I Thought I Had Problems

The endless corridors of Aquarius could be very intimidating. Unswerving, cavernous, unlit except by remotely operated computer control, sterile and forever empty in a formidably unnatural way, the corridors stayed quite empty most of the time, with the staff of Aquarius tending to congregate near living areas as if huddling away from the distressing space of the corridors.

It was said that some weird person, shortly after Aquarius began its duties, had painted everything within a fifty yard section of corridor fluorescent pink, using a powerful spray gun. Granted, there wasn't much to paint but wall panels and ceiling and floor. This section of corridor was still out there somewhere, and Peter confirmed it but would not give the location, saying that it would ruin some people's hobbies to reveal the place.

Realizing that there were people who'd spent some years roaming Aquarius looking for a fifty yard section of corridor painted pink, and not finding it, really brought home the immensity of the place. It wasn't simply the thousands of miles it sometimes took simply to get from one place to another, or the density of cross-corridors, sometimes only every hundred yards or so: the layout was also in three dimensions in many places, resulting in an average of three levels at any given point, though two was more common and some places boasted as many as forty levels, all of them echoingly, sterilely empty, a nightmare of solitude and personal insignificance.

On the other hand, thought Edie, when your personal life was far too complicated and your head was far too busy, the corridors were quite soothing in their uncompromising emptiness.

She turned aside onto 16F3-A8B8-C67B-3, more familiarly known by those who knew it at all as 16F3-A8B8-C67B, since level three was the main traffic level in the entire 1AC sector. Her paws ached and she focussed on walking steadily, with only a mile to go until she got back to where her sub was parked. Judging from her reflection she was maintaining a good prowl, actually rather attractive in her catgirl way, though the mirror not only had her looking yellow but was showing her back by mistake.

Mirror? Edie looked again. Of course there was no mirror: somebody else was also walking this corridor, another cat. She watched for a minute, curious, padding along very quietly to remain unnoticed, watching the other cat walk. She- no, it was David, Rick's steady boyfriend, and somehow this decided her. She stealthily approached, ducked aside into an alcove which showed a cargo lift was available for use, and pressed the button, making the doors open and pretending she was exiting the lift.

"Oh! Hello." she purred, as he turned. "Am I intruding?"

"Uh." replied David, since the answer was apparently 'yes'. "Er, well, I..."

Edie was taken aback, suddenly becoming aware that he was roaming such obscure corners of Aquarius for reasons like her own- privacy for private and difficult thoughts. She started to feel vulnerable again, her bit of social engineering falling apart mockingly, and she stammered, "P.. perhaps I'd better go?"

"No, wait," said David. "What are you doing here?"

"Well... what are you doing here, then?"

"Asked you first," he purred, with the hint of a halfsmile, though his eyes remained troubled.

Edie gave up. It was only fair to admit it. "Walter." she replied simply, guessing that he'd figure it out. He nodded and in turn answered, "Rick."

"Though," he added, "I'm tempted to argue with you, because you're not doing Walter at all. At least, I don't think so..."

"And others do?" blinked Edie, rather affronted. It was true that Aquarius seemed a likely place to find gossip, but she hadn't really thought about it very much. She wondered just how often her behavior was being discussed.

David was clearly a bright cat and followed all this without further clues- he appeared to be deciding whether to apologize or affront her further, and finally shrugged, the second idea winning out. "Absolutely. Why do you think I'm even here? Rick is driving me crazy, talking about you. He can't get over the fact that you spurned him. He can't talk about anything else, it seems. It's become a popular subject. It's become a lottery, even."

"You're kidding." managed Edie.

"You don't know Aquarius very well," replied David. "Geez- sorry. That really bothers you, does it? If it helps, I bet that you aren't, though I guess that's partly because Rick is so stubbornly convinced that you are. Foxes!"

Edie sighed. "I'm afraid it does. You're right. I mean, you're right that I'm not sleeping with Walter, but you're also right that it helps, your believing in me. How much do they know?"

"Huh?" said David. "Oh- believing that you're not sleeping with him. As far as the people doing the lottery? People really don't understand what's going on, that's why they find it so interesting. You're an EI lady cat, but everything about you is unlike, well, Maggie for instance..."

"Good." commented Edie.

"Now wait a second, she's one of my best friends!"

