Zofi's jaw hit the floor, flesh-softened impact still thudding with the kiss of bone on tile. It was enough to make the field researcher's head spin, a carousel spun way past OSHA standards. She stared down at Esper James for the speed of a breath, but the daze was pierced by one blonde brat bitching up at her. "Hey! Zofi! Earth to Zofi, it's Esper James, come on! Say something!"
Esper James scowled up at the other woman, frustration at being stone walled like this bolstering a wavering sense of confidence. She nearly reached up and slapped Zofia, just to snap her out of her hesitance, but that struck her as a bridge too far. It was too... too Judas. Judas would have slapped her; Judas would have struck just about anyone, frankly, if they didn't give her prompt deference and attention. EJ shuddered to herself as she considered all the times she had been stricken by the blood drinker.
Zofia shook her head fervently, that steely grin returning with every last drop of once-absent adoration. She inclined her torso to be able to gather EJ up into a great, emphatic embrace, one that Esper James was anything but eager to return. Her arms stayed by her side for the full duration, and if anything, her annoyance only grew - couldn't this bizarre woman just go ahead and start with things already? They didn't even know eachother - why was she hugging the ghoulish guinea pig?
"Oh-h-h! Yes, yes, okay! We'll start immediately! Would you mind if I notified the mother abbess? She told me she wanted to appear in an observational capacity, the next time we did testing... I doubt she expected it so quickly, hahaha, but I bet she'll be excited! Oops, hmm... I'm not supposed to say 'I bet' anymore. Betting isn't, uh, it's not Christlike. Or something like that. Can't remember the..." EJ began to tune it out as Zofia started rambling, words pouring forth more for her own benefit than for EJ's. That was fine. Zofi being excited would certainly make things go... quicker, if nothing else.
Zofi finally pulled away, milk chocolate meeting envy's emerald as she stared into EJ's eyes, waiting for a response. Esper James cleared her throat and shook her head, as casually but firmly as she could manage - her frustration had become the board upon which her actions surfed, carving up the old familiar waves of apprehension in her heart's ocean. "N-No, uh, I don't mind. The mother abbess is the one hosting us here; frankly, I'd let her get away with a lot. Gotta repay her somehow."
Zofia nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, of course! But, y'know, the Church's good graces and the mercy of God and charity and all that; I doubt she'd be mad if you said no. But! I just messaged her. She'll be right over; she's very interested that you're back again! Ghouls recuperate really fast, right?" There was the sense that the closing question was out of scientific inquiry as much as a fangirl's sense of curiosity.
EJ had been fetishized plenty of times in her life, but she doubted she'd ever get over the way Zofia did it. It felt... worse than the others; worse than any coffin jockey or chaser or anything else she'd been through. Still, she felt she had to choke it down; to grin and bear it, because if she didn't work with Zofi, she wouldn't be working with the convent at all. Obligation held her there, locked in and forced to interact with a girl who was a little too excited about the second-living.
"Uh, yeah. All second-living are... we regenerate, I guess. Really robust physiques, you know? I mean, you guys know that, that's why... Y'know. The fire bombings and stuff. All the silver. I mean, hell, you could fucking bisect me on a table saw and I'd be back to normal in a few hours. But, ah, ghouls... Ghouls are faster about it." All those pamphlets, all that studying, every article she'd ever read on the topic came streaming back like a mental .zip bomb.
When EJ had first been dragged from the cold-wombs and sat in the morgue's reconditioning room, to be monitored to make sure all the necessary adaptations fired, she had been given an absolute library of information to study. Everything she could possibly want to know about her new existence, with ads and reminders for FixAte peppered heavily throughout. A gentle reminder from Tsang Solutions to take your meds, because every alternative was damning. Every alternative, EJ now knew, other than restraint. But getting users hooked early on in second-life and then conditioning them to believe they needed it to live, to not murder indiscriminately?
