Chapter Two
Revelations
"He what you?" Elizabeth Cutler demanded, outraged. She didn't know how she kept her voice pitched low enough in the Mess Hall that only she, Hoshi and Tia could hear it.
"Said she Kaslier O'Cathain her out spread on her bed tied and 'had his way with' her." Tia supplied helpfully. Liz glared at her.
"I heard her!"
"But what 'way with her' did he –?"
"Tia!" Hoshi's whisper could have blistered the paint off the bulkheads. She looked at the two too curious women and sighed deeply. "All right. Last night Seamus surprised me in my quarters with something new. He convinced me to let him tie me up, and then for the next four solid hours…."
"He raped you?" Liz demanded in a fiery whisper.
Hoshi looked about, but the voice had not carried. "No, he didn't 'rape' me. He just tied me up."
"And you let him?"
"Well, not at first. I mean, he caught me by surprise. Scared the hell out of me at first, but yes. He was very gentle, and he had me tied in such a way that I couldn't stop him from doing everything he wanted with me. And it was the most erotic sensation I've ever experienced. We made love for —"
"God, I can't believe I'm hearing this."
"What's wrong?"
"Sex is supposed to be consensual, between two people that love each other! There is no room in that for tying up. When you're tied up, you can't say 'no'. If I were you, I'd have screamed."
"I did scream, at one point. It made him come around and gag me."
"With what?" Hoshi gave her a smile, and the look in her eyes was enough. "You little slut!"
"I beg your pardon," Hoshi exclaimed with a grin. "I am a virtuous woman."
"You mean a carnivorous one."
"I didn't bite. Of course, at that point, he was the one doing all the eating."
x
"What was it like?"
"Oh, it was so incredible! At first I was scared, then frustrated I couldn't touch him, but then I started getting into it. I couldn't stop him from doing anything he wanted to me, so I just lay back and enjoyed it. And enjoyed it. And enjoyed it… I think it went on for about four hours, and when he untied me I simply could not close them again.
"It was such an incredible rush. I must have had fifty orgasms. Sometimes I would scream just so that he would put his…."
"Yessss?"
"You know."
"No, tell me."
"Bitch."
"Hey, I haven't gotten anything in weeks! I have to live vicariously through my friend. But the tying up part, I don't think I'd like that."
"Don't knock it until you've tried it."
"I'd rather not try it. I just can't enjoy the idea of anyone tying me up! I didn't think any woman I knew could."
"I think like to try I would," Tia whispered softly.
x
Both women gaped at her. For a moment they had actually forgotten her presence, but the wistfulness of her tone surprised them both. Tia looked away, embarrassed, her face deepening to a more intense gold as she tried to hide her eyes from the other two women.
"You would?" Hoshi asked. Tia did not look at her, but after a few moments she nodded sharply.
"I do understand what you say not, but you say you were more excited by being tied than…."
"It was different, and sometimes different is exciting."
Tia finally trusted herself to look at them, and to Hoshi it was an imploring look indeed. "Hoshi, why enjoy did you it? Why good to you did this feel? Is it because you are human and I am not?" There was a longing in her tone that surprised them.
"I'm not sure," Hoshi admitted. "I honestly don't know what feels good to an Auran. You haven't exactly been forthcoming about this."
Tia looked down, embarrassed. "Sorry I am. But women… women discuss men and sex do not."
"We do it all the time." Liz told her.
This froze her. If bondage was a new concept, this was outrageous. "Why?"
"How else do you learn?"
She thought it over. "Been successful so far I have not. Perhaps right you are, but comfortable I feel not. I must …. To learn I want, but to ask I can not."
x
Hoshi searched to find a fair answer. "Seamus and I love each other. I knew, deep inside, that even if what he was doing was restraining me he wasn't going to hurt me. I could trust him enough to relax and enjoy it."
"I wish I could."
"You should," Elizabeth said, actually surprising herself, realizing she had reversed her position. "If that's what you want, then you should do it."
"I want to. I want to the pleasure Shar-les and I have, but the thrill you describe with…. It thrill you did?"
"Yes," Hoshi admitted.
"Being tied up, being able to resist anything he you wanted to do to nyasi; that exciting was?"
"Yes, it was. He … he had control; I could only go along with it. But I knew there was no danger. It wasn't 'rape', it was 'play'."
"'Play'?" She stared at her, totally uncomprehending.
x
"Yes, play. Humans … Oh, God." Hoshi knew from Tia's expression that she was going to regret this. "Tia, Humans 'play' sometimes when they make love."
