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666 cycles into the mission and Ariane Yeong is touch starved. It's a maddening, embarrassingly physical experience that's often easier to intellectualize, like "I chose this" (related to the Penrose), or "I'm respecting her boundaries" (related to Elster), or "maybe love is something that happens to other people and not me," (also related to Elster) but that hardly keeps Ariane's nose out of romance novels.
Cycle 666. Devil cycle. The Devil (in Tarot) is also representative of passion, lust, sin—anything that might make it into pulp novels where lesbians do everything Ariane can't. (Imagine star-gazing and being happy about it. Imagine star-gazing and touching someone and then touching someone else because she's surrounded by people and not lost in the stars. Don't they call Romeo and Juliet star-crossed? Aren't Romeo and Juliet touching when they die?)
Ariane digresses. Shakespeare is probably best engaged with the veneer of tacky metaphors this particular (anonymous) author loves to use, and none of this literary criticism is even relevant right now. Ariane is just trying to jerk off.
It's the perfect moment for Elster to walk in.
"Officer Yeong?" Elster says, like it's completely ordinary to witness Ariane frantically pulling her clothes back on.
One of the main problems with Elster is that she has incredibly strange boundaries that don't make internal sense. She'll make a subservient fuss over Ariane "overworking" herself and how Ariane and her lack of mechanical engineering knowledge are (with all due respect), "taking on too much responsibility," and then she'll go on to barge into rooms uninvited or interrupt Ariane with completely unrelated information when she's talking. None of these are real problems—it's even kind of cute (sometimes)—but it's problematic how hard it is to read Elster, and more problematic to gauge what is or isn't awkward, or what Elster does or doesn't care for.
Sometimes Ariane wishes Elster was a vampire, in the sense that a supernatural force would bind her from entering her quarters without permission. Other times Ariane wishes, wholly and without reservation, that Elster would walk in and (without saying a word) fuck her senseless so both of them would feel something. Maybe it would be a clinical affair about sating an inconvenient need, like jerking off at a sperm bank or examining herself for breast cancer. Maybe it would be the kind of Dionysian, multi-orgasmic passion she ultimately yearns for.
To be quite honest, sometimes Ariane just wishes Elster was a vampire.
None of this is important right now. Elster presents her daily report and Ariane signs off on it, like the Nation's Kafkaesque nightmare web of physical record-keeping is anything but a fire hazard in space. It's horrendously awkward to use Elster's pen with unwashed hands and return it to her. The whole situation is a mess.
Elster acknowledges it, which makes it worse. "My apologies for interrupting," she says, as though Ariane could possibly return to what she was doing, and Elster blunders face-first into the doorframe on her way out.
"Are you" —Ariane starts to ask, but Elster is already scurrying away.
667
Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe Ariane and Elster are both responsible women who can have discussions about sex in responsible ways. It's not inherently sexual what happened—sure, Elster has basically seen Ariane naked, and Ariane was breathing a bit heavily and her skin was a bit flushed and her nipples were showing through her camisole and she was so fucking wet, but that's normal. Ariane has a body and she likes masturbating and Elster shouldn't be weird about it. Like, what? Did she expect that Ariane didn't do that?
Ariane paces back and forth in the mess hall like a wraith. She's been ruminating for hours already, and if she's going to stay awake she might as well wait for the rice cooker too.
Another few things to worry about: Elster sleeps in that pod, right? Is she computationally knocked out the whole time she's in the pod, or is it just a weird bed? Does Elster sleep? Does she dream? Does she jerk off? If Elster does jerk off, then how does she jerk off, and when? These questions might be easily answered by Elster's manuals, but curiosity is no reason to massively violate her privacy, especially when Ariane could just leave her alone.
Sure, they're supposed to be working together. They're supposed to be a functional team that understands each other, and Ariane is supposed to be the commander of this vessel, and there's a lot of "supposed" things floating around in the fake atmosphere like trash flies, but they'd probably do well to discard the Nation's expectations. Ariane hasn't cracked open the Replika Known Issues document like she was supposed to, she hasn't been doing her job like she's supposed to—did she ever live in a way she was supposed to?
