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Mental Blocks

Yes, Commodore: Volume 4, Chapter 5

For TeryxC by DolphinSanity

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Teryx awoke the next morning to find Harry deeply asleep: belly down, hugging a pillow, and lightly nomming on it, as if it were a piece of pounced prey. He seemed quite peaceful.

That slug-manipulated brain needed its rest, and it seemed to be taking it. Good.

Teryx idly noticed the degree to which he was objectifying Harry even now, seeing him as a meatsack host-body -- an asset with rateable parameters. Even if this asset was biological, it was not too different from looking at a fine house or a car. One which happened to be scuffed because of some… internal flaws.

Even then, the flaws could be what made it interesting -- not to mention their tendency to allow passage deeper inside.

Teryx smiled at the thought. Then he took a breath… slowly exhaled, with some of that Commodore-esque intensity seeming to fade along with it. He felt more grounded, more “him.” Even if he was still totally helping a bunch of mind-melding slugs go as far as they could in their quest to reproduce and expand their influence.

Letting Harry sleep for now, Teryx thumbed through his phone. He found a new text message, apparently from Garthas:

[i]hey, thanks for exchanging contacts with me last night.[/i]

[i]its pretty lonely working here as like, the only dragon[/i]

[i](except for the captain but that guy doesn’t count, lol)[/i]

[i]anyway, i’m not usually the social type but you kinda made an impression[/i]

[i]if you want we could meet up again soon[/i]

[i]not sure why i feel so motivated to talk right now but[/i]

[i]you were pretty fun, i like our chemistry[/i]

Teryx smirked. “Not sure why, huh?” he murmured as he stretched his way out of the bed and slinked off to the washroom. [i]He[/i] was pretty sure why. He messaged back:

[i]Could meet later. When are you off work?[/i]

Teryx set the phone aside to wait for a reply. They absolutely had not exchanged contact info; Sir must have managed to take that information with him on the way out.

The reply did not come immediately, and Teryx ended up showering while he waited. He was in the process of toweling himself dry and practicing a few bicep curls in the mirror when Harry rose from the bed and marched off like a glassy-eyed zombie to do the same.

In his current state, Teryx could actually remember that this wasn’t the first time Harry had treated him this way. It had become a frequent and strangely unquestioned feature of their relationship during the last few months under their assigned “loving boyfriends” narrative.

It perplexed Teryx that Sir hadn’t been subtle at all with that aspect of Harry’s programming: [i]IF overhearing boyfriend doing something that could lead to sex; THEN prepare to rise and do likewise[/i]. No need to act like a person, no need to wake up properly -- just go as an obedient drone, an orange-and-black flesh-puppet; that fine, muscled body, strings of sinew all hooked up to the marionette-movers of the slug’s cilia…

Except there wasn’t a slug in there right now. Instead, Teryx felt a bit like [i]he himself[/i] wanted to crawl inside Harry’s ear and possess the man for himself, which was a not-unpleasant urge, even if impossible to play out.

Well, the lack of subtlety about Harry’s programmed status was kinkily pleasing for Teryx, so there was that. Still, he doubted Sir had thought so far ahead as to do this purely to further [i]Teryx’s[/i] milking schedule.

The dragon took a moment to ogle the shape of his own tight ass and the sway of his tapering tail, while Harry turned the water on and went through the motions. Lather up, turn around, lather more. For a time, Teryx mostly ignored that.

Instead, Teryx zeroed in on ogling himself more, his gaze getting stuck to the mirror as if by a force like magnetism of gravity. Such a handsome dragon form he had… if he wasn’t [i]already[/i] in it, he’d definitely want to crawl inside this one… [i]heheh[/i]. The way his pecs bulged and strained as he moved an arm or shoulder… he was looking [i]especially[/i] fit lately, wasn’t he? When had he done all this extra training? He knew he had his usual gym schedule, but…

[b]Flash. [/b][i]It will be optimized.[/i]

That was the only memory. Commodore’s voice, talking to him -- in a moment he didn’t otherwise consciously recall. A time when he and the slug had been self-admiring in a similar fashion, Commodore getting fed by Teryx’s growing tendency to get off on their united adoration of himself. The “It” in the comment was his body -- the person of Teryx, its physicality, its hormone levels and everything about it. Commodore had at some point pledged to make it stronger, fitter, the [i]perfect[/i] host, using every biochemical trick available to their kind.

There was recursive pleasure to the thought, sufficient to draw an audible huff from the dragon as he stood there -- turned his head, raked fingers through his mane, and inevitably went for the comb to make sure it was [i]just so[/i].

