"I - I'm sorry to be difficult but I have personal-integrity issues with having my memory occasionally erased!  And I don't think that having sex but not remembering is - would be really - I mean, at that point why not just masturbate and not remember it, if the only trace is left on my body and not my mind?"

"I don't think I have a strong need to see him experiencing my works for the first time while I'm also in heat?  Sex works more than once, it is an event for which a biological organism ought to feel enduring motivation."

"Okay, fantastic, we're learning from this experiment before it even begins! Delete the part about the memory erasure, but keep the rest of the assignment. Any further objections?"

"Certainly not of me.  It is not the first time I expressed a willingness to be there and squishy for him."

"I mean, I expect it not to work and - I admit I haven't actually tried it, it just seems kind of - I mean, no matter how horny I got back in the day, I never went to a prostitute because having her not be into it didn't feel right.  And I mean I know some prostitutes actually are into it, it's just, it's impossible to know, right, because they'll pretend that either way.  I never wanted to be the guy whose girl was, you know, there for him even when she wasn't into it."

"Of course, you're right, at some level. All three of us expect that it's not going to be the same as when she's in heat. It'll be a different kind of satisfaction for her, much more intellectual and muted. But she's promised to speak that true satisfaction out loud, and not pretend the rest of it."

"So expecting it not to 'work' in the sense of 'feeling just like when she's in heat' is absolutely fine. I'm asking you to try it, despite your doubts, and pay attention to what actually happens."

"Next week, same time?"

"I'm not comfortable with this.  Sexually.  Am I supposed to do it even though I'm not comfortable with it."

"Let me explain how an experiment like this works. Anything that happens - literally anything - is good experimental data. So, like, you can go home and then just utterly fail to initiate this kind of sex at all, and then the next time we meet I'll ask you what was going through your head and whether you even remembered the homework and what stopped you from bringing it up. That would be an experimental result, and we would learn from it."

"Or maybe you would start, and then you would find that you could not be less interested in what was happening, your body is not responding, you would rather be digging ditches than having sex right now. So you stop. That would be an experimental result, and we would learn from it."

"Or maybe you would start, and you would do something you'd call 'sex,' and you'd have some sort of sensory and emotional and cognitive experience of that. Whatever your experience turns out to be, that would be an experimental result, and we would learn from it."

"Anything that happens is okay. All that I'm really asking is that you walk out of the room with the intention of making a run up to the experiment as outlined and seeing what actually happens."

"With that framework in mind, tell me more about your discomfort. What's feeling off?"

"Being with a girl who's not into you is - somewhere between failure as a man, and rape."

"Okay, so, the premise here as I understand it is that she's voluntarily interested in practicing her sexual technique on you so that she can 'bind you to her more tightly' when she's in heat. She's willing, she's an active participant, she has her own agenda, and from the sounds of it she's doing her best to learn how to please you. She's also deriving at least some pleasure from it herself."

"In my professional opinion, this is NOT RAPE."

"A lot of times when cis het men talk about 'failure as a man' when having sex with women, they are very focused on... giving her orgasms? Or something to that effect? Is that what you're worried about?"

Ramona worried briefly if orgasms were even a thing for Zephyria and then remembered that the castle-building exercise was supposed to culminate in "lots of orgasms for both of us" so it was probably all right.

Ramona then worried more that perhaps "orgasm" is not actually a concept that maps neatly between species, and that perhaps in some sense, Zephyria was faking it the whole time, if only because cross-species sex is confusing.

Ramona decided not to bring up that possibility at this moment in therapy.

"I mean, I have gotten far enough in life to know that women don't like being pressured into needing to have orgasms.  But - it's not about how much pleasure she experiences, it's about, her being there for the sex.  Her being a sexual person, who's there with you and not for you.  On a sexual level, I mean; I get that Zephyria would be doing it for me and with me as a person."

"That's a real thing you're worried about. That's the actual truth about your spouse. She is not there for her own electric, passionate, sexual gratification when she's not in heat. Because biologically, that is not a thing for her. It doesn't matter how much of a man you are. You could be the intergalactic champion of manliness and it would not matter at all. It's not about you. It is a fact about her."

"And I want to acknowledge that it's possible that that doesn't work for you, that you aren't going to thrive in a relationship where your partner doesn't have electric, passionate, sexual gratification more than a week or two a year. That would be valid. But it's not a personal affront. It's not something you did wrong, or something that you could overcome if only you were better. It's got nothing to do with you."

"I mean, it's not something I'm doing wrong to her or with her, I get that.  It just means my life is going badly because I can't be with somebody who actually does sexually desire me in that way, rather than somebody I, incentivized into being with me anyway - but it's not about pride it's about it not being sexy."

Hmph. He doesn't have sexual object permanence - her wanting him when she's physiologically in the right state doesn't carry over, or at least carry over long enough. And to be fair, one week to 6.75 months is a pretty steep ratio, that would be tough for most sexually-focused humans to manage.

It's also too bad he's quite this dependent on external validation. I wonder how much I can get him to find himself sexy, to self-validate? I wonder if him becoming an outrageous flirt, and having people flirt back, would fill this tank for him?

Not ready for any of those conversations yet, Ramona, one thing at a time.

"That may be. Like I said a moment ago, it may simply not work for you to go 6.75 months at a time without anyone feeling and expressing desire for you. That would be valid, and I get why you would want to seek out that feeling of being wanted elsewhere - that was exactly the solution you were proposing when you walked in here."

"And yet... I want to work with just the two-person system first and see how stable we can get it before we start adding in new partners. I want to see how much better you feel, if at all, when you're connecting sexually more frequently, even if that sex doesn't meet all of your ideals. I want to get you really solid about the concept that it's not about you, not just intellectually but in your gut. When we've done that, then we can start to explore what else we might add to this system."

"I'm concerned myself about the effect, on our relationship, of my mate having sex with me that he does not find satisfying, but you are the [BIP] relationship therapist."

"I suggest you do your best to make it physically satisfying and we'll go from there."

Eight days was only an estimate, this planet having previously proven too primitive to speak in civilized credibility intervals.  The brief on the socially stratified customs of four random planets and one nonrandom planet is not ready by next Tuesday, as would have been estimated to be no less than 23% probable had the human actually asked for a probability distribution.

"That is really unfortunate. I was counting on having that report before my next session with this couple because they do not make sense to me at all."

Ramona took a sip of her beer.

"I think person A had a very intense experience at the beginning and is still chasing the high from that, but person B... I don't know what's up with them. I feel like they probably have a lot of better options. And it sure would help to know the mating habits of, um, Struagawan merchants, to figure it out."

"There's a saying that... what would be a human translation.  We're all somebody's bimbo.  Somebody's catgirl?  There are great gains in trade to be unlocked by going outside your own species.  Though, obviously, many of the species that are still around, are by now composed of those who don't.  But if you ask why I'm excited to mate with Earthlings, you don't need to look any further than the fact that you're so soft and nice and stupid."

"Glad we're making you feel so welcome!"

"I have to say, though, banging non-humans hasn't really interested me so far. It probably doesn't help that most of the aliens I meet are demonstrably bad at relationships and sex, or they wouldn't be seeking my help. I think I need some more cross-species role model couples. I'm just not seeing the... gains from trade. For myself. Any advice?"

"You ask me what species you would mate with, if you were not restricted to human men?  How would I know?  If I were to go off your entertainment I imagine you would be looking for a rich caring tentacle monster, and there are ten thousand races like that if not more."

Tuesday, 11am, again. (Second full session.)

"Good morning and welcome back! I definitely want to hear about the results of your experiment, but before we get into that, is there anything you want to put on the agenda for today?"