A Purely Functional Date

Even a modern elevator like this took some time at this height and River could feel the pressure in their ears.

"Oooh, wow!" Apparently so could Rahne. "I am totally not used to having ears! Is it supposed to feel this good?"

"Oh, your ears are popping."

"They pop!" Rahne seemed very alarmed.

"Well, yes, but more metaphorically." River then explained the mechanics of ear popping to Rahne.

"Well, that makes sense. Jeez, they do not cover that type of thing in the instruction manuals, let me tell you!"

"I don't think they were expecting you to be doing altitude changes, whoever they are." River offered, helpfully as the chime announced they were at the right floor.

"Ohh, yeah, there was that season up a mountain, but they mostly stayed at a chalet." Rahne offered their arm to River again. The enby, still wary of Rahne, took their arm and followed them. The maître d', a thin, wiry man in a black suit with subtle pinstriping greeted them as they stepped off.

"Welcome to Gula, the restaurant in residence of the Hotel Beatrice. Will it be just the two of you this evening?"

"Yes, this is our first date."

"Ah, young romance! Follow me to your table!" River tottered along, very appreciative of Rahne's arm for balance as the show's host followed the restaurant's. After getting seated, and seeing Rahne's prominent bulge as she sat down due to how short the skirt is, River only half-listened as the maître d' rattled off the specials.

"Are... you sure this will work?"

"No." Rahne was very nonchalant about it, reading over the drinks list. "What's wine like?"

"I never developed a taste for it." River thought Rahne's honest deserved their own in return.

"Mmm, okay. What would you order?"

"As a drink? Um... I'm not much of a drinker, but rum is my go to."

"I'll ask the waiter for something that pairs well!" Rahne snapped the drink menu shut, the loud noise startling River and sending a shiver down their spine.

"Sorry!"

"Why are you apologising? I startled you."

"Oh." River didn't have a good explanation. "Sorry, yeah, I guess this transformation has me on edge."

"Mmm, yeah, you definitely had one of the harder initial transformations."

"I don't think anyone got an easy one. We all thought Kate had it easy but look at what happened to her."

"Hah, yeah, she was definitely right to be mad at me during the ceremony."

A drink and a round of appetizers later and conversation was getting awkward. Rahne already knew everything there was to know about River and the other person at the table had absolutely no idea what they were allowed to ask the host. This caused an uncomfortable silence that Rahne felt obliged to break. "Okay, you get three questions. No bullshit, no loopholes, no gotchas, I answer honestly and respect the intent of your questions, so, no wasting one of 'can I ask something like this?' type of stuff. Only catch: no spoilers. No asking about what's coming."

River took a moment. This was absolutely some genie wish type of scenario and if they wanted to get the most out of their questions, they would have to try very hard with their wording. Rahne smiled a seemingly genuine smile. River thinking was endearing to them, they enjoyed watching the blue-haired enby process their thoughts. Rahne found they way they did the logic trap version of calculations in the palm of their hand very cute.

"You mentioned being an extra-dimensional being in the opening ceremony. What does a being that, to my comprehension, is essentially a god want with seven random mortals and a sex show?"

Rahne took the last sip of the Spice 75 she'd ordered them and smiled. "I got bored. We all do. And boredom while experiencing time in a non-linear fashion is agonising. Those blocks of your life are an ever growing tumour of malaise and ennui. So, we invented a show: mortals competing in a mortal fashion for just the tiniest sliver of our power. Endlessly entertaining; which is great when experience is endless. Those of us that feed of of lust got real into it and, well, now it caters to us."

"Feed off of lust? Like a succubus?" River cursed themselves out internally for wasting a question like that.

Rahne smirked, they promised no gotchas, but, well, she couldn't help herself. "Exactly. I've definitely been called a succubus by your people in the past. I live off of the mid-climax energy of all the mortals that promised me tribute in return for favour. It's really simple, ultimately."

River paused. They desperately, desperately wanted to ask a follow-up. How did that energy draining work? Who promised Rahne tribute? Succubi are apparently real, what of other devils? Instead, they maintained discipline.

"I'm going to save my last question."

Rahne raised an eyebrow. They experienced time linearly in this body and the jumbled nature of their out of body experiences made small details forgettable. "Oh? Whatever for?"

"I don't know if your word is binding, like some fae being, but, just in case, the ability to ask one question and receive a fully, perfectly honest answer seems too powerful to pass up."

"This." Rahne jammed their finger into the table. "This is why I chose you."

River scratched the back of their head, then dropped their elbow back down to stroke their neck instead, aware of how the posture of their arm spread their open shirt dangerously close to their tits. "Uh, thanks."

"You're dangerous River. Whatever strengths the others might have, you have your wits about you. Use that and you could win this whole thing."

River looked away, blushing. "I don't even know if I want that."

"You don't?"

"I guess I just worry about the ethics of effectively own six people."