He heard the tiger washing off -- still robotic, still blank. Meanwhile, Teryx was animated -- a little manic if anything. His mind raced with considerations… that Sir, why did his treatment of Harry end up so different than Commodore’s treatment of Teryx?

He tried to think about it as Commodore might.

It had to be [i]something[/i] about Harry’s specific personality and neurology. Maybe treating him this way caused his conflicted tiger-brain to generate more of the slugs’ nourishment than it would otherwise? That did seem to be the ultimate determiner for why they treated hosts a certain way, and it tracked with the dragon’s experiences thus far… though, maybe there was more to it than that. Milking was the goal, but it wasn’t the only thing the slugs ever did inside their hosts.

Still… what did optimizing milking mean for Harry?

In Teryx, [i]maximal[/i] arousal and pleasure were fueled by power play and the switching between states of control… the way Commodore had gone about “breaking” and “milking” him played right into how his sexuality worked anyway.

Harry was… not as flexible of a switch. Harry either wanted to dom hard (in line with his ungenuine macho persona) or wanted to be beaten down and made to submit for someone rougher and tougher (closer to his real self, albeit likely for depressing reasons). The gradient in between aroused Harry less. Indeed, Harry eroticized competition for its own sake, whether by winning or being beaten.

No wonder Sir was the one constantly pushing the envelope in the slugs’ drive to compete. Between the inspiration he got from Teryx’s less-used aspects and the masochistic urges inherent in Harry for the longer term, it was the perfect circumstance for producing a slug who would value trying to prove he was superior. That was all without even touching the implicit “father versus son” issues between Commodore and Sir -- which, even if the slugs didn’t suffer from such conflicts natively, they were presumably picking up on the tendency by following the cultural patterns in their hosts’ brains. Intergenerational conflict was a very common thing down here.

Being a bud-cloned symbiotic species that depended on the host for most of its higher mental functions was complicated.

Symbiotic? Parasitic.

…Eh, it was symbiotic as far as Teryx was concerned. A bitter pang of wistfulness filled him as he lamented the fact that Commodore wasn’t cozily linked up with his brain right now. The quasi-alien persona was fading a bit, leaving him feeling much more the part of the empty host.

Harry returned from the shower, sat down blankly, and checked his phone while wrapped up in a towel, to catch what remained of the substantial dampness on his fur. He seemed to stare through the phone screen, scrolling through some summary news page or other.

Then the tiger’s face warped in sorrow. His jaw hung, before tucking up, a growl emerging as she shivered and looked on the verge of weeping.

He dropped the phone -- turned around, and shoved his head against the upholstery of the little lounge chair, sobbing as he held onto the frame of the thing.

Well, [i]that[/i] wasn’t the sound of a happy kitty. Nor of one whose programming was working as it should.

The alien persona properly resurged, for the moment filling that void left by Commodore’s absence. Teryx needed to manage this situation carefully. He became focused, with any distractions soon culled from his mental stack.

Teryx stepped over to Harry, dropping his own towel casually -- in this case not for sexiness, so much as the kindly openness implied by a naked body with nothing to hide. He crouched and snagged the phone from the floor, taking a peek at whatever it was that had set Harry off.

It was an anthropological news blurb, to do with a remote tribe of felids in a rainforest. There was a captioned photo of several of them standing near what looked like a bubbling up-pouring of crude oil, the black mass of fluid being… protected by them, perhaps?

A quick skim confirmed it was an investigative journalism piece. It described foreign corporate impacts on lands inhabited by indigenous peoples. The photo was one of several in a sequence showcasing aggressive clear-cutting, a rampant fire, and fouled waters, often with people from the area looking on or reacting.

Teryx paused. It came to him intuitively that this was happening because of Sir’s internal roleplaying in Harry’s mindscape, but he couldn’t consciously recall the particulars. Instead it was like he was reading nonverbal shorthand notes left behind by Commodore after some sort of slug-to-slug conversation. Something about the oil, the imagery… he needed to divert Harry away from thinking about it.

Well, maybe that was enough to start with.

“Not exactly a smile-bringer, but it’s not worth this kind of upset,” Teryx admonished him while settling into a squat with his tail curled behind. When Harry continued sobbing as if not hearing him, Teryx started thinking of something else to try.

Before he could come up with something, Harry and looked mortified as he beheld Teryx.

The man was mortified, and [i]lucid[/i].

“I remember the dreams,” Harry whispered. “That thing… the tribal ‘scenarios.’”

