home

search

Part 2 – Master and Commander | Chapter 38 – Blindfolded Hindsight

  AnnouncementIn case you missed it on my Tumblr or Patreon feeds, I'll be switching my release schedule here on ScribbleHub back to Mondays only until I can get a full four weeks ahead again. Be sure to subscribe in either pce to get more updates in a timely manner.

  PrincessColumbia

  Diane was drowning.

  Dimly she recognized that she was dreaming, at least on some level, and this was the only thing that kept the terror from completely blitzing her ability to recognize that she wasn’t actually in danger of losing her life. This gave her no comfort as her terror short circuited her awareness of the dream state, fear overriding reason.

  She had been to the pool once when both her parents were alive, and it had been her first time exposed to a body of water that rge. She had grown up innd, in a city with no rge rivers or kes nearby. She would discover ter that there were actually a couple reservoirs that she would learn to enjoy going to, but in that moment when she was eagerly facing the water and watching the colliding wavelets that distorted the blue-bck painted ne lines on the bottom of the pool, she had never even seen that much standing water in a single pce. She was consequently completely unprepared when she jumped in and realized that her feet weren’t touching the bottom. She panicked, she filed about and probably was a danger to everyone around her until a lifeguard managed to get an arm around her and her head above the water. Compounding the adrenaline reaction and fear was the embarrassment and shame that came with the realization that she had made a complete and utter fool of herself. She couldn’t even have said she made an ass of herself; she’d been so very completely the fool, and it had taken every ounce of convincing (and, perhaps, a little bit of bribery from her parents in the form of a promise to take her to her favorite fast-food pce after) to get her to stay at the pool for the entire visit. She couldn’t say if she enjoyed the rest of the time at the pool, the memory of the panic and shame overriding all other memories surrounding the incident.

  The thing that always stood out to her the most from that incident was the way her mind could only recollect the fear and, somehow, darkness. Like she’d closed her eyes and shut out all light as she scrambled and filed about in the water.

  She was surrounded by an infinite inky bckness, a dark, crushing void of water that stretched off into infinity. She somehow would see flickers of light that would make her think she could see the surface, but no matter how hard she kicked and tried to swim toward it she never really left the dark.

  It was the nature of dreams to be disjointed, to break with reality in some way that (usually) one never really realizes until awake, so it wasn’t a surprise so much as it was yet another aspect to the horror of her nightmare that she was able to hear, with perfect crity, a litany of crimes she was guilty of. It was as though the cold, cruel voice was right next to her ear. It had an almost feral quality, as though the speaker were so apoplectic with rage that they could barely get the words out. It was a point of minor confusion that, had she not been in the process of drowning, she might have dwelt on it more, but the listed crimes were not the ones that pgued her mind and brought her low into depression during her waking hours. There was no mention of the dozens of S.A.I. deaths she’d caused under orders, nothing about her killing of an innocent child.

  “Rapist!”

  “Sinner!”

  “Whore!”

  Her lungs were straining, the buildup of waste gasses reaching levels that made her feel like her chest would explode if she didn’t open her mouth and breathe…but her world was water, she was surrounded by it.

  “Molester!”

  “Liar!”

  “Deceiver!”

  She wanted to scream out denials, but even if she had somehow been able to rally her thoughts to defend herself, the moment she opened her mouth she was dead.

  “FILTHY!”

  “DISGUSTING!”

  “PERVERT!”

  The final accusation nded like a physical blow, her body flinching into a curled, almost fetal position and air vomiting from her mouth in the instant before she tried to inhale…and immediately choked on the inrushing water. It was ice cold and the bitter, almost acid bite of it flooding her lungs would have made her scream if she could have~

  “…nearly every night.”

  The water was gone, but the feeling of ice remained. More of a memory than an actual sensation of cold, it nonetheless had her shivering from the fear and arctic chill in her bones.

  “Every night?! Has she sought counseling?!”

  She was naked, she was aware of her surroundings enough to recognize that, but her mind was too locked up in terror to recognize much else.

  “No. It has been suggested during her medical checkups, but she has yet to pursue such an option.”

  Parts of her felt like she was still trapped underwater, cold and wet. She kicked with her legs and her top sheet was ejected off her body, and the blissful dry of air met her skin, sweat evaporating and cooling her skin causing her shivering to redouble…but the wet had been reduced, at least.

  “How does she deal with this?”

