Chapter Ten: Jessica Rabbit Part Two

Teresa

With my second MDMA cap nestled safely under my breast, I stumbled out into the corridor, leaving Petrovich behind in favour of the disco. It was sure to be packed, filled to the brim with officers and technicians alike. Maybe I should see if Lister's mates fancied a drink, - or ten - party with them. I'd never gotten overly close with them, they'd always seemed off limits, they were his mates, not mine. But it was my last night in this solar system, why not enjoy it?

The heady base of the music reverberated through my chest from several corridors away from the disco, and I could feel myself already tingling with excitement. Or perhaps the drugs. Both, definitely both. Heels against the metal flooring led me inside the disco, swarms of sweaty bodies filling every free space making it impossible to get towards the bar. Skirting around people in their over the top fancy dress costumes I saw the Captain dressed as a Chicken and winked at him. He gave me a smile and a wave before I kept looking around for someone to dance with, or someone to buy me a glass of wine. Todhunter gave me a smile, lifting his drink a little in salute, but didn't approach. Filling me with a welcome sense of relief, I gave him a gentle smile and a tight to the chest wave. The last month or so I'd thought he was a dirty great git, but tonight? Tonight bygones were bygones. He still looked like a bit of a git though, dressed as a hologram. All he'd done was draw an H on his forehead with a sharpie. It was equal parts lazy and insensitive.

'Teresa!' Peterson drunkenly slurred in my ear and I turned around to spot the gang of miscreants Lister called friends all gathered behind me. Beaming brightly at them, I pulled each one in for a tight and squishy hug. Comfortably returning my gestures, they all gripped me around the waist of my sparkly dress, having enough respect to only touch me where the fabric met my body, instead of the bare skin.

'Good to see you, gents,' I yelled over the loud music. It was ironic, the lowest class members of the ship being the ones with the most human and redeeming qualities. 'Drink?' I asked, nodding towards the packed bar.

'You have come to the right place,' Chen said, guiding us over to the table they'd commandeered. Flattered, I allowed them to steer me towards the dripping wet table. While they may have laid claim to as many pints as they had fingers, they couldn't be accused of drinking them all.

'I didn't think I'd see you around here,' Selby said and I shrugged with a lopsided smile. Beer started to drip off the sides of the table, steady droplets catching on the red rhinestones of my dress. 'Peterson said you were off playing nurse for Rimmer. What would make you do a thing like that?'

'Holister thought someone should check him out, make sure he wasn't completely bonkers, that's all,' I lied smoothly.

In truth, I still didn't know why I felt like playing nurse. He'd only asked me to check in on him at the medibay. He hadn't asked me to spoon feed him, and he certainly hadn't asked me to kiss him. Still, I'd wanted to. And now he was here, he was alive and within kissing distance. Sort of. But of course, now I was also burdened with the way Petrovich had touched me, the way he'd acted tonight. Caught between the two men, I knew which was the better, more stable option, but he wasn't in the future. And as good as he treated me, I wanted someone else. Even though every fibre of my being told me Rimmer was a bad choice, that he couldn't be the man I needed him to be, I wanted him.

'Ah, see, I told you,' Chen said, waggling a finger at the group. 'Nobody in their right mind would willingly breathe the same airspace with Rimmer, let alone spend time with 'im.'

' 'Ere you are, darlin',' Selby said, handing me a pint. Refusing to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted it from him, and sipped on it, despite hating beer in all its forms. 'You here to get drunk or are you here to get drunk?'

'I wanna make tonight the best of my life,' I replied ambitiously. 'I wanna get out of me mind, and I wanna dance like I'm on fire.'

'We can help you with one of those,' Peterson slurred and I smiled at the Dane. 'We don't much dance.'

'That's alright, I like spending time with you anyway,' I told them all and they let out drunken cheers, all raising their mugs and then knocking them back. Honestly, it was a little hard to keep up. Round after round was bought, and I don't remember paying for a single one. By the time I did stand up to excuse myself for the bathroom, I felt a little legless.

Staggering around the door to the ladies room, I was lucky enough not to be greeted with a long and impatient line. There were a few officers I recognised doing their makeup and huddled around the sinks for decent access to the mirrors, but there were at least two free stalls. Drunkenly shambling into one, I plonked myself down, too pissed to worry about hovering over the seat thousands of bums had frequented before mine. Reaching into the front of my dress, I grabbed the dime bag with the one remaining pill out from under my very sweaty breast. Opening my mouth wide, I dropped the pill directly into the back of my throat, avoiding it getting stuck to my tongue so I could swallow it easier. I was never very good at that this far into the night, I was more likely to swallow my tongue. When I got out of here, I needed to find a dance partner, stat.

