HELPLESS
By Angelina Vansen (angelina@gunmetaldark.com)

RATING: NC-17 for sex
CODES: J/7
SUMMARY: This is the second story I wrote for the JDI Challenge. This time, my task was to write a story where Janeway gets caught with her pants down! Enjoy ...


Seven of Nine is watching me.

I don't think she knows that I know, but I see her. Up high on the cliff where I don't think she thinks she can be seen.

I am not sure what she thinks she is doing. Perhaps she is studying me, and I will be presented with her report in a couple of days, a PADD on my desk full of her neat, clipped observations about my shore leave activities.

I can almost see it now.

0900 - Captain Janeway disembarks Voyager.
0920 - Captain Janeway erects tent and builds fire
1040 - Captain Janeway reads a book and falls asleep
1145 - Captain Janeway goes swimming

A complete itinerary of my day. I can't imagine why any of that is interesting to her.

Perhaps she is lonely. I don't suppose anyone included her in their shore leave plans, and I guess I'm the closest thing to a friend that she has.

It is more than a little irritating, though, being watched like this. I came here alone to get away from it all, from the ship and the crew and being the Captain. It's rare that I get an opportunity like this.

Maybe I should go to her and ask her to join me. Sit her down by the fire and ask her what she's doing, trailing me like this. Read her PADD, let her ask her questions. Ask some of my own.

But why should I? This is my shore leave. Two days in months that I can truly call my own, when Seven of Nine's questions really shouldn't be my problem.

Why the hell isn't she stalking the Doctor? I would imagine he's more fun to watch than I am right now.

I eat my dinner in silence, trying to sit at least partway into my tent so she can't see me. Hoping she'll get bored and go away.

Surely she can't be planning to stay here all night. The climate is good on this part of the planet, but I don't believe she has shelter, and she certainly isn't dressed for sleeping in the great outdoors.

She will have to leave soon, the sun is going down. Unless that Borg eye gives her night vision, she's going to have her observations severely limited.

After I have eaten, I go down to the water for another swim. Wrap myself in a towel, tie my hair up and plunge straight in from one of those high rocks.

The water is warm and beautiful, undulating only slightly in the gentlest waves I have ever seen. Oilier than Earth's ocean, too, there is something about the water that clings to the skin. Caressing almost.

Pleasant as it is, it's things like this that only serve to remind me just how far away we really are from home. Watching the suns dip low over the horizon makes me, for a moment, almost unbearably homesick.

How lovely it would be to swim on Earth right now. To come out and towel off and go back home to everything I know and love.

I swim for a while, just exercising my dinner off really. Long slow strokes across the bay, on my front and then on my back, pulling myself strongly along. How good it feels to get some proper exercise, in real fresh air.

When I come back in and run back up the beach, I notice that Seven of Nine has gone. I suppose she must have gathered all the data that she wanted, and now she's gone to write up her report.

I dry myself back at my camp, and dress again, warmer for the evening. As it gets dark, I toast the obligatory marshmallows on a stick and drink a little of the obligatory whiskey. I even think for a minute about singing some campfire songs to myself, here alone in the dark, but I won't.

As I creep inside my tent and sleeping bag for the night, I find myself thinking of Seven of Nine.

Not an unusual occurrence, late at night, especially if I've had a drink. You're a fool, Kathryn, I tell myself as I think of her up there on the cliff, trying to watch me unobserved. You know damn well why she came here, and it's got nothing to do with a scientific study.

The fact of the matter is, I know Seven of Nine is in love with me.

I see it all the time in her face, hear it in her voice. I've even read it a couple of times in her personal logs, once again when I've been drunk enough. She might not fully understand it herself, but I've been around long enough to know what's what.

She came down here to watch me. Doing what, I don't know. Maybe she came to check I was really alone, that I'm not secretly having it away with Chakotay or Paris or Torres or someone. I've seen those suspicious looks from her, as well.

Maybe she just came down here because she likes to watch me. Because she thinks I'm beautiful.

I dismiss that thought almost instantly, laughing at myself. How ridiculous. I'm a middle aged woman, petite and not particularly curvaceous, well past my prime. What could that young wet dream of a girl possibly find beautiful about me?

