Wet and Horny Teens

by TopHat

Summary:

All characters are above the age of 18, consent to the activity they engage in, and enjoy what they do. Don’t support the porn industry, it’s essentially unethical. Read fanfic instead. I thank my betas, you know who you are.

Chapter 1: Meet the Team

“What do you mean, we’re out of money?” Victoria asked, flabbergasted.

“I mean we’re out of money,” Tristan answered, leaning back in his chair and running one hand through his pink locks while idly scratching his one-pack of solid dad-bod muscle with the other. “No one’s buying our films, which means our income is zero, but we still have to pay salaries. Kenzie tipped me off a few days ago when she said she could pass on picking up her paycheck, and after I learned something was wrong I started looking into it.”

His form blurred, and moments later the lankier, much more defined Byron was slumped over in the chair. “After Tristan wore himself out trying to see if there was a way to balance the checkbooks, I did some digging. Did you know there’s a new studio out there flooding the market with cheap streams?”

“No I didn’t.” Victoria pulled out her WhyPhone, turned on Incognito mode, and said, “Sari, find ‘cheap camgirl streams.’”

Thirty minutes of searching later, Byron pointed at a frozen frame. “That one.”

Victoria squinted at the title. “GILF CBT’s her entire harem at once?”

“Her stage name is Mama Mathers, and she’s able to run twelve-hour streams,” Byron said. He blurred, and Tristan began pacing against the window, his ham candle swaying in the mid-morning light with a ponderous slowness that bellied its magisterial heft. “It’s all a projection, so the overhead cost is basically nil. People will get sick of it eventually, but then she’ll branch out into other stuff. It’s safe enough for Dragon not to take too much notice, but at the end of the day she could corner the market given enough time.”

“Or she’ll self-destruct in a few weeks, just like anyone else with no work-life balance,” Victoria said, ending the recording session on her second phone, saving the video, and sending it to her laptop for later editing. “In the meantime though, we need a way to keep our heads above water.”

Tristan sighed. “And that’s the crux of it. Usually the way we deal with freaky shit is to have Chris do a solo session, but unless we decide that—”

“No,” Victoria said, securing her bra’s straps, then picking up her pants from where they lay on her chair and stepping into them. “He bribed my sister with my image to destroy Bianca’s career.”

She shrugged on her pale blue blouse and began buttoning it up. “I had one rule, and he broke it. Find something else.”

Tristan grabbed his jeans and pulled them on commando, biting his lip. “Well, there is one thing...”

“If you’re hesitating, it’s not a good plan,” Victoria said, stepping out of the meeting room to head for the elevators.

“It’s not a bad thing, just weird. Do you remember Sveta and Weld?” he asked.

Victoria grimaced. “I remember them coming in, her coming out, and him not coming at all.”

Tristan punched the key for the second floor. The studio. “Well, turns out Weld was getting emotionally close with a number of other people, Sveta was the jealous type, and the news that he’d been faking it every time came out in an argument. They broke up, he’s currently dating with Theo and Ava, and aside from an initial scare about mercury it’s going great.”

“And Sveta?” Victoria asked.

The doors dinged open and Tristan sighed. “I think it’d be best if you saw for yourself.”

Breakthrough Studios, all things considered, had a fairly expansive set of sets for a company with only four total actors and actresses on payroll. They made a fair amount of extra cash loaning out rooms to other film companies, either slightly larger or slightly smaller than they were, and doing collaborative projects while providing the camera for a nominal addition cost. Victoria had been hesitant to ask so much of an intern still in high school, but Kenzie had blown a raspberry at her when Victoria last asked if she really wanted to do this.

“I mean, you’re just recording people getting off,” she said, face neutral as she poked at a circuit board with a soldering iron. “It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal, right? And besides, it helps pay for my soul camera.”

Victoria had left before the urge to ask what a ‘soul camera’ became too much.

They walked past the crypt, where Ashley was relaxing in the nude on an implausibly plush altar, ropes hung neatly on nearby pegs. Victoria certainly did not notice the rope marks on Ashley’s thighs and arms, nor the unusual perfection of the other woman’s skin, as noticing how the other women engaged in your erotic enterprise were themselves extremely hot wasn’t what straight women did. Instead she inspected the state of her only other actress, and when she made eye contact with her nodded professionally.

Then Victoria turned the corner and stopped dead.

The sci-fi set had been mostly a joke. A crashed UFO, some conveniently-placed benches, and bondage-ready probe table inside the saucer, it simply didn’t appeal to a broad enough audience to use for more than fun. Victoria done one shoot on it, decided that flying sex wasn’t what it was cracked up to be, and gone back to power plays.