Lister

Turning the page of the particularly disturbing entry I was reading out to the Cat, I found me face screwing up to the point of squinting. He was particularly disgusting, it was horrid, reading all this about Resa. Yet through some kind of morbid fascination, I couldn't stop meself from reading. She'd been dolled up all nice when she snuck out of her old quarters, dress not zipped up all the way to the back. And when I'd caught up to her at the lifts, she'd already stepped inside and the electronic sign above the closed doors told me she was headed down floor sixteen. The last time I read Rimmer's diary, I remembered him writing about dreams he had that night, Resa was in 'em. Maybe it wasn't a dream, he certainly hadn't hallucinated the kiss they'd shared. Maybe this wasn't too far of a jump to make.

'What happened next?' Cat said eagerly, strengthening the stitching on a hot pink silk shirt as he sat in me new bunk. Rimmer had trusted me to help unload his possessions while he was down on the lower habitation decks, supervising the scutters packing what was left. Big mistake.

'Erm, I can still vividly taste the sweat coating her pert breasts, - those fantastic, amazingly luscious breasts - and the feeling of my tongue dragging across the beads that rolled down her neck. Oh man, this is sick,' I said and Cat shook his head in disagreement. Why was he always so obsessed with her sweat? Last few entries he wouldn't shut up about the time he'd tripped and accidentally fallen between her boobs down the disco, it just got worse from there.

'Are you kidding, this is better than Saturday morning cartoons! Keep readin' bud,' he argued and I sighed. Cat went back to idly sewing, and I tutted mentally at his lack of shame. This was Resa. She was different, this wasn't like the bits about Yvonne Mcgruder or Carol McCauley. Resa was different, she was like me kid sister. It was disturbing, very disturbing.

'I'm not sure why she was dressed as Jessica Rabbit, but I'll never be able to look at her the same, not after what I imagine it felt to be inside her, and those plush thighs wrapped tightly around me,' I read out, face like I'd sucked on a lemon. Shaking me head again, I grabbed my leopard's lager can and took a massive swig. 'I can't keep reading this man.'

'If you won't, I will,' Cat told me, putting down his pink shirt and trying to grab the worn old pages of the three million year old diary. Pushing him away, I lifted the book up to me face, making sure I was the one reading. At least then I might be able to censor out the really graphic bits, which there were a lot of.

'Second Flight Mechanic Teresa - oh wonderful Teresa - Kochanski will never leave my mind, waking or unconscious, and I never want her to. I hope I have this dream every night because even if it's only in my dreams, I know what it feels like to be loved, to be wanted,' I said and felt a little bad. 'Man, that's just sad.'

'So why are you reading this anyway, bud, we already proved we went back through the stasis thingy, you wanna go back again?' Cat asked and I shook me head.

'I think Teresa did,' I explained and he cocked his head to the side.

'What are you talking about, monkey?' he asked and I bounced me head about from side to side as I thought about my suspicions. Holly hadn't known where she was, she was somewhere out of his range - or so he said. It was entirely possible he just hadn't looked very hard. Where else would she be going in that red dress, if not a fancy dress party?

'I think that Resa went back through the stasis leak, just like we did. Only, I don't know why. See, I don't think this is an incredibly vivid, incredibly disturbing sex dream, I think this really happened,' I explained and he screwed up his meticulously preened and made up face.

'Why would a babe like her want to go back in time to have sex with alphabet head?' the Cat scoffed. I didn't have an answer, not a good one. I knew she cared for him, on some level, maybe even liked him, I just didn't know why. If she had a crush on him, I suppose it was fine, if a little disturbing, but there was no good reason why. He was the least likeable person I'd ever met, and I'd once been beaten up and mugged by a Bliss freak that thought he was God. In fact, that was on me way to save Rimmer from a brothel on Mimas.

'I don't know man, but I know something's not right,' I said, turning the next page. 'Teresa haunted my dreams again, this dream even more vivid. I remember her hot tears raining down on my face as she rocked her hips above me. How could someone so beautiful be so sad? I know now though, this has to be a dream. She keeps talking to me about the future, just like my head did as it came through the table during my hallucinations. Three million years, why does that number keep coming back to me? What does it mean?'

