understand."
He waited. With her eyes wide, her lips
mere inches from his, she whispered, "Shut up and
kiss me, Riker."
He did.
Moments later, all the perfectly logical
reasons why this was wrong, inappropriate,
completely incorrect behavior for a Starfleet
officer ... all those blessed reasons flew
completely out of Riker's mind. Instead all there
was was her, was the moistness of the jungle combined with the
sweat of her. The rustling of trees mixed with the
rustling of clothes, and this time when their nude
bodies pressed against each other, there was no
intellectualizing, no deep discussions that
required anything beyond soft, whispered ^ws,
punctuated by faint, occasional gasps.
In that moment they knew all there was to know of each
other ... body and soul, flesh and spirit, all
combined and permeating every inch of both of them. Instead of
moving away from each other, instead of resisting the
pull, they gave in to it completely. They
complemented each other, became each other, filling
out each other's needs and rejoicing as pressures
built in them. Throughout the Jalara Jungle it
seemed that all noise had ceased. That there was
nothing in the jungle, nothing in the planet, nothing
in the universe except the two of them and their
discovery, their admission, of their mutual need and
hunger.
The pressure built beyond their ability to contain
and they released, clutching each other, as if hoping
they could meld their bodies into one as seamlessly as
they had with their souls. And somewhere, somewhere deep within
Riker's mind, merged with his spirit, a ^w echoed.
A ^w that he had never heard before. A ^w filled
with mystery and promise and a future ...
And the ^w was Imzadi.
They lay next to each other, Deanna's head
against his shoulder. She ran her fingers idly across
his chest hair.
"I hear that's for traction." It was the longest
sentence she had uttered in half an hour ... the
first sentence since their lovemaking. Their most
recent lovemaking, to be precise, although how many
times they had engaged in their mutual sexual
calisthenics was a bit of a mystery to both of them.
Things had blurred one into the other; had just finished
and begun again with hardly a ^w passing between them. It
was as if, having decided upon a course of action,
they were both afraid to speak after that for fear of
botching it up somehow.
They had not moved from the spot where it had all
first begun untold hours ago, and
Riker had a feeling that impressions had been
dug into the ground that would probably mystify
future geologists.
"You heard about that, did you?" he asked.
She nodded. "Chandra's father told her. She
told me."
"Oh. Well ... yes. Traction." Riker
paused, trying to find something to say.
She said it for him. "So where do we go from here?"
"To the rendezvous point. But I have a feeling
we're going to be pretty late."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know." He turned over, propping himself
up on his elbow, and ran his fingers through her hair.
He picked out a length of vine that had become
tangled up in it and was about to toss it aside. But
she took it from him.
"No. I want to keep that. As a souvenir."
"A piece of vine?" he asked
incredulously.
She shrugged.
"In answer to your question ... I don't know.
I know how you make me feel. I think I know
how I make you feel. But I ... I don't
have any answers. I'm still getting this all sorted
out. I mean ... you're the expert on feelings.
What do you think?"
She sighed. She felt slightly chilled,
even in the warm jungle air, and she drew her
naked body tightly against his. "I don't
know. That's ... that's what I find appealing about
you, w. When I'm with you ... I don't think."
He raised an amused eyebrow. "I'm not
sure how to take that."
"When I'm with you ... when I think about you ...
all my training, all my ... my
overintellectualizing, as you put it ... just
and I ... I finally decided I wanted to give
in to it. To fully experience it. How can I be
any sort of complete person if I'm not
willing to go where my ... where my spirit wants
to take me."
He brushed back a lock of her hair. "I
think you have a very beautiful spirit."
"Why thank you, Lieutenant. It's nice of
you to notice it. And so do you."
He paused. "This is going to sound so ... so
trite, but believe me when I say ... I've
never felt like this with anyone. More than just
the physical part ... which was great, don't get
me wrong," he added hurriedly. "But there was
..." He felt tongue-tied. "I really
don't have ^ws to express it."
"There are none. There don't have to be."
"There was ... when we were ..." He cleared his
throat. "There was a ^w. You thought it at me ...
at least, I presume it was you. I don't think
there was anyone else rattling around in there.
"Imzi"' or something?"
Now she propped herself up as well and faced
him fully.
