BEST NON-CHALLENGE STORY | BEST JANEWAY PAIRING
Title: STIMULATION
Authors: Boadicea (Boadicea12@aol.com) and Kelly (rather_be_reading@yahoo.com)
Websites:
http://appelsini.tripod.com/boadicea_index.htm
http://appelsini.tripod.com/Kelly/
http://appelsini.tripod.com/inamorata/ (joint page)
Code: Janeway/?/?
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The Trek universe belongs to Paramount.
Archive: ASC/EM; FFF Page; others please ask
Summary: When Tuvok alerts Captain Janeway to an unauthorized use of the computer, she
investigates.
Note: Part of the Femme Fuh-Q Fest - http://www.oocities.org/femme_fuhq_fest/
STIMULATION
by Boadicea and Kelly - February 16, 2001
"Is there something else, Tuvok?"
He stood in front of her desk, having just delivered his security reports. "There is, Captain. I
discovered that there is a significant amount of computer space and power being used for an
unauthorized recreational activity."
"New holodeck programs?"
"Not exactly. This activity appears to incorporate the synaptic stimulator from the Equinox.
There is an environment, like the holodeck, but it exists only on the computer. The sense of
physically being there is produced by the device."
"Is it dangerous? Is it amusing people? What do you recommend be done about this?"
"There is no evidence of physical danger. I am uncertain what would be the correct course of
action. Perhaps you should see for yourself, captain."
"I imagine if this is being done 'privately,' my showing up will put a damper on things. To put it
mildly."
"One does not enter the simulation as oneself. No one would know it was you. This is the
device which the replicators have produced 65 times in the last week." He handed it to her and
explained its use.
"Fascinating, commander. Thank you."
***
That evening when she had finished her other work, she lay down, put on Tuvok's device, and
initiated the program.
She needed a physical appearance. She felt odd, choosing something different from herself. In
the end she chose a body very similar to her own, darker hair, and a face which was an amalgam
of her sister and her roommate at the Academy.
The next choice presented to her was that of the room; she learned that three were running that
evening: a contemporary beach, a bar in 1920's Paris, and a police station in 22nd- -century Los
Angeles. No wonder Tuvok had detected a drain on the computer. She chose Paris.
And then, suddenly, she felt herself inside the body of her avatar. She looked down at the
clothes the computer had chosen for her,looked down at her arms. She put her hand to her face
and could feel her own fingers, could see that she was standing in a street. She squatted down
and touched the stone pavement -- it felt cool and wet.
She paused the program for a moment, looked around her own room, glanced at the
communicator on the table beside her. And then she closed her eyes and entered the bar.
***
Warmth and the smell of cigarette smoke.
"Hello. Are you new here?" A short, dark-eyed woman in a black dress greeted her.
"Yes."
"Come in, come in. Let me get you a drink. Pick something you like the taste of, 'cause it won't
get you drunk, of course." The woman laughed. "Has to be something you've had before, too, or
your brain invents the taste. That's risky."
"Thanks. Champagne?"
In a few moments the woman returned and put a glass into her hand. She took a sip. Cool, soft,
tiny bubbles. Very nice.
"So you like the captain," the woman said.
"What?" She just managed to swallow.
"Figured you must 'cause you have her body. And you look kind of like her. Hey, don't be
embarrassed. It's pretty common. Hell, I have red hair. Tonight." She laughed. "There's
somebody even programmed themselves her voice. I find it a bit creepy -- keep forgetting and
thinking she's here. They have quite a following, though."
This was very strange. She concentrated on the one concrete piece of information she'd
received: "So you're real, then. A real person, I mean."
"Oh, I'm real. Bartender isn't, and there's a couple who like tohang out with Collette, so she's
programmed in. But pretty much we're all real."
"Why don't Collette's fans just go to the holodeck?"
"Oh, they don't know who they are. I mean, they don't know who the other one is. Well, you
know what I mean. Like me to show you around a bit?"
"All right."
Her first impulse had been to say "no." If she were going to make the best decision about how to
handle the crew's use of this "stimulator," she needed to explore on her own, go beyond the
official guided tour.
But all at once, she didn't want to be on her own. Her body was alone; that was solitude enough.
She would let her mind do as it pleased.
"This program isn't just about sex, you know," her guide said abruptly. Kathryn looked at her
sharply, and the woman laughedagain. "Oh, sex is what most people think of at first. And you
can get it here, that's for sure. If that's what you want. Most of us do, at some point.
