“No, pointing out the obvious is not why we came back here. And I never said I preferred good behavior.” Raph slowly set their own glass down and moved forward, eliminating all personal space between them.

“So…” said Yuko, slightly nervously, “Regarding what I mentioned earlier…I can walk you through my operating instructions as we go?”

“Sounds good,” said Raph, running their thumb over one of her cheekbones.

“There’s one other thing I have to tell you about before we really get started… I don’t want you to be shocked.” 

“I won’t be shocked. What do you want to tell me?” Raph asked, calmly. One day, maybe, Yuko would achieve that kind of calm, if only for ten or fifteen seconds.

Yuko took a deep breath. She’d tried to explain this to a few different people, and no one had ever taken her seriously. Not even Nachelle. Here goes. “Raph, ok, don’t laugh, I know how crazy this will sound, but I’m trying to do you a favor here. It’s my breasts. They are…amazing. They are literally perfect. There are all kinds of beautiful breasts in the world, but what I’ve got going on is the pinnacle of whatever category mine fall into. Sculpted by a version of Pygmalion who doesn’t hate women, aka Dr. Huang. You’re going to have a hard time keeping it together when you see them. I still get distracted by them sometimes, if I’m honest, and I’m not really into breasts.”

“I’m sure they are gorgeous, but I don’t think I’ll be shocked. Every bit of you that I’ve seen is amazing, so that’s par for the course. Plus, I’ve always been kind of a leg guy, and yours are very nice,” said Raph, craning their neck to look down with appreciation at her legs in their second-skin yoga pants. Thanks, Kate Hudson!

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Raph, but still… remember that you were warned,” she tapped an index finger playfully against the center of their chest. Leg guy. Tuh. Just you wait.

Light dappled the mossy green of Raph’s eyes at her touch. Raph was unexpectedly susceptible to flirting—it seemed like the kind of foible that was beneath such an enlightened, self-actualized being, but maybe not. 

“Duly noted.” Raph reached up and lifted her chin and bent to kiss her. 

For a second Yuko caught herself believing in energy, because some kind of electricity rolled through her as soon as their lips made contact. She shivered. She threw an arm around their back and deepened the kiss, feeling the warmth of their body through her clothes. As they kissed, she slid her fingers into their hair.

“Can I take this down?” she asked, breaking away momentarily from the kiss, lightheaded.

“Sure,” Raph agreed, bending to suck lightly on her earlobe, their hands roaming over her back. 

She wrapped her fingers around the hair tie holding their hair in a knot and gently dragged it out, and fragrant auburn waves tumbled down over her shoulder as Raph kissed the side of her neck. Wow. Absolutely stunning. Maybe the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen, and definitely the prettiest I’ve ever touched. She slipped her fingers into it again, gathered a handful of that chaotic, sweet-smelling silk, and brought Raph back to her mouth for another jolt of energy. Her battery icon was solid green at this point—holy hell were they a good kisser! A very persistent throb had started between her thighs, and she pressed them together with a little huff of laughter, thinking of how she’d been reading the labels on canisters of maca powder just the day before, thinking there was something wrong with her libido. 

“Why are you laughing?” asked Raph, straightening and looking at her quizzically, the color adorably high in their cheeks, their pupils dilated.

“Until just now, I’ve been thinking that there was something wrong with me. With my sex drive,” she explained. “But actually, I think I’m good after all.”

“Yours?” they said, disbelievingly. “Who in the hell told you that?”

“I mean, no one told me, I just noticed it hasn’t been… firing on all eight. Not for a while.”

“Oh my god, if you had any more sexual energy, I’d go up in flames—but I’d enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with you. Come here,” Raph said, leading her toward the buckwheat hull-filled futon off to one side. She followed very willingly, thinking that just last night she’d reflected that she’d never slept on hulls before, and now she was getting ready to do something much more advanced than sleeping on hulls. You’ve always been a quick learner, Yuko. “Climb on this bed and lie back, I want to show you something.”

Having been pressed tightly up against their body for the past couple of minutes, she had a pretty good idea of what Raph had to show her, and she’d be very happy to take a look. She climbed over to the center of the futon and lay back, wondering if she should start taking off her clothes or if they would want to do it instead… Wait. What are they doing? Instead of climbing on top of her, Raph seated themself near her feet, cross-legged, and then lifted one of her feet into their lap. 

“Hold on, Raph, I mean, foot massages are great, but we don’t have to go that slow… unless… do you have a foot thing? If so, that’s cool…” she’d never asked herself if her feet were in fine foot fetish form, but she hoped they were. She’d gotten a pedicure less than a week ago—hot pink mirror polish—and they were looking cute-ish, she thought.

Raph gave her an intent look and a half-smile, “Your shiny toes are very appealing, but I don’t have a ‘foot thing,’ no shade to those that do. I just want to show you something about yourself.”

“Okay. You’re being kind of mysterious, though.” Yuko propped herself up on her elbows to see what they were going to do. 

“No, lie back and try to relax your body and your mind. It will work better that way,” they instructed gently.

She wanted to push the foot they were holding up against the bulge in the front of their pants, is what she wanted to do, but instead she laid back and closed her eyes and tried to relax her muscles. Relaxing her mind was a lost cause, though. Her heartbeat felt like someone had set off a string of Black Cat firecrackers somewhere inside her chest. 

Raph began to run their thumbs lightly over the sole of her foot, concentrating on the heel area as if they were looking for something in particular. It felt nice, and, at first, relaxing. Her mind did go kind of fuzzy for a few minutes. Then they pressed the tip of a thumb against some spot at the base of her instep, just above her heel. Abruptly, she felt a sort of golden glow shooting through her leg, a glow that flew straight to her clit. She gasped, her eyes flew open and her knees bent a little from the surprising pleasure of it, but Raph did not release her foot.

“Almost. Hold on…” They went back to work on her foot as she stared up at the wooden struts that supported the roof of the yurt, eyes wide. Then Raph made a small, satisfied sound and began to rub their thumb in tight circles in some new spot, and this time, there wasn’t one ball of light shooting towards her clit, there was a continuous stream of them. She slapped her palms down onto the mattress making a strangled sound, her back arching and twisting. They moved their other thumb over and pressed down in the center of the circle they had been describing. The glow concentrated itself in the tip of her clitoris and an intoxicating pulsing began, gaining intensity until one hand reflexively flew down to cover herself and with a cry, Yuko came harder than she ever had in her entire life. Pre-op, post-op… ever. She was still fully dressed and the only part of her that Raph was touching was her left foot. Her last semi-coherent thought had been, “what the actual fuck!?”

After she recovered a bit, she started to babble. “What did you…how did you…I never…what was that?”

“You were overdue,” Raph said matter-of-factly but with an air of mild irritation, as if they wanted to know whose neglectfulness had allowed this grave oversight to occur. “Now try and tell me there’s something ‘wrong with your libido.’”