Nikodemus burst through the mess hall doors. All the women in the room turned their gazes toward him, unable to wrench it away for a moment because seeing a man was still so alien to them. When he spotted Ellia, he saw the woman roll her eyes; she most likely knew what his intentions were. Nikodemus glided over to her table and sat down.

Ellia sipped some of her beverage—it looked like tea, but Nikodemus wasn’t sure—and then she greeted him with a heavy sigh, “Hello, Nikodemus. Is there something you want?”

“Why yes. There is something I want. Or rather, someone. And that someone is you!” Nikodemus exclaimed with a wink.

Eliia regarded him with an incredulous expression. “Mmhm. Sorry Nikodemus, we already slept together. You won’t be making your way back into my bed for a long time.”

Nikodemus nodded reluctantly. “Well, I doubt you’ll be able to resist me for long, but whatever you say. Anyway, I’m just here because I’d like to have a nice, adult conversation with you.”

Ellia crossed her legs at the ankles. “Oh really? Well, you’re at the adult’s table. What would you like to talk about?”

“Well. First, I’d like to sarcastically thank you for the awful night I had last night. You know, I really love trying to please three women in—” Nikodemus began, but Ellia quickly interrupted him. “For pity’s sake, I’m trying to eat here! I thought you were going to say something pleasant! Besides, you know that this is what it’s going to take to preserve the human race—you should be used to it by now. I’d think a man would enjoy three women so willing to… please him.”

Nikodemus gave her a wry smile. “Oh? So all men are the same, then? Even when there’s only one left? I am ashamed to admit that, at first…” Nikodemus swallowed, thoroughly embarrassed when he managed to choke out, “I confess that I enjoyed it immensely at first. To have so many women so willing to please me was… electrifying. But after the first few times… it made me feel filthy. Engaging in such hideous delights over so many years has only made me more unhappy.”

Ellia rolled her eyes and sarcastically said. “Uh-huh. Sure. This horrible punishment of having all these women all to yourself is so awful.”

Nikodemus couldn’t stand her attitude—couldn’t stand the fact that maybe, just maybe, sex meant a little bit more to him than carnal delight. He resisted slamming his fists against the table and instead hissed out his response to her cruel words. “The first few times, like I said, it was nothing but pleasure. I enjoyed being able to touch two beautiful women wherever I wanted to. I enjoyed the sounds they made, I enjoyed that I could make them make those sounds. I enjoyed the exchange of saliva and the glistening of sweat and the unshackled pleasure… but after the first few times… it became traumatizing to me. Something inside of me felt rotten and ugly when I engaged in such behavior. I could feel my intestines twisting into knots, I could feel my hands shaking, I could hear thoughts repeating over and over again in my head about what I had done.”

Nikodemus paused in his words—paused because he had become too overwrought to continue for a moment. He swallowed, his eyes becoming glassy, and then he said with a wavering voice, “Lech, cretin, incubus, coward, sinner, demon…” he spat the last word bitterly, shutting his eyes in hurt. He took a deep breath and then said, “and suddenly, all of it made me feel dirty. The dirt had crept under my skin and stuck to my soul. The sweat made me feel feverishly sick, the smell made me feel nauseated to my core, the moans and groans in my ears curdled my blood, and I no longer felt any pleasure to the point that I had to be in these… these horrible sex rooms for far longer than I would have in the past, because I was no longer excited by them at all.”

Suddenly, he had Ellia’s attention. Suddenly, she wore a look of compassion on her normally hardy face. She had stopped eating and drinking; all she could focus on were his words.

Nikodemus looked blankly forward, looking past Ellia as if he were experiencing the memories as he spoke of them. “Things only got worse when I realized that participating in these hideous orgies was only making me lose more and more of my self-esteem. I would beg the leaders of other tribes to release me from these orgies on my knees, but they still forced me into a room with at least two women and locked the door. Being forced to do it only made me feel more like a whore, so I eventually gave up on protesting… some of the women were particularly aggressive. Some liked biting, others liked scratching, and I simply… wasn’t prepared for any of it. I’m sure you saw some of the scars when we were together. Never cried about it—never been too much of a crier—but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t leave a mark on me.”

Ellia’s mouth moved, but no words came to her mouth. She was feeling incredibly guilty, herself, about what she had made him do, and felt like she had no right to intrude upon this traumatic story. She had seen scars on his skin, but didn’t ask about them.

“I didn’t think that engaging in such behavior could hurt me so profoundly. I thought… it’s just flesh and bone. The only thing it could possibly give me is immeasurable pleasure, because that’s all we humans are—flesh and bone. But I was wrong. The filthiness of it wormed its way under my skin and into my very soul, and made of me a creature that was nothing more than bodily delight—something missing a soul. And there was no worse feeling than trying to feel a warmth inside my chest that used to be blazing there and finding nothing but a cold, dank heartbeat.” Nikodemus explained bitterly.