The BLTS Archive - Umber and Amber fourth in the Aide Memorie series by R. Schultz (cousindream@aol.com) --- Disclaimer: Trek belongs to Paramount and ViaBorgCom. Like they deserve it. Story mine under Berne Copyright Laws. 14,000 words long. September, 2002, for the FFF. --- I was here, at last. On the upper slope of Olympus Mons, at the H.G.Wells Facility. After I parked the big rental flic in the hillside garage, I took the opportunity to stroll outside and view Mars from the side of its highest mountain. It was spectacular, of course. Not least for the fields of green grasses, algae and dwarf forests ranging from horizon to horizon. Below my vantage point a few lines of cirrus clouds obscured the vista of life busily maintaining breathable atmosphere down in the lowlands of the planet. Lowlands enjoying the presence of lakes and streams fed from structures such as this complex. Someday there would be vast seas mellowing the climate. They'd also worked to keep the air clean. Back in Indiana we still had to have periodic shots to combat the lingering toxic by-products in the air. We had smog in places even now. Here it was clear, cold, and deadly thin. I'd had the standard TR Tri-Ox back at the Port, but I would still have to work for a good breath, if I took the rental face mask off. And might not succeed in drawing one. It was the equivalent of over eighteen kilometers above what had been arbitrarily designated as "sea-level". Someday seas would be that high, and what were now lowlands would be sea bottoms. Hundreds of years in the future. Thousands. I would be kilometres above those lifegiving seas. Standing here I stood above an entire inhabited planet. Down there I could see strings of clouds, down there I knew were cities and farms and traffic. Down there. Below me. Centuries from now a true sea level would be formed. Even after extensive mining, the Olympus Mons would still extend seventeen to eighteen kilometers higher than that. My skin tingled from exposure to the near vacuum environment here. I hugged my sealsuit closer to me, chilling from the sight of fields of stars visible in the middle of the day. Off to my right a fuming river of fresh water gushed towards the Labyrinth Noctris and the systems of lakes forming in their depths. The Millennium Project the Martians called it Above me the Heaven's Threads guided an incessant rain of asteroidal material into the central caldera of the Mons. Ten-molecule-thick guidelines down which came what once floated in the spaces between mars and Jupiter. The raw material for that rivulet flowing down the Solar System's highest mountain. A thousand years. Other terraforming projects had started with richer planets, planets ready to be altered by algae alone. Or with planets raw and uninhabited. Planets where man-made volcanic upheavals and seismic disasters would be meaningless events occurring during the terraforming. But other planets did not already have a major humanoid population extant on the surface. Other planets could afford a devastating rebirth. Not on Mars. Mars would be transformed from nearly nothing, and it would be transformed while holding tens of millions of Terran stock humans already living on and under it's surface. Giving the planet a breathable atmosphere was only the first step in the process. An Engineer's dream was to work on the Millennium Project. I turned from the awesome spectacle of a transforming Mars to the airlock before me. It opened and enfolded me in a few seconds. I barely had to pause in my walking forward. A most splendid tall blond was on the other side of the seal, and it took a few seconds for me to realize he was male. Since my new body, I admit I looked at many people as possible lovers. Computer had told the facility I was approaching, and his words indicated I was expected. "Welcome to the Wells Station, Ms. Janeway. Is your mother behind you?" Then he looked at my white-streaked hair and white temples. He realized I was a rejuvie, then. "You must be Admiral Janeway," he concluded, "come to see Umber and Amber." "Who?" I inquired. "Director Torres," he said. I was not altogether put off by his frankly appreciative eye. In addition this male showed no sign of embarrassment for his gaffe about my `mother'. Good for him. What he next did was, in it's own way, even more pleasing. He moved closer, almost rubbing arm to arm as he indicated the way. He put his hand on my shoulder as he congratulated me on my successful rejuv. When the hand slid down to the small of my back I wasn't surprised. Fast mover, this one. He was accustomed to finding his way through women. "I'm Lanny, Lanlor Hardresson, I'm assistant to the Director right now, but I may be your friend, if you are in the least interested. You may call me Lanny, and I hope you'll accept my presence when you come to the Mess hall. Most of us eat there, it's an opportunity to socialize and pick at each other's food. "My interest in you is all dreadfully selfish, of course. If the others see such a devastating creature as yourself hanging on my every foolish word, my status shall shoot up into orbit. My name and yours will be on every pair of lips. My fame will equal that of my dreadfully esteemed Director. You'll make my reputation for life." Such a brazen creature! I shucked my seal-jacket, and carried it over my shoulder. Already the chill of outside was only a memory. "Do say you'll have a little nosh with me?" he continued. "We're also having tea three hours after lunch and you shan't want to miss that. Best variety of biscuits to be found in one spot on the planet." He gently grasped my arm and I flexed it for him, just a little. "You have muscles," he cooed. "How delightful. We're all such lay-abouts here. But we have a gym, of course, and I'd love to see you work out. "If you exercise in your birthday suit, some of us do that as well, I'd REALLY love to watch you work out then. You must have a simply DEVASTATING body. "Has anyone mentioned how becoming your white temples are?" No inhibitions to speak of. I now had a passing fair notion of what the staff here did for recreation. I still had my tattoos. I'll have to make sure he got an eyeful of the big Labrys on my upper right arm. It'd be interesting seeing his reaction once he realized I was an out lesbian. B'Elanna's as well. That thought made my breath come a little faster. Three dark-brown-skinned male members of the facility passed us in the corridors, openly staring at the woman Lanlor was escorting. Fresh blood, I thought. I might be provoking a feeding frenzy just by being here. Suddenly we were through a giant containment hatch and I was face to face with the power plant itself. It was like coming home. Four apparent stories high, and the heart was a towering cylinder swirling with the repressed energies of the fusion core. There was even a pit and a railing about the cylinder. Just like on VOYAGER, only on a far bigger scale. I looked around and was whipped back to reality by the clothes worn by the staff. Rainbow was the word that came to my mind. They also didn't look as busy as everyone had, back on VOYAGER. No Kazon or Hirogen or Borg attacking at any minute, no desperate emergencies to be dealt with. I stifled the thought that they didn't ACT like REAL Engineers. Excepting my workaholic Klingon. As Martians tended to be taller than Earth-norm's, she looked a child between two adults. But she was visibly in charge. Same old B'Elanna. She was also in a short skirt. Wonder of wonders! With no failures in Artificial Gravity to worry about, she allowed herself a very archaic feminine item of apparel. She was also the only one here in a skirt, and that explained a lot. As usual B'Elanna was being the odd one out in the crowd. It evoked a surprising smile and a great deal of warmth on my part, even without appreciating the fact that she still had the legs on her that had always left me envious. The skirt was that short. She turned, and her face lit up as I had hoped it would. When we finally broke the clinch and clutching and babbling, she was crying as hard as I was. --- Nothing would do but that I get the tu'penny tour right off. Thirty years and she still moved with the ill-concealed impatience of a Terran teenager. As well as the energy of one. My heart tugged for the memories her manners of movement evoked. She had explained the very human gold band on her finger by saying she had remarried. Questions about that would have to wait, she had said. First came the brag. First came the showing off of the facility she considered HERS. We were to view the inside of the hundreds-of-kilometers-wide caldera of the Mons. We journeyed down a wide tunnel for long minutes in a small enclosed jitney. We journeyed to the series of airlocks at the far end. She skinned out of her dress in a large locker room, revealing her tastes in unders still running to the color associated with shiny bright fire-engines. An unkind soul once mentioned she always liked bright red night-clothes because it matched her temper. Harry Kim once ventured to say it probably matched her passions as well. Harry always did have an eye for B'Elanna. He often couldn't stand her, but he always wanted to knock her bones. Today, three children later, and excepting the pooch and scars on B'Elanna's lower belly, you'd never know her age to be more than fifty-five, no, near sixty Terran. The belly