“I watched demiurgus porn,” I blurted the moment he stepped into the living room.

He froze, blinking once as he processed that. “I—Oh. Um… ’kay.”

“For a reason,” I said hurriedly, then licked my lips as a hint of nerves made my pulse flutter. “I think… Do you want to talk about some stuff?”

“What, porn stuff?” he asked uncertainly as he made his way over to the couch, then perched on the edge and wiped his palms down his thighs. His eyes darted over to the smoking tin resting on the coffee table.

I laughed, some of the tension melting away. “No, not necessarily porn stuff.” Although now I was wondering what kind of porn Greid watched. “But I watched it because… I remembered what you said back at the compound about, uh, demiurgus dicks.”

Greid’s spine snapped straight. His eyes darted longingly to the smoking tin again, before he croaked, “Oh. Okay.”

Suddenly I wondered if it had been a terrible idea. Did he find it invasive? I hadn’t watched it to drool over demiurgus dick. I’d watched it so that if and when Greid ever got naked in front of me, I wouldn’t make him feel awful by gawping in shock or recoiling.

Not that I would have, now that I had an idea of what he had going on, but I hadn’t known that at the time. I just liked being prepared. Feeling in control of a situation.

“I wasn’t trying to be a creep,” I told him anxiously, wanting to touch him but refraining for the time being. Clearing my throat, I nodded at the tin. “If you want to smoke while we talk about this, you can.”

He immediately lunged for the tin with a squawk of nervous laughter. “Cool. Thanks. I, um… This is weird.”

“It’s not weird, Greid. We’re different species. There’ll be things we need to discover about each other. And…” I paused, waiting for him to strike a match and light his joint. “I could sense you were maybe a little nervous when I said I wanted to touch you this morning, and I was wondering if it was because you were worried.”

“I mean, yeah.” His knee bounced as he rolled the joint between two long fingers, watching its smoking tip. “It would’ve, um, hurt you.”

I watched him. “So the spikes are sharp, then?”

His ears fluttered wildly, but he took another deep drag and said, “Not sharp enough to pierce skin, unless you were… you know. Human. And rubbing your hand over them repeatedly.”

“So how do you jerk off?” I asked without thinking. “Or have any kind of sex that involves penetration?”

“Christ, I should’ve stayed upstairs,” he mumbled, rubbing his face. A tiny hint of hurt tightened my chest.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” I said quietly. “I just thought—”

“No.” He exhaled, then finally turned to face me. “I’m sorry, I’m just… really fucking nervous. We should probably, um, talk about it. If we’re… If this…”

“Look, why don’t I tell you something first?” I shifted onto my knees and sat back on my heels. “And it might… put you at ease a bit.”

“Okay.” Greid eyed me nervously, sucking on his joint.

“So I don’t…” I picked at the blanket beside me. I wasn’t overly worried about Greid’s reaction, but it was still nerve-wracking, and an intimate thing to share. “I have vaginismus, so whenever I’ve attempted penetrative sex in the past, it hurt. A lot. But I… I don’t actually like being penetrated anyway.” I shrugged. “I have no idea if it’s a coincidence or if they’re linked. Probably the latter though, seeing as vaginismus is usually a psychological thing.”

Taking a breath, I forced myself to look at Greid. He gave me a tiny smile but stayed quiet, waiting for me to finish.

“So, yeah. If you were worried about anything…” I hesitated, then reached out and curled my fingers over his free hand. He immediately flipped it to thread his fingers through mine and squeezed. “And if you did still want… something with me, then… the spikes wouldn’t be a problem.”

I managed to give him a wry smile, but it dropped as I chewed my lip and added, “But obviously it would mean… you know, some kinds of sex aren’t possible for us.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, they wouldn’t be anyway. Because of, um, my spiky dick and all.”

I snorted, then clutched his hand tighter as I asked, “Does that bother you?”

“What?” He shook his head with an incredulous laugh. “What kind of asshole would I be if it did?”

“I don’t know.” A smile was twisting my mouth. “Some people have been assholes about it.”

He snorted. “What, some douchebag who whined about only getting a handjob from a beautiful woman?”

Butterflies exploded in my stomach at hearing him call me beautiful. My smile stretched as I leaned closer to him. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Then they were a total dickhead. I love handjobs, by the way,” he added hurriedly. “Big fan of handjobs here. I think they’re great.”

I laughed, squeezing his hand as I teasingly said, “Good to know.”

“And I…” He swallowed, ears twitching, but pushed on. “Not being able to do that with you, Beryl… it wouldn’t make it any less, you know, meaningful to me,” he mumbled shyly. “I… I like you.”

My heart squeezed tight. God, he was so sweet. Clutching his hand tighter, I rasped, “Thanks, Greid. I like you too. So much.”

He let out a breath. “Okay. My turn. What… um, what do you want to know?”

I cocked my head. “Well, I am very interested in giving you handjobs. So we should probably talk about how that would work, but I’m also just curious. Do the spikes not… hurt?”

“Oh. Right. Okay,” he croaked, taking a long drag of his joint as his face spikes flexed rapidly. “Well, I mean, demiurgus skin is tougher than a human’s, so the spikes don’t… they don’t hurt me.”

“You mean they don’t hurt your hand? When you…”

His ears fluttered. “Yeah. But they would hurt you.”

“So what about… I mean, I saw demiurgus having sex in the porn. How does that not… hurt the one being penetrated?” I asked curiously.

“Well, um, demiurgus are tougher on the inside too.” He cleared his throat and took a drag. “What I remember from sex ed is that the, uh, the spikes are an evolutionary thing designed to… you know, stimulate sensations. They feel good to a demiurgus. And then, uh…” He gave me a sheepish glance. “Did you see any demiurgus with dicks, um, come? In the porn? I mean, like… outside of a body.”

I snorted. “They were all outside of a body.”

His mouth twitched. “Got to get that money shot.”

“So I discovered.” I chuckled, then sobered. “So you’re talking about when the spikes… um, grow.”

I’d noticed that in the videos. Whenever a demiurgus with a dick had started to come, those spikes around the shaft would flare out like little downward facing hooks, pulsing in time with each spurt of cum.

“Yeah, so…” Greid scrubbed a hand over his cheek. “When a demiurgus with a dick comes, the spikes kind of… protrude more to lock the two people together for a little while. Evolutionary thing,” he repeated. “To make impregnation more likely.”

“Right, right.” I paused, fiddling with the blanket. “How does that not hurt though? Spikes… shooting out inside someone.”

“They’re not sharp enough to pierce skin, even inside someone. Inside another demiurgus,” he corrected. “They’re actually more like blunt barbs, so the dick can’t pull out too early. So if a demiurgus tried to”—he winced—“yank free, then yeah, that would hurt. Both of them. But especially the one who’d been penetrated. But if they just wait, it doesn’t hurt. It feels good. According to, um, all my exes anyway.”

“How do you wear condoms then?” I asked curiously. “Wouldn’t the spikes—sorry, barbs—tear it?”

“You can get condoms made for demiurgus that are thicker and tougher. Or people use diaphragms, or there are contraceptive pills or implants. Mostly the same as humans, I guess.”

“Oh, okay.” This was fascinating. I couldn’t believe the people at the cult didn’t know all this, but then, we’d been cut off from the actual world, with no access to real demiurgus, or the internet, or porn or anything that would tell us about the demiurgus as a regular group of people and not ethereal sex gods.