Holography 3

As a Reminder and a Promise

by

Pat Foley

Chapter 38

Stardate 2250.4 Vulcan

For all Amanda's delay in initially choosing him as a spouse, it had taken Sarek far longer – twenty years, to meet that requirement, and to offer her the love that she had so long ago desired. The Vulcan equivalent notwithstanding.

She was quite wonderful in herself, he thought, to have agreed to marry him even after his statement that he could not provide that. He had only recently come to appreciate how lacking, how deeply lacking, had been the Vulcan equivalent he had offered her so long ago.

Afterwards, when she became his, how he had arranged it all seemed of so little importance. She was his, what matter how it had come to pass?

He had, as always, achieved what he wanted. He had moved on. There was so much for them to learn of each other as bondmates, that he had little care in reflecting back on how he had persuaded her to bond.

He was not sure why he thought of it now. Her blue eyes gazing back at him, light-years and twenty years away from the girl on those steps, now the girl in his bed, under him, waiting for his attentions, his wanting undiminished.

He always got what he wanted. He had been determined to have her and have her he had. And did still. Perhaps that was what kept him reflecting on the past.

In spite of his traitorous Vulcan biology, in spite of freeing her to offer her a second choice, a second chance. In spite of that terrible morning weeks ago when he'd reluctantly offered that choice and had to wait for, to risk, her answer, yet again, - and how he had dreaded that answer, been more unsure and uncertain of it than he had the first time - he had her still. He had her still…and now he could admit that he loved her.

What a bitter irony it would have been if he had discovered he loved her, loved her truly as a human might, with that sense of self sacrifice, only to lose her if she did not choose him anew. Like an O. Henry story, the poor girl who sold her hair to buy a chain for her husband's watch, the husband who sold the watch to buy combs for his wife's hair.

Her loving him enough to serve him as chattel had nearly destroyed her. His loving her enough to let him go could have resulted in him losing her, if she had chosen to use that new freedom to leave him. They had barely sidestepped that ironic, heartsick fate.

He drew a relieved sigh at that, reached down and took one of her blond curls in his hand, twisting it around his fingers, charmed by the way the curl always conformed to the twist he'd set. Even after his hand released it.

She was so human, his wife. Her features, her emotions. To him, he still saw her as that, as a pretty human girl, the almost child he had chosen, alone against a hostile crowd, much as he had felt on Terra. A girl who had looked to him undaunted across the shared nemesis of the press, smiled and sparked a connection between them that spanned years and worlds.

At some level, he had never quite stopped seeing her that way.

There was the Terran saying, love at first sight. He did not really believe in it. But part of him had recognized something in her from first sight. Something he had not known he wanted until he had seen it in her. A combination of indomitable strength, wrapped up in a very slight frame, a blazing intelligence at one with warmth and humor. He had seen it in an instant, and it became a puzzle, a paradox he'd been intrigued to solve. Or if not to solve, for he could not claimed to have solved the puzzle she presented, then to at least possess.

Love at first sight. He could not claim that, but he had wanted her virtually from first sight.

And he had and did possess her. He knew she was occasionally disquieted by his emotions in that regard. It was, apparently, not an attitude held by human males, or if it was, was not considered estimable behavior. He didn't really understand her attitude toward that. The cultural difference was too wide. But it did not invalidate fact. She was his. Had been for nearly twenty years, and was still. Still.

The sheer depth of relief he had felt when she had agreed to bond with him had never entirely left him, and filled him now, anew.

But his relief had not been shared by others. Those around him, his advisors, his associates, his mother, had been shocked that he desired a human, had never fully accepted her. He had not cared, not felt anyone had the right to judge him. He had waited long enough to find what he wanted, he had persuaded her to choose him in spite of all the enormous odds against him, against them. He had no intention of giving her up. His position was such that it had not mattered to him whether his provincial advisors, whether even his mother accepted her. He did not need anyone's acceptance. He was the sole heir to the ruling clan of Vulcan. It was they who needed him.

Though he acknowledged, now, that their disapproval had been hard on her. She had borne the brunt of it. On top of assimilating a new culture, on a planet that included very few of her species, she had been virtually shunned by the ruling circle of his own clan.

In one respect he had not truly minded even that. In a way, it had made her more completely his.