"I understand." Rahne finished their glass just as the waiter brought out the main courses. "But I think I might have an angle for you to think about."

"What?"

"River, you might be the only contestant that actively wants a penis. Would it not be wrong to make someone else go through that?"

"Ethically?"

"Sure." Rahne smiled at their contestant.

"I don't know if my personal gain would be worth the loss of the others becoming my harem."

Rahne picked up their cutlery to get stuck into the steak they'd ordered. The pointed the end of their knife at River, entirely for emphasis and with no explicit threat. "We'll see who still thinks of it as a loss at the end of this."

River swallowed.

River swallowed, desperately trying not to **** on their dessert as Rahne made them laugh again. Turns out, to prepare for this season, the host had familiarised themselves with a lot of Earth media, only to discover during the date that, due to their insistence on avoiding recency bias, a vast majority of the books they read would be irrelevant to all but the literature teacher they were sat across from. River just appreciated someone who shared their opinion on Dickens.

"You're- hurkhurk-" River swallowed some of their drink to get the food to go down right. "You're so right, Hard Times is, absolutely, one of those books where the title describes the process of reading it."

"That's what I'm saying." Rahne waved the waiter over, it was getting late and paying the check now, with the last bite of River's dessert getting dislodged and swallowed properly, seemed pertinent. River was beaming. This had genuinely been one of the best dates they'd been on in a while.

The elevator up had the two of them giggling, remembering Rahne's first experience with decompression. So River almost choked as the conversational gears shifted.

"Fuck, if that's how sensitive this body's ears are, I'm absolutely going to get Annie to shove a tongue in there."

"Oh?" River couldn't help but be curious.

"Oh yeah. I'm absolutely going to be fingering her pussy while she jams a tongue in my ear and rubs my girlcock. Sounds great to me."

"Fuck." River felt the tiny leather shorts they were wearing get very warm in the front.

"Hrmm, I know she's got a spanking kink too. I might bend her over my knee and get her ass a nice shade of pink."

"Starting with that?"

"Oh? You have suggestions?" Rahne smirked. The elevator doors had opened, but neither of them were stepping out.

"It, um. It might just be a good place to ramp up from."

"Yeah? And where do you want it to ramp towards?" Rahne crossed the elevator. They were both wearing heels, so, even taller than they'd ever been in their life, River was still towered over by the purple-haired host.

"Fuck her." River said, making full, intense eye-contact.

"You sure?" Rahne began tracing their fingernails along River's collarbones. "I can't help but notice you're super fucking turned on. We could fuck instead."

River's head was spinning. A day ago and a statuesque femme like Rahne hitting on them was unheard of, let along the idea that they might not only get laid that easily, but turn it down. "I want you to fuck her."

Rahne's hand gently cradled the base of River's neck. "Oh yeah? Just one super vanilla fucking?"

"No, I want you to fuck her good." River didn't even know where their words were coming from. They were turned on and just letting it happen.

"Mmm, I could start by fucking her face."

"Oh fuck." River's eyes flickered shut. "Fuck she'd love that. Cum on her though, yeah? She wants to play with it."

"Of course. Should I do the same when I fuck her pussy though?" They two of them could feel the other's body heat, the elevator doors having long shut automatically. River could only nod.

"Yeah, you want me to blow a load all over your new friend?"

River grabbed at the front of their shorts and then let out a moan of frustration as, just as they rubbed the front of their shorts, they remembered their transformation. "Fuck!" River hit the open doors button and rushed out of the elevator, dropping to a squat in the heels in the much cooler space.

An involuntary tingle turned into a full-body aroused shudder as Rahne walked past and gave the back of their head a gentle scratch. "Good luck." Rahne said as they moved to enter their apartment.

River just took some deep breaths then stood and went back to the elevator to go down a floor. Either they were about to experience a spontaneous orgasm out of nowhere, all the sensations, or just go to sleep frustrated. Regardless of what would happen, spending any longer in the boots was probably a bad idea.

They got to their room and found the fruits of Kate's labour downstairs. River took the time to get out of their date outfit and change into the comfy, if a little more close tailored than they'd prefer, pair of pyjamas they found in among Kate's earnings. They, right then, decided that they were going to have to risk spontaneous orgasm in order to do one last thing before bed.

Sneaking into Kate and Mia's room, River found the blonde, still flushed red, collapsed in a deep sleep, exhaustion overtaking endorphins. It looks like they'd even showered the blonde after the ordeal and Kate was lying there, hair wet, in a similar looking set of pyjamas to the ones River had found for themselves. Thankful that they outfit they were taken in had their work satchel, they set a simple, handwritten note on her bedside table:

"Thank you. The decision to tell the others is yours. Either way, I appreciate the clothing. - R"

They then went back to bed, only to lie awake and stare at the ceiling, hoping there would be a spontaneous orgasm in their near future.