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Yeah, Gaila doesn't know how to work the private communications buttons. She doesn't really bother to try. She does relay her current coordinates though.
To Pavel: Here I am!
To Man Jim: I really really wanna see you. So when you get a chance, could you stop on by?
To Pavel: Here I am!
To Man Jim: I really really wanna see you. So when you get a chance, could you stop on by?
Gaila had no frame of reference for this. Jim had never said no to sex before. She had never imagined Jim saying no to sex before. It had never occurred to her that Jim would ever say no to sex before, or no to her--not about this.
Also, it was really hard to concentrate. It always worked; whenever she saw Jim--Man Jim or Jimbo--her cares and worries slid away. There were several reasons; sex was relaxing and made her feel better anyway, and Jim was really good at sex. But also, a lot of her troubles had to do with sex itself, with other people not understanding her attitude toward sex, not fitting in because no one understood this huge important part of her. But Jim understood, and sex with Jim wasn't just sex, it was that one perfect person who understood her, understood sex the way she did.
And now Gaila was facing some of the worst issues she'd had to face since her slavery--losing the Farragut, losing the position she'd worked so hard for there, losing the people she'd tried so hard to curtail her behavior there, losing the place she'd made. And on top of it all, her stupid pheromones, everything that was Orion about her getting in the way.
She couldn't think. "No" made no sense.
All she wanted was Jim.
But she tried. "You want to try different things you could do with them?" she asked Jim eagerly. "It's alright; we can totally experiment. And I think it's really hot you're thinking about them while we fuck." She wrapped her hand around his cock.
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He did not like that feeling. What was more, he was not used to it, and like Gaila, had little context for it. He was raised human, and on Earth, so obviously he understood the concept of monogamy. Had even practiced it when necessary, in many of his traditional romantic relationships.
But this seemed different, the parameters not so well-defined but therefore all the more difficult to abide by. Jim had no problem with Spock sleeping with Bones, or the other him, or the other Spock or Gaila or anyone. But he was Jim. He would naturally not have a problem with that, and he couldn't expect Spock to really accept that. It wasn't fair to him, to Bones, to the deep well of unconditional love he felt pulsing in him even now.
He needed to honor that. And one way he knew in which that was honored was not running off to have truly excellent sex with truly excellent people. Reluctantly he unwrapped Gaila's hand from his cock. He knew she didn't understand, but it was hard to explain it because, next to her, he was only slightly less blind.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I mean I can't. Have sex. With you. I don't think," he paused, frowning, "it would be fair. To them." His conviction had developed a life of its own, uncoupled with reasoning or even that very real sense of acceptance he should have been able to feel even now.
And as with Jim, days ago now, he was starting to feel very, very guilty about Gaila.
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Gaila was still before him on her knees. Her voice sounded from in her throat somewhere.
"I--Jim? I don't understand."
Her mind was a blank. She truly couldn't think of anything but shock.
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Fuck.
He sank to his knees in front of her, taking her hands in his. "Gaila, I..." This hadn't been what he'd expected. She had every right to be angry, to be upset, but this? His instinct was to hold her close and kiss her and make it better but he saw that would be counter-productive to his new conviction.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think. Spock and Bones... happened. We bonded. It's this Vulcan thing, we can feel each others' feelings, our thoughts, and I can't... I can't betray their trust, even if I don't understand it entirely, I... How can I make you understand?"
How could he, when he had trouble explaining that guilt himself?
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She stood up and looked down at him.
She still felt utterly blank inside.
"My pheromone suppressors stopped working," she said, in apparent non sequitur.
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"What?" he said, because she was angry, that he could tell from the jerking away, and maybe he should just go. "I don't..."
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Gaila was still looking at him blankly. Her voice was blank, but with odd pauses. She was having trouble finding the words.
"I usually have sex with lots of people. But now, if I want someone, I don't know if their consent is influenced. To me, it's natural, but to them it's unnatural. Freakish. Wrong. It's wrong in Federation cultures, and Starfleet, and everywhere I go. I've always been wrong."
Gaila usually didn't talk like this. Other people wouldn't understand. Jim would, but she didn't need to explain it to Jim, because she'd always felt wrong,
"Except when I'm with you."
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"Because that's not unnatural to me," he said quietly. Which was a nice way of saying "because you know I'll consent anyway."
Jim was much happier when he was on missions where the enemy was obvious, the solution not easy but definable. Freeing people, fixing his ship, rescuing Spock. In those situations, he didn't have to feel guilty about doing the right thing. Didn't have to feel like he was taking something away from someone else. It was like with Jim, when he'd turned and walked back down the hall, like the only person who could make James T. Kirk feel inadequate was James T. Kirk.
He knew it was "right," being considerate of this new, untested relationship with Spock and McCoy. But he felt that there could be no evil in enjoying Gaila. And he didn't know how to reconcile them.
"You're not wrong," he said. He was rejecting her, against his will. He could see that. "I don't think you're wrong. I want you, Gaila. I want this. But I can't. Spock needed me, and I went to him, and I can't regret saving him even if it means... I don't know how this works."
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Gaila was really angry, but her voice sounded really flat still. She could hear it; it didn't sound right. It was almost mechanical; it was weird because she didn't get mad a lot, but she did sometimes, and usually she yelled and screamed and threw things. But she didn't feel like doing that now. She didn't feel like anything.
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He rose, reaching out for an arm because it was what he did. "That doesn't make you wrong. It makes this wrong. For me. Right now. It makes me wrong for putting you in this position. That's not the same thing. I have a right to fuck whoever I want until that hurts someone else." But he was hurting Gaila, in some indefinable way that went beyond mere cock-teasing. "I'm sorry that I've hurt you in the process. It isn't you."
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Then Gaila's brain started working, but she wasn't thinking about Jim at all. She was thinking about the Farragut. Most of her friends were dead now, and the place she'd earned there was gone.
She just kept losing.
"You can go away now."
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"The principle is that it hurts other people. It's not--"
But she was telling him to get out. She wasn't going to listen, and he didn't have an argument, because it wasn't dirty or shameful but he wasn't going to do it anyway and what was the justification for that? He didn't want to hurt anyone, but he was hurting her or hurting them and he was clearly choosing them.
Better to go. To come back later, or find some way of helping her remotely. He did not want to leave things this way.
But it seemed, for now, he had no choice. This wasn't something he could fight.
Jim moved to the door, his feet feeling leaden and his heart going out to her. This wasn't, obviously, just about sex. And somehow or other sex had gotten very confusing lately.
"I'm sorry, Gaila," he said softly, and shut the door behind him.
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