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It was nearly a week since Seven had asked her. Kathryn sat in her quarters, looking at that Borg-bedizened face. Blank and waiting. It had been so long since she’d done something like this.
‘A date,’ Seven had said, she was going on a date and she wanted Kathryn’s help getting ready.
‘Of course,’ she had replied, and then there was that momentary feeling, something sharp and sinking, which had surprised her. ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she’d added, a little too much like an afterthought. Although a part of her really had meant it. A part she chose to think of as the greater.
Kathryn began now by cleansing Seven’s face. A sponge wrung out in a little dish of warm water, pressed across her skin. Then face cream—it had a light scent of roses—one Kathryn favoured.
Up close Seven was so pale. Icy. Like something the sun had never touched. Kathryn supposed that wasn’t so far from the truth. It had been a long time for any of them, but for Seven Earth was but a distant lifetime ago. Perhaps it would be yet another, out here with only alien suns to steer by.
For all those things that kept her awake at night, thinking too much about that now was needless. Seven had come to her for guidance, and Kathryn wanted more than anything to be there for her. Even if it meant wrapping her own fears up tight. Personal ones included. The girl hadn’t many others who might do this for her. Hadn’t even a mother.
Kathryn studied her. At one time she’d thought she had recognised something of the woman there, Seven’s mother. She wondered now at the little things. The slight asymmetry of Seven’s nose. A faint honeyed freckle, just there, on her forehead. That uneven-pinkness where implants forced skin, their alien architecture. She let her fingers skate across the one near Seven’s cheek and caught her shiver. ‘It’s all right,’ Kathryn said. ‘I promise I’ll be gentle.’
She asked Seven to choose her lipstick—a glossy scarlet—which Kathryn applied first, always watching her face, her response, for any signs of ill-ease. As poised as a picture Seven sat beneath her hand. The perfect still life. Once painted, her mouth looked a bit like a plum, Kathryn thought, the bitten heart of it—red and fleshy and sweet.
With care, Kathryn brushed soft brown powders on Seven’s eyes. Open, her lids folded down against the lashes. Hooded eyes. She remembered her grandmother having those. Now, with age, Kathryn was getting them. An exuberant woman, her grandmother’d had a penchant for cobalt eyeliner—waxy-thick, applied prodigiously on special occasions. Kathryn sought to keep her own hand light. As she worked, she felt the heat of Seven’s breath beneath her palm.
Seven’s eyelids were a gentle dusk-brown, her lashes dark ringing heavy blue eyes. There was rouge and then face powder to go last. So far, they had stayed mostly quiet, and Kathryn sensed there was something Seven wanted to say, but mightn’t be sure how or when to begin. ‘How are you feeling?’ she prompted, ‘Excited?’
Seven was still so silent; she seemed deep in a universe all of her own. ‘I feel excited and… uncertain, simultaneously,’ she said finally. ‘I am not accustomed to such complex social situations. I was somewhat unsure how to prepare.’
‘That’s perfectly natural.’ Kathryn dusted the pale powder over Seven’s forehead, her nose, her chin and its shy dimple there. ‘I’ll look after you.’
‘I would like to look attractive… appealing. I wish for this date to be successful.’
Kathryn stopped. ‘Seven, all of you is attractive. This is meant to be fun. You need only be yourself—a well-worn adage for a reason. Believe me, if they don’t appreciate you for the wonderful individual you are that’s their loss.’
Seven looked at her, at first with interest, and then came the tender hint of a smile. ‘I will endeavour to follow your advice.’
Kathryn felt herself warm. Finished, she put away the last of the makeup and took to working on Seven’s hair. Light fingers loosened the pins from behind, so the weight of it could fall forth from its twist. Her hair too looked paler let down, finer and smooth with light. Kathryn thought of hay, of long golden summers playing on bales, coming out prickly with the sweet, earthly scent of it. The warmth.
She pulled back. Seven had turned around and was looking at her strangely. There was that prickling sense on her lips, her face. Her face, she realised, she had just had her face pressed to Seven’s head, the sweetness of those strands sticking to the soft, wet parts of her mouth.