  Gentle fingers stroked along the ridges on her skull that were hidden by her hair. The more rational part of her mind, almost buried by the riptide of fear, observed rather stupidly that the ridges were the remnants of the three rows of spines that the precursors to modern Morvucks had before the spines softened to hair, the ridges receding to three rows of bone that started at her hairline and traced back to where her spine met the base of her skull. The more animal part of her brain was calmed and comforted by the fingers carding through her hair and told the more rational part to fuck off.

  “She doesn’t. By the time she wakes up in the morning she can’t remember her nightmares. I only know about it thanks to the station’s biometric monitoring of her systems being always active. I check on her every time her heart rate spikes and her neural patterns register distress, but she’s extremely difficult to wake. I suspect some form of night terror.”

  There was the realization that her head was in a p and there was a deliciously comforting scent, one that her subconscious mind associated with…not exactly wholesome feelings, but welcome and heavenly and blissful, in stark contrast to the voice that accused her of such horrible things.

  “Oh, you poor baby…who did this to you?”

  Safe. She was safe and no longer drowning. She was dry and there was no water and she was being held. Her chest started rumbling with a purr and the terror and panic receded like the tide taking the water away.

  “Fascinating! This is the fastest I’ve ever seen her stabilize! You seem to be good for her Miss M…”

  She drifted back to sleep, soothed by the gentle caresses on her scalp, unaware that she wouldn’t remember anything that happened by the time she woke up.

  Diane woke slowly, feeling as completely rested as she could remember ever doing. She’d always been, to the best of her recollection, a light sleeper, meaning she never got enough of the deep sleep on the other side of dreams that humans were supposed to get. Today, however, she felt like she’d slept for a year and for the first time since Sani came aboard the station wasn’t pgued by a depression that was threatening to choke her.

  As nice as it was to wake up feeling rested and comfortable, her bdder was screaming at her that she had at least one duty that couldn’t be delegated. Pushing herself to a seated position, she was startled as a hand fell off her chest and to the bed. Her naked chest and a bed featuring 200% of its usual occupancy. She twisted her torso to look behind her and saw Caitlynn, fast asleep with her head propped up on pillows, putting her in a slightly reclined position on her back so one arm could be around Diane. She felt her heart swelling with an unfamiliar emotion that, for once, didn’t come along with fear that something was wrong. In fact, it all seemed right as she carefully climbed out of bed and walked as quietly as she could to the bathroom to take care of business.

  Upon washing her hands, she turned her attention to the pile of clothes her companion (dare she think she had a girlfriend? She hoped she’d proven herself worthy of being called such, but so much had happened…) had left on the bathroom floor. The very nice suit was bound to be fairly rumpled, her efforts at preserving the jacket notwithstanding. She gnced around at the ft surfaces of the bathroom and frowned. “Katrina,” she asked into the air quietly.

  The hologram rezzed into the bathroom next to Diane, “Yeah boss?”

  Diane kept herself from yelping as she scrambled to poorly cover her breasts and groin with the clothes in her hands, “Gah! Why are you here?! I was just going to speak, I didn’t need you in here with me!”

  Katrina snickered, “What? It’s not like my cameras aren’t watching you all day, every day anyway. I’ve seen you naked plenty.”

  Diane frowned but didn’t pursue the argument. The digital assistant was right, and she was just a piece of software anyway. Why was Diane acting so squeamish about being naked for Katrina? “Fine, whatever,” she snapped out. Realizing she was sounding rather shrewish, she paused, took a breath, then continued in a more civil tone, “Sorry; did Caitlynn board the station with a minitab or a communicator?”

  Katrina frowned, “No, nothing detected on her person besides her clothes as she came aboard for dinner st night.”

  Diane nodded, “Okay, so we didn’t lose something of hers, good. Has anyone from her ship called Ops looking for her?”

  Katrina’s smile returned, “Ah, no, they have not. Is there a message you’d like me to convey?”

  Diane was about to say ‘yes,’ but realized there was nothing really for her to say. What would she have said? That she slept with their captain? “Uh...no, I just...didn’t want anyone panicking because she didn’t show up at her ship st night.”

  “Ah,” replied Katrina.

  They stood there awkwardly, Diane’s face growing more flushed by the second. Eventually, she realized that not only was Katrina waiting for her to give her an order, the hologram was also expressing amusement at her discomfiture in the form of an upturned corner of her mouth. The spike of irritation at this realization finally cut through her embarrassment, “Kat, please let Ops know to redirect any inquiries about the captain to my quarters.”

  “You got it,” Katrina replied way too fast, which told her that she was right in her guess that her digital assistant was tweaking her nose. This was confirmed by her next inquiry, “Are you pnning on giving her crew a show, as well? I’m sure we could set up a theater screen to show the whole station.”

