"...yeah?"

"What -" sigh. "Sorry."

"What are you sorry for?"

"'m not supposed to decide to stop so I can demand you explain yourself? I didn't exactly mean to - I didn't really notice that I was doing that -"

" - that's a really weird opinion for the system to have? You can always decide to stop, that's - actually just always okay - "

"That's really not how slavery works."

" - I don't ever want to kiss you when you're not at least okay with that happening. That's not a - this should not be happening when you don't want it to."

"I don't - I wasn't unhappy, you'd have noticed if I was unhappy. I wasn't objecting, I just wasn't thinking very clearly."

"Okay, I didn't think you were, sorry, just - you get to object. You always get to object. That's - actually important, that you know that."

"Well then I guess I object to - not what you were doing exactly but the way you were thinking about it. Or something."

"Okay. 

"Can you... elaborate."

Words are hard. He touches her. 

So, like, imagine if he's playing with Zana, and he's tired of this game and is only still playing it because he hasn't thought of a way to end it without making her have a tantrum, only instead that's - how she feels about kissing him? That's not a very good metaphor but it gets at the thing, kind of.

Yeah that sounds bad.

She can - try to focus on kissing him? She was actually really enjoying kissing him, it was great, he was being great, and beautiful, and lovely, just - people talk all the time about how it's bad to lead boys on and do things that might make them want sex more than they already do if you're not in a position to have it, it'll make them mad or upset or really frustrated with you, and she - doesn't actually think that would happen with him because he's not like that, but it's still this - thing, that supposedly hurts people, and maybe he won't actually do anything about being hurt because apparently he doesn't even think he gets to object if she's kissing him and he doesn't want that, but she actually doesn't want to hurt him, she actually just wants kissing her to be really straightforwardly good for him every time it happens -

Making out with people does not hurt them!!!! - well like it's possible it does with humans? He doesn't actually know much of anything about humans. But making out with people doesn't hurt them the same way ...getting them presents doesn't hurt them even if you only do it on Christmas and not every day? Or reading them a story doesn't hurt them even if eventually you'll get to the end of the story?

Wow that is not how anyone who has ever talked to her about making out has talked about it. Well, except him, they have at all talked about making out before and honestly he has been really weirdly okay with all of the other objectively very leading-on type things she has been doing, such as sleeping in the same bed as him and ending up thinking about things that sound nice during telepathy, so maybe he specifically is also just fine with other things like that? But it's just, like, in general, boys want sex, and if you do stuff that seems like it's leading up to sex and then you don't have sex with them they will feel sort of betrayed? Like, like you gave someone a waffle cone like you were going to give them some scoops of ice cream in it, and then you did not actually get them any ice cream and just let them sit there with a waffle cone, and it's not like the waffle cone is harming them but it's mean to imply that you were going to offer more and then leave them with something that actually kind of sucks on its own? - not that he was acting like this part sucked, he was not, just - 

Well see that can't be right, he knows human boys are into kissing, he's kissed them. Like if human boys didn't like kissing you could have a story where they only did kissing to arouse human girls in the hopes of getting them in the mood for other stuff that they do like, though, like, that'd still be on them if they weren't good enough at it to get the human girls in the mood for the other thing, but like, that would be a coherent description of human behavior except for the part where human boys do actually like kissing. 

Why are they thinking so much about human boys. 

Uh she mostly hasn't done anything that would make him think she wanted to have sex with him, such as saying she wanted to have sex with him or asking him about which sex things he likes to do or touching his dick or giving a long confusing speech about how even though she's going to tell him to do sex things he actually shouldn't if he doesn't want to. If she did those things then he'd think she wanted to have sex with him, probably, and if he were confused he could ask?

- wait, he's kissed boys? - oh right she's not Catholic anymore and has no particular reason to care about that more than him kissing girls. Although she thinks maybe if you are a boy having kissed boys is not super strong evidence about how boys kiss girls, because these are sort of different situations. And it's not like boys don't care about kissing at all, obviously she knows he likes kissing itself, just - she feels like if she were kissing a different person like this they would on some level be kind of upset about getting this and not anything else, like, the ice cream thing was a bad analogy maybe but she's sure there are other things where the thing itself is nice but it would be upsetting if it didn't lead to anything else, like, uh - looking at wedding dresses or something, that's probably really fun, and also if you did it with a girl you didn't want to marry you would be being a horrible person, because you'd be getting her hopes up about marriage and the disappointment is going to be so much worse than the fun was good -

- also human girls have lots more pressing reasons to not have sex with boys than that they're not in the mood, human girls can get pregnant, see, they're not like fast fairies, and also if they have sex with someone and that someone leaves them then a ton of other people will never want to touch them again, so they have to be picky, see -

- anyway. That's, uh, good, about him not thinking sex is remotely imminent, because it is not. She regrets making him sad anyway by constantly being an anxious mess.

Man humans have such horribly dysfunctional attitudes about sex, it's so worrying!

Possibly that's just her? Although she is kind of pretty sure she did not make all this up herself, this is definitely mostly stuff other people have told her. In humans' defense she is not sure most fairies are actually better, or have invented concepts such as "consent" or "it is actually always allowable to stop kissing people if you do not want to kiss them".

Yeah fairies don't really bother with any of that stuff but they also don't not want to touch people who've had sex before or get disappointed if they kiss people and don't have sex with them or consider sleeping in the same bed to be implying they'll be having sex or - like, it just seems like vastly more overhead and worry and misery than 'sometimes you kiss people even if you don't feel like it' -

Okay but you would expect fairies to worry way less about sex, they can't get pregnant while fast, this is at least not really humans just making up weird nonsense rules for the hell of it?

Also humans find having to have sex they don't want to have to be, like, often not less traumatic than being sent into an active war zone and made to shoot people and worry about being shot yourself, not making people do sex things they don't want to do is actually incredibly important, and it's way less important for kissing, but this is part of the reason why people who are not mature and responsible about stuff can maybe kiss but should not have sex, right, because if you make a mistake with kissing that's unfortunate but fixable and if you make a mistake with sex that's really really really really bad -

They what? Because that just doesn't make any sense. Like. Not at all. Like, some people die of eating peanuts and it makes about as much sense as that and he admits that happens but - finding it traumatic? To have sex? 

Yes!!!! This is absolutely a true thing that really happens, people used to refer to rape as a fate worse than death, basically everyone knows it is incredibly horrible and a bunch of people if you ask them will be like 'yeah actually I think rapists should get the death penalty', and that attitude is wrong and bad but it's not uncommon, and there are studies about the trauma thing, does he want stats because she could look those up probably? Why did he think she was so upset about contemplating the scenario in which the fairies had enslaved her and maybe made her have sex?????

Not especially but his father probably will. That is so incredibly weird. What. Well yeah they should definitely never have sex if it might give her bizarre brain problems for the rest of her life - if everyone he ever had sex with going to have bizarre brain problems for the rest of their life -

No no no it's not sex in general, it's specifically sex that you're forced to have even if you don't want it, that's really really bad, and sex that everybody consents to is - probably sometimes bad but way way less bad and often totally fine? If you have it with someone committed to you who you love and trust and who will definitely stop if you need them to, that is pretty much never going to give you bizarre brain problems? It is kind of bizarre that he doesn't have an innate sense of the difference between these things? Uh, she heard someone say once that sex, like boxing, is fun if both people consent and is a serious crime if they don't, but actually he already told her that it's fine if she hits him, so she's not entirely sure that's going to help him grasp this -