6.5. Masturbation!

Creeeak.

The house was silent when I came home after working overtime.

I dumped my coat and shoes carelessly by the entrance and collapsed onto the living room sofa. Lugging heavy equipment around a contaminated accident site all day had left my shoulders and lower back feeling like they were about to snap.

…But the real torment was something else entirely.

An unpleasant heat had been smoldering deep in my lower abdomen for hours now.

The memory of Lee Sirin's hands on my body, pressing down on my chest during the day, still clung slickly to the inside of my skin.

It was a heat I'd never known back when I was a man — something only a woman's body could feel — and no amount of cold water could wash it away.

"Hhh… hah… I'm losing my mind. Seriously."

I rubbed my thighs together on the sofa, but the heat didn't cool — it only grew damper, hotter.

I couldn't hold out any longer.

My hand slipped down, fingers traveling over the thin fabric of my sleep pants. The moment my fingertips brushed the small, sensitive nub of flesh protruding slightly through the cloth, my back arched off the sofa like something in spasm.

I didn't push my fingers inside.

Just rubbing that one small piece of flesh on the surface sent waves of stimulation crashing through me, enough to paralyze my whole body.

Pressing down on the sensitive spot with the tips of my index and middle fingers, I drew slow circles around it.

A slick, obscene squelch. The thin panties inside my pants were already soaked through, so every movement of my fingers made a lewd, sticky sound.

I covered my mouth with my palm and exhaled hot breath, the insides of my thighs trembling as fluid leaked out of me.

Grinding the sensitive place beneath my knuckles, rubbing my whole palm firmly against my sex, I chased the pleasure relentlessly.

Tears slid down from eyes bleary with it.

Even with my eyes closed, Sirin's face and those blue, star-pupiled eyes floated right in front of me.

"Ah— ahn… ngh… haa, ahn…!"

Legs spread wide, hips lifting off the sofa, I flicked my fingers rapidly over that surface of flesh again and again.

As climax closed in, my lower abdomen convulsed like it was being torn apart.

The wet sounds grew louder, and at last my back bent all the way back as I spilled out a wretched flood of fluid. I came.

The moment my body melted limp and I slumped boneless across the sofa—

a voice sounded in my head. Sirin's voice.

—Take a picture.

—Show him what you look like right now.

In my dazed haze, my hand picked up the phone from the table on its own. The screen's glow lit up my face and my lower half.

Thighs spread wide on the sofa, wet sleep pants shoved down to my knees — that was me. It was so obscene that, without thinking, I pulled my knees demurely together.

The screen captured it anyway: the sensitive place slick and glistening with fluid, lips hanging slack and open with pleasure, eyes brimming with tears.

Click.

The camera shutter.

I opened the messaging app and sent the photo to Sirin.

My fingers were shaking. What did I just do? Am I insane? Am I actually insane?!

With my breath catching in my throat from the shame, I frantically hammered the screen and deleted the entire conversation — messages, photo, everything.

My heart was pounding out of control. My face burned with humiliation.

At the same moment, in a darkened room deep inside the Facility's residential quarters.

The screen of Lee Sirin's phone lit up where she lay sprawled across her bed.

A single photograph, arriving with a notification chime.

On the screen: Seolrin sprawled on a sofa with her clothes in disarray, face glazed with pleasure as she stared blankly down at the camera, her lower half soaked and glistening.

Sirin's star-shaped pupils glittered in the darkness. Her grin split her face wide, stretching nearly to her ears.

"Heeheet… Team Leader, so you do know how to send me something like this all on your own… God, you're just too pretty."

Without a moment's hesitation, she downloaded the photo and buried it deep in a hidden folder.

"To think this latest modification's effect would be this strong. Getting a little rusty, are we? Where's the fun in it if you crack too easily?"

Fufu.

She smiled a wicked, unladylike smile.

Back at Seolrin's house.

Seolrin didn't have the strength to lift so much as a finger. She wiped herself down haphazardly with wet wipes, then collapsed across the sofa like a puppet with cut strings.

Exhaustion and aftershocks crashed over her all at once, and she blacked out on the spot.

.

.

.

And then, the next morning.

Morning sunlight pouring through the window stung my eyes, and my eyelids fluttered.

"…Ugh."

Every inch of me ached like I'd been beaten with a stick. The insides of my thighs were raw and tender; my mouth was bone dry.

As I pushed myself up from the sofa and caught sight of my own state, I froze solid.

