PART TEN: BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
He straddled the meridian
and pondered over left and right
for always did the need arise
to taste the fruit of day and night
no mind could fight the pull of love
for two who would complete his life -
he thought that one was not enough
that both would end his inner strife
vanhunks
Their bodies heaved in the rhythmic movement of lovemaking. She watched his face, every expression, every minute change, the way his tattoo seemed to expand and contract in synchronisation with his breathing, or the slight contraction of facial muscles as he strained against her. His body glistened; she could feel the dampness on her skin - perspiration that met his own and mingled in cloying coy sweetness.
Since the first time they had made love, he had loved her breasts. He had been drawn to her body, the gleam in his eyes growing darker and darker until she frowned at it, wondering what he was thinking or going to do next. He had touched her nipples with trembling fingers, then moved those fingers to his lips. She thought he was going to weep, for she had seen the gleam in his eyes overwhelm him.
She had been tutored by him on their wedding night. It had been everything she desired and not known that she desired. Her body complied, for she knew that she would never hold back in anything that he demanded from her. Yet, when he filled her that night, the movement had stolen upon her, and she realised that the strange moistness between her legs, the wetness of her centre was the centre for the gentle probing of his fingers. She had cried out in surprise at the sudden sharp flash of pain, but her own heat, the strange, the alien desire which controlled her body from that moment on, had become the signals she recognised afterwards of her readiness to receive him.
He had filled her to the hilt and he had cupped the sides of her head with his palms and kissed her tenderly. Not of her own accord her mouth had opened under his, and as his tongue entered her mouth and began to probe and taste her, so his hips urged hers to move with him. Up and up they rose; she had not known that all control could flee before the eye of the storm. Pleasure, pure pleasure began to rock her and when the moment had come - for she never recognised that moment - she learned of it only because he had woken her seconds later and told her that she had fainted.
His smile had been kind, gentle, loving...so loving. In his eyes she had seen the gleam of victory, a victory that had become hers too.
And she could only whisper in unexplained wonder, "Chakotay...my love..." She had known, by the way his fingers laced in her hair, the way he brought it close to his face and inhaled the smell of it while still joined to her body, that she would never cut her hair. After that night, she welcomed him in their bed as often as he desired to have her, always giving generously. And every time she experienced what humans thrived on during the act of lovemaking - orgasms. They shattered her into pieces and they built her up. They tied him to her. She cried out at the height, loved to hear him cry out in the heat of his passion.
Their compatibility awed him; it transformed her. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Even in his office at the Commission... Once there, he had turned her back to him and pressed her down, down, down to the floor until she was bent on all fours. She had looked back, tried to tell him she was not a dog, but his probing fingers were organs of miraculous ease themselves and gradually her resolve had lessened until the small of her back curved inwards and she presented her buttocks to him. She had remained still, until he bent his face close by her ear and murmured "spread your knees, Annika..." She had complied, feeling him lave her centre with his hardness until she was soft, swollen and dripping with her need. He had slid into her with such ease that she had little recollection that he had entered, except that he moved over her like a dog would. She had done as much as possible to be as open to him, pushing and straining against him until they collapsed together.
Always, when he wanted her, the location was of little importance.
She had been open then, open and willing and giving, as she was now.
He loved covering her entire aureole with his mouth and sucking like a baby would. She would spill from just the strong suckling, of feeling her juices rush through her body to mingle with his. She'd help him by pressing her breast into him, so that he could savour her fullness. When he did that, she would run her fingers through his hair, shift and spread as wide as she could to allow his fullness to grow inside her, lusty and strong and hard.
She felt his lust, and her body responded to that lust as she wept her juices for him, utterly, alarmingly, shockingly exposed on the bed in the bright light of day with the windows open and the sun streaming through and smearing the floor, their sheets, their bodies with its sharp, yellow rays.
Open, open heart, her body - soft, pliant, ready to do his bidding, ready to bend to his will and his lust. She loved him. For her, there was no other way to express it but through the giving of her body to him. Now she pushed roughly against him, feeling the weight and the force of his thrusting, the sounds emanating from his throat - rough, disorderly, guttural sounds that revealed his own demented need to find release. The soft purping sound as their bodies collided against one another, brought about by their glistening sweat..
"Move now, Annika," she heard him order gruffly.
