Chapter 61 – Delay

We already talked about all of this but she wasn't in the correct mind right now. I couldn't blame her, though. Contrarily to women outside of the domes, she didn't have a whole lifetime of anticipating a potentially hurtful first experience. It took a while to get her to calm down after that. I wanted to cuddle and kiss to make her feel better but she seemed to resent me a lot and refused any physical contact. I had no choice but to go into some technical details I wasn't too sure about myself.

"From what I heard, it's normal to hurt and bleed for the first time for some women. There's some… flesh… or membrane, that needs to be broken through."

She was still looking at me with anger but queried anyway.

"Does that mean some women don't feel any pain and don't bleed?"

"I… think? That's what I heard."

It wasn't easy to explain that this was information from Rylnet. Rylnet was one of the concepts from my world she couldn't grasp at all and I understood why. People from my world also had a hard time understanding the idea at first. It was mostly something one understood as one used it, not theoretically.

"Then what? I was just unlucky?"

"Probably average? Don't worry too much. It'll heal by itself within a few weeks and you'll be as good as before."

"You're not lying, right?"

"I'm not."

"Hmm…"

Since this first experience failed, we had enough for the day. However, there was still one problem. Suuru didn’t want me to come too close to her right now and so she didn't want to sleep together. I believed it was important to have a good sleep to be able to work well. As such, I didn't want to sleep on the floor, if possible. I told her I would sleep at an inn in Geola and she looked a bit guilty. Still, she didn't stop me and I ended up picking the first decent inn I found in the city. Fortunately, it wasn't too expensive, being 6 silvers for one night. The room was small but cozy, with a freshly made bed, and I didn't forget to lock the door before going to sleep, just in case anything happened.

I teleported back to Suuru's house on the following morning. She was in a slightly better mood after one night of sleep. If I were to decipher her stare at me, it would be something like 40% grudge, 30% guilt, and 30% longing. She still didn't want any physical contact, however.

Not that it mattered. I left time to sort out our feelings since we had a lot of work in front of us today. At the very least, the pain wasn't bad enough anymore for her not to be able to move normally.

First, I teleported us to the 82's city center. Suuru already had a business license since she sold her metal items to resellers. Yet, her license didn't allow her to handle a stand in the market. Not because there were any strict limitations but because the bureaucracy was heavy in the domes. Since they had been confined to a finite space, everything became regulated and paperwork was encumbering. Innovation was still striving, though, in particular in the selnic field, simply because it was necessary for their survival. They needed a lot of optimizations to stay afloat with a constantly depleting amount of resources.

Recycling was also extremely important and items that helped in doing so were prioritized. In exchange, selnic entertainment was developing slower than in my world. There was no radio, no selnic vision, no funky but useless gadgets. The best they had was landline phones, which could hardly be considered entertainment.

We went to the city center and upgraded Suuru's business license. We created a new company, which we named Urtek, based on my surname. Since Suuru didn't care much about the name, I directly chose what I wanted. I always admired folks who built companies that lasted for centuries, the name of the business being a constant reminder of its initial founder. We also booked a spot in the market while we were here.

Now that this was done, we teleported to Geola. We could sell water again but that would antagonize the water management association. I had a few ideas on how to deal with them but starting by making us known in the market by selling other products first would help us with my plan. Reputation was crucial when facing the public.

Instead of water, we aimed to acquire a lot of raw food since they were the second most important goods in the inner world. We only had to be careful and buy the same sort of food that was being grown inside the dome or people would start to ask questions.

Fortunately, I knew exactly where to get what I needed. We went to my merchant's friend Giya's stand, who was in the middle of concluding a sale. Right after he was done, he noticed our arrival and waved at me.

"Tila! You're here early today. Oh? Who's this? Cough, cough."

"Hi, Giya. This is Suuru, a friend of mine from my hometown. She arrived in Geola yesterday."

"Hello, I'm Suuru."

"Nice to meet you, Suuru. That must have been a long trip. You two are from far away, right?"

"That's right. It seems she followed me soon after I left too."

"She followed you? Are you two… like that?"

"We're just very good friends but she's going to help with my business."

"Oh man, you're making me jealous now. And here I am, working alone every day with love nowhere in sight!"

"Don't worry. You'll find someone nice soon enough. You're a cool guy."

I thought he might be more popular if he tried to find someone instead of going to the brothel every day. I wasn't sure if he truly wanted to do so, however.

"Haha, you speak like a merchant. Good, good! Cough, cough."

"Your cough isn't getting any better."

"It's taking longer than usual. No need to worry, it’ll go away soon enough."

"Hmm. We have brighter news on our side. We're here to buy some of your food."

"Now, that's what I like to hear! Tell me what you need. I'll give you a discount."

Read 30 more chapters here: https://subscribestar.adult/dictatelion or here: https://www.patreon.com/Dictatelion