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Sandra

I spent a sleepless night holding the sylveon, fast asleep in my arms. The little rascal. Always dozing off after sex. He was damn heavy to carry after a while.

Early that morning, when the sun rose, I walked back home to take a rest. It was a long trudge through winding jungle trails and later confusing streets and dead ends, so by the time I got home the house was empty. Amis had left for school, and my husband had gone to work.

Finally responding when I put him down on the couch, the sylveon woke up inside my living room.

"Mmmm…?" He stared curiously.

I walked up to him. "No, no, no, dear, everything's fine."

"Mmmm…!" He stared at his belly.

"Oh…you must be hungry. I'll go get you something."

Suddenly, his eyes fully opened, and he realized exactly where he was—not the brothel. "MMM! MMM!" He panicked. He turned to me.

"Don't worry, I'll be back, I'm just going to the bathroom to freshen up first."

"MMM…! MMMM!" His ribbons waved around frantically, his eyes dancing around in the unfamiliar environment.

I went up to him. He stopped screaming. "It's okay, it's okay, what's wrong?"

His fur was covered with a fresh layer of nervous sweat, his big blue eyes glued to the ceiling. It was the ceiling fan, spinning around and around. I watched his eyes as he tried to trace his path. He covered his belly defensively with his ribbons, staring up at the suspicious object.

"Relax…relax. It's okay. It's not going to fall. Nothing's ever gonna fall on us." Then I started walking away.

"MMM! MMM! EEEE!" He started screaming again. This time, his voice broke and the sound became shrill. After two minutes of this, he lost his voice and settled with silent trembling.

It was only when I looked at myself in the mirror on the way to the kitchen that I realized I was completely naked. Just like the sylveon, or any other pokémon. Funny how natural it felt after a while.

After I had showered and dressed, I opened up the fridge. There was some salmon thawing out, some chicken drumsticks, and assorted berries and vegetables inside.

I picked up a pecha berry, because I had started feeling giddy: I hadn't realized how long it had been since I had eaten. I bit into it, the juices spraying out and onto the floor—some things never change—and spit it out. The seed, that is. I guess some things do change.

"Do you wanna come over here and see what you would like…erm…?" I called to the sylveon.

There wasn't any answer. The sylveon lay silently on the couch belly up, refusing to get up. Heh. He was lazier than my son.

I handed the sylveon a pecha berry as well. I didn't know what he liked—I never saw him eat any food before—but the color of the berry seemed to match his light pink fur, so I went with that.

He grabbed it like a toy with his front ribbons, and then curled up into somewhat of a ball. He didn't want to eat fruit, so it seemed. Also like my son.

"C'mon, you gotta eat fresh fruit," I shoved it towards his mouth. "You haven't been getting enough to eat."

"Mmmm…MMM!" He grunted, albeit high-pitched. He pushed the pecha berry away with his ribbon.

I sat up straighter on the couch and stared down at him. "Tell me. What d'you wanna eat? C'mon, I haven't got all day." I also hadn't gotten any sleep.

The sylveon didn't respond. He just smiled up at me, that same innocuous smile that drove me wild every I night I went to visit. But it wasn't working on me today. Sunlight was pouring out of the window. Come to think of it, we had never met in the daytime until that moment. I guess there was something about the obscenely bright daylight that extinguished the subtle warm glow that emanated from him.

I drew the blinds. It didn't work. Sunlight still filtered in small lines across my face…like bars. I didn't like the bars in front of me. I don't think anyone would.

Finally giving up hope, I got up from the couch and walked over to my bedroom to get some rest. The sylveon immediately uncurled from the fetal position and stretched his hind legs out with the extra space. I sighed. He never wanted me. He just wanted my sex.

"I didn't bring you here to just lie there, y'know," I said at my bedroom door.

In the silence I heard the sound of crunching. When I turned around to see, the sylveon was biting into the pecha berry I gave him. It was an unfamiliar fruit to him, so he pared with his sharp fangs little by little, almost like it was a big tough coconut husk.

I stood and watched him from afar, lying on the couch for hours, slowly paring away at the pecha berry, the bars of light from the blinds decorating him.

Even after he finished eating and fell asleep, you could still see the fragments of sugar-sweet pecha flesh on his little fangs.

Sylveon

What happened the lady took you to her house?

We didn't fuck or anything. The lady was really tired, and I was really tired too. I'm most powerful when the moon is out, so in the daytime I'm really sluggish. I lied on the lady's soft chair most of the time. The lady got mad. She didn't want me to sit on the soft chair.

How did that make you feel?

I didn't like her house. [long pause] It was too big. It was scary. [long pause] So scary. So. So. Scary. [cries]

[wipes tears with tissue] It's all right, it's all right. If the lady's house was so scary, then why did you stay and eat the pecha berry?

The pecha berry was sweet. And if I ate it, she would look at me. She would look at me and protect me, make sure I was okay. I like it when she protects me.