Not that Ariane is a rebel. Ariane just doesn't fucking fit anywhere and nobody has ever wanted to touch her in a way that mattered. That's why she spends so much time jerking off.
The rice cooker beeps.
668
The thing about routine is that it's easier to pretend everything is always normal.
Don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. Don't talk about it or make it worse. What's more important is that this spaceship is supposed to last more then 3,000 cycles and it's already falling apart.
"Officer Yeong," Elster says.
"Why am I Officer Yeong again?" Ariane bristles. "I told you, just call me Ariane." She reconsiders whether she's being rude, and then adds (too late): "Please."
Elster has a mechanical response prepared. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to assume intimacy where there isn't any," she says—and goddammit, she's talking about it!
"You've done nothing wrong," Ariane says. This is also an automatic response: she's been bullied enough that most conflicts seem like they're worth avoiding. Elster responds with a confused look, and so Ariane clarifies: "I mean you've done nothing to revoke intimacy."
Fuck.
"What do you mean by that?" Elster asks.
Fuck fuck.
What did you mean when you said there isn't any intimacy between us? Ariane wants to ask, but instead she says "never mind" and now everything is worse.
669
The thing about painting is that sometimes, it's the process of layering mistakes together until new colors show through. Sometimes it's never complete. Sometimes the finished work asks more questions than it answers.
It's like drawing three Tarot cards to derive their meaning. It's inferring information between gaps of subtext and the vague parting of lips.
What the fuck is Ariane doing?
670
Ariane does her job.
671
Ariane does her job.
672
Ariane does her job normally and everything is fine. It's not even that she wants to fuck Elster, really—it's just that she wants to learn if hugging her feels like safety in exactly the way holding blankets doesn't.
"I've hurt your feelings," Elster decides.
They're sitting at the mess table acting like everything is normal.
The shape of what Elster said a period ago is imprinted on Ariane's brain. I didn't want to assume intimacy where there isn't any. It's fair. It's an especially fair boundary to draw as a subordinate.
What if I want that intimacy, Ariane can't say, because she has very strict values about sexual harassment in the workplace and she mostly feels like the aggressor for leaving her door unlocked to begin with.
There are about twelve ways to spiral into self-hatred about it, and Ariane picks five.
"I'm fine, Elster," Ariane says. "Really." She looks into her eyes for that last bit. It's to make a point, but she really shouldn't have.
Later, Ariane wonders if Elster is as touch-starved as she is. It's not like sex would fix everything, but it would do a lot. It's been one and a half seasons since anyone hugged Ariane and she's starting to understand why banned books say solitary confinement is a form of psychological torture.
It's not that bad, really. Ariane can cry herself to sleep most nights and wake up ready to act like nothing is wrong, and it's fine. She's used to it. It's okay that she's used to it.
673
Ariane makes a mistake.
673 674
Ariane makes another mistake.
675
Another mistake. Why is there such a gulf between them? Is Ariane ready for them to be like this for 2,325 more cycles? What kind of life would that be? Hell, what kind of glamorous space captain cries while she's jerking off? What kind of interplanetary explorer doesn't even know what she wants, or where she's going, or how to fix this?
Ariane grabs her cane and limps to the cockpit. She has to pass the ladder she fell down earlier, and noticing the copious amount of yellow warning tape Elster added around the hole turns it into a walk of shame. The cockpit is only starlit, and as Ariane hauls her disabled body into a chair she accidentally puts her hand on Elster's thigh.
"Oh gods!" Ariane yelps, whipping and banging her hand into the flight computer by reflex. "Owie!"
"I thought you saw me," Elster says sheepishly.
"Ow, fuck, fuck, fuck," Ariane groans. She sucks on her bruised knuckles and tumbles into the copilot's seat. "I really didn't—I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry," Elster says. "I was stargazing. I'll stop if you'd like the flight deck to yourself."
