I returned to the quarters I shared with Eve, but when I found it empty I felt incredibly lonely, and yet I had no desire to call any of my friends to see who was avaible.

  I felt like I was in such a weirdly spiraling state; on the one hand, I was still upset with Eve and worried over her humanity, her cruelty, and just our overall future. On the other hand, why the fuck was I just so miserable without her? I’d never been like this before in any of my previous retionships, and in fact quite enjoyed my alone time with all the hobbies and interests I had. Sometimes it felt like there just wasn’t enough time in the day to split between everything I wanted to do, and I remember I even broke up with a girl once because I felt like I was being suffocated and didn’t have enough time for myself.

  Of course, those were all human girls and now that I was dating a dangerous Predazoan things would obviously be different.

  Still, it was a strange switch, and I was worried I felt like I was losing part of myself—being consumed by Eve. I wondered if this was what she wanted all along, to keep and control me, to possess me like some object or prize. There was so much shit just wrong with our retionship, I totally understood why Almana said I was totally fucked up, and yet I had absolutely no desire to be separated from Eve. No, if anything I became more obsessed with her as time went by—although that was probably a good thing if we were supposed to spend forever together.

  I flopped on the couch and started scrolling through my messages on my communicator to see if there’d been any updates from Eve—not like I expected her to have access to regur communications in the containment cell though.

  I saw my meeting requests with the Lord Generals went unanswered so far, and I had some reminder to complete my mission reports, and then some follow up on my medical information—no bill, so at least the Empire wasn’t as evil as the American Healthcare System.

  I stopped when a saw a recent message from Doctor Jumomo, the therapist who was forced upon me by order of the Lord Generals—another system of control.

  As part of their stupid threat assessment, they believed I’d been psychologically compromised by Eve, as in I’d been brainwashed or something. Along with all the fail-safes they implemented to keep us contained, they also wanted me to speak with the counselor to ‘deprogram’ me. I knew I wasn’t being brainwashed, although I had to admit tely I was wondering if I was being maniputed by Eve—more than just the girly bat her eyeshes to get her way kind I mean, something more sinister.

  I stared at the message for a few moments, unable to decide how to respond. Realistically the meetings were a requirement of my job, and I’d probably get in trouble if I dodged them for too long. Forgetting they were mandatory, maybe it would be good to soundboard off a trained professional for my recent issues—not like I would reveal what all was going on between me and Eve, no reason to give the Lord Generals anymore ammo against us. But I did have a therapist back on Earth, and sometimes I missed having an objective third party to talk to.

  With nothing better to do, I replied to the message and booked a visit within the next couple hours, and in the time I had left, got to work pnning on what all I could admit to the strange alien therapist while also receiving the benefit of his services.

  ***

  I entered the front reception area to Doctor Jumomo’s office and was always astounded how you could forget you were on a spaceship half the time. I mean seriously, you could take just the office and reception area and put it on Earth, and you would never know the difference. The cssic chrome walls were repced with grey wood paneling with interesting spiraling patterns, with a simple bck carpet underneath you might find in any doctor’s office. There was a seating area with a couple chairs and a desk with a young alien receptionist, a red crustation woman with an attractive lower body that slower turned more monstrous until you got to her head that seemed to be almost 100% crab, currently filing her strange cw nails with delicate precision like you might see from any human girl.

  “Doctor Jumomo should be finishing up soon Adam.” The receptionist pointed her nailfile at one of the chairs, “Go on have a seat.”

  “Hey, is Jumomo very busy—like does he see a lot of patients?” I asked as I sat down.

  The receptionist sighed, “Not as much as he’d like, you know how stubborn soldiers can be; most of his clients have been ordered for a series of mandatory sessions.” She jabbed the nailfile forward in the air towards me, “Like you.”

  I was pretty sure a receptionist didn’t need to know which patients were here willingly or not, but since I had no idea if HIPAA ws existed in the Empire, I decided to just drop it.

  I didn’t have to wait long, but when the door to Jumomo’s office opened I was surprised to see Lobae walk out.