Well. Esper James couldn't really talk on that front. She'd murdered at least two men in a way that could be considered, in a court of law, pretty 'indiscriminate'. She cleared her throat quickly before continuing, trying not to dwell on the memory of human flesh's succulence for too long. "Ghouls are supposed to be the most physically aggressive and adept of the second-living. Cut me open and I'll spill my guts on the floor, but give it thirty minutes and my skin'll have stitched itself up like a stuffed animal."
"Plus, we're faster, and theoretically stronger. All the best physical aspects, other than things like increased durability and, ah... Looks, I guess..." She managed a wry smile at that one. Zombies, the unappreciated underclass of the second-living, were durable. Ghouls may have regenerated the fastest, yeah, but she had seen a zombie get hit by a car in the street and watched its frame wrap around the guy from the impact. He'd been thrown back, pierced in multiple spots by shrapnel and steel, but he got right back up and kept walking through the crosswalk.
Zofia was listening intently, nodding like a child at their instructor, drinking up every drop of knowledge EJ saw fit to dispense. She gulped down the draught of wisdom as it poured from the blonde's lips, eyes wide, smile now close-lipped but still rippling with eagerness. Her eyes flashed rapidly as she watched, brown irises lighting up and returning to dull tones frequently enough that even a first-living could have caught it.
"Uh-huh, uh-huh. Tell me more while we wait for the mother abbess. I've heard that ghouls and vampires are almost the same; can you tell me about that?" Wide doeish eyes continued to ogle EJ's face, waiting now with whispered desperation for satiation. EJ sighed deeply before offering a response.
"Yes. Ghouls are... failed vampires. Something went wrong. I don't know what. Originally, there were only vampires and zombies, but in the last fifty or so years? The ghoul strain was isolated, it was introduced, and it became more frequent. An official class was designated, because it seemed like... Like whatever had happened to the mainline vampiric implant, whatever updated version Tsang started pushing out, was now vulnerable to ghoulification." If EJ was back in college again, that would have been an A+ for her.
Exactly as she had been told in every manual, every informational text, every last expose article; she'd repeated it nearly to the point of being verbatim. She'd read it enough times, and beaten herself up over it even more. Another layer of imperfection outside her own control that had been imposed; another flaw with herself that she couldn't change.
That being said, she was glad to be a ghoul, nowadays. She was learning, slowly but surely, to love it. Being a vampire would have been better, but... Well. Then she'd be more like Judas, too. She'd already thought to herself of the hatred that came with that concept. Deciding to focus on matters at hand, she re-examined Zofia, who was still waiting with childish delight for more information to be fed to her. Sadly for her, EJ didn't really have more to give.
"So...? Why aren't you a vampire, sister Esper James? Not the right body? Not the right blood? Or just random-" Esper James was quick to cut Zofi off. "Random chance. Sometimes, yes, it's based on body and DNA, whether you become a zombie or a vampire... but since ghoulishness is an off-shoot of vampirism, it's usually just some kind of fuck-up in the process to become a vampire. No one gets to choose." She sighed again, closer to a huff than a sigh in all honesty. She found her annoyance with Zofia returning like a second wind.
The door behind EJ hissed and clicked, whirred and groaned as it was unlocked and undone. The mother abbess strode in without pause, not even waiting for the door to be fully opened before she made her entrance - and she set it to close itself with just as much urgency. She made her way to stand behind Zofia, feet click-clack-clicking on the tile with every step- wait, was she wearing fucking heels? EJ threw her eyes down to check, but the habit's hem was draped too deeply to show off the abbess's feet. Probably better that way.
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"Esper James... sister Esper James. I would first like to congratulate you on a swift recovery. Secondly, I would like to praise you for taking this level of initiative. It's... uncharacteristic, as far as I understand, for your sort of person to so willingly return to a struggle like this. Thank you, truthfully and sincerely, for your diligence." The mother abbess's straight black hair, the curtains for her face's window, shifted gently as she offered EJ a thin-lipped smile. Her teeth, as everyone's seemed to be in this fucking place, were perfect.
