It took some ten minutes for Alexis to finally stop crying. When she finally did, I put a hand on her shoulder and she looked at me, her eyes puffy and red.
“Hug?” I offered.
“You’re covered in juices. I am covered in juices. It’s disgusting.”
I weaved my mana around and all disgusting fluids disappeared from our bodies, our clothes, and the dog bed.
“Come here.” I said, opening my arms.
She shuffled up to me and fell into my arms. Her arms wrapped tightly around my back and I did the same, the tightness finally providing her comfort.
“How can you do it? I tortured you, humiliated you. How can you like it? Why do you like it?” she asked, her voice shaky.
“Can I tell you some personal stuff?” I asked.
She nodded on my neck.
“Where to begin… This is some hard stuff, so be warned.”
She nodded again.
“The first time I killed a humanoid I was only fourteen. This used to be common for adventurers of old, not so much in modern times, but it needed doing and I and my party did it. When the beast tide came I was only fifteen. We lost our tank in the first week, the other warrior ended up taking her position as there weren’t neither the time nor people to reform the party. So many people I had grown up with died. Adventuring as a job ceased to exist in the span of a year after that, most of us joined the military, everyone mostly saw it as a way to get a stipend without doing much. Then the Great War started when I was nineteen.”
I took in a deep breath. “When you kill a single person, you never forget their face. When you start killing hundreds with a single spell the faces blend together. When you kill thousands, you stop seeing them. When you kill millions with a single spell, tens of thousands of miles away, they become a statistic, but you feel no less of a monster because of it. When I caused the Massacre of Hidenai I was twenty-one. By then I had more assassination attempts on me than any other person in history. When the peace talks ended and the attempts stopped, I was actually upset about it as they could have been an excuse to let myself die without having to do it myself. And yes, I’ve thought of killing myself, I’ve thought about it several times throughout my life, and every single day since the Battle of the Fault.”
Alexis turned her head to look at me, her eyes wide.
“It took only a couple of months, after the war ended, for the military to put me in a facility where I was under constant psychiatric watch. They could not afford to lose the sole reason no one dared to go to war anymore. The first successful nuclear test came almost a year into my de facto imprisonment. Their hold relaxed a bit after that. They, and my mother, made me open this company to ‘keep myself busy’. Beauty products was just a random thing that came to my mind, I have no real interest in them.”
I let out a chuckle. “I don’t even use the stuff we make.”
I sighed. “Anyway. The thoughts didn’t go away, I was just too busy and under too much surveillance to actually act on them. When I was still in my early teens and I had my first experiences with depression, sometimes I escaped into stories of heroes and grand adventures. Then I saw what those adventures were really like. Then came the war, and heavy propaganda turned me into a hero. You grew up with that propaganda, hearing grand tales of my exploits. The truth is that I am just a monster who has hated herself for every step of the way.
“The other thing I found escape in were smut fictions and comics. Even once I became a hero to the people, I could still escape in those. I could still enjoy the thought of BDSM. The idea of giving up yourself to another person and let that person dictate your pleasure, your happiness, and your pain. Being able to stop caring, to turn mental pain into physical pain. I never acted on those thoughts, on those desires, until a few days ago. The last four days have been the only truly happy days of the last two decades of my life.
“You see Xhilandia as a monster corrupting me into something I am not. The truth is that she is one of the few who truly knows me, and the only one who can make me be who I really want to be.”
She looked me up and down. “And you want to be… this? A sex-crazed slut with a ruined body?”
I smiled. “Exactly.”
She shook her head. “This is all so wrong.”
I patted her head. “I am sorry for ruining the image of your childhood hero.”
“I loved you, you know?”
“No silly, you liked the idea of me, plus you had a crush on me. Do not use that word lightly around Xhilandia. She would give up everything she has and regain it all over again for me if she had to, and still she does not dare use that word.”
She hung her head down. “Maybe. What now? What do I do with these feelings?”
I shrugged. “Whatever you want. I find you quite cute. I wouldn’t be opposed to start a relationship with you if you can accept who I am. We could even go on dates sometimes in-between mind-breaking sex sessions.”
“Gods above, you have no idea who much I wanted to hear words like those.”
She looked up at me. “Wait! You’re married!”
“With the woman who literally got you onto this cushion with me. Alexis, do you really think that the mother of all succubi is going to refrain from having sex with other people for all eternity? Damned, she has probably planned a gang rape session for me already.”
“Can… can I call you Cassandra?”
I patted her head again. “Of course.”
