“Captain! Please control yourself – you are projecting!
His voice wrenched her thoughts back to reality. Reluctantly she pulled her eyes away from the lovely vision across the room to stare at the Alien diplomat in confusion; “I’m sorry, what do you mean, Ambassador?”
“Captain Janeway, didn’t you know? We are a race of telepaths!”
To the crew on board VOYAGER I'm Captain Janeway, able to leap weird dimensions and turn water to wine. To me I'm also a unique someone who had been raised on antique books as a child. Printed and bound sheafs of paper, containing magically enticing adventures and spellbinding romances. Like Padds, only larger.
Growing up with that background had turned my Indiana farm into the environs of Ivanhoe's Sherwood Forest, and a frontier land traversed by Kit Carson. Deerslayer had padded soundlessly through the Adirondacks with me by his side. An essential part of that thickly-woven childhood had been the horses I'd ridden and loved. First 'Paint', the pony, and then my patient spavined gelding, 'Horatio'.
The constantly fantasizing me had ridden forest trails, and crossed patches of prairie rich with wildflowers, and excitedly searched some of the nearby abandoned towns that the Iridium Recycling Termites hadn't leveled yet. That last adventure had gotten me more than a few whoppings on my backside.
But I'd never seen the great prairies of legend. Especially the ones with thousands and thousands of massive dark buffalo stampeding across an endless vista of green grass.
Now I did.
------------------------
I was winded after the ride upslope, but unreasonably glad that Ambassador Metten and his fellow vacationers had not seemed to have restrained their horse-like mounts. Instead they had set a decent pace, most probably not babying their small female guest. My backside was already sore, and my thighs were going to be in agony if I didn't get the use of a subdermal regenerator today, but I hadn't felt freer than this for many years.
It was wonderful! I could feel the breaths of the animal between my legs, and the strong heartbeat. Especially, however, I could feel the wind in my hair.
As we topped the rise we could all see for kilometers across the grasslands of this continent. The land close to hand had down-slipped, in aeons past, and now its abrupt rise gave advantage of viewpoint to the eight of us.
For here is what we had come to see.
A stampede of thousands and thousands of 'buffalo'.
In the far distance I could see the three cones of the Three Saints. Extinct (for now) kilometer-high volcanoes so mighty that they could be seen a quarter of a continent away. They weren't really called Saints by the host race of Aliens, but it was close enough for the Communicator translator to use the term.
Across a quarter of the horizon, flat-bottomed dark clouds were brooding, and flashes of lightning lit them. The thunder and lightning were what probably spooked the 'buffalo' thundering down the plain to our left.
Close to hand a host of brown-green bodies swept across the gentle rolling slope. Computer said approximately fifteen to sixteen thousand 'buffalo' were in this insane panic-dash across this Alien prairie. Up close they looked nothing like Earth Buffalo, but from this distance they were utterly convincing.
In just the same way my present 'horse' looked nothing like my old adorable mangy-looking and aged Horatio. Yet function still determines shape. It had four long legs, and a big barrel body on top of the legs, and a big head at the end of a remarkably flexible neck. It carried me as a horse might, even if the gait was vastly different; so it became a horse to me.
An intelligent and wonderfully patient horse, to my way of thinking. The saddle was maybe an eighth of the weight of the type I had used on the farm. The most adorable thing about this 'horse' and saddle was that it didn't need to be cinched tight. The 'horse' drew in its breath and let you bind the very broad straps. It also crouched down on the ground so that you could mount it easier. Or off.
I could become seriously addicted to riding these horses, once my body adjusted again to being subjected to a saddle, and the jarring movement. It was a shame I wouldn't have the time to adjust. A few more days, and then back to GrenBoll for the finish of the inevitable paperwork involved in refitting VOYAGER. Others would come to Stol after I went back to work, just as many (in rotation) were enjoying the more urban pleasures of the Alien's home planet right now.
I looked into the sky and saw nothing, but I knew they were there. The environments of the massive O'Neil Space Stations above. Tethered to the planet surface by the elevators at the equator. Most of Stol's population lived overhead, and vacationed often down here. I did not want to leave.
Pangs hit me when I momentarily fantasized of Seven and I galloping across this gigantic prairie forever. Abandoning VOYAGER, giving up the quest, going native.
How many miles to Babylon? Twenty miles and ten. Can I get there by candlelight? There and back again.
We still had to get back to the Federation, to our homes. Which meant our time here was limited. Not to mention the fact that my Seven of Nine did not love me.
The roar of thousands of 'buffalo' masked all sound, even here, but I could see Tom Paris and B'Elanna, and also Harry Kim, who was coming up on her right. They'd never make proper horsemen in the time we'll have, but they were game. Paris was adjusting fastest, he'd had some experience with Terran horses. Kim was still asaddle only because of the fantastically patient 'horses', who had never once tried to throw him or boss the rider. B'Elanna was the surprise. She dressed in the so-called Cowgirl outfit Tom created to match his, but this was her first time. She'd approached it like it was a Battle To The Death, but she had done more than just hold on. She was already sitting erect and looking about herself in pleased wonderment.