Evidently, Sveta disagreed, as she was currently hanging from the roof struts and exchanging furious, sloppy kisses with a scraggly-looking blond boy while wrapped around every appendage he had and pulsing.

The boy wasn’t bad, all things considered. A little leaner that Victoria personally preferred, but blond was her color, and he had an ass that you could bounce a quarter off of. An ass that was, as of this moment, occupied by a slim tentacle, sliding in and out of him with a smoothness that had to be lube and practice. Another thin tentacle had wrapped around a shaft of truly daunting proportions, slipping up and down its uncut length with a wet smacking sound that certainly didn’t make Victoria wish Tristan was straight.

The cameras were also rolling, so after appreciating the sight for a few more minutes Victoria and Tristan walked back to a pair of chairs on the executive set.

“His name is Rain, tentatively O’Fraiser Fire. He might want to change it.” Tristan held out a folder with the word HOTTIES written across the front in all caps. Victoria accepted it, adding a hand when the weight proved too much, and flipped through until she got to the blond section. “A multitrigger, and one of his powers is a guilt-based trump ability. Grants people competence, with permanent gains.”

“And Sveta is into degradation,” Victoria said, eyes widening as the possibilities unfolded in her mind.

“And Sveta is into degradation,” he confirmed. “His power safety negates a huge amount of the risk she carries, and does so in a way which gives her butterflies.”

“How long did it take for them to fuck?”

“Hours.”

The sound of tentacle on flesh temporarily intensified, culminating in a groan of release, a short pause, then resumed, albeit at a slower, heavier rhythm.

“How long until we can get them on payroll?” Victoria asked.

Tristan smiled. “Already did it. Filming will be done momentarily, editing won’t take long, and apart from a few potential copyright infringements from his role in the cult hit Seiring Fire we should be good.”

“Was it any good?” Victoria asked, standing back up and stretching.

Tristan shook his head, getting up with her and staring for the showers. “Bear smashes twink in a wooded clearing, about as reciprocal as a slot machine. Probably a cult hit because Seir’s pretty infamous nowadays, not because there was anything interesting going on."

He paused at the door. “I was actually hoping to see if he’d be interested in shooting a film with me.”

Victoria blinked twice, then grimaced. “It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it.”

Tristan sighed, turning around and leaning against the doorframe. “I get that we can’t bring Chris back. I get that recruiting people is hard.”

He dropped his head forward. “But at the same time, I’d like to be more than the token gay guy on crew, right?”

Victoria stepped close and pulled him into a hug.

After a moment, he returned it.

Tenderness communicated, Victoria stepped back and slapped him on the shoulder. “Have that talk with Rain, then get some rest. I’ll get to work on that budgeting.”

They parted ways. Victoria shucked off her clothes, walked into the shower, and cranked it up to its hottest setting. While waiting for the pipes to catch up with the lever, she reached for the soap.

Before she could make contact, a long, pale hand, with black-painted nails reached out and caught her wrist. Before she knew it, Victoria’s hands were pulled close in front of her, a softness she was unaccustomed to but enjoyed pressing into her back, while a slim leg slipped in between hers.

“So, tell me, Victoria,” the mysterious woman whispered, rolling every syllable of her name in a way that made Victoria very glad for the additional support the leg between her thighs lent her. “Did you like what you saw?”

Victoria thought straight thoughts about truly platonic sisterhoods, sports teams, and swimming competitions. “W-we needed more actors.”

Featherlight lips pressed into her shoulder and Victoria started thinking more straight thoughts. “That wasn’t what I was referring to, pet.”

It took a long time for Victoria to shower.

Chapter 2: Needlessly Complicated Oppositional Forces

Victoria drummed her fingers against the table, idly scanning each section of the contract to confirm that each blank spot had a blocky signature. The second-dullest part of her job. “You have a cute dick, you know.”

The sound of pen on paper stopped. “Uh, thanks?”

“No, really,” Victoria insisted, looking up. “There are a lot of ugly phalluses out there. It’s not a problem in every-day-life, but when you see a beige sea-slug speckled with greasy black pubes just kinda hanging out, it’s really hard to get into action.”

“I mean, I guess?” Rain went back to looking at the pages of his contract, a blush steadily rising on his face. “I haven’t thought much about it. Or, not about mine.”

He peeked up, bangs obscuring blue eyes that made him look almost unfairly peggable. “I guess that’s why you’re paying me the big bucks.”

“But yours is actually nice to look at,” Victoria pressed, leaning back in her chair without breaking eye contact. “Like, above and beyond just ‘not gross’. Blond’s my color, it’s big enough to be exciting but not scary, and you’re also cut which is a huge plus.”

