Body Image
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
"Computer, deactivate sonic shower."
B'Elanna leaned her forehead against the cool tiles of the bathroom. She had ramped her shower up to the highest setting, high enough to make her skin tingle with cleanliness, but the smells of the wrecked ship were still in her nose: rotting alien corpses, stale ration bars and the thick, musky odor of her own sweat. She had soaked through her uniform back there – running from the Isomorph, fighting him, watching him reach into her chest with his holographic hand …
Pull yourself together, damnit. She slapped the wall and headed for her bedroom. You have a date with Tom in thirty minutes.
Her eyes drifted to the back of her closet, to a white sundress patterned with tropical flowers. It was the only dress she owned, and for some reason (Oh, who are you kidding? You know why!) she could never bring herself to recycle it. She ran her hands over the light, silky fabric, as different from the serviceable cloth of her Starfleet jacket as possible. Lieutenant Torres had been insulted, attacked and nearly murdered today, but she didn't have to be Lieutenant Torres tonight.
Smashing, Tom had called her on the night of the luau, his blue eyes bright with admiration. She hadn't felt so beautiful since … she could not remember when.
She slipped on the dress, hunted down the pair of white kitten-heeled shoes that came with it, and went back to the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror. Familiar features stared back at her: a small body, kept in decent shape from her combat holoprograms, but with few curves to speak of. Light olive skin. Brown hair, bobbed. Brown eyes. An ordinary face … below the eyebrows, at least.
What a repulsive creature you are! the Isomorph had shouted.
This was absolute nonsense, spoken by a hologram with severe malfunctions, and she knew it. She could ignore his voice. Still, added to a chorus which she seemed to have been hearing ever since childhood, it was harder to ignore than it appeared.
Hey, Turtlehead! Killed anyone lately?
John dear, your daughter could be such a pretty girl if she didn't have those … things … on her forehead. Can't you see someone about getting them removed?
I thought Klingons liked live food!
Mom warned me not to marry Miral, that living with a Klingon would be too difficult. Now I'm living with two of them …
Unless you stop this disruptive behavior, Cadet Torres, you may be expelled from the Academy.
She glared at her reflection. Smashing – seriously?
"The hell with this," she told it. "Computer, time."
"Seventeen hundred hours and twenty-one minutes."
"You've been waiting for tonight for more than a year, Torres," she hissed, using the brusque tone Chakotay used to take with her when they were in the Maquis together, and he was giving her a kick in the pants for her own good. "This is Tom Paris we're talking about."
Tom, holding her hands in the tunnels of the Vidiian laboratory. Tom, wrestling with her on the forest floor, not only unafraid but happy to be marked by a Klingon in ponn farr. Tom, gleaming with sweat after a bat'leth lesson, holding up his hands in laughing surrender. Tom, stubborn and arrogant, funny and loyal, eyes wide open to all her flaws and loving her anyway.
"That man is the best thing that's happened to you since Grandma Elena showed you how to fix a replicator. Now that you finally got the guts to tell him how you feel, you are not letting a … a bad mood and some crazy homicidal ghay'cha get in your way. Is that clear?"
She could almost imagine her Klingon counterpart, the result of the Vidiians' experiments two years ago, looking out through her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, her chin high; even her hair seemed to crackle with fierce determination.
The sound of the door chime made her jump, then laugh. "Come in," she called, hurrying out into the main room.
Tom, like her, was in civilian clothes: a light blue shirt, open at the neck, and crisp dark trousers. The way his eyes followed every line of her figure along her dress, were just what he had hoped for.
"My eyes are up here, Flyboy," she teased.
"Can't help it." He showed her his most adorably cheeky grin. "You're so beautiful."
For once, she believed him.