I had to admit the pair looked fantastic in their brown leathers (including chaps) with fringed vests and flat-topped black and silver-conch hats. Kim appeared remarkably authentic in jeans and plaid shirt. It was too bad he couldn't yet ride. However, he DID have the advantage of being the center of six more-or-less late-teenaged obviously female GrenBollans. These Aliens didn't have a breasts or nipples taboo, and at least two of the 'girls' were flashing impossibly conical breasts. Complete with dark nipples that begged for a mouth. Any mouth. It was also astonishing how much their girlish giggles and teasings resounded in my memory. Closing my eyes and just listening, nostalgia remembered me of my days at Sts. Sigmund and Albert High School.
That was the most pleasing thing about the entire GrenBollan culture. It was so close to what I'd grown up with, yet deliciously different. Just as their bodies were all taller than human beings, but not giants, and not massive in construction.
The females had mutton-chop whiskers, and the males had neck ruffs of coarse fur, and every GrenBollan had a ridge of stiff hair from the tip of their noses, to right down their backs. Different, but pleasing. The more adventurous members of VOYAGER must have been practicing cross-species sex within hours of our rescue of the Fulkaren.
I already knew I would miss this place.
A strong whiff of big beast came to me as the mega-herd passed by us below. Coming upslope towards us was an outrider splinter of the 'buffalo', not more than sixty or eighty of the critters. I was relieved to see two of my hosts unlimber their version of a handgun. We had a few examples already on board VOYAGER, though we shamefacedly could not allow them up-to-date Federation hi-tech products in return. This style of handguns shot a modulated-frequency matching neural signal. In other words, it was an effective stun gun.
The teenaged 'girls' burst towards the slowing 'buffalo', and right in their midst were B'Elanna and Tom Paris on their own 'horses'. More or less unwillingly Harry Kim swiftly ambled along in their wake.
I looked to my hosts and they were laughing at the sight. I felt much more comforted when two of the 'girls' zapped seven or eight of the 'buffalo' with their own stun guns. As they took out the hump-backed bulls with remarkable accuracy, I realized they had done this sort of thing before.
Furiously waving their hats, and allowing their 'horses' to do the fancy dancing work, the 'girls', B'Elanna, and Paris 'herded' the 'buffalo'. Even Harry's 'horse' joined in the fun.
Yippee-kia-ayya! Ride 'em, cowboys!
This brief encounter on an Alien prairie would be the stuff of endless tales and exaggerations for the rest of their lives. I was proud of them at the same time I fumed that they'd put themselves unnecessarily in danger. Replacements were umpteen quadrillion parsecs away from VOYAGER, after all.
Surprisingly a hand grasped my arm. Ambassador Metten had something to say, and he leaned close to my ear to tell me.
"I apologize for not remembering your special circumstances on VOYAGER, Captain," he shouted. "Our culture accepts ..... we allow for accidents happening. Your ship cannot tolerate what we philosophically allow."
Alien cultures. So close and yet so far. I now realized they had been willing to see their own children die or be maimed, rather than they be protected. Over-protected. Coddled. Wrapped in swaddling clothes for all of their lives.
Low overhead passed a Vee of twenty or more giant gray-green 'birds'. They weren't Canadian geese, but a similar planetary environment had created similar creatures, with wingspans wider than the span of my arms.
Too soon I would fly away as well.
------------------------------
The welcome sight of Seven of Nine standing by the underground stable entrance brought a tight smile to my face and a flutter to my heart. Naomi Wildman was moving at Warp Three behind her, so I knew why my ex-drone was here. Seven always looked faintly disapproving, but I presumed she hadn't yet heard of my impromptu Cowboys riding herd, and driving the longhorns to market in Kansas, on the Chisholm Trail.
Over the great Habitat mound stood a forty-meter-high dome of shining black Solar 'glass'. Much of the underground multi-story multi-family Habitat was powered by Solar paneling, and each tower presided over a giant grass mound, proclaiming for kilometers around the presence of a GrenBollan Habitat.
For myself, I felt like a Hobbit passing through the open stable ramp-doorway. This was the Shire, the Dell, and I was entering an underground wonderland. Surprisingly, B'Elanna knew what a Hobbit was, but not Tom nor Harry.
First order of business was caring for the 'horses'. Stalls surrounded an immense central pillar, with enough room (head first) for easily four times the 'horses' present. The amazing thing was discovering my mount was house-broken. After I'd let the ceiling lift take the saddle, it enjoyed a little currying before it ambled out of its stall by itself. It twisted its head around suddenly, and nudged me towards what appeared an immense shower stall. It was. Complete with curtains for the 'humans' to shelter behind.
