Compared to you, he's been just about everywhere, and done it in every conceivable combination with just about every type of person, for reasons that varied from raw, instinctual sexual attraction, to just needing a bed for the day or two he was passing through a town and not wanting to pay tourist trap pod hotel price for it. He was, for most of his teens, what most people would call a total [[slut]], even for a guy.
In your freshman dorm there were two openly bisexual girls, the first ones you ever got to know well. You would take naps in the same beds, cuddle while watching movies, kiss cheeks and take each other on dates to teahouses and the tramp-o-skate-o-drome when boys (and sometimes girls) would be assholes. The gentle intimacy was simultaneously safe and [[freeing.]]
It started out as polite concern. He was a surfer, and he wanted to know if she could ever come to the fancy city indoor beach with him sometime. You know, if she could buy a waterproof sleeve and maybe fix up her artifical leg a bit. Then his comments got a little more pointed. He would joke to his friends that she didn't even take her socks off when they fucked, for example, and repeatedly tried to convince her that not fixing her toe-ports and getting some good toes was [[fucking up]] her muscle growth or bone structure somehow. \n
The truth was, she had botched the DIY toes attachment so badly her entire artificial leg would have to be replaced if she ever wanted toes. She couldn't afford it, but was too stubborn to let him see that, what she perceived as [[weakness.]]
It is the year 2445.\n\nDespite humanity's many advancements\n\nin space [[travel]]
<<silently>><<stopbgm G9DYqVBJbR0>><<endsilently>>It is the year [[2445]].
A guy you had admired from afar would give you attention every time he broke up with his on-again off-again girl. You adored him to an unhealthy extent but when he talked about her\n\nagain\n\nand again\n\n[[and again|again2]]
And, you think, wouldn't that living situation be proof that bisexuals are just indecisive, flightly, confused? And of course, it would be something you could never talk about the way someone talks about their girlfriend, their boyfriend, the way everyone else does. \n\nMaybe things will change someday. But for now, in the year 2445, when humanity has come so far, this issue is at a standstill. \n\nYou can't afford to be, though. A buzzer sounds, signaling that the planetary elevator has [[arrived.|END]]
That one time you got drunk at a crowded apartment warming party and didn't trust yourself to find your way home in the dark, so you squeezed into a camping cot with a guy you thought was a friend. You woke up peeling a hand off your tit. He knew you had just started [[dating]] your current boyfriend.
You check the HUDcast to kill time and take your mind off things. Your boyfriend has posted a new [[picture]]. He poses happily in his usual patched up leather jacket, one of his many nephews dangling from a thick flexed bicep. \n
Your first kiss was with your high school boyfriend. You realized you weren't attracted to him at all, even though he was considerate, treated you well, and you cried but told him you were just [[happy.]]
Your home is the planet of Cornal III, the third planet in the Cornal system with a moderate climate that is slightly cooler than Earth but slightly drier. It's about 2/3rds the size as well. This planet specializes in telecomm and serves as a communications hub for the entire galaxy. It's high tech and full of opportunities, but also a hotbed for high profile hacking and espionage, which is kind of cool. A Cornalese accent gives you a hard reputation, which helps when your actual temperment is really more quiet and nervous.\n\n[[Back|bisexual.]]
Other relevant facts? Okay. She loves cats, and has several, natural, clones, and android. She loves them all equally. She was born with only one leg and so has a prosthetic from the knee down on her left side. It's a mid-class with docks for individual toe extensions but she was short on money botched the DIY mod and now only has some charred sockets on the end of her foot. It's one of the few things she gets quiet and withdrawn about. More? Well, she's basically wonderful and feels like a missing part of you. That's all you've got right now.\n\n[[Back|bisexual.]]
It is the year 2445.\n\nDespite humanity's many advancements\n\nin space travel\n\nin medicine\n\nin philosophy\n\nin the arts\n\nscientists, theoreticians and the world's greatest creative minds have yet to discover the right way to be [[bisexual.]]