No, it's a mother thing, I'm sure of it. A mentor thing. A rescuer thing as well. It's just a silly crush, she is a youth in so many ways.

A beautiful youth, though. Lush and fresh and womanly, full at the lip and breast and hip. I imagine if I kissed her she would taste sweet and pure as spring water. If I held her she would feel like soft wet grass and she would smell like a meadow.

Now I know I have had too much to drink. Too long between partners too, fantasising about a member of my crew like this. How ridiculous. Aroused over thoughts of Seven of Nine.

I reach over to my pack to find my little stimulator, which I slip over one finger and hold hard between my legs. Roll over on my belly in my sleeping bag to fuck a couple of my fingers till I come, groaning with the sweet release.

As my body pulses, I imagine Seven watching me do this to myself. Encouraging me. I imagine that it's her fingers deep inside me, making me come.

Then, as the orgasm fades, I realise again how silly I am. How lonely. Fantasising about my Astrometrics officer like that. I think I need to schedule myself some cold showers when I get back to the ship.

Really, I'm no better than she is, thinking about a woman I can simply never have. How pathetic we both are. As if we don't have enough to think about. Our lives are far from uneventful.

***

The next morning I wake to the sound of alien birds and the light of the alien suns. Beautiful, I think as I open my tent to let the light pour inside. The first morning in months I have woken to actual daylight.

Still wrapped in a blanket to protect me from the early morning chill, I go outside to set up my little stove and make some coffee. I breathe the freshness of the air and gaze out over the vista of the ocean.

Such stillness. Such quiet. No one for miles. How wonderful. No one to call me, no one to report to me. Nothing that requires a red alert. Another whole twenty-four hours of this to look forward to. What bliss.

The morning warms as I drink my coffee. The breeze dies away and the chill fades into a beautiful stillness. The perfect summer day. I think I'll take a swim to start, then think about a little breakfast. Nothing more to think about than that.

I go inside my tent to change into my swimsuit, a two-piece bikini I would never wear on the ship, despite its relatively modest cut. No one wants to see their Captain dressed like that. But here it doesn't matter. Here I can wear whatever I want.

No one for miles, I think again, and this time that thought actually brings a smile to my lips.

Before I can make the short trip to the beach, I am interrupted by a call of nature, probably a result of the coffee I have just drunk. I have been using a small patch of thicket a little distance from my campsite as a toilet, so I put aside my towel and head over there.

I am relieving myself, crouched over a smooth patch of sandy earth with the bottom half of my bikini round my ankles when I see her.

Seven of Nine. Seven of goddamn Nine.

She's here. Up on the cliff in the same position she was yesterday, watching me. Watching me, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager, taking a pee with my pants round my ankles.

I boil over with rage. How dare she? Is nothing sacred? I mean ... what possible satisfaction, crush or no crush, can she get from watching me urinate?

A horrible impulse comes over me to punish her. Make her sorry. I probably get one weekend a year to do this, to find the perfect location and have it all to myself totally undisturbed, and she has to ruin it.

All right, I find myself thinking. So she's in love with me. She follows me down here to watch me. So let's put on a show for her. Let's give her a taste of what she really wants. What she can never have.

Slowly I stand up, sliding my bikini back up my hips with deliberate seductiveness. Smooth it round and over my buttocks, tracing trails on my own skin.

I feel the bounce of my hair on my neck as I walk down towards the sand. Liking the feel of it, so much lighter on my back and neck. Aware of the way the bright summer light of the twin suns catches in every strand. In this light my hair is gold and red, colours she's probably never seen it glow on the ship.

Mark always liked my hair in the sun, and Chakotay too, though both of them seem very distant now.

Now there is only Seven of Nine, watching me. And me, having to admit that exciting her is exciting me. It's been so long since I've been wanted, since I've thought of myself as attractive. Perhaps it's this place too, this planet. Maybe it's because I've been off the ship for almost a day. I'm starting to remember the person I used to be. The woman.

As I walk towards the water, I decide with abandon that this morning, I am going to skinny dip for my audience. Why not? See me, Seven. See my skin. See how pale it is, see my freckles, each one a point of gentle red across my arms and chest and breasts. This is me. How do you feel about me?

