Two thousand, nine hundred, and fifty three days.

That was how long it had been since he and Masami had last had sex. Two thousand, nine hundred, and fifty three days. That was the equivalent of 255,139,200 seconds. 4,252,320 minutes. 70,872 hours. That was…a great amount of time. A very large amount of time. Long enough to watch every single episode of the original run of the Galaxy Express….several times over. Long enough to build a city in Minecraft, fortify it, and then grow bored of it. Long enough to have a child and watch that child grow into…well, a small child. Long enough….long enough that…well that he had forgotten somethings.

Such as just how uncomfortable condoms were.

"Pick a color, any color." Said Shiori as she sat next to him on her bed and unzipped the plastic bag she kept in her nightstand. That was…a lot of condoms…and in an assortment of colors, too. Red, blue, green, yellow, rainbow, glow in the dark, color changing…colors that he hadn't even been aware of. When he had been young they had been white, just white, there hadn't been any choice in the matter…or maybe there had been. He and Fukuda had shoplifted them back when they had been young and under the control of their parents. He was forty five, now, not fifteen and he didn't need to create a distraction while Fukuda stole whatever he could get his hands on. Now he had a…woman who wanted to have sex with him….and he apparently had a choice.

Too many choices.

Too much choice led to choice paralysis. She was holding out an entire bag of them…and that was too much. If she had handed him a bag of the plain white ones that made it feel like you were making love through a garbage bag then it would have been easier. It would have felt terrible either way…but now he had to choose how terrible it was. Last time…last time had taken too long…and his own nerves hadn't helped…but it had been the fact that he hadn't actually been able to feel her that had been the final nail in the coffin.

Thank God she was such an understanding person.

Any other woman would have told him to get out of her room. He knew that he would have if he had been in a woman. If there had been a man in his room, someone either as tall or taller than him with shoulders broad enough to just barely be able to wrap his arms around…muscles that he could feel moving in tandem with his as they rocked to a rhythm that was just hard enough…just fast enough…and…and with skin that was soft beneath his fingers…if he had been a woman and there had been a man in his room that couldn't perform to the level that he demanded he would have told that man that his services were no longer needed and that he should have stuck to masturbating on Wednesday nights to the mages of women who looked like his wife….his ex-wife….

He hated condoms because they were awful. That was the point.

"Is that really necessary?" asked Suzuki as she shook the bag in front of him. He was glad that he was long past the embarrassment of being undressed beside her. He had forgotten, it had been so long that he had forgotten, what it was like to be completely naked in front of a woman for the first time…

Or how completely amazing it was to see a woman naked for the first time.

She was…perfect. She was the most perfect woman he had ever seen in his life…even more perfect than Masami. Her breasts….breasts! That she was letting him look at…and that she would let him touch…and she would let him do so much more and…

Focus, Touichirou.

"Do you want to be inside of me?" asked Shiori. Suzuki swallowed and nodded. That was…the most sexual and erotic thing a woman had ever said to him since Masami had rolled onto her back and asked if he wanted to have sex…no. This was better. She was…she seemed….more eager? Maybe because this was all new for her…well he was new to her and she was new to him and she was so beautiful and she smelled so good and her skin was so soft…

"More than anything else." Said Suzuki with a sigh. His eyes traced up and down her body shamelessly…and it was alright to be shameless. Shiori had said so. She had said that he could be as shameless as he wanted to be, that she didn't mind, and that she welcomed it. It felt…odd…expressing so much want….

But he hadn't known this much want in his life.

"Then pick a condom, any condom." Said Shiori as she shook the bag again. Her whole body shook when she did that….and what a body. She was soft, but in a good way. Her skin was soft and her body was so pleasant to sink into…and he wanted to know, exactly, what it would feel like to feel her. To sink into her. All of her. Without a barrier between them. Masami…well neither of them had even come close to having this conversation. She hadn't said much, just pulled him into bed with her, and then nine months later Sho had been born…so it had all worked out. Sure she had gotten pregnant but it wasn't as though he had been anything less than completely and totally in love with her, prepared to spend his life with her, and it wasn't as though either of them had been sick with anything.

So, really, there was no need for…all of this.

"They really aren't necessary. Neither of us has any kind of venereal disease." Said Suzuki. There. Now she would agree with him and they could begin to have mutually pleasurable sexual intercourse as people were meant to have with the people they loved.

"Uh-huh. You said that last time." Said Shiori. She rolled her eyes, there, and he had no idea why. That was what had happened. He'd made the same argument, she'd said no, he wore a condom, she said yes, and then through a series of various…events she'd had to lend him some clothing to make it home in.

"Yes." said Suzuki simply.

