Dispatch 11 — Reformed Arousal.md

The lake has been doing what lakes do all morning — nothing, but doing it with 
complete authority — and Kai has been doing much the same.

He'd mapped a section of the eastern floor earlier, found nothing particularly 
interesting, eaten a perch with minimal ceremony, and then simply dissolved 
into the shallows for a while to let the late morning sun work on his metabolism 
through the water's surface. The pale blue warmth of Raymond's molecules sat 
comfortable in his outermost margins the way they always did now — ambient, 
familiar, present without requiring anything. A background warmth. Raymond 
existing somewhere on the other side of the glass doing human Saturday things, 
and Kai existing here, and both of those facts being simultaneously true and 
quietly good.

Then the warmth changed direction.

He felt it before anything else — the pale blue in his margins shifting from 
ambient to *moving*, a slow deliberate circulation that had intent behind it 
rather than just presence. He was still dissolved, diffuse across a six-metre 
section of warm shallows, and it hit him as warmth-with-direction moving 
through his substance, gathering, becoming specific.

Then his slit responded.

He had been, up to this point, a placid and professionally unbothered body of 
water.

The warmth concentrated at his lower belly — or where his lower belly would be, 
if he currently had one — and his internal anatomy responded to the molecular 
signal with complete disregard for the fact that he had no solid form to respond 
*with*. Heat gathered. Lubrication began welling in tissue that was, technically 
speaking, currently part of a lake. His cock pressed toward an opening that was 
not yet an opening because he did not currently have edges.

He began reforming somewhat faster than he'd intended.

The process that usually took three unhurried minutes took considerably less. 
He assembled himself with the particular distracted haste of someone who has 
just received information their body considers extremely urgent, molecules 
pulling together with indecent speed, and arrived back into solid cobalt Vaporeon 
rather abruptly in the middle of the shallows, standing, blinking, his slit 
already warm and parted and glistening at the edges in a way that had nothing 
to do with lake water.

His ear tips were completely dark.

A small fish that had been minding its own business approximately one metre to 
his left reconsidered its position in the ecosystem and left.

Kai stood very still for a moment, water dripping off his flanks, and processed 
what he now understood. Raymond's hand. On the plushie. That specific slow 
circular motion over the upper slit area — he could feel the shape of it through 
the molecular thread as clearly as if it were his own slit being touched, which 
in some proprioceptive sense it was, the pale blue molecules carrying the 
sensation back along the identity-thread with faithful accuracy. His own slit 
read it as direct contact. His body had responded accordingly and had absolutely 
no apologies to offer about this.

He brought one paw up to cover his face.

*Raymond,* he said to the empty lake.

He stood like that for approximately four seconds. Then he lowered his paw, 
looked at himself — at the obvious warm slickness of his parted slit, at the 
faint suggestion of pressure behind the lips where his cock was making its 
interest known — and made a decision.

The cave.

He sent it back through the connection with quiet certainty, not words exactly, 
just *the cave, come to the cave, I'll be there,* and felt the pale blue warmth 
in his margins shift in answer, that particular quality of Raymond's attention 
turning and finding him and understanding.

He came out of the water in one smooth motion, water streaming off cobalt flanks 
in the late morning sun, and did not look at his reflection in the shallows as 
he passed. His ear tips were making their own editorial contributions to his 
walk and he had decided not to acknowledge them.

The cave was a five-minute walk from the eastern bank.

He did not take five minutes.

By the time he came through the entrance and the amber light found him, his 
slit had not cooled even slightly and his composure had mostly been abandoned 
somewhere back along the bank. He stood in the amber warmth of his own cave, 
the shelf holding its stones, the pool breathing against its edges, and turned 
to face the entrance.

His ear tips were still dark. His slit was still parted. His expression was 
the expression of someone who has stopped managing anything at all.

He waited.