She crinkled her eyes, putting a hand out, palm facing the ceiling. It took EJ a second to realize what she was doing, what she was beckoning for - and, with stifled hesitance, EJ acquiesced. Palm kissed palm, the mother abbess's fingers tenderly caressing Esper James's wrist, and then motion was made. EJ's hand was drawn up just as the theocrat's torso inclined, bending at the waist to nearly a right-angle, and the smile on her face was replaced with a soft pucker.
Mwah. Though the mother abbess was certainly strict with her words and ministrations, the gesture spoke those proverbial thousand words. It meant more to EJ than the minor placations the head of the convent had initially made, and she couldn't help but let her lips crack in a bashful smile. As her hand was returned, EJ took it upon herself to offer a polite curtsy, thinking it the appropriate response to having your hand taken up and kissed. It always worked in the hundreds of romance novels the blonde had scoured, at least.
"Oh, thank you, mother abbess. I didn't know what to expect at first... But now that I'm more aware of the sort of things you and the church are looking to explore, I'm more than happy to provide. Whatever you can learn from me, I'm more than happy to help you learn." The epithet was fifty percent truth, fifty percent bullshit. Just as in those romance novels, EJ had decided to play the grateful, pliant little girl, though now it was willing - it was on purpose. That meant everything to her.
The mother abbess's smile remained; it seemed to be reinforced, even, by Esper James's response. She curtsied in kind, then making a loose and lazy gesture towards Zofia, her gaze following behind. "Sister Zofia? She's all yours. I only have one thing in mind, really, and I'd like to save that until we... end our testing for today. Lead the way, then, sister Zofia." The mother abbess had barely finished speaking before Zofi straightened her stance, popping up like a whack-a-mole target, hands held straight at her side to let her torso bow.
"Yes, mother abbess, thank you! Okay, sister EJ, let's head to the practical testing room!" Zofi didn't waste a second waiting for any kind of answer, verbal or otherwise; she was racing, in that speed walking way one did in public, to the side room without delay. EJ took a step to follow her, guarding her heart and prepping her body for whatever lay ahead - but before she could get far, the mother abbess took her by the bicep, holding her back for a moment.
The mother abbess leaned down, black eyeliner making her eyes seem closer to ebon slits as she narrowed them in a look of discretion. When she spoke, her voice had dropped to a hush, not quite a whisper, but still plenty diminished from where it had been moments ago. "Sister Esper James... I will be blunt. I understand you, and sister Purity, and sister Esthrielle, are engaged in a romantic and sexual relationship. I will avert my eyes in this house of God, rest assured, but that's not what I wanted to discuss."
The cold flame of fear suddenly bloomed about EJ's heart, burning chill as winter's touch and twice as stinging. What the fuck had she done wrong? Was this going to be a reprimand of some kind? The wind that had filled EJ's sails now flew free across the horizon, confidence and bravado stripped away in a single moment.
The mother abbess continued, casting a glance towards the doorframe Zofia had passed through only seconds earlier. "I take it that, by your exclusion of your lovers' presence from this round of testing, you wish them not to know you are here? Sister Esthrielle has been lighting up the public lines, pinging around, asking if anyone has seen you... I can ensure she does not know where you are, and that your partners are placated, for the duration of your time here."
The sounds of Zofia starting up some sort of machine rang out through the empty doorway, accompanied by the shuffling of papers, the shifting of instruments, and the humming of the researcher's own sing-song voice. "Would you like that? I assume you would prefer to keep this between the three of us, of course, but... I would not wish to take any undue action, and certainly not without asking you. Respect is essential in all things, of course. So?" The posed question hung like a hunk of meat on a hook.
Wow, that was unfamiliar! Someone who wasn't personally her friend, or her partner, giving such a sentiment? Telling Esper James she deserved any respect at all, much less that kind of respect - to ask EJ if she had permission to do something that was rightfully hers to do regardless? Esper James had no fucking clue how to react, honestly... she blinked once, twice, thrice at the mother abbess, mouth opening and closing time and time again as she struggled to formulate an answer.
