"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?"

The couple trades uncertain glances, as if to indicate that neither of them has put any previous thought into this and the whole point of putting their lives in the hands of a therapist is that they don't have to.

"I suppose I would be interested to know if you have a time estimate on when you expect to finish your work."

"As I mentioned in the first session, I try to be as efficient as possible. That said, there's a limit to how fast I can work; ultimately, you are the ones looking to change your relationship. I can't do that for you. I will discover as much about your situation as fast as I can and I will be plain with you about how I see your situation and what I think you need to do."

"If you want things to go quickly, the best thing you can do is be transparent with me and be open to trying the experiments I suggest, or telling me flatly why they will not yield good data."

"I got... not very far into it and then decided to back off before I hurt myself.  Sex with someone who doesn't desire you is not fun or sexy."

"Okay, yes, let's go ahead and talk about this week's experiment right now. It sounds like it worked out exactly the way you predicted. That's completely fine."

"The new data, at least for me, is in what you observed about yourself in the process. Would it be okay to relive the attempt, go through it slowly, moment by moment? Or will just thinking and talking about it also hurt you too much?"

There is no way this guy is going to go for this. He's not very introspective. He's just going to keep repeating the party line that this kind of sex sucks - it's a thin story, and getting him to thicken it with detail is probably going to fail.

She's going to try it anyway, because there's so much potential locked away if she can crack the shield around that... but if he can't go there, he can't, and she'll have to find another way.

"I'm not that fragile, and I backed off before I could damage our relationship -"

"As I had instructed him beforehand, indeed."

"But I'm not very sure how much there is to say.  Sex isn't just... the part of a woman, female, that's warm and wet.  It's knowing that there's a person there and that she's into it.  If I find a lesbian who's not into guys at all, but doesn't hate it, just doesn't really care very much one way or another, and I pay her enough to blow me, that's... sort of like using a male sex toy but with added ick factor and that's a turn-off.  There's guys who can't be turned on unless the woman, wears high heels, dresses in black leather, whatever.  I need her to be sentient, conscious, and into me."

"Can you say more about what 'into it' and 'into me' actually mean? If I were to watch a movie of someone having sex with you who was really 'into it' or 'into you,' what would I see happening on that movie?"

Getting Jake to describe the movie might help him separate out the behavioral - what's actually happening in the room, what he wants his partner to say or do - from the cognitive or emotional interpretation he makes out of his partner's actions. People tend to mix those together as if they're one monolithic thing.

"So like - Zephyria on arrival -"  He turns to her.  "Is it okay to talk about?"

"If her kind's guild-oath bars her from repeating it further."

"That's how it usually works on Earth.  I mean, we don't have a proper Assassin's Guild like you told me about around here, or a lot of things on Earth would be different, but I don't think your average therapist breaks it."