“Can…” she swallowed, “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
She came forward, slowly, tentatively. She stopped moments before my lips. She closed her eyes and I could feel her breath on me. I closed the distance for her. It was a chaste kiss, our lips touching gently. She enjoyed it for a few seconds then separated herself from my lips.
“Should… should I… you know… shave down there?”
“No, silly. I won’t ask you to change for me just after I told you to accept me for who I am. Also, I liked the hair. It made it different, it made me enjoy your smell more.”
“You… enjoyed my smell? Really?”
I nodded. “Yes, why?”
“I’m… kind of… self conscious about my smell. Especially down there and under my armpits. I take a shower every mornings and every evening but I… skipped the last two.”
“I liked it. A lot. Actually, get your shirt off, I want to try your armpits too now.”
“No!” she shouted. “Please, I’m really, really too self conscious about it.”
I made my trusty puppy eyes. “Pretty please?”
She turned her head away from me. “Just… make it quick. I already know you’ll hate it.”
She shuffled her shoulders out of her unbuttoned shirt and let it fall off her, then got her hands out of her sleeves. She then took an unsteady breath and lifted her well-toned arm, revealing an armpit covered by a patch of cloth.
I got my face close to her armpit and removed the patch, revealing hair that had been trimmed, but not in a while, and her smell. Her smell was strong, tangy, and pungent, yet I found myself craving for it. I took a big whiff and enjoyed it.
She tried lowering her arm, saying, “Ok, that’s…”
My tongue interrupted her as I tasted her. The taste was just as strong as the smell, and I loved it.
“Don’t lick it!”
She tried to move away from me but I took her arm in one hand and put my other arm around her torso to stop her. I licked again, filling my tongue of the salty taste.
“You can’t really be enjoying this!”
I stopped licking just to say, “Oh, I am, a lot.” then resumed licking.
Once I duly licked all her sweat off, I finally let her go. “Ah, cute teen girl sweat, that’s the stuff. You could sell this.”
“Yeah, to perverts like you!”
“Guilty as charged. Come on now, other armpit.”
“You want more?!”
“Of course I do. Hop, hop, come on, turn around.”
She sighed but still turned to present her other armpit to me. I removed the patch and proceeded to offer it the same care.
“Have you had enough?”
“Honestly, no. Sadly, the source is dry.” I looked down at her bush. “Although…”
“No! It’s called a refractory period. I couldn’t even come at the end despite everything we were doing before. It’ll just hurt. Not everyone is like you.”
I deflated. “Fine. Can I put my head in your lap and just enjoy the smell though?”
“You really enjoyed it?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Fine.”
She shifted around until she was on one side of the dog bed, so that I could still mostly lie on the soft cushion. I lay down on her lap, and buried my nose in her bush.
“Pat my head.” I said.
“What? Why?”
I turned to look at her. “It’s called aftercare. BDSM can bring forward some extremely strong emotions. It’s necessary to care for each other afterwards. Often it’s just the dom taking care of the sub, but not always. I let you cry your heart out, hugged you, comforted you, and addressed our feelings for each other. Now you have to pat your sub’s head and let her relax a moment otherwise she is going to have a mental break down from having to explain the worst parts of her life. Ok?”
“Ok.”
“Good.”
I buried my face back in her bush and she put a hand on my head. She started patting it with awkward movements, but it was enough. I slowly let go of the stale tension in my body and mind. Tears started flowing down my eyes. I lay there for several, long minutes, silently crying.
My mind kept switching between what I had just done to Alexis and the images of the war. The faces of dead soldiers, scorn and hatred from enemies and allies alike, Alexis’s disgust. All fused together in my mind.
My tears didn’t want to stop. I got up. Alexis looked at my crying face and I saw her eyes soften.
“Hug.”
She embraced me. I put my head on her neck and kept crying. I kept going and going, but it didn’t want to stop. I felt a panic attack start to rise in my chest.
“Aaand I’ll take it from here.” I heard Xhilandia’s voice say.
She came up to us, separated me from Alexis, and picked me up. She closed my knees to my chest in a fetal position and sat against the back wall of the office with me on her lap, my back pressing against her chest. She hugged me tightly with her hands around my legs, keeping me in a fetal position. Her wings closed on us and we were in the dark.
I started sobbing uncontrollably. Words escaped my lips between sobs, driven by my subconscious.
“It’s not her fault.”
“It’s her first time.”
“Don’t hate her.”
“Don’t make her hate me.”
“I don’t want her to hate me.”
“I had to tell her.”
“I had to tell.”
“I don’t want to tell.”
“I didn’t want to do it.”
“I had to do it.”
“She was screaming.”
“Why are they always screaming?”
“Why can’t they stop screaming?”
“I hated me.”
“I hate me.”