Ella?

I entered the corridor. Utterly confused, aroused, fighting against myself, my morals and desperately trying to upkeep them. I paced the tunnel back and forth. My audible continued footsteps must have warned the others someone was in the now very dark tunnel, so no one came looking for some stress relief. No one, except Ambra.

“Alex.” She simply said my name. Halting my nervous walk in an instant.

“Ambra?” I asked.

“Alex. We hear footsteps. Repeating. Someone walking. Not going anywhere. Someone worrying. Only you worry. I love you. I worry too. I am here.”

“Oh, Ambra, I am sorry to make you worry about me.”

“Alex. I love you. I worry.”

She came closer to me in the dark hallway.

“Alex. I love you. You worry. I want to hug?”

It was the first time I would hug her. I couldn’t deny her request. It was the first time she asked for a hug with a man. I realized this was very important for her, that she could express her love, but also that she would express it by physical contact without the implication of anything sexual in it. So, it was very important in her progress. The request was also a form of asking my consent, like she was very aware I had issues with intimacy.

“Okay, Ambra, you may hug me.”

Soon I felt her embracing me. Holding me, not desperately close, but also not too far away to make it clumsy. I hugged her back the same way. Moments passed in which we both felt the love for each other through the hug. We broke the hug, not embarrassed by it at all. It was... just a hug.

“Better?”

“Yes, Ambra, thank you for that hug. Do you feel better?”

“Yes. You love me. No. You still have problem.”

“Yes, Ambra, I have a problem. More than one. But eh... I can’t talk about it with you.”

“Ah... you have sex problem.”

“Eh... yes.”

“Okay. And you are here, you can’t talk with your women.”

“Correct, it seems I have a problem none of my girlfriends can solve.”

“Okay. Problems can be difficult. You need someone else. None of your women. You need Ella. She is very good in making problems go away. I will get Ella.”

And with that she left me standing in the dark tunnel, going to her room, asking Ella to come help me out.

Help me out...

I waited for five minutes. I was about to leave when I heard Ella whisper my name. No idea why she was whispering. Then I realized she hadn’t come out of the middle room, but from the smallest room where she probably was...

Fuck... And thinking about her trying to get some stress relief wasn’t making it better. If anything my level of arousal went up, stressing me even more. Confusing me. Thinking about her tight ass jumping up and down this morning, happy to start the day. No... This was not the mood I should be talking to Ella.

“Sorry, Ella, I shouldn’t have asked for you. No, I meant, I shouldn’t have let Ambra disturb you in your... eh affairs.”

I couldn’t see her, it was that dark in the corridor.

“You were asking for me?” She whispered. Soft, but also a bit hoarsely.

Shit... We both weren’t in the mood to talk about this properly. For some reason I was getting way too... hot.

“Yes... eh... No.”

“You are confused then. Stressed.” She said, prolonging the ‘s’ of stressed like it had a whole different meaning. And it had. “You have a problem, Ambra told me, a sex problem.” A bit louder, but the way she was pronouncing the word ‘sex’ felt like she was hungry for it.

My mood didn’t go away with it. But she wasn’t my girlfriend and if I made the first move, it could go wrong very fast. I was smelling her parfum. A sweet scent of flowers. I always had liked that parfum. But in Ella’s case...

No, Alex! Back off!

I was standing way too close to her. Or she had neared me way too close. I couldn’t think clearly. This was way out of proportions, this mood. This was not what a leader was supposed to do. I had never talked to Ella about my own problems. The women clearly had, without me knowing. They trusted her, like she already was part of the agreement. On a platonic level they loved her. Like I did.

Yes, like I did. Did... No... Like I do.

“I am sorry, Ella, it seems I cannot... talk about it with you. I am in the wrong mood for it.”

She stepped back. And took another step back. And another. Faster. She turned and ran away.

Fuck... too late. I frightened her. I hurt her. My mood disappeared in an instant, like she had disappeared. I sought the nearest alcove in the tunnel and tried to disappear as well.

Lost in my guilt I must have sat there for half an hour. I closed my eyes, worrying, trying to find a way out the mess I had created. I heard someone pass in the direction of the middle room or my room. I then heard someone pass in the direction of the small room. Then someone came and sat next to me.

“Alex.” It was Kylie.

I sighed deeply.

“I frightened Ella, Kylie. I was in the wrong mood, she sensed it, and she ran away.”

She sighed deeply.

“No, Alex. You didn’t. She was in the wrong mood to talk to you, and she ran away, afraid of hurting you. Afraid of making the same mistake as Clara and Kylie once did.”

“Huh?”

“You forget she has seen the effects of women approaching you, even if you loved them, even if you were attracted to them, even if you were in the mood somehow, you still could get hurt. And she certainly doesn’t want to do that. So, just before she was about to... Well, at moment she realized the danger of hurting you and she ran.”

“Oh...”