She had been everything he had expected, imagined, and more. Even as he had been forced to allow her a choice in the matter, he wondered, really, how truthfully he had represented his case. If forced to acknowledge it, he would have to admit he had been primarily interested in seeing her make a choice in his favor, not necessarily the best choice for her. Even now. He wondered if knowing, she'd quite forgive him for that. If he even could forgive himself.

He looked down at her, his very human wife. He was heir to the hereditary ruling clan of Vulcan. He was accustomed to always getting what he wanted. A choice of wife being no exception to that implicit rule. Even if he himself joined the disapproval in his methods in only in his methods used to attain her.

He let go of the curl and sighed a little, shifting closer. He did not kiss her. If he did that, he suspected he would be lost, the lesson over. Amanda shifted a little too, swallowing hard, forcing herself to a disciplined relaxation, drawing her hands above her head, wrists crossed, so that he could take them easily in one of his hands. As he usually did during lessons, for he never could quite trust her control.

He had long ago stopped requiring she remain completely passive during lessons, realizing it was impossible for a human. For his human wife, who loved him, even as he subjected her to a form of …lovemaking…that she had never cared for. He now only required that she submit in lessons, had long ago stopped chastising her for the love that too often left her less than passive. For her own physiology that, combined with her love, made her response more than how a Vulcan would respond, and thus, less than Vulcan. She was not Vulcan. If she accepted Pon Far in him, how could he be any less tolerant of her own biological imperatives?

He simply restrained her, obtaining by his own superior strength what her own control often lacked. It was what would happen in Pon Far. It was logical that she learn to deal with it. That he himself longed to simply make love to her was unVulcan in him. He had to master his own passions as well.

But he could not take that next step. It came to him, as he knew the next move was to reach for her wrists, to pin her anew, that he did not want this. That he could not do this. His mastery of his own emotions was not sufficient. Even the fear of Pon Far, that urged him to practice disciplines recommended from the time of Surak, failed him.

He paused, hesitated, resisting his own desires that threatened to overwhelm him.

It was so much easier to …damn lessons. To make love the human way. To just make love their way, human or Vulcan regardless, and damning all controls. All ethnocentric expectations. He knew how to please her, and she pleased him. Surely that ought to be enough, for any two sentient beings. Logic told him that was not necessarily true. Emotion told him he did not care.

And yet he did care for her. It was his responsibility to keep her safe.

He looked at his wife. She lay unresisting under him, her wrists crossed, waiting for him to do what he chose to her. A little tense under her assumed calm. He always chose the tenor of their lessons, choosing various scenarios as he deemed appropriate. She never could be sure until he began. Some she found more difficult than others.

Sometimes he took her quickly, with no preliminaries, as if he were in Pon Far, gauging her reactions, her submission, making sure when he still had control that she was still conditioned not to resist, so that he knew she would be safe when control failed him.

Sometimes he spent half the night caressing her, holding them both from release. He could keep them both on the edge for hours. He knew, if he cared to acknowledge it, that she disliked that more than his abrupt possessions. He had known her to plead, pleas he had ignored, to shed tears from sheer frustration, which he had also forced himself to disregard, his mother's warnings haunting him. He had promised to train his human wife, and train her he must. Pon Far lasted for days. Even though then he'd not likely be holding her from release, it was possible. He had expected her to be able to withstand and submit to at least a few hours of denied desire. Surely that was not beyond the bounds of even human control. But it seemed not. It was there he discovered the first flaw in her submission. Taken past her limits, unable to bear the tension of that denied release, she had lost control. Resisted – yes, a real resistance, not a mock one of play, even though it was borne out of desire. She had lost control, panicked at the feelings overwhelming her, as her inability to withstand them. She had resisted them, and him, struggled and fought to free herself.

That he could not allow. In the madness of Pon Far he would not care why she might resist. Even though lessons were designed and meant to elicit all manner of responses in a safe controlled setting, to uncover potential problems and provide opportunities to train against them, her behavior had surprised, shocked and disappointed him. He'd momentarily stopped the lesson, grateful for his own control. And still keeping her firmly pinned had scolded her soundly, fear lending weight to his words, reminding her anew of her vows and responsibilities as wife to a Vulcan, and how such behavior failed to fulfill them. Till she had cried in earnest, not in frustration but shame, as chastened as the child her control had proven her to be. As her few years made her.

