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[abrightboy]

This is Bright. Leave a message.

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[pharadyne]

Could be. I thought I'd cleaned it all up but... [He spots the stain Malcolm is talking about and rubs his thumb over it.] Damn. That's a good shirt, too. I'll bring you one of his shirts so he won't have to wear stained clothing when he wakes up. Maybe pajamas as well? That would more comfortable, I should think.

[He's fussing a little, knows he's fussing and that he should probably stop, but it always makes him a bit nervous when people go into a stasis.]

[abrightboy]

Pajamas. Yes. I might move him to the sofa upstairs, too. Kikimora has the bedroom up there but she shouldn't mind a coma patient in the next room. That way he won't feel like a museum exhibit.

[pharadyne]

Stasis. [Norton says automatically. He rejects the word "coma" to describe the phenomenon, has for over two years now. Thinks it sounds much too alarming. He hasn't yet managed to get the rest of the ship to change vocabulary, but he won't stop trying.]

If he were a museum exhibit, I'd go to the museum every day.

[abrightboy]

I don't think you're the only one. He's magnetic, right?

[pharadyne]

He certainly is. I don't know how you ever turned him down. But your loss is my gain.

[abrightboy]

He was my inmate at the time. That would have been taking advantage of him.

[pharadyne]

Would it have been? When I was an inmate, I slept with a few of my temporary wardens and tried to sleep with both my permanent wardens. Never felt the least bit taken advantage of.

Not to say it's never a consideration, but I don't think it's inherently baked in.

[abrightboy]

But your permanent Wardens didn’t sleep with you. An inmate’s permanent Warden is the only person on board with direct authority over an Inmate. That’s what makes it messy.

[pharadyne]

Still wouldn't say they were avoiding taking advantage of me. If I'd been successful, I would have absolutely taken advantage of my wardens, though. Their attachment. But that doesn't necessarily require sex, does it. Lots of wardens befriend their inmates, adopt their inmates, have deep ties with their inmates, but as soon as charvering is involved, people start clutching their pearls.

[abrightboy]

I don’t think it’s about prudishness. It’s about the extremely fraught emotional dimension sex adds. And doesn’t the Admiral demote Wardens for sexual relations with their own Inmates?

[pharadyne]

I've never heard of the Admiral demoting a Warden over that. Although I don't know anyone who's done it, either. I did offer my inmate a blowjob, but he declined.

I still don't see why sex should be presumed to automatically add a fraught emotional dimension. Or an emotional dimension at all. Friendship has emotions. Sex is just a physical act. I've had sex with people I don't even like very much.

[abrightboy]

Which you should probably examine; you did point out that you use it to manipulate people, as well.

[pharadyne]

I don't think there's much to examine there. You encourage someone to want something, then you give it to them so they get a taste for it, and once you've established yourself as the source of the thing they want, they're inclined to do favours for you to keep getting it. [Very romantic.]

Or sometimes a terrible person is just hot. Or it can mollify a bad situation. There's lots of reasons to have sex with someone I don't like.

[abrightboy]

All of which are excuses to avoid emotional intimacy.

[pharadyne]

Why would I want emotional intimacy with someone I charver and don't like?

[abrightboy]

You wouldn’t. That’s why doing them is a sure fire way to avoid emotional intimacy.

[pharadyne]

Oh I see what you mean!

Well. Yes. Is that a problem?

[abrightboy]

It depends. Obviously you do it to protect yourself and that served you at your old job. And you graduated just fine. But, at the same time… do you really not want to ever be close to anyone? That’s so lonely.

[pharadyne]

I can be close to people. Some people. [It's a work in progress.] Just not everyone I have sex with.

[abrightboy]

I wouldn’t recommend it with everyone you have sex with. We’re talking about sex as part of intimacy, though. With someone.

[pharadyne]

Why can't intimacy and sex just be separate things? Part of the reason I developed a bit of a pash for you back when I did was because you turned me down. [People who like him but don't want him feel safer, on the whole, more trustworthy. With a few rare exceptions.]

[abrightboy]

I think getting to know each other and trust each other first is a good start. But if I hadn’t gotten together with Will, we would have done it eventually. We were definitely working up to it. Would you have… had less of a ‘pash’ after that?

[pharadyne]

I don't know. Difficult to predict what didn't happen. In the past, with other people, I've had it go both ways. Sometimes it's wonderful and I feel very close, and sometimes it creates a distance in me that wasn't there before. The opposite of intimacy.

Are you still attracted to me, even though you're with Will? [Since Malcolm's asking blunt and probing questions, Norton thinks turn about is fair play.]

[abrightboy]

Of course I am. You’re a great person and good looking, too.

[pharadyne]

I am, aren't I. But despite that being objectively true, not everyone is attracted to me.

Why did you choose Will? And not just why you like him, you're obviously well suited to each other, but since you're the sort who only choses one person, how did you decide to chose him? I was in the offing, and Neal would have waited for you until he graduated if you'd asked. Was it the timing, the circumstances, something else entirely?