Riker stood behind her, waiting patiently.
"Lovely area," he said tentatively. "You
come here often?"
"Yes." She sounded distracted. "From time
to time."
"It's pretty remote."
"That's deliberate."
They were at the edge of a forest. Riker glanced
up at the trees with their outstretched branches, like
fingers that wanted to drag him into the darkness of the
woods. "So now what? We hang from branches
some more?"
She turned to face him. "Take your clothes
off."
He stared at her. "I beg your pardon?"
"It's a therapy technique I learned in
class a couple of days ago. Take your
clothes off. All of them."
He grinned lopsidedly. "Okay. What's
the joke? One of your girlfriends hiding in the
woods here? I get naked, you guys grab my
clothes and run off. I have to make my way back
to town, show up at the door of the embassy, and
explain why I'm seriously out of uniform. Big
laugh on the human. Right?"
Deanna gave a loud sigh and reached back
around to the back of her tunic, undoing some
fastenings. Within seconds she stood naked in
front of Riker and tossed her outfit to him. It
landed in a small bundle at his feet.
"Take your clothes off."
Riker did so.
They stood nude in the moonlight, facing each
other, and then Deanna walked toward him.
Riker's body was trembling inwardly, but he
tried not to show it.
"Lie down." Her voice was firm, but
Riker wondered if she was just as nervous inside as
he was.
Now why in hell was he nervous? It certainly
wasn't as if she were his first.
Deanna saw him standing there, unmoving. "If
you want, and if you still think this is some sort of
prank, you can keep your hands on your uniform so
no "accomplice"' can grab it."
Slowly Riker lay down on the ground.
"On your side. Your back towards me."
Completely puzzled, Riker did as she
asked. He tucked his legs up slightly,
looking slightly fetal and feeling slightly
foolish.
He heard motion behind him and then Deanna was
lying next to him. She curled up against
him in the manner that humans still called spoons,
for the way that spoons fit together when stacked. She
slid one arm under him and brought the other over,
wrapping herself around him.
He felt her chin against his shoulder, and that
particular connection was easily the least incendiary
that occurred to him. The rest of her front was
pressed against his back, and his pulse and mind were
racing. She felt incredibly warm against him. Every
muscle was aching; he felt as if his entire
body had too much blood in it ... that it
didn't know where to go, and any moment he was going
to explode out every pore.
"Now," she said softly, "we're going
to talk."
His voice was strangled. "T-talk?"
"Yes. You see ... you still have to develop
mental discipline. You still have to learn control. You
have to be able to deal with me without thinking about me on a
physical level."
"And this is supposed to make me stop thinking
about you physically!" He wanted to flip over and
face her, to grab her, to turn her over and--
"That's right." She sounded inhumanly calm.
"We are going to chat about whatever you want and just
stay like this. You are going to become comfortable with the
notion of my sexuality and yours, and that way you'll
be able to move beyond it to more spiritual matters."
"I can--" But his voice had gone up an
octave. He cleared his throat, trying
to ignore the horses galloping through his brain, and
started over. "I can think of a far better way
to get comfortable with sexuality--and it'll be a lot
more fun than the way I'm feeling right now."
"How are you feeling right now?"
"My body hurts, and I want to bay at the
moons."
To his surprise, this actually prompted a
soft laugh. But then she said, "To give in to those
impulses, Will, only undercuts everything I've
to the desires of the mind."
Riker was ready to kill her. "Why in hell
are you doing this?" he grated. "Why are you making
me feel like I want to jump out of my skin? I
mean, obviously it has no effect on you, but
it's making me crazy!"
She said something so softly that he didn't hear
it at all. "What?"
"I said," she repeated, not without
effort, "that it is definitely having an effect
on me."
"It is? What ... um ... what sort?"
One of her hands moved across his chest, and she
said, sounding somewhat frustrated, "Well, now,
what do you think?"
Doing the best he could to control his voice and
keep the tremble out of it, he said, "Deanna
... if both of us are feeling this way ... then
maybe it would make sense if we ...?"
"w." For the first time she actually sounded
pleading. "Will, I can't. Don't you see? First
and foremost, two people have to connect on an
intellectual and spiritual level. If they make
love purely because of the physical attraction,
then it's just ... just a sex act. It would be a
mistake."
"Deanna ... how could giving in to what we
both want be a mistake?"