Kathryn swallowed, rubbed at her lips. They still tingled. Her heart was beating hard. ‘You really do have pretty hair,’ she said. Having moved front-on, Kathryn’s hands teased through the ends, arranging them around the strong back and jaw. ‘Looks lovely just like that.’
Seven appeared pleased and Kathryn relaxed. If she was afraid of loving Seven a little too fiercely, this was not the time to worry.
‘Thank you, Captain.’
‘Anytime,’ Kathryn said. ‘You know I’ll always be here for you, whatever you need.’
Gradually, that thought seemed to settle softly around her. Being needed in a different way. It was nice. Easy. Sharing this with Seven. A welcome rest from always having to control the uncontrollable.
For the first time in a long time, Kathryn felt… peaceful.
‘How about I brush your hair out a bit,’ Kathryn said, not yet wanting to lose that contact, that connection. ‘Feels wonderful when someone else does it.’
Seven nodded. ‘Very well. You may proceed.’
Kathryn was sitting on the couch, almost in front of Seven. Hands clasping her upper arms, she shifted Seven on the cushions, so they were facing belly to back. She saw the hardness in those shoulders, her spine; it was clear too from the way Seven had spoken that she was still uneasy. That wasn’t what Kathryn wanted. She began to brush her hair, starting from the ends. Soft pressure. Moving up to her crown where she brushed more firmly. With each stroke, she felt Seven’s body begin to calm.
To their right beyond her viewport, the stars streaking past looked something like pale rain. If she imagined it, the two of them could’ve been together on Earth. A stormy night in Kathryn’s childhood home, brushing hair, playing at makeup, blushing over crushes. It reminded her of times she might’ve shared as a teenager, with a girlfriend, or her sister whom she missed now so dearly. Perhaps with a child of her own, in another life. She thought then of that child the Borg took.
The idea of this little girl with all these beautiful dreams. It made her heart ache.
‘You know, when I was a child,’ Kathryn began, ‘I had this grand idea that I wanted see a total solar eclipse from Earth. That fascination—I think that’s the first time I can remember being so completely awestruck by the universe, by how things worked. Not only the astrophysics, there was something magical about it, that improbability of chance…’
Seven gave a small sound of contentment. ‘You found the experience to be rewarding?’
‘I don’t know. I never did manage to see one. Couldn’t convince my mother.’
‘That is difficult to believe. Given your aptitude for… negotiation.’
‘I’m not sure if I should consider that a compliment or defamation of character.’
‘Merely an observation.’
Kathryn smiled. Seven’s dry wit reminded her of Tuvok. Not that a Vulcan would ever admit to something as charmingly sinful as a sense of humour. Though Seven soon might.
‘After a time, why did you not pursue it?’ Seven asked.
‘Oh, I can’t remember now. Maybe it was age, enthusiasms. My career. Sometimes life makes it so you simply… forget.’ Kathryn had brushed that hair so silky it surely gleamed. She moved to face Seven and took her hand, her human one. ‘Let’s see it,’ Kathryn said. ‘When we get home. You and me.’
Seven’s eyes were on their hands. She looked up. ‘Acceptable,’ she said softly.
Kathryn placed the hairbrush on her small table, before kneeling before Seven at the foot of the couch. Her joints gave a soft groan of protest, but she continued, guiding Seven so she was resting on the edge of the cushions. Stars sped against her shape. She was beautiful.
Neither spoke, there was only a comfortable silence.
This time, as she raised herself up and brought her hands through Seven’s hair, Kathryn didn’t attempt to hide her pleasure. She felt the warmth of Seven’s scalp beneath her fingertips like little sparks.
On the third pass, Seven inclined her head into the touch. ‘I had wished to try surfing,’ she said then.
‘Surfing?’ Kathryn’s tone was light, teasing.
‘Indeed. My parents’ logs indicated that I had attempted to persuade them over fifteen times, without success.’
‘I think I might have trouble getting up on the board. Or staying up.’ Kathryn flicked Seven’s hair playfully, before smoothing it out. Finally, she backed away, resisting the temptation to keep fussing with her, touching her. ‘Anything you want.’
‘I am unsure what to wear on this date.’
A slight smile let slip. That wasn’t exactly what Kathryn had meant, but she supposed the girl was only practical, if single-minded. She shouldn’t be so foolish as to allow herself to forget the real reason for Seven’s visit.