This was a traumatized but “unflavored” Harry talking. Teryx tried not to look like he was ready to pounce on his fellow host if necessary. A little slip like this might be good for relieving some psychological pressure, but it [i]mustn’t[/i] go too far. Harry’s “core” mindset remembering everything was not helpful to the masters’ plans.

The tiger looked at Teryx. Hard, stern -- then, terrified, head shaking slowly. “[i]You[/i] brought it in. What the [i]hell[/i], man? I thought I could trust you, at least THIS much.”

Whether by his own convictions, Commodore’s programming, or both, Teryx felt nothing in response. He looked back with idle, unashamed curiosity. “Remembering it for the first time always stings. Especially when it’s not really the first time.” He smiled.

Harry shivered, his rising anger seeming somehow cowed by that statement. “What do you…? Surely you can’t have [i]meant[/i] to… not [i]originally[/i], right? They’re [i]parasites[/i], and I hope, I mean I [i]really[/i] hope--”

“Kitty, it’ll be okay,” Teryx said, in the same tone he would use to soothe someone in day-to-day emotional distress. As if this was all normal.

“Kitty” was, of course, a keyword for Harry -- that truth remained well-accessible to Teryx’s mind right now. It was the magic word to turn him back into a compliant bitch in a matter of moments -- and hopefully he’d had enough rest now that it would [i]work[/i] again.

Sure enough, in spite of Harry’s best efforts to hold onto himself, the trigger was doing its job. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, twitching as the subtly different alter-ego of his subservient self came out. The beat kitty.

“I love you, Kitty,” Teryx whispered to him, hugging him tightly around the waist, dragon snout pressing sidelong against tense abs. He felt the muscles’ tension fade, replaced by a soft dependence.

It sucked to shut down what had definitely been “the core of Harry” talking. That was a person Teryx had long wished to get to know in more detail, given that his first meetings with him had been with a musclehead who never quite had enough substance under the surface. The real Harry, as dredged up by Sir, was a soul tortured within his own tomb of repression and angst. No slug required for that -- though, perhaps if they put their slimy minds to it, the slugs could ultimately help with it somehow. If it suited their purposes, anyway.

In any case, there would be a time for exploring that later; on this cruise ship with so many strangers was [i]not[/i] the place. Control must be maintained, always. The only “loss of control” to be allowed would be the [i]illusion[/i] of it being lost.

Teryx had meant what he said, though. He could remember, too. The slugs had put both them through situations like this, repeatedly -- wiping their memories each time. Seeing how much breaking Harry could take. Seeing how much Teryx could be trusted to manage Harry, as well as himself. It was like becoming meta-aware of a larger game and network that extended far beyond himself, beyond even the story formed by what he now laughingly called “his own memories.”

It had turned out Teryx was dependably on the aliens’ side, for better and for… [i]better[/i]. He was their first host and proud to be so. In a bizarre way, they might even be called his family, even if they might not like being termed such.

With Harry settling down as the programming took over, Teryx rose from the squat to embrace him torso-to-torso. The tiger’s shaky hands wrapped around him and hugged back. The squeeze was tighter than usual, as if his screaming subconscious was holding on tightly to Teryx for any support that might lurk within those blue scales. After several long seconds of this, the grip weakened, with that deepest bit of Harry succumbing to slumber as the resistance broke down.

What awoke in those tiger eyes was the subby, almost bratty persona that Sir had sculpted for him -- a compromise between the sexual and emotional needs of the real Harry, with none of the tigerish [i]bite[/i] that might make him too difficult to handle. A Harry that comfortably existed to be used and abused, and would get off on any attention given to him.

Teryx knew it well. A lot of nights of what he usually recalled as “ordinary boyfriend sex” … were not ordinary in the slightest. They would consist of roleplays with Harry in one of his personas, with the slugs controlling the scene even when Harry’s role happened to be that of the dom -- something which had gotten more and more difficult to arrange without issues as Harry’s inner psychological workings crumbled more over time.

Teryx stroked under the tiger’s neck, getting him to rumble as he felt through that damp fur. Harry nibbled back, licking up along the edge of Teryx’s mane.

“Am I ever gonna be okay again?” Kitty Harry asked, almost mewling at him.

“I’ll keep working to get you what you need,” Teryx whispered to him earnestly. “This much fragmentation wasn’t supposed to happen to you. Even they aren’t sure why it did. I know that for sure right now.”

Harry seemed not to process some of what he said. Perhaps that was a good sign for how well the programming was interfering with his lucidity, but maybe a bad sign for his overall health.