I unclip the back of my bikini top, slide each strap down from my shoulders, let it fall. At the moment, I have my back to where she is, but I arch as I drop the top to the sand, feeling the tingling burn of the sun against my nipples. It is warm and delicious like a naughty tongue, lapping at me.

Like Seven's tongue. For a moment I can almost feel that she is here as more than just a pair of eyes. I can see a look of a new lover's wonder in her eyes, looking at my breasts for the first time.

It's been so long since I saw that. Far too long.

I turn around slowly, wanting to see her, but not daring to look directly at her. She is there. Frozen to the spot. Hands in fists by her sides.

I pretend to be stretching, warming up before I swim in case of cramp. Arms above my head, breasts thrust out before me. Reaching up to this wonderful unearthly blue sky.

Then down to touch my toes, half buried as they are in this soft, unearthly yellow sand. Breasts full as they fall forward, looking big and round. Nipples hard and sunkissed.

I'm almost making myself salivate.

I stand up to take off my bikini shorts, wriggling my hips as I slide them down. Parting my thighs even as I let my pants slip gradually down over my long, slender legs.

Naked. Totally naked. Are you watching me Seven? This is humanity. It's almost like a lesson for you. Forget your Borg perfection, this is what you desire.

Can you see the roundness of my belly, Seven? My narrow hips? The two new strands of grey in my pubic hair? They're new this year. You're the only one who's ever seen them.

I wade out into the water up to my thighs. It is already warm and beautiful, the sun glittering on the surface, picked up and played with on every wave.

I dive beneath the surface in a single, graceful move. Come up between two waves with my skin glistening. Feeling the oily water slide between my shoulder blades and down the long line of my white spine.

I must look wonderful. Lithe and strong and beautiful and alive. Alive in a way I don't think I ever look on the ship. She must never have seen me this way before.

I feel amazing. Beautiful, desired. Caressed by the storm blue eyes of Seven of Nine, admired by them.

I wash myself, wash my body in the salty water, picking it up in my cupped hands and splashing it all over myself in sparkling droplets. Letting them run down and pool between my breasts and trace pathways over the fecundity of my belly.

She wants me. She wants me.

I slick my hair back away from my face and stretch back so the sunlight glistens on my wet skin. Warming, dizzying. Feeling good in a way that I haven't felt in years. Maybe never, not even when I was at home.

Seven. Oh Seven. You beautiful creature, how could you love me so much? So much that wherever I am, you want to be there, watching me. So much that you will wait all night for me, for nothing more than the sight of me.

I turn around towards the cliff where she watches me, wanting to see her too. Wanting her to know that I know she is there, to let her know it's all right, that she can come down and join me, that we can be together ...

She's gone.

My breath catches in my throat as I scan the horizon, the tops of the cliffs and the trees all around. She has gone. Totally gone. And me, arched and naked and posing, I suddenly feel so stupid.

So old and so unattractive. She must have bolted as soon as I got my clothes off. Of course she did. When you look in the mirror at a body like hers ...

How pathetic I am. Maybe my crew is right, maybe I have gone crazy over the years. Thinking I could possibly have been attractive to a woman like her. Thinking I haven't let the last of my attractiveness slip away while I've been Captaining this ship. It's far too late for all that now.

I slink out of the water and up the beach back to my campsite. Feeling sick. Feeling ridiculous. How am I going to face her tomorrow when I go back to the ship?

I imagine us in the morning briefing, just before we break orbit to fly off into another dark area of a space we know nothing about. Seven's dull eyes in her plum biosuit. Or her blue one or her brown one. Helpless with that look of plain and arrogant longing. The one I see but say I don't see. Tell myself I've never seen.

I doubt I'll see that look tomorrow. I'm sure she'll be looking at her PADD.

I don't know how I'm going to stand that now. Standing there giving orders with only three layers of Starfleet material between me and the body she ran from.

How awful. How could I have done this to myself?

I should have confronted her, I think now. I should have gone up to her as soon as I saw her and asked her what she thought she was doing. Told her to leave me alone, told her to go back to the ship so I could enjoy my shore leave all by myself.

