---Contract---
---Alchyinad’s perspective---
A large Terran man with a miserable expression on his (brighter than normal) face sits on the couch, opposite me.
From the rapidity with which I can see heat undulating along his blood vessels, I know that his heartrate is well above normal.
His temples are both bare of any devices.
Fortunately, being fluent in his first language means he and I don’t have to conduct this session through the translator app (with which he’s been talking to every nonEnglish speaker aboard since the incident.)
On his lap rest the gigantic head of a blindingly warm predator, unfortunately necessitating eye protection on my part.
Humans are just about tolerable for me to spend long periods looking at. Doing so to an a’Teksian mirkbeast would likely require me to have a regen session, to undo the damage to my retinae(!)
“So, Victor…” I start, leaning towards him “…how are you feeling right now.”
“Sick…” he scowls “…like I’ve swallowed somethin’ radioactive and it’s slowly killin’ me!”
I don’t ask if this is a metaphor.
I assume that, if it weren’t, he would have sought the aid of Gato, Aerlyght or the Shings as opposed to mine.
“And what’s made you feel that way?” I ask, gently.
“You know exactly what!” he snarls, angrily.
“I do… but I want to hear it in your words…. As much as you are comfortable discussing with me.” I answer, patiently.
He lets out a long sigh, during which (I infer) he isn’t meeting my eyes.
His ten fingers work through the soft fur of the blindingly bright predator who emits a deep, calming purr.
Finally, he starts “Me and Thran got put under mind control by a Revanchist operative… She made us steal Khr’kowan’s granny’s foot… she made us kiss and touch eachother in ways I never would’ve wanted to and I really don’t think she would either… she made us fight people… she made us hurt people… she made me restrain Tuun as a ‘present’ for some posh New Australian twat… she made me threaten to kill her and myself if Khr’kowan didn’t hand over her spit…” each point making him more visibly angry than the last.
I frown slightly and ask “How do you know what planet the one she intended to give your fiancée to was from?”
“’Cause I was there when she spoke to him…” he huffs “…via hologram in her bedroom while me and Thran were ‘warming eachother up for her’…” his lips curl in disgust “The name’s Gordon… He dresses like an Enlightenment era aristocrat and seems like he knows a lot about biology and genetics… When she saw Samus, Tuun and Xon comin’, she said ‘Oh! She’ll make the perfect present for Gordy!’” in a high pitched, feminine, halfwhispered impression of his captor “She’s got some kinda dynamic with him where she acts like she’s got a massive one sided crush but I don’t know how much of that’s tease versus how much’s genuine.”
“I see.” I answer, realising a little too late that my curiosity regarding that detail was not exactly the most productive place to start. I refocus, gently “So Victor, what was it like for you to be under this woman’s control?”
The man’s face contorts and brightens in anguish “Well… I really wanna say ‘It was torture’, ‘a livin’ nightmare’, ‘like all my worse fears realised’ but…”
“But that’s not accurate?” I suggest, finishing the thought on which he trailed off.
He shakes his head “No… it ain’t… It’s only lookin’ back that it feels like a nightmare… If I had a dream where someone was controllin’ me and makin’ me do bad things, I’d be alive and awake, restrained in my brain’s passenger seat, watching myself doin’ those things and screamin’… This was more like… not existin’ at all… bein’ dead… bein’ a walkin’ corpse… I didn’t ‘feel’ anythin’… When Tuun cut me up, that registered as ‘wound; right forearm, shallow, minimal blood loss.’ instead of ‘Ow!’… I knew Tuun was my fiancée, I knew I loved her, knew I wouldn’t want to hurt her… That bitch just turned off the bits of me that cared about any of that… and turned off the bits of me that would’ve cared about having bits of me turned off! It was… like bein’ stripped of my sentience… turned into a machine that can understand but not feel… It’s horrible to think about now but, I’d say, there just wasn’t a ‘me’ to find it horrible at the time!”
“Alright then, Victor. Why don’t we focus on how the you that exists right now feels then?”
The man fixes me with an unnervingly intense gaze and forcefully answers “Violated!”
A little thrown by that, I don’t have time to formulate a response before he continues.
“I feel worse about what she did to me and the things she made me do than I did about getting my hand cut off! About getting my ribs broken! Learnin’ Kara wasn’t my mum! Gettin’ strapped to a vivisection table by an insane AI! Gettin’ stranded on that planet for months! None of it compares! None of it comes fuckin’ CLOSE to comparin’!”
His normal Human joviality is gone!
What this man is displaying to me is nothing more or less than the sum total of the ferocity that made his species into the undisputed masters of their hellworld cradle!
The fury that allowed them to defy extinction, time and again and again and again, through aeons!
The spite that let them look the rest of the galaxy in the eye and tell us ‘No… You move!’
