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For Robin for being Robin.
And with thanks to Ruth for the idea about the knife and the uniform.
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Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea?
Who's gonna taste your salt water kisses?
Who's gonna take the place of me?
Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who could tame the heart of thee?
--U2, _Achtung Baby_ (Island Records, 1991)
She resists my attempts to mold her, coolly, impassively, her large eyes fixed on mine in both apparent bemusement and lack of comprehension. I strain, but it is like scaling a slippery wall, with no grips or footholds. I press and get desperate, urging her to conform to beliefs and ways I'm not even sure are correct. But I can't stop--I must control some part of her, somehow, and I know no other way. Yet.
Early on, very early on, she was more compliant, willing to be led, but only in superficial matters. We sat in front of the screen, perusing uniform styles, one after another. The silvery sheen of a fabric caught her eye, the style form-fitting. It would accentuate every curve of her body, those breasts that draw my eyes. I should have guided her to something less revealing. But I was selfish. I wanted to see her displayed for me. I let her child-like attraction to the shiny fabric decide for her. For she was in many ways still a six-year old child I knew that and took advantage of her vulnerability.
Next we looked at shoes. I pointed out a variety of styles of practical boots, but she paused at a pair of ridiculously impractical high-heeled pumps. My arches ached at the thought of wearing them. But in my mind, she swayed toward me, hips rocking and smoothed over by silvery sheen, and legs defined by those absurdly high heels. Very simply, she observed, "I remember. My mother had a pair of shoes like these. She and my father, sometimes, would put on different attire and . . .," she paused searching her memory for the long-disused word, "dance. I would watch them, when they thought I was asleep." The vulnerability was momentary, and her face resumed it's usual impassiveness. Decisively: "Those are the shoes I want." Again, I took advantage of her, of her childish longing for a bright object that reminded her of her mother. She was Borg, I thought; shoes would not be a source of discomfort.
My eyes fell on her hair, a blonde treasure, falling about her shoulders. I wanted to tangle my hands in her hair, feel the silky strands slide over my fingers. Even more I wanted to wrap a handful around my fist, pull her head back and . . . A surge of jealousy coursed through me. The whole crew would see her, her whole body adorned for emphasis and display. Her calves swelling from the pointing of her foot, her hips swaying as she walked, her breasts straining against the fabric, impossible to ignore. I wanted to keep some part of her for myself. I could not let her hair be free. So I taught her to sweep it back, put it up. Her Borg hands readily mimicked the procedure, and I was satisfied. Her hairstyle enhanced the severity of her habitual facial expression; despite her clothing, she would more likely repulse attention than attract it. Attention? I still try to gloss over my actions with neutral words. I didn't want her to give herself sexually to anyone. But me.
The images course through my mind. Fantasies. Scenarios. They frighten me. My desire frightens me. I have never desired like this before. I have never felt this desperate need to possess anyone before. But I desire to possess her. I can't deny it. And I want to prove that possession with pain--I want her complete and unconditional and irrevocable surrender.
I want to reach all the way inside her, hold her heart in my hand, feel it throbbing and warm, and be satisfied that it belongs to me. I am filled with violent longings. I want to break her, shatter her, make her need me and acknowledge my ownership. And then I imagine holding her in my arms, using my strength to steady her shaking and tear-wracked form.
She disobeys me, and I have to fight back the images in my mind so I can deal evenly with the situation. Be the Captain. Take charge of this unruly member of my crew without letting anyone see how personally I take it. But when I'm alone, I have to let the fantasies come--I have to acknowledge them, or they will press on me, haunt me day and night . . .
She disobeys me, and I execute her punishment myself. She is bound, her hands pulled high above her head, swaying slightly on those impossible heels. The cuffs, snug about her wrists, seem a continuation of the Borg implants that still adorn her hand. We are in the holodeck, and everything is possible. I stalk around her in a circle, ordering the computer to disengage the safety protocols. This is real, yet everything is possible. Her blue eyes widen. She asks, "Captain, is that prudent?"
