Folie a Trois (2/15)

Kirk: Sensation




Seven days  into their five-year mission, the crew settled into a 

comfortable routine, rotating shifts and assignments, working with 

rote purpose, as there was no immediate crisis to deal with.  He was 

almost completely bored already.  Almost.  There was one facet of 

his routine that held his interest and she was currently sitting in his 

line of sight, listening. 

As her commanding officer, he could not make a move towards her, even though he desperately wanted to.  As captain, and fairly appealing—so he thought of himself—he could have, and did have any woman he wanted.  But it was always temporary and physical.  Years of wanting the one woman he could not have and practically pining away for her left a void those other women simply could not fill.  He didn’t try to fill it.  Only she could, and he had absolutely no idea how he could get her to do it.  Uhura was untouchable.  He had been trying to get with her ever since he laid eyes on her in Iowa.  She deflected his many advances with so much ease; it was as if he were nothing but an insignificant gnat flying around her face.  He tried many times and failed each time.  Other girls came and went, but Uhura was always there.  The only way he could get her attention was to annoy her and he did his best to do so.

It was a calm day on the bridge, so it was business as usual.  Spock sat at his station, ensconced in some boring science analysis.  Chekov and Sulu were flying the ship, quietly for a change (those two gossiped like high school girls).  Scotty reported that all was well in engineering, and McCoy, after a brief update, was maintaining Medical Bay.  Uhura sat at her console, listening for internal and subspace transmissions.  Only the important ones were relayed to the captain, and he acknowledged that her innate filter saved him a lot of grief.  Pike told him that it was imperative that his communications officer know the difference between what and what not to report.  A lot of what she heard wasn’t worth reporting and he was grateful she understood that.

Kirk, bored to death, as there was nothing to do but head to their destination (he didn’t remember right off where they were going; it was an inane stop), went up to her console. 

“Lieutenant Uhura?”

She turned, her bright eyes fixed directly on his.  “Yes sir?”

“Yes, captain,” he said.  There was a flash of irritation in her lovely eyes, but it was just a flash.  Score one for the Kirkster.

“Yes, Captain?” she said, her emphasis on ‘captain’ harsh.

“I take it you got all of your HR paperwork completed before we left space dock?”

“Of course, sir.  Captain,” she said.

He leaned down and put his arms on either side of her chair.  She blinked rapidly.  Kirk kept his voice low to keep the other personnel from hearing his next words.

“Don’t you owe me a thank you?”

“For what, sir?  Excuse me. Captain?”

“For rescuing you.”

“From what?”

“From what, Captain,” he said.  There was a playful light in his eyes.

“From what…Captain?”  She bristled.  He knew she wanted to slap him.  Score two for the Kirkster.

“You owe me for rescuing you from a lonely, boring job as a mere crew member in the bowels of this magnificent starship that I now command.”

“What?  Sir, I—”

He interrupted.  “Were it not for me, you would have never been on the bridge and Pike would not have promoted you so quickly.”  His voice lowered even more.  “And you can call me Captain.”

Uhura inhaled deeply.  She hated him with a passion, but refused to admit that he was right.  “Captain, I believe my skills as a xenolinguist would have set me apart from the other crew members and I would have earned that promotion on my own.”  She would have done so, had the opportunity taken place.

“Maybe,” he said, his eyes traveling over her face.  “But it would have taken years.  Your relationship with me…” he paused for effect, “…is the very reason why we’re sitting here having this conversation.  So, like I said, don’t you owe me a thank you?”  The playful glint in his eyes annoyed her to no end, as she was fully aware he was trying to get a rise out of her.  It was working.  She was ready to slap him.  Score three for the Kirkster.

“You can do it over dinner, you know,” he said, his tone light and sensual. 

Uhura wanted to scream at him.  She noticed that Spock was walking over and took care to lower her voice.

“Leave me alone, Skippy!” she hissed and turned back around to resume working.

He stepped back, startled, a different look in eyes.  Her barb met its mark.  Spock came over to brief him on something he discovered and he turned his attentions to his first officer.

The word ‘skippy’ was a slap in the face and he knew she intended it to be just that.  It was her way of insulting his position.  Any other person would have been relieved of duty, but it just made him horny for her.  As he listened to Spock’s brief, he thought up more ways to get her to hiss at him again.

