"Kiya," said Avabigun, bowing his head and squeezing his penis in respect. It obediently saluted.
"What is it, priest? The Worm tells me you've found me a shrink."
"I fear I do not understand that word, Kiya. This is Nohwidal, the famed Arbitrator from Settlement Sixteen. She tells me she felt your need, and so has come."
"Never heard of her." Nohwidal, huh? "Know-it-all"? Well that's a switch from the usual naming custom.
Nohwidal bowed her head in turn and middle-fingered herself. "Fame is relative," she said modestly, and with odd emphasis. But I have a Gods-given talent for sensing people who need healing. It has brought me to you, Mother."
Hmph, left off the Great, but I don't suppose I should complain. Kiya really looked at the stranger for the first time, and got a shock.
Everyone in the Sphere looked a lot like her and Zorlond, but in this one was liked them ramped up to the ultimate, impossibly idealized and exaggerated. Incredible what inbreeding could do sometimes. Maybe that explained her "gift," too, maybe the powers had been inbred back in too.
Kiya couldn't take her eyes off Nohwidal. She was like every wet dream she'd ever had, except no dick, of course.
She wasn't sure just when Avabigun and Dome left. She was transfixed.
"Now let's talk about your troubles," Nohwidal was saying, and suddenly Kiya was spilling her guts, all the guilt, the shame, the anger she'd been taking out on everyone, all the fear of losing her identity again, all the self-hate.
Nohwidal was incredibly understanding, knew just what to say to get at the root of what was bothering her, and every time she accidentally pressed that always-on anger button that radiant, melting smile would turn it right off again. Sometimes she said some odd things, things that made it sound like she knew more than she was letting on, and a few times she even started arguing with Kiya before stopping herself. That made Kiya suspicious, but the smile turned it right off again.
"This can't be happening," said Kiya, "it's like you're seducing me, it's like the Worm all over again."
"No, Mother, believe me, it's nothing like the Worm," said Nohwidal. "The Worm tried to extinguish your Self, I seek only to help you realize it cherish it and love it again."
"Self-love can't be taught," said Kiya, remembering her class.
"Not the same thing," said Nohwidal, gently taking her hand. "Besides, if you did love yourself you'd find it a lot easier."
"You are seducing me," Kiya accused, as the stranger nestled up close to her."
"Really?" groaned the stranger, huskily. "With all the want you're radiating, I'd have said it was the other way around."
With a start Kiya realized Nohwidal was right, I'm emitting pure lust, shit, I'm as bad as the Worm - She cut it off.
Right away Nohwidal edged away, dropped Kiya's hand and kept talking as if nothing had happened. "You're afraid you're being like the Great Worm," she said shrewdly, as if she'd tapped into Kiya's thought. Then she shook her head. "No," she went on, "the Worm was after power, it didn't understand what it was thinking, you're after love, you're just confused, you're trying to get it in the wrong way."
She's not supposed to know that about the Worm, no one is, thought Kiya. Did the Worm tell her this about itself? It would be just like the damned thing to try to help me in such a sneaky way. Another melting smile from Nohwidal drove that thought away.
"Love," Nohwidal went on, "must be earned, accepted as a gift, not forced as a demand. You need to relearn how to love and be loved."
Kiya groaned. "I don't know how any more. Zorlond keeps coming to me but I don't want it."
"I'm betting you do, you just can't get past the anger, you blame him for not saving you from what happened even though you know he couldn't."
"Yes," Kiya confessed. "But what -"
"I love you."
"What?"
"If you want to recover what you've lost, you need to learn how to accept love. I'm offering it to you. You can reject it or accept it, your choice. But if you truly want to be healed -"
"I want to be healed," Kiya moaned, tears coming to her eyes. "But I'm afraid love isn't what I want from you right now."
"I know what you mean," said Nohwidal with another smile. "Few in this world really know the difference, but it's vital, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Kiya, turning away sadly.
"On the other hand," said Nohwidal, sidling closer again, "we all have to start somewhere, don't we?"
And Kiya, in a rush of gratitude, realized maybe she really did want love from the strangely knowing stranger, not just the other thing. Nohwidal, reading her mood, cupped her breast.
"Ohhh," Kiya sighed. "If only -"
Nohwidal had a dick.
"What?!?
It was gone. Nohwidal smiled. "It's my gift," she said. "I am shaped by the needs of those I am with, I can be whatever you want me to be. Ihope you won't let that get out, I'd be swamped by every jerk in the Sphere and wouldn't be able to help the truly needy."
Yeah, that makes sense, Kiya thought. Shaped by my need, huh?
Nohwidal was starting to look more like Anna now, the old Anna, from before she'd tried to change her natural appearance. Oh oh, Kiya thought, mustn't go there, and Nohwidal was as before, but looking a bit disappointed.
"Mother," she said, "if you won't let me address your need -"
She even calls me Mother, Kiya thought. Oh what the hell, if it'll help - and it's not really her after all.
Nohwidal was Anna again, bending close, tweaking her nipples, teasing her sex. "Don't be to sure of that," she whispered, "remember, I can be whoever you want me to be -" Then her mouth was locked against Kiya's, and the talk was over.
But the counseling just got better and better.
Kiya had never had it so good. She lost track of all the dream women (and men) Nohwidal became on her behalf. She was Anna several times, Zorlond even more, Lizzie Fruitbat, D.J. Woohoo, several Authors she'd never admitted to herself she wanted, Sid's amazons, Elvira, Avabigun and a slew of other Jaegerites, several models, the Russell girls, Kiya herself - it was heaven, it went on and on -
Kiya woke up to a dimmed cavern, it was the night cycle, they must have been at it forever. And she still had a buzz, she'd never dreamed it could be so good. Well, not true, often with Zorlond - but never with the Worm, oddly enough, despite the unimaginable intensity of that experience. How could she not have realized? She really had forgotten about love, about the whole new dimension it added to "love"-making. A dimension that had never been present with the Worm. Nohwidal did help me, Kiya thought, she helped me remember. But now - how can I ever give her up?
A snatch from an old song came to her out of the blue, giving her the answer. If you love me, let me go . . . Yes, true love wasn't selfish, and if Kiya's for Nohwidal was that selfish, she hadn't really learned anything. But I have learned, Kiya thought, and looked over fondly at her sleeping friend.
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Thu Mar 20 11:36:04 2003
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