After we packed a duffel bag full of the clothes I was likely to need soon, Regina and I walked the full ten steps it took to get to her apartment again-- well, of course, I locked the apartment behind me first. Not that I had much of value left, but I didn't need people to damage the walls and me get blamed for it or something.

Stephanie was sprawled out on the couch reading one of Regina's books-- I had a hard time telling if it was a political treatise or particularly dense science fiction from a glance, since the cover had a stylized sun rising over a horizon, and there was very little white space at the glance I got at the text.

Regina got a lot of books out of the local library, wasn't such a fan of reading books off of screens, specifically. "They can change it at any moment," she'd point out. Which was technically true, I guess, and it sort of made sense for books that were political... but also like, did it really matter if someone changed a word when you were reading scifi or whatever? Besides, it'd take a lot to change all the copies of something on the internet... and it's not like book publishers were immune to outside pressure either.

I dunno, mostly, when it came down to it, it just seemed a lot of work to make sure you were reading closer to original versions of a work. But I didn't argue the point with Regina, because that meant she'd talk about it more, and sometimes get more upset or paranoid.

The ephemeral nature of the world bothered her, and that included the digital world.

I guess I was just another ephemeral thing passing through her life now, and I glanced over at her to see her giving me a slightly dazed smile. "I think Mika's in her room still, why don't you go say hi?" She gave my butt an encouraging little pat that bordered on a slap, and giggled to herself as she walked back over to sit on the less sprawled part of the couch, resting a hand on Stephanie as her other hand fished out her phone-- her love of books didn't stop her from scrolling through pages of social media.

I walked over to Mika's room, and knocked on the door. The door opened a little, Mika peering out at me suspiciously, and then she smiled shyly, of all things. "Hey. Come in." Her voice was soft. As she opened the door, I blinked to realize her room was apparently just large enough for a queen-sized mattress-- and they had somehow managed to wedge one in here. Come to think of it, I think before they got Mika, this room used to be used as a storage closet slash workout room? There wasn't any window, but it did have some decently strong vents from the apartment building's central AC/heating unit.

On those vents were now hung a few air fresheners, and I was treated to a slightly synthetic smell of a mixture of ocean breeze and pineapple and coconut, and looking around the room, I blinked as I saw that the walls were covered in impressionistic layers that gave off the feeling of a beach at day under the warm string of lights that were put around the wall above... it felt far roomier than it had any right to, really.

There were shelves in a few places-- one holding a large, slightly cracked LCD monitor at one side of the room, the plastic painted green with little decorative plastic palm tree fronds, which was paused in the middle of a commercial, and a lower shelf that had a glass of water on it and a bag of chips... wait, that was absolutely used as a table, but it was painted white and trimmed with seashells.

There were pillows and big stuffed animals -- a shark, a crab, an octopus, and, breaking the theme, a T-rex... but it looked a bit older than the rest.

Mika flushed me and pulled me in as I gawked at her room, and pulled the door closed behind me. I sat down on the bed, and she sat down next to me, watching my face. "You think it's tacky," she opined, her voice trying to signal she didn't care and also didn't care for my opinion.

"...I mean, maybe a little, now that you mention it-- but I was more thinking that you put way more care into your room than I did mine. I coulda been living somewhere nicer all this time with a little effort, y'know?"

Mika smirked. "Yeah. Stephanie says that your room looks like you moved in yesterday, all the time."

"...at least I won't have much to miss, I guess." I flopped back on the bed. "No, it's seriously nice, though. A little bright, but like... that's a matter of taste."

Mika's smile widened, and she took a tablet off another shelf, and swiped a few things, and the light above turned more into a reddish orange, and the beach somehow changed along with it... now it looked like a beach at sunset.

"...how the heck do you do that?"

"It's just basic color theory. I used a more yellow pigment in the bits I want to pop at daytime, more red pigment in the bits I want to pop at sunrise slash sunset, and blue in the things I wanted to show up at night. That plus a bit of special overlay paint with refractive properties, and it was remarkably cheap to do."

"...you have money?"

Mika lowered her head. "...I have a small allowance. I'm allowed to ask for it to be spent however I want, well, they can veto it... I can't buy anything myself, of course, but... it's like having money. And I'm allowed to have a room... which is like having my own space." She flopped down next to me, and stared up at the ceiling, so I did too, and saw there was a single star -- the evening star, presumably, and the faint outline of a moon.

I took her hand in mine, and we just lay there in silence for a little while.