  “Oh, uh, hi Adam.” Lobae said awkwardly, looking away from me.

  “Hey.” I nodded towards the office, “You got ordered for mandatory sessions too?”

  Lobae held her head up high, showing herself proud, “If you must know, I scheduled these sessions myself.” She narrowed her eyes at me, always trying to seem tough despite being over a foot shorter than me and cute as a housecat with the features to match, “I told you I’d need some counseling sessions after we dealt with those Imperial soldiers, or did you think I was lying then too?” She pressed.

  I didn’t really have an answer ready, and the receptionist leaned forward to prevent the situation from getting any tenser, “The doctor will see you now.” She offered mildly.

  “Thanks.” I turned back to Lobae, but she just moved around me and headed for the door.

  “See you around Adam, gd to see you’re feeling better.” Lobae said but didn’t wait for any reply as she made her exit.

  Lobae was a weird mix of hot and cold around me; she was upset I spurned her and Vinnago’s friendship and made no point to hide those feelings, and yet she still reached out occasionally to try and show herself as a friend. Apparently now that I caught her off guard coming out of therapy, I got her in a colder mood.

  Not like it was something I needed to dwell on, I moved on into Doctor Jumomo’s office and had a seat on his comfortable couch.

  Same as the reception area outside, the office seemed like it would fit anywhere else but a spaceship; there were still the grey walls and bck carpet, but there was an extra red and blue patterned rug on the ground and decorations on the wall including some awards or accodes presented to Jumomo.

  “Good to see you’re safe back home, Adam.” Doctor Jumomo offered kindly, speaking in that almost obnoxiously slow voice of his. Of course it made sense; whatever alien race Jumomo was, he basically looked like an anthropomorphic tortoise with the shell and everything.

  He took a seat at his desk and watched me with those infuriatingly patient eyes, refusing to talk first, and I started regretting my decision to come here.

  I hooked a thumb towards the door, “So Lobae comes to see you too?”

  Jumomo shook his head, “I can’t be discussing my other patients with you, Adam, you should know that.”

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “Yeah, that reminds me, do you guys have, like, HIPAA ws and shit—you know, doctor/patient confidentiality?”

  Jumomo cocked his head to the side, “Well, this is a military vessel, so while some of your information will be kept private, your commanders have unlimited access to your medical and personnel files.”

  “Shit really? That’s kind of messed up.”

  Jumomo tilted his head to the other side, “Why, is that not how things are done back on Earth?”

  I was about to go into the expnation of HIPAA and how all that information would be private, but then I realized I had no idea how it worked for government agents; for all I knew, the CIA or Homend Security might do things exactly the same as the Empire when it came to medical records for their employees—shady shit that should be illegal, but they would do it anyway.

  I waved him off quickly, “Forget all that, I wanted to talk about my time on Vyrane.”

  Jumomo nodded, “Right, and if you remember I asked you to keep a journal and record how you handled stress and whether you believed Eve was a positive influence during those stressful times.”

  I ughed and shook my head, “Yeah, I dropped that after like a couple days; we were simply too busy to worry about journaling—too stressed to record stressful events.”

  Jumomo looked like he wasn’t even remotely surprised by that, “Understandable. Then why don’t you tell me about those stressful times now, see how you handled them in hindsight.”

  I was gd he wasn’t giving me grief over the journal considering it seemed like an order, but really with our lives on the line and how many people straight-up died on the mission, there was no way I should be bmed for it.

  I started off at pretty much the same point I always did when reying my time on Vyrane; talking about the innocent Imperial soldiers Seash and his men executed—including Lobae. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised Jumomo didn’t seem to react at all; man seemed to have a master poker face to the point I never had any idea what he was thinking. I told him how Eve calmed me down and walked with me in the woods and made sure I was alright—definitely helping my stress there. However, I neglected to tell him the details of our conversation how Eve, same as always, admitted she didn’t see intrinsic value in lower lifeforms; already in my recollection I was making excuses for her.

