Page 47 of Trove’s Purpose

She snarled at him. Actually snarled. Her blunt little teeth on full display. It was completely ineffectual as a threat, but it was absolutely adorable. Her anger, her passion – he adored this. He was getting excited, his heart beating fast, the more her ire rose.

“I mean more than physically! Sex is about two people becoming one-”

“It doesn’t have to be two.”

“Trove!”

“I’m just saying, it’s often not just two. In fact, the more you can get together, the more everyone enjoys it all around.”

“No!” She whipped her head side to side, absolutely refusing to listen to this. To agree to this. To even consider it.

“I feel like that invalidates your argument. Surely, you’re not suggesting that there is any kind of intimacy between a group? Or that every sex worker feels intimate with every one of their clients? Or that strangers who just want to fuck do it to feel intimate.”

“That’s not…” Chee floundered, unable to come up with an argument.

Because she knew he was right. He knew he was right. She was arguing something that was completely nonsensical.

Calling sex special was such an overinflation of something so unbelievably common and, honestly, grotesque. If it didn’t feel good, he was sure no one would ever want to do it. It was just something that, typically, everyone tried to avoid. It was the only time that people craved being hot, sweaty, messy, and covered in bodily fluids. In any other context, in any other situation, with any other fluids, it would be considered too vile to participate in.

Yes, so special indeed.

“I feel so sorry for you,” Chee said suddenly. Surprising him not just with her words, but with the absolute devastation in her gaze. Aimed at him. Like he was saying something so pitiful, it was breaking her heart, but for him.

“Why?” He smiled. Because that’s all he could do. He felt no sense of loss.

“Because something that is so special has been so broken to you. You’ve lost the ability to see how incredible sex can be.”

“It’s just sex, Chee.”

“Yeah. When you make it just sex, sure.”

“Well, considering that, of the two of us, I’m the only one who has had sex, I think I’m more qualified than you to speak on its ‘specialness’.”

But Chee was shaking her head. “You’ve only ever had sex, Trove. You’ve never made love.”

He laughed. “Made love?”

“Love. That’s what makes sex special. It’s love! The intimacy and joy between two people that love each other is what makes sex intimate and wonderful.”

Trove heard what she was saying, but it just wasn’t hitting him as truth. It didn’t sound real. It sounded like the dreams of a child who had never experienced reality. And the reality of sex was that it was dirty and disgusting and hot.

They just stood there. Staring at each other. Lost in the completely opposing viewpoints of something so very basic. Something that, as mates, was meant to bid them together.

And yet here they stood, on completely opposite sides of this belief. Both of them absolutely sure they were right. Both of them unable to understand each other.

Chee’s bottom lip trembled, and she looked away.

And Trove hated himself for hurting her. But he just didn’t understand what she was talking about. He really couldn’t grasp what she meant.

“We’re… not going to be mates, are we?” She asked, breathing the question like it was being torn from her against her will.

“We are mates,” Trove said. “I just don’t know if we’ll ever be bonded. At least, that way. I think we could at least be friends.”

“Friends?” She repeated, chuckling once, a cry in her voice. “We’re apparently destined to be soul mates, but you can only offer me friendship.”

“I would give you pleasure, if you allowed it.”

“I don’t want your meaningless sex,” she shook her head quickly. “I refuse to accept that for myself. I won’t.”