Slip of the Mind

The Cruise Director sent me this little news item, knowing perfectly well what the result was likely to be. So blame it on her, please. :D

LONDON (Reuter) — Lovers who forget their partner’s name during sex can blame a genuine medical condition, an expert reported Tuesday.

The condition, known as transient global amnesia, can make people forget what they are doing during sex, said Russell Lane of the West London Neurosciences Center at Charing Cross Hospital.

“The wife of a 64-year-old man complained that on five separate occasions between March 1977 and October 1995, her husband had exhibited stereotyped attacks of amnesia after intercourse,” Lane wrote.

The amnesia lasted for 30 minutes to an hour, with the victim failing to remember intercourse and having “only a very hazy recollection of foreplay,” Lane said.

“The fact that a person can repeatedly experience selective amnesia for sexual intercourse, but otherwise function normally during the amnestic period, raises interesting social and medico-legal considerations,” he concluded.


Slip of the Mind
By L.R. Bowen
1997


“SNXXXzzzz,” said someone, very close to her ear. “Snxzzz-zz.” A peculiar sound, but familiar. Snoring? Must be. Thick and raspy, unmistakably masculine. And loud. “SSSNNNXXXXZZZ.”

Kathryn Janeway sat bolt upright in her bed and screamed at the top of her lungs. A man! Sleeping the good sleep, the sleep of the just, although he had somehow penetrated the security of her quarters and intruded himself under her covers, nestling his hot thighs against her naked—

“Whaddahell?” He jerked upright as well, a large indistinct shape in the dark. “Whassit? Huh?”

“Lights!” she shouted. “Security!” He bounded off the mattress and straight for her weapons locker. A desperate criminal, obviously—she rolled off on the other side and landed in a crouch. Her uniform lay on the floor and she snatched up her holstered phaser. “Hold it right there, mister!” She drew a bead on his tattooed forehead and prepared to—

scream again, but her voice had evaporated. “Cha—ko—taaay?”

“What the hell is wrong?” He looked sleepy and annoyed, his hair squashed and tousled. “You have a nightmare or something?” Suddenly Janeway registered his total nudity, and hers at the same moment. Her eyes grew enormously round and she snatched the sheet off the bed to cover herself. But he was bare as the moon and just as shameless. “Kathryn, wake up. You’re having a bad—“

“Don’t come any closer,” she hissed, for he had taken a step forward and turned to face her squarely. Goodness, he was a real brunette... “How did you get in here?”

“You asked me to.” He ran an abrupt hand through his hair and glared at her. “Come on, you didn’t have that much to drink. You couldn’t have blacked it out.”

“Blacked what out? What did I ask you to...um, what did we do?”

His face slackened. “You don’t remember?”

“No.” She felt her heart sink. She really didn’t remember...she’d been in the holodeck with a large party of crewmembers, celebrating a birthday. She’d consented to dance with her first officer after some cajoling from Neelix...and here she was. Nude. In her quarters in the middle of the night. With a warm tingling burn between her legs and a distinctly sticky feeling in various spots...not to mention the thick smell of sex meandering between their bodies. She put the phaser down and sat heavily on the bed.

“Kathryn...we made love. Uhh...I mean, I wasn’t sure that was what you wanted, but you kissed me and I could hardly think straight any more...a couple of people saw us, but I didn’t care.” His face had gone dark red. “We came here and I, uh, I told you I’d been dreaming about this for ever and I couldn’t believe you’d changed your mind and you said ‘Believe it,’ and the next thing I knew was...well, you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, shit,” said Chakotay.

She kicked him out of her quarters and put on a nightgown, in that order, then took it off again and had a shower. Her hair snarled in knots, fingerprints on her ankles, a monster hickey exactly equidistant between her breasts, and warm, swollen mucous membranes in most of the possible locations.

“Boy, I sure did something...” she muttered, reaching for the shampoo. But she couldn’t remember any of it. The party...and dancing...oh, and a vague sense of having drawn someone’s head down to hers...poof. Nothing after that until she had woken up with her first officer snoring in her bed.

“This is not fair,” she complained woozily to the mirror. “If I’ve sinned, I at least want to remember the sin.” At 0200 hours, the enormity of the offense seemed less important than getting back to sleep. The whole bedroom smelled of Chakotay, so she turned up the ventilation and got back under the covers. Straight into a huge, cold damp spot. She groaned and changed the sheets.

Janeway woke without a care, humming happily as she threw the covers back and padded to the bathroom. This seemed like a perfect day, although it had barely begun. Her body felt loose and relaxed, her mind clear even before she had had her coffee. Then she glanced in the mirror and saw the hickey on her chest.

Her hairbrush dropped from nerveless fingers and hit the floor. That incident in the middle of the night...the memory grinned lasciviously at her shocked conscience, but she still couldn’t recall what had led up to it. The awful truth! She had made love with Chakotay; an unmitigated disaster. Her credibility, her self-respect— Who had seen them together? She had to go on duty and tough it out.

