Log 21 Supplemental

SD: 04120.35

It's a guy thing, or Some enchanted evening, you may meet a heel:

Unlike my normal logs, this entry is mostly just a set down some general notes on happenings of the last week. This is to help me collect my thoughts on what the heck is happening in my life, because right now I haven’t a clue!

What a weird week.

First we had that odd glitch in the holodeck I mentioned in my normal log, and then the week made a really odd left turn for me. Let me see if I can set it all down here in some sort of order. Maybe then I can get some sleep!

It all really started about three days after the holo malfunction. I’d been pouring over the data I’d collected from New Ca. again, and was getting burned out. Things had finally gotten back to something approaching normality and I’d put K out of my mind for a time. What brought an end to this was when I noticed a lecture that K'Lynxyl had setup to give on "The History of Bladed Weapons in the Federation". I was tired and needed a break, and I also needed to get back to work learning about what K’s brother was up to, so I went.

The turnout was surprisingly good for such a cut and dried topic. I was a bit late because of a jammed turbolift, so got stuck in the back and missed the first few minutes. This was no loss as it covered early human weapons, and I know them intimately.

I must say I was shocked that she knew so much about bladed weapons. The way she acts you’d think she be just a vacuous little tramp like Lera, but she had some good information in her lecture, and I even learned a bit I didn’t know about Vulcan weapons. She also had some interesting insights into the progression of Romulan and Vulcan weapons after their divergence as well. Nifty stuff!

I wanted to talk to her further about her ideas when the lecture broke up. But by time I got to the front this ensign that just wouldn’t shut up, had gotten to her before me. It wouldn’t have really bothered me that much if what he had been talking about was interesting, but he seemed to be more interested in ogling K than talking about the subject of the lecture. So after a polite clearing of my throat didn’t get his attention, I just elbowed the little bore out of the way, and asked her to join me for a drink so we could talk without interruption.

I picked a booth away from the noise of a birthday party, and we had a few drinks and some dinner as we talked. I genuinely enjoyed the time, which shocked me to no end. She may be slow with some things like math, but things that interest her bring out the better part of her character. It was also nice because she didn’t say anything at all embarrassing to me for a change. Somehow she seems to know just the wrong thing to say to me at times. I’m just glad I was wrong in thinking that she was doing this just to make me mad.

As we chatted, I noticed her hands on the table and was surprised to see how well the burns had healed. I took one and turned it over to look at the palm marveling at the fine work she had done. I didn’t even notice I was still holding her hand, till I noticed her looking down at where they were clasped.

I was again surprised when K suddenly wanted to leave. I guess my thoughtlessness must have upset her somehow, or perhaps she was just tired. She’s beginning to look a bit, well, frayed around the edges is the best way to put it. I figured that dropping her a card would be a nice gesture and did so the next day, though there was some sort of glitch in the mail system and it took a while for the card to go. I also sent her a few ideas I had during my shift about the things she had been lecturing on, but the terminal at my bridge station was acting funny too, making me wonder if this flying collection of scrap was getting ready to cough out another computer error. So I spent the whole of the next day running full diags and repairing the weapons targeting computers. After that workout I had a night without dreams. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to sleep through a night without waking up in a cold sweat.

After a full day of banging away at the computers and a good nights sleep, I decided to take a break and use my open invitation to breakfast with K and her kids again. I’d done this twice and found it pleasant, not to mention K'Torr said something about Uncle Riit, but I'd been staying away from the holodecks for the last few days After the zombies, I’d decided to find something else to do for a while. When I checked her cabin to see if she would mind my tagging along, I found she had already gone and was in the holodeck. I changed into my comfortable slouchy cotton clothes, got a spear, and headed to the holodeck.

When I stepped onto the deck, I could tell that this was not the simulation I had expected, but nothing was shooting at me either. Instead I was on the side of a wooded mountain slope much different from that of the stream, but likely taken from the same general vicinity. There was a trail, so I followed it for a ways till I came to the edge of a cleared area. Out there in what looked like a lightening burn were a batch of bighorn sheep, and to one side I could see K stalking them while her kids looked on. I watched in fascination as she crept up silently on one, and watched in horrified fascination as she pounced on the unsuspecting animal and ripped out its throat with her teeth.

I don’t know how long I stood there in the shadows watching her and her children, revulsion and fascination warring for control of my mind, but finally I came to my senses and withdrew before she could notice me and make some sort of remark about my presence. Watching her was both a horror, and in some sort of odd sense a release from the horror of the Tang. How this could be, I don’t know, but I slept better that night than I had in a year without going to bed exhausted. Perhaps it had something to do with confronting some of my fears?

The next day I decided to test my theory and invited K to a movie. It was one of those awful artsy fartsy things that no one but an artist likes, and we walked out about half way through. We ended up in 10 Forward, along with almost everyone else that had been in the theater to start with. The only open tables were in a cluster around our new security officer, Tarra. She was hulking over a plate of something bloody, making grumbly growly sounds as she wolfed down her food. Next to Tarra K looks downright petite!