"And what did I say?" asked Shiori

"You told me to pick a condom." Said Suzuki

"And what did you do?" asked Shiori

"I chose a condom. A red one." said Suzuki

"Exactly, so pick a condom already. I'm not going to stay ready forever." Said Shiori. He…had no problem getting her ready again…and now he was thinking about….he hadn't been like this since he had been young, since he had been taking his first steps into the world of sex, and he should not have been like this. He had been better about this with Masami. Women hated it when you were too eager. First of all that showed weakness, and no woman would ever have done this with a weak man, and also women in general hated it when men pestered them about sex. They had lower sex drives than men, nature's way of keeping the population to an acceptable level, and their sex drives only got lower when you pestered them. That was why it was best to wait for the woman to ask.

Even if it took over a year.

It had been over a year since the last time he and Masami had sex…before he left, of course. Aside from the other night, that first night, it had been three years since the last time he'd had sex with anyone. That was…a very long time to wait….but he was a patient man. Even now he could be a patient man. He knew what he was doing when it came to this. He had the self-control to time himself so that he wasn't anywhere near her when he finished. It had only failed him once, resulting in Sho, and he…was not opposed to having another child….

The ones he had wanted nothing to do with him so why not?

"I can time it." Said Suzuki

"You're going to pull out?" asked Shiori with a snort. He had no idea if she had been laughing at him or if she'd gotten dust in her nose. He hoped that it was the latter and not the former.

"Yes. At the moment of orgasm I'm going to remove myself from your body. Then you won't have anything to worry about." Said Suzuki

"Alright, sure, just let me ask you something. Do you know what they call men who use the pullout method?" asked Shiori

"I…am afraid I don't know the specific term." Said Suzuki

"Daddy." Said Shiori. He…needed time to think that one through. Why would someone…oh. She was implying that people who removed themselves at the point of orgasm became fathers….but that wasn't any more statistically possible then when using a condom…unless you were bad at it…which he was not.

"No, they don't." said Suzuki. He had only fathered one child that way, Sho, and that…well Sho had been what was referred to as a happy accident. That was the term that Masami had used. He had been happy, so happy, when Masami had handed him a positive pregnancy test, it hadn't even been the least bit disgusting despite what it had been covered in, he had been as happy as he had ever been in his life…that hadn't lasted. He'd been born and he'd almost killed his mother and…and he didn't know if he could stand to see Shiori in that same position…on her back being fileted like a fish….but maybe next time he wouldn't have the urge to look over the curtain…

Not that there would be a next time because he was good at timing himself.

"Yes they do…now come on. One of us is going to end up wearing a condom and it's going to be you. That is unless you want to take a raincheck while I go on that foreign family planning website." Said Shiori

"They…make female condoms? How?" asked Suzuki. He went through everything he knew about contraception…and that shouldn't have been possible. That was…it was…in? Wait…why would anyone want that? Especially women. They were so complicated in that area…but maybe it had less to do with skin to skin contact and more to do with…shape? He had never sat down and actually asked a woman about that…if he had been a woman he wouldn't have wanted to deal with a man who bothered him with that…and…just…

Sex had, at some point, become very complicated.

"God, you have off the market for a while. It's the same concept as yours only I'm the one full of latex…actually polyurethane." Said Shiori

"That…doesn't sound much better." Said Suzuki. So instead of being incased in plastic she was the one incased in plastic? That made no sense. Sex was meant to be felt. The warmth…the slickness…the feel of her nails digging into his back…well that last one had less to deal with condoms and more to deal with nudity…and they were already undressed…and he wanted them to stay that way.

"So, what then? You want to go back to watching TV? Or do you want to stop complaining and pick a condom already?" asked Shiori. She shook the bag again. She shook it kind of violently there…was she angry with him? She also might have been impatient…and…and if he had been a woman then he would have been impatient. In the times when he imagined himself as a woman…well…he always got to it. He pulled Tadashi down on top of him and told him that…well he said something along the lines of 'President Suzuki demands your company' and he would have said 'yes sir' because thinking of Tadashi saying 'yes ma'am' ruined the fantasy….a fantasy which he should not have been having….one which he was not having anymore…

He had a woman sitting naked in bed next to him. Why was he imagining himself as a woman? And why was Fukuda Tadashi of all people on his mind?

"I…would like to have penetrative sex with you…and if I have to choose a condom for that to happen then I suppose a red one would be good…but I am perfectly capable of timing it. I've only failed once in approximately-" said Suzuki

"Once is more than enough, Touichirou, I can't have a baby right now." Said Shiori

"Because you're forty?" asked Suzuki. Well that made sense. He knew that when women got to a certain age they couldn't have children anymore. That was…well it always struck him as being somewhat sad. Sort of like losing one of his many powers…but worse…since he didn't have the power to grow children inside of himself…well he could supply half the chromosomes…not that he wanted to have another child…too badly. He had three children…who hated him…or at least didn't want to be anywhere near him. Another child…another son….one to make up for the son he had…well that would have been…more than alright. He didn't want another daughter, though, he already had two…two that…well one that…

This was NOT the time to be thinking about his children, both hypothetical and real.