  I moved on down the list, telling Jumomo about our time in Wesseran and rexing with Eve for a few days before we miraculously ran into Melna. I would say Eve was helping my stress then too.

  From there we met up with Almana and her resistance team and were interrogated and tested to see if we were assimited, and ironically I was separated from the others because they thought I must’ve been some cloned biological weapon or something since they never heard of humans before. Jumomo actually ughed at that, agreeing it was amusing since Eve blended in with no problem.

  After that things got really grindy, taking every day at a time, driving or marching along, getting into several skirmishes along the way, never able to fully rex as we were never completely safe. I told him about our time down in the tunnels, and while I was sure he knew since it would be in my medical chart or personnel file, I told him how I’d been genetically modified by Eve and was able to fight alongside her and could easily contend with the assimited soldiers and Predazoan drone forms.

  “Who’s idea was it to alter your biology at this point?” Jumomo interrupted delicately.

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “What do you mean? It was mine; I told Eve I wanted to be more useful to her on missions or during fights, she even made it a point to stay out of the decision of how I would be enhanced, working out with me how best we should modify my biology.” I expined.

  Jumomo wrote something down in his tablet, “So was the idea of being genetically modified ever brought up before by Eve, or did you have the idea to be enhanced completely on your own?” He pressed.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it when I realized it was much more complicated than I first thought. Technically, Eve brought it up first, saying she could change my body however I wanted, make my cock bigger or give me two dicks even—joked around constantly she wanted to turn me into a cute femboy she could dominate. Actually, Eve did modify me on her own first without my permission, injecting me with the immortality enzyme pretty much the day after she revealed her true form to me, saying she wanted to make sure I’d be safe and wouldn’t need to worry about dying anytime soon.

  I knew the immortality enzyme was recorded in my personnel file, hell, the researchers even took samples of it. But was the detail that Eve injected me with the enzyme without my consent in there too?

  “I mean we’ve talked about it a bit before, and since pying with biology is kind of Eve’s thing obviously she would be the one to mention it first.” I offered awkwardly.

  In response, Jumomo wrote quite a bit down on his tablet, but voiced no other opinion or reaction.

  I sighed and jumped back into the story and got to the part I wanted to soundboard off someone else the most; when Eve raped me in a show of dominance before Almana and then branded and tortured her. I had no idea how exactly I could talk about it with Jumomo, even calling it rape seemed wrong. Yes, technically I told Eve no and didn’t consent to anything she did to me that night, but after we got started I completely submitted to the pleasure—grew eager for it even. Could that be called rape since I ended up wanting it in the end exactly as Eve said, or was that the cssic line someone would use when being maniputed by an abuser? And then there was Almana, there was no excuse for how Eve treated her. Yes, she propositioned me and had me kind of cornered, but there was no world where I would ever betray Eve—no way anything would ever actually happen between Almana and me. Plus, I actually understood her warped rationalization—sympathized with her even; she was so scared and desperate and alone that night, convinced we were all going to die. She was just trying to seek a little comfort, and while she was wrong and misguided to seek it from me, I couldn’t hate her for it—couldn’t even fault her really.

  Eve on the other hand, there was no excuse for that violent behavior, no justification. Even if she just spped Almana around a little, okay, I would get that. But to use me in her show, then to brand and torture Almana—to utterly degrade her? Shit, it was really hard to say anything in Eve’s defense.

  But still, she was my Evie, and I loved her all the same, and I couldn’t let the Empire know what all happened that night.

  “There was a vyrane woman, she made a pass at me—got me alone in the middle of the night, away from everyone. Eve was understandably upset and she…” Shit, shit shit shit, what to say—what to admit?

  “Eve hurt her.”

  The scaly ridges that would be Jumomo’s eyebrows rose, “Eve hurt the vyrane woman?”

  I nodded, “And I tried to stop it, but Eve wouldn’t listen to me; didn’t matter what I said or did that night, Eve wanted to punish the vyrane woman—teach her a lesson, have her revenge.”

  It seemed like Jumomo was talking even slower now, “How did she hurt the woman?”