Tia looked quizzically at Elizabeth, who nodded. "We do."
"Play?" She thought this over. "In sex?" This was clearly a totally new concept to her.
"A lot."
"All the time."
"Play." She thought about it. "In sex." She thought about it some more. "What kind of play?"
"Ho-boy, I really don't know how I can answer that." Hoshi said, looking at Elizabeth, then turned to Tia.
"I have no idea. It's not something you can explain. You just … you just … do it."
"But 'play', in making love, in sex … it does make nyasi …." She turned to Cutler. "Liz, would you me teach to in sex play?"
Hoshi almost burst out laughing at the expression on her friend's face.
x
"No, I will not!" Elizabeth started emphatically, but then adopted a milder tone when Tia withdrew. "Tia, it is not something that can be taught, and not woman to woman – at least not me to you."
"Do think you Shar-les me would it with do?"
Neither knew how to answer that, but Hoshi tried. "I think you should ask him."
Tia turned away, blushing, her eyes closed. "I could nyasi!"
"Why not?"
She turned back to them, exclaiming feelingly. "A woman does for pleasure ask nyasi!"
"Bull! Shit!" Elizabeth declared; her tone low but forceful. "You want something, you march right up to him and you tell him!" Tia looked pleadingly at Hoshi, wanting a denial she was not going to get.
"You should tell him. If there is something you want, tell him. Trust me; I'm positive he'll be happy to know."
"I can nyasi!"
"Do you make love a lot?"
She thought it over. "Not 'a lot'. In the four weeks his birthday since, only one time each day."
The two women looked at each other, mouths hanging open.
x
"What is it like with you and Trip?" Elizabeth asked when she could speak again.
"Wonderful," Tia told her in a dreamy voice.
Cutler smiled, having the feeling of having walked right into that line. "But what you do, is it what you want?"
"Yes. He is so … so …."
"'Wonderful'?" Tia nodded, smiling, but then grew serious.
"But trinas, um, to understand you have. A woman ask a man for sexual pleasure does not."
"Once again – Bull. Shit!"
Hoshi told her emphatically that "It's any woman's right to ask for whatever pleasure she wants in bed!"
"Only in bed?" Tia asked wistfully, clearly disappointed.
Again the humans exchanged stunned looks. "Oh, I've got to hear more."
x
"What they do, they do," Tia maintained. "But for a woman for something ask to... That so kalriis is, so perverted."
"That's so Middle Ages!" Elizabeth exclaimed. Tia looked to her, once again baffled.
"Never mind," Hoshi advised, wanting to keep on track. "Listen, you wanted to try what I did last night?"
"I think..." She looked down, hating that she could not stop the rush of gold to her face. "I think I it would to try like to." She looked even deeper into the table. "To play… In sex…" She was trying very hard to get the concept.
"Listen," Hoshi said, making her look up, capturing her attention. "The next time you two get together, you look him right in the eye and you tell him 'Charles, I want you to tie me up, suck my breasts and my pussy all night, and fuck me until I can't stop screaming.'"
Tia turned away, covering her eyes, blushing furiously. "I do that could nyasi!"
"In that case, you'll probably never get it."
xx
"Speak of the devil, at 1400." They looked up at Elizabeth's alert, seeing Trip enter the Mess Hall with Captain Archer. Hoshi realized this must be 'Day 3'.
Archer had decided some weeks ago that he was just a little too inaccessible to his small crew, and resolved to eat all his meals, each third day, in the Mess Hall. The Captain and Commander looked about, seeing the room was quite full, and started making a 'social round'. As the trio's table was in roughly the center of the room along the port bulkhead, they were visited in fairly short order.
"Good morning, ladies." Archer greeted them warmly. "How's breakfast?"
"Just fine, Captain. Chef has made an excellent Western omelet," Hoshi replied.
"How are you three getting on?" Trip asked, reserving a special warm look for Tia.
"Great," Cutler said.
Suddenly a cold hand gripped Hoshi's heart. She watched Tia stand up, knew it was going to happen, but like a cosmic cataclysm she was powerless to prevent it. Tia faced Trip squarely, and in a firm voice that penetrated to every corner of the packed room declared to the Chief Engineer: "'Shar-les, I want you to tie me up, suck my breasts and my pussy all night, and fuck me until I can not stop screaming'."
x
The Mess Hall went utterly silent. Commander Charles Tucker's mouth fell open and stayed there.
xxx
Captain Jonathan Archer entered his office followed by his Communications Officer, and when the door closed behind him he gave in to the roar of laughter that he had been holding back for nearly ten minutes.