"I'm not interested in being prudent," I mutter, and the tone is one I reserve for enemies I wish to intimidate. But she's not intimidated. Just alert and concerned, her question less one of personal safety than one of practicality. Disengaging holodeck safeties would be inefficient, a foolish potential waste of useful personnel. I wonder, is she an enemy? Is that how I see her?
I shake off my concerns, fetch a knife. Reaching up, I slit one sleeve of Seven's uniform from wrist to shoulder. The fabric unfurls like flower petals around her perfect arm. And then the other sleeve. "Captain?" she asks, apparently mystified.
"You disobeyed me, Seven. I can't allow that on my ship. And I plan to enjoy your punishment." She stands, erect and seemingly fragile, but strong enough to fling me across the holodeck, her bare arms rising out of her cut sleeves like slender stalks, bound together at their peak.
I move behind her, holding the collar of her uniform. Beginning just beneath it I cut a slit to her waist. And then another and another so that the back of her uniform consists of strips held together at the collar and waist. I slide my hand inside one of the slits, trail a fingernail down her spine. She shivers, and I smile.
Just below her buttocks, I slice a slit all the way down the back of her leg, the knife following her thigh and the roundness of her calf, finally exposing the heel of her shoe. Then the other leg. I draw a line with the tip of the knife up the exposed skin of her thigh. I step in front of her. "Seven!" I demand. "Do you like what I'm doing to you?"
"It serves no purpose, Captain," she answers mildly. "It is inefficient."
"That was not my question, Seven," I growl, my voice in its most threatening tone, one I had perfected over years of confrontations with hostile captains and warlike aliens.
"Yes, Captain," she whispers, bowing her head. "I like it."
"Good. Then I'll proceed." The next slice goes right down the middle of her uniform and undergarments. I have perfect control. The fabric gapes, exposing her breasts. Using the knife I lift the layers of fabric over and around her swelling breast, uncovering it completely, then do the same for the other side. With careful deliberation I grasp a handful of each breast, digging in my fingers with all my strength, then moving them, marvelling at the marks blooming on the pale flesh.
It's not enough. Quickly I slice off the rest of her uniform and undergarments, reducing her uniform to shiny rags and strips. I lift each foot carefully out at the bottom, so she stands before me naked except for the high-heeled pumps. I like her that way, and a low growl escapes my throat. But I'm not done with the knife. I wish to mold her, sculpt her, shape her to my will. And so I wield the knife like a sculptor's tool, fashioning lines, and angles, and curves. In time, a network of red lines forms a web about her body: cross-hatched lines across her back, vertical lines over the roundness of her ass and down her legs, concentric circles on her abdomen, and an entire web of fine lines across her breasts. I marvel at the way the red threads stand out against her flesh, but I do not break the skin. I want to. I want to. "I want to make you bleed, Seven," I confess, my voice rough and shaky with need.
"I cannot stop you," she points out, stating the obvious.
"I want you to *give* this to me," I urge.
"Yes, Captain," she says, with perfect composure. "But I require the knife."
Startled, I free one hand and give her the knife. She turns it about a few times in her hand, the harsh light I had programmed glinting off the blade and off the metallic tracery on her hand. With a quick motion, she slices a line just above one breast, angling down and stopping just where the flesh begins to curve. Both of us apparently hypnotized, we watch garnet-hued drops of blood well out and shimmer against her pale flesh. "Does this satisfy you, Captain?" she asks, her eyes still serene, her tone almost dry, as she returns the knife, and I abstractedly replace her hand in the restraining cuff.
I snap out of my trance. "No, Seven, it doesn't!" I exclaim, realizing it only as the words spilled out. It infuriates me to see her locked still within her Borg impassivity, undisturbed by her nakedness, undisturbed by the way I am displaying her, stretched between her cuffs and the pumps on which she remains steadily standing, undisturbed by the blood and the knife marks, undisturbed. And, damn it, I want to disturb her, shake her to the core. My fist lashes out, catchingher in the ribs. She gasps and sways backward, unable to double over, and I strike the other side, leaving a second darkening bruise to form. She moans, lips parted and vulnerable, her eyes locked defiantly on mine. I make a rough grab between her legs, and my hand comes away damp. "You certainly seem to be enjoying this," I remark.