When they broke off the hug, Teryx continued the conversation as if none of the prior bits had even happened: “So, tell me what Mr. Sir said that got you [i]so[/i] upset.”

Harry seemed to freeze for a moment, before remembering (in a cloudy manner) that he was [i]quite distraught[/i] and needed help. However, he seemed to lose his grip on the bigger picture -- brain-linked aliens infesting their world, Teryx being their patient zero and the one personally responsible for getting Harry infested -- and instead zeroed in myopically on his personal relationship with Sir, as if the alien were a regular anthro-person, or maybe a nondescript paranormal entity.

“I remembered that sometimes, he feeds on me using these overly…” Kitty-Harry made a few nervously open-palmed gestures, as if searching for an ideal word and not finding it. “These really [i]lewd[/i] nightmares,” he squeaked. “Scenes with these hunter-gatherer… warriors. They call me weak and pin me down. They fuck me in the ass, over and over… burn me with torches, the smell of it… [i]fuck[/i], even thinking about it now makes me want it. That’s pretty screwed up, right?”

Harry was now blaming his own pyrophilia instead of Teryx. Well, that was an improvement, Teryx supposed.

…Wait.

That definitely [i]wasn’t[/i] all that was going on.

Memories unpacked for the dragon automatically -- memories he hadn’t realized were in there. It was a record, woven into his brain, detailing more about [i]how[/i] Sir had been breaking Harry’s mind in the dreamstate.

The “tribe” Harry mentioned was a fictitious culture. Many of their traits borrowed from real-world uncontacted anthros that Harry had read about -- not unlike the ones in that article -- but the horny embellishments came from other sources: firstly, warriors and barbarians from various fantasy settings for tabletop RPGs… [i]and[/i] a clan of oversexed characters from an adult text-adventure game that Harry liked to jack off to years ago, back in university.

Harry had never mentioned this, yet Teryx could almost feel the “spot” in his neurology where the memories of those days “should” be. It was a pleasure trigger in the tiger’s brain -- a strong path, worn deep from many sessions of pawing his way to lazy, sleepy satisfaction, often while procrastinating from some school project. Teryx felt as if he should be able to reach out and touch it, activate it and all of its associated neural subcircuits -- [i]force[/i] it to explore itself for him….

Except, Teryx couldn’t. He [i]could not[/i], with a simple thought and a slight adjustment of his cilia, send Harry spiraling into the erotic limbo of an old memory.

The fact Teryx couldn’t truly “feel” and “touch” the shape of Harry’s brain-map right now felt nearly disorienting. It was about as weird as it would feel to suddenly be missing his entire mane, or his sense of touch for that matter.

A momentary alarm of panic sounded in his own brain -- and then both the panic and the dysphoric craving to get intimate with Harry’s nerves faded away.

The tiger, meanwhile, seemed to completely misread whatever Teryx’s body language at that moment had said.

“Yeah, exactly,” said Harry. “Even you think it’s fucked.”

Being put on the spot like this socially didn’t bother Teryx in the slightest. Not in his usual style of “just be a high-charisma dragon and play it off” way, either.

No, he felt like he had a clinical solution to this problem.

Teryx… looked at Harry’s self-disgusted pose. More memories unpacked. He recalled the smell of coffee and a cozy breakfast with eggs and pancakes at a diner. He was remembering… Commodore Teryx talking to Sir Harry about this very issue. Quietly, in person, with Sir gloating about his progress.

A stiff smile had crossed the rain dragon’s face as his alien considered the hazards inherent in how far Sir was going. [i]Is his method optimal? In the short term it produces [/i][b][i]more[/i][/b][i], but will it one day render the host unable to provide?[/i] -- such questions [i]endlessly[/i] plagued the slugs’ psyches, despite the seeming ease with which they executed upon their answers: feed from the host, spread, and [i]control[/i].

This time, Teryx’s face didn’t show that he had realized anything. He kept his eyes on Harry and responded to the tiger’s doubts.

“I think it’s best that you get fucked as deeply and as pleasingly as possible.” He smirked. “As [i]often[/i] as possible.”

Harry tightened his posture, looking decidedly uncertain. Teryx scooted in, further turning on the charm as he touched Harry’s pecs and caressed his way around.

“There’s no shame in you dreaming about whatever gets you going the most,” the dragon continued. “He knows fire is a thing for you. It’s important so you can ‘provide.’”

