Secret World (Christine Chapel)
For a prompt on the where_no_woman community on lj:
Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds.
Rated M for language and sexual situations (i.e. hide the children!)
As a child, Christine thought what she imagined became reality if she pictured the same image over and over, like the time she believed her father was coming home when she was eight. She made welcome-home cards full of bright colors, happy phrases, and glitter, and pulled up recipes on her mother's console so that she would know what to cook for him for their celebratory dinner. Christine brushed her hair until it shone and put on her favorite dress, a frilly concoction she had begged for, and skipped down the stairs to find her mother sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands.
"He's almost home, mama," she informed her mother, wondering why she wasn't more excited.
"Oh, Chris, honey. You know that's not—"
"That's not my name," she interrupted, but her mother revealed her tear-stained face and she knew something was wrong. "And he's going to be here soon—why aren't you dressed?"
She sighed and ran a hand through her short hair—which had turned much lighter since her father disappeared months ago. "This isn't one of your stories. You can't change the truth—he's gone, baby."
For years, Christine glanced at the front door when it opened, hoping. Even when she knew better.
She jumped from Tulane University in New Orleans to Starfleet almost without thought. It seemed like a romantic career, as if the charismatic recruiter was looking into her eyes and saying that she, Christine Lauren Chapel, was going off to explore new worlds, discover new cures, help new people. All this while sporting schnazzy new (fashionable!) uniforms. When this fuzzy ideal turned into demeaning doctors, brutal training simulations in the wilds of other countries, and long hours at the clinic with few rewards, she shrugged her shoulders and kept the picture in her mind of what she wanted it to be. It was all perspective after all.
This type of thinking was probably why she stayed with Roger so long.
She couldn't remember his name, but she could imagine it. She was underneath him, enjoying her moment—the pleasure of his cock moving back and forth inside her, the muscles of his back taut under the strong grip of her fingers—but she was also trying out his name in her mind, picturing both of them flushed as if standing under hot sunlight—clothes wilted, breath panting out loudly, and this man's hand linked in hers as she said his name so softly he had to lean down to her level to hear it.
She came while moaning it, the name she imagined his to be. He twisted his fingers into her hair, pulling a little more than gently so that she would look at him and said, "No, dammit, that's not me. Stay here with me." And she nodded her head and obeyed, clenching her inner muscles to make him groan and moan her name, her real name and not one he'd made up—he was better at this than she.
It was unusual to be so attracted to a man from the start, for her to be a pursuer rather than the pursued. Men were mostly drawn to her coolness—the way she drew into herself and kept them guessing. They viewed her as a challenge, though she liked to think that she left them far before they broke the calm and gained what they thought was trust.
She imagined herself as untouchable, a real heartbreaker, the strongest femme fatale in the history of her family's line of independent women. She was all grown up and still thinking her imagination had power.
Her ex didn't see her strength. Instead he called her boring, an ice queen, a workaholic, and other names she conveniently ignored before he decided to leave her. He sat her down at the kitchen table—as if he had to prepare her for the worst—and she patted his hand, took off his ring, and said that it was okay—she knew it was coming, he shouldn't feel too badly.
After all, she didn't have a special name for him. He was merely "Roger." She didn't dream as much when she was with him, though sometimes she dreamed of what she thought he should be.
But this man, the man who was lying next to her and stroking her face while she pretended to sleep was chipping away at her calm, her resolve, her learned independence—with that first long look at her across the bar, eyebrow arched in response as she gave him her best once-over, a come-hither look she rarely had to use. He'd been stubborn and a bit of a bastard and made her go to him, ask to sit with him. She was the first to break and smile when he said something ridiculous (as she found he did often), brightly and more openly than she ever had before with anyone she'd just met.
She wanted to leave now, wait until his breathing evened out in sleep and quietly snatch her clothes from the floor and run away from him. But she stayed. And so did he.
She woke before he did and leaned over the bed carefully so as to not wake him. Her hands searched the floor of the room blindly in the dark until she felt the cloth of his cadet uniform instead of the soft lace of her underwear.
No, she thought. You can just ask him—he told you last night—you just forgot. The edge of his Starfleet ID was hard in the pants pocket and she traced the outline of it thoughtfully before finally dropping her hand in defeat and snuggling back under the covers, her back to his front, waiting.
She fell back asleep in the silence before she could twist around to rouse him with her lips. He had said last night before holding her head firmly in his hands and kissing her that he liked her mouth, especially when she smiled. She licked them now, remembering how he'd traced her lower lip with his thumb and it had tingled.
"What's your name?" she murmured when his hands started exploring her breasts, cupping them warmly and circling her nipples with his thumbs. He stilled and she cocked her head to listen for his answer, enjoying the morning sunlight warming her arms.
"How much did you drink last night?" he asked so cautiously that she grinned—not that he could see it.
"No, I wasn't drunk—you didn't take advantage. I just don't remember—I called you a name I thought you should be, not your real name."
"So that's why you said that?" He resumed his exploration of her body, breath so hot on her neck that she shivered. "I don't mind—s'not like it's never happened." He moved his hand more surely down her body, laughing when she sucked in her stomach and her nipples tightened even more. "Ticklish?"
"No," she objected, but grabbed his hand as it strayed towards her side and moved it down between her legs.
"You want something, Christine?" he asked, spreading her open with two fingers, his breath getting short in her ear. "Let me know what and I'll tell you my name."
"How did you know mine?" She squirmed against his hand but he didn't move his fingers where she wanted them. "Did I tell you?"
"Yeah, but McCoy told me too."
"Doctor McCoy?" This conversation was getting confusing and he muddled it further with one hand clenching her hip and the other circling her clit, making her head spin pleasantly.
He flicked once, twice, inserting a knee between her legs to add pressure, moving her hair back from her shoulder so that he could suck wetly at it and bite. "Yeah," he grunted out, deciding to reposition her so that one leg was straight and the other bent—easier for him to nudge his erection a few sparse centimeters inside her.
"Do it," she moaned. "Fuck me."
He did—pushing her face into the pillow and holding her left leg straight over his hip so he could reach deeper with each plunge. She managed to move the pillow away from her nose so that it didn't smother her and brace herself for his steady thrusts with one hand while reaching with her other down to touch herself.
He got too busy to answer her question. And she didn't ask.
Later, he stroked her face again and she didn't pretend to sleep.
"It's Jim."
"I know. I figured it out—McCoy mentioned you before on one of his pleasant days." She sighed when he pushed strands of hair behind her ears. "I liked your other name better."
He grinned. "Too bad."
"Hmm," she grumbled, but relaxed against her pillow. She fell asleep without pretense this time and didn't dream.