Ariane groans. "Am I supposed to appreciate that you'd give up doing something you like for my sake?"
Elster considers that. "It seems correct to offer, considering how the past few periods have gone."
Stop acknowledging it. Ariane is fine. She's focused and composed and definitely not falling apart at the seams.
"Is your hand alright?" Elster asks.
"I'm in insurmountable pain," Ariane admits. "I'll be fine."
They sit awkwardly. Elster doesn't take Ariane's hand and doesn't kiss the owie better. The stars don't do anything other than shine beautifully, the same way they always have.
676
It's worse. Touching Elster's thigh by mistake has supplied Ariane's overactive brain with unfortunately detailed knowledge of how it feels to touch Elster's (smooth, neither entirely cold nor entirely hard) thigh, and it's as embarrassing as it is desperate. It's as embarrassing as meeting Elster on the launchpad and having the cursed, entirely true thought of well, if I'm fucking anyone in the next seven seasons it's definitely going to be her.
Ariane can't even be self-hating about that one. It's the practical, real truth. If they find a planet and it has aliens, the aliens are probably not going to be sexy. They are not going to seize Ariane's soft, willing body with their tentacles or explore every hole in her body at the same time, and there certainly won't be any mysterious plants with aphrodisiac pollen that she and Elster might happen to stumble upon together—
Elster knocks politely on the door, and that's somehow more humiliating than her walking in.
677
What is going on? How does Elster so often manage to deliver her cycle report when Ariane is jerking off? This is three times now, which feels more improbable than finding a habitable planet. It's like Elster somehow senses the potential for awkwardness and gets attracted like a wildly attractive moth to a flame.
It almost feels like Elster can read her mind—which, if Ariane is being real, would be convenient. Bioresonance opens so many avenues to new and weird sex. Whenever a new bioresonant Replika type gets released, Rotfront's underground queer erotica market overflows with interesting speculative fiction in direct proportion to the degree of oppression enacted by said Replika type, and Kolibris—holy shit. Imagine 6 women who are all the same woman—hell, imagine six women. Imagine if bioresonants weren't appendages of the carceral state enlisted to weaponize psychiatry on the general populace. Imagine if someone knew Ariane was gay without Ariane needing to say anything, and then imagine six someones.
Ariane signs the form and immediately wonders (again) how Elster jerks off. Surely Elster has far less erotica than Ariane does—in fact, she probably has none—and Ariane is almost sad for her. Maybe she should "accidentally" leave a book or two on the mess table—but no. Why not explicitly give Elster permission? Why doesn't Ariane sit on the counter, wearing nothing beneath her slutty little dress, and uncross and re-cross her legs when Elster walks in? Why doesn't Ariane proposition her directly? Please fuck me. Please. I need you so badly. Wouldn't that solve everything? Wouldn't that make everything so much worse?
678
Touch starvation is the process of being a dumbass and going insane. The longer Ariane stares at her problems, the simpler and more solvable they get. Why shouldn't Ariane fuck around and find out? So what if there's six extremely compelling reasons enumerated in one of AEON's pros-and-cons emotion regulation worksheets about why Ariane definitely shouldn't fuck around in space?
It's fine. Everything is fine and Ariane is burning to the ground.
"Officer Yeong?" Sign the paper. Do pilot-related pilot tasks. Sometimes Ariane wants to turn the gravity sideways so she can walk on the walls and surprise Elster, but this generally causes a disaster and "isn't a sanctioned use case of critical flight systems, Officer Yeong," and—
"Are we not supposed to be having fun in space?" Ariane asks Elster directly.
Elster thinks. She scrunches up her nose whenever she works herself into a web of logical fallacies. It's cute. Ariane could kiss her about it.
"Unclear," Elster concludes.
"You really think I'd tell on us for dereliction of duty?" Ariane teases. Why does saying that make Elster blush?
"It would be your duty," Elster recites, "to ensure the safety and success of the mission."