That didn’t comfort Kitty Harry much. He nodded anxiously, standing up from the chair, stepping away from the touch, and taking a meandering path back to their bed. “Still, I… I don’t know, man.” He shook his head in dismay, still sort of distancing himself as the dragon followed. “After all of that, he sometimes… he [i]threatens[/i] me, while I’m awake. While he’s ‘running’ me, you know. I can’t resist, but he says what he’ll do, and he makes me play with myself even while he’s saying it. The… he’ll make the [i]end[/i], you know? If I don’t cooperate.”

Teryx’s head developed a slight quizzical tilt. Half the language there sounded hot, and half of it sounded confusingly implicative of murdering the host. There was a point beyond which host-directed violence became logically at odds with what the slugs craved, and Teryx understood from experience that their logic always won out in the end, even if it made missteps along the way. So [i]unless[/i] Sir had lost the plot, this ought to be some sort of misunderstanding on Harry’s part. Then again, Sir [i]was[/i] being pretty extreme in how he was using his host, so it was on Teryx to investigate further.

“Tell me what he says,” Teryx said -- calm and cool, like that ice bath from last night.

Harry reacted with growing anguish. The tiger stammered and started, once again seeking for the right words but struggling to find them. Then he hunkered forward and rubbed at his temples, tail curling stiffly behind him as he quivered in place. Shaking his head, and once again going wild with anxiety, the tiger murmured, “Stop, stop… STOP, [i]stop, stop…![/i]” Like a scared person pleading for their life.

For all Teryx knew, Harry might be seeing something deeply unsettling in his imagination, though the dragon wasn’t sure what that might be.

“Stay with me,” Teryx told him, trying to draw him back out of the presumed painful images.

“[i]Stop![/i]” bawled Harry. “He said he’ll [i]stop[/i] if I don’t obey!! He’ll end it!! He’ll go out and LEAVE!!”

Teryx paused and stared blankly. The tiger collapsed onto the bed, got his teeth around a pillow, and sobbed. Save for that, the room fell quiet. Teryx’s lower jaw dropped a smidge.

“He’ll… he says he’ll stop [i]torturing[/i] you like that,” Teryx said, seeking clarity.

Harry rolled, letting the pillow go. “YES!! He said he’ll leave and [i]never[/i] do it again, and I--”

Teryx caught a reflexive laugh in his maw and swallowed it back down. “He [i]definitely[/i] isn’t leaving you forever, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

In all honesty, Teryx suspected that [i]wasn’t[/i] the only thing. Harry was probably truly terrified of Sir’s methods of mindfucking him, but was also hopelessly turned on by them, and was being funneled by elaborate neurological programming to follow the brainpaths that led to [i]horny[/i]. When he was screaming “Stop!” -- that had sounded like he wanted [i]something[/i] to stop, but whatever it was had been diverted from coming out.

Teryx had a sense of things from his incomplete memories -- laying out the structure of the erotic nightmare scenarios. If Harry ever thought too seriously about how his free will had been sucked away, his brain would automatically prime itself to stumble into a slug-engineered spiral of dependence and sexual hunger. It wasn’t just the slugs having an imperative to get the host off: Harry’s brain had been conditioned to [i]value itself based on that performance[/i]. If he wasn’t serving as a neurologically nutritional [i]milk cow[/i] for the aliens, he might as well have no purpose in life at all.

Thus, despite everything, Harry would cum repeatedly, just like a confused breeding stud being drained of his prized seed in a barn.

So, truly, this fear of abandonment was now a most serious one for the tiger -- in his broken, mentally worn-down way.

“I mean what if… what if he never--” Harry sat up and stammered. “What if someone [i]finds[/i] him, or if something happens -- h, hell, what if this [i]ship[/i] wrecks, a-and he’s not in my head, and I can never--”

The spiral was underway. Harry was going into a mental tailspin, imagining all the ways he might lose his slug forever and how horrible that would be. To some degree, Teryx found this painfully relatable -- he’d had his share of moments longing for Commodore too, and could even remember most of them in this mindset right now… but, perhaps it was time that Harry let some of this out and worked through it.

Maybe this was something Teryx could help with -- something that the slugs weren’t as good at, because that imperative to control reigned over their psychology too extremely. Not to mention their bias toward playing to their host’s existing kinks, strengths, and weaknesses…

But an anthro who wasn’t literally, [i]physically[/i] a slug -- even if his brain now contained a strong imprint of their perspective -- could work around that. Right?

“It made me think,” continued Harry, voice shaky, “[i]What if[/i], right? What if he’s suddenly gone. What if he never again calls me what I hear him call me in my dreams, you know? What if he just leaves me as your Kitty? What if I never again hear him call me [i]Huhnfft[/i].”