Chakotay sulked around the bridge while Paris smirked over his shoulder...oh, fine, he must have been one of the witnesses. Janeway wasted some time wondering who else had seen her plant one on her first officer and drag him off. It wasn’t something she could inquire about, but Torres’s smile said volumes, as did the puzzled look she threw after hearing Chakotay’s snarl.

Tom and B’Elanna...well, odds were they had been the only ones, since they would have been together themselves. Perhaps she could relax. Except for Chakotay’s foul mood, there need be no lasting repercussions from this unfortunate incident.

If his mood hadn’t been quite so foul, that was. More and more officers began to tiptoe around him and whisper. Was there any element of guilty conscience in the way he avoided her? Janeway resolved to speak to him and managed to corner him after lunch, though he blanched when he saw her striding up to the turbolift he had just entered. When he tried to get out, she put a hand on his arm. Paris and Torres passed and winked at each other before the door closed.

“Commander...this needs discussion.”

“Don’t you mean ‘parameters’?” Bitter.

“No, I don’t mean that. It’s obvious you and I...got involved somehow. The problem is, I don’t know quite how or why, and since I don’t remember anything about it, I have to look upon the incident...suspiciously.”

“Right. I slipped a Mickey Finn into your drink in order to have my way with you.” He cast his gaze up to the ceiling and grimaced. “I knew this was going to be trouble. I’m sorry, Captain, but when a woman kisses me and tells me she wants me, I tend to take her at her word. And when she wants—“ He stopped abruptly.

“Wants what?”

“How can you tell me you don’t remember what we did? Do you feel that guilty about it?” Chakotay’s face twisted, and Janeway realized with shock that he was teary-eyed. Her reputation was not the only thing at stake here. Her heart wrenched, her stomach dropped, and the hickey on her chest began to throb in time with the pulse between her legs. She reached up to touch his cheek.

...God Almighty, he was strong. And heavy. Even with only one arm and leg thrown over her, she could barely wriggle out from his sleeping embrace. This must be Chakotay’s quarters, since the sheets were a different color from hers and the air had the faintest aura of sweetgrass smoke. And, oh Lord, it must have happened again. Janeway sat up naked on the edge of Chakotay’s bed and gritted her teeth. He woke and turned over. Smiled dreamily at her, his expression peerlessly happy and contented...until he saw her face.

“Fuck.” He buried his head in the pillow. “Hoh, phhugghhing hll.”

“How could you?” Janeway shrieked. “I thought you were a gentleman—“

He groaned thunderously into his pillow and pounded it with a fist, then reared up. “I am a gentleman. I don’t play games when I get morning regrets!”

“Look, I am not doing this on purpose!” They stared at each other for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m just upset...and a little disoriented.” She got up and looked for her uniform. “I don’t suppose it’s post-traumatic shock or something of the kind...” Red and black heap right next to the door. Apparently they hadn’t wasted any time.

“Thanks a hell of a lot. My lovemaking is such a horrifying experience you have to block it out of your mind.”

“It’s...Chakotay, I’m sorry, but it’s been no experience at all. I don’t remember any of it.”

“That’s worse than telling me I’m a terrible lay.” He sat up and pouted, head on hands.

“You’re not a terrible...lay.” He raised a brow. “At least, I don’t think you are.” She slipped her uniform on after disentangling it from his, noting her fresh skin marks and a mild burning sensation in her throat. “I don’t suppose you’d care to give me a rundown.”

Chakotay flopped back on the bed and pulled his pillow over his face again. “Szziightt.”

“I’d appreciate it, Commander.” His left eye blinked balefully at her when she raised the corner of the pillow.

“Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me?”

“For YOU? I’m the one who just had wild sex for...” she checked the chronometer—“for two and a half hours and can’t remember anything about it. How would you like your body to go off and do something like that while you weren’t in control?”

“Bull.”

“Excuse me?”

“You were not out of control. Not last night, and not now. You were fully conscious and fully functional.” Chakotay threw the covers off and pointed at a pink mark on the inside of his right thigh. “As my grand-dad might have said, you could take the chrome off a trailer hitch.”

Janeway put a hand to her throat, suddenly recognizing the taste, and went to get a drink of water from his sink.

“Aw, hell. I did my best to be memorable this time. Not that I didn’t try to do that last night, too. And I really thought it had worked...”

“Just tell me one thing,” said Janeway from the bathroom door, peering at his hunched back.

“Yeah?”

“Did I put all those scratches on you?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t remember ever using her nails on a man...about three times, from the look of him. “I’m going to Sickbay. Perhaps the doctor can get to the bottom of this. I certainly don’t want it happening again.”

“The memory loss, or the sex?” She forbore to answer.

“How curious,” said the doctor. “I recall a few instances in the medical literature... something to do with changed blood flow to the brain associated with orgasm. A temporary amnesia. But I can’t detect anything wrong at the moment.”

“There has to be something wrong. I’ve apparently seduced Commander Chakotay twice. That’s not characteristic of me, to put it mildly. Forgetting about it afterwards is almost less alarming.”