"But for a lot of us, it's about being with people you don't know. Well, I mean, you do know
them. That's the problem. Being on this ship, way out here, seeing just the same few people
every day for years and years, it gets you crazy. Jeez, I mean, come on -- you know that's why
we all run out and fuck aliens at every shore leave. Just to connect with someone *not* from
Voyager for a change."
They had left the bar area and were walking down a corridor dim with flickering light.
"Gaslight," explained the woman. "Not sure if it's exactly period, but at least it's different. So
not-Voyager."
"Do you hate Voyager so much?" Kathryn asked.
"No, it's not that, it's just. . .god, sometimes you gotta get away, you know?"
Janeway knew.
"And the holodecks - they're okay, but nothing's real. This place isn't real, either, I know that,
but the people are. Real people you know and yet you don't know. And they don't know you.
You'll see. We'll go sit in the bar later, and you'll see. . .how great it is. I can't explain it. You'll
just see."
The sounds of muted moans and thumps reached Kathryn from behind the closed doors of the
corridor. Evidently those who came to the simulation looking for sex did indeed find it.
The woman noticed her interest. "We could have programmed in sound-proofing, but we
wanted that old-fashioned brothel atmosphere. I mean, it's not like we have to be subtle here, or
anything. Plus, it sounds real hot."
Yes. It did.
The hall ended in an arched doorway. "Let's go out," said the guide. "Oh, and what do you want
to be called? Now, wait -- think about it for a minute before you say. Otherwise, you're likely to
pick something that will give a clue about who you are. Like your mother's name or something."
She was right. The only names that immediately occurred to Kathryn were ones that were
personally revealing. As she should have realized sooner, concealing her identity was going to
take more than just a computer-generated new face and voice.
"Seska," she said finally.
Her companion gave a little shriek. "You're scary, you know that? Okay, Seska. Call me
T'Mar."
"You like Vulcans?"
"Maybe, " T'Mar replied airily. Then she looked hard at the captain. "Or maybe I'm really
Tuvok."
Janeway looked steadily back. "Or maybe I am."
They held each other's eyes for a moment and then walked silently out into the soft, damp night.
***
The Paris street was hard beneath her feet, the air cool against her face. A river -- the Seine, was
it? -- flowed past on her left. There were occasional streetlamps and bare-branched trees, and,
closer to the river, some benches below a flight of stone steps. She could see shadowy couples
sitting on them.
She stared into the distance, but couldn't make out a skyline or a horizon. The street just seemed
to fade into a blur of buildings and dim light, an impression rather than a reality, composed of
smudges of blues and greys and misty silvers.
Again T'Mar seemed to read her thoughts. Perhaps she *was* Tuvok, after all. Kathryn found
the concept both unsettling and intriguing. "We didn't want a whole hard-edged city," T'Mar was
saying. "Paris is an idea, you know, as much as a place. But there are a few things. . ."
She took Kathryn's arm and pulled her down a short side street. "See that? That little blue
plaque, way up there on the wall? That's where the flood waters crested, during the great flood
of 1910. Over 450 years ago, and some of those markers were still there in our own century. I
programmed that in, that plaque."
"Why?" Kathryn asked. She felt a sudden desire to hear details of T'Mar's thoughts and
experiences, something that would give a sense of who she was. This anonymity was becoming
disorienting.
"To show that time leaves marks. Hell, let's face it, we're all probably gonna die out here. I just
want there to be marks."
"We are *not* going to die!" Kathryn was surprised at her own vehemence; it had been a while
since dying had really mattered to her.
T'Mar was startled, too. "Hey, honey, it's okay. I mean, whatever. Let's live a little, then. Let's
go in and see about getting you laid."
***
The bar seemed warmer and darker than before. Music was playing, jazzy and slow; people
were dancing, or at least leaning on one another and swaying. The air was full of smoke and the
fumes of alcohol.
Kathryn liked it.
She flexed her computer-programmed shoulders, perfectly feeling the subtle shifts of muscles
not her own. She was beginning to enjoy this -- being herself and not herself. Or half herself.
Or twice herself. It was like thinking as two people at once, the investigator and participant, the
observer and the observed. She felt a trifle dizzy with the oddity of it all, with the sense of
somehow being both captain and one of her own crew.
There would be a catch somewhere, no doubt. But for now. . .
"I'd like another drink," she said to T'Mar.
They carried their glasses to a table around which five or six people crowded. "This is Seska,"
T'Mar announced. "She's new."
