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“Screwllum,” Herta says, her voice inadvertently distant. Dismissive. It is second nature, by now. “Haven’t we always been frank with one another?”
“Hm?” Screwllum’s hand lingers on her thigh, the chill of metal spreading to her skin. “Of course. What do you mean by that, Madam Herta?”
“I know you want to ask.” She frowns, a cramp overtaking her senses for a painful couple of seconds. Luckily, it’s short-lived. “Yet, you’re not doing it.”
Screwllum tilts his head to the side. The heavy, grounding weight of his fingers is all she allows herself to focus on.
“Did you want me to ask?”
His answer arrives late.
“Since when do you care about whether I want your opinions or not?”
Her answer leaves her faster than she can think of it.
“Objection: I do not offer unwanted advice,” he says, placid as ever, yet clearly offended.
If only just slightly so.
Herta scoffs, unable to help herself. This—it’s good. Even if she ends up pissing him off, which has yet to actually happen, having someone who can challenge her at any level is rare. Minds like Screwllum’s are rare.
And right now, it’s a wonderful distraction she can’t and won’t take for granted.
“I always want your advice,” she allows herself to say. “You should feel flattered by that, by the way.”
“I certainly do, Madam Herta,” he says, his hand still unwilling to make a move.
“Right, right,” she says, quickly, and it’s almost like ripping a band-aid off. “If you don’t want to do this today, you can just say so.”
Screwllum’s mechanical eyes stare back at her, at her face only, wholly unaffected by the naked body in front of him.
This is why there is nobody else she can go to.
“Logic dictates…” he trails off. One lone, cold finger curls around her skin, as if he hadn’t meant to do it. A shiver rips through her back. “Confession: I will admit I… cannot discern your reasoning.”
Herta closes her eyes for a brief moment, then exhales a sharp breath. She can feel the pain before it even manifests itself.
“Yes, why not, right?” she says. “I certainly know how to get rid of it, I most definitely don’t and will never want to pop any crying toddlers out of my body, and it’s nothing but a monthly annoyance that robs me of precious time I could spend on something more valuable.”
“But?”
She exhales a sharp breath.
“The pain is—it’s tangible.” She grits her teeth. “I’m human, Screwy. I’m still human.”
A second of silence goes by, then another, and a third, until,
“Herta,” he says, dropping the one formality he is always stubborn enough to never let go of. “Allow me.”
He doesn’t wait for her to react—his thumb is on her clit before she can even open her mouth to speak.
When she does, it’s to let a soft whimper fall from her lips.
His hand grows warmer with every touch he offers her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she murmurs, biting back yet another whimper—one born out of pain, this time.
“Heat relieves menstrual cramps, I believe.” A heartbeat later, his index finger slips past her entrance, easily aided by what she knows to be her own slick mixed with blood. Herta closes her eyes, catches her bottom lip in between her teeth, and inhales until her lungs scream. “Hypothesis: this is likely an unorthodox method, but one I believe should deliver the same result nonetheless.”
“Screwllum,” she says, her mind zeroing on the gentle thrusts of his finger inside her. It’s much more intense than she’s used to, her muscles contracting along with the hypnotizing back and forth he slowly eased into. It’s almost overwhelming. Confusing, new, but—not unwelcome. “More.”
Screwllum wordlessly complies, and another finger pushes in with the same ease, with the same gentle care he puts into everything he does.
As much as she enjoys butting heads with him, these moments, though few and far in between, are always… nice, for lack of a more suitable term.
She shouldn’t push for them, shouldn’t indulge, but her fellow Genius is always a little too willing to go along with everything she says for his own good, and even Nous’ very own Emanator does not have it in her to let go.
A third finger later, and his name morphs into a moan on her tongue.
Back arched on the mattress, heat slowly filling up her cunt and squelching sounds distantly tainting her ear drums, she idly wonders whether he’s turned off his tactile receptors or not—
—yet, held hostage by the dull ache settling down in her belly and her walls contracting around Screwllum’s fingers, it’s hard for Herta to bring herself to care.
“Herta,” Screwllum’s voice says, smooth and rich and only as emotionless as a superficial interlocutor would be willing to believe, cutting through the thick fog of arousal assaulting her from within. “Affirmation: I am yet to find a way to rationalize this feeling, but you are a most beautiful sight that never fails to leave me in awe.”
Her orgasm catches up to her all at once, swallowing her senses and the anguish afflicting them whole.
They don’t usually talk about it afterwards, and the special circumstances she’d hit him with this time aren’t enough to change that—but when Herta asks him to stay, Screwllum complies, the artificial warmth of his hard chest already pressed against her back.
The pain persists, and so does his presence.
How ironic, she thinks, eyelids growing heavier and a lump in her throat that won’t leave despite outstaying its welcome. An inorganic lifeform has more humanity in him than most humans she knows.
She would usually include herself in that. This time only, it’s easier not to.