"Yeah?" Ariane says. "And what happens if I'm derelict? Are you gonna tell the admiral?"
"That would be insubordinate of me," Elster admits.
Ariane starts thinking about power structures and how fun they are to mess with. This really isn't the time, but she's so wet that she can't help herself. She teases Elster more. "Insubordinate even to a derelict?"
"Very."
"Good girl," Ariane stops herself from saying, but maybe her eyes say it anyway.
679
Routine (eyes sometimes say more than lips, after all).
680
Routine again (and goddess, she really is so pretty).
681
Ariane sucks at sticking to routine.
She executively dysfunctions for most of the night and eventually finds Elster sitting in the cockpit.
Something strange is that Elster is in Ariane's seat, and so Ariane ends up in the copilot's seat for a second time. It's odd that Elster wouldn't be anal about rank when it comes to how she uses Ariane's stuff: maybe she's spent so much time stargazing from the copilot's side that she got tired and switched it up.
Ariane wonders how much time Elster has spent here alone.
"Officer Yeong," Elster acknowledges.
"Officer five hundred and twelve," Ariane jabs. "Insomnia?"
Elster doesn't say anything at first. She's more than economical with her words—she's careful. Precise. Silent so often she seems silenced.
"The Gestalt donor for the LSTR type did have chronic insomnia," Elster eventually says, like she's ashamed of it.
Ariane picks up on the shame. "That's the first I've heard you discuss your Gestalt."
"Resurfacing behaviors are a known issue. You deserve to know I'm affected by it."
"What, so I can wield my Officer Yeong superpowers and decommission the only other person on this spacecraft I can talk to?"
"That would be at your discretion."
"What the fuck?" Ariane balks. "All this means to me is that we share at least one disability, Elster—and when have I shown you that I'm liable to be cruel about it?"
Silence.
"You aren't the kind of commander I was told to expect," Elster eventually says.
Ariane puts her feet up on the flight display, presenting her unshaved legs to the stars. "That's fucked up. I'm not going to hurt you, Elster. That's a promise."
Elster looks away, and Ariane realizes that to Elster, trust is more complicated than words can express.
682
At least three versions of Elster exist on the Penrose at any given time, and Ariane has taken immediate and unexpected interest in a fourth. There's Elster the stoic technician who does the job she's assigned; there's Elster's idealized image (the one that touches Ariane); there's Elster the person, who exists in conflict with both previous versions; and finally, the fourth: Elster as the conflict itself, an unbalanced storm of identities pulled in different directions by different forces.
Be a good technician for your commander. (Please) be a good girl for me. What do you actually want? Three different directions to pull her. The fourth: who is this woman who can't sleep, who turns to the stars for comfort?
Why are the stars more comforting to both of them than speaking directly to each other?
Is it because the stars don't make mistakes?
Are you lonely? Ariane doesn't ask. Please tell me you're as lonely as I am.
Please touch me.
I want you to touch me.
683
Ariane's hands start slow, like a dream. How would Elster touch her? Would she be as hesitant and chaste as her personality suggests, or is there a wildly suppressed version of her that burns under the surface, contained by that perfect-fit polyethylene shell? Who was Elster before? Who made love to her? Who did she touch?
Hair feels like it's somebody else's when it's pressed between Ariane's face and her pillow. She smells like her own shampoo, but it wouldn't be too hard to visit wherever Elster bathes and requisition some of her soap or mouthwash. That's what that sharp scent she has is, right—or is she wearing cologne?
Imagine her. Imagine her towering over Ariane or small beneath her, framed between Ariane's spread thighs like a gift. Imagine touching her. Imagine feeling Elster inside of her. Imagine laughing, waking up together, never being alone for a dilation, feeling Elster shift restlessly in the middle of the night and sharing a conversation because someone else in the night is alive. Imagine this bed becoming frustratingly too small for the both of them. Imagine Elster stealing all the blankets in the middle of the night, or letting herself be pinned down—yes, Ariane definitely wants to be on top—or watching her eyes widen as they figure out if Elster can cry from overstimulation.
