Chapter 27.
I refused to give her a birds and the bees talk. But uh… yeah, that didn’t end up remotely mattering. Trying to skirt around the topic backfired spectacularly.
“I already know about sex, I can see your memories,” Candy grumbled.
That still didn’t fill me with any degree of reassurance. I stumbled to the bed to grab my robe.
“Please just do it again,” Candy whined. “That felt really interesting. I wanna see what you were doing.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. No, absolutely fucking not. No way. I was not getting the both of us off under any circumstances. Could Candy even get off? Did she even have a concept of sexual pleasure? What were the ethics of mutually jacking off the parasite that had fused to your body? Did she even pass the Harkness test?
She had human intelligence or sapience or whatever. She could certainly communicate, almost too much at times. And she was sexually mature for her species; her whole plan had been to evolve into a Brood Mother until our symbiosis had changed the course of things. So… well… I guessed it was fine.
I still didn’t want to do it. And that played a bigger role than anything else.
“No,” I told Candy.
“Please?”
“No,” I shook my head, shrugging on the robe and fumbling to pull it over my head. “I didn’t… Look, I didn’t think you would feel that or… be a participant.”
“It didn’t feel bad if that's what you’re worried about, that's just… not a thing slimes are supposed to feel… I think,” she added consideringly. “It felt all tingly and warm, but not warm in a bad way like warm usually feels. Man, humans are weird.”
I sighed, stuffing my arm through the sleeve. The slime appendage left a very obvious bulge in the front, and even my ever-growing stomach was starting to become a little obvious. Wow, what a fucking freak of nature I was. I felt like I was about to cry for some irrational reason.
“Candy just… stop please,” I muttered, deactivating the skill again. “Consent, remember? I’m sorry I did that, I didn’t know you would feel it.”
“I’m not mad,” she mentally frowned. “I’m confused. Why are you upset? I just want you to do the thing again.”
I collapsed onto the bed with a groan. Maybe the truth was that I was still angry, maybe I didn’t truly trust her with something so… personal. I didn’t really even know.
Even if we shared a body, we weren’t… in sync. Yet desperately trying to avoid talking wouldn’t magically fix any of it. We needed to be a team. We were literally stuck together. I needed to be honest, and I could at least be about the feelings I understood.
“I’m just overwhelmed,” I sighed. “Being here is hard. And… you’re not the only one who finds being stuck together hard, either. The fact that I have to be responsible for you, the weirdness of having you in my head and watching me at all times, and the fact that you feel what I feel. I mean, I can’t even masturbate without it becoming a thing,” I added pathetically.
“Oh,” Candy mumbled.
“Yeah,” I added.
“Well… if you want time by yourself, I can give you it, you just have to ask. As long as you promise you’re not trying to get rid of me,” she quickly added.
“I promise I’m not trying to get rid of you. It seems like it can’t be done, but even if it could… I don’t know,” I sighed. “I think I’m still angry with you,” I said honestly. “But I don’t really blame you, and I’m trying to forgive. It’s just all… weird.”
“Yeah,” Candy agreed. “I can still grow a little but… I can’t ever be bigger than you. I’ll always be small and useless. It’s not what I thought I would be.”
“You’re not useless,” I was quick to point out. “We have skills which only work because of both of us. We’re stronger together.”
“Stronger together,” Candy agreed.
That made me smile a little.
“Can you masturbate again now? That felt really nice,” she added.
I closed my eyes with a groan. It was always two steps forward and one step back with her. The mood was thoroughly ruined. I was feeling a lot of emotions right now, and none of them were horny.
“Another time,” I sighed, grimacing slightly as rolling over made an uncomfortable presence far too obvious. “How are the slimes coming?”
“Still working away, maybe two more days?” she estimated.
I hummed. “Is it five days for lesser slimes specifically or all common-tier slimes?”
“Lesser slimes are common slimes,” Candy explained. “And it will be faster when we have more mana to work with. If we had enough, I could be done in less than a day, probably.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “And blues are uncommon, and greens are rare?”
“Yup,” she chirped. “But they all have variations. Lesser gray slimes are better at absorbing inorganic material, but far slower at moving around, for example. Pink, blue, and green are the um… generalist kinds, I guess.”
“Oh boy,” I groaned. “Just how many variations are there?”
“Oh, so many, and they even do different things. Greater gray slimes aren't even good at digging anymore, but they use hardened rock chunks for armour,” she continued cheerily. “Don’t worry, leave all the details to me, I'll know exactly the right slime for the job.”
“Good, that's… actually really good, thanks,” I chuckled. As much as my feelings about Candy were very complicated, at least it made figuring out system stuff that much easier.
“Though, we should try to find some people to oviposit plorts into. Then the growing cores can feed off of their mana, and we can gestate even more,” Candy continued.
“Wait, you don’t need to make them yourself?” I frowned.
“No, not really. I mean, I need to make the… shell of the core, and provide some slime, but a gestating plot really just needs to absorb mana and can do the rest itself,” she explained. “It probably wouldn’t be as efficient without direct oversight, but… the numbers would make up for it.”
“Ah,” I hummed. “Wait, no,” I blinked, “I got sidetracked. We’re not parasitizing more people just to spawn more limes.”
“But it’s part of the skill, and without it we’ll barely be able to make them fast enough,” Candy replied, downtrodden.
“Right,” I agreed. “But remember how upset I was about you first latching onto me? Think how angry it would make people.”
“It would only be to absorb a little mana. They’ll synthesize more,” Candy assured. “And it won’t hurt them… probably. Well, maybe we just avoid innately acidic slimes,” she added. “Otherwise totally safe!”
I wasn’t exactly filled with confidence.
“You’re friends with the Tavern Crew, maybe one of them would let you,” she suggested optimistically.
“Yeah, cus that would go over so well,” I rolled my eyes.
“You think so?” She asked with delight.
“No, sarcasm,” I groaned. “The only reason they didn’t entirely freak out about you is because I made it sound like I control you. If I say a word about filling them with slimes, they’ll think you’ve taken over. Then they’ll kill us.”
“Darn,” she sighed. “Maybe this world has… surrogates?”
“I… I don’t know,” I snorted. “Probably not. I mean, maybe, who’s to say with magic, but child mortality is probably pretty high. I doubt people are living the kinds of lives that allow them to put an exuberant amount of time and hope into a single child. Though… it could be different among the nobility. Honestly, I don’t know, I’m just guessing. I doubt we can just hire one willing nilly, plus we need money for that.”
“Oh! We need one of those um… the groups where there are lots of wives…” Candy muttered, losing her train of thought.
“A harem? You’re suggesting a get a fucking harem?!” I snorted with incredulity.
“Ew, no! Pamela, you should know better. Harems are patriarchal and sexist. I was thinking of a polycule,” she corrected with an off put huff.
“Yeah, I know they are, you are literally using my memories and attitudes to talk about any of this,” I laughed. “How else would you even know what a surrogate or a polycule is?”
“Good point, okay fine, anyway!” Candy moved on immediately. “We need a polcule.”
“We don’t need a polycule either,” I sighed. “We can’t just use people as incubators.”
“But we can if they are okay with it, right? Consent?”
“Well… I mean… I suppose,” I groaned. “Still wouldn’t be a polycule,” I pointed out. “But… if we somehow do find someone… willing to help incubate slimes… then I guess maybe it would be alright.”
“Yay!”
Somehow, my life was only getting more surreal. And now I had to find my fellow freaks in a world without social media or chat rooms. Great… just fucking great. Another bullet point to add to the increasingly convoluted plan.
Was it too early for another nap?