"I don't want to, W."
"But you said ...?"
"I don't want to give in to the impulses that
I'm feeling. How can you not understand? It would
undercut everything that I believe in. I don't
feel a connection to you on a spiritual level. I
don't feel comfortable with you. I can't just give
myself over, I ..."
"You're afraid of me." This time when he said
it, there was no challenge in his voice, no
mockery. This time he said it and there was ...
sympathy? Understanding? He wasn't sure what it
was, but all he knew was that he wanted to comfort
her. He wanted her to feel better.
He held her arms tightly against himself, and there
was nothing sexual about it. It was as if he were
trying to send some of his strength into her.
"A little," she said in a voice so small he
had to strain to hear it. "I feel a little afraid.
When you live by a certain philosophy, and then you
meet someone who disrupts that philosophy ..."
She paused a moment. "It goes back to what
we were talking about ... about love at first sight.
I can accept love at first sight. I can accept
lust at first sight. But the latter is something I
don't feel I want to be a part of."
"There's something to be said for just giving yourself over
to the pleasure of the moment."
"I'm sure you'd be the expe
rt on that, W."
They were silent for a long time after that. He still
felt the heat from her, and the slow in and out of
her breathing. But it wasn't affecting him quite the
same way.
"So ... so what do we do now?" he asked.
"We talk."
"About what?"
"About anything you want ... anything except
sex. The whole point of this is--"
"To rise above the impulses of our bodies.
Yeah, I know." He thought about it a moment.
"Okay. Okay, I've got something to talk
about."
"What?" She sounded almost eager.
He tried to ignore the musical way her
voice seemed to float, and the soft feel of her
breath against the back of his ear. "This stuff I was
reading about Betazed philosophy ... the one you
recommended to me."
"Yes?"
"I don't get it."
"What don't you get?"
"Well, for instance ... there was this example about
a woman being criticized unduly by her
supervisor. And she comes and tells me about it."
"Yes, I know the scenario. And let me
guess: you came up with ways to solve her
problem."
"Right."
"And the text informed you this was the wrong
approach."
"Right."
"And you don't know why."
"Right. So what can possibly be wrong about
and wailing about it."
"There's nothing wrong with it, if that's what she
wanted. But that's not what she wanted. The problem
is that you're insensitive to her desires."
"Insensitive?" Riker propped himself up on
his elbow. "How was I being insensitive? I
listened to her difficulties and tried to make her
life better for her."
"She wasn't asking you to do that."
"But if she--look, let's make up a name
for her ... "Jane"' ..."
"Catchy name," said Deanna dryly.
"If Jane came to me with her problem,
obviously she was coming for help in solving it.
That's a given."
"No, it's not."
"Yes it is," he insisted. "Look
... if a technician goes to the chief engineer
and says there's trouble with the warp core, the chief
engineer isn't going to say, "Oh, what a
shame, that's too bad, I know how difficult this
must be for you."' He's going to say, "We've
got to get that fixed!"' A busted engine, an
abusive boss ... it all boils down to the
same thing. Namely, a bad situation that needs
to be repaired."
"You're missing the point, W."
"No, I'm not missing the point." He
turned over to face her. Their bodies were now
pressed up against each other, flesh to flesh. And
incredibly, Riker wasn't paying attention.
"You're just being obstinate."
"And you're in command mode, w. The universe
isn't Starfleet. Emotions aren't regulated.
And Jane, as you call her, wasn't looking for
you to solve the problem."
"Then why in hell did she come to me!" demanded
Riker.
"She came to you because she was looking for emotional
support," said Deanna patiently. "She
knew she had a problem. She knew it had to be
solved; or perhaps she wasn't going to solve it but
simply live with it. Either way, though, she had
to deal with it in her own way because it was her
problem. What Jane was looking for from you was an
augmentation of her emotional strength. She needed you
to say that you were sympathetic to her difficulties and
were supportive of her. This is the philosophy
of RaBeem, which, simply translated, means
"I understand."' An even better way to handle it
is to tell her of a time when you faced a similar
situation--"
"And describe how I solved it?"
"And describe how it made you feel. So
she knows that whatever frustration and embarrassment she
might be encountering is not unique to her. When
you're unhappy or discouraged, it's very easy
to believe that you're the only person in the world who
has ever felt this way. Teenagers experience that
feeling most sharply, but adults do also. And what
Jane was simply looking for was a sense that she was
not alone."
