuage the guilt? Other than breaking things off, which would also make me feel guilty, in a different way? Obviously the theoretical route where any girl who was seriously emotionally invested in me was actually fine with my sexual promiscuity would be ideal, but by Xico's expression, even she was dubious on such a possibility.
"Nora is... very jealous..." Xico explained quietly.
It came back to Nora. If it wasn't for Nora, then... I would have had just the question of how much I was stringing Xico along by going along with her or how much I was breaking her heart by breaking things off. After all, Xico had quite enjoyed watching me have sex with other women, threesomes, etc; and the other women I'd slept with were generally fine with casual sex. Nora, on the other hand - I liked Nora. She was earnest and fun. But she was also rather unhappy with me sleeping with other people. But I had decided that she was an adult and had decided that that unhappiness was worth the other happiness I gave her... so that just left...
Was I stringing Xico along?
Xico watched me, her eyes big, almost frightened of where my thought process was going. What did it mean, to string someone along? Could I see myself with her? Sure. Sure. She'd look cute in an apron, cooking in the kitchen, or maybe coming home from work, going right to the shower and the two of us fucking like rabbits in there. There was nothing wrong with that idea, nothing that really made me go 'that won't work.' I guess there was the question of children, but, gauging by the squeak and blush that Xico gave, she was fine with putting that off for a while more. Money? Was Xico the kind of person who spent all her money? That was the other big issue.
"I save... mostly..." Xico said. "I don't really... understand 'buying things'," she explained.
So if we did get married - that made Xico's eyes get big and her cheeks turn bright red in a very cute way - there might be some kind of issue with money...
"You could... handle the money..." Xico said. That was a stereotype here - back home, too, maybe, and I hadn't noticed it? The girl who treated her boyfriend/husband like her dad, expecting him to make all the financial decisions, like a guy who treated his girlfriend/wife like his mom, expecting her to clean up the house, cook, etc. Xico clearly fidgeted in response to the thought, but really, it wasn't that big a deal - I liked managing my finances. Probably. There was the possibility I wouldn't like it so much when I had to handle somebody else's side of things... but there was also the possibility I wouldn't like somebody else buying things out of collective funds.
Money is the bane of marriage, since different financial management styles create extreme, persistent conflict. I didn't know how spendthrift Nora was, despite having spent that time with her just following me around 24/7...
That thought gave me an idea, though. A sort of 'test', to see if I really would like spending my days with Xico, and if she could really handle a hypothetical breakup. She blinked, not having quite caught the idea in my thought process. "How about you bring some of your stuff over? You can spend the night here for the next week or so." I was vague on the specifics of when she'd have to 'move out', mostly because I didn't really know, but partly because I figured that her not knowing would make her reaction when her time came to an 'end' be more natural.
Xico didn't really catch too much of those thoughts, because she quickly floated up to her feet, eyes big, a dopey, shy smile on her lips. "Okay," she agreed, nodding quickly, tails happily wagging behind her as she rushed out of the apartment.
* * *
Xico arrived back at my apartment a half-hour later, carting several large laundry bags of clothes, plus a backpack that looked stuffed to the brim with various personal items. They floated behind her, seemingly carried with casual ease, since she hadn't bothered to put them down after her arrival. "H-hi," she said, nervously wiggling her fingers as she detected my surprise at how much she'd brought over. "Is it too much?"
"No, it's fine - I just didn't realize how much you could carry," I told her, opening the door wide. There were probably more clothes than she needed in there, but that was fine. The absent thought came to mind that she could play dress up for me, which promptly made Xico's cheeks turn bright red. It wasn't exactly the most common thing for somebody to do to a girl in this world, I guessed - and given Xico's normal clothing choices, I suspected there wouldn't be anything too sexy in there.
"Sorry..." Xico said, like she had anything to apologize for on that topic.
I just gave her a surprise hug, pulling her petite body close against mine, enjoying the snuggly feeling of her against me, and the delightful waving of her tentacles behind her. "It's fine. I'll make us some dinner," I said, as I broke off the hug. "You can put your stuff wherever," I added, moving into the kitchen. I wasn't that attached to a well-taken care of living space, I just tended not to acquire enough stuff to actually make any meaningful mess, and superspeed now meant I could pick up what messes I did make.
