Chapter 148

It was unfortunate that she, of all people, had to initiate a genuine conversation. Of her talents, heart-to-heart discussions were most definitely not a specialty. Ana knew she thought, acted, and perceived things differently than most people—and so, naturally, social matters had always been a weak point. In fact, she suspected Natalie’s awkwardness and uncomfortableness stemmed, at least in part, from Ana herself.

Though, maybe uncomfortable was too strong of a word. Natalie didn’t seem to dislike her, or feel ill at ease around her. Ana didn’t think Natalie wanted to exit the challenge but couldn’t work up the nerve—it wasn’t that extreme. But their unfamiliarity, and her aloof and analytical behavior, certainly didn’t mesh with Natalie’s passionate and direct nature.

That had been part of the reason Ana had taken up a dominating personality, earlier. It had been an intuitive response to Natalie’s reactions, an attempt to give the woman some stability. Maybe if Ana acted confident, then Natalie would find comfort in that—Ana could be her anchor.

And it had worked, so she kept on with it. She considered herself practical above all else. She could be a leader, or a follower, or whoever else was needed for any given situation, so long as it worked toward her current goal. Hence, she had been fine with taking a dominant role over Natalie—with the intent Natalie drew strength from her.

Then things had escalated. Ana wouldn’t have guessed that demeaning Natalie, man-handling her, and dirty-talking would be what the girl needed to ‘be more comfortable’ with the bizarre challenge of sucking her own cock, but it seemed to have done the job.

At least in the moment. Long term, it might have backfired. Ana’s total lack of embarrassment might be making Natalie’s even more prominent—her confidence siphoning Natalie’s, rather than giving the other girl something to draw on.

But Ana wasn’t sure. She didn’t trust her theories on other people’s behavior—she was far from a people person. And there was another more obvious reason for Natalie’s embarrassment: the intrinsically mortifying nature of the event. It was more than plausible that Natalie was embarrassed simply because she had sucked her own cock. Ana personally didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but Natalie’s opinion obviously differed.

Again, Ana mused on how poorly fit she was to handle this situation. She could, at least, tell that her blank expression was making it harder for Natalie. Ana wasn’t completely clueless as to what other people were thinking ... only more than most. She even liked to play up that cluelessness for comical effect, because it gave her an excuse when she really did fail to notice something obvious. When she’d been younger, people had told her she looked confused a lot—which had oftentimes been true. She didn’t understand why most people acted like they did. Only through scrutiny over the years had she even begun to understand. And since it was better to be aloof and analytical than confused, especially in political circles, Ana kept careful control of her reactions.

But she wondered whether showing some embarrassment, here, would be good for Natalie. Then again, her confidence had encouraged Natalie to complete the last challenge—and Natalie had seemed to quite like it, even. Plus, Ana’s irreverence for the lewdness of the event might be one of the reasons Natalie wanted to keep pushing forward.

In short, Ana had no idea. This whole event was a mess, and she was terrible at reading people, so she didn’t know how to continue. That said, in her opinion, they should press forward. This encounter was worth seeing through to any length—possibly even extreme ones. Their career already included slaughtering monsters, wading around in filth, and risking their lives, so while it was weird to suddenly have sexual encounters mixed into that, it didn’t faze Ana much. She didn’t really understand the big deal. People had always put way more importance on smashing their genitals together than Ana thought it deserved.

But, she acknowledged that her opinion—or even she in general—wasn’t ‘the normal one’. And she cared about what other people thought, especially her teammates. So she didn’t want to state those opinions outright to Natalie, who was clearly hesitant about how far she wanted to pursue their bizarre circumstances. It might influence her to go farther than she would otherwise, and Ana didn’t want that to happen. She would help Natalie work through any hesitance, but she had no intention of forcing her past any hard boundaries.

The swapped bodies made things even messier. Even Ana’s own emotions had gotten a bit twisted up, seeing Natalie wear her own face to suck her newly-acquired cock dry. Ana had never expected to know what her own mouth and tongue would feel like against her cock, and she also hadn’t expected to like it so much. Seeing how she knew she was rather indifferent on many sexual matters that others found mortifying, that even she felt a few confusing emotions swirling around indicated that a normal person—like Natalie—would be a complete mess.