Victoria swallowed and licked her lips. Not in a showy way, but enough to make the rest of the words come out a little more easily.

“It’s the kind of dick I think about when I want to get off.”

“Ah.”

Rain turned back to the contract, wiggled a little in his seat, and went back to signing forms.

Victoria grimaced, letting her chair settle on all fours again.

Boys were stupid.

“Rain, do you want to—”

The door slammed open. “Sorry we’re late!”

Victoria took a moment to shove down the raging frustration being interrupted brought with it, then turned to the latest visitors.

Fuck me running, was her first thought.

The second one was, Good thing I’m straight.

Lisa Wilbourn made her lavender suits look good, and as headache-inducing as the lawyer was she was a vital part of making sure that Breakthrough studios didn’t go off the deep end, either by accident or intentionally. What she lacked in actual, factual knowledge about legal proceedings (supposedly she’d blackmailed her way into Columbia with a 90 on the LSATs) she made up for by making cases disappear behind NDAs involving out-of-court settlements, having a surprisingly strict ethical code, and being the most irritating, bratty, and attractive woman in any given room.

Also there was a hotter girl right next to her and really Lisa didn’t need anyone metaphorically sucking her off.

“Hello there, I’m Victoria Dallon. You are?” She’d given the newcomer a firmly-heterosexual once-over two or three times before the words finally tumbled out of her mouth, but Victoria figured she’d saved it by managing to focus on the beautiful, graceful lines of the woman’s cheekbones and the array of silvery piercings that decorated one exposed ear instead of on her rack. “You are?”

The woman smiled and took Victoria’s hand in her own very soft, very warm fingers, with nails painted a professional and glossy navy blue. “Erin Crémieux, Rain’s legal representation.”

“An old friend from when we were both worse off,” Rain added, smiling up at Erin with a crush so obvious it felt like a crime to look at. “Mostly spends her time fighting big pharma, but she occasionally does pro bono work for less-critical issues.”

A legal pad smacked edge-first into the back of Rain’s head, drawing a yelp from him. “You are not less important, merely not as well-known and poor. Let me secure you a better salary.”

“The only reason she got more than peanuts out of me was because you told me we couldn’t let him go,” Lisa growled, dropping a heavy stack of papers in front of Victoria. “Also, he has dental, an expanded medical package, we’re paying for meals and travel, and he gets a stock option.”

Victoria tore her eyes away from the beautiful woman beating up a twink in order to glare at Lisa. “You said you had it under control!”

Lisa crossed her arms and pouted. “I have something on literally everyone who works in our industry. She doesn’t work in the industry, and is way lower profile than what I usually work with. It’s like using a minigun to hunt pheasant, Vicky.”

“Don’t call me Vicky,” Victoria snapped, flipping through the newly-acquired stack of legalese. “Anything to warn me about besides your incredible failure?”

“No, there isn’t,” Erin said, putting a briefcase down on the table and rapidly flicking through a combination to open it. “Hidden clauses are worth more trouble than they save, so I don’t use them. I argue for the best possible deal, get it, and then deliver the result to my clients.” She pulled out an identically-thick pile of paper and put it down in front of Rain. “Sign the front on the left and you’ll be done with pens for the day.”

Rain dutifully filled out his name, and after confirming with Lisa that the declaration wasn’t a one-million IQ level gambit Victoria signed hers. She then dropped her pen on the table, stood up, and walked around the table.

“Welcome to Breakthrough Studios,” she said, leaning down close.

---

Once Rain and Erin had departed in a car which probably cost more than any individual set, Lisa turned to look at Victoria. “She wants to fuck him but is scared that tentacle sex has ruined him, he wants to fuck her but is worried that tentacle sex ruined him, and Sveta wants to try a threesome but is hilariously straight and also worried about having ruined him with tentacle sex.”

“I knew something was up but didn’t want to ask,” Victoria replied, turning around and heading into the building. “Do you think it could cause a problem?”

“Only if they don’t have clear and open communication,” Lisa answered, following behind and to the right of Victoria. “When shit goes south, the standard-issue termination clause should ensure a clean break, and if that brunette bitch wants a fight she can tangle with a few decades of precedent.”

“You don’t think they could make it work?” Victoria asked, stepping into the elevator and hitting the button for the top floor, affectionately called The Penthouse.

Lisa bared her teeth, the near-smile, mostly-frown slightly warped in the brushed-steel doors. “I think Sveta’s a jealous bitch, Rain’s a regular bitch, and Erin is an alpha bitch in disguise. She’s got a zero percent chance of peeling Rain away from the first set of tentacles that made him feel not like a monster, and I think that set of tentacles has a zero tolerance policy for other women trying to get some of that Lanky D.”