“She feels guilty of trying to set you up for it. To try to **** you to take the first step. To make you lust after her. We warned her, but she is getting ****, Alex. She tried everything to please you, to be nice to you, to be useful to you and it didn’t work. She has fallen for you the moment you gave her that birthday gift.”

“That cartridge case with FREE scratched on it?”

“Yes. It was her first birthday gift ever. And what a present it was, Alex. You swept her off her feet with it. You turned her world around. Instead of wanting to stay a child to stay safe, you made her want to grow up. The gift was a reminder to us, but mostly to you, giving her what she most wanted in her life. To be independent and protected. And by remembering her birthday, the mythical age of eighteen years old, she tried to avoid in her past, by giving her that gift she felt she was acknowledged by the world, she was free and protected at the same time. It wasn’t only the word FREE that did, it was the cartridge case too.

“But I just picked up the case from a shooting practice...”

“You could have chosen anything to scratch something in it. A small stick, a safety ring, some plastic... But you picked up the cartridge case from a shooting practice. It even could have been the one you showed to Ella and Mia from the shooting practice you had with them. You worked two days on it, cursing, making your fingers bleed when you slipped with the saw, you could have changed your mind, but you stuck to it. But for some reason you chose the cartridge case, once holding a bullet as a symbol of care, protection and love. And you scratched FREE in it, not fully aware the combination would give her everything she ever wanted in her miserable past.”

“Miserable?”

“You told Kara you saw she was ****. None of us ever had seen that. She is the toughest of the entire squad. Her past was not a happy one. When I first saw her, picking up the orphans I looked in her eyes, trying to weigh her strength, and without fear, with pure determination she looked back to me. In the entire training she never backed down, even if she failed. She was the one standing up for the rest, asking why you always looked so angry at them. And when she told parts of her story, the strength was leaking through her story. So we thought you would fall for her in the end, when she became eighteen. She told you it was her birthday to make sure you would see her as a strong young woman, to be recognized by you as a **** you could lean on, not as a child you were treating her like.”

“Was I wrong then to see her as ****?”

“Yes and no. Yes: her past makes her **** to certain triggers. Certain situations makes her not thinking clearly. Most of all, situations where others of her group are threatened. She gets angry really fast and then acts. No: her past has given her impossible strength to go through a wall, rather than evade it. But Alex, think about yourself. Are you not exactly the same?”

“Hmm...” I had to admit Kylie had a point. So I opened myself a bit for the possibility to see Ella as a woman. “You were saying she was getting ****?”

“She quickly figured out you had your weak points. That you were hurt by the aggressive advances by Clara and Sophia. That you had a shield against attachments from others by trying to be rude. She saw it as a challenge first. Then she really started caring for you. She knew you wouldn’t be able to keep up without extra support. You would simply burn out by taking more and more care of others. So she tried to lighten the weight.

She tried to steer Sophia in better ways to approach you. She did the same with Clara. Then she adopted Ambra just the same way you did, but made sure you could lean on her. And you started loving her for it. She knows she is attractive, but didn’t dare to approach you with her female charms. She didn’t want to hurt you. In fact she convinced, or tried to convince the others not to hurt you in any way. To care for Ambra. If Sophia was the organizing leader of the squad, she was the convincing leading part of the squad to always choose for your interests.

And now in this lock-down, she figured out after you collapsed with Kate... that you had burned yourself out, by not being used to channel your stress into sex. She was the one that figured out that you either wanted to love or do something else, and left sex to other people. Unless you were stressed a bit too much. Being here you couldn’t spread your love, nor could you do other stuff. So... well, you burnt yourself up. We were leaning on her, you were leaning on her. You loved her, she loved you and so on.

The problem was that she needed you to make the first step. You needed to be in control, to be ready for it. And you needed the express permission for it. But you never did, you never asked her. In here she got stressed beyond her capabilities to control it. Even with masturbation, fantasizing about you constantly. She grew frustrated. Angry at herself for not thinking about you first, she acted. So in the morning during...

“She hopped around in her loose towel, showing me...”

“Yes. We noticed too. And it had worked this time to get your attention, to see her as a woman, because you quickly left for Kara. The whole hallway was giggling about it. First we were happy for it, then we realized you were getting confused about it. And stressed and trapped in your own morals. Between not hurting and having sex. Between empathy and control.”

“So the roleplay may have worked, but you left to make sure we could work it out. But you left for too long. You had met Ella in here. You were way too confused and stressed. We should have asked for Ella ourselves. You tried to get a solution yourself, ended up with Ella. Who was very desperately to get your attention and acknowledgement she was far from ****, but when you said you were in the wrong mood... she realized her mistake and the one she was about to make, so she ran instead of hurting you.”

“So, what now?”

“There is only one thing you can do, Alex, and that is finally realize she is a strong young woman, yes with vulnerabilities, but like everyone else, perhaps even less so. She is attracted to you, and you are to her. She loves you, and you love her. You lean on her for support, she does the same. So, it is time to give her a chance, like you did with Kara.”