The name brought a few snorts and chuckles.
A thin-faced man stared at Janeway as she sat down. "Seska, huh? Does that mean you want to
fuck Chakotay?"
An older Bajoran woman nodded. "Her name's Seska, and she looks a lot like the captain. Yes,
definitely Chakotay."
Kathryn would have replied, but no one seemed to expect it of her. They continued to speculate,
as if she weren't quite there.
"You people have no imagination," said a Trill female whose red dress exposed a generous
cleavage. "The captain is a risk-taker. Chakotay wouldn't excite her."
"Are you kidding?" said the Bajoran. "What about all that smoldering, tattooed intensity?"
"Oh, for all I know, he's the best fuck in the quadrant," said the Trill impatiently. "Though I
doubt it. I just don't think he's enough of a challenge for Janeway. For one thing, if she'd wanted
him, she'd have had him already. She knows how to say the hell with protocol when it suits her.
And for another, he's too. . .I don't know. . .expected. A human male, her first officer, close to
her own age. . .no. Our dear captain's a whole lot kinkier than that. Trust me."
"And how would you know?" asked a Klingon male from the corner. "Besides, even if you're
right, that still wouldn't mean that Seska here doesn't want Chakotay."
"Unless Seska *is* the captain," said T'Mar.
Janeway hoped the music covered her involuntary intake of breath. Damn, but this being
under-cover was harder than she'd expected. Had it been like this for Seska, a constant painful
balance of self and other, of acceptance and exile? She had never really thought about how
Seska might have felt. Or Tuvok, in the Maquis. The stress must have been hell at times.
But still. Still. There was a definite sense of liberation. And she found, rather to her surprise,
that she very much wanted to be liberated.
"Shit," said the Klingon, somewhat incongruously. "The Captain's not going to come here."
"That's where you're wrong," said a voice from the bar. Kathryn started. The voice was her own.
And the body was her own. Janeway stared as the newcomer approached the table. It was
herself. In a gold dress and earrings and shoes with thin, high heels.
"Captain Janeway," said the thin-faced man. "So good of you to join us."
"Well, I couldn't trust you to behave yourselves on your own, could I?" the woman said, sitting
down and shaking a cigarette from a package. Fascinated and slightly sickened, Kathryn
watched her own slim fingers hold the white cylinder to the candle on the table. She resisted the
temptation to pause the program, to reassure herself that she was still lying on her bed in her
quarters.
She could now see that the faux captain was not her exact clone. The hair was longer, the face
sharper, the breasts fuller. But she was close enough. Close enough.
The woman sent a lazy drift of smoke across the table as she noticed Kathryn. "Ah. I see we
have a pretender here tonight. Hello, love. Want to fuck?"
"Fuck. . . you?" replied Janeway, with just the hint of a question mark.
The others laughed. "Oh, god," said T'Mar. "Didn't I say you were scary?"
"Wait." The Bajoran rapped on the table. "Be serious a minute. I've been wondering about this.
Why do so many of us seem to want to either be the captain to sleep with her?"
"Power is sexy."
"We get to share her power?"
"Or by fucking her, we get to be the one in charge?"
"Yeah, except that we don't really have to be in charge."
"What crap," snorted the Klingon. "You don't need all this psychobabble. Janeway's hot, and
she's probably a hell of a great lay. End of story."
"I agree," said the Trill.
The thin-faced man rolled his eyes. "You would."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, come on. Every night you come in with Worf here, and whatever he says, you agree with.
What are you, the Delaney twins?"
"Maybe we're Paris and Torres," said the Trill.
"Spare me."
"I'm not Worf," said the Klingon. "When did I ever say I was Worf?"
"Stop bickering," T'Mal said sternly. "We fight enough on Voyager as it is. Being here is
supposed to be fun and erotic. An escape."
Janeway felt a touch on her hand. It was the Bajoran woman. "What about you, Seska? Do you
find this place erotic? An escape?"
"I. . .yes. Both."
"Would you like to escape to the back rooms with me?" She smiled. "Sorry if I'm being too
direct for you. But we don't stand on much ceremony here. If you don't want sex, that's fine.
Maybe just a little conversation."
"Maybe all three of us could talk," said the Trill suggestively.
Kathryn remained quiet, wondering a bit at how aroused she was. The synaptic stimulator
relayed the sensations exactly -- the warmth, the wetness, the slight fullness that felt, somehow,
the way sweetness tasted.
She wanted these women. And here, in this programmed world, she could have them without
having them, without being the captain, without ceasing to be the captain.