"Imzadi," she said softly. When she said it,
there was a musical, loving tone to her voice such
as he had never heard.
"That's it. Imzadi. What does that mean?"
"Well ... it has several meanings. The
surface level is simply "bbloved"' or
"dear one."' But when used with certain people, under
certain circumstances ... well, you need to know the
further nuance to it to understand its full meaning."
"So what is its full meaning?"
She smiled shyly, which was a direct contrast
to the casualness of her nudity. "It means ... the
first."
"The ... the first?" He wasn't sure he had
heard correctly, or perhaps didn't want to.
"Yes. No matter what happens from here on
... we will always be true Imzadi. We will forever
be each other's "fst."'"
She looked up at him with those large, dark
eyes, and he felt like a total cretin.
"You mean ... you mean I'm the first man that you
... that you ever ..."
She nodded.
"Had sex with?" he managed to finish.
She nodded again.
"Oh, my God."
"You seem surprised," she said, looking quite
amused. "Is it so difficult to believe?"
"Well, I mean ..." He couldn't
remember when he'd felt quite this embarrassed.
"I mean, you're such an open society and all
... and you're so gorgeous ..."
"Thank you," she said demurely.
"That I'm ... I mea
n, it never occurred
to me that no man had ever ..."
"Bagged me?" she asked, her eyes twinkling
slightly.
He winced. "That's one term that's
occasionally used ... although not by me."
"Oh, of course not. Never by you."
"And ... um ... look. Deanna. I ...
I don't know if I said or did anything
to give you the impression otherwise, but ... but
you're not my first. I mean ... I've been with
other women."
"No, you haven't," she said serenely.
"Yes, I have. I mean, I was there. I think
I'd know."
"Oh, I understand. You mean you've had sex
before."
"Well ... well, yes. I thought that's what
we were talking about."
"You still don't understand, w. The physical
part, as pleasurable as it was ... and as exciting as
it was for me, I must admit ..." She
hesitated and suddenly looked vulnerable. "Did
I do all right?"
"Oh, yes! Yes. You did ... you did
great. I'd never have known if you hadn't told me
that ..." He gestured, trying to sum up his
conflicting feelings.
"All right, then. But you see ... the concept of
Imzadi goes beyond the physical. You've had
other women physically. I know that. And even though
I haven't had other men before you, that's almost
incidental. To be Imzadi is to go far deeper
than that. Don't you understand, W? Other women
may have had your body"--she smiled--?b I'm the
first who's ever touched your soul."
And he realized, with a dim astonishment, that she
was right. Sex for him had always been directed
toward the pleasurable aspects. Even when he had
thought he was in love, it had turned out to be
purely superficial ... an excuse to add
some additional excitement to the physical
gratification.
Was he in love now? Thoughts were tumbling around
far too fiercely for him to assimilate fully.
It was the kind of sensation that he had always wanted
to avoid. He liked knowing precisely what he
was doing at all times. He liked being in control.
But to be in love was to surrender some degree of that
control, and he had never been willing or able to do
that.
And now, here with Deanna Troi, he still
wasn't sure if he was able. But for the first time in
his life, he realized that he was genuinely
willing.
"Imzadi," he said, and smiled.
She returned the smile and nodded. "I
understand."
He sat up and saw that the sun was setting. It
hung low, streaks of pink and orange dancing like
liquid fingers across the Betazed sky.
"You know," he said slowly, "I've been
looking at stars in space for so long ... that I
completely forgot how utterly beautiful a star can
be when it's setting. And you know what else? Those
clouds right there"--he pointed--?the way they're
coming together ... they look like two dragons
battling."
"You see conflict in the sky. That's understandable.
When you launch yourself into space, then to a very large
degree, it's you against the vacuum."
"It's like the painting, isn't it."
"To some degree," she acknowledged. "When you
look at any sort of tableaux, be it hanging
on a wall or hanging in the sky ... you see in
it a reflection of your innermost wants and
desires. That is, if you look at it in the right
frame of mind."
"You want to watch the sunset and wax
philosophical?"
"By all means."
She drew her body next to his and they sat
there, staring up at the setting sun and seeing in it
all sorts of aspects of their souls that they had
never before examined.
Riker was thoroughly enraptured.
But after about thirty seconds, Deanna
turned to him and said, "Right, then. That's enough of that.
