Genre: StarTrek: The Next Generation
Title: New Civilizations
Summary: D'Jang and Guinan discuss passions while a wedding reception is planned.
Chapter 9
Shortly after leaving Riker, in a very quiet Ten Forward, D'Jang was sitting at the bar, waiting for her ginseng tea.
Guinan, picking up on both the order and her new friend's distraction, put a hand on the bar. "Tell me?" Then, she serenely stood by, waiting.
After D'Jang explained, Guinan asked, "What do you mean when you say you felt something was wrong? I had the impression you've heard of Riker's conquests. There's nothing unusual there."
"Well, I hadn't heard that he was a deceitful lout. I thought he'd be straightforward, at least, if not downright romantic. But, that wasn't what was wrong; I sensed his emotions! I sensed the animal passion!"
"The last time I heard, sexual lust is referred to as animal passion, especially in the human male."
D'Jang shook her head. "Animal passion, Guinan, not human lust. Besides, I don't sense people, only animals. Remember? I mean, I've been around sexually aroused men, of course, but I've never sensed their inner feelings, except in the way a woman usually senses men's passions." She shrugged her shoulders. "In any case, research on comparative feelings between animals and humanoids, conclusively shows there's a difference between the two." She shook her head slowly, as she ruminated.
"Guinan, I can't speak for the exact nature of human lust in general, but I know how animals work. Animals can easily get sexually stimulated, not only by their own kind, but by anything they feel comfortable with, a person, a blanket, anything. I've seen peacocks spread their tails for tree stumps!"
She took a gulp of her tea and looked straight at Guinan. "When an animal feels emotion, it's all-or-nothing, and Riker was full, go-for-broke on. In spite of that, when sexually aroused, an animal takes no for an answer from the female. Nowhere, on any planet, is there such a thing as rape in the animal world. The male may not let go once a female has submitted, but never, never, does an animal initially force himself sexually on the object of his passion. With intelligent beings, it's different. Ever had a man force himself on you?"
Nodding gravely, she smiled slightly with no humor, "It's happened. None of them liked what came of it."
D'Jang shook her head ruefully. "I've never been mindlessly, violently raped, but I have been coerced a few times."
"I've heard that called velvet-rape, in some places, and Cirquesian-Pelt-rape in others." Guinan's face took on a peculiar and unfamiliarly hard look. "But its still rape." Her naturally dark face grew even darker, much as it did when she remembered what the Borg had done to her people.
"Yeah," agreed D'Jang, "it's easier to take than mean rape, but not much fun. The thing is, most usually, the man is so involved in his own sexual drives, he hasn't even heard the refusal."
Guinan nodded again.
D'Jang brought herself out of the past and into the present. "But you know what? With Riker, I felt perfectly safe, fully in control. I was absolutely certain I was sensing an animal, not a man. Then, when I backed off and told him no, he stopped, cold. He still wanted me but my refusal was enough. I sensed it! The same as I'd sense from an animal!" She took another swig from her cup. "Which does not make sense."
Guinan responded in her familiarly comfortable manner. "Well, I can understand your confusion. It's like, what you were seeing on one hand, and what you understood to be true, on the other hand, didn't co-ordinate. There's quite a few incongruities going on this trip." The doors to the lounge audibly whispered open and the peace and quiet of the room was shattered by a cluster of excited young people. Seeing she had customers Guinan laid her hand on D'Jang's arm and said, "Excuse me, please."
Chattering, touching, and weaving among each other, the group orbited around a pair of couples in the center. All but two of the ten or so people were dressed in the gold and black uniforms of Engineering Section. In high spirits, laughing at remarks, they began pointing to one of the areas of the large room. While most of them stayed at the far end of the room, looking speculatively at a grouping of tables, one young woman separated herself from the crowd, and started chattering as she approached. Guinan answered her inquiries quietly, questioned, reassured, nodded, and reassured again. The young enlisted then returned to the group and Guinan returned to the end of the bar.
"You okay with the tea? I'm going to have to get busy. There's going to be a double wedding in a while and they're having the reception here. They just came in to make sure it's still okay. They keep saying to keep it simple, but you know what, I'm still not sure of what I'm going to do." She cocked an eyebrow at D'Jang. "You don't suppose beer and pretzels would suffice?"