'Hey, if I slept with goalpost head, I'd cry too, owwww~!' Cat joked, looking pretty proud of himself. 'What does this have to do with girl bud going back in time anyway? So she doesn't like sleeping with Rimmer, who would?'

'I can't tell if she also went back in time to warn him, or if she'd gone back to say goodbye. I wanna know what condition she's coming back in, she's been really upset recently, only I've been too caught up in meself to notice,' I explained, feeling guilt course through me. I wondered if all this pregnancy thing had brought things back for her, or if it was all just proving to be too much, being this far away from everyone she'd ever known.

'Maybe she's not coming back,' Cat said and I turned my head towards him, jaw hanging loose in shock. It might have been the first intelligent thing he'd ever said, and no one was around to witness it. 'I wouldn't.'

Teresa

While it was a little upsetting no one besides Todhunter had wanted to dance, I couldn't find it within myself to care. Especially since he was being exceptionally respectful tonight. Perhaps it was due to the incredibly reputation damaging blast I'd sent through the announcement system with the help of Holly. After all, even if anything did happen tonight - which it wouldn't - who would believe him? Unfortunately, the MDMA, the alcohol, and the dirty dancing stirred something within me, and I realised it was probably time to go home. My time with Petrovich had only scratched the itch temporarily, and I was back to being terminally horny.

It was nearly four when I found myself stumbling along the corridors to the sleeping quarters, still high out of my mind and drunk off my tits. So much so, I didn't realise until it was too late that I wasn't even on b-deck, or in my own time. Standing outside what would eventually be my temporary quarters in the technician's corridor, I looked longingly at Lister and Rimmer's quarters. Who was I kidding, I wasn't over him. I didn't know how to be. He might have been a smeghead, he treated me and everyone else like crap, but I liked him. I wanted him. How could I forget how he'd looked at me that night - this night - all those weeks ago? Slinking towards the door, I pressed the button to let me in, hoping that it was left unlocked. Dave had been asleep when I'd left here last, and Rimmer had been absolutely gonzo, it was unlikely he'd remembered. Was it wrong to enter here, uninvited, three million years before I'd ever received an invite? It likely was - no, it actually was - but I was too out of my mind to care.

Rimmer was in there, and I wanted him. I wanted to feel his touch, to kiss him again, even if it was just one last time. I wanted to kiss him again knowing it was the last time. The door slid open, allowing me entrance and I cheered mentally. Hearing a woman's voice excitedly shouting, I realised that cheer might not have been mental, and I quickly - and audibly - slapped a hand over my made up lips. Leaning against the wall as soon as I entered, I lifted my leg, reaching behind me to unzip the first of my two very strappy and very noisy heels. Taking the other one off, it clattered noisily to the floor and I glanced up at Lister's bunk. He was still belting out chainsaw snores and I smiled to myself. Some things never change. Padding barefoot across the floor to Rimmer's bunk, I dropped down beside his bed and scanned his face in the dark. He didn't appear to have woken up. It was a miracle, given how loud I was managing to be.

Placing one of my small hands over his plush lips, I watched him in the dark. Still not waking, I shook his shoulder with my free hand. He moaned softly, very cutely, and I shook him harder. He muttered something about his mum, and tried to roll over. Leaning in beside his ear, I felt myself breathing a little heavier than I would have liked and whispered to him. He moaned again and I shook him as I tried to will him into consciousness with the sound of my voice. He let out a gasp then, turning over rapidly and trying to fight off my hand.

'Shhh,' I soothed and he squinted towards me in the dark. Clear confusion was all over his face and I put a finger up to my lips, waiting for him to nod before I lifted my hand. 'I.. I can't stop thinking about that kiss. It's been so long, and I regret leaving. It was wrong to kiss you then, I know it was, but I loved it. I… I want to do it again.'

'It's been a long time since I've had a dream like this,' he said smugly, clearly impressed with my sudden appearance in his room. He reached out to cup my jaw with his palm and I leaned into his touch. 'I don't think I've ever watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but the imagery is nice. Best take that dress off though, before I wake up again. Come on, let's get this started.'

'Oh, you can take this off yourself,' I said flirtatiously, although it was mostly due to me not being able to reach the zipper. Even if I could, I was far too out of my face to manage anything involving coordination.

