Agreeing to go into service is easy. No harder than signing up for the Marines. He's spent so long serving his country, it's a comfort to know he'll be acting in service again.
He inhales sharply and whimpers against her and — he can't do this on instinct even now but he moves more naturally.
It doesn't have nearly as much of an effect but it has any; he shivers and repeats the thing he'd just done with his tongue.
He closes his eyes and — he dotes on you, you know, you're his favorite — remembers the way it feels when Chris touches his hair, remembers being held, remembers sleeping beside him remembers Chris's hands over his bruises — he's only vaguely aware of what his tongue is doing — you, he kisses. because, apparently, you are flawless — it hurts to sit down and Chris's hands are so warm afterwards — he's holding onto Rachel's thighs and moving exactly the way she showed him.
Okay — okay. He can do that. "Yes ma'am."
He puts the condom on and closes his eyes again and thinks about Chris, about Chris hitting him and about Chris holding him after he's hit and about Chris touching his hair and telling him he'd done well and about Chris kissing his forehead and saying I'm proud of you —
This he can do without being told how.
"Yes, ma'am," and he goes slower, and harder, and reaches down to touch her clit, and — you, he kisses. because, apparently, you are flawless — kisses her neck, her jaw, her shoulders.
Slight shiver. He keeps doing that, keeps rubbing small circles over Rachel's clit, keeps his eyes closed and keeps playing over memories of Chris.
Then he'll be moving his hand the way she wants. He's only halfway aware of what's going on outside of his skull and given her instructions Rachel probably prefers it that way, but he can do as he's told and still be focusing on Chris telling him he's good, that he's done well, that —
— he holds himself back from the edge —
The only sound he makes is a small, soft oh before he finishes.
He opens his eyes. "Thank you, ma'am," and his voice is shaking. He gets off of her and takes the condom off and throws it away and kneels on the bed.
"The good news is that he can function sexually with men and women," Rachel says to Chris.
"That sounds like there's bad news."
"Having sex with Marlo as a woman," Rachel says, "is incredibly depressing."
"He didn't--" Chris said, not quite managing to hide the surprise in his voice.
"Of course not," Rachel says, "he was perfect, like you knew he would be. Utterly obedient, a quick learner, and smiling the entire time. It's just that he doesn't want to have sex with me. And not even in the hot way where I'm forcing him and he's humiliated, because he's one of yours, and so he does everything I say as soon as I say it without protesting."
"Wonderful."
"He just... has an air of wishing it would be over so he can take a shower."
"How am I going to sell that?" Chris says. "Selling a Kinsey 6 is worse than selling a Kinsey 0."
"You could sell him to a woman," Rachel says dubiously, "if she didn't want to have sex with him, or if she had a fetish for very obedient men who sort of want to vomit the entire time. --Oh, by the way, I told him you love him."
"What?!"
"You can't lie to me, Chris, I've known you since you were fourteen, and also you have a type."
"That is not my concern," Chris says, although it absolutely was his concern. "Matters are at a delicate stage with Marlo, I am picking apart a complicated web of self-deception and denial and internalized homophobia, and I don't need complicating--"
"Marlo is a sad kicked little puppy and I am not confident that anyone has ever loved him in his entire life," Rachel says. "He needs to know."
Chris glances at the clock. "This conversation has lasted too long, he'll think he did poorly and it will set back his training. Thank you for your assistance."
"Do you ever get tired," Rachel says to Chris's departing back, "of having training slaves instead of feelings?"
The room smells like her. Marlo desperately wants to take a shower, to get this — whatever feeling this is — off of him. He's still kneeling on the bed when Chris walks in.
(Chris loves you, runs through his mind unbidden. He dotes on you, you know.)
He keeps his eyes down even though he's burning to know what Chris's face looks like.
"Rachel says you did well and were a quick learner and were very capable of hiding how crushingly miserable you were the whole time."