Imagine bringing her right to the edge, like the fragile thing she is, and pushing her over.
Imagine holding her in the aftermath. Talking to her.
Imagine listening.
684
It's like a fever dream. Qualifying, justifying every aspect until it's under control. Ariane makes a list and loses herself in the caveats.
Commanding officer power differential—
• Lust is different from infatuation.
• Infatuation is different from courage.
What the fuck am I doing?
What if the hole in my heart
can't be filled by her?
685
It's like a fever dream. Elster. Elster. "Elster, Elster, Elster, Elster, fuck—"
Don't make eye contact. Don't talk about it. Who is this hurting more? Don't think about it. Just feel. Elster. Does it feel good? Do you want more?
Ariane nods to herself. Slips two fingers into her mouth and sucks. She curls her legs around the blanket clenched between her thighs, wet through her panties and staining the inside of her nightgown. Please, please, please, please. She's begging.
Elster is so gorgeous. She's so fucking gorgeous. Ariane twists the fingers in her mouth, tracing each fingerprint with her tongue before she pushes between them. What is the most sensitive part of Elster's body? Does she know one already, or will they have to find one? Will it be arduous, drawn out, achingly sensual?
Elster deserves to want. She deserves so much. She's so fucking stupid and perfect and goddammit, goddammit, Elster, Elster, Elster! Ariane is water to a grease fire.
All she can hope for is that Elster won't rush to extinguish it.
686
Cycle 686. Six ate six. Six is a snake that eight itself. Six is an ouroboros of self-referential pain and self-inflicted solitude. Nothing knows the pain of biting itself in its own ass like an ouroboros.
It's fucking Sisyphean.
Ariane rolls a boulder up a mountain (please touch me).
687
Ariane rolls a boulder up a mountain (I want you to touch me).
688
Ariane rolls another metaphorical boulder up the metaphorical mountain and breaks a sweat on the treadmill. Everything tastes like weird ration packs and bitten flakes of lip-skin and she goes to the mess hall in her sweaty sports bra just to give Elster a workplace-appropriate concussion if she happens to be there (she isn't) and everything is going swimmingly. Everything is going so goddamn well. Everything makes so much fucking sense and they're inundated by potential planets to land on and nobody has touched Ariane for two seasons and it's fine.
Ariane can eat the good rations for once. She can eat them in her room and cry in her room and have the kind of outbursts that made Kamilla threaten her with psychiatric hospitalization and everything is fine. Jerking off can be an act of pure rage. Tasting herself is kind of like tasting another woman. Deprivation like this is kind of a kink.
Fuck the Nation. Fuck everything.
"Will you be stargazing tonight?" Elster asks later.
Ariane drops Elster's pen. She tries to catch it with her foot and kicks it into a vent by mistake.
"What?" Ariane asks, suddenly vulnerable.
"Will you be stargazing tonight?" she asks again, undeterred. It makes Ariane a little miffed that she doesn't stutter, highlighting Ariane's own avoidant cowardice by comparison.
Please be normal, Ariane begs of herself. Please be fucking normal. This isn't a date. This is an invitation for normal proximity between two people, with someone she really does genuinely want to know better, and there are ways to play it cool. Ariane is an interplanetary space captain, of all things. She can have a little panache and a little roguish charm—but now Elster and her magnificent ass are kneeling to remove her pen from the vent and it's all going to hell.
"Y-yeah," Ariane stutters. "I'd like that."
689
It's not a date, so Ariane doesn't dress up. That would be weird; it would belie further intention and importance that might alienate Elster, or at least reveal the mismatch between their relative affection levels. Elster might have walked in on her but she hasn't heard Ariane moaning her name when she comes, and it's better that way. It's better to keep secrets.
On her way to the cockpit, Ariane feels like she's choking on her heart.