Standing from my position in front of his bunk, I waited for him to climb out from beneath his cosy sheets. He swung his legs over the side, eagerly getting to his feet and grabbing me by his hips. He spun me on the spot, and I stumbled a little in my inebriated state, saved by his surprisingly steady hands. Mind you, I suppose he didn't have to be nervous if he was in his own dream, which he thought he was. I wanted to question if he was feeling better, if he was in his right mind again, but as I wasn't in mine, I didn't see the point. This time, he was the one taking advantage of me, and I intended to let him. God I wanted him to do that, to use me like Petrovich had.

Shuddering as he yanked my zipper down to the base of my spine, my dress quickly fell to the floor, unsupported by anything anymore. He groaned when he slid his large hands down my hot skin, not seeming to mind the thin sheen of sweat coating my body. He gripped my arse, unabashedly groping at the mounds in front of him. Leaning back into his hold, I let his hands roam, eager to be touched like this, like I'd been wanting him to do for a while. Bringing his hands over my hips, he slid them down my front until they reached the inside of my thighs, and then he gripped them roughly too. Moving his head into the crook of my neck, ducking down slightly thanks to the height difference, he kissed across the skin and up towards my ear. Sucking on the skin behind it, I let out a soft moan.

'I wanna wear your thighs as earmuffs,' he said huskily. Confident Rimmer was my new kink. Lister had told me once since I'd woken back up on the ship three million years in the future, that Rimmer had only had sex once. He certainly wasn't acting like it right now.

'I wanna let you,' I replied, turning around and gripping the baby blue fabric of his pyjama shirt. Frantically unfastening the buttons, I fumbled a little, and he took that as a cue to take over. Or perhaps he was just eager. Dropping it to the floor, I was greeted with the sight of those abs - those abs! - again and I let out a whine. Reaching out to him, I ran my hands across his burning hot stomach. Sliding my hands further down past the waistband of his trousers I let out a noise of surprise when I gripped him. He was a lot larger than I was expecting. He always acted like such a little git, I figured it had to be something like Napoleon syndrome, at least in the cock department.

'What?' he asked and I stepped closer, still rubbing him in my hands. He wasn't even "up" yet.

'You're big,' I said wantonly, looking up his broad nose towards his lustful, hazel eyes. As if losing control after hearing this, he thrust up into my hand and I felt his flaccid dick turn into a semi and I smiled. 'Bet it feels bigger inside me.'

'You'd let me put it inside you?' he asked and I smirked at him. 'I don't…. Oh whatever, this is a dream anyway.'

'Don't what?' I asked, still stroking him enthusiastically.

'Condom,' he stuttered out, rocking with every movement of my wrist. Nodding, I removed my hand, much to his displeasure. The elastic of his trousers gave a soft ping and I walked away from him, going over to Lister's cupboard. Surely he wouldn't begrudge me, not after what had happened with his alternate universe self. Opening the door and pulling open a drawer, I grabbed a few foil packets from where I knew he kept them and wandered back over to Rimmer. 'How did you know they were there? Dream logic I'll bet.'

'You've gotta stop saying this is a dream,' I told him, starting to feel a little guilty. If he kept bringing it up, I couldn't ignore it, I'd have to tell him the truth. 'I don't want… The kiss felt wrong before, because you were out of your mind. It felt like, if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn't. If you could make the choice not to, you would. I want you, because of how you looked at me then, I want you to want me. I wanna know what it feels to be wanted.'

'Who wouldn't want you?' he scoffed incredulously. 'This feels like a dream because no one wants me, who in their right mind would?' he ducked down to kiss me and pulled back instantly after meeting lips with me. 'Are you drunk?'

'Among other things,' I admitted, biting my bottom lip in front of him.

'I suppose I had to put some realism in there somewhere,' he muttered, reaching for the foils in my hand. He ran his thumb over the circle in the middle, as if deciding where to go from here. 'Why would my imagination make you self conscious? You're the most gorgeous woman I've ever met. If anyone should be self conscious right now, it should be me, I'm the most hated man on the ship.'

'This isn't your imagination,' I told him, looking up through my eyelashes. 'I came back because I can't get you out of my mind. I don't know why, you're such a git. You constantly do horrible, spiteful things to people, you belittle me, tell me I can't handle things because I'm a woman…'

'When have I ever… this is the longest conversation I've had with you,' he huffed and I shook my head. 'And there's no need to insult me, I do enough of that myself.'