"No, I mean..." sputtered Edie, then sighed. "You're right. I'm not good at being fair to her. That's not how I grew up, you know, and all my life my biggest fear has been acting like she acts. I don't suppose you'd understand?"

"I did bet that you weren't sleeping with him," David pointed out. "I think I do understand."

"But you're with Rick!" blurted Edie, and David winced.

"Now you don't understand. Do you see me acting like Rick often acts? Have you ever seen me act that way?"

"Certainly not... but if he hurts your feelings and doesn't fit you then why do you stay with him?" asked Edie.

David unexpectedly giggled. "He barely fits. You wouldn't know that part." He became serious again, quickly. "How far does your, uh... dignity? go? I mean, do you believe all people must pair off in couples and be monogamous, or is it simply that public lewdness offends your sensibilities?"

Edie, rather off-balance, tried to explain. "It's not dignity. Well... I see what you were trying not to say. I suppose I act like a prude, but I have my reasons. I haven't been monogamous, but where I came from it was already pretty perverse to not be monagamous... but I had my work, and I guess I took the easy way out..."

David was nodding. "You sort of understand. Listen- I have my work too, but more than that, sometimes I can't cope with being there for what you might call a 'mate'. I choose to be poly, and I am choosy, but who is the main squeeze? Rick, because I can trust him to not want to tie me up. Well..." he chuckled, "in a way I want that, and in another way he sometimes wants to and I prefer not to play that way, but you get the idea, don't you? With Rick I'm free. Hell, he's held my paw while... but you wouldn't care about that."

"What?" blinked Edie, typically prey to curiosity.

"Well, imagine a wuf who'd fit me like Walter'd fit you," suggested David, and then blinked himself, seeing her wince at the remark, figuring it out. "Oh. It's not that you don't want him, is it? Maybe I don't understand enough."

"No," admitted Edie. "You understand a lot, though. But I guess you don't understand why I'm not sleeping with him, because I'm beginning to lose sleep and concentration over him and can't think of anyth... anyone else!" She bristled in embarrassment and turned away.

David gently reached over, finger under her chin, turning her to face him. Her eyes glistened with repressed tears and tension, and she trembled, meeting his gaze in silence, wanting to flee, wondering what he could say to break the terrible silence.

He said, softly, "Could you deal with a hug from a gay cat?" and suddenly she was in his arms weeping bitterly, shaking. "I'm so bad!" she sobbed. "I can't control it! Please, please don't tell anyone?"

"Can't control what?" asked David gently, petting her scruff, her back, with an oddly non-sexual tenderness.

Edie sniffled. "Don't tell anyone. I keep thinking about his... I want his sex... It's Maggie's fault, she told me so much about him that now I can't sleep at night, but whenever I see him I have to be nice because we get along well and we're good friends and he feels the same way I do..."

"I bet," chuckled David. "What's bad about that? I can see that something must be very bad about it, but you should tell me what it is, because I don't know without your telling me."

Edie pulled away for a moment to look into his eyes, startled. "No... I suppose you don't know, do you? But you said people know I am EI, because of Rick, I suppose."

"That's right. There's a problem with that? You must be afraid of how you might act if you were too overwhelmed by it? Doesn't fit your persona?"

"No, you don't understand. It's a sickness."

"No it's not, and be careful to not say that around Maggie," began David, but Edie interrupted him desperately. "It is! I know, that doesn't apply here, but you can't understand! I grew up with dangerous EI in a culture that would have stamped it out of me if they'd only known. I became such a good computer programmer, and such a good girl, because I had something to hide..." she broke off, rather overwhelmed at the sudden outpouring of emotion, the venting of her secret history.

David hugged her gently and cautiously. "Tell me more. I'm beginning to understand."

"I sort of knew about it- other children told jokes, you know. They weren't very nice jokes. But I'll never forget that night when I knew for sure... I'd been increasingly edgy all week and couldn't settle down, and kids even made jokes about me, saying that I was catching EI and could they have my phone number, which window was mine, that kind of thing..." and she paused again. David hesitated, then prompted her gently, "And?"