  I was definitely going to keep my part to a minimum, didn’t want word getting back to the Lord Generals what all Eve would do to me and how out of my control she could be.

  “She heated up her hand and like, branded the woman—left a burn scar on her chest.” I admitted, figuring that was more than enough.

  “And you tried to stop it?”

  I nodded again, “Yeah. I know it was messed up for the woman to try and get between me and Eve, but I still think Eve went too far.”

  Jumomo shook his head, “But she wouldn’t listen to you.”

  Shit, I could already tell which way he was heading, “Normally I can control Eve no problem—as her handler. But when it involves me, like, personally—especially with stuff like that, Eve kind of just loses it.”

  Jumomo’s face scrunched up in a thoughtful frown, “Hmmm.” He cocked his head to the side, “Do you honestly feel safe around Eve?”

  I balked at that, “The fuck? Of course I do; she would never do anything to hurt me.”

  Take advantage of me sexually, maybe, but she forced pleasure on me, not violence or pain.

  Jumomo tapped his reptilian nails against his tablet, slow and methodical.

  “And how do you feel about the fact she wouldn’t listen to you, the fact she hurt that other woman?” He asked.

  I sighed, then shook my head slowly, “The really fucked up thing is how part of me likes how obsessed Eve is with me—like I’ve never felt more desired than when she looks at me and gets all possessive and shit.” I looked up at the doctor, “But another part feels like it’s all totally wrong, and I still feel guilty over what Eve did to Al—I mean the vyrane woman.”

  Jumomo nodded along, “Have you confronted Eve about these feelings?”

  I sighed again, “No, we didn’t have time on Vyrane, and we just got back and we’ve been separated all this time.”

  Jumomo eyed me evenly, “That’s the first step then, have an open, honest conversation about your feelings with her. Tell her you enjoy how she makes you feel desired, but don’t downpy your other feelings; let her know you feel guilt and responsibility when she hurts other people. Just because she’s a Predazoan doesn’t mean she can treat people as pawns or pythings.”

  I narrowed my gaze on him, “Is that how you see me? As Eve’s pawn?”

  Jumomo held his hands up peacefully, “I didn’t say that, but you need to make sure that isn’t how you or she feels either. Partnerships need to be equal, and yes, since there’s such a drastic power imbance between the two of you, finding the right level of equality will be challenging.” He held up one delicate tortoise nail, “But, if you think she’s worth the work, then you need to rise to the challenge.”

  Eve was definitely worth it, and the funny thing was she mentioned the power imbance even way back when. Of course, then she had some twisted pn to make out into some kind of fatherly figure who groomed her into my ideal mate, and even though it was really fucked up, more and more tely I was starting to understand why she would go to those lengths to try and keep us equal.

  Because really, we were anything but equal.

  “And you know, if you ever want to bring her into a session, I would be more than willing to see the two of you together.” Jumomo smiled, causing a thousand wrinkles to spread over his face, “You might not think it to look at me, but I actually do couple’s counselling for quite a few crewmembers aboard The Radiance.”

  I rolled my eyes at that and stood up from the couch, “I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but I do feel better after talking to you and figuring out a pn.”

  Jumomo nodded and stood with me, “And the pn is…?”

  I nodded once, “To have an open, honest discussion with Eve about my feelings on what happened back on Vyrane.”

  Jumomo walked over towards the door and opened it for me, “Then I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  I walked through the door, but then stopped at looked back at the doctor, “So that’s really it, no other homework this time around?”

  Jumomo chuckled so slowly it barely even sounded like a ugh, “Adam, despite what you might think, I don’t have any kind of agenda; my goal is to just make sure you’re safe and aren’t being taken advantage of by your lover, the dangerous Predazoan asset, Eve.”

  And report it all back to the Lord Generals, I was sure.

  But I offered him a kind smile and shook his small, scaly hand, “Well thanks doc, see you on the next go around.”

  The alien therapist waved me off as I returned to the halls of The Radiance, and while I felt a little better after sound boarding my issues, now I needed to work on what I was actually going to say to Eve.

  And for that, I had no fucking idea.