Something about the grip he was using was a bit uncomfortable. He changes it. He usually masturbates sitting, in front of a computer screen- It's pretty different lying back like this. More comfortable and relaxed.

He tries cupping his balls with his other hand, but that feels weird and isn't actually, er, exciting.

He keeps having trouble getting into it, letting the worry and anxiety and feeling-weird fall away and just - exist - focus on the pleasure. He stops for a minute, thoughts chasing each other around his skull.

When he tries again, he imagines more erotic things involving Hannah (and also pornstars from Earth). Someone hugging him from behind and stroking his cock, someone whispering moans in his ear, someone giving him a blowjob-

He finally starts to properly relax into it. The lube has dried out, so he adds a little more.

He remembers something about changing the stimulation every so often. He hasn't actually masturbated much, but...

He tries rubbing a finger in circles around the head. Ooh, strange and good. He tries alternating pace, fastfastfast, slow, slow, fastfastfast-

And now he's properly focused on it, soaking in the sensations, imagining blended-together scenes of sex and fucking and fingering and soft hugs, breathing hard-

-cumming - ping-

-He's breathing hard, and there's a splatter of semen on his belly now.

He's down to zero core draw, but there are 'partial' core draws as well, he might have as much as half of a core draw and it would just not register. One more activation would fully clear him, right? Right.

And he can just keep stroking, after a couple dozen seconds to let it stop feeling oversensitive. So he does.

He's in a sex game now. He can have sex, he has a body designed for it, designed to feel good, with a whole collective of people who are sexually open, muses who he can just go up and ask- Who are probably very good at it by sheer practice-

He's groaning out loud now, with both hands on his shaft, one above the other, squeezing over the slick mixed cum and lube and sliding and twisting and-

-again. Ping.

And now he's properly exhausted, and also much more relaxed. He breathes deeply and zones out for a minute. Okay, a few minutes.

Okay. Time to start doing things again. He - wipes the lube and cum off his hands and himself on the blanket, feeling a little bad about it. Bundles up his clothes, wraps himself in the blanket, goes and has a shower, dresses, folds the blanket so the mess is on the inside and sets it on the floor.

Hannah's not back yet. Is she even going to come back, or is she going to find another room? Can he lie on the bed? He feels like lying down and closing his eyes, even if he's not tired physically.

He lies on the bed in shirt and pants but no shoes. He doesn't go under the duvet, though. After a minute of trying different commands, he figures out how to turn the lights off. He naps.

Morning comes, and he's awoken by a knock at the door. "Teddy?"

"Come in! I expected you to come back earlier actually, sorry!"

He stands. No grogginess, no need to stretch, no confusion from his interrupted dream. He could get used to that part.

She opens the door and comes in. "I have to sleep sometime too, you know. Rosalie let me cuddle up since she threw me out of my room. Breakfast?"

"Sure. I'm not actually hungry? But... Little things. Hmm- What needs to get done today..."

"Probably we introduce you to the locals. You can talk to Rosalie more about your questions. And we should probably use your Core Draw for something."

"-I'd have to put it back down again. I guess that's not a bad thing." Blush. "I still feel like I don't know how any of this works, maybe I should shadow someone's workday or something. Or go ahead and try to figure out how to un-corrupt someone."

"I think the first thing to do is to locate the corrupted, and that'll take a planet scan. Which is your department. Rosalie should have a more sophisticated virus scan algorithm than the default, we should ask her about that. And then once we know how big a problem the corrupted are we can talk about what to do about it."

"And obviously it should save the results somewhere. I wonder if I can learn the low-level, the actual steps it's taking to virus scan people, and- Ask Rosalie that, not you. She seemed kind of intimidating, you know? Even in, uh, pajamas."

"She's an artist - both in the sense of artist/muse, and in the sense of actually powering most of her programs off art. The paintings downstairs are hers. She's... impressive."

She gestures out the door. "Anyway, let's do breakfast. Rosalie's not up yet, so we have some time to chat."

"I feel a sense of urgency, just..." Shrug. "I guess there are probably programs someone wrote that would be nice to cast in theory but turned out to take four or five core draw, somewhere?"

"Probably! Rosalie would know more about that than I do." She starts off down the hall towards the stairs. "So um... Wanna swap life stories?"

"Sure? Sure. Tell me how much context I need to backfill? I lived in the USA which is one of the better places to live, a big sorta-complicated democracy. Dad moved us to a little town kind of in the middle of nowhere for his work and I hated it, I preferred our old place. I was about to graduate from compulsory education and worried about being accepted to a good university. My parents are a manager and a housewife, my brother is so annoying and is going to be a lawyer, I wanted to do something technical, but I'm kind of shy and was bullied a lot for being a nerd in school. And then I got hit by a truck and died and woke up under that statue in the square, so."

"Compulsory education? You're forced to learn things? Around here it mostly works on an apprenticeship system. And then there's rel'he and they're their own thing. The way it went for me was I was apprenticed to a weaver but I had a boyfriend who was a rel'he and he discovered my Heartsong in, um, the expected way, and he invited me to get set up as a rel'he and come live as a Muse because my Heartsong was so perfect for it, and it was a hell of a lot better than weaving for the rest of my life so I kind of ran off with him. It cooled and we fell apart; we were more sexually compatible than emotionally so... But he's still around, and we're still friends. And hook up occasionally. We work a lot better when we're not being serious."

She's reached the bottom of the stairs now. "What do you want for breakfast?" she asks.

"Every child and teen has to go to school, basically, yeah. I'm not sure about the history of it but I think it's partially to make everyone knows things and partially for, like, socialization? Lots of - general stuff. Math, science, history, language class. Umm. No meat? Wait, you probably don't have factory farming and I'd feel less bad about meat here, then..."

"We maintain a library here and it's available to all members, but we don't teach mass classes or anything like that. Sometimes one of the more experienced rel'he will tutor a junior. I can do an egg and tomato and cheese frittata?"

"Sounds tasty. We as a society do a lot of mass classes, yeah. I've uh, never had a girlfriend or anything. -Can you turn your body into a girl's if you're born male? I'm not - that! But I knew someone. It was pretty hard for those at home. And societal expectations didn't help."

"Yeah, that can be done. My ex has some mods like that, he was born female. Still has the downstairs parts but he lowered his voice, reduced his breasts, that kind of thing. It's not always respected by el'he but rel'he generally know better."

"...I hope they're okay." Sigh. "The thing that killed me was sort of like the platform you want to make, by the way. For moving stuff around, instead of people. But no auto-safeties, driver controlled. Accidents with vehicles like that are - common enough to be one of the leading causes of death, actually. And occasionally murders with vehicles like that."

"Yeah, there's a reason why I'm reluctant to hand the thing over to el'he drivers." She ducks behind the counter, gets out a frying pan from the cupboard and sets it on the stove.

"Want me to help with that? 'M capable of chopping and not burning the place down, at least."