Valkyries are people too.
I don't think I handled that situation very well. If she'd been anything other than a Security officer, a tough as nails one at that, she probably would have been crying and cursing as I left her quarters. As it was, she was a cold smoldering fire with a stone face. The problem was, she came on strong when she "invited" me to dinner, and efforts I made to dodge it were repeatedly shot down. Despite attempting to say no easily a few dozen times, the only answer she accepted, to allow me to leave the mess and head back to my quarters for some much needed sleep, was a yes.
She made a fantastic dinner. Everything was fresh made, which I knew because I saw her pulling the last of it from her wok, on a gas burner, as she let me into her quarters. The focal point of dinner was something she called Tea Smoked Duck, and I have to say, she is an amazing cook. I did manage to tell her this before I got my foot stuck in my mouth trying to untangle the "date" misunderstanding.
It started off pretty well. I didn't dress up, though I did make efforts to actually match my clothes instead of just throwing on whatever when I changed out of my uniform at the end of my shift. She was dressed pretty nice, a dress made of apple green Chinese brocade in a flower pattern, piping along the edges, and the mandarin collar with the frog buttons.
She had the table set with chopsticks, and I was reluctant to admit that most of my experience with chopsticks had been Japanese style in sushi restaurants. The western style Chinese restaurants in New York had a tendency to offer Japanese style chopsticks, be it because that's what the customers expected or because they didn't know better themselves, so even though I had eaten my share of Chinese previously, I wasn't sure what to make of these longer and much more blunt tipped sticks she provided me with. It didn't take her long to figure out where my problems stemmed from, and she complemented my nimble engineer's fingers when her advice resulted in my better managing my food.
Small talk all through dinner was interesting. She commented on my budding friendship with her boss, we shared a laugh over the rumors that filtered around the ship about him, and she did interrogate me on Dizi's issue with him. From there, we actually talked about my reputation as a Casanova. Oddly enough, this wasn't where things got awkward. She did help me decide it was probably AJ spreading these rumors, who is also a sore spot, what with blasting my first name all over the BBS. Marla seemed amused that I had such a strong dislike for my first name, apparently she likes my name. What is it with women insisting on calling me by my first name, even when I insist they don't?
It was about this point in the conversation, when we were finishing up eating and she suggested we go sit on the couch and have a drink, that things started taking a turn for the worse. I still hadn't come up with a tactful way to explain that she was really nice, pretty even, but I just don't get involved with crew mates. The annoying part is, we had touched on the topic during our conversation over dinner, when we were talking about the most recent off-duty thread on the BBS.
I made the mistake of admitting that were we not crew mates, I probably would take her up on her offer. That didn't seem to help matters, only make her angry. I tried to explain, tried to make her understand, that I just didn't like things to get complicated, and relationships are already complicated enough. She demanded to know why I spend so much time around the ship's biggest floozy, her exact words to describe Diz, and it was my efforts to defend Diz, and her casual sex habits, that sent her over the edge into cold seething anger. I started to excuse myself just as she tensely told me to get out.
Well, if there's a silver lining to this whole mess, it's that maybe they'll finally put those Casanova rumors to rest when this gets around the ship... as I'm sure it will soon enough.