Living in Chloé's head was an exercise in both unconsciousness and self-consciousness.

Her upbringing as a lab mouse being so isolated from the rest of the world, it felt at times like there were things that she simply did not have access to, some shared language that Rainside spoke and she was only now learning. A movie reference, an old ad campaign, a news item from before she left the lab -- or one local to Rainside, before she moved there.

On the other hand, the lab had its own micro-culture, with its own memes, values, and taboos imposed upon her. Thus, she sat on her couch with a vague sense of unease, but not for the reasons others might be.

She'd mentioned to Glire that she was having difficulty keeping up with the maintenance of her apartment, and the bunny was quick to offer her services to help. Chloé didn't feel ashamed that cleaning the apartment was her responsibility, and yet Glire was the one doing it. She had spent so much time in a place where she had minimal upkeep on her own environment that she was used to people picking up after her, beyond some perfunctory organization.

She also didn't feel ashamed that Glire was helping her because her disabilities were, at least for the moment, getting in the way of her ability to function; it was at her request. She spent years in the presence of doctors who knew exactly what was wrong with her, because they made her that way. They were all supportive, and so was Glire. She'd never had cause to hide her limitations or try and pretend they didn't exist.

No, what made her self-conscious was that there seemed to be no consequence for her failure to follow a rule everyone else appeared to be able to follow without much trouble. That felt deeply wrong. In her world, rules were meant to be followed. If there was no consequence for failing to follow a rule, what was the point of it being a rule?

Glire stood at her sink, in the kitchen area, her ears brushing the low ceiling, unaware of this train of thought. Her hands, in mint-green rubber gloves that matched her blouse to her forearms, scrubbed Chloé's sink with a blue pad of steel wool, replacing the stains on the metal with a film of off-green foam.

For the bunny's part, her own self-consciousness -- perhaps that was the wrong word, since she was hyperaware of the entire situation, herself included -- had little to do with social conventions either. She didn't mind cleaning someone else's apartment -- in fact, she enjoyed it. She enjoyed the satisfaction of a job done well, and she enjoyed doing things for her friends and partners, and, while 'enjoyed' wasn't necessarily the correct term, she did like to provide support for people who needed it.

Her fixation was, instead, about the way this all twisted together in her mind; her smouldering crush on Chloé, and the service-submissive pleasure of cleaning her apartment, made her feel weird, like she was somehow taking advantage of Chloé's situation to get her rocks off.

She carefully rinsed the sink and arranged the cleaning products neatly next to the faucet. After a minor inspection to see if she'd missed anything, she walked over and sat next to Chloé, smoothing out her cyan skirt. Her legs stuck out in front of the low futon, resting on her heels.

"Getting there," Glire said, and Chloé nodded.

There was a pause, both of them sitting with their discomfort a moment.

"Uhm, Chloé... you're not... regretting this, are you?" Glire finally asked, delicately.

Chloé shook her head. "No."

"Okay. I ask because... well... you're quiet, and I'm not sure if you feel like I'm... I don't know, intruding."

"On what is your presence intruding?"

Glire gestured vaguely to the apartment.

"Just... all this mess. Like you feel like it's your responsibility and my doing it for you is wrong, somehow."

"No."

"But you... forgive me, you /do/ feel embarrassed about this, somehow?"

"That is not known."

Glire blinked.

"There is a diagnosis of alexithymia," Chloé added after a moment.

"What's alexithymia?"

"An inability to identify emotions."

"Oh. ...I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Extensive medical and mental health courses were taught among other subjects in the lab. It is not an error in judgment to have been ignorant of alexithymia."

"No, I mean... well, okay." Glire glanced around the apartment; whereas the front half of the apartment, mostly taken up by the galley kitchen, had predominantly food-based messes to clean up, the back half, mostly taken up by the bed, had predominantly clothing. It was more surface area than stacks of mess, so it would take not much time to make a large impact, and so Glire got up and began sorting clothing into lights and darks, nearby an empty laundry basket. 