After she had taken care of business (louvers in the floor), she obviously expected me to use the shower-head on a ceiling-mounted hose to clean her a little. First I watched two of the teenagers casually clean their own 'horses', and marveled at such training. On each sides part.
Beat the hell out of muckraking, which I remembered all too clearly from my own days back on the farm.
Then I walked my 'horse' back to her stall where I pressed a big button to dispense some 'hay'. It also dispensed a handful or two of a grain into a separate trough. The 'horse' worked on the hay first. Smart 'horse'.
Marveling and shaking my head I came on a wonderful sight.
Seven of Nine was stripping out of her clothes not six meters from me. If only ..... I might as well ask for pigs to fly.
Seven was in one of the alcoves abutting the stalls, where the GrenBollans kept their riding clothes. If I didn't already know it, the blasé displays four other males and females were making in the alcove would have proven to me there was no strong nudity taboo here.
Payenn, Ambassador Metten's wife, was of a size to Seven, I could see now. Though impossibly conical, she had large breasts, which were on flagrant display in her vest outfit. As the vest was all she was wearing, it was a delightful sight all around. Payeen also bore the thin sparse customary GrenBollan growth of pubic hairs. She was helping Seven select one of her own riding outfits for my ex-drone to wear. Seven was going 'horse' riding! I presumed Naomi had something to do with that decision.
Seven bent over to examine some of the clothes in the drawers and closet now open for display, and I was just close enough to visually worship that lovely posterior. More than just her lips cried out for a lover's kiss. Her enticing labia almost seemed to begging for my love (and tongue)(and fingers).
Be still my beating heart, I murmured to myself.
For a nanosecond I debated going over there and pressing my face into her (blood-hot)(juicy)(fragrant)(delicious) divide. Teasing her, invading her, cleaning her, licking her, biting her, sucking her, loving her. Nipping the insides of her warm muscled thighs, pulling on her swelling labia, swallowing her swollen clit pearl, tasting her as a thin seepage from her pussy became a flood of nectar of the Gods.
Just for a nanosecond. I didn't, but I wanted to. I very much wanted to.
It was becoming such a looooong journey home, out of the Delta Quadrant, and I had long ago realized my fledgling ex-Borg had moved, in my mind, from protégé to love. Also, I had to admit, the subject of my lust.
It doesn't rain but it pours. Everyone on board wanted Seven in their bed. It was worse for me.
What was it about me that love always hit me so hard?
My train of thought was broken by Ambassador Metten gently grasping my arm.
"Captain! Please control yourself - you are projecting!"
His voice wrenched her thoughts back to reality. Reluctantly she pulled her eyes away from the lovely vision across the room to stare at the Alien diplomat in confusion; "I'm sorry, what do you mean, Ambassador?"
"Captain Janeway, didn't you know? We are a race of telepaths!"
----------------------------------
"Your Computer is active, yes?" the Ambassador asked. Asking was all this on the record, which it was.
I nodded a yes and he began to try to explain. They all did, here in the ship's Conference Room.
We had all transported back onto VOYAGER, and several GrenBollans had come with us. We were deliberately keeping the conference as low-key as possible.
They'd picked up some of our dismay at being set down amongst a race of telepaths, so they were mending fences. They were telling of the difficulties involved in simple understanding of our alien emotions, much less actual mind-reading.
Just between themselves the usual level of understanding did not usually involve a word-for-word 'translation', but a sharing of overtones. One had to work hard for more than that. Distance was also a factor, with, for example, married couples and lovers usually being the most successful in literally understanding each others single words or phrase.
There was also the matter of mental 'shouting'. A whisper, a murmur of the mind, could be grasped only by those close by. A strong projection might reach a few hundred meters maximum.
As Aliens we had been viewed as likely to be much more difficult to 'read', and everyone had also assumed we had our mental 'shields' up. Normal everyday privacy mode. They also assumed as we were a different race, we would not be easy to 'empathize' with in any event.
In all this I was reminded more of most Betazoids than of all-encompassing true telepaths, and said so.
Amongst themselves, relatively clear phrases and images could be easily transmitted. Yet the best they could do with the 'horses' was clear emotions.
That last was another bombshell. The 'horses' were native to GrenBoll, and were another telepathic species. Symbiosis!
It certainly explained why the 'horses' were so docile and helpful, and also why the GrenBollans were so solicitous of the well-being of their mounts. It was not a case of masters and beasts, but one of two cooperating species.
Long ago, in their primitive beginnings, the 'horses' could do the vital carrying and heavy labor. In return the GrenBollans had helpful hands with opposable thumbs, and now had a machine culture. The two species had remained a unity of one.
When we had all ridden out to watch the stampede, 'horse' human(oid) and GrenBollan together had created a wonderfully tasty mental and emotional feast for both our hosts and our mounts.