  “Kat!” she hissed, unwilling to raise her voice with Caitlynn still asleep in her bed. She’d never tried testing the sound proofing/dampening of the bathroom door, and now wasn’t the time.

  Katrina chuckled and de-rezzed, allowing Diane to breathe a sigh of relief and lower the clothes she was covering herself with.

  “So...do we need to send up a maintenance team to fix the bed? Or the floor? Do the doctors need to bring up a portable regen unit for Caitlynn?”

  “Norma,” Diane groaned into the minitab she held cmped between her shoulder and ear, “I’m getting it enough from Katrina, please...”

  “Of course the pussycat got her cws in you first,” Norma snorted, “Perks of being the station, I guess.”

  “Norma...”

  “Girlfriend, you and Captain Madi were practically fucking at the table. Then you take her for a ‘tour’ of the station, and I have it on good authority that you took her up to your quarters and she never went back to her ship st night. So, either you went full dino and ate her,” Diane rolled her eyes but didn’t otherwise give her friend any more ammo by responding, “Or you did like two horny idiots do and ‘ate’ her.”

  Diane’s face flushed so bright red she was sure she was going to overcook the eggs she was making for her and Caitlynn from the heat of her cheeks alone, “Norma!!!”

  The station mayor cackled into Diane’s ear through the minitab, “Point is, my Sapphically carnivorous friend, that no, Russe and I won’t be joining you for breakfast, so don’t even ask. We’re not going to cock-block or cm-jam either of you.”

  Diane frowned, “I don’t know what either of those mean.”

  Right then, the discussed ship captain came out of the bedroom wearing her suit pants and shirt, her leggings tucked into the toes of the heels she had hooked on the fingers of her left hand. Diane smiled warmly and was pleased when the smile was returned but had a momentary twinge of concern at the slightly haunted look in Caitlynn’s eyes.

  Normal cackled again, “Ohmygawd, you’re hopeless! Anyway, just because Russe and I won’t be joining you doesn’t mean you won’t be going through one of the Mortan gifts.”

  Diane’s brow pinched in confusion as she removed the skillet from the induction element. She used the spatu in her right hand to help with sliding the eggs out onto a pte as she said, “You two normally just bring the gift with you, if you’re not coming up, then how...?”

  “If Katrina’s handy-dandy in-station tracker is anything like reliable, which you know it is, then the bot should be dropping it off...” There was a chime from the suite’s P.A. system, which Norma had clearly heard, “Right now. Now go open your prezzy and enjoy your morning-after breakfast.”

  Diane pulled the minitab away from her ear with her now free hand and gred at it as though it were a video call before putting it back to her ear. “I still haven’t told you whether we...you know. As though it’s any of your business if we did.”

  Norma practically sing-song’d, “If you have to report yourself off-duty we’ll know why!”

  Diane growled without too much anger and disconnected the call. Composing herself, she turned to her guest, who was now sitting at the breakfast bar with the now familiar cheshire grin she’d been wearing most of the previous night. The haunted look was gone, so Diane decided it must have been her imagination. “Good morning!” said with shy urgency, “I...uh, didn’t know what you wanted for breakfast, or if you even eat breakfast, and I didn’t want to wake you, so...uh...” Rather than stammer out anything else, which she knew she’d start babbling if she kept talking, she grabbed a fork and knife from the drawer by her cooktop’s control panel and passed over the pte she’d prepared. It was fairly simple, for all the station had been receiving goods that they couldn’t make for themselves (such as the eggs), a good deal of the station’s dietary needs was still being provided by the synth stations and the envrio-farms. In this case, an omelet with just enough cheese to call it one, mushrooms, some gently seared soy cut in cubes, served on some slightly wilted spinach. Setting the dish in front of the captain, she snagged her personal salt and pepper shakers and set them on the bar next to the pte.

  Caitlynn examined the food with an appraising eye and said, “Impressive! Do you think I could hire you to by my galley quartermaster? We don’t eat half this good on my ship.”

  Diane found herself blushing quite a bit as she moved her own pte to the spot on the bar next to Caitlynn’s. “I...uh...it’s just what I could throw together. I don’t really make my own breakfasts much so it was nice to do it for someone that’s, uh, and I...is it okay to thank you for...? I mean, I don’t know the protocol...uhm...I’m going to go get the package.”

  Caitlynn picked up her fork and cut herself a bite of omelet and asked, “Package?” before she put the food in her mouth and ‘mmmm!’d with obvious pleasure.