Then she raised her hips, marked his rhythm, pulled her legs up and around his waist, giving him as much as she could. He grunted as she locked her legs and arched her hips into him at the same time, his hard length probing deep into her. They moved then, ugly shaped bodies on the bed, his darkly tanned against her own almost luminously fair skin. Her eyes kept his gaze as he pounded into her, each movement accompanied by a loud moan or guttural indeterminate sound. His face contorted and hers, she knew, mirrored his, out of all known lucidity and familiarity and form. His nose was running, his mouth drooled saliva over her, his eyes were wet, not from tears, but rather the sweat that collected and dripped onto her. A moment when he cried out again, and she knew that her nails had gored into his back for purchase and then, unable to find it, scored a path all the way down.
Later she would use a dermal regenerator and repair broken skin.
For the first time in more than three weeks, they stormed simultaneously to their climax. Again, as on so many occasions, she could feel how he spilled into her, crying out aloud as he did so.
When eventually he collapsed over her, their orgasm spent, she felt her eyes wet with tears. For long moments, she savoured his body still locked with hers. She squeezed her sheath hard around him, enjoying the way he shuddered because his shaft was still tender and highly sensitised. Again and again she did so until he rocked no more.
"You're mine," she heard him whisper, for his face was turned away from her.
"I love you more each day..."
Then she slid from the bed, untroubled by her nudity as she went to stand by the window, staring at the bed, seeing how he had turned himself on his back, his penis limp and listless.
For now.
She smiled. He couldn't do without her body, even though she knew that he had once loved another person, and that he had once, when the admiral had visited Dorvan, been with her one night.
"What are you thinking, Annika?" he asked as he lay, hands behind his head, in a posture of utter freedom and relaxation, his body sated.
"I am thinking that I am happy. You make me happy…."
"Why do you sigh?" he asked.
"I have always doubted that I could make you happy, but I can see you lying there, very contented and soon you will be ready again to make love to me."
"Yes, Annika," he said, his eyes gleaming again. Her heart raced. She wanted him again, even though his sticky semen still dripped between her legs. She loved that feeling, always thinking that that was where she had him, or that it was him sticking to her legs, that that was where she owned him.
There was a long silence in which she burned to ask him the question that had plagued her as long as they had been on Dorvan.
"Chakotay..."
"Yes?"
"Do you still love Admiral Janeway?"
Why was it when she mouthed the words, that her hands, covering her pubic area, started trembling? Why was she still so unsure? Why did the question just slip out like it did? Her heart beat faster, the waiting laying waste the fragile strands of her heart. He lay there staring at her.
"Why is that important, Annika?"
"I know that you were with her when she visited, in her abode. You were in her bed. Am I not your love? Do I not give you my body unreservedly?"
Chakotay rose from the bed, resplendent in his nakedness, his body still glistening. When he reached her, he took her in his arms. She rested her head against him for a moment, then lifted her face. His eyes were shuttered; the way the muscles in his cheek appeared to stiffen, the flush in them, was enough evidence that her words surprised him. Did he think she would not find out?
"My sense of smell is still heightened. You smelled of sex when you came to my bed..."
He looked away, the flush deepening to dark red. She cupped his cheek and turned him to face her.
"I cannot hate you, Chakotay," she said, a little shaken at the truth, "nor can I hate her…"
"It's over, Annika," he promised her. "It's over. No, I don't love her, not in the way I used to. I'm still her friend and she is still my friend..."
"I accept your friendship. It is a part of your life that is unique, your right to own. Perhaps love was a part of that package, indivisible from friendship. I think how it is possible to fall out of love. But Chakotay, we are not friends. I envy you and Admiral Janeway having that.I try to understand that it is hard to let go of something that has been a part of you for a long time. I know that I won't forget you, that you will always be a part of me. I will love you until my dying day. If you loved Admiral Janeway like that and she loved you the same, then it is hard. But - "
"It won't happen again...ever..." he whispered as he touched the tear that rolled down her cheek.
"It has made me unhappy."
"You did not show it," he said softly, his eyes kind on her. His palm rested against her cheek. She wanted to lean into him, allow the tenderness to sink into her and assimilate her senses.
"I have learned from Admiral Janeway to mask my feelings, Chakotay. Perhaps she still feels that way towards you."
"If she does, my love, then I do not share them. Not anymore. What happened that night..."
Chakotay sighed, gazed out the window for several seconds heavy in the magnitude of what he had done.
"You should spare me the details," she said, her mouth curving into an unwilling smile. "Please, you don't have to - "
"I must, Annika," he replied, his face sombre. "What happened was wrong, on my side, okay? I was still pulled between two poles and I couldn't help myself when I went to her. I am deeply sorry for causing you such pain. Kathryn and I...we both realised we were hurting you. When she left the next day, I did not go to see her off."
She smiled then.
"No, you were with me, in my arms, Chakotay. But you came to my arms too, after you left Admiral Janeway's bed. You made love to me..."
