"Okay?" Rymar asked, nodding slowly as if he was still lost.
Which made me grunt in frustration. "Saveah says it's okay to kiss people, and it isn't leading them on, and you let me practice - although I don't remember very much of that."
"All true," he assured me.
I pushed out a heavy breath. He just wasn'tgettingit, and I didn't really know how to talk about it. Still, when all else failed, rambling worked. They'd assured me it was okay, so I was going to try it.
"Zasen kissed me, and then I kissed you for practice, and when Kanik was going to live, I kissed him because it's okay."
Rymar's brows creased. "Right?"
"So when is it dating?" I huffed. "Rymar, I don't know how this works, and what's included. I... It's nice. Kissing doesn't hurt. I think I like it, but I haven't really had many kisses, and Moles don't exactly do that, but up here, it feels good, and I still feel safe, and I'm on birth control now - never mind that I have my own krael!"
"Wait, wait, wait..." he begged. "Ayla, I'm still trying to figure out what it is you're trying todo."
"Date!"
"Who?"
"Zasen, and you, and Kanik." Wasn't that obvious? They were the ones I'd kissed!
And slowly, his confusion shifted into an expression of amusement. "Right. You want to date all three of us?"
"But aren't we already? I kissed all of you."
"That is not how it works," he assured me. "Ayla, kissing is just kissing. Fucking is just fucking. Relationships? Those are about the emotions and trust and even the expectations people have. Those things can go together, or not."
"I don't understand," I admitted.
So he opened his arm, encouraging me to come closer. When I did, he curled me up in that nook between his arm and chest, right beside his shoulder. His hand went around my back, resting easily on my waist. His tail, however, was twitching where it laid beside Holly.
"Okay," he said, sounding like this was going to be a long discussion. "Ayla, you're allowed to kiss people just because you want to. You can try it out with no obligations for anything more. Sex too. I know that isn't how things were done down there, and I know you say you don't want that, but youareallowed. Yourbody is yours, not anyone else's, and you can do with it what you choose."
"Okay?" They'd been telling me versions of this for a while now, but it was allfinallystarting to make sense and not feel like a lie.
Rymar watched my face, clearly seeing something there that made him smile. "And," he went on, "dating is different. It's like a practice relationship. Dating is an attempt to see if you want to make a friendship - or lust - into a bond. Believe it or not, partners can care about each other more than you loved your mother."
"Like how I love Holly?" I asked.
And his lips cracked into a grin. "Yeah, I think that's a perfect example. You have a bond with her. She's someone you trust, and you know how she's going to react, and you would miss her if she wasn't always around. I bet you even miss her when you're down there with Kanik, but it's okay to be apart like that because she knows you'll come back, and you know she'll still love you just as much, right?"
I nodded excitedly. "Yes! That's exactly how I feel about her."
"Now imagine if you felt like that about a man," he said.
And I paused, actually trying to imagine it. "Isn't that called friends?" I asked.
"I'm talking about more than friends," he said. "Ayla, that's why we call it partners. Just like Holly is your partner when we fight the Moles, a romantic partner is someone who fights with you against the daily things. Cleaning, cooking, bills, people who annoy you, times when you're sad, and so much more. That's the relationship part. Kissing? Sex? Those things are just icing on the cake."
"What's icing?"
And he laughed. "Right. Desserts are something we need to do more. Let's go with 'extra,' okay?"
"I still don't understand," I admitted. "Rymar, I don't know why I'dwantsex."
"Because it feels amazing," he promised, lifting a hand to keep me from cutting him off. "It does, Ayla. There's something called an orgasm that happens if you do it with someone good. That's a rush of pleasure which takes over. Most people like it. Not all, but most. And you know what? It's okay to not want sex. It's okay to change your mind later. It's fine to think about it, but dating? That's how you test whether you can have an emotional bond with someone."
"So how do I do it?" I asked. "I want to try, but up here is not like down there. I'm already twenty, and I really don't want to wait until my next birthday."