  “Remember the gifts from Mortan? We can’t really skip opening them, even the ‘special’ gifts that aren’t clothing basics or food items that can be stored long term are getting a backlog.” She opened her cabin door and saw a small box suitable for shipping a small non-fragile item via interstelr freight, “We’re looking at it taking two months to get through the backlog,” she expounded as she picked up the package and closed the hatch again, “We’re talking about upping the opening of the packages to two a day.” She set it on the bar on the opposite side of her pte from the side Caitlynn was on and sat down, picking up her fork.

  As she grabbed the salt to season her omelet, Caitlynn swallowed the bite in her mouth (Diane had evidently made it to the other woman’s satisfaction, as she had eaten nearly half of it already), and asked, “Aren’t you going to open your gift? I’d like to see the kind of thing you’re getting from your ‘home’ pnet.”

  Diane ignored the twinge of hunger in her belly as she set the fork and salt back down and scooted her pte to the side to make room for the package. “I mean, sure? Not a thing other pyers get, I’m guessing?” She examined the box and realized there was a silicon zipper seal on it, not uncommon in order to keep a package vacuum tight on the cheep for stuff that wouldn’t like vacuum but wouldn’t necessarily suffer for it.

  As she pulled the tab along the zipper, Caitlynn replied, “Depends on the pyer’s Commander perks, really. There’s usually something the pyer gets on an early mission that will provide them a boost or a buff for the rest of the game,” she smiled wryly as Diane finished breaking the seal, “First time I’ve heard of getting presents as your Commander’s Perk. Not bad as those things go.”

  Diane smiled with a slight shrug and opened the box, the top hinging cmshell-like...

  ...and smmed the box closed again with a bright red blush. “Aaaaaand I’ll examine this one more in private. Uhm...I mean, not over breakfast. With...uh...”

  Caitlynn’s grin turned predatory as she gently teased the box from Diane’s hands, which had gone somewhat sck as her face was alternating between cmmy pale and incandescent red. “Oh no, I caught a glimpse of that, and if I’m guessing right, it’s a gift that you need someone else to really enjoy it.”

  Diane whined wordlessly as Caitlynn nudged her pte over a bit and moved the box closer to herself, then opened it.

  Caitlynn’s chuckle spoke volumes, but the other woman clearly wanted to make sure Diane understood the full import of her test gift, “I can’t say I know much about Mortan culture, but this appears to be a very nice strap and dildo combo,” she dug the phallus part of the gift from its hollow in the shipping material, “And a very nice one, too. It’s...oh, I think...” she inspected the base and a grin blossomed on her face, “It is! A very nice vibrator built to go with this...I believe this is a genuine leather strap!” She snickered and leaned her elbow on the breakfast bar, her chin cupped in her hand as Diane’s forehead thumped on the thankfully empty breakfast bar, “You see, princess, when two women like each other very much...”

  Diane buried her head in her arms like a child trying to hide from the monster under their bed, “The design lends itself well to inference, thank you!” She was well aware that she sounded like a child that was more embarrassed than frightened, even though there was a touch of fear there as well. “Norma picked that out specifically, I just know it!” she whined into the countertop.

  In the end, it was Diane that made her way down to sickbay, face bright red and thankfully unaccompanied by Caitlynn, who’d gone off to check in with her crew after the two of them had kept themselves occupied until after lunch as the ship captain made damn sure that Diane understood all aspects of how her newest gift worked. Caitlynn then hovered over Diane’s shoulder as she wrote a personally crafted thank you message to the Morvuck woman who’d sent it, complete with a few selected examples of specific things she liked about the gift. Caitlynn’s experience as a teacher ensured that Diane’s reply was complete and thorough...and Diane’s Morvuck body was responding to Caitlynn as though she was a more dominant Morvuck woman.

  I swear, if she was Morvuck she’d be...like, President or Queen or whatever they have there. I should look that up at some point.

  Doctor Dmini examined Diane and determined that her vaginal walls had been slightly bruised from the activity that part of her body was obviously not accustomed to. Diane was immensely grateful that he’d been as genteel and professional as a woman could possibly want in such a situation, and was equally gd that he was able to do the exam without having her put her feet in stirrups thanks to some of the 26th century medical tech they’d brought aboard the station. While they had some very nice and advanced tech already aboard, the initial equipment on the sickbay at construction was based on what was cutting edge in the in-game universe’s te 22nd century.

  Dmini’s humor wasn’t completely hidden, but he kept it to just an amused glimmer in his eye as he ran the scanner over Diane’s abdomen, “I’m honestly a bit surprised that a woman your age has never experimented with this sort of thing before.”

  Diane’s face was still red as she sighed, “Yeah, well, I didn’t have the kind of home environment that encouraged that sort of thing.”