She stood. "Yes, I think I'd like. . .a little conversation."
***
The room was softly lit by several small lamps with rose-colored silk shades. The decor was
appealing -- a wood-framed bed, wooden floors, pale rugs, a cushiony settee. Kathryn didn't
know if bedrooms in 1920s Paris had really looked like this; in fact, she hoped they hadn't. It
wasn't history or reality she wanted.
"Call me Vi," said the Bajoran, curling her feet beneath her on the sofa. "And who are you
tonight?" she asked the Trill.
"Hmmm. . ." The Trill looked consideringly at herself in the mirror and smoothed her hands
over her bodice. "KaLonn, I think," she said. "It seems to go with red, somehow."
Janeway took a seat at the end of Vi's sofa. Funny, she thought, how she still wanted to be able
to see the woman's face, even though she knew the computer-generated eyes would not reveal
the real person.
"You intrigue me, Seska," Vi said. "Somehow I don't think you're just an ensign who happened
to find a fun new way to spend an evening in the Delta Quadrant."
Too experienced at interrogation to answer questions that had not been asked, Kathryn merely
smiled.
"I did think you might actually be the captain," Vi said. Ignoring KaLonn's incredulous, "What!"
she went on: "It would be like her, not to bother to conceal her identity completely. Oh, I don't
mean she's careless or indifferent. I just don't think she realizes how much attention people pay
to her. How they watch everything she does."
"You must know her well," said Kathryn, determined to shift the focus of the conversation.
She'd think about the implications of Vi's comments later.
Vi laughed. "Oh, you won't get me to reveal myself that easily. But nice try."
"She's right, though, Vi," KaLonn said. She spoke lightly, but her tone carried a subtle warning.
"You're letting us know that you've thought about the captain a lot."
"Everyone has," snapped Vi. "Everyone who thinks at all, that is. Our lives are in that woman's
hands. So, yes, of course I've thought about the captain. I want to know what I can expect her to
do, how I can expect her to think."
"Well, you don't have to think right now, do you?" KaLonn asked. "That's not what *I'm* here
for, I can tell you that." She moved behind Janeway as she spoke and began to knead Kathryn's
shoulders. The smooth change of subject was not lost on Kathryn. Nor was the smoothness of
KaLonn's touch.
She could have moved away, continued the conversational thrust and parry of her indirect
questioning of Vi. But her investigation, she decided, was concluded. "No immediate danger,
Commander," she would tell Tuvok. Oh, they'd have to stop the drain on the computer at some
point, she knew.
But not tonight.
Vi was surveying Janeway with half-closed eyes. "I can show you whether she's the captain."
KaLonn, her voice an exaggerated growl, said, "Do it."
"All right. Seska. Look at me. Good. Now take off your clothes."
Janeway stood up and slowly pulled off the wine-colored tunic that the computer had given her.
It excited and amazed her, how much she wanted to be naked with these members of her crew.
And yet she wouldn't be, not really.
It was an intensely arousing thought. She dropped the black trousers next to the top. The
computer-designed underwear was simple, white panties and bra, and she removed them quickly.
"Well?" said KaLonn after a moment. "Is she the captain?"
"No," answered Vi. "No, I really don't think so. Janeway would never expose herself like this in
front of crew members, no matter how kinky you think she is. And she'd never take orders like
that, either."
She stepped forward and tilted up Kathryn's chin with her finger. "But you didn't mind taking
orders, did you, Seska?"
Did she? She had been *giving* orders for so long that she hardly knew, any more, what it
meant to be subordinate. Even with Ransom, another captain, she had pulled rank. When was
the last time she had had to say, "yes, sir?" She couldn't remember.
"Did you, Seska?" repeated Vi, her tone demanding.
"No," she said softly.
She felt KaLonn's warm hands slip around her from behind, cupping her breasts. At the same
time, Vi pulled Janeway's face to hers and kissed her deeply.
Kathryn kissed back hungrily, allowing sensation to overwhelm her. There was nothing else,
just the touch of lips and hands. . .
She felt almost cold when Vi backed away. "On the bed," the Bajoran commanded. "On your
back."
Kathryn drew slowly away from KaLonn's still-stroking hands and moved to the bed. Looking
down, she saw how the computerized body was different from her own -- no freckles, darker
nipples, pubic hair untouched by grey. She felt detached from herself and from the body. For a
disconcerting second, it seemed to be someone else's thighs that Vi was touching, someone else's
legs that she was opening. Then feeling returned, and Kathryn arched her back with sharp
pleasure as Vi's fingers entered her.