Annika remembered that night, weeks ago. Chakotay had been extra attentive, very raw and hard and rough and loving. It was as if he compensated for something, trying to obliterate a moment, a feeling, a love lost to him. She had been crying and laughing at the same time, unable to understand why she could feel desperately unhappy and deeply happy at the same time. He made love to her as he had never done before - with so much passion and lack of reserve. All the time, she smelled Janeway's moistness on him, tickling her nostrils when she inhaled. But all the time he thrust wildly into her, her body became pliant, soft and willing as she lost control and gave herself to him. Together they exploded and for a moment she had seen and heard the voices of a thousand couples as they poured themselves into one another.
"That was when I resolved never to hurt you again, Annika."
She smiled. Chakotay's face looked clear; his words sounded so certain. He touched her breasts, her nipples had became hard nubs the moment he touched her again. Sighing with contentment, she lowered her hand and felt for his shaft, gently stroking until he was hard and heated in her hands.
Without a word, he led her away from the window and quickly pressed her back in the bed. By the time she made contact with the mattress, her legs were spread wide for him. He slid effortlessly into her, giving a long moan of pleasure as he filled her. Quickly, enjoying the surprised look in his eyes, she flipped herself over and straddled him.
"You want to play, Annika?"
"Oh, yes..." she agreed, then lifted herself, plunging hard down on him as her answer. He gripped her waist and then lifted, bringing her down with force on his impaled penis. On and on he brought her down on him, their sounds flying about the room, her hair flying about her face, his shaft so pleasurably deep in her that she felt like never stopping.
But their bodies were racing to a climax and seconds later she collapsed over him, breathing hard.
"I love you..." she whispered.
Then she disengaged, watching with fascination as she pulled out of his penis until she released him. They lay on their backs.
"I can't get enough of you," Chakotay said in a gruff voice.
She didn't reply. She lay thinking. Something was happening with her body. She was sure that the night after he had been with Admiral Janeway, she had conceived. It had happened on that night, as certainly as the tricorder which she'd used the day before had confirmed it. Her whole being thrilled to the prospect that they had made a baby together, for a baby sealed their love and kept their bond tighter together.
She wanted to wait for a few days before she told him, so that she could spend the time reflecting on their coming child, a baby girl that would look like her and look like him, a baby that would make his love irrevocable. Her hand lay across her belly and she closed her eyes.
She had studied the database extensively about human mating behaviour, had even on occasion, when she hadn't been aware of how she had offended them, asked members of Voyager's crew about lovemaking, about loving.
She didn't read much, had never read the famous authors of this century and previous centuries, but knew their works always reflected grand love stories.
What was love?
She wanted to do everything for her husband. Even now, after three months together, she knew that she would love him for the rest of her life. He fulfilled her, understood her, taught her everything she knew about lovemaking, taught her to be human. She found him necessary to her breathing, an indispensable part of her life. Their bodies danced together in complete synchronisation. He owned her heart, her body, her mind, her soul. With all that, she loved him. She thought how far she had developed from being a lonely, isolated Borg figure, a number in the hierarchy of the Collective, one to whom life and its imitations and all emotion were irrelevant.
Now everything had meaning. With Chakotay, she had learned that meaning and understanding came hot on the heels of the new, untested, unknown entities that were called betrayal, deceit, acting out parts of that life with such conviction as to make the dishonesty honest.
When they made love, it felt to her that her mind was no more a mystery to him, that he saw deep into her soul and understood her. At the peak of their passion, she was so utterly vulnerable, yet she rejoiced that he took her exposed heart and soul and treasured it in his great hands. She was his, yet, with all the will in the universe, with all her skill as a scientist, with all her knowledge gained, she wondered if he were playing a part.
Annika turned to look at her husband.
Chakotay of Voyager. Chakotay of Dorvan V.
He lay snoring gently, his face turned away from her.
And even as she splayed her palm over her belly, knowing that it would soon show with the fullness of child, she wondered whether she would ever see into Chakotay's soul.
She wondered whether she would ever really own his heart.
**************
And Chakotay?
He lay on his back, his face turned away from his wife. He felt sated, his body spent in the afternoon of lovemaking. Today, he had kept the windows of their bedroom open so that the sun streamed in, but mostly to push the envelope with his lovemaking. Passers-by could hear them or even see them when Annika had stood earlier at the window.
She was as unaware of her nudity as he was and it was the way he liked it. In the late evening, they could walk through the house naked without any inhibitions. Many times, he would caress her in passing, or she would caress him and the action was as natural as the time he and Kathryn had been on New Earth and they had moved about in the same way.