lines reminded me of a human woman I once knew, not so many months ago. Who I once loved. Who had birthed three boys the hard way and still wore her scars like battle tells. The urge to caress B'Elanna's abdomen, and feel the flex of her muscles and body was barely restrained. A temptation noted, but a temptation not answered. Outside we stood on a sloping shingle of reddish rock, looking upward. You could do nothing else. Above us rose the Heaven's Threads, the multi-molecular elevators, stretching into a point high in stationary orbit. Up there asteroids and spatial junk was being shattered and broken up. Up there the permanent factories threw planetward the detritus of the solar system. Up there they slowly moved a planet. Down here perpetual conveyors moved space garbage to the chambers where they became something vastly different. Behind and underneath me the fusion engines made water, air, and the stuff of life out of asteroidal rock and dense nickel-iron. Eventually the accumulation of intra-solar mass here would re-balance mars in it's orbit, as well as it's inclination and declination. Eventually a planet would have obtained the required mass and weight in water and atmosphere to change the way it moved around Sol. Eventually. The Millennium Project. And all done without devastating the planet or the humanoids inhabiting it. For now I was buffeted by the volume of atmosphere being created by the station. Behind me breather towers roared skyward. Fusion breaking up the material from space. Recreating it as breathable air and usable water with trace minerals. Quintillions of K-tonne a year of air and water. From each of twelve stations. Enough to remake a planet. H.G.Wells Station was a Replicator, and it continually produced what was needed to make a planet Terra-like. I could barely hear myself think in the roar of air pushing forth into the almost-vacuum of the top of Olympus Mons. There were twelve such stations such as this one studded around the hundred-kilometer rim of the caldera. Each producing air and water out of the stuff once floating between the planets. The Millennium Project. Something to keep the Martians busy while the rest of us went on with our little lives. No wonder so many Martians were so arrogant. They had purpose in their lives. I half-way expected to see God's hand on this project. Maybe it was there, but I did not see it. I could not stand it any longer. The noise, the spectacle, the buffeting, the feeling of awe. I had to flee back inside. Me, the Starship Captain who had watched planets born and suns destroyed, who had riven starships and planetoids. That had been on the scale of Gods. This was on the scale of men. --- Once in her quarters, we bubbled on for the longest time. B'Elanna once more put off talking about her own re-marriage. I knew she meant for me to meet her spouse unprepared. Tom Paris was re-married. Again. Her own oldest girl was Chief Engineer on the TRISMENAMANAE, a Vittorio class cruiser, the present descendant of the VOYAGER class. She was still the only one of the three daughters to choose Starfleet. The other two were in Medical research or producing babies for her husband. B'Elanna was a grandmother. She was restrained about it, though. Only four large threederHolo's portrayed youngling's with a hint of Klingon crest to them. And four more Holo's of each of the other girls. Kim was a Grandfather as well, and Nicoletti was off in the Beta Quadrant with her own ship, the POTEMKIN-D. Back on Terra, Megan and Jenny were based in the Paris office of Starfleet. With the cleansing of residual radiation, they'd re-opened the Montmarte District to human occupation, and both ladies were fornicating their way through most of the population of France. Both genders. They'd Comm'ed B'Elanna early this year, talking from underneath the rebuilt Eiffel Tower. Gushing on about how they were using chemically pure iron to rebuild the other monuments of Paris. They thought the rebuilt Eiffel Tower might last a thousand years, no, three, with its totally pure iron. Never rusting, never crystallizing, never growing old or weak. Tuvok was the First Officer on the latest ENTERPRISE and Chakotay was Abbot of a monastery back on Terra. That last was a surprise, I hadn't known he was back on Earth. Came the important question. Where was Annika Hansen, and did B'Elanna believe she loved me? "Seven?" she asked. "Pardon - Annika. She was doing something probably significant out in the Harmony Worlds, I last heard. Bunch of back-stabbing fanatics out there, all of them, if you were to ask me." B'Elanna gave A Look once she saw my face. I'd been hoping she was still in contact with Annika, or knew where she was. "You're still in love with her, aren't you?" Straight out of the blue. It only took me thirty years to discover what B'Elanna already knew. "Was it that obvious?" I had to ask. How to explain to B'Elanna that I had never admitted that love to myself until two years ago? "I'm surprised you have admitted that to yourself even now," she whispered. She was touching my hand, trying to help. "I had some help from Naomi Wildman," I added. With that I pulled off my tunic, and blouse. B'Elanna waited patiently for me to make my point, whatever it was. I bared the big Labrys tattoo on my upper right arm to her. She made a wry little smile, touched it with the back of her hand, and chuckled. "Why Naomi?" she asked. "Two years ago we became lovers." She had to sit down for that one. "Wow," she breathed, giving me a very strange look. Then revelation appeared in her eyes. "You've got a problem, don't you? You're in love with Naomi and you're still carrying a flare for Seven, aren't you?" Since when had B'Elanna become so perceptive? This was the same stubborn B'Elanna that you had to hit between the eyes with a roundhouse punch before she even began paying attention. Wasn't she? The jig's up," I told her. "Tell me what you've done with the REAL B'Elanna, and I'll ask Starfleet Intelligence to go easy on you." She got the joke. "It's been thirty years and more," she returned. "Kathryn." My name was a benediction the way B'Elanna said it. "Grant me the ability to slowly accumulate a little wisdom along the way. I may look thirty-eight, and be fifty-eight, but I feel your age all too often. "By the bye, I've never seen anyone respond so well to the rejuv procedure. You're beautiful. "Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway, you still make my heart cry out in loss and envy." There it was again. My heart sang to hear the way she spoke my name. There was a planetoid's worth of feeling in those words. Suddenly I had to hold her again, feeling at home, feeling I was within the circle of my family, my real family, my VOYAGER family. On the ship I was the Captain, on the ship she was a rebellious snot and a Maquis. On the ship we had been so much at loggerheads, on the ship we had been sisters and brothers against the universe. Us against every back-stabber and catastrophe out there. Nothing could stop us. We were sisters in a way that Phoebe and I never could be. "I love you," I whispered in her ear, my clutching growing more desperate. Oh shit. I did. I was kissing her neck, caressing the back of her head, smelling the caramel under-scent she always had to her skin, holding her tight, feeling her weight and presence against mine. "I know," she said, as her hands pulled me to her. "I know." I chewed on her ear, licked her neck, kissed her cheek, meshed my fingers with hers. She held me back after one desperate kiss, her eyes open and flowing salty tears. "I know." I was frozen cold and burning with emotions and shame and confusions. I was staring into her eyes, wondering what the hell I had just done. B'Elanna leaned forward then, her soft lips hard against mine, our open lips drawing in the breath of the other. I was in shock. I understood now that B'Elanna was answering questions I never would have had the nerve to openly ask. The real questions I wanted answered, the questions I had to ask of her. Her fingers traced my eyebrows, a pained smile on her face. "Didn't you know I loved you?" she asked. I had to sit. Somehow I never ceased holding her hand. "Didn't you ever wonder why I hated Seven so much when you forced the crew to accept her?" The universe is made of gauze and I've just fell through. Or was that the rabbit hole? "I've loved you for years," B'Elanna said. "I had no problem realizing I wanted you as my lesbian lover. The problem was holding my temper while you muddled through, and left me to seek other venues for my needs. "Believe me," she wryly commented, "I have no trouble comparing you to a damaged ship with the navigator trying to steer in twenty different directions all at the same time. "That's the story of my life as well." Her hand held mine, her eyes were so warm and unknowable. "I loved you, I loved Chakotay, I even loved that cold arrogant beautiful Borg bitch, believe it or not. And somehow I wanted to hold Tom Paris to me as well. "Maybe that's why he could never keep his Magic Wand in his trousers. He could sense how divided I was inside." We stared at each other for a minute at least. "I need a drink," I said. "This is coming along a good deal faster than I can assimilate it." "You will be assimilated," B'Elanna noted. "Resistance is futile." B'Elanna tells jokes now. She stood, turning to a F-S box to the