Victoria considered the words as the floors slowly passed by.

They arrived with a cheerful ding.

“I think you’re jealous.”

Lisa scoffed, brushing past Victoria and shucking off her jacket. “Of what? Her overpriced Oldsmobile? Her trash fire family life? Her oblivious crush? I’ve got all of those but better anyway.”

“I think you’re mad she beat you,” Victoria pressed, stepping out of her shoes and slowly working down the zipper on her skirt.

The refrigerator door opened with an almost violent intensity, and Lisa twisted the cap off the box of wine. After taking a healthy swig and coughing a little up, Lisa wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and turned around. “I didn’t lose. You’re up an employee and she’s shortly going to be even more single than she already is. I see this as an absolute...”

Victoria raised an eyebrow, buttons undone and skirt off, nylons still comfortably warm. “Were you planning to drink that entire box of wine alone?”

“Yes, I want my liver to know it’s doing its job too well,” Lisa snapped instantly, grabbing a box of custard-filled cupcakes and stomping towards the couch. “Fucking thing needs to let me get sick every once in a while so I have an excuse to skip work.”

“Well in that case I can help you work on those Hostess products.” Victoria retrieved a beer, popped the cap off against the wall-mounted bottle opener, and then floated over to the couch. Lisa had started flicking through Netflix, eventually settling on a cape drama about a trio of queer capes in Denver.

Lisa also tensed up when Victoria settled down right next to her and began to get comfortable, folding her legs to one side while leaning into the other blonde.

“You know I’m going to like you regardless of whether or not there are more lawyers in town, right?” Victoria said as the opening credits began.

“It’s only because you have a copy of that one solo tape,” Lisa muttered, biting through half a cupcake and grimacing. “Okay, I understand that you are literally a porn studio, but does every pastry you stock have to be cream-filled.”

Victoria shrugged, biting into half of her own. “It started off as a joke, but these days we all just prefer it.”

Something soft impacted her chest, and Victoria looked down. Little bits of cupcake and artificial filling had sprinkled across her skin. “Oh dammit, let me lose some clothes.”

Lisa stared as Victoria shrugged off what cloth remained on her upper body, film forgotten. “You know, you keep doing things like this and you make a girl wonder.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Victoria said, laying herself across Lisa and staring into two wide green eyes. “Now come on, I need to know how long the taste of processed sugar stays in someone’s mouth.”

Notes:

So apparently this is a multi-part series. Next chapter will either be an account of Kenzie (of age and consenting) practicing for her first camshow or the story of how Sveta and Rain ended up meeting.

Chapter 3: Cat's Cradle

Summary:

Sveta meets Furcate at the bar (no smut).

A girl slipped into the seat next to Sveta, smiling wide, with canines slightly too pointed to be human. “Did you know that tomcats have barbed dicks?”

Sveta, who had a few too many Shirly Temples that may or may not have had a few extra ingredients, blinked slowly. A combination of morosely watching other people dance and fantasizing about rushing out of the bar, catching the first bus to Theo, Ava, and Weld’s new place, and begging for a second chance had slowed her thoughts. “Uh...”

“Fucking for girl cats hurts. A lot,” the girl continued, motioning twice at the bartender. “The barbs are there to scrape out competing sperm, but the tom also needs to rough up that pussy’s walls in order to get her ovulating.”

Two luminous green shot glasses came her way, and the girl threw back one in a single sharp motion. After making a face, she pushed the second glass over to Sveta. “It usually takes four rounds for the girl cat to be turned on enough for getting pregnant to even be a possibility, but that’s usually not too much of a problem since lionesses tend to bang more than a hundred times a day. At that point the cum-scraping is mostly to ensure they aren’t dripping everywhere they go, and maybe to keep things interesting.”

After a long, blank stare from Sveta, the girl sighed and poked the shot glass more pointedly. “My name’s Kay, and I’d like to take you home so we could have exceptionally kinky sex together.”

“I’m not gay.” After a moment of blank staring Sveta buried her face in her hands. “That came out wrong. It’s not in ‘eww’ way— most of my friends are— I know that’s the most common excuse but I swear—”

After struggling for more words, Sveta gave up and grabbed the shot glass, downing the liquor in one go.

“I don’t like girls,” she finished.

“How the hell did you just down a Uranium-238 without flinching?” When Sveta looked to the side, Kay had dropped the persona and was instead staring at the still-faintly-glowing glasses. “I can’t stand these things. It’s drink is a joke, thrown together so people can spend too much money on booze and laugh about it later.”