"Kiss her, KaLonn," Vi ordered.
At once KaLonn leaned down and brought just the tip of her tongue to Kathryn's lips, tracing
them teasingly, nipping occasionally with gentle and not-gentle teeth. Janeway yearned upward,
wanting to deepen the contact, to feel KaLonn's mouth hard against her own. She reached out to
caress KaLonn's breasts through the red material of her dress.
Hard hands gripped her shoulders. It was Vi. "Seska. Did I tell you you could touch KaLonn?"
Kathryn lay back, panting.
"Answer me. Did I?"
"No."
"Do you want to take orders, or don't you? It's your choice."
"Yes. I want to."
Oh, god, she wanted. . .to choose and not to choose, to feel their fingers and lips again, to kiss
and fuck and come and not exist outside this rose-tinted room.
"Undress us," said Vi, and Kathryn felt the fabric soft and rough against her fingers as she
removed their garments, uncovering spotted skin and ridged skin and rounded breasts and
smooth, curved asses.
"Touch us."
She did, lightly at first, and then more possessively, moving from shoulders and hips to buttocks
and nipples and silky wetness. Vi and KaLonn never touched each other, but then they started to
touch her, and she found it harder and harder to tell where she ended and they began.
It was new and strange and excruciatingly arousing, this experience of pure pleasure, with no
before and after, only now. Impressions stood out vividly in her mind: herself on her knees in
front of Vi, and then on the floor, with KaLonn moving above her and in her. The taste of
another woman sharp on her tongue. Vi's high-pitched cries as she came to Kathryn's thrusting
fingers. Her own need to come, so strong that it was almost visible.
But Vi had ordered her not to.
It was an exercise in discipline, in control, and she was good at those. Prolonging the high,
balancing taut on the exquisite edge -- it was like the rush of battle, which always felt sexual to
Janeway. The universe sharpened to a single point, the focus absolute. . .
"Seska," said Vi. "Come now."
They had returned to the bed. Kathryn was on her back again, her legs wide, KaLonn sitting
above her head, pinning her wrists, whispering, "Do it, Seska. Come for us."
One more touch of Vi's fingers was all it took. Kathryn let the release flood her, let herself cry
out as loudly as she pleased. The wave of pleasure flowed, crested, ebbed, leaving her gasping.
She felt the joyous sense of absence -- of clothes, of rank, of self -- as if it were the most
powerful of presences.
KaLonn released her wrists and bent down to kiss her gently. Vi ran a finger lightly over
Kathryn's still-erect nipples. "KaLonn, I think Seska enjoyed our little conversation," she said.
"Mmm," KaLonn replied. "So did I."
***
When Janeway opened her eyes, Vi and KaLonn were gone. There had been no sound of their
leaving; they must simply have disengaged their synaptic stimulators.
She remained lying on the bed. One click of the stimulator would return her to the quarters she
had never really left, and this current reality would disappear, just as the women had. She could
dismiss it as a fantasy or a dream. She could meet her crew as usual. She could be just the
captain again.
But she didn't want to, not yet. She wanted to stay a while longer, relishing the physicality of the
wetness on her thighs, the soft duvet, the scent of KaLonn's perfume.
Who had they been, those two women who had fucked her so beautifully but who had never
touched each other? There had been a unity between them that she didn't think she had just
imagined. Not the unity of opposites that defined Paris and Torres as a couple. . .but something
else. Telfer and Celes, misfits together? No, this pair had been too skilled and confident.
Siblings, maybe? The Delaneys?
The Delaneys.
Christ. The Delaneys. Could it really have Jenny and Megan, playing out some joint fantasy. ..?
The hell with it. It didn't matter; she didn't care. They had been KaLonn and Vi, a Trill and a
Bajoran. She had spent an evening with them in Paris, in the 1920s. The three of them had had
a little conversation.
And she would keep the memory. As a mark.
***
He stood in front of her desk, having just delivered his security reports.
"One more thing, Tuvok -- I investigated the crew's use of that device, the synaptic stimulator
from the Equinox."
"Indeed. And what have you concluded?"
"That we'll need to establish a more comprehensive policy on recreational use of the computer.
And it might be a good idea to have the doctor evaluate the psychological effects at some point.
But I don't think there's any immediate danger."
"Very good, Captain. Will that be all?"
"Yes, Tuvok, thank you. Dismissed."
The End
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