  The doctor tutted as he looked at the holographic scan results that hovered over Diane’s form, “And your school’s sex ed didn’t say anything about it...? But then, you are Morvuck, so it’s possible they may not have thought human sex ed applied to you. Rather foolish, really. Just about any doctor on Earth could have told them there’s close enough match between Human and Morvuck genitalia that most of the curricu for humans would still apply to you as well.”

  Diane’s face flushed even more, “Uh...enough to get pregnant, doc? ‘cause we didn’t use protection...”

  Birth control, at least in the form of non-pharmaceutical measures went, was one of the few things the Church got continuous pushback even over a half-century after the United States had reorganized into a Theocratic Republic. As it was, it was only avaible to people over the age of 18 and the purchaser had to show I.D. to buy it. Diane had known a few guys in her csses whose fathers had purchased condoms for them, mostly to keep an unwanted child from showing up. While Diane hadn’t had that privilege (Tiffany made it clear that Dyn had better not be ‘doing that’ with anyone, period, let alone worrying about needing protection), she still understood the need if a couple weren’t married. Humans were going to be human, regardless of the Church’s admonitions against premarital sex.

  Something tickled the back of Diane’s mind at that, but she didn’t have time to chase that down as the doctor chuckled, “A bit after the fact to be asking that question, but it is a good one. And no, you would need a fertility clinic for a Morvuck and Human to produce a child together.”

  Diane breathed a sigh of relief. If the doctors were worried enough about possible health concerns for her genitalia even though it was ‘just a game’ thanks to the levels of realism in it, she wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of pregnancy mechanic. Probably should look that up, too. “Thanks, doc. Anything else coming up on that?” she waved her hand at the hologram, thankfully a wireframe of her vagina and uterus and not a potentially offputtingly realistic representation.

  “Just the bruised tissue. As you and...well, any partner you have grow more accustomed to the activity, you should be able to engage in sex without injury in the future.” He pulled out another device and began waving it over her pubic region, “And, of course, communication is key. A little bit of communication in advance will ensure that potential injuries don’t interrupt the fun next time.”

  Diane could only blush and mumble to herself about her not even expecting it this time.

  Diane had made it all of five feet from the sickbay door as the niggling, worrying thought regarding protection during sex pushed itself up to the foreground of her thoughts. She froze in pce as she realized, ...I just had premarital sex.

  She was stunned by the realization of the sin she’d committed, not just once but twice in less than 12 hours. She swallowed and began feeling anxious, waiting for the guilt and anguish to begin. The lessons in Sunday School were constant and consistent; premarital or extramarital sex was a sure recipe for life consuming guilt. Half the reason the Priests did confessionals (in the privacy of their offices, not in separate booths like she’d seen in old pre-war movies and streaming shows) was for people to disclose when they’d sinned, especially one of the colloquially termed ‘big three’; murder, sexual sins, or heresy.

  She realized she was holding her breath as she waited, and if anyone had happened by, they’d be confused by her standing, seemingly frozen mid-stride.

  In a slight daze, she made her way out of the Ops building and out to one of the parks that overlooked the Industrial Deck. She found a bench and sat down, gazing out across the space to the opposite side of the station, waiting for the crushing weight of her sin to bring her down.

  It was nearly five minutes before she realized...she wasn’t feeling it. She didn’t feel the angry bite of guilt for her actions with Caitlynn at all.

  But...I’m supposed to feel guilty...? she pondered silently. She thought back to her interactions with Caitlynn, everything from the moment she’d accepted the video call via in-game chat to when they parted ways after getting off the lift in the officer’s hab.

  Absolutely nothing about it made her feel guilty.

  Instead, she found herself...buoyed by the recollections. A happy little bubble resting somewhere in the vicinity of her heart as she thought about Caitlynn’s mischievous little smile, her ugh that made Diane want to ugh along with her even if she didn’t know why, the way she brought out feelings that Diane had so little experience with but found herself wanting more of them...

  I...don’t feel guilty at all! What did this mean? What was she supposed to do? She had never heard of anything like her situation in Sunday School, nor in any of the csses she was taught about biology in high school or college. There was nothing published about this feeling, and even in Star Trek the captains that engaged in the use of “Captain’s Women” without offering them a long-term commitment got some sort of comeuppance. There was simply nothing in her entire lexicon of experiences and books and fiction media that told her what she was supposed to do or feel next if she sinned and somehow didn’t feel like she’d done anything wrong.

  And somehow that left her feeling empty inside.

  PrincessColumbia

Recommended Popular Novels