What's your favorite food to eat?

It used to be candy…and I still like candy. [bites into 32nd lollipop] But my favorite food now is pecha berries.

Christine

I stepped out of the building immediately after I finished my meeting. It was a stifling hot day, hotter than usual even for Hau'oli. You could swear something was about to boil over. Nonetheless in the tension of my job, I still breathed easier outside.

"Shock them. Shock them. Just shock them. Just like that," I muttered to myself. At that point I had doubts about the case.

Looker appeared outside a few minutes later, still wearing his signature heavy coat despite the hot weather. "Ah, fuck, it's hot out here," he finally noticed, staring up at the sun. He was sweating profusely after a few minutes; but I didn't offer him any sympathy.

"It's not right," I thought out loud. "I feel it's right, but I know it's not right. Pokémon aren't humans. They're the victims. We shouldn't be treating them like criminals. It's not their fault if they're bad."

Looker did not throw a stupid joke on me. Perhaps the heat had got to him. "That's your heart's attempt at sympathizing, Christine. And I respect that. But you might lose yourself if you think without knowing. That's what you're doing, the same damn thing that all ordinary police do: think without knowing, actually knowing. We're…"—he pointed to himself—"…not like that. Maybe your gut is wrong, the pokémon are victims that are suffering. But you don't know, and I admit it, neither do I."

Undercover work was always a fear of mine. I thought that change didn't happen just on the front lines, that all that mattered was careful management and the right tools. To me, the orders mattered more than the execution.

"This 'knowing' you talk about…" I began.

"Police work challenges your mind," Looker said, cutting me off. "Undercover work challenges your heart. What you're doing is police work."

My eyes widened. "Well…if you're so good at undercover work, Looker, why don't you go do the fucking undercover work yourself, pun intended!?" I guess when I'm hysterical, even I blurt out crude jokes. "You're the one who wanted to fuck all those 'horny pokémon'."

"Aw, c'mon you know I never said that!" Looker barked at me. He sounded different when he was angry. It was almost frightening.

"Aw, c'mon, I saw that little smirk on your face when you listened to those despicable humans raping those poor little pokémon. Ugh. You men are all the same. You just wanna screw, screw, screw. Yourself, your colleagues, your pokémon."

"Stay that again!?" He grabbed my shoulder and pulled my lighter frame towards him. I lost my footing on the pavement. I stared up at him, refusing to blink, watching the beads of sweat flowing down him enraged face.

"You listen to me, Chirstine," Looker said, his voice lightening up a little. "If I didn't want this case to succeed, why do you think I even came here to Alola?"

"But—"

He held his hand up. "Hold on. Lemme say something. I've been in this way longer than you, and I have more connections. And I must say you're causing a stir in the International Police committee. The right kind of stir. I've never seen an agent daring enough to treat a pokémon enemy as equal to a human enemy. And in my professional opinion, it's the right thing to do in this situation; but it's never easy to do the right thing.

"Part of doing the right thing, though, is to really get to know the situation, firsthand. You can go on all about what is and isn't the right thing. Knowing your enemy helps when you actually execute the right thing. Regular police don't have the luxury of doing a high level of undercover work. Consider undercover work…a privilege." He smiled, his aged face showing his tired wrinkles. Ah, who was I kidding. I was about his age. But I guess in terms of my career in International Police, I was just starting out, like a little baby.

Being able to start all over again, at my age was a rare luxury. Perhaps part of Looker felt jealousy; jealousy that he could never turn back the clock, never return to that state of innocent naiveté. I smiled back at him.

"So will you go, Christine? To the brothel? It'll at least help you when you interview the suspects and victims later, to sympathize with them. While you're undercover, you'll have our full support in Hau'oli and in other International Police locations. I'll help coordinate the raid where you left off, and we'll arrive in a couple days. Sounds good?"

"Well…I'm a little scared." I admitted. "I'm not very experienced. And this is such a high-profile case. Why don't you go?"

Looker shook his head. "It's your case, Christine. You go. It is a risk we have to make. You are fighting for the welfare of pokémon who have been sexually exploited. I, as your equal, cannot deny you this right," he said, paraphrasing my own words. I laughed. I couldn't believe how right my original words actually were.

Sandra

When the sylveon woke up in the late afternoon, I took him out for a walk in the town. I didn't have to carry him, as he willingly walked on his own. I wanted him to hold his ribbon like a leash (or have him wrap his ribbon around my wrist, this behavior I've read in the literature), but he refused.

He was stubborn like that. People were glaring at me. Looking like I, presumably his trainer, had done something wrong. In truth, the sylveon was a free spirit. All pokémon are.

"Are you all right, Sandra?" A voice confronted me.

I flinched, covering my body with my chest, my breathing becoming more shallow.

"Don't be silly, it's only me."

I relaxed a bit when I saw it was the sweet old lady, Tania—she wouldn't hurt a magikarp.