"But ... but then how does the problem get
solved?"
"It gets solved by her, in whatever manner she
chooses. And she's also looking to you to say that
whatever she does, you will support her
because it's the action that she has decided to take."
"I'm still not sure I get it."
"Oh, you're starting to." Deanna smiled.
"You just haven't admitted it."
"What you're saying is that I'm faced with a
problem and I shouldn't make the slightest effort
to solve it."
"That's not such a bizarre notion for you to have to deal
with, w. Isn't that what the Prime
Directive is all about?"
"Not at all. We talked about that, it's
completely different."
"Only in scope, not in practice. Just because
the problem involves a close friend rather than a
civilization of strangers, it doesn't make the
theory any less valid."
He was about to reply but realized that he couldn't
think of anything to say. Smiling sympathetically,
she ran the back of her fingers across his face.
"I know it's difficult for you, w. Your
impulse is to take command. It's what you were
trained for. It's what you long to do. But command
isn't the be-all and end-all of life."
"It is to me. I hope that doesn't sound
egotistical, but ... it's all I want to do.
It's what I'm aiming for. I want to beat
Kirk's record."
She frowned politely. "Pardon?"
"Youngest starship commander in Starfleet history.
That's my goal. I want my own command ... and
I guess my mind-set sometimes shapes all of
that, and makes me ..."
"Want to command every situation? Every person you
meet?"
He saw the slightly mocking way she raised
her eyebrow. "Not exactly ... but maybe a
little," he admitted.
"Well, who knows? Someday you might find yourself
in a situation where you find that you enjoy following
someone more than you would commanding."
"Never happen. Every person I serve under is
just a means of learning more and more so I can have my own
command."
"You can't see yourself serving with someone simply
for the sheer joy of serving with them? Or with the others on
board the ship?"
"Never happen. No matter how much I liked
the ship or crew, if I was then offered my own
command, I'd be out of there in a heartbeat. Trust
me on this." Then he paused. "You
probably don't understand."
"You're wrong, w. I do understand. I may not
agree. But I understand. S,"
she said after a
moment's thought, "tell me what other things about
Betazoid philosophy puzzle you."
And they remained that way, naked, wrapped around
each other, talking. Just talking, until the
early-morning hours, when the first rays of the sun
stole across the treetops. They dressed, Riker
feeling extremely self-conscious, Troi
feeling ... he didn't know how she felt.
"Thank you for an ... interesting evening," he
said.
"I think we've made some progress."
"When can we get together again?"
"Why do you want to get together again?"
"I ... well ..." He smiled. "A lot
of reasons."
"In that case, I think we've made even more
progress than I thought," said Deanna
teasingly. "I'll be in touch with you, W." And she
turned and walked off.
When she snuck into the mansion, Lwaxana was
waiting for her.
Her mother was standing there, hands on hips, lips
thinned virtually to nonexistence. "Would you mind
telling me where you were?"
Deanna looked downward. "Yes, I would."
"Deanna, we've never kept things from each
other."
"Not quite, Mother. I've never kept anything from
you. I've never had much choice."
Lwaxana pointed to the stairs. "Go up to your
room, Little One. We'll speak of this later
... maybe."
"Mother, I'd rather--"
"I don't care!" Lwaxana's voice
was filled with more fury than Deanna had ever
heard, and it occurred to the young Betazoid that now
would probably not be the best time to discuss matters
in more detail ... particularly considering the
details.
Nevertheless, though, she felt she had to say
something.
"Mother," she said very quietly, "don't you
trust me?"
The muscles under Lwaxana's face worked for a
moment, flexing and unflexing. And then, softly,
she said, "Of course I trust you, Little
One."
"Well, then ...?"
"It's others that I don't trust. Deanna"
--she took her daughter's face in her hands--
"you have a purpose in life. A higher
purpose. And I distrust anyone and anything that
seems as if it will dissuade you from that purpose."
"But don't I owe an obligation to myself
to--"
"Your obligations," said Lwaxana sadly,
"are far greater than those to yourself. You have history
to protect. You have tradition to uphold. People who
died years, even centuries ago did so with a
sense of comfort. Even completion. Because they knew that
they were part of a larger tapestry; that they were part of