And all it had merited her was more lessons. Not that they'd been a complete success.

She had learned better control over the years, having discovered what a lack of it would net her. But in spite of years of lessons, all his patient teaching, she seemed unable to master that dangerous impulse. Sometimes, holding back her response, drawing out a prolonged lesson, he still occasionally hit that fight or flight response in her, taking her unawares, startling them both, confirming his dread that he had never yet trained her against it. It was the only real circumstance in which she resisted him and it was borne out of desire, but he still could not disregard it, allow it, risk it. If he could not eradicate it from her behavior, then he must condition her not to physically resist.

In truth, such a circumstance was unlikely to occur in Pon Far. He'd stumbled across that response almost by accident. He'd never expected it would be an issue for them. But after seeing her limits lay there, he had no choice. In conscience he had required himself to test her control as well as his own in that circumstance. Even in full control, her behavior had shocked him deeply, to his core. It had disturbed him for days afterwards. He could not stop thinking of it. If she resisted that way during Pon Far he might well kill her. There were casualties in Pon Far, understandable during a Time when a Vulcan male was under a hormonal frenzy. He had to verify that she had mastered her impulses against any such futile, frantic resistance. Or if she had not, he had to give her the needful opportunity to learn such control in a safe environment. He was not a child, nor was she. This was his duty. He could resist it internally himself, mentally rail against it, even, at some level, hate the necessity that forced him to the circumstances. But he could not avoid his duty. He had taken that on, in taking a human female to wife. He must do what he could to teach her of his ways, to keep her safe.

And if she could not master it, he had to give himself practice in dealing with it, so that even in the fever, he would be conditioned to recognize it for what it was, and to respond in a restraining but not a violent manner.

It wasn't a pleasant lesson for either of them. In the flames of passion, he still yet always tense, wary, dreading the icy shock that washed over him with her resistance.

She had learned for the most part not to physically struggle when he brought her to that point. He'd slowly conditioned her to the futility of that, excruciatingly painful as that lesson was for them both. Now when she hit that wall, she usually expressed her emotions in tears. He had come to consider those the lesser of two evils. Tears were not submission, but he preferred them over her still occasional struggles. When he was most in control and could bear the strain, he often quite deliberately chose to bring her to those limits, ensuring that he'd conditioned her to resist, if she must, only with tears, rather than her more overt and dangerous physical resistance.

He knew, if he cared to think about it, that she feared and hated those lessons. He hated them too. But if he had learned one thing, it was that both of them powerless before his Vulcan biology.

And tried not to tell himself, all these years that all he really wanted to do was to love her. He'd been able to deny that of himself before. Now, with his secret out, his confession verbalized, his wife aware of his love, it would be doubly hard for him to hold them both to these standards.

It had not escaped him that in doing so he was quite deliberately, quite consciously striving to make his beloved wife cry. In his arms, while he caressed her. And that over the years, he'd become expert at bringing her to a level of desire and holding her there until she could no longer bear the frustration, and she hit that fight or flight panicked response. Trying to make sure that now when she hit it, she cried rather than struggled. He understood very well how to do it. Part of him loathed himself. But in spite of all this reluctance, he couldn't think what else to do. If there was another solution, he had racked his brain, and not come up with it. He cherished her too much to risk her, to indulge her. She might not be Vulcan, but as wife to one, some control she must learn.

He still remembered, standing in the garden with T'Pau, her telling him Amanda would reject him in Pon Far, and he promising that Amanda would never do that. Amanda so unhappy over his mother's rejection of her, asking, almost begging, to do anything, anything at all, to make T'Pau reconsider.

He did not think Amanda would ever reject him in Pon Far. But she had long ago, almost from the first days of their marriage, agreed to do…anything necessary to guard against it.

The remembered shock of her first frantic, desperate struggles against him when he'd brought her inadvertently to panic still echoed within him. Raised the specter of that possibility in Pon Far. No, he couldn't risk it. Some controls she must learn. And she had agreed. To anything. And by default, to this.

He did not consider himself unkind in teaching this control to her. He had no wish to see her cry. It was true that in lessons she never had any choice in how and when her release was granted, he was always in control. And it could also be said she had no choice if. But even when she so misbehaved as to cry tears of frustration, he always, always granted her a release. Even when she lost control and fought him, he did then too. He would never use a lesson to punish her. Indeed, that would be self-defeating, she was supposed to practice – to master- necessary controls in her lessons, but also supposed to find them fulfilling. Though he was well aware that her take on that was not what a Vulcan woman's would be.