Escaping the suddenly awkward conversation was a side benefit.

"I feel warm."

Glire looked over at Chloé while picking up yet another too-large, primary-coloured shirt.

"I feel warm and my stomach hurts and I feel like I either cannot speak or cannot stop speaking. My palms are clammy and I feel dizzy. My heart rate is slightly elevated."

"It sounds like you feel... well, how I feel."

"Oh. ...How do you feel then?"

"Embarrassed, mostly." The whites went into the basket first, then the darks. "Not-- not because of this. Or rather, not /directly/ because of this." Glire thought about talking about her own thoughts; she decided it would be better just to be there for Chloé's. "I really don't mind cleaning for you, Chloé, I... I know sometimes you just need a little help to catch up."

Chloé nodded. "Others seem to be perpetual motion machines. It is not known how. Tea has been drank and diet has been calibrated and yoga has been attempted even though its mechanics are not yet understood and yet the laws of thermodynamics still seem to apply. Inertia is experienced. The ground state is always nearby."

Glire paused and reflected on this for a moment. "...I'll be right back." She ducked out to put on the laundry.

Chloé got up and went to the kitchen. There, she did the following, precisely, because her brain needed precision:

Took a bowl out of the cupboard. Took eggs out of the fridge. Took one fork out of the drawer. Took a non-stick skillet out of the cupboard. Put the skillet on the stove. Turned on the stove. Took butter out of the fridge. Took a butterknife out of the drawer. Cut a pad off the stick of butter and put it in the pan. Put the butter away. Washed the knife, dried it, and put it away. Got a saucer out of the cupboard. Cracked one egg into the bowl. Opened the garbage can and tossed out the eggshells. Washed the dish and her hands, dried them, and put the plate away. Put the eggs away. Glanced at Glire, who had returned from putting in the laundry. Beat the egg with the fork. Took the salt and black pepper from the table, added it to the egg, put them back on the table. Took a plate out of the cupboard. Swirled the now-melted, nearly browning butter in the pan. Added the egg to the pan. Swirled the rapidly cooking egg in the pan until it congealed into a single mass. Picked up the plate, transferred the omelet to the plate. Put the pan in the sink and ran the water. Turned off the stove. Washed the pan and put it to the side. Washed the bowl and put it to the side. Washed the fork and dried it, and put it with the omelet. Dried the bowl and the pan and put them away. Took her sprig of parsley out of the fridge. Tore off a few leaves. Tore them by hand and sprinkled them over the omelet. Put the parsley back in the fridge. Went and sat down next to Glire.

If she had felt worse, she might not have been able to break her task into all of these steps and perform them in the correct order. Perhaps she wouldn't have washed the bowl and the fork, left the eggshells on the counter, or 'soaked' the skillet, despite the fact that really, only a little oily residue remained and it would come out in seconds. In that event, she would have sat down next to Glire and ate, and then Glire would have come by and helped her clean up.

It would have been a patient job, but using the word 'patiently' to describe Glire's actions would imply that it was done grudgingly, or with a sense of duty. It would have been neither; it simply would have been an extension of the act of love and support already in progress.

Chloé looked at the omelet on her lap with a sigh. "Good job," Glire said from beside her, and Chloé looked down.

"No," Chloé replied.

"...No?"

"No." Chloé took a forkful of omelet and ate it. "It is what should have been done."

Glire paused for a moment, during which time Chloé had two more forkfuls. "That's true, but, I also know that's sometimes difficult. ...I'm sorry, I don't want to sound condescending."

"It was not condescending. It was..." Chloé looked at her apartment, not spotless, but well within the range of 'tidy'. "...undeserved. The apartment is supposed to be clean. If it is not then a rule of living in society is being broken. It is incorrect for there to be no consequences for breaking a rule."

"I think it's okay that I helped. The apartment /is/ clean, now. That's the important part. And if it gets messy again, then I can come by and help again."

"That feels like cheating. Your own apartment is clean. It is not necessary to keep mine clean too."