My sleep pants were half pulled down, and on the coffee table sat my smartphone, alongside the dried residue of yesterday's clumsy cleanup with wet wipes.

"…Eh?"

Locked in place on the sofa, I stared dumbly back and forth between my own thighs and the table for a long, long while.

Across the pale skin revealed where my sleep pants had slipped down, faint red marks and the dried traces of fluid — presumably from whatever I'd done yesterday — stood out starkly.

"Ah… what…."

My memory was hazy.

I touched myself last night?

The inside of my thighs throbbed like a fresh bruise, and my lower abdomen still smoldered with a dull, lingering heat.

It was as if my body remembered the pleasure I'd chased with my own hands last ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠night and was now throwing a tantrum, demanding more.

I hauled myself up off the sofa.

The first order of business was cleaning the living room. I scraped up every discarded wet wipe from yesterday, then sprayed disinfecting alcohol over the damp traces on the sofa and scrubbed like a woman possessed.

As the sharp sting of alcohol filled the living room, the smell of sweat finally began to fade.

Watching myself scurry around covering up the evidence like a criminal erasing a crime scene — wiping my own bodily fluids off the furniture with my own two hands — was pathetic enough to bring ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tears to my eyes.

Once the sofa was dealt with, I headed straight for the bathroom.

The woman in the mirror did not look like a person.

What a wreck.

My eyes were red and puffy, and my lower lip, chewed raw last night, had split in a small cut that left a smear of dried blood.

I turned on the shower and poured warm water over the crown of my head, then lathered up soap and scrubbed my whole body raw.

The crease of flesh beneath my breasts. Around my navel. And that sensitive little nub — the one my fingers had, presumably, ruthlessly ravaged last night.

Every time my fingers made contact, my legs clamped shut on their own.

"Get it together… come on…."

Gurgle. I filled my mouth with shower water, gargled several times, and spat.

Blotting the water pooling under my breasts with a towel, I glared at the woman in the mirror.

Whew.

Four whole years, and these heavy lumps of flesh hanging off my chest were still as foreign and as resented as ever.

Out of the bathroom, towel-drying my hair, I walked to the closet.

Same as always: thick jeans and a constricting bra.

The bra's straps dug into my shoulders under the weight, but there was nothing to be done — these heavy things had to be pinned down somehow.

I pulled out a fresh knit sweater, pulled it on, and layered my white coat over it.

Stuffing my goggles, a mask, and gloves into my pockets, I gave myself a quiet pep talk.

Let's be professional about this. What am I supposed to do if using an Object once leaves me with memory gaps and mental instability? Pull it together.

Hoo. Hah.

Deep breaths.

"Time for work."

I locked the front door behind me as I left.

.

.

.

The moment I reached the Facility entrance, the automatic doors slid open and that familiar antiseptic smell and mechanical hum washed over me.

I badged through the gate — and my feet stopped dead.

In the corridor leading to the Research Team 1 Control Room.

Golden hair glowing in the overhead lights, short black skirt, leaning against the wall — Lee Sirin came into view.

Twinkle, twinkle.

She was holding a can of coffee in one hand, gazing at me with those big, round eyes.

Twinkle, twinkle.

The instant our eyes met, the star pattern in her blue irises folded into a crescent, achingly pretty.

"Team Leader! Good morning!"

"Uh… yeah. Morning."

"There were a lot of new documents that came in! I sorted through them roughly and left them on your desk!"

"…Yeah."

Suddenly she felt competent, which was unsettling.

And her skin's looking oddly fresh today, too….

The moment I arrived at the Facility, a towering stack of approval documents was waiting for me on the control room desk.

Pretending not to notice Sirin's suspicious, feline gaze, I opened the approval form sitting on top of the pile.

It was an urgent experiment request regarding a new entity admitted yesterday.

…Ninety-nine percent, huh.

Fine print at the bottom noted that Research Team 2 had submitted a proposal, so I flipped straight to the next page.

"Force-trigger the 1% probability to observe the side effects"? What in the….

Sirin, sipping her coffee beside me, quietly leaned her head over my shoulder.

Her star-shaped pupils sparkled with mischievous delight the moment they landed on the words "clone test subjects" written on the form.

"Ooh wow… a hundred of them?"

"Gives me a headache too. I have no idea what's going on in Team 2's heads these days. That new tentacle recruit last time was from Team 2 as well, remember?"

"Yep."

"Ha…."

Pressing a hand to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my throbbing forehead, I stamped a firm red DENIED onto the approval form.