Kathryn got up and walked to the replicator, keying in a few commands before scanning the resulting options. A few she recognised, but she found some difficulty imagining Seven in anything other than one of her bodysuits. ‘What sort of thing were you after?’ Kathryn was eyeing a simple apricot two-piece which she thought might suit Seven’s complexion. ‘Something feminine or masculine? Elegant? Casual?’
‘I believe the idea should be seduction.’
At Seven’s words, there was that sinking sense again in the pit of Kathryn’s gut—like desire, or fear. She pushed it away.
‘I am content for you to decide,’ Seven continued.
‘All right. What if we—’ Whatever Kathryn had been about to say froze on her tongue the moment she turned around.
Seven of Nine. Naked.
No, near naked. The bra and panties Seven now wore were a pale, pale peach, almost as soft as her skin looked, her thighs looked, her breasts looked, soft as the hint of flushed nipples beneath, and the peak of blondish hairs between. Cut across her middle was the dark metal of the Borg, like an alien corset. Its threads spidered up her arm as silver lace and along the tops of her feet.
She looked a vision, a dream.
And Kathryn laughed.
Oh she didn’t mean to, she didn’t want to embarrass the girl, but there was a ridiculousness to it all; Seven was standing there, in Kathryn’s quarters, in nothing but weightless wisps of silk masquerading as underwear.
‘You’re supposed to save the nice lingerie for your date, you know,’ Kathryn said finally.
‘I am making you uncomfortable?’
‘No, I’m not uncomfortable. Just put your clothes back on while we do this, hmm.’
Seven stepped closer. She looked no less determined padding around with bare feet and a bra than she had in full Borg exo-plating. Beautiful, strong. A fighting look.
Kathryn knew that look.
‘In human culture,’ Seven began, ‘is it not common for women to dress and groom communally?’
Behind her eyes Kathryn felt a pang. She didn’t want a debate; her head was surely empty. ‘Listen to me. It’s not exactly appropriate… with this… in this circumstance.’
‘Perhaps,’ Seven said. ‘Yet I believe there is something you are deliberately attempting to conceal from me. You refuse to answer me directly, to elaborate in your responses. Why?’
Kathryn sighed. ‘Seven…’ The gentlest of warnings. ‘You’re mistaken. I’m only trying—’
‘You will not continue to lie to me.’ Seven moved suddenly close, and Kathryn made the effort to hold her gaze. She seemed a different girl from the one who, only moments past, had been so reserved, so unsure. There was nothing, nowhere to look but at her. No one but Seven. And then her whisper. ‘Please…’
‘Seven, I don’t… ohh.’ A dull pain shot along her back from the bulkhead. Seven was pressing still towards her, against her. Exciting her. Closer. She couldn’t fight, she couldn’t breathe. So close. So close that young heart beating now against her breast was like her own.
So close that burning belly behind her knuckles was her own, that breath across her lashes was her own, that fire in those eyes her own. So close that Kathryn’s very dreams and desires at once seemed made their own.
So natural then it was, so easy, as a tilt of the head for lips to meet.
God, the girl barely knew how to kiss. Careful, questing—a learner’s mouth. Kathryn wondered if she was Seven’s first. Wondered if she might teach her.
Metallic fingertips trailed her neck in tenderness. A hand winding molten in her hair. And at the curious parting of lips she couldn’t help but open her own.
Sense told Kathryn she should pull away now—should have pulled away before!—but, inside, Seven was so soft and silky and she smelt so good, there again that thick heat of her was pulling Kathryn higher and higher, drawing her out, Seven drawing against her, moving her with a touch of angels. Her head felt like a cloud. Like air, or a bird on the breath of wind.
When they eventually parted it was not by Kathryn’s hand.
‘Wait…’ Kathryn still felt floaty, besotted, but thought was so valiantly beginning to return to her. ‘No lies…? Tell me then, just who is it you’re trying to seduce?’
A faint smile broke behind smears of scarlet. ‘You, of course.’
And, oh, that was enough. Already, eager arms were entwining themselves around Seven’s neck, tearing her yet closer as Kathryn kissed her again. And again and again.
What could fear have ever mattered, she thought, in the face of a power like Seven.