"No, it isn't. But I offered. Nobody's forcing me to do this. Your apartment being clean is more important than a totally equal distribution of labour."

Chloé looked at Glire, or at least, in her general direction, and then finished her omelet in silence, then got up and washed the plate.

"I had a thought," Glire said when Chloé sat back down next to her. "What if I just... assigned an arbitrary 'consequence'? Would that help ease your mind?"

"Yes."

Glire bit her lip a moment. "Well, then..." She straightened. "As consequence... and as thanks... just... give me a kiss." Glire, being Glire, immediately lost her nerve after saying this. "You don't have to if you don't want to, and you can just, y'know, kiss me on the cheek if you prefer. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. And I know we haven't kissed very much before but I just thought it would be a fun thing to cap off--" Chloé pulled her in and kissed her.

Glire froze, and Chloé took the initiative, gently turning to wrap her arms around Glire's neck. After a moment for Glire to catch up, she encircled Chloé's waist and shifted closer, and Chloé shifted closer, and slowly but surely, they found equilibrium where they were as close as they wanted to be. All the while Chloé's lips never left Glire's, kissing and kissing, shyly but insistently, just as Glire was. Glire's hands pet down Chloé's back. Chloé's held Glire close.

The washing machine beeped, and Chloé finally broke away, eyes downcast to avoid eye contact, taking a deep breath and just barely licking her lips.

"--Oh, goodness," Glire said, finally becoming fully aware of where they ended up -- lying side-by-side on the futon. "I didn't-- that is-- we weren't kissing for that long, were we?"

Chloé rolled over and reached for her tablet. "It was in the vicinity of twenty minutes."

"--Wow." Glire pushed herself up and slipped out from behind Chloé. "I'll, um, I'll be right back."

She left to change over the laundry.

Chloé got up and went to the kitchen again. Took a tumbler from the cupboard. Took out a small, translucent plastic bottle with a deeply purple fluid in it. Poured it into the tumbler. Took out a slotted spoon from the back of her cutlery drawer. Took a chalky tablet from a small plastic container of them. Arranged the slotted spoon on the tumbler. Arranged the tablet on the slotted spoon. Picked up the tumbler, carefully, keeping it level. Turned. Waited.

Glire returned a minute or two later. "Oh, that looks interesting," she said. "What is it?"

"'Le fée bleue'. Clarified blueberry juice with an effervescent tablet infused with lavender and star anise essential oils. The tablet will carbonate the juice when it is dropped in. It is intended to resemble absinthe in its preparation but none of the ingredients are flammable so the tablet is not on fire. It is for you."

"O-- oh! Oh, goodness! Thank you!" Glire gingerly took the tumbler in her hands. "...do I need to do anything specific?"

"It is intended for the tablet to be tipped into the tumbler by rotating the slotted spoon."

Glire did so, and the solid tablet clinked into the tumbler, erupting into indigo bubbles. The apartment began to smell like spice and sugar and something inky as the bubbles popped.

"Should I drink it now?"

"It is best enjoyed when the tablet is fully dissolved," Chloé said. "It would be optimal to wait a few more moments."

"Okay." 

Chloé moved to the table and sat, her back against the wall; Glire followed, sitting and facing her. The bunny's hands wrapped around the tumbler, feeling the subtle vibration of thousands of tiny pops against the glass. "I, um... I didn't expect you to kiss me that much." She said, looking down at her drink.

"It was only one kiss."

"I-- it was twenty minutes."

"Yes. Care was taken to avoid breaking it."

"...Okay. In that case, I didn't expect you to kiss me that /long/."

"Oh. Was that another rule? Another consequence can be assigned if so."

"I--" Glire broke into a grin. "Chloé, do you feel like you need an excuse to kiss me?"

"Yes."

"For heaven's sake, why?"

"Because the tension of our relationship is preserved."

Glire stopped, and Chloé glanced in her direction.