Instead I let myself get sucked into her ridiculous fantasy, didn't I. Played the part of her sex object. Only she didn't want a sex object, did she. She wanted to watch me, being me, camping and being capable. The woman she knows. Not the fantasy she never really wants to be real.

I sigh to myself and start thinking about something for breakfast, even though I can't claim to be hungry right now. Maybe filling my belly will give me a little perspective. Some eggs maybe, a little toast. Certainly some coffee.

I get the fire going again with a couple of fuel rods I brought down from Voyager and a quick blast from my phaser. Prepare some pans. Go into my tent to get the food from my pack.

I drop a pan on the floor. Gasp. A figure, on top of my sleeping bag.

A naked figure.

I follow legs ... ENDLESS legs and body to a torso that is just ... magnificent. Finally I see the face of Seven of Nine.

Naked. In my tent. On top of my sleeping bag. I think I'm going to need a drink.

My face must be a picture. I don't think I've closed my mouth yet.

As for her, she's in a pose that I think she's probably seen on the holodeck somewhere, hair loose and head thrown back. Legs slightly apart and breasts thrust upwards.

I'm gaping at her. Not believing this is really real. Part of me thinking that I must have snapped, that she is a hallucination.

"What the hell are you doing?" I hear myself say.

Not the best thing I could have said.

I think I can be forgiven though. She looks bizarre, not like herself at all. Maybe it's the lack of clothes, or the pose, or her loose and tumbling hair ... but this isn't Seven of Nine.

It's something I might have created in the holodeck, late at night if I was drunk and desperate enough. It's something I might have imagined in the midst of masturbation, when I wanted to think of Seven but couldn't bring myself.

She sits up. Her breasts and hair fall forward. I watch them, dumbstruck.

She says nothing. I don't think she knows what to say. That studied expression of sexual wantonness has gone from her face. Instead she wears a horrible echo of the one I've seen on the ship all those times, the one of helpless, hopeless love and overwhelming need.

"Put your clothes on, Seven," I tell her, and leave the tent.

Outside, it hits me in a dizzying rush and I have to steady myself before I faint. Suddenly the mid morning heat seems quite oppressive.

A moment later, Seven emerges from the tent in her biosuit, hair still loose and boots on the wrong feet. I look at her for a long moment with my hand over my mouth. Still quite beyond words.

She is red, scarlet from embarrassment with her head dipped in shame. Unable to meet my eye.

She staggers off without saying anything, limping in her mismatched boots. Hunched over and totally unlike the proud figure of the Borg.

Awful. I can't let this happen. I can't see her like this.

I go to her, run up behind her and take hold of her arm. Turn her back towards me. Lean up to kiss her.

She hesitates and for a moment I think she is not going to respond. That I have humiliated her and she hates me. But then her lips press to mine and they are every bit as soft as I imagined.

The kiss is long and tender and it tastes of the ocean I have been swimming in because of my salty lips.

It's been so long. So impossibly long. I am lost and swooning almost instantly. Dizzied by the taste and feel of her. Helpless.

Her hand, her Borg hand, slides up my belly and cups my breast through my bikini. My hands go around her waist and slide down to hold her bottom against me.

So tender, impossibly tender. I hear myself groan into the depths of her mouth, my tongue quivering and helpless against her sweet slow tongue.

I take her back to the tent and pull her inside its warm dark depths. Take her face in my hands and kiss her with my eyes open so I can look into her eyes. She looks so wonderful. Bright and beautiful and sweet, the woman who she could have been. Almost a taste of Annika, here on top of my sleeping bag.

I press against her, on top of her, as I slide the biosuit from her body. Her body, revealed to me again, but already looking so different. No poses, no artificiality. It seems strange to think that about a woman with so many Borg implants, but she seems so real to me right now. The first piece of flesh I have had in five years.

She hugs me close and pulls at the straps of my bikini too, and then I understand. She wants to see me the same way. No poses, no artificiality. Not the woman preening on the beach this morning but me, me being her lover, the shadow of the tent flap falling over her pale white flesh. Me, on my back with my breasts almost flat.

She turns me over to look at me frankly, resting on one elbow by my side. She drops her lips to my right nipple and kisses it. Kisses for something no one's had in five years. It's like she knows.