*          *          *

He and McCoy were having lunch in the officers’ private dining room when she entered with her tray.  Uhura believed in multitasking, so Kirk was not surprised to see a PADD on her tray.  She sat on the other end of the table and began to eat while working on the PADD.  Kirk got up and went over to sit by her.  McCoy rolled his eyes and took a look at the chronometer, wondering how long it would take for Kirk to return with his fur ruffled or for Uhura to leave the dining room looking like a singed cat.

“So, Lieutenant…” he began, emphasizing her title.

She looked up at him.  “Sir?”

“I’m still waiting on that dinner invite.”

 “You will be waiting until hell freezes over, Captain.”  She turned her attention back to her PADD and lunch.

“Come on, you can’t say you don’t want to have dinner with me!  I can be quite the host and entertain you with tales of my misspent youth in Iowa—”

“I would rather have my eyelashes removed one by one with a pair of forceps.”

“Did you know I stole my stepfather’s antique Corvette and drove it off a cliff into a quarry?”

“Pity you weren’t inside of it when it went over the cliff.”

“Aw, and then I would have missed so many tender moments between us.”

“Those moments are equivalent to when a piece of gum sticks to my shoe.”

“Just say it.  You like me and secretly, you want me.  You know this playful banter is like foreplay for you.”

She glared at him.  “You are an utter and complete troll.  I would sooner engage in foreplay with a Ferengi before I do it with you.”

“If I get a Ferengi on board tonight, would tomorrow morning work for you?”

Uhura gasped.  “I hope that you die in your sleep tonight!”

“I’ll die a happy man with you beside me.”

She picked up her PADD, stood up and shoved past him.  She left the dining room in a huff.  Kirk stared after her.  McCoy checked the chronometer.  Sixty seconds.  Not bad. 

“You two really need to get a room,” he said when Kirk sat back down.

“I want to, but she’s playing hard to get.”

“Have you ever considered that she really does hate you?”

“No.  She doesn’t.”  He was sure of that. 

McCoy shook his head.  “If your objective is to get her to notice you beyond your assholery, you’re not going to meet it.  You need to grow up and show her what you can be like when you’re not being a dick.  She isn’t just another pretty face.  Your infantile charms won’t work on the lovely Lieutenant.  So man up, Jim.”

“Bones!  I didn’t know you cared!”

“I understand why she hates you,” McCoy retorted.

Kirk had an underlying sense that his back and forth with Uhura was more than just mere banter.  There was something there.  If she was not affected by him, then his barbs would bounce off her as easily as water off a duck’s back, and hers wouldn’t have the power to sting.  But she made him hot and he made her bristle, and he knew from experience that such heated reactions and exchanges were camouflage for deeper feelings.  Was Bones right in that he should man up and show her he was serious about wanting to be with her?  He was, but he was James T. Kirk, and he was rarely serious about anything other than his command of the Enterprise.

But maybe Bones did have a point.  If Uhura could see him as a man, as someone actually worth her time, then maybe something could happen.  He had never made it a secret that he liked her, and it wasn’t a surface attraction either.  Kirk had no problem sleeping with pretty girls, but they did not hold his interest past that.  Most of them were just that: pretty without a neuron to speak of.  But Uhura was different.  She was quick, witty, brainy, and for the most part, unflappable under pressure.  She could definitely go toe to toe with him in their spats.  And she was gorgeous.  She appealed to him in a different, deeper way.  But she could do with a little fun in her life.  The woman was just…so…serious.  He was the man for the job.

He considered banning PADDs from the officers’ dining room, just so she could have a respite and enjoy her meal.  But she would have taken it as a personal affront, so he didn’t do it.

Kirk spent the next few days thinking about McCoy’s suggestion whenever he could.  He managed to be reasonably pleasant to Uhura on the bridge, but he was still Kirk, and also managed to throw in a few darts just to see her eyes flash in irritation.  She was so hot when she was mad at him and he couldn’t resist it.

Three weeks into the mission, he began to notice something different about her.  She walked slower than she used to.  Her movements were more graceful.  She touched herself more, and not in a dirty way.  She would absently rub her thigh or caress her shoulder while sitting at her console.  Sometimes, she would tilt her head and run her fingers along the curve of her neck or her lips.  She would sit with her legs crossed and slowly swing her foot back and forth.  During a routine gamma shift, she actually detached her earpiece and laid it on her console.  Then she removed her hair from the elastic, shook it out and ran her fingers through it while closing her eyes and sighing softly.  Uhura stretched her neck and stroked one side for about three seconds, and then she put her hair back up and her earpiece back in.