side. My hand lifted automatically, wanting to caress that being so near after so long away from my world. Oh sweet Saints Sigmund and Albert! The confusion and longing and pain was like being opened up by a cold knife. I was in love with Naomi Wildman. I was in love with Seven of Nine. I was in love with B'Elanna Torres. I was in love with my neighbor, Beverly Crusher. I could admit that as well. Now. Could my life get any more screwed up? "Try this," B'Elanna said. She had a bottle of something very dark red and smelling somehow familiar. She poured me a little - no, a lot - in a surprisingly fragile-appearing wine glass. "We have a few Vulcans on our staff, at the moment. They brought a few plants with them, one an altered descendent of Earth's Chinaberry tree. They make a wine with it. Sharp, you might like it." It was all the fault of the enormous emotional confusion I was experiencing in a very short time. I lay back and laughed hysterically for some minutes. B'Elanna lay me down on her couch until I got over it. I had to explain to her. "My neighbor has a Vulcan wife, and she grows the genetically altered trees, and makes wine out of it's fruits. I probably have eight bottles of this stuff in my cellar right now. "And yes, I know it's not that funny. I just .... it's not like back on VOYAGER. I haven't got the control, the lid on my emotions like I once did, back then. "My apologies. This has been a busy few days for me." B'Elanna retrieved my glass of Chinaberry Wine, gave it to me, and clicked her glass to mine. Such patience now! "I'd always thought being in control might have been necessary, but personally speaking, you were far, far, far TOO much in control. "Every time I saw you on the bridge I wondered if I'd be there if and when you lost that iron control. Just a little. It can't have been all that healthful for you." Somehow B'Elanna had turned into a Betazoid counselor in the last few decades. The sharp piquant odor and slightly bitter taste of the wine was like coming home after a long time away. I could close my eyes and hear my two Jake's snuffling in the kitchen, and feel the nearby warmth of Beverly Crusher waiting for me to break the silence. All I needed was my rocker under me, making it's creak under the right rear rocker when I leaned back. Eyes closed, I talked to B'Elanna. "The more the pressure grew, the more I denied my weakness. The more I hurt, the more I pretended I didn't hurt. Why I didn't become an ax-murderer I'll never know." I felt B'Elanna's hand in mine and I had to leak tears again. "You really think Seven, Annika loved me?" "The whole damned ship knew there was something between you and Seven," B'Elanna told me. "And yes, I believe she loved you. All those lonely years. You never saw the way she looked at you sometimes, when she thought no one noticed. "A few of us knew, and wondered, and pitied Seven. And you." We each sipped our wine. "Did you know we would run pools on who crawled into bed with who, and when? That goddamned smug Chakotay won the one on me and Tom Paris. "As far as I know none of the pools on you and Seven were ever cashed in. Vorik may still be holding the ration points, which we assigned money values to. They also had a pool on when me and you would become lovers, as well." "I'll have his fucking Vulcan balls for dinner if I ever see him again," I fumed. This time when I laughed, it had a soft wry humor to it. The hysteria was gone. I sat up on the couch and B'Elanna sat down beside me, hip to hip. I wanted to strip her and give her about a dozen good comes before supper. I wanted to go to sleep with her on this couch. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to hold her and never let go. I wanted to meet her wife. Somehow I knew she'd turned to a woman's arms. I could allow myself such insights now. Weren't we sisters, after all? One is allowed to know her sister. It was while B'Elanna was up to get the Chinaberry wine and refill our glasses that her wife walked in. She was a Klingon. Or rather, a half-Klingon, like B'Elanna herself. But not the same. Darker of skin, very tightly wavy hair, strong. I knew who was the femme, now. It was B'Elanna. Automatically I felt hostility, for she had B'Elanna. Lust, for she was a striking woman beyond easy measure. Love, for the smile she gave to B'Elanna. Then she turned the smile on me. This was a half-Klingon without the engines of self-destruction that had so riven my dear B'Elanna. She had grown up without rejection or lack of place. Older than B'Elanna, and quite busty. Definitely large bosomed. I understood B'Elanna had a type she liked, after several years with me on VOYAGER. She was taller than either of us, taller by a head. Perhaps she was a small (for a Martian) woman. But no, they both wore wedding rings. My bet was on her being a Terran. She came to me, almost ignoring B'Elanna. She spoke something to me in what I knew was Klingon, and inwardly I was assured of her acceptance of her dual heritage's. At least she didn't call me a Ph'tk. "I am Mellitas Nor-Kitt, of the house of Meurmak, and I bid you welcome to our abode, Kathryn Janeway. I give you salt and water, oil for your wounds and honor to your house. Please, eat of my meat and drink of my wine, as you wish." She chuckled, laying a hand on my shoulder and reminding me I was running around in my trousers and bra. "Though I see my Darling has already started pumping the wine into you." She bent her head to touch B'Elanna's hand on her own shoulder with a brush of her cheek. "Are we going to get her soused and then roll her?" she asked. "Ravage," B'Elanna said without thinking. I thought I saw a hint of reaction in those black eyes, but she continued looking me in the eyes. I think I just hit the jealousy button on her control board. "Maybe I should visit your mess hall, and come back after supper?" I volunteered. My heart hurt to think of leaving B'Elanna for even a moment, but maybe I should leave them a few minutes to re-establish their ground rules. Looking at the pair of them I realized a few things, about myself. About B'Elanna. About us. "Call me Kitt," B'Elanna's wife offered. "And yes, I'm jealous, but it's under control. "Please. Don't leave. I meant it about the hospitality of our home here, however temporary it might be. "Won't you stay? You've come all this way from Terra, don't leave now, please? Get out of some of those clothes, I think a few of B'Elanna's things will fit. Something loose." With that she guided me forward, urging me to follow her by touch alone. Her exciting touch. She was scoping me. She was enjoying my body and my resculpted face as I moved. If she had been single.... Suddenly we both reached a new understanding, all without words. She turned to look me in the eyes again. I moved more erect, more straight of back and graceful. If she wanted to scope out the new dyke, I'd strut for her. Once she even managed to leer just a teensy speck, so I leered back. B'Elanna hung back by just a hair, revelation coming into her eyes. Her wife was checking out the pretty lesbian come to town. Oops! B'Elanna's jealousy button got pushed as well, but she recovered fast. I twirled for the both of them, shaking my head, letting my long gray-streaked hair flow across my face and shoulders. In the bedroom, I made as if to touch my bra point in front, but Kitt touched the one in back, and my bra flowed off my lowering arms. "The group "Vital Point"," Kitt murmured. "Music with a beat." It was fun. They both stood back and openly admired me as I let myself twirl again, then stretch and let myself to the floor. I rolled, and took off one heavy boot. I rolled back, finding eye contact again, taking off the other boot. Then I rolled over and stood erect, arms over my head. Bringing them down I rolled my trousers down to my ankles and stepped out of them. I turned, and let myself fall forward, rolling and twisting so that I lay prone before them. A back roll and jump up, and I stood open and ready, arms up, legs slightly spread. "My neighbor is a dancer, and she's taught me belly dancing as well as how to strip, mazurka, pole dance and some other things." That's me, bragging. Kitt openly stared, then she turned to B'Elanna, whispering in her ear. B'Elanna giggled, and I had a feeling I'd be partially offended by what she was saying. Or maybe blushing and pleased. With that, a lot of the tension went away. Not all of it. We were all lesbians here, and we were accustomed to looking on other females as potential bed partners. Or as potential rivals. But Kitt no longer believed I had come all these klicks of space to seduce her wife. Actually I had, just a little. In the back of my mind, where I couldn't yet admit I wanted to take up where my stupidity had left us. I was a piece of work, back on VOYAGER. Denying all the love I grew to have for Annika and B'Elanna. I'd also lusted, deep in my heart, for Kim, and Tuvok, and Chakotay. As I'd mentioned earlier, it was a wonder I didn't become an ax murderer one dark night. Excepting my cabinet full of Risan dildos, I might have. We became girls together. Trying on B'Elanna's clothes, showing off, Kitt innocently on purpose managing to flaunt her own body. Her large-busted healthy body that evoked a little tickle in me. What can I say? She might be married, but she was exotic, strong, and still pretty. She had to be, what? Eighty? Seventy? It