"O-okay," she said, nervously floating to my bedroom with her luggage following after her, like some animated cartoon objects. She paused at the threshold to the bedroom, just staring it down like it was foreign territory, even though she had definitely been inside in the past. She picked up said thoughts, apparently, because she blushed a bit and went inside, carting her stuff behind her.
I set about making some sandwiches for the two of us - with my superspeed, I was done and the table was set by the time she emerged from the bedroom once more, sitting down at the table across from me. "Thanks for... dinner," she said, reaching out for the sandwich with her hands, biting into it. There was a wet tearing noise that accompanied the bites, as her tongues got into it, peeling off bits of sandwich before she chomped on them with her teeth properly.
"No problem," I told her. I took a bite myself, trying to think of some subject of conversation. "What do you do for fun?" I didn't really have that great of an idea, to be honest.
"Normally... I watch... people... and chaxu some," she said. "It... um... is when you... pick up... thoughts... that are..." she waved her finger vaguely to the top of her head, trying to think of the English word.
"Surface?"
"Yeah," she agreed. "It's nice... in places that are... happy..." she explained, slowly. "Plus... if somebody is... going to... commit a crime... I can catch them."
"What about stuff you do with friends? Like with Lope."
"We play... video games... mostly," Xico explained. "I'm good at... some."
"I certainly wouldn't mind breaking in some more of my newfound video game collection." Had I properly thanked Mira for buying them for me? I guess all the sex counted, but I could also say it with my mouth instead of my penis.
Xico blushed at that thought. "Yeah... let's play..." she said, quietly, as she ate.
* * *
We actually wound up playing the Death March mission of MechFighter 3 (which felt quite different with a controller than in the VR simulation version) together. It was split screen rather than joint control, and the mission went on for a full hour, waaay longer than I'd expected. By the end of it, I was sticky with sweat, and Xico was offering looks at my clothes where they clung to my body in an attractive way. The first one had been furtive, but once she'd realized that I didn't mind at all, she was a lot more blatant about it. It was cute - when I'd first thought that, she'd blushed, nervously rolled her eyes around as if trying to look at something else, then snuck another peek.
In any case, once we did defeat the last few drone aircraft and take out the artillery battery, with Xico at just 18% health (I was at 84% - I had really, insanely good reaction time thanks to my powers, but there were situations where that wasn't quite enough to avoid damage), the sweat meant I was thinking of a shower - and Xico's constant looking made me want to share that shower with a certain tight eighteen year old. She didn't even need me to verbalize that suggestion, nodding rapidly, the two of us quickly going to my bathroom and getting naked. She had sweat just a little herself, making her shirt stick as she peeled it off for a second, creating a really appealing revelation of bare skin.
Once we were in the shower, though, there was no foreplay - I was hard and she was wet, and I just rubbed my dick in between her thighs for half a second before she floated up, angling her body to let me just push inside her. With her flight, she could - and did - angle herself parallel to the floor, thrusting her body up and down my cock at first as the water blasted down on her back and my torso.
She was tight, too. She even exaggerated that tightness, squeezing my cock in her pussy, putting all the effort she could into doing a good job for me. It felt absolutely great, and my hands slid across her naked body hungrily, feeling her out, using what I'd picked up from our previous igoss-ing sex to make her feel all the better.
It worked great, as I found the same angle I'd used last time, rubbing up against her most sensitive spots as her tight sex wrapped and squeezed at my cock with every thrust, hot pants escaping her throat as I worked my way in and out. Her hands and tentacles both wobbled vaguely, as if pointlessly searching for purchase, but she remained in the same position in the air, letting me grip her by the hips and just go at it, hard. It took her maybe two minutes to come, her whole body spasming beneath me, her tentacles wetly slapping at my stomach and chest as she came, hard. It felt fantastic, and I slowed down to just let the feelings wash over me, bottoming out as her pussy worked me over.