“Niche benefits of inhuman biology,” Sveta replied, shifting her gaze to glare at the countertop. “Can’t pop out of this full-body prosthesis without unintentionally hurting someone, can barely feel most things, and apparently I can’t tell when my boyfriend is faking it to make me feel better right before he goes off to spend the night with a harlot who can bend metal and her man-whore boyfriend who can fist him the way he wanted but hey, at least I can take shots like a champ.”

For a few seconds, the only sound was bass and dancing in the background.

Sveta lifted her head when another glass came down on the wood in front of her. Another Shirley Temple. She felt a slight pressure on her arm, and when Sveta looked towards it Kay was squeezing her bicep, cheeriness gone.

“That... sucks.” After a moment, she asked, “Do you want to get a booth somewhere and talk about it?”

Sveta sighed, dropping her head to the counter. “No. I just want to sit here and be miserable.”

Another squeeze. “Do you actually want that?”

For a long moment, Sveta considered sending the stranger away.

Then she pulled herself back up, wrapping fingers she hadn’t painted in days around the drink and standing up. “No. Let’s find a booth.”

---

“—In short, fuck boys,” Sveta said.

Kay nodded sagely, staring across the room and sipping at a rum and coke. “Fuck boys.”

Sveta paused for a moment, the followed Kay’s gaze.

A pack of young men had wandered in, and were slowly beginning to migrate their way to the dance floor. They wore bright colors, a riot of yellows, reds, and light blues, the edges between one shirt and the next clearly defined without making them seem separate from one another. They told jokes, receiving the set-up from one person and telling the punchline to the next in line, a tray of shots rapidly depopulating as they slowly migrated to the dance floor.

They didn’t seem special. Not really. None of them were grotesque, but at the same time none of them made Sveta look twice. Yes, that one was the nice sort of lean you kind of wanted to lick. Yeah, that one had worn a shirt with a hemline just too high, baring flashes of almond skin that looked taught enough to bounce a coin off of. A third had a tattoo crawling up one arm, dipping under a thin white tee shirt and out again at the collar, tantalizingly obscured by the translucent fabric.

Sveta could imagine kissing all of them.

But she didn’t know their names, and that made the study academic.

When she turned back, Kay was checking her phone.

Sveta sighed. “I’m sorry I brought down your night.” She checked her own mobile and winced. Way-too-late-o’clock, and more than a few missed calls. Some from Weld, and some not. “I should be settling down for the night.”

Kay nodded, standing up with a little wobble, then steadying herself against the wall. “Boo’s back home, and he gets antsy when people leave him alone for too long.” She squinted at Sveta. “Do you... have a place to stay tonight?”

Sveta opened her mouth.

Then she closed it and looked away, towards a dance floor slowly depopulating, and pushed her glass away.

A pair of keys clattered onto the table in front of her. After examining the number etched into them, Sveta looked up.

Kate was leaning against the wall, jacket unzipped, a softer smile on her face. “Oh no, look at how drunk I am, fumbling my fucking keys everywhere. I think I need a designated driver, or someone to help me up to my apartment so I don’t trip down the steps and break my neck in a tragic alcohol-related incident.”

She stepped forward and held out her hand. “It’s getting late though, and I wouldn’t want to ask someone to stay out for too long. I guess that means I’d have to lend my couch to whoever drove me home, and I sure hope that’s someone I can trust.”

Sveta ran her fingers over the teeth of the keys, trying to imagine what the metal might feel like on soft, warm flesh.

Then she spun the ring around one finger and caught the metal in her fist. “Okay.”

Chapter 4: A Nighttime Tryst

Summary:

Rain X Sveta (continues directly from the last chapter, hand job).

Getting Kay up to her apartment had been a challenge.

Step one had been getting a ride, and that had taken almost thirty minutes. Not because pulling up a rideshare app took more than twenty seconds, but because Kay seemed pathologically incapable of listening to instructions and kept trying to call for an Uber on a burner phone and Sveta had to explain why that wouldn’t work five times before giving up and confiscating the phone before she burnt a perfectly good sim card.

Step two had been getting up to the twelfth floor. The elevator had a big, yellow sign with the word ‘MALFUNCTIONING’ tapped to its doors, so Sveta had steered the two of them towards the stairs. There, Sveta realized just how much more drunk Kay had gotten during the car ride, and after seven missed steps in one flight Sveta got Kay’s legs around her waist, her arms around Sveta’s shoulders, and started walking for the both of them.

At which point step three made itself apparent.

“Your boobs feel weird,” Kay murmured, one hand hanging down limply, the other wandering around underneath Sveta’s coat. She hadn’t gone under blouse yet, but that was more the fault of buttons than for a lack of trying. “I like it.”