--let the player undo moves? (on / off)\n--in sugarcane, this enables the browser's back button.\n--in jonah, this lets the player click links in previous\n--passages.\n\nundo: off\n\n--let the player use bookmarks? (on / off)\n--this enables the bookmark links in jonah and sugarcane\n--(if the player can't undo, bookmarks are always disabled.)\nbookmark: off\n\n--obfuscate the story's html source to prevent possible\n--spoilers? (swap / off)\n\nobfuscate: on\n\n--string of letter pairs to use for swap-style obfuscation\n\nobfuscatekey: weojpnqstrzmahilkcgdxfuvby\n\n--include the jquery script library? (on / off)\n\njquery: off\n\n--include the modernizr script library? (on / off)\n\nmodernizr: off\n
You wander through the shops area but they're all closing down. Gates whirr as they lock into place and lights flicker off. Everyone must be going home early for christmas. It seems like you're out of luck, for a burger, or any sort of food. One store is open, but a small salad is [[750 credits]], and the prices only get worse from there. Yeah, right, you think. Maybe I could afford that if I sold an organ or two.\n\nYou sit on the bench next to the space elevator departure gate with only three or four other people around. Boarding will start in about 15 minutes. Do you think about your [[friend|friend2]] or check your [[HUDcast]] to kill time?
A guy you had admired from afar would give you attention every time he broke up with his on-again off-again girl. You adored him to an unhealthy extent but when he talked about her\n\nagain\n\n[[and again]]
It all ended when he poked fun at her one night, while they were alone in her dorm room. The typical terse conversation about when she was going to fix her toes culminated in him sticking a finger in one of the charred sockets and pretending to be electrocuted. He thought it was a joke, she felt deeply violated. She screamed at him to stop touching her and never do that again. He broke up with her on the spot for that, saying that he was tired of her being so fucking uptight. \n\nYou could tell it destroyed her trust for a long time. "Men are all pigs, they're all the same," she said after she confessed the reason behind the sudden breakup to you. You sat with her head on your shoulder and [[worried]] silently.
He was actually really cool with how you explained it. He'd told you about his own [[bisexual experience]] before, and he's also several years older and more worldly than your shy, bookwormy self. Getting jealous over a little crush would be very out of character for him.\n\nIf you start thinking about all these things now, you'll zone out and miss the elevator. Clearing your mind, you decide to go look for some [[food|hungry]] before the next space elevator departure, since it's a three hour ride.
Your first "grown-up" relationship. The first person you went "all the way" with, despite dating/making out with [[a few people]] before him. You've been together for about 2 years and you don't doubt that you make each other happy and care deeply for each other.\n\n[[Back|university]]
It is the year 2445.\n\nDespite humanity's many advancements\n\nin space travel\n\nin [[medicine]]
You let yourself think about her. She's always so tough, and you admire her for that, but there was one time you truly saw her wounded. \n\nHer boyfriend, senior year of college, was just as hard-headed as she was, they constantly played off eachother and seemed, outwardly, to be a good match. Sometimes he was too stubborn though, and didn't know when to stop. The state of her toes was one of the subjects he pressed until it [[hurt.]]
<<silently>><<stopbgm bftwGiLEfRg>><<stopbgm EU0xS355BlQ>><<playbgm G9DYqVBJbR0>><<endsilently>>THANKS FOR READING!!\n\nSTATION(ary)\nBy: <html> <a href="http://coleoptera-kinbote.tumblr.com/">Coleoptera_Kinbote</a> </html> (Created Dec. 24-26 2013)\n\nThis hypertext short story was inspired by my own and my friends' experiences. I hope it resonates with anyone who has ever been told they're not a "real" whatever, not a "good" one, or that your identity doesn't even exist.\n\nIt is my first completed Twine project. I learned a lot from Anna Anthropy's getting started <html><a href="http://www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/">guide</a></html> and got the background music macro from <html><a href="http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5475">Glorious Trainwrecks.</a></html>\n\nSound effects and BGM:\n<html><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU0xS355BlQ">USS Enterprise Warp Engine Noise</a></html>\n<html><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bftwGiLEfRg">ISS Internal SFX</a></html>\n<html><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9DYqVBJbR0">"Totally Confused" - Beck</a></html>\n\nThis story must be reread to access all the passages, so click "Restart" in the sidebar to try and see them all!