'You looked at me not like I was a piece of meat, not like I was a pair of legs, or a ride up the ladder lickety split, like you of all people should have. You looked at me like you adored me, like I was beautiful, and I want that. I want you to still treat me like that,' I explained, stepping forwards to press my chest against his. His was so burning hot against mine it shook me to my core. 'Please want me like that even after.'

'I can do that,' he nodded eagerly. 'I'll treasure this, it'll be my favourite dream.'

Rolling my eyes, I reached for his waistband again and pulled it wide and dropped it to the ground. It pooled at his feet and he excitedly kicked them off. Tugging me back with him, he lowered us down onto his bunk with a slight bounce. Lister's practically motorised snores created a certain ambiance in the room, even if that ambiance was anything but romantic. Pushing him back against his pillows I climbed over him, a knee either side of his waist. Leaning forwards I kissed him, trying to recapture that passion from three million years ago. They were just as soft and plush as they had been back then, and he moved with incredible synchronisation with me. It was like he'd meticulously remembered every single detail of our last kiss and was intent on replicating it down to the letter. Our last kiss was the rulebook in which he would live by, and with the way my heart was racing in my chest, I'd let him.

Just like back then, his hand cupped the back of my head, fingers knotting in the strands of hair that hung loose down my back. He tugged against it slightly harder than last time and I let out a quiet moan, barely audible above the volume of the snores overhead. With my mouth now wide open, he slid his tongue inside my mouth and traced the ridges across the soft palate behind my teeth. Reaching for his free hand, I intertwined our fingers, getting lost in the gentleness of our kiss. Pressing myself hard against his hot chest, I could practically feel his heart hammering against his ribcage as my breasts smushed against his muscles. Pulling away from my needy kiss he walked his lips across my jaw and down my neck. With a moan, he got to my collar bones, speaking hushedly against them.

'I was serious,' he said and I hummed in acknowledgement. 'I want to taste you, I want your thighs wrapped around my head. I've… I've never done that before, and I want to.'

'O-hoh~' I moaned softly. That sounded good. Cunnilingus twice in one night, I was a lucky girl. He gripped my thighs, lifting me off his lap slightly so he could slide down the bed more. Dropping me back down on his chest, just above his neck he stared up at me, begging me to let him. Shuffling forwards slightly on my knees, I lowered myself over his face. His hot breath fanned my pussy and I reached up to brace my forearms and palms against the hard metal frame of Lister's bunk.

He flicked his tongue out with a slight click and swiped an enthusiastic lick across my folds. He hummed, seeming to enjoy what I tasted like. He could have forewent most of the foreplay, I was still rather wet from my forty minutes with Petrovich, but I was unlikely to mention this. Not only was he likely to get insanely jealous over me being with another man, he'd also be furious this other man was his rival, second only to Todhunter. He also, unfortunately, forwent dipping his tongue between my folds and finding my clit. Instead, he moved straight to jamming it inside me and I shifted uncomfortably on his face. He had said he hadn't done this before, he'd only slept with one person. Reaching down to my folds, my hand brushed past his large nose and I pushed them open with my index and middle finger.

'Here,' I said, revealing my clit. Switching my index finger out for my thumb, I used my now free finger to tap my clit. 'I want you here, lick here.'

Shifting his head back beneath me, he moved his mouth closer to my clit, flicking his tongue over it like it was a lolly pop. They were slow, tentative like he was unsure. Giving a deliberately exaggerated moan to encourage him on, I rolled my hips forwards towards his mouth. Feeling spurred on like I'd planned, he flicked his tongue faster, quick up and down motions getting me wetter and wetter by the second. Now he knew what he was doing, the arousal built within me. If only he was as quick a study with astronavigations as he was here and he'd be an officer by now. He had one hand resting on either thigh and slowly I reached down for his dominant one, taking it in my own. Slowly moving it past his chin I lined it up with my dripping core.

'Fingers,' I whimpered softly. 'I need… uh… inside. Fuck. Where you stuck your tongue before, I want your fingers too. Work me through with your tongue and your hand.'

Not saying much - talking with your mouth full was rude anyway - he did as told, although little too enthusiastically. As if unsure as to how many fingers to insert he immediately stuffed three, trying for four inside me, making me jerk upwards with a yelp. Slamming my head on the bunk overhead, I cried out and rubbed my sore scalp. Lister didn't seem to mind me knocking his bed, he didn't even notice. He continued to snore loudly and I mentally thanked God for that small mercy. Rimmer started apologising profusely, lifting me slightly off his face to stutter out repeated phrase after repeated phrase.