Finally, she giggled. "It's all fake, of course. My own little vacation room that my kind mistresses gave me so I can pretend I'm not just their bitch sometimes."

Devoting this much space to her, giving her an allowance and letting her decorate it... "I think they meant it kindly?"

"People mean it kindly when they give their cats those little cathouse tree things to hang out in, too. It's to make me more comfortable so I'm more compliant. That's the problem, Phoebe-- I can see all the little transactions in interactions between people, always have been able to. And now it's just 'you're our bitch, suck it up', a surprising amount of the time. Sometimes there's a little heart at the end of that sentence, you know? But it's still the same shit."

"...ah. What transaction have I been doing?"

"...you don't wanna hear it."

"No, I'm genuinely curious?"

"The deal you're always offering people is 'I'll do what you want, as long as you like me'. It's not surprising you're being made into a pet. You're offering to lick my pussy just because you think that's what I want."

That... actually hurt a little. Mostly because it wasn't entirely wrong. "...Stephanie's like that too, kinda."

"To her friends, I guess."

"...Yeah."

We lapsed into silence again.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, so I want you to like me-- is that bad? If not, how do I do it?"

"Wow, you're just gonna come out and say it? I guess this is exactly one area in which you aren't a fucking coward."

"...why does it feel like you're always saying 'don't like me'?"

Mika pulled her hand from mine. "Shut the fuck up." She turned away from me, lying on her side, curled away from me.

I did, falling silent as I listened to the sound of the vents and the soft rhythm of the waves... there had to be speakers somewhere, maybe on some of the shelves, but I couldn't see what was on what shelf very well from my current angle.

"...are you still down to lick me?"

I pondered that for a moment. "Yeah."

"Can I ride your face?"

"I... guess if you're gentle? Not super familiar with that position."

"It's not complex." Mika got up and straddled me, and I could smell her real arousal over the artificial beach as she lowered her crotch on my face, pussy lips pressed right against my mouth. I felt a bit awkward, but spread my lips and started to lick her, cautiously at first, but she was not timid about feedback.

"Harder. Not that hard. Yeah, that's it... now a little lower... a little deeper... mmm... pick the rhythm up... fuck... you're actually pretty okay with your tongue... I don't hate that..." She adjusted her hips a little as she gave her running commentary, but soon enough I guess my tonguework was satisfactory enough, and she was just moaning as she pressed her pussy against my face, while I got a little more vigorous since she was pressing down, which presumably meant she wanted more.

I was getting a little wet serving her, but mostly my tongue was getting tired and the bed and her over me was a little uncomfortable, but I didn't complain or try to squirm away, focusing solely on her pleasure until she grasped my hair and cried out as she came against my mouth, her pussy squeezing and flexing and a little of Stephanie's cum flooding down into my mouth along with her juices... I guess she hadn't gotten it all out.

I swallowed, and she slowly drew her hips back, then flopped unceremoniously next to me. "That was good."

I didn't respond, just staring up at the ceiling with a slight smile.

"...Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Oh god, who actually says 'you're welcome' for oral... don't answer that." Her voice still sounded pleasured and just a bit hazier and softer.

I took her hand again, and she let me.

"...do you want me to get you a slice of pizza?" There was a bit of teasing in her voice, just a little mean, like she was implying I was a cheap whore.

"No, I'm pretty full. I just wanted to make you feel good. Can I borrow that cup of water, though?"

"Sure. But if you spill it on my bed," warned Mika as we both sat up and she handed the glass to me, "you're a dead woman." I sipped very carefully, and handed it back to her, and she put it back on the shelf.

"...why don't you just use a water bottle or something?"

"Lacks ambience. Don't like the plasticky flavor."

"There's metal water bottles."

"...maybe. Could get a hip flask and fill it with water, maybe." She sounded amused at the idea. "Or you know, booze."

"...I guess you could do that with booze too, huh."

"Nah, not worth it. They freaked out about me deciding to borrow a small cache of drugs, alcohol would probably be similar."

"They let you have both sometimes, though?"

"Yeah. Reward for good behavior. It's not really different from being back in a cell, in a way... but I decide how to decorate, and who to let in. And for that small kindness, I give my entire body and being to them, day after day after day, not out of gratitude, but because it would be trivially easy for them to take every little pleasure and happiness I have away."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I squeezed her hand.

"Could be worse, I guess," she said, her tone dark.

"Could be worse," I agreed, a bit more cheerfully.

If I got treated as well as Mika, I wasn't going to have anything to complain about... but then again, I was apparently some sort of idiot-savant at being unreasonably submissive.