Corv is Cornal III's only moon, a sparsely populated but highly productive starship assembly area. Because the assembly process takes up a huge amount of space, Corv only has one medium-sized city where most of the population is located. Your best friend lives there and works as a cook at a pasta restaurant with a snazzy retro 2370s theme.\n\n[[Back|transfer station]]
The private message is a voice clip is from your boyfriend. He says "Merry Christmas babe, see you in a few hours! Hope you had a fun time with your girlfriend." He's in on the joke too. You confessed to him that you've always had a bit of a crush on her, but you can't tell if the wifey-talk, the resting her head on your shoulder, the warm hugs hello and goodbye, are just platonic or something else. Why ruin a good thing, you know? You wouldn't [[dare.]]\n\n[[Go find some food.|hungry]]
It is the year 2445.\n\nDespite humanity's many advancements\n\nin space travel\n\nin medicine\n\nin [[philosophy]]
Your home, as well as where you attend [[university]]. It's a telecomm planet in the solar system neighboring the [[Origin Star System (OSS)]], where communication needs from all over the galaxy are outsourced.\n\n[[Back|transfer station]]
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You're hardly what anyone would consider "promiscuous." Maybe back in 2013 they would have, but not in the enlightened modern age. You've only properly "done it" with one guy after all. Sometimes you feel tied down, staying in such a long term relationship with him, and long to run after a charming girl who catches your eye, but the sex is good, you get along, and have fun together, there's no reason to cut it off. You see yourself potentially being happy with him for a [[long time.]]
Your monthly income as a TA is 10,000 credits, half of which goes into rent. Things are usually tight.\n\n[[Back|find.]]
Your best friend, actually. You met in college. She is loud and pushy and you wouldn't change a fucking thing. Even though she comes across as rough, she has a certain elegance that's hard to pinpoint, but it probably begins in her sweet, small hands with always perfect fingernails (you nibble your own to shreds) and stretches all the way up her arms and around her head to the ends of her long, deep ginger hair. You watch bad Sub-C class holofilms, split large pepperoni pizzas between the two of you, and laugh loudly while talking about everything under the sun while you're together. And you were mostly inseparable during college, but when she graduated, she went back to her home on the moon while you stayed planetside, so now you see each other only once or twice a year. You stay in touch with HUDmail but it's not the same. You [[miss]] her a lot when you're at university. \n\n[[Back|bisexual.]]
The picture is captioned: "Having my auntie and the kids over! It'll be a struggle to keep them out of the presents till tomorrow!!"\n\nDespite looking a bit scary, with glowing fiber optic tattoos across his cheeks and a matching mohawk and racoon-tail beard, kids always seem to relax around him. It's part of the reason you love him, even though he doesn't look anything like the [[type of person you saw yourself with]] before you met him.
Your friend, who you just visited, who you adore to the end of the galaxy in a way that you're no longer sure may be [[platonic]].
Of course, nothing can be solved in an hour of half-hearted contemplation, hungry and bored, in a lunar transfer station. If it was that easy, you would have figured it out a long time ago. Internally, you're still confused, about how you feel, what you are, what you should say you are. But you're heading back to a place where you're read as a straight girl with a boyfriend who has never felt like he could admit that a few of his guyfriends were "more than friends" to his family. \n\nYou board the elevator, and find your pod. You hit the complementary "nap" function button so you can dream for the next three hours instead of having to wonder. Just before you doze off, you feel a tug on your whole body, the planetary elevator exiting the atmosphere.\n\nEND. \n\n\n\n\n[[Credits]]\n
The transfer station is the main point where connections between [[Cornal III]] and its only satellite, [[Corv]], arrive and depart. It has daily rush hours that correspond with the commute, but otherwise grows quiet on weekends and holidays. \n\n[[Back|bisexual.]]
It is the year 2445.\n\nDespite humanity's many [[advancements]]
It is the year 2445.\n\nDespite humanity's many advancements\n\nin space travel\n\nin medicine\n\nin philosophy\n\nin [[the arts]]
But like the McRib, your stupid crushes on girls in your classes, female professors, baristas, and even random girls who follow your HUDcast, keep coming back when you least expect it.\n\nSpeaking of which, you're [[hungry.|hungry]]
He'd slowed down by the time he met you. You were both posting about browsing the String Theory section of the university library on HUDcast, so he sent you a chatty message and things went from there. In him, you found the rare blend of intellectual camraderie and kindness that slipped you into the comfortable state where you could develop a proper sexual attraction to someone. You tended to fall in lust slowy and cautiously, he with a glance, but somehow your cogs snapped together and you'd both managed to keep each other blissfully [[satisfied]] for two years now.
He assures you that you're probably bisexual when you tell him that your crushes on women are "probably just, like, really intensely platonic" or "a phase." But it's people like him, who've gotten down and dirty with every permutation of gender and genital, who make you feel like a poser if you'd use the word. At the same time, when his background comes up in coversation, you often get a simultaneously sympathetic and condescending look. You know what they're thinking. You're in denial, he's running around on you because how could he be satisfied with just a single girl who only has one set of sex organs? But you can honestly say you have no, zip, zilch, zero reason to think he's been anything but incredibly loyal.\n\nYou're lost in thought, until your [[stomach growls.|hungry]]
There's one new public message and one private message on your messageHUD, also undoubtedly several new HUDcast posts to scroll through. You check the public message first, since anyone who looks you up can see these messages. It's from your friend.\n\n"My wife's headed back planetside! Sooooo sad!! (゚´Д`゚)゚ Come back soon!"\n\n[[Reply.]]
