"Thank you," said Janeway, "but I expect I can manage it myself."

The thought of Seven undressing her was like a hand trailing down her spine. She shivered slightly. She looked at Seven who she realized was dressed differently than she had been earlier that evening. She was now wearing black: a black shirt, black pants, black boots. The cut of the clothes was unfamiliar: Janeway wondered if it was a costume of some kind.

"Then may I show you something, Captain? Something I made. On the holodeck."

Janeway let out her breath with a slight sigh, relieved at the change of subject. She had recently been discussing art and imagination with Seven. She would look at what the other woman had made, and they would return to what they had been then: mentor and student.

They saw no one on the way to the holodeck and Janeway was not sorry: she was still wearing the Kedzian dress, and it seemed out of place now in the ship's corridors.

They entered the holodeck and Seven called up the program. Janeway expected to see the da Vinci studio in which they had last talked, but this was a new environment. They were standing in a garden, at the back of a large stone house. The sky was overcast, the light silvery. The garden was laid out it beds, formal, like something from Earth's northern Europe hundreds of years ago, but when Janeway looked more closely at one of the plants, it was unfamiliar, curling tendrils wrapping slightly metallic flowers.

Seven walked along a path and Janeway followed. The path began to curve. The garden grew wilder, less formal. They came to a pond. Seven stopped beside a small wooden structure.

"You made this?" Janeway asked, looking about in amazement at the landscape which seemed both familiar and fantastical.

"Yes," said Seven. Just then it began to rain very slightly. They stepped up into the gazebo.

"It's beautiful," said Janeway.

"You're beautiful," said Seven.

"Seven, I can't."

"You want me too," said Seven. "I felt it when I touched you." She put her hand out and brushed her fingers against Janeway's arm.

Seven's hand felt like ice or fire against her skin. She stepped away quickly.

"You still want me," said Seven.

Janeway knew it was pointless to deny it; a completely unaugmented human could pick up the signs of her arousal.

"I'm the captain . . . this isn't . . . you're young, you're on my ship, you're . . . " She caught a glimpse of Seven's breasts through the open neck of the black shirt.

"Irrelevant."

"I can't. I can't do this."

"Then don't do anything," said Seven. With a wicked smile she added "Resistance is futile."

Suddenly there was a flash, followed by the report of thunder. It began to rain in earnest.

Janeway was momentarily caught off guard. She looked out at the garden, illuminated now by another flash of lightning. And then Seven was upon her.

Before Janeway could react, Seven had pinned her wrists. Instinctively she moved, twisted, tried to get away, but Seven was much stronger. She pulled Janeway further into the structure, over to what Janeway could see now was a large Victorian bed, a four-poster hung with dark velvets, red and black. As Seven pushed her onto the bed, she expected it to smell musty, but it didn't.

By the time she had registered the lack of dust, her hands were tied above her head. Her ankles were bound together and tied to one of the bed posts at the foot of the bed. Seven had the advantage of Borg implants, but this was almost instantaneous; Janeway realized that the restraints must have been programmed into the holographic world. She struggled but the bonds didn't yield; only her hair came loose, falling about her face.

She stopped and lay still. She could hear the rain, smell a slight draft of rain soaked air. Seven sat beside her on the bed. The former Borg was breathing quickly, her lips slightly parted. Her own hair was perfectly in place.

Janeway assessed her bonds. They were immobilizing rather than painful; if she relaxed they did not pull, but still her whole body felt tight.

"You planned this."

The Seven who looked down at her had the confidence of the Borg Seven of Nine. But there was something more, some change besides her human physiognomy. There was a humor to her slight smile.

Janeway noticed her gaze, towards her left breast, covered now only with the red material. Seven was looking at her breast, the dress . . . the communicator.

Janeway could call for help.

And then she imagined Tuvok and a couple of ensigns from security arriving to find her bound to this bed, face flushed, nipples erect, surrounded by this peculiar world. It wasn't appealing.

Seven followed Janeway's glance at her communicator. She smiled a small questioning smile.

"No," said Janeway, and she herself did not know whether it was a "no" to Tuvok or simply a formal "no" to Seven, a "no" which ceded her power to the other woman.