It would’ve been easy to fall back to what she’d said in the bar. To affirm her heterosexuality, tell Kay to stop, and if she didn’t then Sveta could put her down and walk away. Vicky had a spare room, probably still had some of her clothes, and would be there to talk about how stupid boys were while noshing on a tub of ice cream in just a bra and watching stupid movies. Safe, comfortable fallbacks. Returns to the status quo, albeit one missing six hundred pounds of sympathy.

Sveta swallowed angrily, adjusted her grip on Kay’s thighs, and started stepping a little more powerfully. “Thanks. I picked them myself.”

Kay giggled. When Sveta didn’t respond, Kay wiggled a little closer. “Playing it cool, huh?”

A glance down confirmed that Kay had gotten more aggressive with her groping, and was currently playing with the nipple on Sveta’s prosthesis. A pang of longing hit her, enough to make Sveta pause on the landing. “I don’t... get feedback.”

The hand stopped. “Oh. Right.”

After too many seconds of awkward silence, Sveta glanced at the number by the door. Twelve. “This is your floor, right?”

“Yup.” Kay’s legs kicked against Sveta, a sensation Sveta only understood as a shift in balance. “Can you keep carrying me? Pretty please?”

“Since you asked nicely.” Sveta gently bumped the floor door open with her hip, then started walking by the doors slowly. “Twelve oh seven... twelve oh nine... twelve eleven—”

“Home!” Kay shouted, drawing a wince from Sveta, then a stumble when Kay leaned over to knock loudly on the door. “Raaaaaain, I’m home! With a friend!”

A muffled sound of irritation came from behind the door, followed by a muted, “Coming!”

Sveta frowned. The voice had sounded familiar, and an idle piece of small talk about someone she knew moving had come up during coffee with Victoria. Something about a guy getting out of a bad situation, specifically someone who did a lot of work on—

Sveta blinked. “Wait, Rain? As in, Rain O’Fire Fraizer?”

Kay turned her head to the side, bangs falling to one side to show off wide green eyes. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

The door opened and suddenly Sveta had better things to look at.

The first thing that stood out were the muscles. It wasn’t a sculpted physique, not like Weld’s, but it did have a definition to it that made Sveta’s tentacles itch. Scars, some faint, some decidedly not, criss-crossed his form, a tapestry stretched across an entire body. Tattoos lay interwoven with the old wounds, bird wings and stylized broken hearts and hands, the ink worked around raised skin which wouldn’t take the world quite the same way.

Sveta had seen it before, albeit not quite so bare.

“Rain?” The proper noun slipped out, and suddenly Sveta was standing in front of one of her more-than-half-naked prosthesis designer with a girl on her back who was currently using her boobs as handholds.

“Sveta?” he asked, taking a step back, hands going to cover his chest, then his pants, where something flesh-colored and exceptionally long was poking out of his boxers. “Oh my god, why are you—”

“Kaaaaaay!” Sveta yelped as Kay lurched forward, her face falling into the crook of Rain’s neck while Kay squeezed them both tight against his essentially-naked form.

He smells like sex, Sveta thought, right before the three of them fell to the ground.

---

In the bathroom, Sveta examined her reflection. She traced the arch of one cheekbone, the one opposite the tattoo, part of a head even now too big for its body, and tried to imagine what it would look like to someone else. She took a step back, examining the contours of the prosthesis, sticking one hip out, imagining.

She took off her clothes, then spent a long time looking at the fissures in the machine.

“Hey, I think— ah!” Rain looked away from Sveta as she walked back into the living room. “Okay hi can I get a little warning next time?”

Sveta walked past him without a word, throwing the bundle of clothes, wigs, and makeup into an armchair before sliding onto the couch, adjusting the pillows enough to get her neck right. “No.”

After a moment, she felt a presence behind her, then the slight resistance of a blanket being pulled over her. She shivered a little when bare skin touched the edge of her face, at which point the hands stopped. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s not— thanks.” She pulled the blanket a little tighter. “I needed a little contact tonight.”

“I’m being stupid right now and not understanding signals,” Rain said. “Please, tell me what you’re looking for.”

Sveta turned her head around. “Are you not with Kay?”

Rain grimaced and looked away, his expression ambiguous in the lowlight. “We’ve gone out a few times, make each other laugh, have a lot of sex, but I don’t think she thinks I’m ‘with’ her.

He wrung his hands. “She’s not really a ‘with people’ sort of person, if that makes sense. I don’t mind it, but...”

The following silence stretched on for a solid minute before Rain shook his head and stood up. “Yeah. I’ll be heading back to bed.”