New Earth. A lifetime away, yet the memory of it was still close to him.
He loved Annika, now. Kathryn had been right when he had asked her to marry him and she'd turned him down. She had seen he was leaning more towards the cool Borg woman who had today been extra generous with her body, a body that belied the cool aloofness she displayed on the outside. Annika was hot, always ready for him and always available and he loved that about her. He could, whenever he desired and especially when they were home or somewhere alone, pull her into his arms and indicate his need. Then they would explode into passion.
Today he had noticed that she was withdrawn, pondering on something that caused a coolness in her behaviour. After their morning session at the Commission, he had suggested they come home, and with extra care and coaxing, had finally mellowed her so that she was again the willing participant in their lovemaking. He had known that Kathryn's presence on Dorvan some weeks ago had bothered her, though to the rest of the Dorvan community she displayed her usual friendliness. He, though, could see that she was troubled.
And he didn't help. He still wanted Kathryn and he had been at a loss to define the dichotomy of his feelings for the two women. He wanted Kathryn and he wanted Annika. Annika was surprisingly, amazingly, uncomplicated and he read her easily, understood her moods, understood her motives, understood her heart. There were no complications in her. Making love with her was the mainstay of his physical life and needs. She was open and giving. Most days he couldn't wait to get home and get her writhing in crazed passion beneath him.
Kathryn.
Kathryn was as complex as a thousand different women all blended into a single person. All their years on Voyager, it was her complexities that intrigued him the most. He readily conceded that women of high rank, and in the Delta Quadrant, the highest ranking officer of Starfleet, made Kathryn unique. She was an alluring woman as well as a captain, and those attributes merged into an exciting being with whom he clashed, fell in love, adored. She sharpened his wits, challenged him and, he could never, never read her. What perplexed him most about her was also what drew him like a magnet to her. In that Kathryn remained darkly, achingly mysterious and it was the air of mystery, her mystique that drove him mad with want, with wanting to know what went on in her mind.
In that, Kathryn was right. There were facets of her that he could simply never understand, that would forever remain hidden to him and it was this, ironically, that teased him into madness.
He had been edgy when Kathryn arrived and he had been the first to admit that their friendship was strained, that nothing was like it had been before. Their easy camaraderie, the light flirtatious teasing, the instinctive natural bond between them was somehow subdued. Yet he couldn't help himself when he pulled her up in his arms in a great hug, had desperately wanted to kiss her. Annika had seen the interplay but he had shrugged it off, knowing that she would understand that he had a friendship to treasure as well as a marriage to maintain.
And when he had time to study Kathryn, he noticed her as even more detached, beautifully aloof and complex. Her skin was translucent, as if she had been asleep in a darkened room for a month with no sunshine to revive and energise her. There was a feyness about her, but also a strange, strange newness that he couldn't put his finger on, except to think that the man he'd heard in the background when he had spoken via vid-com with her had something to do with it.
He had wanted to taste Kathryn. Her body had received him and he had felt for a moment how his very soul moved into her being. In that moment, he had realised that was what he had been searching for, how he still wanted her with desperate need.
It was over before it began, yet he lost himself in her. Kathryn classically assimilated him in her heart and mind… Even as he had merged with her, his mind spiralled away from him, no longer belonging to him but to Kathryn. For that moment when they had been locked together, he felt peace such as he had never felt before.
It was an admission as startling as it was hard to make. His soul was owned by Kathryn Janeway. But with harsh reality lay his wife, his new love, his commitment to his marriage, his responsibility. In the bright light of day, Kathryn was never going to betray herself again and he was never going to let it happen again.
Chakotay turned finally into his wife's arms, held her very close and vowed that he would do everything to make her happy now.
But he wondered, as he closed his eyes and felt her trembling body, why he couldn't lose his soul to her like he wanted to.
Perhaps, he decided as his body began to answer to his wife's ministering hands, it was possible to love two women entirely differently, that together, those two women would complete him, each in her unique way. They were two utterly different facets which were complementing, essential parts of what made his relationship whole.
Annika was not enough.
And while Annika on her own could not divine the depths in him that he knew Kathryn Janeway would, it was enough for him. He felt how the deep moral responsibility washed over him as he let his wife caress him, her softness, her readiness, her love above all resurging in him as the mainstay of his life. While he felt Kathryn would always be the one who had his soul, she was gone from his life. She was moving on, and so should he.
When his shaft sank deeply into Annika and he heard her sigh of joy and contentment, he knew that he would be loyal to her.
For now...
********************
END PART TEN
PART ELEVEN: A THOUSAND VOICES