I glanced over at Seven, and found her looking at me. I blushed, even though I knew that Seven had not heard my very loud mental 'shout' concerning her and what I wanted to do to and with her. I wanted to do it forever and forever, until death .....
Under the table Ambassador Metten patted my hand, in sympathy.
In the end we decided to widely play the meeting to the entire ship. Thereby letting the individual crewpersons decide how much contact they wished to have with the almost-telepaths.
In the event it worked out well. Suspicion flourished at first, but the more adventurous discovered the GrenBollans were eager to try simple recreational sex with the new kids on the block.
Lt. Kim, for example, hurried back down to Stol's surface, where a bevy of young GrenBollan females were already eager to enjoy his presence. From what I understand, he somehow decided that nineteen (translated from Terran to GrenBollan years) was a reasonable age of consent for the teenagers most ready to welcome him, and stuck to it.
After that the code phrase on VOYAGER was: No problemo.
Shortly thereafter a rush to R&R on Stol again swept the ship. There was the alternative to Stol, of course, in the three giant O'Neill stations at the end of the planetary elevators. Better than a third of GrenBoll's entire Empire population lived in a similar space environment. Yet, with only one or two exceptions, every single VOYAGER crewperson wanted a planet's surface under their feet.
Including me. And Naomi (and Sam). And Seven of Nine. Of course Seven had an excuse. She had something to do besides ride a 'horse', and accompany Naomi on the immature 'horse' the child rode daily. B'Elanna swore both Seven and Naomi rode like old cowboys, from the very first instant either sat in the saddle. Even Neelix managed a ride on the range. In addition, Seven also now had a project to see through completion.
Of course we were all accustomed to dipping our weary bodies into HoloDeck Hot Water Bubbling Spas. To our delight every Habitat down on Stol seemed to have such an item already in it.
Seven, with B'Elanna's prompting and aid, decided to create an outdoor one. Did I object? I felt like joining her. Just to spend some time with her that didn't involve one of us bellied up to an Astrometrics board. I envied that control panel whenever I saw it being intimate with my Seven's abdomen.
In the end the design called for a big clumsy block of compolodial plastic. Both stone and plastic were cut to fit, and it formed a dam across a stream. The dammed water was channeled through a long circling tube, and the tube was warmed. The end result was to be a wonderfully luxurious open air pool set in an outcropping of black stone. VOYAGER constructed the block, and the GrenBollans devised the nearby Solar Panel towers which fed their own variety of wiring which warmed the water.
No moving parts. It'd still wear out eventually, I suppose, but it'd last a looooong time.
I was invited down just to enjoy the new Spa.
Maybe Seven will take a dip into 'her' Spa while I'm there.
----------------------------------
"Seven's Health Emporium And Spa" the sign said in Standard, with an arrow pointing the way. Ambassador Metten's wife, Payeen, was walking with me to the new Spa. We both had fuzzy robes on, only I knew the only thing the GrenBollan was wearing under hers was her skin. She wasn't the only one.
Megan Delaney ran scampering and squealing past me (in her birthday suit), with no less than three young naked GrenBollan males in hot pursuit. I felt like a Great-Grandmother in my demure one-piece dark blue swim suit.
Plugs of flat-topped stepping stones comprised the path to the new Spa, some four hundred meters from Habitat I'd left so abruptly a mere two days ago. After VOYAGER's corridors it was a long walk, but enjoyable. I had once walked and ran for kilometers, back in Indiana and the Academy. It felt good to stretch the muscles again.
"I'm so glad your ship is here," Payeen said. "We'd used up our allotment of vacation time on this park-planet. We're part owners, of course, of the Habitat over there. However, being hosts to VOYAGER's crew has given us a wonderful excuse for more Planetary time, and with humanoids we'd never seen before! I thank you for the opportunity."
"Does everyone come down to the park-planets?" I asked.
"Most of us do. We've found O'Neil orbital platforms a wonderful way to live, and some few never leave. At the other end of the spectrum a few pioneers are always down on the surface of even inhospitable planets, of course. They never see Space again, and they like it that way. For those without the ..... the money, the shares in a Habitat, those are allotted time in somebody else's Habitat.
"Everyone gets planet time," she continued.
"How can you treat someone like ..... like nothing, when you can feel his pain?"
A good question. The answer was that I knew in Terra's history treating others like nothing was common. It must be easy, for some.
After that we passed two 'horses', which Payeen told me were the guard volunteers for the outdoor Spa. Just in case, they kept the 'buffalo' away when the Spa was in use. Symbiosis.
Then I could see the Spa.
Upstream nearest me were a few dozen buck naked children, all loudly doing water stuff in the shallow end of the warm stream. Including Naomi Wildman. Then came the wide and deep part, and a half dozen VOYAGER crew (including TUVOK!) were slowly swimming from one side to the other. Then there were the lazy-bodies, sitting on the ledges of the 'amphitheatre' half-surrounding the swimming pool. Room for maybe seventy humanoid lifeforms, I judged.