Doing my best not to allow my fear to show (mostly successfully but for a little, involuntary flutter of my ears), I ask “And what makes this so much worse than all those incidents to you, Victor?”
He scowls forward while he considers my question for some long moments.
“You remember how my mum died, Ally?” he asks, finally.
“I do.” I confirm.
“And you remember the thing that made me pick up Shaolin, origin’ly?”
“I remember, Victor.” I assure him.
“Since then… Since I learned what happened to my parents, my mum specific’ly, since I got the shit kicked outta me by those kids, since I met Shīfu Níng… I thought the solution to any problem I couldn’t solve with my strength was to get stronger, the solution to any problem I couldn’t solve with my skill was to train harder… If what I am ain’t enough, I gotta be more!… And, I’d say, most of a lifetime o’ that attitude’s made me into a lot!” he raises a muscular arm to gesture across a powerful chest.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Unusually immodest for him but “I certainly agree, Victor.”
“But this woman… She’s… She’s…!” the man’s emotions seems to be overcoming his articulation here as he flails his hand and his face further increases its brightness.
“She usurped your strength?” I suggest “Took everything you’ve spent decades building and used it without your consent to do things you never would have agreed to?”
“Exactly!” he cries “It’s like… What was the fucking point!? What was the point of getting strong when, if I’d been weak…!”
“If you had been weak, she wouldn’t have deemed you worth taking control of and, if she had, you would have been much easier for us to stop?” I finish.
“’zactly!… It’s got me thinkin’ maybe I should turn in my notice to Cap, go back to Earth and get a job doing somethin’ sedentary! Maybe the ODR’d have a deskjob for me… Just let all my strength, my speed, my stamina, my skill whither away to nothing! Let me become nothin’ more ’an a normal Terran whose most notable feature’s bein’ a bit on the tall side!”
I nod “That course of action certainly seems like it would lead to a substantially lower risk of being subjected to mind control again in the future than your current career path has…”
“Right?!”
“But… is that what you actually want?”
“Yes…” he answers before second guessing “…No…” and, finally, admitting “…I don’t know!” miserably.
“It’s understandable that you might feel conflicted regarding a decision of that magnitude, Victor.” I observe.
“What do you think I should do?” he demands.
I shake my head and gently remind him “That’s not how therapy works, Victor… I’m not here to make your decisions for you. I’m not here to turn you into the person I think you should be. I’m here to guide you through the process of becoming who you want to be… My advice would be to take some time to contemplate what you want before you act. This isn’t a decision to be made rashly.”
“Mmm…” he grunts in acknowledgement.
Silence reins for some long moments.
Eventually, I ask “Have you spoken to Thran at all since the incident?”
His body language shifts in clear discomfort.
“No… not really.” he answers “Not since just after Shīfu got out of medical.”
“Do you think it might be a good idea?” I pose “She’s the only other person in your social circle who shared this experience. The two of you might be able to relate to eachother more easily than others who didn’t share this trauma.”
He shakes his head “I… it’s… I feel guilty… Before you say it, I know it ain’t rational! I know I weren’t in control of myself, I know I ain’t responsible for what that woman made me do to her and I know the answer to if I think she’s to blame for touchin’ me like that is ‘Fuck no!’ but…” he looks up at me, his face anguished “…I still feel like shit about it!… I don’t wanna say it was worse or even just as bad as her makin’ us hurt people, ’cause, like, obviously I’d rather be forced to kiss and grope Thran than hurt people but… it was bad in a different way… It’s hard to explain… I guess it’s somethin’ like… no one died, everyone’s injuries’ve been healed. All that was fixable… but I can never unbecome a man who’s stuck his tongue down Thran’s throat! I can’t go back to bein’ a man who hadn’t put his hands on her chest… and I know there’s some who’d basically wonder what I’m complainin’ about! I’m sure there’s a shittonne of folks out there who’d kill for the opportunity to touch her like that and then throw up their hands and abdicate responsibility after with the fact that they was under mind control at the time but, sincerely and honestly, it weren’t gratifyin’ at all! Not at the time and not since!”
“Do you think Thran blames you at all?”
“Nooo…” he says, considering “…but I think she feels just as uncomfortable about it as I do… and, like, I know the thing to do is talk to her an’ clear the air… but…”
“But it’s hard?” I suggest.
“More like ‘I’m a coward’!” he puffs.
“‘Coward’ is a strong word, Victor.” I point out “I don’t think having strong negative feelings that make it difficult to face a woman with whom you were forced to engage in nonconsensual intimacy is cowardly… It seems like quite an understandable reaction.”
“Hmm.” he grunts.
“Maybe you could ask your teacher to…”
The mans scowls and interrupts “Me an’ Shīfu are on the outs!”
“I’m sorry?” I ask, thrown by the unfamiliar phrase.