Come here, Imzadi." She pressed against him and
bore him tenderly to the ground.
The sun set the rest of the way without them.
CHAPTER 27
Riker stared at the paper, shaking his head.
What could he possibly have been thinking?
He started to shove it back into the supplies
belt when he heard Deanna's soft footfall
behind him. Her unexpectedly fast return from her
morning ablutions had caught him by surprise.
As a result he fumbled slightly, and the sheet
fluttered to the ground.
Deanna picked it up, staring at it in
surprise. "Paper. Now here's something you
don't see every day."
"Federation security men believe in being
prepared for any eventuality--even leaving a
message stuck to a tree. Give it here."
She looked at him, her head slightly
tilted. "Will, we've been traveling together through this
jungle for five days now ... covering distance that
we could have covered in three days, if we weren't
always ... interrupting ourselves."
At that he had to laugh. Deanna's
enthusiasm and positive lustiness for the newly
developed physical part of their relationship was
almost overwhelming. Apparently Deanna Troi
didn't do things in half measures. When she was
being cerebral, she was totally cerebral. But now
that her attention had been drawn to the pleasures
of the flesh, all of her enthusiasm was directed
toward exploring all the various possibilities
and extremes to which such pleasure seeking could be
taken.
"We have to watch out for those interruptions,"
Riker said dryly. Then he reached for the paper again
and she snatched it away.
"The point is," she continued, "that even if we
hadn't been drawn so close through our physical
activities ... and even if my empathic
feelings for you weren't so strong ... it would still be
obvious to me that you've written something on here that
you're embarrassed about."
"All right, I agree with that," said Riker
evenly. "And don't you think that's something that you should
respect?"
"You're right. I should." Grinning
mischievously, she unfolded the paper and started
to read it.
Riker moaned softly. "I really wish you
wouldn't. I wasn't going to show it to you until it
was finished. Hell, it'll probably never be
finished. I'm terrible at things like that. I never
even tried before. It's lousy. I--"
"Shhh!" She looked up at him with genuine
irritation on her face. Then she returned
to reading the paper, her lips moving silently to the
^ws.
Riker made no further attempt
to interrupt. Instead he made a great show of
nonchalantly checking his chronometer and
tricorder, and then no.ing in satisfaction. He
was, in fact, satisfied. They were late, that
much was true ... but within an hour they'd b
e at the
rendezvous point, and from there it was only
a short ride back to the city.
He worked up the nerve to look at her. She was
studying him frankly, her lustrous eyes seeming
to take in the whole of him. Just as she had taught
him--and just as he had perfected over the past
several days--he took in and let out a slow
breath, clearing his mind with facility.
This is beautiful, Imzadi, she told
him.
He smiled, inwardly and outwardly. Do you
really like it?
You'd know if I were lying.
She studied the paper and read out loud:
"I hold you close to me.
Feel the breath of you, and the wonder of you
And remember a time
Without you
But only as one would remember
A bleak and distant nightmare
And you shudder against me in your sleep
Do you share the memory with me of dark times past?
And you smile
Do you share the memory of times to come?
The future holds such promise
And just as I cannot imagine how I survived the
past
Without you
I cannot imagine a future
Without you."
"I don't know," Riker said, trying to keep
the pride of authorship out of his voice. "I
thought maybe it was a little syrupy."
"Oh, you thought no such thing," admonished
Deanna. "You thought it was a perfect statement of
how you felt. You were proud of it. In fact, you still
are."
He grinned. "I should have known better than
to try false modesty with an empath."
"Absolutely right. That will get you nothing
except embarrassment."
"Speaking of embarrassment, we better get
moving. We're already so late that that, in itself, is
pretty damned embarrassing. Sergeant
Tang's been in touch with me four times in the past
two days, just to make sure that I'm still alive."
"It's nice that he's so concerned about you." She
folded up the paper and tucked it in her bodice,
and Riker looked at her in surprise.
"Aren't you giving it back to me?"
"Please don't make me. I'd like to keep
it."
He sighed. "Only if you promise not to show
it to anyone."
"Deal."
Forcing themselves not to yield to temptation, they went
the rest of the way without any more impromptu
interruptions. They held each other's hand
tightly, their fingers intertwined, and it was only when
they were within sight of the encampment that they released their