"We have known each other for over a year but direct interactions have not been had for most of that time. Meetings are not arranged except with Cayen for the most part. SMS messages are not exchanged. We are metamours. We are not lovers." She gets up and takes the one step to the counter across from her, picks up the bottle that had the juice, and begins washing it, raising her voice over the hissing of the water. "But a relationship is not followed by an attraction; an attraction is followed by a relationship. Our desire for each other is altered via the lack of involvement between us. That desire is concentrated and intensified as a result. It is... unique. it is neither assigned sexual contact nor freely chosen love. It cannot continue to be the same if its components are substituted. Therefore, excuses are required to maintain the tension that allows that concentration to occur."

Glire sat in silence to digest this as Chloé finished washing the bottle, and put it away, and sat down. "Your soda is going flat," Chloé said.

"What? Oh," she said, and finally took a sip. "--Oh, wow, this is delicious."

"Thank you."

"Anyway, Chloé, I... I had no idea."

"It was believed that you also enjoyed the tension. It is... indeterminate whether you do now."

Glire thought about it, sipping at her soda in the meantime.

"I do like it," she said, after a few more moments. "I... I admit, I hadn't thought that a relationship that intentionally preserves sexual tension between people was... even possible to set up. ...It's fun, though, I have to admit. It's like a game."

"Yes." Chloé said.

Glire took one more sip of her soda, draining it. "...You know, um... while we're talking about this... I've been kind of, um, having some feelings over cleaning your apartment."

"That was known."

"Oh. ...It was that obvious, was it."

"Your service submission is a well-established part of your personality. The offer for help was originally extended by Cayen. It was requested that you be asked instead."

"...But /I/ offered. You told me you were struggling to clean your apartment and I told you I was available to help."

"That is how the request was phrased."

"I-- wait. Are you telling me that you told me your apartment was a mess because you knew I'd offer?"

"Yes."

"Why... not just ask me?"

"Because the tension of our relationship was preserved."

Glire chuckled at that. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh at that, it's just... that kind of strict parameter-following is... very you. And... I appreciate you being so careful to preserve the tension of our relationship."

"Thank you."

"Though, here's a question. Do you think the tension of our relationship is lessened by the fact that I know all this?"

"It is not known."

"Humour me. Make a guess."

"I do not believe that there will be a net decrease in tension due to our both being aware that a game is being played. In fact the ways in which that tension is increased may very well outweigh the ways in which that tension is decreased."

"Right, I think so too. So how about we agree that we can discuss the game freely from here on out? Not while we're playing, of course, but, before and after. And then perhaps we can... find ways to optimize."

"Okay." Chloé licked her lips. "Would you like to make that rule retroactive?"

Glire smiled, got up, and moved to the futon.

"Yes."

Chloé picked up the glass from the table, washed it, dried it, put it away, and then moved to the futon to accept the consequences.

---

"Are you sure you don't want me to finish up? It's just the one load left in the dryer."

"Yes. I would like to do the rest." Chloé got up from the futon. "I would like to start following the rules again."

"Okay. I guess that's it for me, then." She walked over to the door and picked up her purse, and Chloé followed. "Thanks for letting me come help you out, Chloé."

"Thank you for helping and for so thoroughly enforcing the rules."

Glire grinned. "You're welcome. There's still dinner at Cayen's on Saturday, right?"

"Yes. I look forward to seeing you there."

"Me too." Glire turned, and unlocked and opened the door. "Take care, Chloé--" she began, looking over her shoulder -- but stopped, as Chloé had, in that moment, come by to hug Glire around the middle.

"Good job," the mouse said, before letting go.

Glire felt herself blush, filling up with pleasure and pride. "...Thank you, Chloé." She  ducked her head as she exited. "'I'll see you later! Bye!"

"You are welcome. Goodbye."

Chloé closed the door, turned, and leaned up against it, closing her eyes and pursing her lips -- she could feel the stiffness in her nipples, the wetness between her legs, the butterflies in her stomach, and it took an act of will just to move from the door to the futon and collapse down on it before her hand slid into her sweatpants.