As she came down from her orgasmic high, the thought came to mind that, back when we'd igoss-ed and I'd tried doing cunnilingus, I'd failed - but at the time, I'd also been unable to speed up my subjective perceptions for fear of breaking off that mental link. She didn't have any time to process that thought before I'd pulled out, twisted her around, and pressed my mouth up against her pussy at superhuman speed, starting to lick and kiss along her pussy before finding my way to her clit. Last time, I'd found that it worked best when it was a mix of sucking and flicking, so I set to work doing much the same... except now, at ten times the speed.
She pretty much immediately responded sharply, her nipples perky as her eyes widened, both her tentacles sticking straight out as my lips caressed her love nub and my tongue slid along its surface, making a circuitous course at a superhuman speed. Her legs locked onto either side of my head, her hands coming down, even her tentacles joining in, wrapping around me under the arms and trying to pull me deeper into her, as if that was even possible. As I kept up the work, she moaned, and in short order, came too, fingernails scraping along the back of my head. She gasped in pleasure, a sweet noise as the water continued to rush over us both, battering the top of my head, and I basked in the look on her face, in the twisting of her body, observing every little spasm of ecstasy in slow motion.
Once she was done coming, I felt satisfied that the cunnilingus had been at least as good as one of her blowjobs. She picked up enough of my thoughts, even at superspeed, to nod rapidly in response to that, panting a bit as I repositioned my body, putting my cock right at the entrance to her sex and just starting to slam inside her without hesitation. She gasped at the sudden force, but I quickly started to twist my cock at such an angle to really drive her wild once more. I could admire her face, too, the flush of color, the parted lips, the eyes that stared into mine, then suddenly shifted to drink in my torso with the same libidinous interest you'd expect of an eighteen year old boy eyeing up his hot older girlfriend's chest.
She blushed at that mental comparison, her mouth working for a moment, but failing to actually produce any meaningful sound as I kept jackhammering away, even using my superspeed to drive her absolutely crazy with pleasure. It didn't take too long before she came again, her pussy squeezing and clamping down on my cock, her tentacles wrapping around my waist, pulling me deep inside her, holding me down. Her hands reached up for my back, softly stroking the bare skin there, pawing at me as she twisted her own body up to press against mine, perky nipples scraping against my bare chest.
I don't know where my wellspring of endurance came from - I can only attribute it to my superspeed, because I kept going, and going, fucking her in the shower, occasionally pausing to suckle her clit, going making her come over and over again. Her cheeks started to glow with heat, and occasionally, she'd nervously plead with me - "Please, come," she'd manage to get out, and I'd ignore her, too focused on making her feel good to worry about inadvertently bruising her teenaged ego. I had found that I really liked making women in this world come their brains out, all the more when they got all shy and embarrassed about it - it was like something from some Japanese hentai. So, if this was meant to be a preview for what a more serious relationship with Xico would be like, that meant that I had to treat her exactly the way that I would in such a relationship.
It was only right.
I think Xico might have disagreed with that line of argument, judging by her expression, but she didn't manage to verbalize anything as I kept fucking away.
When I finally did come inside her, earning an exhausted sigh of satisfaction, we were both pretty exhausted, and we had spent upwards of an hour in the shower. Still, she managed to speak up, as she used her telekinesis to peel herself off my cock. "Do you... want... a wakeup blowjob?" I didn't even have to nod. "Then... wash it off..." she said. Her movements with her telekinesis now resembled a flop, like she was half heartedly tossing her own body around, as she exited the shower and grabbed a towel to wash off with.
I quickly washed my dick off, making sure to soap it up then wash it all off, before leaving the shower to join Xico in the bed.
Neither of us had bothered to pull on clothes, and we wound up facing one another, eye-to-eye, as we fell asleep together.
* * *
Fals hummed as she considered the door in front of her. She had seen Project appear, carrying numerous personal items with her, and the girl had not left - it was three o'clock AM. Had her attempt to expand her menagerie with some fascinating exotic animal backfired so severely that Roger had now fallen into cohabitation with the strange-looking girl? It was a plausible enough story - the handsome man, comforting a girl, experiencing what the people of Meiriceá called the Nightingale effect and allowing her to come to live with him.
It would be unfortunate if it had. She had hoped to coax Roger into her harem without the use of force.