'What did I do wrong?' he said after I reached down to stroke my hand through his soft curls. It was clearly an accident, he'd been doing so well up until this point. He also had been very open that he didn't know what he was doing.

'Too many too soon,' I soothed, continuing to play with his auburn hair. 'Try one, then move to two. It's possible I could take three, maybe, but four is definitely too many.'

'You want me to keep trying?' he asked and I glanced down at him with a gentle smile. Nodding softly, I patted the hand he had on my thigh. He was so endearingly cute. I realised now I adored him, just as he had in the first time I'd kissed him. If only he could always be like this, instead of the bitter, angry man he always seemed to be.

'Of course I do, one mistake is not enough to send me packing, you're doing so well,' I replied and he diligently went back to work. He pulled back almost as quickly, flushed with embarrassment and face covered with uncertainty.

'Are you sure? I..I messed up, I can never get anything right,' he said and I shook my head.

'No, don't talk about yourself like that. I'm having a good time,' I insisted and he seemed to relax a little. 'Rimmer, I mean it. Get back to it before I bust out the orders, remember, I do out rank you.'

'Pulling rank? That's a little bit sexy,' he said and I smirked down at him. 'Do make sure to give me plenty of orders about how I can service you, ma'am.'

'Shut up and get back to it, Rimmer,' I said, rolling my eyes. Shifting my hips for emphasis, I wiggled towards his mouth, hoping he'd bring back that wonderful, underutilised tongue of his. Still unsure, he slowly started moving his fingers towards my core, slipping one inside and moving it very gingerly. Holding my hand in his sightline, I moved one finger in the motion I wanted him to do inside me. 'Like this, sweetheart, like this.'

Curling his finger against the soft walls of my vagina and stroking as he slid his hand up and down, he started to regain his confidence. Though, that might have been due to the gentle moaning coming from my mouth, and the hot arousal slowly dribbling out of me. Proud of himself for eliciting this response from me, he slid in his ring finger as well and returned to excitedly licking my clit. My eyes rolled back into my head and I whimpered a little, spurring him on. Despite his uncertainty, despite his lack of experience, he quickly had me rolling close to the edge. On the brink of an orgasm, I slapped my free hand over my mouth, crying out into it. While muffled, he heard me and flicked me more agitatedly with his tongue, fingers getting a little over excited and rough inside me. Shuddering above him, I barely held it together to even cum. By the time he worked me through, I could tell he wanted to do it again, prove to me he could indeed please me. Prove to himself he was some kind of casanova, but I was too desperate. I'd waited three million and three years for him to touch me like this, to fuck me, and fuck we would.

'Rimmer,' I moaned softly. 'I'm ready, come on.'

'I haven't… I've only done this once before,' he said, again. 'I don't think I'll last very long, I don't want you to be upset with me.'

'Rimmer, I'm off my face on MDMA, I'm not going to last particularly long either,' I stated rather bluntly. Perhaps I shouldn't have, he was exactly the type to take this to the Captain in the morning, put me on report for being under the influence of illicit substances while in service of the JMC, but should he explain how he knew this, I doubted anyone would believe him.

'Why,' he asked, surprising me slightly. He scooted me back off his face, my wet core resting against his burning hot chest instead.

'I wanted to feel good,' I replied with a shrug. 'You might think nobody here likes you, and maybe that's true, but I think we're about equally as disliked here. I changed jobs, I took a sledge hammer to my own personal status, they look down their noses at me now.'

'So that's why my dream made you self conscious,' he said sagely, nodding to himself. 'The only way a girl like you could ever look at me was if we were the same.'

'Rimmer,' I swore, scooting even further back on him, leaving a damp trail across his stomach. 'Stop psychoanalysing yourself, stop looking at this as a dream, I'm here. I'm really here, and I just want you to fuck me. Why is that so hard?'

'Because you're beautiful, and I'm nothing,' he said simply, as if it was obvious. Getting frustrated, so much so I let out a growl, I ducked my head forwards and kissed him again. Wrapping my lips around his, I kissed him with every ounce of desperation I could summon forth, trying to convince him he was worth it. He was worthwhile enough to kiss. He seriously needed some therapy.