Seven smiled again and reached out her right hand. She began to touch Janeway, running her fingers along the line of her jaw, down her neck, over her breasts. Her touch was soft, teasing, electric. She found the other woman's nipples beneath the red fabric, circled them, moved down, returned, until it was a struggle for Janeway not to cry out. Where the layers of dark Kedzian fabric covered her, Seven caressed her through them; Janeway could feel the texture of the material against the skin of her shoulders, her arms.

She fought the rising tide of her arousal. Her body felt taut, every touch intensified by that tension.

Seven removed the silver band which wrapped her left wrist and tossed it to the head of the bed.

Janeway heard a slight crackle; she realized that the programmed bonds were less stable than the visible holographic world and had been interupted by some element in the Kedzian fabric. She pulled her hands free, grabbed the silver cloth, and used it to release her feet. Then she sprung from the bed, and ran out of the little building into the garden. Seven, startled for only a moment, followed.

It was raining now, not hard, but steadily. The path was wet. Janeway slipped, recovered and then tripped on the black satin piece of her dress. She fell forward and then Seven was on her, pinning her down.

Janeway lay panting, prone, not far from the pond. The rain and the air had no perceptible temperature, but the damp ground was warm, as if the day, earlier, had been sunny and hot. There was an odor of earth and of something close to lilacs.

She went limp. She felt Seven relax her hold, and then she twisted suddenly, using the muscles in her legs to flip herself over and throw off the other woman. But then Seven was on her again. She tried to get her legs up, to kick her away, but the dress was wet now, and heavy, and clung to her legs making it hard to move.

Seven was pinning her hands and although Janeway was fighting well, Seven was a great deal stronger. Janeway could tell that the holodeck safeties were engaged; she was struggling hard, but the damp ground felt soft as Seven managed to push her down and bind her hands together, this time using the remaining Kedzian silver wrist wrap to do so.

She noticed with satisfaction that she had knocked Seven's hair loose.

Seven turned her onto her stomach, dragging her a short distance so that she could attach the wrist bonds to the base of a small tree. She tried to get to her knees, but Seven was tying her ankles, separately this time. She found herself nearly as immobile as in the gazebo, but now she was face down, her cheek resting against the soft wet grasses.

And then Seven was pushing up her clothes, pushing up the wet dark fabric, until she could feel the rain on her legs, the warm earth against her pelvis, Seven's hands on her thighs, buttocks . . . And then . . . ohh . . . Seven's fingers inside her, opening her, pushing, until she heard herself involuntarily crying out in pleasure.

Her ankles were released and she found herself on her back, Seven straddling her thigh. Tendrils of Seven's long blond hair clung to her face as her black shirt, wet through, revealed the form of her breasts, her nipples. There is an expression of concentration, of rapture on the former Borg's face. And then the fingers returned, and Janeway was lost in the sensation, could not open her eyes, could not tell exactly how or where Seven was touching her, knew nothing but the feeling which was filling her, filling her . . .

She realized she was coming, and she wanted to resist, didn't want to come in the holographic mud and rain, hands bound, her body possessed by this beautiful woman . . . But the orgasm was rolling in, inevitable, and as it crashed down around her, through her, like a huge wave, she could hear her own cries as if from a distance.

As her climax gradually subsided, she realized that Seven had unbound her hands and that it was no longer raining.

She sat up. The holographic ground was forgiving; she felt stiff but not bruised. Seven crouched near her, watching. She was pulling her wet hair back, trying to tie it with one of the silver wrist wraps. Janeway thought she looked very young. The light perhaps. The sun had come out, low and pale; it was probably early evening in summer.

Seven spoke. "I'm sorry about the dress." It lay about them in pieces, wet and rumpled.

"That's all right," said Janeway softly. "I wasn't going to have an occasion to wear it again." And then, so quietly that it was almost inaudible: "Would you kiss me?"

"Yes," said Seven, "oh yes."

***

They were in the holodeck shower room. Janeway had put on the trousers and tank top of a newly replicated uniform and was waiting for the remaining garments. Seven sat at a mirror, putting the last pins in her now clean, dry hair. In the mirror she watched Janeway pace behind her. She stopped, and Seven turned to face her.

"Seven, I can't have this. I cannot run a ship with the constant possibility of you throwing me down and fucking me in the flower beds. And the fact that I quite obviously enjoyed it does not--from a protocol standpoint--improve things in the least."

"Of course Captain, I understand. It won't happen again." Her face was serious. Then she gave Janeway a long lascivious look, and smiled. "I will just have to learn to use my . . . imagination."

The End