We sat at one of the tables, as I figured that she wouldn’t stay long, but she didn’t go soon enough. It wasn’t long before Tarra and I were into it, having a heated discussion about the last Federation Kzin war. K stopped us before we could really swing into it by breaking in and telling about her history.

She spoke in a soft monotone of being an outcast, an outsider, as she was growing up on Earth. Of her time as a captive in Kzin space. And finally of how she had been treated by the authorities of Cait when she tried to visit that world. And through it all I could feel the same pain I’d gone through growing up, and as a young man.

I knew most of her story all from her records, but to know it is one thing. To hear it from the lips of the person that lived it along with all the pain in that person’s voice, well it got to me. I didn’t know what to say when she finished, and as I struggled to find words for her that didn’t sound hollow, she got up and left the table. When you have lived a similar life and found no answers for yourself, how can you find a way to comfort another?

The one notable spot in is all was learning that her brother had freed her from her captivity was enlightening. Perhaps this is the lever he holds over her. I would ask as I could, but she normally closed down when I try to ask questions about him.

Of the time we have spent together, this and the first fishing trip were, in my opinion, the most important, and the most pivotal in forming my view of her. I felt true empathy for her and her position in the universe, though it must be worse for her. For all that I am an outsider, I have a place to belong. A world that accepts me for what I am. For her there is none but what she makes for herself.

That night, and for most of the next day I did a reevaluation of my feelings, and discovered that I didn’t like my self too much knowing what I was likely to be setting her up for. But how could I stop? If this is what they call remorseful feelings, then I don't want any more of it! Give me some scum to grift and I'd be happy again.

My final conclusion? Much the same as I'd told Ironbottom. That she is not involved directly in whatever Riit has planned, so perhaps I could protect her. To do that I needed to get her to open up to me, and that, come hell or high water, I intended to do. I’ve got to find out what was going on around me, so I can protect her and the Federation from whatever her brother has planned.

To that end I called her late in the night, when she was just getting off her shift, and asked her to bring her wtsai for a practice. I intended to confront her strait up about her brother, but that was not what happened. Not by a long shot!

We worked for about an hour, and I’d decided to broach the subject when we were putting the weapons back into the rack. I’d worked myself up to ask her, and was already on edge when I felt a heavy weight slam into my back and hot breath on my neck. Oh Goddess, in a fraction of a second I was transported back to the cold dark engine room of the Tang, and reliving again when that little ratcat Telepath had grabbed me from behind! His broken speech was diamond clear in my mind as if he were again telling me in the here and now how he was going to earn a name for himself by killing the monkey that had eluded his master. I could feel his lathery arm about my neck as he told me how he was going to eat my liver in front of my dieing eyes. Goddess he was frightening!

I was jammed up so solid this time that I’d gone blind and couldn’t even scream as I relived my life and death struggle with the little bastard. Normally something of the real world comes through that that I can cling to between the flashes. But all I could manage this time was to take breaths in short gasps and hold onto the weapons rack for dear life.

I knew this one like the scarred back of my hand, how it smelled, how it felt, how it would end, but this time something was different. Slowly something else came through dissolving the horror before I managed for the umpteenth time to gut Telepath on the broken dilithium resequencer. A slow, gentle yet firm touch on my back gathered my attention, making the fight fade. As the world returned I found that it was K rubbing my back as she purred in a singsong way, and it felt wonderful!

She worked my back over for a while longer as I, having recognized the song she was purring, began humming along with her. She seemed relieved as I managed to recover which was touching to me. She made no snide remarks this time about my blackout, and said nothing about the claw scars that crisscross my back when I let her remove my shirt. I said something then that I shouldn’t have. I was in a slightly manic phase after the attack and I told her that her backrub was better than sex, meaning every word of it, and she said that I wouldn’t say that if I’d ever had sex with her.

I didn’t know what to say to that, but she had done something nice for me, bringing me back from the brink like that, so I asked her to come to my room. She seemed nervous and excited, but came along. I was still so rattled from my flashback that it was only when we were halfway there that I thought about what she must have thought was on my mind. That she would be willing to come with me was quite a compliment!

When we arrived, I asked her to sit and did something I should have done from the start. I made copies of all the material I had from the Tang. The 2 and 3D images of her Mom and the ship, and the vids I’d taken of her. After K calmed down from an emotional outburst of tears and kissing that left me both embarrassed and feeling good at the same time, we lay back on my bed. We were there for hours watching the few fleeting vids, and going over the pictures as we nibbled on finger foods. I narrated the events around the pictures, and told her story after story of her Mother’s exploits. She seemed a bit distressed about some of it, but so pleased with just knowing, that I actually hurt for her. I wish I had any good feelings toward my sisters or Mom, but shitheels that they were, I did at least know them. She had almost nothing of family, be it good or bad.