"It really wasn't funny, sir," Hoshi said in a tremulous voice.
"No, it wasn't," Archer admitted, regaining control quickly. "In fact, my Chief Engineer may have quite a time living this down." He sat down behind his desk. "I sense your hand in this, however."
"It really wasn't supposed to happen. Elizabeth Cutler and I were just giving Tia some advice on some sexual matters, particularly in dealing with humans."
"That much is obvious. I suggest your next lesson should be on 'appropriate discretion'."
"Yes, sir."
"A human woman would know without being told that you were suggesting this for a more private conversation; but with Tia, or any other alien, you cannot always assume human understandings. Trip's birthday party should have told you that, when he told her to 'get comfortable'."
"Yes, sir."
"All I'm saying is that you should use better care in the future."
"Yes, sir."
"That'll be all."
"Yes, sir." She left without looking back.
He hated to have to reprimand one of his officers, especially for something that was not strictly her fault, but in this case he'd had no choice. And it might be an important reminder, especially to one as deeply involved in contact with aliens as Hoshi was. She was a consummate professional on the job, but it was easy to forget, after weeks aboard, that Tia was still an unknown alien, and could not be assumed to understand human nuances the way a human would.
It was easy to forget. He wondered how many times Trip forgot.
At any rate, Archer was sure Trip certainly would never again tell her to 'get comfortable'.
xx
"Why don't you just sit down and get comfortable?" Trip said to Tia, indicating the couch as they entered his quarters. She shook her head, staying near the door.
"Nyas, Shar-les," she said very quietly. He was surprised less by her refusal than by the fear on her face, the terror in her eyes. "If beat me you are going to, prefer I to see it coming would."
He stared at her, appalled.
"Who said anything about beating you?"
"You me very angry with were when we the Mess Hall left." She took a deep breath, clearly bracing herself. "The last time with me someone so angry was, beaten so severely I was that broken my left arm and four of my ribs were."
"My God!"
"I here stand will, resist will not. You as you wish may me hit. But if you me to beat are, surprise me do not! Please."
Trip couldn't believe she was saying this, that she actually thought he would…. "Tia, I would never do that! And I am not angry with you."
"You were. Your face purple was." She looked down. "It a pretty color was not."
"Tia, look at me."
"Were you me angry with for asking a new kind of sex to try? They ask said. They forbidden said I was nyasi, even though inappropriate on Aura it is."
"Tia, look at me," he repeated, and this time she did raise her golden eyes. "Is my face purple?"
"No. You very pretty are."
He struggled to suppress a smile. "Well, thank you. I just wanted to say that I am not angry with you."
"But angry you were! If with me nyasi, than whom?"
He cuoldn't find any words. He couldn't be mad at Hoshi and Elizabeth. They had meant well; they weren't responsible for Tia's outrageous timing. At the people in the Mess Hall? That would be so petty. They were not guilty; they were innocent by-sitters. At the fact that her declaration had been made in front of them? That was what had made him mad, but how to communicate this to her?
"I'm not mad at anything," he answered, feeling the words utterly lame. He knew it was a dodge, and knew that she knew it to be such, but what else could he do? He didn't know. "Just do me one favor?"
"Anything!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, having the feeling that she had dodged a catastrophe.
"Always remember; never discuss sex except in private. Or at least, without other people being able to hear."
"Yes, Shar-les," she said, looking down. He knew that this was not a very good solution. In fact, it was so wide open he had the feeling that it was going to come back sometime and bite him on the ass. Knowing Tia, that would be soon, but it was the best he could think of.
x
"But women may ask for pleasure not, yet Hoshi and Liz I may say, that forbidden it is nyasi. Say they do that if pleasure I want, should I you tell, that glad it you would be know to."
"They're right. Tia, I always want to know what you think and feel and want."
"Hoshi me teach did, things I understand nyasi. Say she that Seamus O'Cathain tied her up and liked it she did. Thought I to try it would like."
"Well, it's all kind of a personal thing. What one couple likes another might not. I'm just thinking you shouldn't get your hopes up that what another couple does would be right for us."
Her face fell. "Does this mean you me tie up will not?"
He stared at her, fervently wishing his brain would kick into warp drive while it was firmly locked on maneuvering thrusters. "Err, can we discuss this?"