Birds & Bees

“Oh god, I thought you forgot about that,” John groaned. “This is not a conversation I want to be having. At the rate they’re growing, I only have a few more months before the kittens start to ask uncomfortable questions… especially since someone started messing with the soundproofing again!”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Farrah chided, wagging a finger right in front of John’s nose. “No trying to distract us with stories about the others!”

“I could just tell you to get out, you know,” John grumbled, but Farrah just stuck out her tongue and waited in silence. Eventually, John heaved a resigned sigh and slouched his shoulders in resignation. “Okay, at least it will give me some practice.”

“Yay!” Farrah exclaimed, bouncing on the bed hard enough to jostle John with her. “I hate not knowing things! And Sophia was making it sound really fun!”

“She did? So did Yvara. It was only Lerianna who seemed upset by the idea.”

“That’s- look, this is more complicated than I think either of you are ready for, but I guess this had to come up at some point. Just don’t blame me if you regret asking.” John took a deep breath, trying to figure out an explanation that would work for both of them. “Aclysia, exactly what was in those books?”

“A very detailed explanation of the joys of sex, and how it allows one to share great pleasure with you, Creator John. It described the mechanics, recommended preparations to take ahead of time, and described the best positions for a worshipper to take in order for your cock to-”

“Got it.” John held up his hand, too thrown off-kilter to really care as much as normal about being slightly rude. “Farrah, what did Sophia tell you?”

“Um, she was kinda hard to understand. She just said something about taking my rightful place under you? She said it was an honor and a duty, so I was worried about it being something involving fighting, but when I told her that, she just laughed. She said it would be painful like fighting, but… better? It was kind of hard to understand her.”

“Okay, I’m… getting the idea that it might be on me to start explaining things before other people go shooting off half-detailed explanations of things.” John grit his teeth at the situation, wanting to blame someone for this, but finding it hard to point the finger at anyone in particular. “Okay, so… I want both of you to try to put what you learned in the backs of your minds and just try to start from scratch on this. And in return I’m gonna try not to screw this up like I usually do.”

“You’re so nervous. Is this some kind of big secret?” Farrah asked, looking at John askance with a playful grin on her face.

“Not helping.”

“Sorry, right. Sophia monologue – out,” Farrah exclaimed, balling up her hand and making a popping sound as she imitated literally throwing the memory out of her head. “Go on. I’ll behave.”

“I will continue to listen patiently, Creator John.”

“Right, sex is… sex is something people do together with their bodies to feel good, or to show their affection, or to have children, and…” John took a shuddering breath as his mind already thought of five different ways he could have worded that to be clearer and cover ground more cleanly, and at least three ways that he wasn’t sure if any of that even applied to Aclysia.

“If I get flustered this easily at home, I should’ve died a thousand times on the battlefield. You’ve fought life or **** battles a thousand times, idiot. Stop letting embarrassing things throw you off this badly. You’re not a fucking sixteen year old virgin anymore, for Gaia’s sake. Stop acting like one.”

“One more try. Okay, sex can mean a few different things. You two haven’t been around very long, but you might have noticed that when you touch certain places on your body, it feels nice. If you keep touching, it can feel very nice, until you have something called an orgasm. Those feelings are totally normal and natural, there’s nothing wrong with them, or with wanting more of them. When two people do that together, when they share that pleasure with each other, it’s called some form of sex. There are a lot of different names, but they all mean sharing pleasure and your body with someone, even if you don’t actually touch each other. Doing anything like that together is something most people find very intimate, which is why...”

Despite his initial stumbles and the fact that this was not a conversation he particularly wanted to have, thinking about how foolish he felt by tiptoeing around the topic gave John the perspective he needed to act a bit more like the adult he was supposed to be. He wasn’t exactly a sex ed teacher, but he managed a decent enough explanation that the two of them had few questions as he went, and only Farrah raised her hand when he finished.

“You don’t have to raise your hand, I’m done,” John said, motioning for her to go on. “Did I mess something up?”

“I don’t think so. I just wanted to know… why all the secrecy?” Farrah asked, looking genuinely befuddled. “I mean, this stuff is all about our bodies, right? Shouldn’t we know how to use them?”

“That’s- okay, that’s fair,” John admitted. “Most people figure this out as they grow up, and then they have an awkward conversation about this with their parents at some point. You have to realize that you two are pretty unique in coming into the world as fully grown adults, with the minds of adults too – you just don’t have the memories or worldly knowledge most people would by now.”

“But you tell me lots of things. All the time! I ask about how things work, or what they are, or why people do certain things… we talked for a whole afternoon about those Barrier things you train in, and you never got embarrassed about that.”

“This is different. Even talking about sex is kind of intimate, so it’s embarrassing to discuss like this.”

“Why?”