In spite of his leniency, after the worst of those lessons she still sometimes cried afterwards. Even when she had not physically resisted, except for frustrated tears, even when he did not verbally chastise her for her lack of control, even when she was ultimately fulfilled, she still sometimes cried like a child, in shame, despair and even a little fear, after one of these most hated lessons where he tested her control, ensured that if she must lose it, she would lose it only in tears.

That he could do such a thing to her.

That she could fail him, so repeatedly, and so consistently.

It was the shame of their marriage. But the greater shame, the greater horror, the one they both quailed before was what if? What if T'Pau's prediction, the one he had always concealed from Amanda, never voiced, that loomed even larger in his mind being unvoiced between them, came true.

It haunted Sarek, and his fear haunted her. It made him more resolute. It made her, even fearing, more resolute. He had promised to train Amanda, and train her he would.

She always acquiesced. And in this one area where they were failing each other, they also forgave each other, she forgiving him the need to impose this on her, and he forgiving her for the involuntary resistance that would so shame a Vulcan bondmate. Still it left a mark on them. She was always a little tentative, a little unsure with him, after one of those most hated lessons, though she tried not to show it. And though he was outwardly unaffected, making her cry always left him deeply shaken.

How he hated it. Hated himself, in this one area, for his Vulcan nature. And yet he could not escape it, or think what else to do.

At times, he almost envied his son, bonded in childhood to a Vulcan. It was one of the reasons why he had determined to bond Spock in childhood. To a girl that he suspected would never inspire such passion in him. So that his son would never have these issues. Even as a full Vulcan, Sarek found them difficult enough to enforce. His half human son should never have to make a beloved wife cry.

Small wonder why she , why they both, preferred lovemaking to lessons. That she sometimes trembled in the latter when he took her wrists in his hands and covered her. He chose what lesson to impose, but she had gotten very good at reading him too. She usually knew when he had decided on the one they least favored.

And today, he had to confess, he was considering the latter. He own rush of desire had frightened him, and he felt the need to test both their limits of control.

He hated himself, for that too. That he was Vulcan, that he was a potential danger to her, that he must impose this on her. But he was responsible for her safety. For training her to be safe. And train her he would. Well, and truly. Irrespective of her desires, her struggles, her tears. Had he not proven in the last six months, that Vulcan biology cared nothing for love? After what had come to pass, after his flawed control, how could he not reinstate all their lessons from day one? Did he not need to retest, re-condition, doubly ensure, with Vulcan thoroughness all his controls, all her controls and responses?

And yet, the thought occurred, would not be denied, that had she also not earned, in six months as a chattel, his trust that she would submit? Had she not yielded in a far greater submission? Was it not he who had ultimately failed her and not the reverse?

He looked down at her, waiting, barely breathing, for him to start, not knowing what he planned for her, her wrists crossed, ready to be pinned and immobilized and he felt a sudden, abrupt utter loathing for himself and for what he had been about to impose.

And drew her hands down from where she had placed them over her head.

Beneath him, Amanda drew a sharp breath. He felt her shiver underneath him and she looked up at him.

"I didn't mean – I didn't say no."

He drew back a little, puzzled. "Of course you didn't."

"I didn't."

"I understand," Sarek repeated, frowning now, as his puzzlement grew.

Her eyes widened at that expression on him and she froze, drawing back a little more deeply into the bed, beginning to tremble in earnest. "Oh, please, I didn't -"

"Amanda. It is all right."

"Don't be angry, please don't be-"

"Amanda, I am not angry. I love you. Shh, my wife, it is all right now. I am in control. Amanda, listen to me-"

But she seemed beyond hearing him, beyond seeing or feeling him. He reached for her, thinking to sooth her, reassure her. And watched helplessly, stunned and uncomprehending, when she lost all control, burst into tears and cried like a child in his arms. Without a lesson, without even touching her, cried as though her heart were breaking, deaf to his assurances and pleas. He finally just held and rocked her, a deep chill sweeping through him, as he realized that even if he had recovered from vrie, she was definitely not all right.

And he was at a loss to know what to do.

To be continued…