"How are you, Sandra dear…and who is this little friend here?" Tania knelt down to look at the sylveon. He smiled at her. "Well, aren't you pretty…?"

Tania stood back up. "What's her name?" she asked me.

"His name," I corrected.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she chuckled. "I shouldn't make assumptions. Well, erm, he sure is handsome, isn't he, with the little bows? What's his name, you were saying?"

"I haven't given him a name."

Tania frowned slightly. "Oh…why's that?"

"I…I just didn't feel like it," I replied.

"Oh, really? I give all my pokémon names, even the wild ones that always visit my garden. Giving a pokémon a name shows you have that true, personal connection with them. So it's like they're your equal. They're not 'Litten', they're 'Tommy' or 'Felix'.

"If you don't give pokémon names, it's like you're detached…not true companions."

It became silent all of a sudden. Coincidentally, the beachgoers nearby became more hushed, and there were no cars on the road. I looked down, and the sylveon looked up at me, expressionless. He did not giggle, laugh—not even a little smile.

"I'm…I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, Sandra," Tania quickly said. "I didn't mean…"

"No, no," I corrected her, still looking down. "It's not you, it's not you. It's something else."

"What's the matter, dear? You seem out of it."

I didn't reply. "Mmmm…" the sylveon replied instead, in his usual high-pitched voice.

"Can…can I ask you something, erm…Tania?" I finally said.

"Why, sure sweetheart."

"You've been here in Alola a long time."

"Why, yes, I have."

"What does it mean to love a pokémon?" I asked.

"The same thing as loving a human," Tania immediately replied. "To feel warm and safe when they're next to you. To just feel that spark for them every time you see them smile, giggle, do the silliest little thing."

"Mmmm…" the sylveon's eyes widened.

Sylveon

Do you love Sandra?

Maybe I do. The old lady—not the lady, the old lady—she talked about love. And what she said makes sense to me.

But the lady hurts you.

I know. But I still love the lady.

Do you think the lady takes advantage of your kindness?

I don't really understand the question.

Do you think the lady hurts you because you know you will forgive her?

I don't know. I don't think so. She sits and watches me for a long time, like when I ate that pecha berry. She carried me one whole night. She did a lot of things for me. I guess I hurt her in that way. The lady wants to love me. I think she tries. Even if she doesn't love me, she tries to.

Christine

I began perusing the selection of pokémon in the catalog. They were mostly photographs of the pokémon, all nude, posed in seductive poses which generally exposed their genitals, male or female. While most of the visitors to the PokéPalace were men, women were also customers, and the absence of empirical data next to the catalog photos appealed to both the sympathetic emotions of females and to the lust of men.

"Have you decided what you want, miss?" The manager asked me, every five minutes or so. He was rather anxious, and wished for me to decide quickly.

"Erm…not yet," I said.

When the manager walked away, I picked up my cell phone, and pressed a special "push to talk" button that was installed that morning.

"Can you hear me?" I said over the phone.

"Yes, Agent Christine," the phone said. "We received that conversation loud and clear." I subconsciously adjusted the position of the pendant around my neck, which contained a concealed microphone.

"Can you see everything?" I added. Adjusting the camera in my glasses, I flipped through the catalog very slowly. Using this footage, we would be able to create a substantial catalog of pokémon victims, which eased our search when the raid was conducted.

There was one pokémon on the third laminated page that I noticed. It was a primarina. Although it was male, its bright blue hair and long eyelashes prominently displayed in the photo gave him a very feminine appearance. I examined the eyes in the photo closely. They were a deep liquid brown (not the usual aquamarine) and seemed out of place with the rest of his brightly colored body.

In the featured photo the primarina lay nude on rumpled bed sheets, belly up, and he was smiling seductively at the camera. I kept looking back to the pokémon's eyes in the photo. There was something that I did not understand about them. Something about them that made them…so captivating.

I found myself staring at the photo. Frightened by myself, I quickly shut the catalog so the cover was showing: "PokePorn catalog: Our selection for your personal enjoyment". I tried not to look at the title either.

I listened to the lobby to distract me. It was only me and the manager in the room, and he was working quietly at his desk. My cell phone was quiet. I was listening to silence.

It was then that I realized that I was truly alone in this mission—at least in essence. There wasn't the deep cushion of police bureaucracy behind me. It would be me, face to face with the vice, the pain, the suffering. And I just had to swallow it all and hope it wouldn't digest into my body and become nourishment.

"Have you decided, miss?" the manager (Mr. Beverly) walked up to me again.

"Yes, I would like this one," I said, pointing to the picture on page 3.

"The male primarina? Ok. P51000, up front. 2 hours. Extensions are P20000 per hour, order on the phone," he said, speaking very concisely. "It's that room,"—he pointed—"ground floor."

Everything was quiet. I was walking, truly by myself, to the room. I opened the door.

(To be continued. Hope y'all enjoyed reading...as always I appreciate your comments and other feedback!)