was hard to tell with Klingon-heritage females. In the end we decided to hit the Mess Hall together. All three of us clad in translucent silks, turbofils and satins. Long dresses made for showing off rather than practicality. Fortunately B'Elanna had one ankle-length silk of twenty colors that fit me. It also had no sleeves, and that allowed the Labrys tattoo on my arm to be easily observed. I might still do boys, but no one else need know that. We flowed down the corridors like a wave of colors, sweeping all before us. Invincible. We burst upon the scene in the Mess hall with all the implacable grace of a Kazon raiding party. Oh, it was GREAT fun! It was, properly speaking, tea time. Which meant Lanlor Hardresson was there, and so were the biscuits he had mentioned. He was right. There were dozens of different biscuits there. Little cookies with strawberry fluff between shortbread, and chocolate dipped macaroons, and enough other types of gooey or dry and very British (and Martian) tea biscuits to make me gain two kilos just by looking at it all. When was the last time I had a chocolate pig-out? "Girls," B'Elanna whispered, "I just remembered why it was I stopped coming to Tea in the afternoon." "Just for today," Kitt murmured. "After all, we DO have company. You can indulge a little when you have guests." "This guest is all the way from Terra," B'Elanna noted. "Does that mean we can indulge even more than we might otherwise indulge?" "Is that Evasberry on top of that square thing?" I asked. I guess the answer to B'Elanna's question was yes. Mine, too. By the way, Lanlor Hardresson duly noted my Labrys tattoo and knew what it meant. Hope springs eternal, however, and he spent some time at our table trying to cut me out from the Klingons. However, he had no hope of competing with thin flat vanilla cookies with orange chocolate on top. Still, he was utterly charming even while he assaulted me with the grace of a pirate ship cutting a rich merchantman out of a fortified harbor. I slapped his naughty hand when it got between my thighs, but I didn't break anything. It was Hardresson who finally explained to me what his comment meant, back there when I first entered the facility. He joked that Kitt and the Director were sometimes referred to as Umber and Amber, for their skin tones. B'Elanna was Amber and Kitt, a darker woman, was Umber. Or Diamonds and Rust, he breathed at my hosts. We all took his phrase as a compliment. Me? I was intent on a peanutty creme wafer with a chocolate top. It had been an emotionally challenging day thus far. I needed my energy. I'll work it off tomorrow. Right. "Darling," Kitt managed around a figure-eight shaped cracker with white cream on top, "we go to the gym after this. Maybe not a long time, but my conscience will need clearing." I was debating exercising with all of me hanging out, or getting something in the line of a very thin unitard, until Kitt added; "The pale red two-piece outfit with the mid-thighs should fit Kathryn reasonably well." We attracted a fair number of spectators at the gym. Reminding me how exercise was oftimes a spectator sport on VOYAGER as well. My body was never in better condition, and I was fresh meat. My ego was really a terribly large greedy beast since my rejuv. Yeah. Drool, all you guys and gals. Make me feel good. Already I was feeling part of a family, and I repressed the hurt I knew I'd feel when I left. The entire facility had much the same air to it that VOYAGER had. They had purpose here. They were family. We showered in the gym, and I marveled at the rows of large platinum shower heads and a few immense red-marble tubs. I'm on Mars, and they have a quintillion tons of water to waste here. Hot water. No ration points like on VOYAGER. Free bars of fragrant soap, free cologne and perfume, whatever you wanted from the Replicator. They had energy to waste, here, on top of a world. After a light supper of shaved lamb in a pita pocket, the three of us wandered the corridors. Sometimes snagging a jitney, sometimes not. Eventually we wound up in the Observatory. It was a large low-ceilinged room with a huge transparent dome above it. We ignored a few couples off in the shadowy corners, so long as they weren't too loud doing whatever it was we didn't want to know they were doing. A few archaic glass-function telescopes were placed at intervals, as well as more modern projector units. Antiques, undoubtedly brought from the ruins of Terra at no inconsiderable cost. I was helped by B'Elanna to find the moons of Jupiter, and the rings of Uranus. Saturn was not visible, being behind the sun at this moment. Then we pulled couches over and lay on them and watched the stars and told Kitt of VOYAGER. It was a long story of many chapters. Most of which Kitt had never heard of before. She had known B'Elanna had been a major player in the mythic saga of VOYAGER. However, she had never known of some of the risks we -- B'Elanna -- took in our drive to come back home. Xenopheon and Odyesseus had nothing on us. I told two tales of derring-do before I realized how badly B'Elanna was taking my revelations. How shocked Kitt was. Even I was developing some Betazoid counseling insights. B'Elanna had never told Kitt of how many times she had risked her life, or by how narrow a thread all our existence hung. Sweet B'Elanna, my rebellious Engineer, was a heroine and a savior to our crew fifty times over, sixty, eighty. I had a feeling Kitt had never realized how harrowing life was on VOYAGER. After that I kept the stories light. Doing so I had an epiphany about my father. He had never talked much of some of his exploits while serving in Starfleet. It wasn't that he couldn't talk of them. He could, and did, with other veterans. For us, he didn't know how to speak of these terrible times without scaring the ones he loved. It was rather ironic. He tried not to hurt me, and I felt cut off from him. Now I understood him better, at the same time his lack of interest in me could be -- mostly -- forgiven. Grandmother had a phrase she had embroidered on a pillow that Phoebe owns now. "Life is a Winding Road." It's full of dead ends and double-backs and veers. A clich=E9 that I can understand a bit better now. I looked to the possibly dozing lump that was B'Elanna and wished I'd taken that little obstinate whirlwind to bed with me, back on VOYAGER. At least once or twice. No Annika. No B'Elanna. And now no Naomi. Would it have hurt the chain of command so much if I had thrown my arms open to a few lovers? Would it have mattered if the ship knew their Captain had a streak of slut or lesbian to her? I felt so full of regrets. I told myself I could not know what would or would not harm the unity that was my crew. I had to be cautious and afraid and iron. I had to be. Regrets may come now, but back then I had to be iron. We woke B'Elanna and got a big jitney, laying her in back. Letting her fade into insensibility again. On our way to my guest cabin, I turned to Kitt and asked; "How much sleep is she getting?" "You knew her. How much do you think?" Kitt returned. I looked over the recumbent form of B'Elanna and I almost touched her in a caress. "Take care of her for me, please?" I asked. "Watch over her. She needs you. Keep her safe." My eternally young and energetic Klingon was getting old and tired. I had never imagined that the years could lay her low. Kitt and myself held hands all the way to my guest quarters. --- What to say about Lanlor Hardresson? He was persistent, and at times charming. He woke me in the morning delivering a small bouquet of yellow wildflowers, his shining perfect teeth and obvious intent blinding me. I Comm'ed Kitt and B'Elanna, and we made a breakfast date for later. I now had a good exercise outfit and shoes, and I invited Lanny to come with me on a slow morning's run through the Wells facilities corridors. If he could manage it. He couldn't. He had to drop out after about a kilometer or so, but he was erect and waiting for me when I came back on my return leg. Showing off, I joined Kitt and B'Elanna for a morning walk to the mess hall, back, and to the hall again. Lanny was cleaned, re-clothed and smiling at me by the time we actually entered for a breakfast. He'd accessed my file and had a fresh pot of Sumatran coffee sitting on a table for me. It had a soft clean tang of Ugandan to it as well. There were three bud vases also on the table he ushered us to. One orange, yellow and white rose in each. When he had his hand sliding past my knee, under the table, I asked him if he knew how fast someone could bleed out? I growled at him once or twice again, and he just kept coming back for more. B'Elanna and Kitt wore perfect poker faces, pointedly not observing his moves and my counter-moves. That morning Kitt let me come along with her as she navigated the Jefferies tubes of the installation. It actually felt like fun crawling through wonderfully familiar Jefferies tubes. I wore a cat suit not that far in style from that which Annika had worn. I was officially a volunteer worker at the Wells facility. When Kitt blocked both ends and parked us in a roomy crawlway intersection, I expected it. We had B'Elanna things to talk about. "I'm not sure I should tell tales out of school, Mellitas," I ventured. "If she doesn't want to tell you about some things...." "I accessed one of her files last night. She has the