He brought his dry hand up to my neck, tangling his long fingers in the hair as the nape and tugging. His palm cupped the back of my head as he pulled me ever closer and I moaned softly at the taste of myself on his exploratory tongue. He ran it over the roof of my mouth and I jutted my hips forwards again, overcome with need. Grabbing one of the foil packages off the bed I tore it open and reached between us to slide the rubber over his erect cock. Pulling apart from his lips for just a moment I lifted myself up off of him with my knees and lined him up with my entrance. Sliding down him again, I heard him let out a gentle hiss. Rocking my hips slowly forwards I lifted myself up and down with my knees, trying to be gentle and to fight the desperation budding deep inside me. He held tightly to my hips, almost leaving fingertip bruises on the soft skin. He had his head slammed back against the pillow and was groaning, still managing to sound quiet against the loud snores overhead.

It hurt I'd waited so long for this, that I'd only get this one night with him. As euphoric as I felt riding him, I could feel burning hot tears pooling in my eyes, threatening to fall at any moment. He meant so much to me despite how crap he could be as a person most of the time. I hated how I had the choice between him and Petrovich and I still chose him. I wanted to want someone who looked after me like Petrovich did, who was nice to me the way he was. I really did. Instead I was desperately riding Rimmer, chasing an orgasm that was steadily approaching. Bouncing roughly on his lap, too desperate now to be slow, gentle with the inexperienced partner below me, I threw my head back, tears rolling down the sides of my cheeks. He took a hand off my hip, cupping the back of my neck and pulling me down to kiss him. Tears fell off of me and onto his face as he kissed me, and he seemed a little bewildered, but despite this, he didn't stop. Nothing else I was doing indicated I wanted him to, he had no reason to believe I wanted him to. I didn't want him to. I never wanted him to stop.

He came in a guttural cry, filling the condom separating us and I cried out into his ear as I came a few moments later thanks to frantically circling my clit as I continued to bounce on his lap. Leaving him inside me for a moment, I rested naked against his burning hot chest, my ear resting just over his racing heart. Now all was said and done, I felt myself crying again and he softly stroked my back. He was still bewildered, looked clearly uncomfortable, but he kept his arm wrapped around me.

'Did I do something wrong?' he asked and I glanced up at him. 'Is that why you're upset? I've done something wrong, haven't I? I can never get anything right.'

'You've done nothing wrong, I'm upset because you're going to die,' I blurted out without thinking. 'Someday. One day you'll just be gone, and I won't be able to touch you. Radiation will flood the ship, you'll die and three million years later I'll be unable to even kiss you.'

'Three million years and no one will be able to do any kissing,' he scoffed. 'Why does that number keep coming up? I'm going to smegging kill Lister, those stupid smegging mushrooms.'

'I need to go,' I said, pushing up and off of him. Taking the spent condom off of him, along with the foil and the spares, I tossed the rubbish and returned the rest. Sliding my heels back on, I stepped into my dress, doing it up as much as I could and glancing back expectantly at Rimmer. He made no moves to finish doing up the zipper and I only felt stupider for choosing him.

Leaving his room with my dress half done up I made my way back to floor sixteen, ready to go home. Crying as I walked through the empty bathroom, I stepped into the right shower and wiped my face a little as I stepped back into the hopeless future. My makeup was smeared now, and all I felt was stupid, futile, and like I'd made every mistake possible. Meeting me on the other side was an empathetic looking Lister, who spread his arms as soon as he got a look at me. Diving forwards, I let him wrap his arms around me and sobbed into his shoulder. He zipped up the back of my dress when I was done crying, and walked me back upstairs.

'How'd you know I'd been back there?' I asked and he tilted his head to the side slightly as he thought.

'Saw somit in a in Rimmer's diary. He talked about a dream, and I realised it wasn't a dream when I saw you leaving tonight in that dress,' he explained and I nodded. Stepping into my quarters I realised despite desperately wanting to sleep, I needed another shower. I'd been fucked in every orefice, I'd been crying through my makeup, and I was covered in sweat.

'Can you not tell him?' I asked, looking sadly up at him. 'He uh… I think I made a mistake. I'd rather go back to him believing it was a dream. Don't tell him the truth.'

'I won't,' he agreed and I nodded towards my shower.

'I've gottu erm, I'm going to shower, could you unzip me again?' I asked and he nodded. He was perfectly gentlemanly as he unzipped me, keeping his eyes off me and leaving before I stepped out of the stupid sparkly dress.