STATION(ary)
A guy you had admired from afar would give you attention every time he broke up with his on-again off-again girl. You adored him to an unhealthy extent but when he talked about her\n\nagain\n\nand again\n\nand again\n\nyou and your "fantastic tits" [[felt]] used.
A guy you had admired from afar would give you attention every time he broke up with his on-again off-again girl. You adored him to an unhealthy extent but when he talked about [[her]]
The solar system that contains Earth, the origin point of humanity... obviously.\n\n[[Back|Cornal III]]
You are a rather short young woman in your mid 20s with cropped white hair that you painstakingly opti-lite bleach and maintain yourself. You are wearing a long, black wool coat and have a small red pleather holster that holds your HUDPC, personal data, and CreditWand strapped to your leg. While HUDcontacts have recently become rather affordable, you're attached to the purple cat-eye glasses your HUDPC has been paired with since college.\n\n[[Back|bisexual.]]
You always envisioned ending up with a slightly androgynous boy, puppy eyed and with long hair like a lost member of the eternally young android boy band D4C. Maybe that image, in your mind, was a way of reconciling the two different directions you were being pulled. You think of the two people you love now, one elegant, feisty, and wholly feminine, the other a rare and hulking ice sheet rovercycle of a man. They're [[both]] precious.
Sometimes you imagine cramming them both into the apartment with you, all in the same queen-sized bed, cooking for three, and it seems like a potential paradise. But isn't it also greedy? You don't know how well they'd get along, wether group sex (you don't want to think about it) and jealousy would mangle everything. It would just be a selfish proposition on your part, with the potential to make everyone [[miserable.]]
<<silently>><<loopbgm bftwGiLEfRg>><<loopbgm EU0xS355BlQ>><<endsilently>>Christmas Eve, 2445 CE.\n\nIt is just past 7PM Lunar Time when [[you]] make it to the [[transfer station]]. You took the local [[MagLuge]] from your [[friend]]'s apartment, and now you're waiting for the planetary elevator back [[home]]. The next one comes in about an hour. You already have your boarding info ready, and the station seems mostly deserted. It is almost Christmas after all. There's a pleasant gentle bustle of shops closing down and the last few holiday travelers making their way to their destination. \n\nThere's not much to do here, but you're [[hungry]]. You could also check your [[messageHUD]].
A guy you had admired from afar would give you attention every time he broke up with his on-again off-again girl. You adored him to an unhealthy extent but when he talked about her\n\n[[again]]
You attend the largest humanities university on your native continent of Nessium. The university is in the heart of the crowded capital city, and you live in a studio apartment with your [[boyfriend.]] You are writing a dissertation on feminine textile imagery in early 2200s writings on string theory. It's compelling work but wearing you down, to be honest you think about quitting and getting a "real job" at least once or twice a month.\n\n[[Back|Cornal III]]
Does what it says on the tin. A magnetic luge system of single passenger pods that branches through most streets in Corvian metropolitan areas, allowing for quick and flexible transportation to major areas of interest on Corv, like transfer stations, starship yards, entertainment districts, and schools.\n\n[[Back|bisexual.]]
Clearing your mind, you think of what you are in the mood to eat, a much less befuddling topic. The more things change, the more they stay the same. You are thinking, of course, about the one food so perfect it hasn't been significantly altered over the past 400 years. You want a hamburger. But a good hamburger is hard to [[find.]]
And you still worry about her now. You know she hasn't had a serious relationship since. Two years later, she's still sensitive when the topic of dating comes up. It's part of the reason approaching her is so hard. She says she's done with men, but...\n\nThe sound of a buzzer, signaling that the planetary elevator has [[arrived,|END]] jolts you away from that line of thought.
A supposedly gay guy kissed you on the mouth once and you told him [[off]] for it.
By: <html> <a href="http://coleoptera-kinbote.tumblr.com/">Coleoptera_Kinbote</a> </html>
You smile and write a similar public post on her wall. This goofy and gratuitous public outpouring of affection seems like such a facetious freshman week thing, but now, six years later, it still feels honest to you.\n\n[[Check the other message.]]