Finally my voice was nearly gone and she could hardly keep her eyes open, so I sent her to her cabin. She wanted to stay and talk more, and finally I had to get a bit gruff with her to get her to go before she dropped where she stood.

The thought did fleetingly cross my mind to ask her to stay, but her kids would need her, and I had some more new issues to work out in my mind, namely would I be willing to let matters take the course that they seemed to be heading in, even without my pushing the issue? It had been a very long time since I’d cared for someone, and I had to admit that K was becoming something more to me than just a mission. She was becoming a friend.

Aside from her mother, I had never had a woman that was a friend, and with her age, we could be more than M’Rander and I ever could have been. This was a thought that both frightened and enticed me. Lora had never really needed me, never really wanted me around or talked with me. K seemed just the opposite. At times she was actually desperate to talk, to be noticed, to interact. I liked that, and Lora had never cried on my shoulder in happiness.

I spent the next day in meditation and praying to the Goddess to help me, but by the end of the day I had no more answers than when I’d started. I’ve never worried about the morality of my actions, but now I have someone that I don’t want to screw over, and it looks like I must. Oh Goddess, don't tell me I was developing morals too! She is going to hate my guts when this all comes out in the wash. I just know it, and its gonna frigging hurt me too. What a damned screwed up universe this is!

The next day she declared my dancing skills up to par, and we went to a mixer, whatever that is. I must say it was wonderful. We were both dressed in our best, and I truly loved the dress she was in, and I actually got to help her get into it! Well I did the lacing for her, which was a thrill.

We were truly in sync as we glided around the room like two parts of the same machine. Her natural grace complimenting my own as we waltzed, and there were many compliments on our skill, though I know most of it was for K as she pulled my useless butt along.

When the music slowed, we ended up doing what is called "slow dancing" and that was more than wonderful. We held each other close and moved slowly to the sound of the music. She smelled nice, and I’d put on another dash of the "Gymsocks" cologne for her, which she seemed to like. But the best part of all was that we were both happy. I think it has been a while for both of us, and we stayed long after the floor cleared and the others had gone on their way.

The glow of that happiness, and a bit of real alcohol carried us from the dance floor to the Officers Gym where we climbed into the hot tub to soak and wind down. We didn’t bothering to bring the lights up, as we were the only ones there, and the dusky light just felt right for a get together in the wee hours of the ship's morning. We chatted and laughed for a time, and then I got to thinking about what was to come, and my mood broke as I saw in my minds eye her crying when all was exposed.

I was trying to think of what to say to her, a way to make things right, when I felt her touch my foot with hers. I guess I must have looked like I was having a flashback and she was trying to bring me out of it.

My heart went out to her then and I decided her Mom was right. Sometimes you just got to say "What to hell" and enjoy it while you can, so I touched her retreating foot with my own, and I saw the flash of surprise and hope cross her face. It started for me as a bit of tag-like play, but soon turned serious as we touched, and suddenly I found myself on her side of the tub. I don’t know where it came from, but I found I wanted to touch her, to hold her close. It had been so long since I’d last touched a woman that something just sort of took control of me. I brushed my hand against her cheek and she responded by pressing her face against it almost like a housecat, but the moan of pleasure she made was anything but a housecat.

My memories at this point become somewhat disjointed. I remember this going on for a time, both of us getting lost in the pleasure of touch and response till it seemed that the very air itself must have been crackling with the energy. I have this vivid image of the rings of vibration in the slowly swirling water as she purred, then I was holding her tight, crushing her to me as I held her by the scruff of the neck, and turning her head to kiss her full on the mouth. I remember something in the back of my mind screaming at me to look at what I was doing, but I didn’t care. I was lost in the moment, and it was like white-hot plasma spraying up my spine as our lips touched.

But moments don’t last. There was a rattle at the distant gym door, and Brundle wandered into the gym, flipping on the lights as he went. He was unaware of us for the moment, but I knew if he saw us he would be unable to contain himself and I didn’t want that. I knew too that when K stood, she was going to make a hell of a lot of noise as the water gushed from her fur, so I held up a finger for quiet and reluctantly slipped from the tub.

I managed to slide out without him seeing me and returned to my quarters feeling totally lost. I knew K had to go to work in a few minutes and she hadn’t had any sleep. This was just another wrong to heap on my tiny but growing conscience. I thought for a time that I should go to talk to her so she wouldn’t feel used, I knew that feeling all to well myself, but what to say? Then I hit on something I’d seen in a movie once. It was kind of hokey, but I’d heard it did work. I replicated a single red rose and quickly went to her office and left it there. No card, no note. None would be needed. She would know were it came from.

Now, I sit here unable to sleep myself, my watch quickly approaching. My mind is racing in circles as I wonder, "What the hell am I going to do!" but there is no answer for me. The universe doesn’t care if I am in pain, or if I inflict it. The universe just is.