Excepting myself, nowhere could I see even a hint of clothing.
"Won't you slip out of that 'swim-suit', Captain?" Payeen asked. "We GrenBollans do not have the thick weaves of body hair in our groins that some of your people do. Everyone is talking of the beautiful novelty of it. I've seen you nude, after all, and personally I adore that rich dark growth you have. Absolutely adore it! Won't you let everyone see how beautiful you are?"
Someone wanting to admire my sexual thatch (but not for sex!) was way far into the bizarre zone. Nonetheless, several minutes of cajoling and flattery later I was letting my staid suit puddle around my feet. There's a lot of exhibitionist in me, I guess.
Before I could cover myself in reflex, Payeen grabbed my hands and held them out to my sides. She said something, and immediately a half dozen female GrenBollans were complimenting me. I think. My Comm unit and translator were on my discarded suit.
If I hadn't slapped some inquisitive hands away, I think these sweet cooing females would have seriously groped me.
I blushed, but it was also pleasing to be so admired. Bizarre, no doubt about it, but us older ladies aren't ordinarily showered with that many compliments. Frankly, after an initial shyness, I got off on it a little.
Captain Katherine Elizabeth Janeway, the one with the very sexy and very hairy crotch.
That thought made me giggle. After that it was all okay. I was naked and no one was thinking the less of me.
It suddenly struck me that growing more private hair might become a fashion statement on GrenBoll.
"Well, Captain Janeway did it!" I could hear some future female's argument. "That's good enough for me!"
When Payeen finally shed her fuzzy robe and did a nice clean dive into the deep pool area, I was back to normal.
God, did she have a nice body! Nothing so wondrous as Seven of Nine, but still .....
I slid down into the water, still half-expecting it to be a chilling experience. Instead it was adorably warm. I let out a loud sigh and immersed myself completely. Having swum a few laps back and forth, my conscience was clear, and I happily wriggled onto a ledge with the lazy-bodies. This was seriously addictive.
This curve was made completely of plastic, and the seats were score-patterned just enough so that you didn't slide off into the deeper water. Even my toes enjoyed this.
Then Seven of Nine showed up in her own fuzzy robe.
Without much ado, she dropped it off, and slowly turned around. Supposedly judging the best place to enter the water. Entirely by accident letting everyone admire her naked beauty.
One of my recent dreams had just come true. Both Seven and myself naked, in a Hot Tub. With maybe fifty others, but still in a Hot Tub. As Seven did her pirouette within two meters of me, especially letting me admire her, I wasn't complaining.
Conscious of my semi-telepathic company I deliberately began focusing on other things than Seven's electric nakedness. A blush still made my ears burn, for I HAD to dream a teensy little bit about enjoying that beauty. Starting with a lip-bruising kiss. Couldn't avoid it.
Dream on, I chided myself.
An old joke came back to me. The one where a newly deceased mortal was given a tip by an Angel before he began climbing the stairs to Heaven. "It's easy to get through the Pearly Gates," the Angel said. "Just don't think of a white horse as you climb." The mortal thought this would be a cinch. Then he discovered he'd be following a white horse on the stairway.
Seven eased into the rank of lazy-bodies, barely nodding to me as she became immersed in the warm water.
If I close my eyes I won't notice her being so close to me.
My eyes flew open when I realized I was dreaming of caressing her, biting her ear lobes, feeling her nipples harden under my hands. And that was the chaste part.
Closing my eyes obviously wasn't the answer.
Actually the only answer was to make mad passionate love to the exquisite ex-Borg and get it out of my system. At which point my logical forebrain went and reminded me that making love to anyone had never before gotten them out of my system, but only made it much, much worse.
I could stand it if the anyone was Seven.
Seven slid into the space to my left.
She nodded to me and closed her eyes. She was so beautiful.
Then she put her human hand around my waist.
I looked up at her, but she still appeared relaxed, eyes closed, somehow as close to napping as an ex-drone gets.
Her hand slipped to my hip. Caressing.
I felt like eight million nanoites were conducting war maneuvers on my wet warm skin. My belly was tight, and I felt warm in my head (and elsewhere). My nipples, partially hidden in the water, hardened. I was spiking.
"Captain Janeway?" she asked. "Do you think I'm desirable?"
"Yes, of course," I said, wondering where this had come from or where it was going.
"In the years since I became part of the VOYAGER crew, I have made adjustments to my initial assumptions. One of those assumptions was that 'beauty' was irrelevant. I assumed sex was also irrelevant, and 'love' was a response to hormonal overload.