D'Jang, not too terribly interested, but recognizing a reply was needed, shook her head.
Guinan seemed to take the small gesture seriously. "I thought not. Excuse me again, I have to go tell them what I'm going to do for them, making it up as I go along. I just hope I can be as creative as I'm going to sound.
"Should I finish up and leave?"
Guinan put her hand on D'Jang's arm again. "You stay here and take as long as you like. They're not reserving Ten Forward for exclusive use. Their party will be over there, in the far corner, and everyone else will come and go, as they like. It won't happen for a couple of hours anyway." The vet nodded and Guinan strolled off to invent a party.
D'Jang quietly contemplated her experience with Riker, her conversation and reassurance from Guinan, and decided to put the matter on a back burner for a while. She'd heard a lot about Riker, and wondered if hers was just another tale to add to the legend of the handsome, charming Enterprise Commander, or whether she'd stumbled on the reason for the legends. She knew that Riker was from Earth and that Earth had some very old stories of people who became animals and animals that became people. She knew that many of these tales related to women being attracted to these man-beasts and, having met many earth-women, she could see why. Did he have these fits of obsessive passion often? How often had he called women into his quarters? How many had fallen under the spell of his raw animal desire?
D'Jang's rambling thoughts were dispelled by the sound of activity behind her. Finishing her tea, she turned, trying to get a good look at ones who were to be married, but they were so surrounded by the celebrants, they were mostly obscured from sight. Just as she was about to give up, silently wishing them happiness, the group parted. The youthful grooms' their faces were awash with blushes of pride and happiness. The two brides, probably sisters, were eye catching to say the least, and obviously not Starfleet. Their skin, a startling rainbow of color, looked reptilian both in hue and pattern. The skin texture, however, was not of the dry, scaly sort associated with reptiles, but looked like humanoid flesh. Their hair was a spiky, sparse brush of pale, finely textured bristles, through which their scalps showed. It looked like it might continue down the spinal column the way the boat necks of their dresses were pulled back. They wore loose fitting, short gowns that did nothing to hide their very human-like, very curvaceous figures. They had absolutely vacuous looks on their beautiful faces, their features lax, their eyes wide, and their cupid's bow mouths slightly open. 'I bet,' she thought, 'they're from some impoverished culture on some backwards little planet. No doubt, they're sweet but dumb, surely under educated, even for their own planet, and can't speak a word of Galactic. Bet they worked in a bar or in a pleasure house and were wooed and won by these two strapping youths.' Something tugged at her mind. 'And I should stop making up stories before I know the facts. It's a waste of time.' Her father's words, always popping up to haunt her.
As a child, she'd been frustrated by her inability to read people as she read animals. Being a high-order genius, most knowledge came easily, and not knowing anything about people was frustrating to her. She didn't like surprises, didn't like to think she didn't know things, and to compensate for this lack, she used to make up stories about people she met. At first, it had been an innocent sort of play, but as she got older, and found most other knowledge easily accessible, she became convinced that her made up stories were right, that she had 'sensed' their history.
D'Jang's mother, always in awe of her child's intelligence, thought there might be something to her daughter's determination to 'know,' that she may have retained something of her ancestral Vulcan abilities. Her father, on the other hand, saw 'knowing' as a fault, looked at her pastime as something that might slip over into her developing abilities as an animal reader. "Making diagnosis is not a matter of making a lucky guess, not making up a story, and seeing if you're right. Making a diagnosis, is making observations, gathering proof, coming to a conclusion, and then confirming it with your eyes, your touch, and your mind." Then he'd call her by his pet name for her, "Jing-jang, using your mind that way is the same sort of waste of time and energy as when you decided you wanted to be a bird. Remember all that time you spent flapping your arms in an effort to fly? Meanwhile, you could have learned how to build a flying machine and really flown! Use the gifts you have, don't just flap your arms."
D'Jang sighed. Her thoughts were tugged at again, but this time not by her memories. She turned back to where the group had closed around the couples, wondering if these people would really be happy. She sighed and muttered to herself, "Enough of this you old mother hen. Whatever problems they'll have won't be your concern and you're probably making up stories anyway." She shook off the feeling of something that was just out of reach plucking at her edges and left the lounge.
TBC to Chapter 10
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