"Speak, then, and I shall keep my [BIP] blushes and screams to myself."

"So like Zephyria was pretty, pent up, when her ship crashed on the beach where I'd parked my mobile trailer.  She basically jumped me and didn't totally... ask a lot, which is fine, because I'm not especially into being asked first so long as the girl is hot.  And she doesn't naturally gasp in pleasure exactly like a human woman but her translator was up to the job and pretty soon I figured out what it meant when her ears twitched -"

"I don't think she needs THAT much detail!"

"Sorry.  Anyways.  That's what the movie looks like when Zephyria is into me.  And when she's not into me, the translator doesn't overlay any gasps of pleasure, she's just quietly focusedly executing, what did you call them -"

"The Forty-Seven Ecstatic Maneuvers."

"And I know that the person inside there isn't feeling it."

"Okay, I'm starting to get the picture. So when Zephyria is 'into it,' she initiates, she's aggressive, and she makes non-verbal pleasure signals like ear twitches -- oh, sorry Zephyria, too explicit?"

"But when she's not in heat, when she's in practice mode, it's quieter, more mechanical, more rote, and none of those non-verbals are there."

"And you end up having a very different experience. Even if, sensually, it feels very nice on your body, there's no erotic energy zinging between the two of you. It's not alive."

"Is that about right?"

"Yyyeeeessss?" he says in the tones of somebody who's not sure whether a seemingly obvious question conceals a trap.

"If I missed something or I'm off the mark, feel free to set me straight!"

Ramona is utterly unsurprised by anything that Jake has said so far. But Jake explaining it, and then Ramona explaining it back to him, at length, might possibly be helping Zephyria understand in a way that doesn't damage her ego.

(Zephyria's ego is far beyond any Earthling's ability to damage, for the record.)

"I mean, I think you're looking for something physical to add and it's about what my mind knows is behind her eyes.  If she set her translator to make fake pleasure sounds that would be awful and not fix the problem."

Jake's comment inadvertently undercut the next move Ramona was going to make, but that sometimes happens and she can still salvage it.

"Zephyria, I'm just getting to know you, but I think making fake pleasure sounds seems very out of character for you. So far with me, you've been very direct and it seems important to you to represent yourself accurately. And even if I got you wrong, and you were willing to fake it, I wouldn't expect that to help, and Jake doesn't want you to do that. So all three of us are against that plan."

"So let me ask you this: is there any way, when you're not in heat, to authentically do the things that make sex have more of that energetic zing for Jake? Can you authentically take more initiative, be more aggressive, feel more pleasure, and express that pleasure out loud? Or is that simply inaccessible when you're not in heat? Any true answer is perfectly fine, but I am still learning about your species so I don't know what's available to you and what's not."

"I am not sure what it would mean for initiative and aggression to be authentic; those sound to me like outward behaviors, not feelings.  I can push Jake to the ground and tear away the portion of his clothing covering his genitals, but I would be doing so out of calculated interest in his satisfaction rather than eagerness for my own pleasure; this seems nigh-tautological to me as a historical description of the psychological causality of how those outward behaviors would come about, and I don't know if you define that as authentic.  I predict Jake doesn't."

"As for feeling sexual pleasure when not in heat, that is beyond me and almost-all my kind."

"By authentically, I mean, be true to yourself - do what you really want to do. You're right that it's behavioral, but not purely behavioral; it's more a statement about how aligned your insides and your outsides are. As I get to know you I suspect that this distinction is not helpful to you -- and that we are perilously close to having a deep philosophical discussion about the nature of free will. I think I would probably enjoy that discussion, but it wouldn't be efficient, so let's not."

"What I'm hearing is that while you can find motivation to behave in a sexually aggressive way, you would not be doing it to sate your own intrinsic erotic desire, and you would not feel sexual pleasure as a result. And you think that's not going to work for Jake. And I think you're right."

Ramona looks at Jake as she says that last bit, to confirm that her understanding is on track.

Nod.

"Okay. Let's take stock a little bit."

"My first idea was to work with the definition of 'sex' and see if perhaps you two were too narrow in your thinking about what sex even is. We didn't spend much time on that, because it turned out to be beside the point; it wasn't central to what Jake was missing."

"My second gambit -- seeing if we could simply move the sexual-frequency-slider to an agreeable intermediate point -- has also failed, and that's okay. It was the logical thing to try next, and we tried it, and it didn't work. There are more things to try."

"Before we move on, I do need to check something. Zephyria, what do you already understand about what it's like to be Jake in these circumstances? Do you think you basically 'get it'? Or are you at a bit of a loss, and can't really put yourself in his shoes?"

"I suppose I do have some difficulty imagining what it's like to be slightly in heat all of the time and in a way where he can go a week without sex but not seven months.  But much more of my indignation is focused on his proposal to solve this problem by taking a second wife.  Adding wives is not really how my own people try to solve relationship problems."

"We are going to have to talk about Jake's idea relatively soon, but we are not actually there yet. I would like to stay just a little longer in the two person system, if that's okay with you. There's something important to understand here, and it sounds like you don't quite have it yet."

"Jake, would you be willing to explain? What is it like to be you, in the third week when you have been wishing to have sex with Zephyria, and it's just not available? The third month? The sixth month? How do you feel -- physically, emotionally? What kind of thoughts go through your mind?"

There are a lot of ways this situation could go from here, but all of them will go better if Zephyria is able to take Jake's perspective and show understanding and empathy about it. It doesn't mean Zephyria has to solve the problem herself -- her feeling sexy is apparently not actually even a biological option -- but being Jake's teammate in at least wishing she could solve the problem, will go a long way.

"Just like the standard 'after three days without sex, life becomes meaningless' thing that human males have.  Brain's like 'well that's not working out for you evolutionarily, now is it' and pokes me to go get horny somewhere that might work out for me, and dispose of any obstacles that stand in my way."

"So there's sort of two parts to that answer. In part one, you feel like life is meaningless, and in part two, you set out to solve the problem by acquiring more sex. I want to hang out longer in part one, because Zephyria doesn't have that experience and doesn't really understand it."

"So after three days, life becomes meaningless. Say more?"

"Everything else I do seems less important since it isn't leading into getting sex.  World feels grim and dark.  Just the usual."

"It is not particularly implausible to me that biology would design his species to punish him for not breeding when he could be breeding.  I don't know if I can understand on a deep level when he's not my species, but people often don't understand one another on a deep level even within a species and especially across the sexual gap of biological design."

"Jake, how does that grim darkness creep into the rest of your life? How does it affect your work? Are you able to take pleasure in other activities or hobbies?"

"Basically, paint us a picture of 'Jake with sex' vs. 'Jake without sex' and how different they actually are."