Riley stared at the candle, which was burning merrily. To start out, Riley had lit only one of the three wicks.
"It can’t hurt to take things slowly, whatever it is I’m getting into."
Riley examined the small flame for a bit, and it wasn’t clear if anything was happening. It was emitting a bit of a haze, but that could have just been smoke. Riley busied themselves with a few chores as they waited for something to happen, occasionally taking a quick peek at the candle sitting unremarkably on the coffee table. After about 15 minutes, Riley started to feel chilly.
"I could have sworn that I just had the AC fixed," Riley mumbled as they flicked up the thermostat a few degrees. A bit later, they flicked it up a few more.
Still cold.
Shivering, Riley walked over to grab the jacket they had left on the couch, and while doing so, they felt a burst of warmth. Everywhere in the apartment was freezing, except for the area around the candle. To Riley, it felt like a roaring campfire. Riley sat on the couch, warming their hands before the tiny fire of a candle.
"This feels ridiculous, but it’s very cozy. I can’t complain. Vic might be full of shit, but she wasn’t lying when she said this was relaxing."
Riley spent some amount of time warming their hands by the fire, and slowly started to drift into a stupor. On the boundary between awake and asleep, Riley laid back on the couch and shut their eyes. Head bereft of any real conscious thought, they began to gently touch themselves in solitary candlelight.
It couldn’t truly be called masturbation; Neither the coordination nor intent required were truly present.
So for a time, Riley tenderly and gracelessly played with themselves until they drifted to sleep, curled up in the candle’s warmth.
Riley awoke a time later, shivering and soaked in sweat. They instinctively glanced at the candle, but it was still burning merrily.
"I must have been sweating in my sleep. Ugh, gross."
Riley quickly wriggled out of their sweat-soaked clothes, which fell to the ground with an audible ‘plop!’
"Eugh, I feel all clammy. Sweating, chilly. It’s almost like I’m sick- Wait, what?"
Riley felt between their legs, and it was clear that something was amiss. Riley looked down at their naked body, and aside from an all-pervasive wet sheen, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. That was until their eyes reached their genitals. Nothing that remained could possibly be construed as a reproductive organ. Riley’s gentle self-love session had left behind only tatters of unidentifiable flesh, loosely hanging off of their crotch.
"I don’t remember being that rough with it. It looks like I went at it with a hand mixer!"
Riley apprehensively touched at one of the bits of hanging flesh, and had to cut back a moan.
"Yikes, that’s sensitive! Okay, I need to get a grip."
Riley’s initial idea was to try to mold the scraps back into something resembling their previous equipment, but that plan immediately fell by the wayside as they were assailed by the pleasure that came with sculpting sensitive flesh. It was a delicate operation that they were attempting, and the ever-heightening sensation made it very difficult to focus.
"Shit!"
With every attempt to try to mold things back into their previous shape, a little bit of loose flesh was pushed into their crotch, making it impossible to reclaim. While their body was soft, it was their crotch that had been closest to the candle, and apparently that had made it significantly easier to shape. With every mistake, Riley was left with less and less material to work with, until their finished product was a tiny, poorly-sculpted replica of the real thing.
"That’s just embarrassing. Fuck that."
Riley pressed three fingers into their counterfeit genitals and smudged them out of existence.
They moaned as they quickly climbed to the precipice of release, and hung there. Riley’s eyes bulged as they redoubled their efforts. Panting, they rubbed and rubbed, shaping and misshaping, reforming and deforming, playing with that sensitive spot of flesh as though it were clay. After a while, Riley had something resembling a climax, though there was nowhere left for anything to squirt out of.
Ultimately, Riley was left with a crotch that was completely blank. Flesh had been inadvertently molded into a small, gently curving bulge, and even now they had to resist the urge to play with it some more. Riley blushed as they crossed their legs as they stared into the candle’s flickering light.
"Hmmm."