The tiger stopped speaking abruptly, the last word of his sentence -- a different name -- seemingly censored. He [i]could not[/i] vocalize it for himself. He panted strangely; his eyes got big, and his maw waggled upon its hinge a few times, like some sort of talking puppet on the fritz. He mouthed something -- breathy, a word on his lips that he still couldn’t say, or even fully [i]think[/i] on his own, because his programming wouldn’t let him.

Teryx, still in his more Commodore-flavored mindset, surmised that the desired name wasn’t Harry, either.

The name the tiger was trying to say must be “Hunter,” the name most associated with his dreamstate role-playing. Addressing Harry as [i]that[/i] would trigger a persona that was vigilant and competent, yet [i]still[/i] ready to be socially abused. The lowly, least-loved hunter of the tribe, abused by his superiors in all sorts of kinky ways.

Teryx considered this. Perhaps he would speak the name that Harry longed to hear… but, if he was going to say it, he should make sure he was using it from a posture of dominance and authority. After all, if “Hunter” was the omega of his tribe, then the alien slug must surely be represented by a buff and domineering chieftain. Teryx, in the absence of either of them currently being infested, would of course take the role meant for the slug, as befit his position as Host Zero.

The dragon took a deep breath, tightening the edges of his maw and narrowing his brows. Then, he literally and metaphorically put his foot down: stepping up onto the bed and leaning forward with an elbow upon his elevated knee. His clawed toes pressed into the fur of the tiger’s thigh. He could feel the muscles, once again tight from stress, underneath.

A sense of imperiousness came over the dragon as he thought about Harry. This absolute [i]caveman[/i] of a database admin, mewling like a kitten for want of his slug. It was… [i]unbecoming[/i], at the very least.

Yes, it was most fortunate that Teryx had access to the right headspace for helping with this.

“Listen, [i]Hunter[/i],” commanded the dragon.

Teryx’s physical display had already pumped the brakes on Harry’s racing emotions, but the use of the name brought them to a halt. Harry’s eyes dilated as his attention focused on Teryx with all the intensity that the aliens’ programming could produce, as if briefly searching his posture and voice for any further commands about how his personality should change.

That was all, though. Just Hunter. For now.

“Sir hasn’t given up on you,” Teryx continued. “He isn’t going to expel you from his tribe, [i]Hunter.[/i] You must understand this.”

The tiger’s jitters and distressed body motions stopped. He became unusually still -- enough that he could easily have seemed like he was prowling to stalk prey, if only he wasn’t in such a submissive social position.

Slowly and deliberately, “Hunter” nodded. Calmer, but with some apprehension lingering in his voice, he not-quite-asked, “Not even after he makes more of him, then? He’ll still [i]keep[/i] doing this with us, right?”

“Not even then,” Teryx said in reassurance. “He [i]will[/i] come back, and you will always have a role for him. He’ll keep punishing you for your every small incompetence -- until you scream and cum for him, just like always. You are [i]good[/i] for him.”

Somehow, the word “good” here seemed to create a different expectation, tipping the needle of Harry’s mind back in the other direction. “Good… kitty…?” he queried.

Perhaps because “kitty” had also been recently invoked, Harry’s brain still wasn’t sure which direction it was supposed to go. With a real slug inside, it would be easy enough to control those tracks -- block one neurological gate, open the other -- but Harry was currently flying with no extraterrestrial pilot. He only had the triggers and his brain’s habituated spasms to go on.

The responsible thing to do here would be to keep focusing on “Hunter,” but…

No, [i]screw[/i] that. Playing further with his neurological switchboard was [i]far[/i] more appealing in the mood in which Teryx currently found himself.

“A [i]naughty kitty[/i], but good,” said Teryx with a wink.

Harry slumped back on the bed, his penis suddenly starting to plump up. “Nggh… I’m a naughty kitty, I have to be put in my place…” Then he pulled his thighs up and looked around as if searching for something on a nightstand. “Huh… where’s the… oh, my toy isn’t here…”

Now this was just adorable. Impressive, too -- Harry’s erection was developing nicely in response to that, coming straight off the heels of what had been a most distressing moment. The fuzzy white fluff on those balls was looking sleek as they tugged up and exposed the bulge of his taint. As for the “toy,” Teryx surmised it was the large tiger-style dildo that Harry had been keeping close to his bed at all times in his flat for the last several months -- another little combo piece in how Sir would bring that feeling of being penetrated by the chief home to the real world.

