For the next hour, Alex pushed Susan to go through three different five-minute circuits two times each. After two repetitions of the first set, her body was moving around floppily as her arms flailed aimlessly. That was when Alex took a full hands-on approach and held Susan through the following circuits, keeping her in place, continuing to fix her posture, and generally making sure that she continued moving and didn't stop. Despite the downright intimate and physical contact, she didn't have any problems with it and was instead comfortably leaning into his arms every time he grabbed her.
By the end of the hour, the woman had no strength left and was splayed across the floor with sweat covering her entire body. She was taking deep, uneven breaths that made her chest rise and fall prominently.
"Come on, get up, you need some light stretching so that you don't get cramps."
"I don't care, you do it. Grope me all you want," she said between huffs. "I think I'm about to die…"
"All right, sit up, we'll do hamstrings first." Alex grabbed one of her arms and made her sit up before forcing her to lean forward with her arms extended above her head. "Legs, keep them straight. Or I'll have to shackle them to the floor."
"Har har," she mocked a laugh before groaning suddenly as Alex pushed her forward. Popping sounds came from her spine as she tried to curl up her legs, only for black strings to emerge from the ground as they wrapped around her ankles and held them in place as her hamstrings were stretched. He repeated it for each leg five times before making her lie on her side. He held her ankle and pulled her foot back toward her hips. "Hold your ankle while I stretch you."
"Ugh…" She groaned as her body was twisted like a bowstring before Alex turned her to her other side and did the same with her other leg.
Ten minutes later, they were done as Alex put Susan's practically boneless body in the reclining couch and had her comfortably half-sitting. She had a lost expression on her face as she looked out the window, seemingly in deep thought.
"So, Sue…I saw something that I thought I should ask you about," Alex said.
"Hm?" She turned to look at him.
"I just checked the reports that I've gotten…"
"Oh no," she mumbled weakly.
"There are irregular spikes in your heart rate that don't match up with any of the physical exertion that I put you through," he said. "Like today morning, between six and six thirty. A longer one last night between eleven and midnight. One in the middle of the day, even between one to one-thirty, when I was out getting us lunch. Susan…" Alex said with emphasis as she put her hands on her face with embarrassment. "…Are you secretly doing even more training to surprise me?"
"…" She had no words and looked at him flatly.
"I'm kidding. I know what you're doing. Your brainwave patterns show dopamine and serotonin spiking right alongside your heart rate," he said. "Feeling lonely every night? And day…and noon apparently."
"Since you know what's going on, then why are you mentioning it and making things awkward?" She said through her teeth without looking into his eyes.
"Well…I was just curious who you were thinking about when you did it," he said. "I've been pretty hands-on with your training, bordering on downright inappropriate for someone who's just a trainer. And going by the perky tips on your sports bra, you seem to enjoy my inappropriate touching well enough. It just made me curious."
"Why are we having this conversation?" She asked before completely turning away from him and hiding her chest from his eyes.
"Curiosity," he said. "It's not like you have any hardcore pornography to watch here—which you can totally ask me to get you—I won't judge. You have to be thinking of someone."
"I am not having this conversation, Apex," she said before standing up and walking to the bathroom. "I'm going to go take a shower."
Alex chuckled and suppressed his urge to tease her about it further.
Once she came out of the shower, she was back to being barefoot with only the breezy hospital gown on. As the two of them got to eating breakfast, she paused in the middle and looked up at him.
Alex raised his brow and looked at her while still chewing his food.
"What?" He asked after swallowing. "Is something wrong?"
"There is…" Susan said with a thoughtful expression on her face. "I'm not sure if I should talk about it, though."
"That's your decision," he said. "I can only tell you that this is a safe space, and no matter what you tell me, nobody in the universe can strong-arm me into snitching on you."
"Encouraging," she said dryly. "It's about the issue we were just talking about."
"About how you have a very major urge to touch yourself all the time?" Alex asked.
"I'm being serious," she said with a frown. "I like sex as much as any woman, but this isn't normal. I just have these urges all the damn time… even now, in the back of my mind, there's a faint image of my hand between my legs as you watch me mockingly. I have these kinds of images in my mind all the damn time. I don't think it's normal…"
"So your hormones are all messed up," he said. "Such a thing is understandable after waking up from a coma that lasted two months. I'm sure being cooped up in a single room also contributes to that issue. Plus, there's the whole superpowers thing going on with you. Your whole body is constantly interacting with the ambient cosmic energy when you aren't using your powers. An abnormal increase in your libido is not too far-fetched."