Federation Cross of Valor with THREE palms and the Federation Council's Ribbon. All for an Academy drop-out and a Maquis to boot. What the hell exactly happened out there?" "She died," I said. "She was brought back. She died again. And was brought back again. She disarmed killer robot spaceships and survived torture and other's race's medical experimentation and saved our ass more times than I can count. "What exactly is it you want me to tell you about? Her many and bisexual love affairs, the time she slugged her second in command or the time she slugged her Captain?" "Tell me about her quiet moments..." "There were none that I can recall. Every catastrophe was followed by another one, and it got so the intervals were just tense anxious interludes leading up to the next crises. "All of us were a little insane from the stress by the time we punched through to Alpha Quadrant. No, make that a LOT insane. "B'Elanna just happened to start out more insane than the rest of us. I think she managed somehow to become MORE sane than the rest of us as time went on. "As for medals, I have a little glass box full of them, back in Indiana. We of the VOYAGER all have little souvenirs like that. But I have to tell you something more. At the time we were all just doing what had to be done. "There wasn't a hero on that ship, not one. Or we were ALL heroes. Take your pick. We were all insane as coots, we were addicts of hope and unreality, and we were as desperate as I hope you will never have to be." Kitt looked calm, but I think inside she was having a moment of truth. "Come on," I prompted. "Let's get this damned junction node fixed and get on to the next one. If I'm going to be your free help, we could at least try to be efficient. "And while we're saving the Director's cute but very ungrateful ass, I'll try to answer your questions and tell you about VOYAGER from the viewpoint of the celibate nun who was the damned stubborn Captain of that vessel. I was the only humanoid on that ship who was more stubborn than your wife. Barring Seven of Nine. "Would you like to know how many Risan sex toys I had in place of a few willing but neurotic and sexually repressed crewmembers? My solution to the stress, or one, at least, was to masturbate myself to exhaustion. Looking back, I should have taken half the crew as lovers, though not all at the same time. "Better yet, would you like to know who was prominent in my nighttime fantasies? "B'Elanna ever tell you about an Irish village we created on the HoloDeck? I dreamed up this publican, Michael Sullivan, a bartender in a quaint little pub, and I'll be damned if I didn't fall in love with him, and want him to do obscene and wonderfully satisfying things to me. Preferably a few times each and every day. With nighttime matinees. "Also, at the time I would not admit to myself that I wanted to take this big beautiful ex-Borg blond to bed with me. "Ah! She's mentioned what a beauty Seven of Nine was! At the time I was sure I had no lesbian tendencies to me, no matter how much my heart beat faster whenever I saw Annika Hansen. She was an Ice Goddess and I wanted to melt her into a wet smear on the deck. Only I didn't feel things like that for women. Not me. I was straight, and barring the inevitable unsatisfying one-night stand or two in my far past, I only gave my body to males. "In some cases, I now think, what a waste of resources. Mine. "Did I mention we were all nuts after a few years cooped up in our jolly little ship? "Nicoletti called it the H.M.S.Pinafore." --- Supper found a vase of green Carnations at what I now took to be `our' table. Lanlor was there with a mint-flavored Salvadoran coffee for me and smiles for Umber and Amber. And a hand which somehow wound up on my ass. I moved it and the next time he merely caressed my arm. The one with the Labrys on it. Evidently the nerve pinch to his wrist wore off quickly. Lanny Hardresson joined us in the gym after supper, stripping down to sweat pants. Letting me scope his body, which was obviously male, but not otherwise too faulty. The pants got sweaty as he somehow stayed working out as long as I did. Keeping up with me. Nice buns. Needed to walk and run more, though. Walking back, B'Elanna said; "You're going to give the young man cardiac failure if you keep letting him try to keep up with you on the treadmills. Have you no pity on the weaker sex?" I smirked back, my hair still wet from our showers. "None whatsoever. Take no prisoners has always been my motto." In their quarters we relaxed around a little too-sweet Zinfindael and low lighting. B'Elanna told me stories of how she and Mellitas first met. Kitt denied it all and told me what really happened on their first blind date. Personally, I thought it quite in character for B'Elanna to have tried to get in someone's drawers before she ever knew her date's first name. I wasn't suicidal enough to say so, however. B'Elanna giggled. My bad-tempered primal scream of an Engineer giggled and oozed onto her wife and girlfriend's lap with all the self-centered conceit and ease of an Indiana Homecoming Queen being ensconced into a parade float. It was her right to be in that lap and she intended to enjoy it. Miracles still occur. And I went to my guest cabin feeling very lonely. --- The next morning we were working on another junction box, Kitt and I. She closed the lid and kissed me. She didn't have to stretch more than a centimeter to do so, but it was still surprising. "That's for bringing my Darling to me," she whispered. Meaning thank you for bringing VOYAGER back, with one fiery half-Klingon running the engines. Then she kissed me again. "That's because you're one lovely woman, Kathryn Janeway." I .... was immediately ready. For anything. Whatever she wanted. Anything. The only thing I can say in mitigation is that I'd been living a promiscuous lifestyle these past few years, and it didn't take much to set me off and running. Kitt got to her knees and began packing up her tools. I crouched beside her, wondering what the hell had just happened. Was this the first step in a seduction or just a thank you from someone I could now consider to be a friend? We moved on to the next section scheduled to be checked, and I forced a calm to me. Whatever the intent, it made me very conscious that I was in close quarters with an attractive female and my glands were busy. In other words, for the rest of the work-shift I kept noticing the way she filled out her work catsuit, the way she smiled or cursed, how delicious her lips had been, and how much I would have liked to have run my fingers through her very tightly wavy hair. Admiral Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway, my tombstone should read, phasered into becoming just a residual shadow on a wall, which is herein duly buried. Shot by a jealous wife. Your choice which wife. In the Mess Hall Hardresson had a small bowl of dark midnight blue Lillies of the Valley on our table when we got to supper. As well as some Kenyan coffee. I sat between B'Elanna and Mellitas, but B'Elanna quickly scooted over to let Lanny seat himself between me and her. Traitoress to her own sex. While still standing he presented me with a tiny sprig of miniature yellow Tulips, and proceeded to kiss my hand, knuckles up. Then he went to the Mess Hall Replicator. He brought back a steaming tureen of Crawfish Jambalaya for our supper. He'd got a recipe for Black Fish Jambalaya from somewhere, and programmed changes into it until he had a decent Crawfish variety. Now anyone in the facility could dial up this stew. He'd gone to a lot of work for it. Mellitas hailed from Louisiana, as she'd already mentioned. Lanny was working hard for his brownie points. He'd brought a little down home cookin' to Mars, just to impress me, and Mellitas Kitt. For that I let him fondle my butt cheeks a little bit. Not for long. Just a minute. Then he massaged the top of my thigh. The Jambalaya was tasty, though Kitt told us later she didn't care that much for crawfish, but swore us never to tell my suitor. For that was what he was. B'Elanna wasn't at all sure how seriously I was taking the suit. Or threat. Or whatever. I wasn't either. That night when I was going out the door to find my own guest quarters bed, B'Elanna bestirred herself to hold on to me before it opened. She looked long and hard at Mellitas' face. Then she kissed me on the lips. Kitt gave me a very inviting kiss as well. I went to bed still tasting both sets of lips. And feeling very confused. I tried a little self-gratification, unicycle riding I used to call it on VOYAGER, but got nowhere. So I turned over and went to sleep. --- My last full day here. Tomorrow I take my rental flic back to the Port and board my ship to go back to Terra. I was already up and clothed in my exercise suit by the time Lanlor Hardresson knocked on my door. He had a single black Rose in his hands and presented it to me with a bow. He was also in running kit, even knowing he couldn't keep up with me. More guts than brains. He would have made a worthy addition to the crew of VOYAGER. That was my benchmark, I realized. If someone would have been welcome on VOYAGER, they were a true mensch, regardless of gender. I slowed my pace some and Lanlor managed to keep up for one and a half kilometers this time. And was waiting for me when I returned. I smiled at him when he fell in alongside me. For a member