Kirk remembered that night because every single man on the bridge turned to gawk at her.  Even Spock was watching.  The moment lasted for all of a minute, but it was a minute that became a superglue memory.  When he realized that these subtle changes coincided with the fact that she stopped getting annoyed by his constant barbs, his interest was piqued.  What happened?

And then, one late night when insomnia sent him stalking the deserted halls of the Federation flagship, he had his answer.  He went up on the observation deck.  It might have been two in the morning.  He saw that the front center of the obs deck was dimly lit and Uhura was there, dancing.  She wore white, a tank top and shorts—definitely not Starfleet-issued—and she moved to some music he could not hear.  She did not hear his approach and he quickly moved behind a partition so that she couldn’t see him. 

Kirk watched her dance, in a daze.  She was lithe, graceful, sensual, and sexy; her dark hair moved with her, cascading around her head as she danced.  Her hair was longer than Starfleet regulations permitted and yet he knew he would never ask her to cut it.  Instead, he fantasized about its softness and how it would feel in his hands and draped over his body.  He was hard within seconds.

She slid to the floor, lifted her legs in a slow bicycle curl, and then lowered them, coming up to sit in one fluid motion.  She leaned back, rested her weight on her hands and moved her neck in slow circles.  She was glorious.  Then Uhura lifted her legs again and he noticed the dark red of her toenails.  She pointed her toes, and then opened her legs in a wide ‘V’.  That was the absolute last thing Kirk needed to see, but he could not move from his post.  She lowered her legs, rolled to her stomach and came up on her knees, then moved to a standing position, allowing her hands to caress her stomach and her breasts.  She lifted her hands over her head and swung out her hip in a stretch.

Kirk swallowed, hot from the inside out.  He could not tear his eyes away from her.

She took a few more moments to stretch, and then stood quietly for a second, adjusting something on her ear.  Then she wiped her face, covered herself with her Starfleet sweats, put on some slippers and headed out of the observation deck.  So wrapped up in her actions was she that she did not see or sense him behind the partition.

He watched her walk away and he waited a moment before he moved in the opposite direction.  His heart said ‘follow’ but he knew that wasn’t the best of ideas.  She would know he had seen her, and he had the impression that this was a private thing that the size of her quarters wouldn’t allow.

When Kirk made it back to his quarters, he immediately headed for the shower and masturbated with the images of her in mind.  He lay in bed, feeling as if he had been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.  Watching her dance reminded him that he had actually seen her do it before. 

Kirk had entered the bar where Uhura had been with her friends.   It was intended to be a quick visit, just enough to get a couple of drinks.  But when he walked into the side entrance and noticed every eye in the bar trained in one direction, his followed, and he forgot all about getting drinks.  Uhura was on the dance floor alone, moving sensuously to some song he didn’t know.  Moving with complete abandon and disregard for her surroundings.  Moving in a way that he had never seen before and never thought he’d see from her.

‘What the hell?’ he thought.  He was mesmerized, rooted to the spot, only moving to stand in a position where he wasn’t visible to everyone in the room.  Not that anyone was looking at him.

The memory of that Friday night, coincided with his recent discovery, changed everything.  Now he understood the reasons for the subtle adjustments in her behavior and why she was no longer irritated by him.  Watching her dance stirred something deep within him, something that had been asleep all this time and awoke with a vengeance.

She danced every two to three nights, after her beta shift.  When he figured out the pattern, he watched her.  He couldn’t help it.  He was drawn to the observation deck whenever he knew she would be there.  He watched her and allowed his imagination to go to warp, wondering how she felt, how she tasted, how she smelled, what it would be like to experience her legs around his hips or his head, what her love sounded like.  He wanted to know what it took to make her scream, what he would have to do to make her climax.  There was nothing he wouldn’t try.  To have her lie next to him, skin to skin, kiss and hold him, and envelop him in her heat. To know what it meant to be the recipient of her smile, her touch, and her love.  He wanted to know her.  She made him weak.

And while he was able to have and achieve release with a multitude of women, he knew that if she beckoned, he would come.  He would be hers.  He was putty in her hands.

A man with swagger, a man with an indomitable spirit, a bold and brilliant genius, a playboy with no boundaries, a decorated and revered Starfleet officer—Captain James T. Kirk could not believe that, in a matter of weeks,  his communications officer had reduced him to this…