The BLTS Archive- I do not think of her often. by august (appelsini@hotmail.com) --- cAug 1999 Three things you must read. Boadicea's Middle of the Night and her drabbles ... along with monkee's Underhanded. All are responsible for my infatuation with Kashyk, and in particular this Kashyk. Paramount created this horse, we just flog it. Lyrics from silverchair's Ana's song. Find out more about this great Australian band at http://www.chairpage.com Rated NC-17, for the odd blowjob and the such. --- Anna wrecks your life like an anorexic love. . . --- I stumbled across their names quite by accident. It had been two years since Voyager had crossed my path. In those two years the Devor Empire has changed so much -- our campaign against the telepaths has been won. Most of the threat has been eradicated; the negligible number that remain are inconsequential. It has been the most successful operation in my world's history. I rose in my ranks, despite the Voyager fiasco. Or perhaps, because of the Voyager fiasco. I became more vigilant in my investigations. I no longer turned away the more... enthusiastic approaches of Prax. I became a better inspector because I was beaten at my own game. And, after two years, the game is over. Most of the telepaths are dead, or in containment camps. Our officers deal mostly with intergalatic telepaths and in the interests of harmony, Devor is no longer concerned with the capture of gaharays. These days I am mostly concerned with the administration of the containment camps. Thousands of names pass across my desk every day. Today it happened to be theirs. Janeway, Kathryn (gaharay) Tuvok (telepath, gaharay) Chakotay (gaharay) Kim, Harry (gaharay) Yen, Phi (gaharay) Wildman, Naomi (gaharay) The list went on and on. I suspect if her name had not been there, I would not have recognised them. They would have been familiar, but like notes from a song that you just can't place. I quickly scanned the file. It was dated almost eighteen months ago - a lot could have changed since then. They had been contained. All of them. There was a certain irony to their capture. They were two months out of Devor space and just happened to collide with one of our bounty hunter ships. A one in million chance, I'm told. They were quickly overpowered. I tried to imagine Kathryn's face at the precise moment she realised she was beaten. --- I did not think of her often. Sometimes, however, I wondered if she thought of me. I used to think my job was like a game. Play the right role, be the right person. I had a 78 percent success rate. Not excellent, but good enough. I play back my time on Voyager, trying to pinpoint the moment where she first became suspicious. I decide that there was no first moment. She never trusted me. --- She came to my quarters late one night. I had just invited her in, only to have her decline. Yet three hours later she was standing outside my door, and I was somehow not surprised. I stood back a little, and she walked past me. Thinking about it now, I realise that she was probably baiting me. That the confusion, the confessions she bled were all perfectly phrased and executed. That there was nothing that happened that night -- or on the three nights we spent together, that she didn't plan. She just did it so well. "I don't know why I came, Kashyk." She said, looking around. "Don't you?" "You have murdered." She said aloud, almost as if to remind herself of the fact. "So have you." I replied. "It's not the same." "If you like." I shrugged, turning away. I could see her reflection in the viewport, and for a moment she looked as if she was about to turn and leave. The deliberation played out on her face. She stayed. "It is wrong that at the moment, I don't care what you have done." She was not speaking to me, I know that. "We wash our own hands." She looked puzzled, and I smiled. "It's a Devor phrase." She smiled wryly, looking away. "Nice." I moved closer. She moved back a little, almost imperceptibly and for a moment I thought that perhaps she *was* going to walk straight out. And then she kissed me. "No talking." She said, pulling at my shirt. "No talking." She did not stay. I could almost hear her measuring out the appropriate amount, the requirement of post-coital togetherness. It was another strange experience: very rarely in my life have I been the one who doesn't leave. "You're not staying?" "No. I don't think so." She pulled her tank top over her head. "You don't have to go." I drew a pattern on the back of her neck with my fingers. It was beautiful. Slender and twitching when she moved. "Yes, I do." She stood and smoothed down her uniform. "You understand." "Better than anyone." I murmured, watching her leave. --- I find, now, that I cannot stop thinking of her I try to imagine how she would have been in the containment camps. Desperate and savage. It invades my thoughts. I have dinner with my lover and he knows that something is wrong. He doesn't ask, but when he takes me to bed, he is kind and gentle. As I stretch over his body, holding his arms, covering him with my mausoleum grip, I think of her. It makes me mad. I am attracted to this man and it dishonors both of us for me to be thinking of her. Yet in my mind, she is before me, on her knees. Warm fingers on my thigh, spidering upwards. Warm mouth engulfing me. I place my hands on her head and she hums a little. Or she is lying before me, on her bed. On her stomach, never looking at me, her fingers clutch at the sheets - never at me. The image stills me. I pull away from him. He looks at me carefully and asks what is wrong. He is not accustomed to my hesitation. Neither am I. I don't know how to explain to him... we decided long ago not to talk of my work. I would be lying if I said she was just that. It reminds me of the second night we spent in her quarters. The computer was playing Mahler as we fucked on the floor in front of her couch. Later, we sat with our backs to it and talked in quiet voices. Idle chit chat, pseudo-conversation for pseudo-lovers. "Chakotay? He's nothing." I imagined her one day saying the same about me. "Kashyk? He was nothing." It still unsettles me. I have never been accustomed to being played the fool. I wonder the conversations we could have had, if we had both known the parts we were playing. I wonder how different it could have been, had we both known. --- I sometimes think about trying to find her. In my more unrealistic moments, I imagine rescuing her from the camps, showing her Devor. I imagine that she would want to see it. But then, I remember that she is gaharay. That I could never bring her into my world, into my life. That I wouldn't know where to begin looking for her, such is the state of the containment camps at the moment. And that, after eighteen months, she's probably dead "My offer to stay was genuine." She had told me on that last day, and I don't think she was lying. When my shuttle left her ship, I had kissed her palm, the most intimate gesture that a Devoran can give another. I don't know why I did it - maybe because it was there, maybe because I suspected a gaharay wouldn't understand. I'm not sure I wanted her to, either. --- The End