"I think it's because I'm cooped up in this room… It's been like a whole week since I've breathed any fresh air. At least I get enough sun through this window."
"Do you want to get out of here?" Alex asked her.
"Just for a little bit," she said. "Maybe an hour or two. Is that possible? You said you can move anything between your bodies, right? You could simply teleport me to a place without any people around."
"It's not too difficult an ask. I guess I could pull something together. Give me some time to think about it," he said. "Though I'm curious. You didn't consider that I could be doing something to your food?"
"I won't lie, that was the first thought that came to my mind," she said. "But it's just really unlikely. I mean, why wouldn't you make it a stronger dose and take advantage of me in one go? And you're a multi-planetary dictator. I'm kind of wary of directly accusing you of drugging me. What if you get offended and decide to really start drugging me? No legal means in the world will protect me in that case."
"Yeah, you're exactly the kind of person who would gladly bow down to an authority figure and violate your principles," Alex said dryly. "Tell me what you really want to say."
"You really want to hear? Fine," she shrugged. "Considering the most far-fetched scenario, I'll assume that you've been planning to go after me for a while. You send my ex, whom I still have complicated feelings toward, and my current boyfriend, as far away as possible. Then you isolate me from any human contact under the guise of some radiation that I'm supposedly releasing, which is questionable at best. And finally, you drug me so that I'm horny all the time and eventually jump your bones. To scheme to such a deep level to ensure that I accept that bond or whatever is only something that someone unprecedentedly insecure would do. Only someone who has practically no self-confidence would go to such lengths to achieve the same result as a few dinner and movie dates. But, of course, those are all meaningless and far-fetched theories. Right?"
Alex was left frozen in place by the time Susan stopped speaking.
"Right, Apex?" Susan asked as she stopped eating completely and crossed her arms. "We have chemistry, I think you've seen and felt that first-hand. You aren't the kind of insecure person who would do things like that, right? With the power and authority you hold, there shouldn't be any reason for you to be this insecure about courting a woman."
Alex sighed and dropped the fork on the plate before leaning back. "What gave it away?" He asked her.
"The absurdity of it all," she said. "If my powers were releasing deathly radiation all over my surroundings, things would be very different. I wake up in what is practically another reality, and the people I know are all unimaginably far away…well, except for Johnny, but he barely has the time to call, which I need to be in your presence to do. The small things add up, Alex. The first few days were understandable, but I just kept feeling horny all the damn time. No matter how many orgasms I brought myself to, it was never enough. And when I asked you to get me out of here, you just agreed, without much thought. One has to start to get suspicious of things at some point."
Alex sighed again and ran his hands through his hair. "I won't gaslight you and disagree. You are right. I'm insecure, possessive, controlling, and quite a lot more. I have this compulsive need to be watching over my hosts twenty-four seven…even though that's more of a bond thing than a surveillance thing. I do that whole princess treatment and mix it with addictingly great sex to slowly get them dependent on me so that eventually I am the only important thing in their lives."
"Why are you getting up?" Susan asked him as he stood up, fixing his clothes.
"That's why you confronted me, right?" Alex asked. "To get this whole farce over with? It's done. I'm not going to force you to be with me. You're free to walk out the door with me. No electric shock will stop you this time."
"Just like that? You gave up just like that?" Susan asked as she stood up and walked in front of him. "Sit back down."
"Okay," he said with a raised brow, and sat back down as he looked up at her.
"I confronted you about it all because I want the farce to end, yes. But only the farce part of it," she said with a nod. "Not the rest of it. We can still train together, eat meals together, and more. You see…" She smiled and plopped herself down on his lap before wrapping an arm around his neck and bringing her face close to his. "… Your scheming doesn't change the fact that I have had an amazing time with you. You listen, you pamper, and if your words are anything to go by, you can show a woman a mind-blowing time. Plus, I have this little issue with me. I see something broken and can't help but want to fix it. And you, mister insecure, possessive, controlling, and quite a lot more, seem like you are all sorts of broken."
"Trying to fix me might leave you an entirely different person than you are today," Alex wrapped his arm around her back and held her waist.
"That's what happens over time. People change. I'm not the same person I was five years ago. And I won't be the same person I am in five years. What I want to make sure is that you change for the better in the next five or ten or whatever years."
"I'm not going to stop conquering planets. That's going to involve a lot of killing and downright genocidal actions," he said. "Consider this your disclaimer. Since we're being open and all."
"And we'll tackle that when the time comes," she said with a smile. "For now, I'll need you to get me an apartment of my own. I'm pretty sure that after two months, I've been evicted."
"I have a great place in mind," Alex said.
***
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