"In fact, 'beauty' as a truth is indeed irrelevant, for it changes from individual to individual. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", a Terran poet accurately stated. Various humanoid societies have created totally arbitrary signposts for 'beauty', but it remains a creation of individual perception."
She bent her head to bring her lips close to my ear. The ear that felt as if it was ready to burst into flame.
"I judge you are not only beautiful, but quite desirable." Her large breast softly rubbed my shaking arm.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter went my heart. Oh, if only this were leading to what I hoped, hoped, hoped it was.
Could Seven of Nine want me and my aging body?
My gut felt like a fire was in it. I knew if she could not love me, I'd settle for sex in an instant. And hope for love to be the end result.
Please, please, please, Seven, say you loved me. Make the decision I can't. I'm the brave Captain who can span mighty quadrants and I haven't got the guts to tell you I love you.
My forebrain reminds me having Seven for a lover might endanger the Command Structure. My backbrain reminds me it's been a while between warm living lovers. Conflicted.
"Love is an emotion," she continued, "and they are irritatingly imprecise."
"I love you," I said to Seven of Nine, Annika Hansen, late of the Borg collective, and someone who could break my heart in this very unique upcoming instant.
I went and said it.
"I know," she said.
So much for my deep dark unprofessional secret.
"Studies of the subject of love have been totally unrewarding," Seven said. "My understanding has not been advanced one iota by the most thorough investigation."
I just told Seven I loved her. Me.
"Therefore I must conclude that the imprecise urges which flood through me when I am near you is an outward manifestation of my love for you."
What could I say to that? Nothing while my own mind processed what she said and translated it to back to me as Seven saying she loved me.
"I love you, Seven, dear sweet Mary, Mother of Christ, I love you so very, very much."
You can take the girl out of Catholic school, but you can never entirely take the religion out of her.
"I love you," Seven repeated. "You love me. May I take it that this matter is resolved to our mutual satisfaction?"
After that we practiced a few of those lip-bruising kisses I'd been dreaming about. When Seven began licking her way around on my face, I realized it wasn't a dream.
"Seven," I tried.
"Uummmmm?"
"There is the small matter of romance ....."
"Uummmm?"
"I'll tell you about it later. It's not essential right now."
"On the contrary," Seven noted. "It is vital. I have been remiss, and I apologize. The EMH, Samantha Wildman, Megan and Jenny Delaney, Mary Nicoletti and B'Elanna all stated I must romance you before we can consummate our love."
Hello?
"I have created a series of sub-routines designed to woo you and romance you and make our loves as one."
"Seven," I cooed, "maybe we won't need all those sub-routines."
"This is true," she stated. "We are already in love with each other." Seven achieved a perplexed look on her face then.
"You have stated you are in love with me, and I have stated I am in love with you. Why then am I feeling so confused?"
"No one has the answer to that question," I said. "Darling."
Darling. That felt good with me saying it. So I said it a half dozen more times. As well as a few more "I love you". After that we got down to some serious kissing.
It developed that Seven enjoyed nibbling on ears. I could live with that. She bit my lower lip. I could live with that. She pinched my nipples until I gasped. I could live with that. She licked my eyes, my brow, the rest of my face. Oh YEAH, I could live with that.
When she began roaming through my groin, I COULDN'T live with that. Not in public.
"Seven, Seven," I began. So she covered my mouth with hers. I could already feel my traitorous hips rocking back and forth and to hell about public places.
Seven's fingers continued to find me where it counted the most. Her thumb kept massaging my clit bundle. Right now my clit must be the size of a phaser ..... "Ertaerrheii," I managed.
Seven backed off a little, just enough so I could breathe again.
"We've got to stop!"
Talk about crestfallen faces!
"I can't do this in public, we've got to, somewhere, anywhere, I can't have spectators."
"What spectators?" she asked.
There was no one in the Spa excepting Seven and myself.
Telepaths.
They would know when it was time for them to mosey on. So they had shepherded the visitors and the kids away, and left us for some serious romancing.
That was sweet of them. Embarrassing, but nice. My love affair must be the talk of the planet. And VOYAGER.
With both of us in water, it had been easy for Seven to float me enough to where her hands could reach underneath me. Her fingers entered me, and I felt my (joyous!)(happy!) muscle rings rhythmically clasp and release. It felt was so wonderful to feel my tube pulsing to its own drummer, it felt so grand to have something in me, shocks kept pulsing through my belly.
It would be easy to close my eyes and go with the moment. Fun, as a matter of fact.
But ......
"Seven," I said, "we have to stop this. Right now, we have to stop this.
Once, in my childhood, the nasty bratty rotten me had bitten the ears off my sister's dark Chocolate Easter Bunny. The look on Seven's face reminded me of that hateful moment.
I almost went into sexual overdrive just to wipe that look away, but I couldn't ...... The Spa was just too public for me.
