<Flying is trivial, we can go morph a bird after my next dunk in the Pool! Completely perfect memory is doable but not cheap. I bet Elves know things about sculpture and flowers, I could take some non-music courses sometime once I'm good enough to practice singing while doing something else or while you're doing something else with your hands.>

<3!!!

They can probably figure out some way to split their body so they can both do things at the same time and also he doesn't freak out about it being very weird and wrong for his body that he is actively using to do things he didn't make it do. Eventually. He doesn't know whose emotions their heartbeat would track if they did and now he's wondering if that general category is separable from everything else. Also he doesn't know enough about morphing to have a clear picture of what this would be like but he's excited to find out.

<Yeah, autonomics are separable from everything else, I have actually pretty fine grained control over what I let you do. Me singing while you sculpt or garden is super doable.>

Maybe that'll be nice at some point. (It'd be nicer if it were anything other than singing. The best he can say for singing is that it's important to someone he cares about and he's glad to be able to help even if it kind of sucks. In hindsight it was kind of questionable to match him with someone who wants to sing but too late no takebacks he's fond of this one.)

<3.

<3.

Hey, wrt taking the dimorphism for a spin, I think my host is from medieval times! What should we be reading to update in that department to get started on improving his comfort level wrt orgasms?

...Wow okay what.

<Oh, I just get the sense that if I wanted to try having an orgasm this would not be your favorite part of the day at all, and I think that is related to your cultural background though the intervening time in Hell can't have helped at all. I am pretty sure modern humans feel differently about it so I asked for book recommendations.>

<...Was there someone you wanted to have sex with or are you just, like, completely uninterested in being a decent person, because - well, obviously you can do whatever you want. Never mind. I get it, I'm not going to complain.> He's just kind of surprised because Ashkon hasn't generally been anything but extremely careful and gentle with him. But even if he were going to be maximally demanding he doesn't actually mind, isn't himself interested in being a decent person anymore anyway, and was kind of sad to have failed to think of this during the brief period when he had an apartment and privacy and could have gotten away with it. He just kind of - expected Ashkon to care more about treating him well.

<I'm not going to do it till you're okay with it, I'm just curious if you could get that way by reading things. There's nobody I want to have sex with and I'm not especially impatient about it.>

That doesn't quite make sense. He doesn't object at all. It might be kind of nice, maybe, and even if he doesn't end up enjoying it he's not really very invested in what happens to Ashkon's body anymore. It's just...

When they met he had no goals left beyond maybe trying to make his existence a little more bearable, and understood himself to be agreeing to pretty much anything Ashkon might want to do to him short of turning him into a flesh sphere with no experiences other than pain because that is the thing he specifically said he wasn't agreeing to. And the instant he found something he wanted to do, back when he wanted to run his hands over that stone wall, Ashkon let him. Ashkon has spent hours on letting him sleep just because he likes how it feels to be well-rested, even though there's no real reason to bother and he would never insist. He would have agreed to be Ashkon's host if it had meant signing a contract that he was agreeing to hand over every minute Ashkon wanted him for the next year. And he's not sure he'd still agree to that, because Ashkon has never taken fine, I guess I don't have any better options as anything but a challenge, because Ashkon has never just stood by and left him to his despair.

Would he abuse himself like that? Absolutely, he would and he has. And he'll accept almost any use Ashkon wants to put him to and it won't make him want out and it won't make him regret signing up for this. He really expects, on the object level, it'll be a relief. He's not sure how much more okay with it he could possibly get short of begging.

But it turns out it mattered a lot to him that Ashkon cared more about him than he ever managed to care about himself.

<I care about you a lot. It's just, what I've heard from other people with human hosts is that it isn't actually an abuse. But I certainly don't understand it myself since Yeerks don't have sex any more than we have beverages, hence the reading material.>

Well, it will probably be interesting reading material, and maybe it will explain something.

<That's the hope!>

The email is turned around before Ashkon is done with the rest of his messages (mostly Tidal political opinion polls and something he's subscribed to that introduces a new microgenre of music with every issue). It has a graphic novel attached entitled Catching Up From Way Back When: The Sex Issue, apparently item seven in a long series mostly aimed at people who were resurrected from history.

Ashkon opens it up and makes sure his host is paying attention too and starts reading.

...Okay, that’s a really good concept and he might want to read the other issues too.

Depending on when you're coming from, this might be a difficult subject to think much about. We recommend reading it all by yourself so you aren't worrying about how anyone else will react to how you react, a bit at a time if that helps you feel more in control.

Imaginary cackling. <If you want me to read it next time you’re in the Pool I can do that.> But then he can’t play stupid browser games instead, and also can’t catch ways Ashkon understands it differently until later, and it’s not like his reactions would actually be private if Ashkon will just read his mind again later.

Since we (the authors) don't know when you grew up or where, this book is going to talk about how most people in today's mutlicultural, multiversal society tend to expect other people to think. There's no one thing that most people actually think! This book is about the guesses strangers around you might make about what is most likely, the viewpoints that most customs and laws in practice today take as a starting point, the sort of opinion you'll see represented in most new publications and advertisements. You might not change your mind about anything at all as a result of this book, but even so, it could help you understand where people are coming from, and help you summarize where you differ.

...Okay, well, that’s already kind of mind-blowing in itself. That’s such a cool attitude.

We're also going to reference lots of other sources! This book is about getting you to the point of knowing what things may have changed since you were last around. It's not a guide to dating, it's not pornographic, it's not a history course, it doesn't have any product recommendations besides more books - but if you might want those things, check out the endnotes to see where we did our research.

We've divided this book into the following sections:

1. Modesty and Privacy - what will people be wearing at the bus stop? What is rude to bring up in a social setting?
2. Solo Stuff - this one's about masturbation, how we talk about it, and some stats and science to explain it.
3. Flirting and Pining - this is much more of a do-it-yourself enterprise than it used to be!
4. Partnerships - what assumptions does it invite to say "my wife"? "My boyfriend"? "My other boyfriend"?
5. Formal, Casual, Professional - are partners the only people we have sex with? When and why might somebody else be in the picture?
6. Spiced Up - some people's sexual impulses are hooked up to things that are a little less popular!
7. Bundles of Joy - do babies come into all this at some point? Well, not necessarily!
8. The Great Big List of Exceptions - How do Elves work? What's up with Eclipse? Do I really have to learn about all these intersex conditions?
8. Sample Conversations - scripts demonstrating how an exchange can go well or poorly in different settings with different topics and people.

The contributing authors of this book also have an advice column called Sexed Up, which is a good place to check if you feel this volume's inadequate. We had space limitations!

That's... uncomfortable, and being made to read it while someone reads his mind is really even more uncomfortable but at least sort of in a fun way, only that feels intensely rude since Ashkon can't just stop noticing how he's feeling, only there's basically no way he's going to get through this entire book without having sexual thoughts.

<I think maybe I want to follow their instructions after all.>

<Okay. That works fine for me.> He closes the book.

Imaginary sigh of relief. Confused vague affection.

<Love you <3>