"I woke up and I was shivering even though it wasn't cold, and I had a terrible itch- in my pussy." admitted Edie, "and all my nipples were standing up, and I should have known, but I was still half asleep, and before I really understood what I was doing, I... scratched. Oh, God, did that wake me up- suddenly I was wide awake and so aroused I wanted to scream, to yowl at the top of my lungs and go out and... well, you know. And I could wake up my parents and they would take me to the emergency room, and I knew that, but that would take time and I was just simply going to die right there and... and there was this candle."

David repressed a chuckle, because he knew how purely jealous Rick would be of him at this moment. He also knew how important this was to Edie, and let her continue when she felt okay with it. For a minute he thought the horrible admission, that there was (gasp) a candle being used for carnal purposes, had rendered her mute, but eventually she continued, as if she had to tell the whole dreadful story or burst.

"It was a... thick candle. I tried pushing it against me and it wouldn't go, and I remember whittling the edges off it frantically, horribly afraid somebody would come in even though it was three-thirty in the morning. I was stepping over the line and I knew it, and the shame was unbelievable but I told myself I was going to die if I didn't deal with it, that I'd never even make it to the emergency room. And I sprawled on my bed, shaking and breathing hard, and..."

Edie unexpectedly giggled, purring at the mere memory. "Well, my God! That was when I knew I was an outlaw. It still didn't fit, and I went crazy with a throttled yowl and forced it into me, and oh my God! The next thing I knew, I was writhing on my bed, mewling and biting my lip as I clamped on the thing like I was exploding. The top of my head was just about coming off from orgasms, it was unbearably intense. I was bristling all over in surges, which I didn't even know was possible. I bit my lip until it bled, somehow managed to not scream out... let it subside long enough to listen and be sure nobody was coming for me... and, uh... well, I didn't sleep at all that night. I started experimenting with how that candle felt when it actually moved in me, and I spent several hours in continuous orgasm, and slunk into the bathroom bowlegged before anyone else got up, to cover up what I'd done. That day I stole deodorant from the store... and my life was never the same again."

David didn't repress the chuckle this time. "I'll say!"

Edie giggled, herself, and purred smugly. "Well, can you blame me? Swear you won't tell anybody?"

"But, Edie," said David, "it doesn't matter here. I promise I won't tell Rick, okay?"

"Don't tell anybody!" begged Edie. "It matters to me."

"But surely eventually there were people who knew? You never dated, had lovers? Ever?"

"No no... I had that. But I had to handle it a special way- because I knew when they made love to me they would know. I'd done some reading and researched it and I knew I was right up at the danger point... well, over it... and, well, you know whores? Well, it turned out that cat whores with EI like mine could charge literally anything. There were freelance cat whores out there who were positively rich because of the way they went mad when a male plugged into them. Sometimes you heard about one in the hospital with heart failure- her heart would give out from the intensity of it, and they'd bring her back and, well, spay her for her own good, and you'd see a rich cat whore weeping brokenheartedly on the evening news, because of what they took from her when they gave her back her life. I had to sympathize, but of course I didn't dare admit it..."

"But you said you did have lovers?" blinked David, confused.

"I slummed." admitted Edie, turning her face away. "I slunk off to bad places and bad people- and I would find a lover, seduce him, and swear him to secrecy. It didn't matter because they would never know where I lived, but even when I was slinking down to the docks to be humped by a wolf with a knot the size of both of my fists held together, I wasn't about to have his friends know it. I picked well- I had to. None of them exposed me. I only changed lovers when one got killed, or drank himself to death, or went crazy and wanted to marry me. One teased me one night until I almost had heart attacks like the cat whores on the news, and I dropped him for it. One found out where I lived... and he died when the police came for him... I should have known they would shoot. Of course I had to seem relieved about it... I had to learn not to care much for any of these lovers, because they would come to bad ends. I think they are all dead now."

David seemed stunned. "Unbelievable. Your life was like that?"

"Is."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I was eyeing Rick, only he's obviously a talker. I've been keeping my eyes open for a good male, preferably a wolf for that archetypical male-female thing you can get with a wolf and a cat, preferably really hung, and he has to be quiet. I can't help it- I can't stop, and I'm getting pretty desperate. I'm still looking for a wolf like that, to slum with in secret." admitted Edie.

"Like Walter?" asked David unthinkingly.

Edie abruptly burst into tears again. "No! I'm in love with Walter!" she wailed, and wept, clinging to David hopelessly.

"Oh, my God." he breathed quietly to himself. "I thought I had problems..."