"No, it's because I just now bought this house and got to a place in my life where I'm comfortable. A baby…would not be good for me and I wouldn't be good for it." Said Shiori

"I think that you would make an excellent mother." Said Suzuki. He meant every single word of it. She was such an intelligent woman, such a nurturing woman, such a…such a perfect woman. She was so perfect…and he loved her. He loved her more than he had ever loved a woman before…well in a long time. He hadn't felt this way in so long…and he wanted to tell her…but she had to tell him first. If she did not love him back then….then he had no idea how he would manage to recover from that heartbreak. No, it was best to wait for her to say it first…or at least until she got pregnant with his child and did not have any reason not to say it back.

He was glad that he hadn't been born a woman. At least, for him, every sexual encounter wasn't a roll of the dice as to whether or not he made a new person.

"Well that's your freedom, to think whatever you want to think. Great country we're living in, it's very free like that…unless you plan on doing something about it when you come to power." Said Shiori

"No, I don't plan on monitoring people's thoughts. I have more important things to worry about…like you." Said Suzuki. Shiori sighed. He had no idea why she sighed. He had put her ahead of the whole world. Didn't she understand that he had just put her ahead of the whole world? Maybe she didn't notice or care…he had no idea and he couldn't ask. Now did not seem at all like the time or the place. They had already gone far enough from the topic at hand.

"Touichirou….you're great but I am not risking you getting me pregnant…so here, have a red one…and don't fight me on this again. It's not up for debate." Said Shiori. She had her hand on his arm. It felt amazing. She was so close to him…and he wanted to feel close to her…but why didn't she wanted to feel close to him? Why did she want to put a barrier between them? Because she could get pregnant? He still had no idea why the idea even bothered her. She would have been an amazing mother. He couldn't have imagined a better mother than her…well besides Shigeko….but there was no woman who could ever eclipse his daughter in his mind.

"But-" said Suzuki

"Oh My God, Touichirou, why are you even fighting me on this to begin with? I know for a fact that you finished last time we did this. We both know for a FACT that you finished…either that or my dresser decided to flip over on it's own…and I'm not living in the Beauty and the Beast Castle here." said Shiori

"It just…feels better…that's all. It's easier to feel you." Said Suzuki quietly. He was completely naked. The lights were on. She was right beside him. Somehow, though, it was that sentence that led him feeling more vulnerable than he could ever remember being in his life…well in a while. He wanted her…to be with her…and he knew her. She was understanding and forgiving, more understanding and forgiving than Masami or even Shigeko had ever been, and….and he had no reason to feel the way he did…but his emotions had never been based in logic.

And logic had never factored into his emotions.

Logic could be used to curb emotion…but there was no way to stop it. Emotions came and he had no idea why. Why did it hurt so much that she didn't want to be near him…as near to him as they could be? Why did it hurt so much that she didn't want to have his child, to be his, to be bound to him forever? Why did women keep on leaving him? What was he doing wrong? He wanted to sit Masami and Shigeko down and ask them what it was that he did wrong…but that would have been a terrible idea…and not just because he was completely naked. He would never know just what he had done…even Shiori wouldn't explain it to him.

She got closer.

"Then take a thin one. Here. It's thin, it's red, and it'll keep me from getting pregnant. It's even made of polyurethane. Alright?" asked Shiori as she scooted closer and dropped a red condom onto his thigh. He picked it up…and it seemed just as uncomfortable as the others. Just as uncomfortably tight, just as they had been his entire life. He hadn't minded so much when he'd been starting out, when he'd been too young to know what it was to be with a woman, but now he was forty five and he knew what it felt like to be as close to someone as humanly possible…

If he didn't agree with Shiori then he was never going to feel what it was to even be within ten meters of her.

"I…suppose so." Said Suzuki as he did as she asked. He didn't want to, it didn't feel good, but being away from him would have felt worse. Maybe that was why Masami had left, because he hadn't given into her as often as she wanted, well…he could learn from his mistakes. He loved Masami….and she was gone…and when she had left she had taken a piece of him with her…and he didn't want to have to lose anything else of his. Feeling heartbreak was much worse than feeling Shiori through a layer of latex…or…rather…polyurethane…

He needed to be happy with what he had…and who he had it with…or he'd have nothing and no one once again.