of the weaker sex he wasn't half bad. After breakfast in the Mess, B'Elanna gave Mellitas and then me a kiss. She went to do Director type things and I followed Kitt to the Jefferies tubes. I was actually fond of those tubes. No great emergencies, no frantic scurrying, just more or less routine work. I told Kitt about the Holo Doctor and how he became a real live being. Our travels through time. The time the Ferengi tried to steal Seven of Nine. The time we were all brainwashed and put to work as skilled help by a bunch of treacherous Good Citizens. Seven's kidnapping and metamorphosis into a Gladiator. How she stayed awake once while the rest of us hibernated. The `37's and Camellia Earthward, B'Elanna and Tom Paris dying of air suffocation in their spacesuits, the blood fever she got from Vorik, and her pregnancy. Though not about her almost-abortion. I described the HoloDoc as a famous singer, and as a sleazy novel writer. The times we almost lost the warp core. My bodice-ripper HoloDeck Drama's. DaVinci's studio, Sandrine's, and rescuing Seven of Nine from the Borg. Kitt kissed me again. I treated as a friend thing, pretending that I wasn't just a little bit tingly and warm being with her. Katie Janeway, slut. Things were simpler back when I'd convinced myself my days of sexuality were long ago and far away. And I missed my Jake's. I was a little sad to be almost at the end of this visit. When Lanlor had his hand on my thigh at supper, I merely stared at him, and he removed his hand before it crept any higher. After that he tried to be humorous, he tried to cheer us up, his eyes telling me he knew I was sad to be leaving tomorrow. At the entrance to the Mess Hall I pulled him down to give him one good kiss to remember me by. I put a lot into that kiss. He even got a hint of tongue tip. My ego felt a little better to look back and see how stunned he was by what I'd just done. I almost begged off spending a few last hours with Kitt and B'Elanna, but they dragged me inside their abode. I gave in, and had a big glass of quite chalky twenty-year-old Burgundy. It was a Picard, signaling to me it was `An Occasion'. We had goose pate on crackers and we all got a tiny bit giddy. They were on either side of me touching me, making me feel family, when B'Elanna leaned over and began kissing my neck. That felt good, if surprising, when I realized Mellitas was kissing the other side of my neck. They got to my ears about the same time, and B'Elanna began rubbing her hand across my chest and belly. When I turned to her, she kissed me. Then Kitt's hand turned my head to her, and she kissed me. Her hand was on my lower belly, caressing me, when B'Elanna's fingers found my breast and nipple with her fingers. "Girls....." I began, then began moaning as Kitt bit my other nipple through my clothes and found my groin with the back of her hand. B'Elanna silenced me with a deep and aggressive kiss, fondling my breast, the one with the big red Rose tattoo on it. B'Elanna kissed just the way I knew she would. Alternatively pushing her tongue at me, in me, then backing off and licking my lips and going back to intrusive kissing. Kitt's kisses were more even, building up to where I had to open my mouth and chew on her tongue. By that time my blouse was out of my trousers and B'Elanna was unsealing the binds. She left my bra on after she tapped it into opening, spilling my wonderful young woman's breasts into her eager face. She cooed before she began suckling on the nipple centering my large red Rose tattoo. Did I ever mention I could come just from some loving person sucking and working my breasts? All those years and I had never tried to discover if B'Elanna would love to suck on my breasts. Obviously she did. They might be rejuvie young and firm now, but they were essentially still the same breasts I had when I was the nun in charge of VOYAGER. I went back to kissing Kitt and Kitt worked her hand between clothes and me, to find my wet groin with her fingers. Thought was for later. Right now .... I had to ... I had to .... She deliberately didn't bring me to a come. Instead she told me to hold it, don't come yet, not yet. I had to comply. Kitt and I kissed some more, her fingers pinching my nipple, working my breast, lifting it and playing with it. Then she dipped again, sucking my breast into her hot wet mouth. I lifted my hips so B'Elanna could slide my trousers down. Then she suddenly crouched in front of me. My shoes came off, my pants and panties, and her mouth found me. She looked up at me as her mouth ate of me and drank of me and loved me. I loved those dark brown eyes, loving her tongue in me, on me, splitting me, sucking me and her teeth biting me. I stiffened with excitement, my bones locking, my pussy throbbed like it was an erratic giant heart. Her frantic mouth was ready to turn my whole body into an incredible come. "Not yet," Mellitas murmured and I roared away in chaos, my hips bucking into B'Elanna's beautiful face. Her eyes again riveted mine and Mellitas moved down to take B'Elanna's place between my open thighs. She slid two fingers into me easily, my opening fluttering and spasming and wet and hot, and then she took my clit between her teeth. I went dizzy with heat. She owned me, then. I was helpless beneath her tongue. I felt rage to know how I was surrendering myself to that itchy power, I was filled with silence as I concentrated on the scream I could not utter. I could do nothing but ready myself to wash her mouth with my boiling cream. B'Elanna hovered above me, her head dipping, one hand busy with my nipples, her mouth reaching for mine. My scream was muffled inside her as we pushed our open lips against the other. Our tongues fought as I came again and again on fingers and tongue and pinched nipples. Then B'Elanna lifted and was replaced by Kitt. B'Elanna slid down my body, licking my belly button, biting nipples, licking my belly, biting my thighs. I screamed again as she sucked my clit deep into her mouth and chewed on it. Kitt worshipped my red Rose breast with her teeth as I fell into a long sputtering deadly come. Hours later, or moments, I couldn't tell, I tried to recover my breath as Kitt and B'Elanna stood to remove their own clothes. They bent as a team, lifted me, and helped me stagger into their bedchamber. Everything was red in this bedroom. Pillows, satin sheets, textured walls, low lighting. I swam in a world of hot liquid passion. Either one of them needed only to touch my clit to make me come again. B'Elanna sat on the edge of the bed as Kitt placed a bright red pillow under her rump. Kitt helped me kneel between the open warm solid soft legs of B'Elanna, and I fell without opposition into her lovely groin. Her pussy burnt my face, my lips, my tongue, my mind. I was insane and in love beyond redemption. "This is what you want, isn't it Kathryn? This lovely night with B'Elanna? Don't you want now what you denied yourself for so many years?" Kitt bent and worked B'Elanna's clit with a thumb, letting me watch it pop out of it's hood, it's knob, as she went through a quick mini-orgasm. I loved the taste of B'Elanna's hot velvety come on my tongue. "B'Elanna wants you," she said. "Worship her," she commanded. And I did. Kitt lay down with us, fondling B'Elanna, sucking her small sagging breasts into her hot mouth with all the devotion of a sinner given salvation. For sweet minutes I licked the ancient lines of pregnancy on B'Elanna's sagging belly. From the first moments I saw her naked form in the gym showers, from the second I rediscovered the beauty of her mature body, I had wanted her amber-hued flesh under my hands and lips. I now had the need to enjoy her precious scars as much as I needed to enjoy the delightful wetness of her puffy sex. I enjoyed fondling these battle wounds with my tongue, I delighted to find parts of her that were ticklish, I adored the way her large dark brown nipples swelled in my mouth. The heat of her open wet cunt drew me back, and I had to lick and love and eat and enjoy her flavor and her scent. I drew the center of B'Elanna into me through the wet warmth of her bushy groin, seeking salvation through the holy blood of her comes. B'Elanna locked her ankles about my shoulders and her strong Klingon hands forced my face tightly into her wet puffy pussy as I swallowed the essence of her. She did not come for me, no. Instead she DIED for my love and my face and my probing finger. She spit thick nectar onto me, into my open mouth as she ejaculated, as her cries split the air in this room. She was hot milk smelling of sweet cream, bitter musk and tasting of oiled caramel. She was perfect. I passed over into a paradise of angels screaming the praises of God, as her thighs buffeted me and her hands welded my mouth to her leaking vagina. She was perfect. I loved her. If I were to die after this night, I knew I had yet been given a perfect life. For her hips spasmed onto my mouth as she came again for me. Here, on Mount Olympus, I had become a Goddess and was given to drink of the nectar of the Heavens. B'Elanna tore me from my prize, crying for relief, and Kitt and I gave it to her with lingering touchings and soft caresses. Kitt bent to kiss me and taste her wife's sweet musky fluids on my face. Then with B'Elanna now quieting, I returned to the task that filled my being, that offered me salvation, that made my soul skip