Teryx smiled as he watched Harry’s “kitty” mindset reassert itself into the context left behind from calling him “hunter.” Perhaps playing with his trigger words like this wasn’t what Commodore would have done… or, perhaps it was. Certainly, the urge was strong… and, usually, they didn’t let him [i]keep[/i] urges that went too much against their plans. Maybe coloring outside of the lines was all part of the plan. The thought stroked his alien-inspired ego.

Teryx grinned, showing teeth and just the tip of his tongue. The tiger looked so… [i]tasty[/i], right now. So [i]milkable[/i]. If only he had his small body to crawl in there with right now… but, alas…

Commodore Teryx and “boyfriend Teryx.” Kitty Harry and Hunter Harry. Perhaps holding these pairs of personas in tension this morning could be… [i]fun[/i]. Oh, and why not drag regular old “boyfriend Harry” in for it too. But later -- a bit later. For now, he liked [i]this[/i] pair…

“[i]Hunter[/i],” Teryx told him, “you don’t [i]need[/i] your toy because you shouldn’t be playing with yourself alone. I’m your chieftain now.”

The transition seemed quicker this time, with no visible fanfare. “Hunter” gasped and said in a hushed tone, “Oh… oh no! I was out of position on the hunt, wasn’t I? I screwed up again!”

Teryx didn’t know what narrative story-beat Harry was referencing from the dreams, but it didn’t really matter. “[i]That’s right[/i],” the dragon agreed with a hungry grin. “Now you’re [i]mine[/i] to set straight.”

The tiger’s erection raged. “Yessir, please tell me my place!”

Teryx leaned in closer and teased him: “Begging for it, I see. Maybe you like it too much, Hunter, and I should [i]deny[/i] you.”

“N-no! I obey our customs faithfully, even though I originally came from outside! For every failure, I must be used in front of the central fireplace, for anyone who walks by to see, and even to kick the hot ashes onto me…”

Oh, something about [i]that[/i] was putting Teryx even further into the mood. If only he truly had a slug’s capacity to alter his draconic neurology at will, Teryx would have preferred to toast the tiger’s ass with the thick, rolling ridges of his dragoncock -- [i]right[/i] then and there. It would be so easy to slam down into a mating press, hold those thighs high and bring a sudden change to the weather forecast for Harry’s behind. Embracing this role as slug-chieftain and dominating him completely, soothing Harry’s current dissonance and getting off as a reward for it -- all while feeding the alien within.

There was just one problem: [i]Teryx still couldn’t get hard[/i]… and damned if he was going to use a toy on the cat when he felt [i]this much[/i] in the mood to top him [i]directly[/i]. Commodore’s “trap” programming had intercepted Teryx’s ability to get a boner, but it had done nothing whatsoever to lessen the chronic buildup of horniness that the slug had been entraining into him ever since they first united -- and Teryx was jonesing for some sort of resolution.

A note of clinical calm hit Teryx again -- weaker this time, but still clarifying his thoughts and mood, letting reason reign. There were ways to sort this out. First and foremost, Harry needed his surrogate Sir, and Teryx needed to provide that. [i]Then[/i] they could work through the more dragon-bodied issues. A key point was that “being the chief” didn’t [i]have[/i] to involve sex right away.

“You really are troublesome,” said Teryx, in-character as Harry’s presumed chieftain, “but I will delay your punishment until later.”

“Oh.” Harry seemed almost crestfallen at the idea of the punishment happening later and not [i]now[/i]. (In a sense, Teryx also found [i]this[/i] relatable.)

“There is another member of our community that I must inform of your failure,” Teryx said, vaguely alluding to the other slugs and hosts without committing to which one he meant. “Since you have failed so many times, it may be necessary to [i]advance[/i] your punishments to something more… exotic.”

Harry’s penis twitched, and a long thread of pre drooled from the tip onto his belly fur. “Understood, Sir… I will be on my best behavior.”

“Good. Now sit up and get dressed, and [i]act natural[/i]… for now.”

Teryx hoped that would reset things. For the most part, it worked: Harry’s fears seemed to evaporate, along with his apparent memory of what they had been talking about -- filed away into a different mental zone.

Then, something glitched.

Harry sat up and blinked a few times, seeming to get his bearings afresh. He looked at Teryx and spoke, tone now more serious as he rubbed idly at his hard cock. “Well, well, good morning from my morning wood… you sure we had enough sex last night, lover? I don’t think I [i]should[/i] be this rowdy first thing in the morning.”

He sounded playful, which was fine, but… the narrative context [i]wasn’t[/i]. It was like Harry had spontaneously forgotten all of it, including the semi-somnambulant shower. Telling him to act natural wasn’t supposed to do [i]that[/i], was it?