Sveta twisted around on the couch as he walked away. “Or you could not.”

Rain stopped.

Sveta wriggled back on the couch, lifting the blanket. Not a lot, not enough to show off all the cracks, but enough to imply, even then a boldness that made her too-small lungs catch a little. “I mean, if you want to.”

---

It took a bit to get comfortable.

Sveta had a lot of plastic edges. They found a position with Rain as the little spoon, her arms wrapped partially in the blankets, his legs kept safe from pinching by a pair of pyjamas on Sveta’s. The quiet yelp from when a bit of skin had gotten caught at her thigh almost killed the mood, but a few breaths of being warm under the covers fixed that.

The second barrier was a little more personal. Sveta could see the goosebumps on the back of Rain’s neck, feel him shudder when her breath washed over his shoulders. A wriggle against him made Rain’s respiration stop, made the grip on her hand through the fabric of the blanket tighten. When she settled down, the exhalation seemed at once relieved and disappointed.

It took longer than Sveta wanted to admit to muster up the courage to kiss the back of Rain’s neck.

After that it got easier. One kiss turned into two, into three, into more, a completely different sensation from putting her lips to metal, a completely different reaction. Where Weld had seemed a general, neutral sort of happy when she touched him, Rain writhed. An experimental nibble got a hiss, the pause afterward earned a strangled, “Please,” laced with all the desperation of a prayer, and the ensuing bite a gasp somewhere between revelation and anguish. At some point her hand had drifted free of the cloth manacles, tracing aimlessly across barely-raised skin, dappled by shadows falling through the window and now-indistinct tattoos, then moving lower, under the blanket, growing bolder.

Rain said something when her fingers wrapped around his cock. Probably. Sveta had stopped listening to anything other than the tone of his moans, stopped responding to anything he did with something other than a tightening of her free arm or a slight adjustment of where, precisely, she was sucking on his shoulder. She tried to be gentle, focusing on long, even strokes, on keeping the soft pads of her fingers in contact with him, on trying to sync her own motions with his bucking hips.

Somewhere there was a voice in Sveta’s head, telling her that this was all a terrible idea, and that she was going to regret it in the morning.

Then Rain grabbed her hand with one of hers, reached back with his other, and pulled her closer. “Don’t stop.”

Sveta tightened her grip, pulled back for just long enough to take a breath, and descended back to his neck.

At some point it became too much. Rain spasmed, a release so silent Sveta could’ve missed it. What she couldn’t miss was how it lasted, waves of shivering, at first strong enough to force Sveta to hang on lest he fall off, then slowing down, each successive sequence a little more restrained than the last, each with its own quaking inhalation.

Once the breaths were merely deep rather than ragged, Sveta slowly pulled her hand up, examining the fluid on it. “So that’s what it looks like.”

Rain kept panting, squeezing her free hand once in affirmation.

Sveta had the sudden urge to pull her hand close, to lick the runny white liquid off her hand, to see if the vaguely sweet, vaguely metallic scent of her reward for the labor was worth it. To wipe it off on Rain, to see what his skin looked like with moonlight reflecting off of it. To make Rain taste it, to listen for whatever sound this would elicit from him, to taste the flavor of the semen mixed with him, and to keep kissing until he could eventually only taste her.

“Kay keeps some baby wipes in the bathroom. Second drawer on the right.”

The moment was gone, and the fear was back.

“Right. I should probably clean this up.”

After an awkward bit of untangling, Sveta went back to the bathroom. She cleaned her hand, washed her face, and went back into the living room. Rain was sitting on the couch, a new blanket around his shoulders and a dazed-looking grin on his face.

One that widened a little when he made eye contact with her.

Sveta sat down on his lap. When Rain went to put his hands on her waist she caught them, then pulled them up to her cheeks.

“Here,” she said, leaning forward, resting her forehead against his, smiling against the feeling, the genuine feeling, of another person’s skin. “Touch me here.”

Rain’s thumb went over the mark on Sveta’s cheek, and he leaned in for a kiss.

Chapter 5

Lisa stared at the two painfully awkward adults in front of her, each seated in a banal office chair, in the entirely-too-normal office of Breakthrough Studios. “Let me re-establish that I am only here because of your boss, and even then it’s thin. If either of you are weird about this, I’m gone. Got it?”

“Understood,” Rain said, solemn in an unthreatening way Lisa appreciated.

“Yes,” Sveta said, her slightly-oversized head dipping down once.

Both mean it. Both are scared of hurting the other. Both want to have sex without pain. Sveta scared of causing pain, Rain scared of enjoying it, of what it would mean about him, about how that would recast past events—

Lisa cut her power off. She had bigger fish to fry than some twink’s vaguely-concerning masochism. “Okay. Rain, do the thing on Sveta.”