and shatter into jagged shards as I licked her sex. At one point I crouched, partially stood, and tried to assist as Kitt fitted one of the newer style panty-dildo's on my hips and groin. We both spread the lubricant over the irregular surface of the long dildo, my breath catching to fondle myself now as the male of the species. Kitt chewed on B'Elanna's breasts without pause while I gently ground my teeth together with the prize of B'Elanna's clit tightly held between. B'Elanna's screams were more brittle and sharp this time as I rode her bucking hips with my loving face. Fluid dripped off my chin and down my neck, and when a trickle began to drip off my nipple, I had to masturbate myself frantically into another come of my own. I lay exhausted against the spasming body of B'Elanna as Kitt rose. I looked up at her smile. "Let's get B'Elanna into the center of the bed. I'll get one of our bigger pillows under her ass, to make it easier for you. "You DO want to fuck her senseless, don't you? "She NEEDS for you to fuck her senseless, you know." I gazed on the long knobby green dildo Kitt now wore. "Do you want this to be for you or do you want to watch while my Darling and I fuck?" Kitt asked. "I want to be on top," I breathed back in answer. "I like being on top." "After me, after we fuck, B'Elanna wants to fist you. Do you fist?" "Only if someone will curl their hand into a ball inside me," I answered. "I want to fist you, too, Kitt. You and B'Elanna both." "Later, maybe, we'll see how things go," she said. "Sometime this night. On Mount Olympus Towering Top. Tonight we are Greek goddesses, all of us. Kitt smiled. "You've got to make my pussy purr first. Do you think you can make my pussy purr?" "Meow," I said. Then I bent to lick the thick wonderfully scented bundle of fur B'Elanna wore on her Mons. She groaned. When I lifted my head, when I began to crawl up B'Elanna's exquisite body, the body I desired for all those years, B'Elanna opened her arms to me. Knowing from the dildo bumping against her thighs what was next to come. I burned from the need to fill her. I licked her breasts, ground her hard brown nipples between my teeth, licked her shoulders and her lips. She laughed from the tickling sensation as my dildo danced over her thick hairy mound. I pushed it back and forth in her slot, knowing I was hitting her clit in it's clit knob with each upward pass of the rough-surfaced dildo. "Oh, sweet Kat, you're doing wonderful things to my clit that way, the way you're.... "It's gonna make me come if you keep rubbing my pearl with that thing...." With an invitation like that I smiled and kept masturbating her with the fake prick. She moaned into my ear, my mouth, my neck, her hands scratching my back and sides and shoulders. "Hurts .... a little .... more .... oohhhhhmmmmm...." B'Elanna threw me off her with her convulsions, but she immediately threw herself atop me and rubbed her groin frantically on the tufted under-surface of the dildo I wore. She came, her voice strangled, her hips relentless, and then the dildo slipped inside her. She froze. Her body sank until her pubic hairs tickled me through the dildo-panty. Then she went crazy, throwing me around, falling off me, her hips going, her lips flecked with saliva. "kkaaaatHHHRRRRYYYYYYYYNNNNNN!!" she roared, her arms pulling me to her. With Kitt's help I once more lay atop her, my dildo stabbing her groin, trying once more to find her spasming hole. Hands found the dildo and put it in the right place. The angle was all wrong, but B'Elanna spasmatically forced it inside somehow. I rode the whirlwind. My hands held my lovely Engineer down, Kitt's fingers re-introduced the dildo head inside her time and again, giving B'Elanna what she needed. I had my hands over B'Elanna's small flattened breasts, marveling at the size and hardness of the nipples I felt. There was a squishy noise, another, and I knew B'Elanna was coming convulsively against the long stiffness buried inside her all the way to her womb. She quieted, her eyes blank, her fluttering pussy so tight around the Risan sex toy that I could not move it inside her. We kissed, Kitt kissed each of us, we lay quiet as sanity returned to B'Elanna's eyes. I rested on a film of sweat, mine and B'Elanna's. I loved her. I kissed her. I regretted all those lost years. When I tried to withdraw the dildo from its wet hot haven, it slid out a small bit, then centimeters more, and a few more. B'Elanna wrapped her arms about me, her smile enormous, her eyes misty. "Hold on there, Captain," she joked. "You've got to re-initialize invasive procedures on this fucking damned Jefferies tube until all the system is purged." Feeling a little confused, I must have looked a question. "I'm not quite done with you yet, you delightful slut. We have to do this until we get it right. I'm sure you can improve on your previous performance." Kitt chuckled, her hand fondling my sweat-slick ass. --- The morning came far too early, in my opinion. B'Elanna woke me by spreading my thighs and lightly licking my close-cropped bush. When she got my clit between her teeth, I woke all the way up fast, really fast. I loved waking up that way. Now we three were all full of sadness, and our shower together was casual and low key. Full of regret and friendship and residual sparklings as we groped and fondled without intent. We had one night together. It must be enough. We kissed and we exited together. Three innocents out for a pre-early breakfast walk. Lanlor Hardresson was waiting by my door, a large red Bougainvillea in his hands. I came up to him, ignoring the way he was looking at B'Elanna and Kitt walking past him and myself. I think he suspected, but the hell with that. I was wearing a standard work catsuit, but if that was what I had worn last night, it was also common and standard issue. "Thank you," I told Lanny, inhaling the powerful cloying sweetness of the tropical flower. My guest quarters opened and I took Lanlor by the hand, pulling him inside. "You're very persistent," I told him. "Do you intend to seduce ALL the females on Mars? Or just the visitors?" I was very close to him, and traced a pattern on his chest with a finger. "Why me?" I asked him. "You're beautiful," he said. "From the moment I first set eyes on you I knew I wanted you. Is that so bad, to want you?" "It is if you try to seduce a lesbian, Lanlor Hardresson. Don't you think a lesbian would be offended by all of your attentions? Didn't your mother ever teach you good manners?" "I guess I haven't got any good manners. Once I saw you all my manners went out the airlock." "Lust at first sight?" "I suppose so. I'm sorry if I offended you, but I HAD to try. All I could do was try." He did a very Indiana thing then. He bent his head and rubbed his tight blond curls. "It's all right, Lanny," I smiled at him. "I'm duly flattered, and not at all offended. And thank you for the flowers AND all the attention. I've got some of the flowers in a stasis box in my luggage. "I decided I wanted something of this vacation to hold, once I got back to Terra. "A souvenir. "Do you want a souvenir?" He bent his head in query and his eyes opened wide as I stepped closer and pulled his head down for a kiss. "I can give you a memory, Lanlor Hardresson. Do you want a memory? Will a memory be enough?" Our kiss lengthened. He was a good kisser, not male at all. He waited until I pressed hard, before matching, and then he waited for my tongue to touch his. He groaned like a sick baby, long pitiful sobbing as I felt his stiffness with the back of my hand. Then I was jacking him through his running clothes. "Some things I don't do, not with men. I don't fuck men. But I can do other things. I like to use my hands and my mouth. Will that be enough?" "Anything," he whispered. "If it's from you, it will be...." He never finished the sentence as I snaked my hand between his waistband and his belly to find the hot tube of meat he was now sporting. I did men, but it'd be simpler if he believed I didn't. I liked his hands on my shoulder and back, his tongue on my collar bone and neck and his chewing on my ear lobe and sticking his tongue into my ear. I used both hands to skin his shorts down, releasing his stiff prick to my sight and my busy jacking hand. "Off with the clothes," I commanded. "I want you buck naked when I lay you across my bed. You don't think a poor weak old woman like me is going to do you on the hard cold floor, do you? Of course not. "Do it now. I'll get my own off. You DO want to look at my naked body, don't you? I think it's a superb body, and a lot of women have agreed with me. "I LIKE to do women, Lanny. "I like their soft skins and I like sucking on their breasts and I like the flavor a woman's cunt has. A woman has the most delicious come in the universe, but you already know that, don't you? "Off with the shoes also," I said. It didn't take long for a tingly naked me to be standing erect over an equally nude prone Lanlor Hardresson. "Well? Do you like? Do you wish you could have it, if only for an hour? Admire it, Lanny. I like being desired, even by a man. "Do you like my big breasts? Oh, you like the big red Rose tattoo covering most of my right breast, don't you? "Most women like it also. They like to suck on it and masturbate me and then lick me and eat me out. "Most women think I have an absolutely delicious pussy. I like them