"Let's go somewhere more private," I begged Seven. Wishing she'd withdraw her wonderful dear beautiful delightful loving fingers from inside me, but also wishing she'd finish what she'd begun. I would kill if she'd just continue.
"I love you so much, Seven," I tried to explain. "I think I'd die for you ......"
"You also are confused," she whispered into the ear she kept nibbling on. "Yet you strike a resonant chord within me. At this moment I am certain I would die for you as well."
"But I really really really don't want to, not here, not right now, it's just too public, and I'm always going to be afraid someone's going to come along and see me like this."
Confused look on Seven's face. Just when did she become so capable of fully expressing the human emotions on that normally icy mask of a face?
"Public. I can't do this in a public place and this Spa qualifies as a very public place."
Understanding. "You wish a more private venue."
"Yes, yes, yes," I again begged.
"Will a small hollow of prairie grass suffice?"
More private yes, but still out in the open. Sort of.
I thought of trying to find my Comm unit, and transporting to the ship. Then I thought of all that beautiful grassland. Deep, fragrant grassland. Finding a bower of waving grass for our love nest. A world of grass, for the two of us.
Just the two of us for kilometer after kilometer.
"That will suffice," I admitted, already anticipating.
--------------------------------------
We'd topped a nearby rise, the two of us. Me somehow riding on Seven's strong hip like a babe, her making approving noises as I continued to kiss and caress her. Caressable she was, indeed. Skin like velvet, breasts flowing and exciting, nipples hardening under my touch. A neck that stretched to accept my kisses, long blond hair flicking in the quickening breeze blowing across the great plain.
I'd never seen an ear so beautiful, or a cheek more glowing, or a smile more divine. Seven was smiling at me, and that was priceless just by itself.
I'd found my Comm, Seven had found hers, and we wore our fuzzy robes in the golden sunlight. My swimsuit was draped over my shoulder, and I'd already decided to go for a direct Transport to my Cabin when this was ..... over.
Time was so fast of foot. I ached a little to realize the upcoming bout of loving would eventually end. There is always just the one first time. I firmly squashed my ache.
Instead my heart beat faster in knowledge of the moment to come.
Seven shaded her eyes with her other hand and looked about. I ceased kissing her long enough to also gaze on what seemed absolutely virgin prairie.
A small depression in the grass lay before us, waving strands of green promising much.
It was beautiful.
Seven let me down, and I staggered after my ride on my lover's hip. So strong she had been, for she had carried me without panting or flagging. When she stripped off her robe and spread it on the grass, my shaking hands enjoyed the interplay of muscles along her back and arm.
She took my robe off me, her hands full of my rear, her lips on my neck, licking my spine. Shivers of cold and heat raced up and down my spine, and I backed into her grasping fingers.
"You are extraordinarily beautiful," she said. She nibbled on my ear again, her hands weighing my sagging breasts, handling the hardening aureole and nipples with easy grace.
"It is customary for lovers to be less formal with each other than they might have been," she noted. "May I call you Kathryn when we are together but apart from the others?"
"Kat will do just as well," I said into her neck when I turned to face her. "But Kathryn is fine. What shall I call you? Is Annika okay?"
She nodded a yes, her fingers in my hair as I licked the hollow of her throat.
"Better yet," I said, "can I call you Ani?"
"Yes," she said. "Kat and Ani. That resonates in my mouth and mind. We shall have two unique words in themselves denoting the special relationship of love between us."
Holding her hands, I backed down onto our two open robes, pulling Ani with me. She followed, and quickly she was atop me. After that it was an orgy of rubbing ourselves against the other, and all five of our hands in six different places at the same time.
Ani began kissing her way down my body, making me squeeze shut my eyes and tremble. She found my nipples with her mouth.
I think I saw stars.
For years I'd dreamt of throwing Ani down and devouring her. Giving her orgasm after orgasm until she fainted.
Instead I was the one who was swallowed by the feeling I was going to faint, if this got much better than it already was.
Then it got better. Ani could not stop rubbing herself onto me, pressing me, gracing me.
I felt I could feel every single sparse blond hair in her incredibly beautiful groin on my thigh, and I had to triple my humping upwards into her thigh as the waves built and crashed over me.
Ani cried out as I fell back to earth, and I knew incredible joy that I had been able to give her that.
It was not yet over. Ani's thumb found my clit and began rubbing it. She dipped her hand, coating it with the juices that I felt sure were absolutely gushing out of me.
I spasmed around her two invading figures, my rings of muscles crying to the heavens in fulfillment as they feasted on my impalement.
"I love you, Annika, I love you," and came again.
Ani continued to give me her fingers and I felt myself already again building.
I was close to coming when I croaked; "Eat me. Pleeeaase!"
I'd never before minded a hand getting me off. Quite the contrary. But this time, this first time, this special first time, I HAD to get it the absolutely best way possible.