"Yes, Captain, it . . . arouses me," she admits. "I do not know why."
"Well then," I say drily, "I don't seem to be doing a very good job punishing you then. We'll have to try something different." I move to my rack of supplies along the wall, selecting a small rubber truncheon. I like the weight and solidity of it in my hand, but set it aside for a moment, stripping off my uniform shirt, down to my undershirt. This will be sweaty work, and I want a free range of motion. I begin with her breasts, with controlled blows, nowhere near full-strength. With a flick of my wrist, I deposit a blow just below her self-inflicted wound. A bruise immediately forms, and the wound itself begins to bleed anew. I smile. Another careful strike and another and another, until I decide her breasts are sufficiently adorned with bruises.
Next her thighs. I strike harder now, moving around her continually, so she can never predict where the next blow will fall. I bend, my truncheon sinking into her rounded calf, leaving behind a purpling wake, like the ripple of a stone thrown into a pond. The next blow lands on the front of her thigh, the following one behind and just above her knee. The other calf gets attention too, and soon her legs are mottled with bruises. I imagine a daily inspection of her body, charting the progress of the bruises as they fade from purple-red, to blue, to greenish-yellow. I am like a painter, Seven my canvas, my truncheon my brush.
Each blow elicits a gasp from her and an evident effort to keep balanced on her feet. I see her wince, and I like to see her face contort with pain. But it is not enough. I move behind her, striking her ass with all my strength. Sh cries out, swaying, and I deliver another blow, just as hard. The flesh blossoms purple under my care, and her cries grow louder each time the hard rubber drives into her flesh. "Pleassssse, Captain," she begs.
"What?" I demand.
"Please, Captain. Please take me. With *that*."
I deliver another blow to one of the remaining unbruised spaces. "With *this*, Seven?"
"Yes, Captain. Please."
"You'll have to do better than that, Seven," I say. "Tell me what you really want."
She hesitates, not comfortable with the word. "Please, Captain. *Fuck* me. Please."
I release her from her bondage, call out a few commands to the computer. A pile of pillows materializes on the floor. I push Seven to her hands and knees and drop down behind her. The tip of the truncheon enters her easily, invading her body. She welcomes it, wet and yielding. And I fuck her--slow, hard, fast, violently--pushing her through orgasm after orgasm. And yet she is not entirely mine. "Show me you really want it, Seven. Show me you want to please your Captain. Fuck yourself."
I wrap a hand into her hair, pulling her head back. She pauses, then begins a slow rocking motion, impaling herself on the truncheon with every gentle thrust. Faster now, she rocks with determined speed and force, hurling her body backward against this extension of my hand, a weapon I had used to hurt and bruise her. Now she fucks it in an uncontrolled frenzy, her Borg impassivity shattered and splintered around her, leaving only raw need. "Cap-taaainnn!" she wails as she climaxes, then crumbles, broken, finding the now-gentle safety of my arms . . .
Alone in my quarters, I feel my body shudder, and I still the movements of my hand. My breathing gradually slows, and I indulge the tears of craving, want, desire, need, lust, and longing that gather in my eyes. Yet all those words dance around the essence of the matter, that feeling so hard for me to acknowledge and voice.
Seven. Seven. Seven.
I want to get under her skin. I want her to open herself to me and show me who she is. I want to get under her skin. I want to press my lips to the sources of her strength. I want to get under her skin. I want to embrace what I find, the dark and the light. I want to get under her skin. I want to set every nerve on fire. I want to get under her skin. I want to wring out tears of joy and pain and recognition. I want to get under her skin. I want to hold her heart in the palm of my hand.
The End.