“We ain’t speakin’ right now.” he clarifies.
Shocked by that revelation, it takes me a few moments to manage “And, why is that? It’s not because he blames you for what you did to him while under mind control, is it?”
“The opposite!” he snarls “It’s ’cause he was so absolutely thrilled at me and Thran beatin’ him for the first time that, our first session after he got out of regen, he strolled in and started trynna brainstorm ways that we could fight that way while not under mind control(!) Get all those pesky emotions out of the way to make us into a pair that can, between ’em, take out the best fighter in the galaxy(!)”
“Ah…” I grimace, baring my ‘sharkteeth’ “…yes. I imagine that level of obliviousness would be rather upsetting.”
Face twisted in a frown, he continues “Like, I know he’s a bit… ‘fightistic’(!) But… like… surely even he understands what a fuckin’ slap in the face it’d feel to be told that you’re a better fighter when you ain’t you, right? Like, how unappealin’ it makes the spiritual aspects of Shaolin look to nonBuddhists when he draws a parallel ’tween ‘detatchment’ and catatonia! To becomin’ a fuckin’ automaton, a zombie!!!”
“Certainly… and did you confront him about this?” I ask.
“Too bloody right I did!” he declares.
“What did you say?”
“I said that, if killin’ off everythin’ that makes me ‘me’ is what it takes to advance, I’m fuckin’ done! I’m happy to never get better ’an I am right now if it means gettin’ to stay myself!”
“And he responded unfavourably to that, I take it?” I clarify.
“Dug his heels right in! We argued… Ain’t been back to the gym while he was there since!”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Victor. I know your martial art means a lot to you… and that Yuán was a man you had great respect for. Have you lost that respect as a result of this dispute?” I ask, a little dangerously close to putting words in his mouth with the question.
He considers for some moments before answering “No… not really… I’m pissed off with him but… this ain’t exactly inconsistent with who I already knew he was… All about fightin’. Everythin’ else comes second… I know it ain’t his job to look after my emotions… ain’t even his job to train us in martial arts… he only does it ’cause he’d be bored to tears otherwise… I just… I think the worst part was just the insistence, you know? Like… he says ‘You need to fight without emotion if you wish to attain the mastery you had when you fought me’… I say ‘Fuck right off with that shit!’ that should be the end of it… but he just kept pushing!”
“I can see that that would be upsetting.” I say, sympathetically “Do you think this is a reconcilable disagreement or not, Victor?”
He scowls “Yeah… Dunno… Like, I think we’re both waiting for eachother to be the first to come an’ apologise… So… I dunno if either of us are gonna budge on that before it’s too late!… Only another week ’til we get to Citadel… and then… you and your husband’re gonna leave too… ain’t you…” his face turning morose at that latter.
I clear my throat and say “*ahem*…Actually, Victor… I was going to wait until the end of this session to broach this with you but… Tcakqaal has approached Marc and I with an offer.”
His curiosity immediately piqued, his face whips to me, eyebrow raised as he asks “Oh yeah?”
“She asked if we would be amenable to her assuming our contracts…”
“She what?” asks the Terran, bewildered.
“She wants us to stay on and work for her directly after this voyage is concluded.”
“She never told me she was thinkin’ ’bout doin’ that!” he says, his face a mixture of many competing emotions.
“Yes… she told me that she knew you would refuse if she made the offer to you directly… but that she also believed you continuing with therapy was desirable… at least for the moment… I told her that I would still have to run this past you and my other clients who’ll be staying on. I won’t just assume you’re all happy to continue seeing me without asking. Marc told her the same with regards to his clients.”
His face falls as he asks “Keepin’ the two of you on without the ODR footin’ the bill’ll be expensive won’t it…”
“Victor, please don’t worry about the cost. Managing the Bright Plume’s finances is Tcakqaal’s responsibility and she judges the next contract term’s worth of my and my husband’s salaries to be a price ‘well worth paying’… The only consideration you need to make is whether you actually want to continue your therapy with me?”
The man thinks…
He spends a long time thinking…
I did my best to avoid leading him in either direction, despite definitely agreeing with his employer that now is an extremely inopportune time for his therapy to be terminated.
However, if he says ‘no’, I won’t argue.
It’s not my place to impose therapy on those who do not want it.
Therapy someone has been coerced into will always be of limited effectiveness.
I just hope he doesn’t refuse for some stupid reason like not being able to conscience Tcakqaal having to pay our salaries on his behalf!
Finally, he looks up at me and gives me my answer “I’m… not ready to stop, Ally… I do wanna keep seein’ you…” with a touch of apologetic guilt in his tone.
“That’s absolutely fine, Victor… In that case, I will plan for our sessions continuing past the end of this ship’s contract end.” I smile, kindly.