Rain inhaled, turning to the side to meet Sveta’s gaze, and world changed subtly.

Lisa felt a little worse, and internally rolled her eyes. She’d gotten a worse emotional hangover by listening to Alec talk about his family. Some master rating this was.

Then she turned to Sveta.

Sveta had an expressive set of lips. Currently, they were just barely parted, that day’s makeup perfectly applied. Her pupils had blown wide, and a creaking sound was coming from her.

Gaining rapid control over her tentacles. Previously could barely consciously control them. Wants to wander freely, wants to be on top of Rain, wants to—

“Ooookay, stop right now please, I’ve got enough to work with,” Lisa shouted, clapping her hands for emphasis, grimacing at the deluge of wildly inappropriate information that hit her.

Credit to Sveta and Rain, they at least had the decency to be embarrassed about eye-fucking one another in front of the demisexual Thinker.

Lisa cleared her throat, letting her power loose on the non-horny implications of what she’s seen. “Okay, so the benefits of Rain’s power should persist, given repeated applications. Mind, without proper rebound and unpacking of the shame it’s going to embed in you, that could turn into some pretty serious self-esteem issues down the line.”

Putting on her best doctor impression, Lisa smiled and clasped her hands. “To head that off, my advice as someone who is not a medical professional is to talk out your feelings every time after being under its influence, no matter how silly or embarrassing it seems. Also regular sessions with a therapist, and regularly doing some sort of bonding activity without powers involved at all.”

Sveta smiled. “Thank you, Lisa. This means a lot.”

Rain pointed at her legal pad. “Can I write this down? I want to make sure I can refer to it if I forget.”

Lisa shooed them towards the door. “I’m sending all of this in an email to your boss, ask her. Now get out before I start revealing secrets.”

The two capes filed out, hand in hand, and Lisa kept a smile in place throughout the entire thing.

Once they were gone, her mouth dropped back into a frown and she promptly texted Victoria. We need to talk about boundaries.

A few minutes later, Victoria strode in, wearing a pair of lacey black panties, a sheer nightgown decorated with stars, and some smeared makeup. “What’s up, sorry for my state, I was just doing a scene with Ashley, not normally my thing as a straight woman but it’s what sells--”

“You’ve got to stop using me as an expensive therapist for your actors,” Lisa said, rubbing her temples.

“Actually, you’re cheaper than most parahuman-rated therapists,” Victoria said, raising an eyebrow as she sat down on the side of the desk, crossing one thigh over the other.

Subconsciously calculated to draw your eye. Wants you to notice. Could’ve changed, didn’t. Doesn’t consciously know why. Subconsciously --

Lisa rolled her eyes, cutting off her power. “Yeah, but you’re getting what you pay for. I told you then that the ex-cultist and the living science experiment were a match made in hell, you told me to have hope, and now they’re getting therapy from a woman who’s trained to traumatize people legally in front of twelve of their peers. A therapist should believe in her patients, not find a morbid fascination in their mutually complementary neuroses.”

Victoria scoffed, waving her hand and briefly flashing Lisa as her nightgown fell to the side. “Please, you work in contract law. The only time you’re in a courtroom is when you need to come up with a plain language explanation for why someone owes you money.”

“It’s hilarious that you think insulting my profession will make me want to do more emotional labor for your employees,” Lisa deadpanned.

“But you’re not in it for the money, are you?” Victoria said, turning from her position on the table to fully face Lisa, one leg on either side of her, the gap between them shrinking to inches as Victoria leaned forward. “You talk to my employees and help them get better because, at the end of the day, you want a happy ending just like everyone else.”

She reached out and tapped Lisa’s nose, her fingernail painted a glossy black. “Because you’re a good person, even though you won’t admit it.”

Likes talking down to you. Likes the inverted power dynamic and clothing. Likes your preferred shade of lavender. Likes the idea of leaning forward a little more and—

Lisa cut off her power at the same time as she broke eye contact with Victoria, letting out a long sigh. “No, I don’t do it just for the money.”

“In that case, I’ll see you at six,” Victoria said, hopping down from the desk and sashaying away, the nightgown just translucent enough to show off her ass. “Ashley will be there, trying to convince me to let her move in with us. You’re going to help me say no, because sleeping with a girl outside of work would be a little too gay for someone who’s straight.”

“Maybe you’re gay?” Lisa wondered, raising her eyebrow.

Victoria laughed, winking at Lisa. “If I were gay, I’d be kissing you a lot more. See you tonight!”