Don't make it weird. Don't make it weird. Don't make it weird—it's almost comical how badly Ariane wants her. If Ariane is being honest, she's almost ashamed of it.
She is ashamed of it.
"Hey," Ariane says.
"Officer Yeong," Elster replies. Ariane is disappointed that she doesn't call her Ariane, and then she's disappointed at herself for holding that expectation to begin with. It was less than a hundred cycles ago that she was still writing the Elster unit instead of Elster in her diaries (something she loathes herself for now), and things take time. All relationships take time.
I didn't want to presume intimacy when there isn't any is what Elster had said: a graceless, true thing to say. Certainly not intended to hurt.
Ariane sits in a chair without settling. She doesn't know how to make everything better. She doesn't know how to make anything happen. Frustratingly, she really is that same scared kid who learned to hide herself from the world to survive its shitstorm of interpersonal catastrophes. The soft arrays of console lights and cathode-ray monitors before her might even be proof that she failed at that, too.
Do you run away too? Ariane wants to ask Elster and doesn't. How else did we end up alone together?
Somehow, Elster grasps and answers the thought. "I don't know why, but I've started feeling nostalgic here."
Cold leather seat upholstery forces Ariane to hug her knees for warmth. When Elster doesn't offer the details herself, Ariane prompts her. "How so?"
"Gestalt memories," Elster says. "Persona stabilization isn't perfect. LSTR units degrade along an expected curve as the mission approaches its terminus, and although I expected this, it doesn't make it less frightening."
Ariane swallows heavily. "I get lonely too."
Elster leans back in her chair and looks through the roof panels into an entirely different darkness.
Some implication or another prompts Ariane to speak preemptively. "Do you really fear that I'll terminate you if you—well, I can't stand the term 'degrade,' but if you remember anything more? Even all of it?"
The word trust is probably too hard for Elster to form sentences around when so many miscommunications and expectations have clouded their relationship. Ariane watches her struggle until she can't.
"Elster," Ariane starts. Maybe she should reiterate the promise that she won't hurt Elster, but that feels more and more false by the cycle. She is hurting Elster. They're both so fucking hurt for reasons that are neither of their faults.
It's not that a gulf opened when Elster walked in during a private moment. The gulf was always there, and that was just when both of them walked to the edge and looked in.
Here's a hackneyed phrase: a picture is worth a thousand words. It was written in various forms on advertisements for the Yeong Photo store, labeling Ariane's life before she ever became a painter, and she wonders—on the contrary, is it really worthless to say nothing?
Ariane abandons her hand on the center console, palm facing upwards in an invitation that could mean nothing.
She's wildly infatuated with her weird coworker, and that's fine. Relationships take time. It's okay to slow down and savor what happens first. It's okay if 'trust' is a word to be used instead of a feeling to be known. It's okay to lust ravenously after a woman and ask, non sequitur (and with a pounding heart), "Hey. Did you ever learn about constellations?"
"It's hard to say," Elster says. She looks at Ariane's empty hand. "My Gestalt did."
"Do you want to learn?"
Elster doesn't answer the question. Maybe the word "no" comes with too many other feelings to describe. It must be so confusing to be a Replika, Ariane imagines. Imagine leaving Rotfront behind, leaving the twins and the photo store and her mother—and then imagine leaving herself, too. Imagine forgetting who she is.
Ariane can't think of what to say. Now isn't the time for a confession, it isn't the time for can we be friends or can I get to know you better, it isn't time for tell me about you or help me understand how to help you feel better. Frustratingly, it just is. Even expressing discomfort over being Elster's commanding officer might be inappropriate because, Ariane is realizing, maybe that structure is one of the only things that make sense to her. Maybe that's what she clings to.
For now, Elster doesn't have to reach far. She places her hand hesitantly onto Ariane's, and it would be so easy to call this another mistake. It's a moment so fragile that Ariane knows it will end as soon as either of them acknowledge it. Desire is so rarely congruent with reality.
That said, it's a warm desire to cling to.
For now, the stars look back.