Ani kissing me, licking me, sucking me, softly biting me, into a mind-shattering cum seemed about right for the first time.
With a short detour to lick into my belly button, Ani reached her goal. Between my spread thighs I watched Ani carefully look into my feverish groin.
She began licking through my pubic hair first. In a short time I could see my body hairs glistening in the sunlight. Glistening as if they were a forest after a heavy rain.
Ani licked my clit a half dozen times, and I was sure my labia became the size of shuttle craft.
Then her strong hands lifted my little ass so that she could look directly into my pulsating vagina. I waited for a second, for an eternity. Do something, Ani, I mentally pleaded.
She spread my lips with her fingers, opening up my vagina so that its inner folds were revealed to her stare.
"You're beautiful there!" Ani exclaimed. "You are all very pink, a dozen shades of pink, and have a hundred folds. There is irregular pulsing, and it looks very wet.
"Is it acceptable if I say you have a lovely cunt?"
"Say away," I gasped. Mentally I screamed for her to do something, anything, anything at all.
She put her tongue into the cunt hole she admired so very much.
She kept working the mouth of my vagina, working and teasing the ring muscles until I ......
I was panting hard by the time I had fallen back into reality.
"Ani?" I asked.
"Taste is not irrelevant, Kat. You are delicious."
With her sucking lips and gentle teeth she started stretching my clit out from my groin.
I closed my eyes and trembled into the tidal wave of emotions and sensations. Ani loved me. I loved her. I loved what she was doing, and why, and how.
I wanted to make love to Ani now. My turn. "Ani?"
Her tongue returned to my eager wet vagina, and this time her thumb kept working my clit.
Oh, yesyesyesyesyesyeas .....
"Kat?" Ani asked. "Did you wish something?"
"I've forgotten what it was I wanted to say to you, Ani. It couldn't have been very important. I'll remember later."
I could feel my belly tightening in synch with her probing of my vagina (which had to be open at least 10 centimeters across). My pretty pink cunt. Adored by my wonderful Ani. She thought I had a beautiful cunt.
We're lovers. We can use words like pussy and cunt. Just between ourselves.
My nipples ached terribly, and I realized I was pinching them as Ani loved me. Ate me. As she ate my pussy. Later on I'll eat her. Gloriously and endlessly. Till we both die. They'll find our picked-over bones in the grass.
Then I remembered.
Sooner or later it'd be my turn.
----------------------------------
It was getting cooler as the sun crawled toward the west. I was glad for the ability to snuggle into my Ani's warm strong arms.
"Why then?" I asked her.
"Why what, Kat?"
"Why did you wait until we were together in the Spa pool before you finally started being close to me, telling me things, touching me, opening up to me?"
"After Payeen informed me of what you were feeling when you saw me unclothed, I finally knew for certain that at least some of my emotions were reciprocated by you."
That day in the Alcove when Ambassador Metten had first told me that they were telepaths. Payeen had already snitched on me to Seven of Nine.
I blushed, wondering how much Payeen had told Ani.
"Finding you immersed in the Spa Pool was the first time since then when I was able to interact socially with you."
"So you felt confident about my feelings when you came onto me?"
"Not completely. However, once I was sure you felt lust for me, I decided to venture forward and attempt a more meaningful relationship. It appears my decision was correct."
"I love you too, Ani," I chuckled.
She cocked her head in that familiar motion then.
"You have been assimilated. It is fortunate you realized that resistance was futile."
Did she just make a joke?
----------------------------------
EPILOGUE:
Outside the aluminum windows, passing stars made rainbow starbows in the night. Inside my cabin was warmth, comfort, relief and my Ani, formerly Seven of Nine.
"My Borg memories are incomplete since I left the Collective, but I do 'recall' a few interesting variations. Are you ready?"
"But just what the HELL is an 'over-the'shoulder' technique????"
Later, after a long pause replete with a gasps, I issued a cooing whisper, followed by a softly murmured "yesyesyesyesyesyesyes ....."
"There is also the 'under-the-armpit' technique," Seven husked, then resumed what she had been doing before. After that I was drowned by the tsunami.
By the time I came out of my petite Mort blackout, Seven was once more licking my groin hairs and clit. Gently, this time. She then swallowed my swollen labia and softly chewed.
Reflecting the light of starbows, Seven's eyes opened to regard me, and I could easily make out her next words. How she spoke and also didn't cease doing what she was doing I'll never know. Or maybe I will. It's a useful skill to have.
"Are you ready for 'under-the-armpit'?" she asked.
That made me think hard. Did I want to die a graceful death before I'd brought VOYAGER home?"
What-the-hell.
"Damn The Torpedos," I whispered. I guess this is the
END
and now leave some quick feedback to the author...
Ready for the quiz?
NOTE:You don't have to take it more than once (unless you want to), you can click here to go back to the stories page...or if you feel daring, scroll down a little and "randomize"...