[i]Well, play it cool,[/i] thought Teryx.

So the rain dragon smiled and answered, “Nowhere near enough, dear, but don’t worry about that for now.”

Harry rubbed his dick twice more, feeling it flinch proudly in his grip each time, before he let go of it and stared at it. “Saving it for later, then.”

Harry then glanced at the bathroom, as if briefly [i]confused[/i] about whether or not he had showered already or if he had [i]just[/i] woken up. He looked back at Teryx and gawked for a moment, seeming like he was about to ask about the discrepancy.

Teryx ignored his reaction and responded directly to what he had said. “Yes, we’ll have our fun a little later. I might even be able to get us into a room on the ship where you can be the naughty [i]kitty[/i] that I know you secretly are.” He reached out and grabbed the tiger’s dick as the word [i]kitty[/i] arrived.

Harry’s shaft twinged again, the spasm of his pelvic floor hitting him hard enough that he shut his eyes and winced. A longer thread of pre seeped down onto the sheets, and he started lathering it over himself with one hand. “Naughty kitty…” he echoed back, voice soft and compliant.

“That’s right, a very [i]naughty kitty[/i], who must be hard and feel lots of pleasure -- but not cum [b]yet[/b].”

Teryx probably [i]shouldn’t[/i] keep pushing the buttons for his different modes so much like this, but it was getting him off in a way that his currently blocked arousal could not. It was just so… [i]pleasant[/i]… to make the man shift mindsets like this.

Was this the slugs’ [i]actual[/i] version of pleasure? This role-euphoria at controlling the states of someone’s brain? It felt like he was [i]made[/i] for this… which was interesting, because Teryx was pretty sure that he -- the dragon -- was [i]not[/i] made for this.

Harry, meanwhile, kept stroking quickly at himself -- wincing again as his erection throbbed and spasmed from his edge-skirting stimulation. “Mmm, but a naughty hunter doesn’t get to cum until he is punished…”

“Indeed,” cooed Teryx, winking -- watching him throb-throb helplessly again.

Interesting. Harry had successfully said the word “hunter,” and was once again drifting back into that mix of Kitty and Hunter without even being prompted on the latter. Perhaps referencing any other state than “act natural” had let the previously established blend of personas resurface. Could he push this even further? “Just think of it, [i]Hunter[/i]. In front of the village fireplace, you must be punished. They’ll be able to smell the toasted tips of your fur in the next village over.”

A strong feline rumbling filled Harry’s chest as his pleasure grew, his eyes lidding as he stroked himself faster: “[b]Rrrrgh[/b], yeees…!”

Harry reached what was definitely a dry orgasm, his big cock making several ejaculation-like spasms but producing only a bit more pre, while his inner plumbing held back his actual load. He moaned softly, letting go of his shaft and letting it dangle onto the bed. When the frenulum touched the covers, he would gasp from the spike of pleasure that it caused and flex his PC muscles, causing the whole organ to swing upward toward his navel. Then it would relax again -- touch again -- and up again it would go.

On the next start of relaxation, Teryx interposed a soft fingertip and poked the sensitive spot, causing Harry to growl, moan, and flail backward toward the head of the bed.

“[b][i]Grrrr,[/i][/b][i] need… [/i][b][i]punish[/i][/b][i]…[/i]” Harry mumbled before settling into his afterglow without touching himself further.

Poor blue-balled kitty. They could go explore the ship and be blue-balled together, until Teryx sussed out a way to let himself plough that rear.

Teryx slipped a travel-size lube-tube into his cargo shorts, just in case. Then he had Harry get up and get dressed. When that proved pathetically difficult and slow in “Kitty” mode, Teryx referred to him as “Hunter” instead in hopes of returning him to some semblance of competence. What he got was a version of Harry who grabbed his clothes and hid low behind the bed while hurriedly putting them on -- readily donning underwear but then seeming to forget the importance of anything beyond that. However, with a little verbal prompting, Teryx was able to get him to put on the rest of his clothes and keep them that way, even if there was the occasional tug at the neckline of the shirt to suggest that it felt “wrong” in this persona’s way of perceiving things.

Once the man was presentable, Teryx gave him another readily understood order: “Come, Hunter, let’s go get some air.”

“Yes Sir,” said Hunter Harry -- now following and sticking quite close, as if for the sake of both guidance and safety-in-numbers.

Teryx formed a small, fanged smile as he headed out of the door. Some part of him knew this was deeply abnormal, yet it could not have felt more “right” at the time.

As long as he held the metaphorical leash, all was right with the world.