ugly bag of mostly voyager

​I served with your father

​

Her wild, throaty cry is still echoing in his ears as he softens inside her. Tom releases her wrists and rolls to the side, his mind a pleasantly buzzing blank, one hand spread across Kathryn’s taut abdomen.

Their breathing slows in synchronicity.

As the blissful cloud of sexual satisfaction lifts and his strength returns, Tom glides the tips of his fingers over her belly. She quivers a little, and his hand moves down over the sharp rise of her hipbone and into the space between her thighs. His fingers curl to stroke her, liquid-soft and melting, and Kathryn inhales sharply.

Tom hasn’t recovered this quickly for a third go-around since he was seventeen, but then, he’s never before gone so long without sex of the consensual variety. He turns his face toward her, seeking her lips.

“Wait.” She pushes his hand away and sits up. Her hair is falling messily out of her bun and she starts pulling the pins from it, tossing them onto her nightstand, combing her fingers through the tangles. He strokes the long line of her back and around to the curve of her breast, fingering the taut nipple, his other hand lazily pulling at his stiffening cock, and she turns to look at him over her shoulder. Her smile is coquettish and her titian hair flows around her pale shoulders, and that nagging sense of familiarity swells up in him again, so strong he can no longer ignore it.

“I’ve seen you before.” He frowns, trying to tease out the memory.

“I told you.” She twists around to press her body to his, tracing distracting patterns on his chest. “I served with your father on the Al Batani.”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. I remember you from somewhere else – I –”

It hits him, and Tom’s stomach tightens.

“That day in his office at HQ,” he says slowly. “That was you.”

~*~

He’s sixteen: old enough for rebellion, still young enough to wrap most of his self-worth in his father’s opinion. Straight from conquering the campus flight simulator, he bursts through the anteroom, ignores the aide’s attempt to waylay him in his excitement, charges into the admiral’s office.

Too late, he remembers the cardinal rule: don’t ever come into my office without permission.

The admiral has her bent over his heavy wooden desk, one hand tangled in her long auburn hair and apparently holding her steady, the other roaming across her hip and waist and curling around her pink-tipped breast. His hips lunge into her, thrusting her forward so roughly that she’s forced to brace her hands on its surface. She’s naked but for the pants tangled around her booted feet; the rest of her uniform – science blue; it’s amazing the irrelevant details he notices in that moment – is scattered across the rug. And she’s young, maybe of an age with his sister Moira.

Tom can hear the scrape and thump of the desk legs on the floorboards, the obscene slap of flesh on flesh, the admiral’s grunts, her sobbing, breathy moans that could be expressing pleasure or pain. They are so engrossed in what they’re doing that they don’t even register Tom’s presence.

Walking out and pretending this never happened doesn’t even occur to him.

“Jesus, Dad,” he shouts. “What the fuck.”

They swing around to stare at him, both rigid with shock; the young woman gasps, bringing one arm up to cover her breasts. She has wide grey-blue eyes, Tom notices, and a smattering of freckles across her chest. He looks from her to his father, who has pulled out of her and is zipping his pants in haste.

The woman clutches for her own pants, the movement exposing her breasts until she turns away. She glances over her shoulder briefly, meeting Tom’s eyes. Coppery hair wafts over her narrow white back.

“What have I told you about barging in here without knocking?” the admiral barks, and Tom’s attention snaps back to him.

“You are such a cliché,” he bites. “Does Mom know –”

Before he can finish, the admiral roars, “Commander Klenman,” and his aide appears at Tom’s shoulder.

“Come on, Tom,” she says gently, steering him away. And Tom lets her, with a last backward glance at the auburn-haired woman, whose head is still turned in his direction and whose arms are wrapped around her thin, naked torso.

~*~

He looks at her now, still naked, her hair falling around her shoulders in glorious disarray, faint freckles showing through her makeup. She’s been watching him during the heartbeats it took for his memories to click into place. Now, silently, she slides out of the bed, takes a satin slip from a drawer and pulls it on. Then she stands at the doorway between her bedroom and living quarters and folds her arms, looking at him, waiting.

Her message is as clear as if she’d spoken it aloud: Get out.

And suddenly he’s furious.

In direct opposition to her silent demand, Tom makes himself comfortable, sprawled across the bed as insolently as he can, hands under his head. He lets his gaze rake over her, lingering on the outline of her nipples through the satin.

“What, no third round?”

Her hands move to her hips and her glare intensifies.

Tom takes his time getting off the bed, finding his pants, pulling on his boots. He fastens the pants slowly as he ambles over to where Janeway is standing, gets right up close, enjoying the way her eyes snap fury as he towers over her. She draws herself up so straight he can almost hear her spine snap.

Pity the soft hair and the satin ruin the effect.

“Just tell me one thing,” he drawls. “Did you fuck me because you were nostalgic for the good old days when you were fucking my father?”

The impact shows in her eyes, and in her sharp, indrawn breath.

“This was obviously a mistake,” she rasps. “You can see yourself out.”

“Aye, Captain,” Tom clips back, and strides for the exit, collecting the rest of his uniform on the way.