Finally, the breaker from mind to body was flipped, and a response was given. "Uhh...! Yeah, yes, please, mother abbess. Thank you so much. I'd... It really did a number on both of them the first time. I'd like to save them from going through that again." She smiled timidly, giving a single affirmative nod to back up what she was saying. The mother abbess smiled back in turn, even offering - salaciously - a wink in response. "You've got it, sister Esper James. I'll make sure they don't know a thing. Christlike of you, to spare them like that. Here, c'mon, sister Zofia's waiting."
While EJ hardly thought herself 'Christlike', the compliment still helped her gird her spirit for whatever was coming next. The two made their way on towards the other room, slipping past that empty doorframe and into a world of mixed and matched medical equipment. Zofia was stood beside a very normal-looking treadmill, a veritable bouquet of electrode pads and their associated wires bundled in a half-raised fist.
"Okay! So, sister EJ, first up we're gonna do a sprint test. You told me earlier that ghouls have all the physical benefits of being undead, right? So, I'm assuming you can hit some serious speeds, yeah? So here, I'd love to monitor your biological processes while you try and hit the fastest gait you can. I, uhh..." She dropped the electrode bundle to hang freely from its root, slipping her only hand into the folds of her habit. Once she brought it back out, she held a blood bag - the type they used for medical transfusions - that she had stuck a plastic bendy-straw into in place of an IV line. The researcher smiled bashfully as she gave it a wiggle between pinched fingers.
"I heard from some of our field ops, especially sister Esthrielle, that the second-living get a physical boost after consuming blood. Even more so with human blood. Since, uh, since doge Esippardi already gave clearance to provide you spare blood, if you needed it... I made sure to grab a clean bag this time! No stimulants or additives at all! Just normal human blood!" Her smile disappeared, replaced now with an open-mouthed grimace two steps from worry. A light blush came over her face, one that deepened till it threatened to rival the essence in her hands.
"I even, u-uh, w-warmed it up for you...!"
That last bit was the ice pick which smashed EJ's nervousness to pieces, the shattered fragments melting into warm, comforting mirth. She laughed, snorting a little even, shutting her eyes to focus on her own amusement. The mother abbess didn't seem nearly so amicable about the concept, but she said nothing and made no motion to intervene, no effort to stop either of them.
"Thank you, Zofia, hahaha! Here, uh... Does this convent have underwear spare? I, ah... I doubt I'll be able to run in this outfit. And I'm, uh. I'm naked underneath it. Had to rush to get here, and I'd rather not, ehh..." The rest of whatever EJ was planning to say was far from necessary - Zofia had already set the blood bag down on a nearby tray-stand and was rummaging through a cabinet a few paces away. In a moment's time, grey boyshorts and a matching sports bra were whipped over to Esper James, smacking her in the chest before being caught.
"Alright! Change into those, and we'll get started! Oh, and do you want your blood slurpie now, or...? No, no, you're right. Now is better." EJ hadn't been given a chance to offer an answer, of course, but one wasn't necessary - Zofi was correct in her assumption that 'now (was) better'. EJ had to tell herself to only drink half the bag, had to remind herself that when she did, she'd need to make sure not to gorge herself on it immediately. She didn't know how much blood the Waywards were willing to offer up for her.
The habit came off; two pairs of eyes were averted. Grey fabric, soft and clean, caressed pale ghoulflesh before being set into the requisite positions. Putting on a sports bra always sat a bit awkwardly with EJ, even nowadays: she didn't really have a chest to compress in the first place, so they felt redundant, more like a reminder of her own petite nature than an apparatus meant for comfort. Ah, well, it was better than letting Zofia and the mother abbess see her bare breasts. That would have been worse.
Once modesty was preserved, Esper James made her way to the treadmill, clambering onto it. She got a feel for the tread part of the treadmill, grippy yet not overly rough beneath her bare soles. It wouldn't be any worse than running on concrete... And the last time she had been barefoot on concrete, with Est, she had been able to gather plenty of speed.
"Okay, sister Zofia. Mother abbess. I'm as ready as I'll ever be; let's get this thing going before I get scared and change my mind." Bold words; bolder sentiment. Saying it aloud made it that much more real to her - helped her feel committed.
She only hoped this all wasn't a big mistake.