“I-”

John froze, halfway through exclaiming that it “just is” before he caught himself. That wasn’t an explanation, that was a way to shut down a discussion, and it didn’t feel right here.

Especially since he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. John’s creations had always been fairly open about their sexuality, and even he didn’t get flustered very often – barring situations like this where it got brought up out of nowhere. He’d even gotten good at- okay, sort of good at flirting. Sometimes.

“Aclysia, remember how you said Lerianna got upset when you mentioned sex?”

“Yes, Creator John.”

“I told you earlier that it’s intimate, and that it’s usually done by people who care for each other a lot. Most of the time they’re in some kind of long term relationship, though some people just do it for fun too. For the people who feel that way, even talking about sex isn’t something you do casually – it’s something you only share or talk about with people you’re really, really close with.”

“Oh, so since you’re talking about it with us, you’re really close with us!” Farrah declared happily, leaning over and wrapping her arms around John’s chest. “Then can we try it? I’m kind of curious now, and I’m feeling some really funny things from both of you…”

“Yes! Now that I understand the intimacy of the act, I wish even more to pleasure you, Creator John,” Aclysia added, leaning in and placing a hand on John’s thigh. “I am devoted entirely to you, Creator John. Allow me to express that devotion physically as well as vocally.”

“No, no, hang on- god, sixteen year old me would have killed to hear this kind of thing from girls as hot as you two, but no.”

John planted a hand on both of their midsections, doing his absolute best to avoid accidentally brushing anything inappropriate as he gently but firmly pushed both girls back. Aclysia’s face only turned down a little, while Farrah broke into a full on pout.

“So you’re not close with us?” Farrah half-whined, giving John the cutest, most manipulative pout she could. “Or are we not good enough? You even called us hot!”

“It’s not like that,” John said, rubbing at his temples. “You two are still figuring things out! You only just learned what sex even is, you shouldn’t just rush into this kind of thing.”

“What about all the others? Orria says she’s not much older than us, and you two spend all kinds of time together in here,” Farrah pointed out. “And considering the kinds of sensations I get when you two wind up in here, I’m guessing that’s what you’re doing!”

“Gonna have to empath-proof the room too,” John said with a groan. “It’s not about age. Orria – actually, pretty much all of the others, with some exceptions – formed with memories. Knowledge. They had whole lifetimes in other worlds, or… something. I’m still not a hundred percent clear on exactly how it works, there’s no user manual for these bullshit powers, and the one who gave them to me isn’t returning my calls. But it seems like they’ve lived pretty full lives. Even those that didn’t, like Sophia, have a lot of instincts and worldly knowledge. You two are…”

“Dumb?” Farrah said, sticking her lower lip out even further.

“Innocent,” John corrected, giving her a playfully mad look. That look slowly started to fall as he continued, feelings he hadn’t himself realized something to the surface as he spoke. “And that’s something precious. Something that I haven’t gotten a chance to see much of since I joined the Abyss. Don’t get me wrong, everyone here is precious to me, and a lot of people from the other world too. But most of them don’t have the kind of new perspective of the world that you two do. The simple joys of learning the tiniest things that other people would never even notice, much less appreciate.

“Farrah, your face lights up every time you learn a new word the same way that Orria’s lights up when she figures out how to create a new strain of plant. Aclysia, I’ve quite literally gotten to watch you not just experience joy for the first time, but learn what joy is, and see you embrace it. I don’t want to rush either of you into anything, or to let you rush yourselves. It’s not just that you’re so innocent, but the way it expresses itself makes me feel… protective of you. Like it’s my job as someone who has seen the way things can go wrong to make sure that doesn’t happen to either of you. The last time I felt that way…”

John’s mouth went dry as he struggled to continue. Farrah’s pout was wiped from her face immediately, replaced by a look that was at first pained, and then deeply sad.

“I’m sorry, John. I didn’t mean to-”

“You two,” John interrupted, placing one hand on each of their shoulders, “are amazing. And beautiful. And I care about both of you a lot. It just doesn’t feel right to me, not right now. I don’t want to take advantage of either of you, I don’t want to rush things, I don’t… want you to regret anything and lose some of what makes you both great. If that ever changes – and I mean the second it does – you’ll be the first to know. I promise.”

Aclysia nodded and genuinely smiled, only a mild note of concern in her eyes that she didn’t seem to know how to vocalize. Farrah’s smile was more ****, a deeper somberness hiding behind the grin, her eyes damp as she lifted both hands to gently clasp the hand on her shoulder around its wrist.

“Thank you for everything, John. I’m sorry for pushing things,” Farrah said quietly.

“It’s all a part of the learning process. Oh, and, uh… Aclysia?”

“Yes, Creator John?”

“Just don’t mention sex around the kittens, okay? Or Lerianna.”