saying that. "Here, Lanny," I said, "taste me. No, lie there, you can raise your head, and that's it. Only that." I straddled him, carefully lowering my groin to his desperate tongue, inching it down until his tongue invaded me and tasted me. "You like the way I smell? Say please and I'll let you lick my cunt hairs." "Please," he begged. I slowly spread my groin all over his desperate mouth, getting sparkly as I masturbated myself with his face. "You can taste me but you're not going to love my beautiful cunt with your mouth. Only a woman can do that. And you're not a woman. I like the way a woman licks me and sucks me and bites my clit and makes me come. I REALLY like a woman's face between my legs. "It's too bad you're not a woman. I'd let you lick me and eat me for hours if you were." Actually it was making me wet to grind my groin into his loving mouth. He took my mound into his mouth and he bit down on it. "Uuhnnnnh," I moaned, shaking his head with my pussy like a dog does a rat. His mouth stayed with me as I jerked and bucked, feeling the pain and the excitement. It took only a hand on his forehead to make him finally release me. "Let's get this show to bed now, shall we?" I don't think I could have gotten his dick any harder unless I had pegged a duranium bolt down his pisshole. My hand held him, guided him, massaged him, felt his penis head and spasming nervousness. I stopped to spit in my hands twice, and jacked him as he followed me. I lay him across my bed and rolled to his side, my head over his groin. I wouldn't tell him, but I thought his uncut prick beautiful. I bent it and jacked it, spitting on his head again, enjoying the heat of him. He died when my tongue began tracing the knobbly underside of his cock. He died again when I slowly fitted my open mouth around his head. I smelled the rancid maleness of him, I smelled the overpowering musky odor of his wheat-colored hairy crotch. I smelled him, then I tasted him as I began to fellate him. He tasted both bad and foul and beautiful and strong, like most males did. His taste was overpowering, and I crooned as I swallowed him to his groin hairs. With his hairs in my nose and mouth, I deliberately let my throat gag around him. He cried like a suddenly spanked puppy when I bottomed out like that and worked him with my throat muscles. He barely touched my long grayish hair with his male fingers, groaning and praising me, telling me he loved me and I was great and I was beautiful. He wanted to force me, to use my head like a sex toy, to dominate the situation. He knew I would not stand for that, so he did nothing unless I guided him and allowed him to do it. I'd lick the head, tickle his pisshole with my tongue tip, then lick his dick some more, covering it with my spit and attention. The sixth time I took his penis into the back of my throat, he came. He came cursing, moaning, babbling, and he came with spurt after spurt after spurt. He tasted wonderful. Not that I'd ever tell him so. "Not bad," I allowed. "A little bleachy, but I could grow to like the taste. Thicker than a woman's come. I like that." He looked at me in a way I was accustomed to seeing Jake or Jake Junior look at me. Devotion. "I love you," he whispered. "No you don't, but I'll accept that as a compliment," I said. "Thank you. And thank you for the flowers, by the way. They were beautiful." "Do you have to go now?" he asked. Hang dog look and hang dog tone. I lay there, handling him just short of jacking him some more. I took another few licks. He jerked in my hand. He wasn't quite soft yet. I gave him a few more licks and then sucked him into my mouth, letting him feel my teeth and my tongue and my palate. He was stiffer now. I slapped it a few times and it stayed stiff. What the hell. "Lanny," I cooed, "could you do a favor for me?" "Anything," he begged. "If I let a man fuck me, you, would you be comfortable if I demanded to be the one on top?" "Ecstatic," he smiled. I bent to get him nicely stiff again. I had confidence in the powers of persuasion of my mouth. My big mouth and persuasive tongue had dragged a Starship half way across a galaxy. I guess I could successfully use it to drag a little iron into a single solitary male penis. I could consider fucking him as a form of sit-up's. Straddle him and masturbate myself with his organic dildo. It'd be exercise. Sweet. I stood over him, balancing on the soft give of the bed, slowly lowering myself and shuffling minutely as I lowered my soft giving quim to his hot stiff penis. I put the tips of the fingers of both hands on his hips, then I leaned onto my palms. Searching for his dickhead with my groin, wanting to do it without hands. He tried to find me three times once he felt the giving circle of my hole touch his stiffness. It slid up my belly each time, then it slid through my labia, parting them, gouging my clitoris. It slid back and forth in my slot, parting me, but not quite entering my hot wet hole. Then he lifted, parting my groove, and when he fell back, I sit down on what I knew was there. He entered me. "Oooooh, oh, no, oh, no, yaaa..." as much of him slid inside me. I looked down my body, squatting on him, feeling his dick pause in it's journey to the deep tight heat of my insides. It was funny how exciting it was to lean forward and see him attempt to lift his hips and slide all of himself inside my tingly tightness. The visual dimension made me giggle with a form of craziness. I was raping myself with this living dildo, I told myself. At the same time I gaped to realize I was being truly fucked and I could watch the process taking place. I tossed my head back and adjusted my crouch and he suddenly slid all the way into me. I had to look again, bent over, looking at the meshing of our groin hairs, his prick disappeared and all was inside me. We began the rhythm, and I had to lean forward over him, and pistoned my cunt on him countless times, hot times, fast times, tight and clasping and making me keen in near-pain. I was doing all the work, incoherent with the chaos ruling my mind, my body slave to the rhythm. I didn't know if it was good for Lanlor, and at that moment in time I really didn't care. It was incredibly good for me and that was all that counted. My ass rolled with the fucking motions, my body swayed back and forth, and it seemed he got deeper each time I bottomed out. My pussy got heavier and I was being completely drawn into this fornication. My groans and noises were non-stop now. Lanlor was screwing me slowly, his hips keeping its own rhythm regardless of my own fast-pistoning hips forcing my tube up and down his meat. I felt like a morning blossom being opened by the sun. My clit throbbed with hot blood, it was big, big, and it hung from my clit knob like the trigger on a gun. Every time I irritated it with his groin fur, I felt a new surge of hot pain joy messages travel up my belly. It was itching and gouging me apart, it was killing me, I Came And had to pause, but I couldn't keep my body still as my skin was electrocuted from my body and I spasmed Again and it Was worse and more painful and that made it better and I could feel Lanlor jerking and moving inside me while I held us together and still and I came again, knowing he was coming inside me. I don't know how long we were frozen together, but it was more than a few minutes. I caressed his face and lips and he sucked some of my fingers inside his mouth. Feeling wet and hot and still very full. But I could tell his dick was wilting, and I grimaced to know that. I rolled off him and he popped out of me with a very satisfying wet sound. "It's too bad I don't fuck men," I whispered to Lanlor. "Otherwise I might have enjoyed myself." His eyes bugged, and then I had to laugh. After a few minutes I bent and took him inside my mouth again. This time just to clean him off the fun way. I was in no doubt how long he'd remember our time together. Forever. --- All three of us were in my rental flic, making it cramped but cozy. It was farewell time, and we were crying on each other's shoulders and doing a lot of kissing. We three could - normally - view ourselves as having many decades of meaningful life ahead of us. But B'Elanna and I both knew in our hearts how unsure life is. We'd been on VOYAGER all those years. We were sisters. And we'd watched each other die. It changes your perspective about there being a tomorrow. The garage airlock was down and sealed, so we didn't need sealsuits. Just a hanky or two. Neither did Lanlor. He knocked on my side window and gave me a single red Rose when I ran it down. He went to leave, then, but I grabbed his hand. I exited and gave him a lover's kiss, a sweet hard kiss, one of those that often leave bruising. "You're not bad," I said, "for a guy. "Take care of yourself" With that I gave him a weak slow shove, making it obvious our time was over. He kissed my knuckles and turned back to the airlock leading to the facility. Kitt and B'Elanna were behind me, and I turned to hold and kiss. One last time. Then they were filing through the airlock. It was time to leave. --- Beverly was waiting for me at the S-O platform on Lake Michigan. We laughed and hugged and kissed. She had her Tatiana, her she-wolf, and my two dogs waiting for us in her flic. I told her I had a wonderful time. But I cried all the way home. --- continued in the fifth story in the Aide Memorie series 'Vanity'