Her fingers tickle my ribs and stroke over my hip. Eyes looking at the shape of me, the real shape of my body. Incredibly tender.

I can't help it. I'm already on the verge of exploding. Just the touch of her skin and the feel of her kiss is enough. Her gaze on my body. I grab her hand and thrust it between my legs. Just hold it there as I spasm and spasm again. Amazing. So naked. So helpless. Coming for Seven of Nine.

It's nothing like the fantasy I had last night, or like any I've ever had, and there have been many, I can admit that now. There's almost no sexuality about it at all, no artificial state of arousal to dull my senses. I'm so utterly awake.

I arch up to her for another kiss of her mouth. She catches my lips in her own almost fiercely and bears me back down to the soft down of my sleeping bag. On top of me so hard that I see stars.

She starts rubbing her sex, instinctively I think, against the top of my leg. Needing release. She makes a small desperate noise from her nose as we kiss.

"Sshhh, Seven," I soothe. "It's okay."

She lets me lead her then, allowing me to turn back on top and kiss down her body to where she needs my mouth most. She looks half frightened as well as desperate. I don't think she's been this aroused before.

For a second, I feel awful. I don't think I've ever taken someone's virginity.

It's a big responsibility.

I look up at her and smile. I want this woman, and she clearly wants me. Needs me. She has one hand cupped on the back on my head, urging me forward, raising her legs either side of my head.

"It's been a while ..." I warn her, my voice husky with desire.

I bury my face in her sex then, losing myself utterly, bewitched by the scent and taste of her, by the rising sound of her cries.

This is clearly a revelation to Seven of Nine. Never in all my sexual experiences have I seen someone so stunned by the pleasure they are feeling.

It's incredible to watch. I lick and tease her, playing with her sex with my lips, tongue, teeth and fingers. She is writhing all over the place and she doesn't seem to know what to do with her hands. One minute they are grabbing at the pillow by her head, the next they are twisted in my hair as I tongue her. Pulling hard.

She is sobbing with pleasure. Her cries rising as she nears her first climax.

When she does come, I am overwhelmed. I don't remember ever seeing anything so beautiful. She simply loses herself. For a moment, all that bearing, all that Borg nobility, all her haughtiness just drops away. Her face is as close to pure happiness as I think I have ever seen. It is almost ... perfection.

As she finishes, she pulls me up and against her, kissing me in wordless thanks.

I lie on top of her, her breast pressed beneath my breast, watching her as she was watching me, just as closely. Just as intently. I am discovering her, and seeing Seven, truly Seven, is the most wonderful thing. The light on her skin and in her loose long hair. The breath entering her and leaving her, just these things.

How simple, how amazing. What a wonderful creation she is. How could I never have noticed?

Oh, but I did notice. I can admit that now. As much as I tried never to look at Seven, I was looking. As much as I fought my love for her, I've loved her all this time.

I smile at her now, and I stroke the hair that's fallen across her forehead, wanting to show her how precious she is. How I don't think I'm going to be able to let her go.

Oh Seven, what have you done to me? I'm behaving like I'm free. Perhaps it's this place, this planet, perhaps it's because I haven't been the Captain for a day. But here I am, behaving like tomorrow there's no Voyager, that there's no home to lead my people back to.

Suddenly, this journey has no beauty without this woman at my side. I'm thinking beyond this afternoon now, beyond taking her out of the tent and making love to her in the warm waters of this bay.

Now I'm thinking of making love to her on the ship. In my quarters, in my Ready Room. Of taking her to Ensign Diamond's birthday party in two weeks, taking her as my date. Having the crew see us as a couple.

I should be thinking that is wrong. I should be worried about how I'm going to command her, or how others will judge my ability to command her. But I'm not.

I turn over on the sleeping bag, silent and smiling still at Seven. Eyes locked with her bright blue eyes, her watching me.

I think about the look I've been seeing on her face in meetings, the look I see when I catch her looking at me. That horrible empty longing. I can't see that look on Seven's face again, I can't, not now.

I want to love it when she's watching me, feel loved and cherished and wonderful. The way I do now as she's gazing down over me as I doze. The way she looked on the cliff top, almost a protector.

Seven. My Seven. I fall asleep in her arms knowing that she will watch over me always.

THE END


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