“Sexual desire is not usually considered a medical disorder.” She glared at him, and he added, “Exaggerated sexual desire may be a symptom of hormonal imbalance or psychological disturbance. But there’s no sign of that—you’re perfectly healthy.”

“Do some more tests. I’ve got some terrible disease at the very least. Maybe I’ve been possessed by aliens.”

“To what purpose?”

“...I don’t know,” she said in irritation after failing to think of a reason. “Please, Doctor, I feel like I’m going insane.”

“I’ve done everything I could think of short of dissecting you.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “If I were able to scan you during an amnesiac episode, I might be more able to determine the root cause.”

“But that would mean you would have to scan me...during, ahem...”

“While you are engaging in sexual intercourse, yes. Assuming that the amnesia will return.”

Janeway slipped off the diagnostic bed and paced nervously. “It’s never happened before. I’ve never forgotten my sexual encounters.” Actually, the details were fuzzy...Justin hadn’t taken all that much time and care, and Mark generally inspired her to count ceiling tiles.

Frankly, she didn’t really like sex, since she never got much satisfaction out of it, even with herself. What was different now? The Delta Quadrant? Unusual nebulae? Neelix’s cooking? She shuddered at the idea of mobilizing the ship’s scientific resources towards such a problem. The fewer people who knew, the better. So far, that was only herself, Chakotay, and the doctor. Paris and Torres had probably figured out the sex part, but they couldn’t know about her amnesia.

“It would seem that we must enlist Commander Chakotay’s help. Shall I call him?”

“No! Uh, that is...I think I had better speak to him in person.”

**

“Hell, no. I’m surprised you’d even ask, Captain.”

“Chakotay, it may be the only way to discover what the problem is. If we record while I’m wired up with monitors—“

“This is beyond disgusting. I’m supposed to act as stud horse while you’re keeping one eye on the readout and the doctor referees? Uh-uh. I feel pretty flaccid even thinking about it.”

“But if this memory loss ever occurs at a crucial point...such as during a battle—“

“Seems to me the circumstances are awfully specific.” He made a face at her. “You get near me and your brain function goes down the waste chute. I always wanted to drive you crazy, but this is not quite what I had in mind.”

“It’s...medically necessary.”

“Oh, I guess that makes it all right to sleep with...someone who’s no gentleman.”

“Oh, Chakotay, I’m so sorry. You must be feeling awful about it. But this could be very important.” She put out a hand and touched his shoulder. “It’s important to me, and not only because I’m having these memory lapses. I want to know what’s passed between us emotionally...”

He let out an ironic chuckle. “I’d like to know the answer to that one too.”

**

...”Well?”

Janeway reached up and adjusted one of her cortical monitors, which was beginning to slip. “What time is it?”

“Twenty-eight minutes past the hour,” said the doctor’s voice over the comlink from Sickbay. “What was your last marker?”

“Two minutes before. So I’ve lost half an hour.”

Chakotay sighed and rolled off her. “Fine. Great. Mind if I go wash now?”

“Certainly, Commander. I’m feeding the results into the diagnostic system. What do you remember, Captain?”

“Getting wired up. Starting the recording for a benchmark. Telling Chakotay I was ready. He looked sad, and I was going to say something to make him feel better. Then I was in the bed and it was all over. Nothing in between.”

“Well, I’d beg to differ on that. I have forty minutes of recordings and both of you were...eminently active. You seemed perfectly lucid—there’s no obvious break point between the part you recall and the part you don’t. I have to admit I’m stumped, but there’s plenty of analysis to do. I’ll inform you when I have some results.”

Janeway broke the link and tapped tentatively on the bathroom door, the mild hiss of a sonic shower vibrating behind it. “Chakotay...are you all right?”

“Just fine, thanks.” Lilting sarcasm.

“I’m sorry. But I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Did I mean what?”

“What you don’t remember saying.”

“How can I answer that?”

“Go and listen to the doctor’s porno tape. Then talk to me.” The hiss grew a few notches louder.

**

The tape covered all recordable aspects. Audio, visual, infrared, ultraviolet to X-ray, every vital sign she had. But she turned off everything but the sound and sat with head in hand.

“Oohhh...God...right there, oh God. Aahh!”

“Uugghhh...”

“How do you know me so well...yes, that’s perfect. So hard...”

“I’ve had some...umph...practice by now...umph.”

“No, it’s more...umph...than that...umph. Aggh!”

“Kathryn...I love you....I don’t suppose you’re going to remember that...but I love you.”

“Oh, Chakotay...I—I love you, too. I have for so long...”

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Ohhh...”

“You told me that the first night. And then again the next afternoon...I thought I’d gone to paradise. But you’ve forgotten every time. How can I believe you?”

“Believe it...ooaagghh! Ah, ah, ahhh, OOOHHH!” Sounds of deep breathing. “You send me to paradise...I love you...”

She thought she heard him crying.

**

Good heavens, this was depressing. And frightening—she had no idea what she might have done and then forgotten. Chakotay wasn’t in his quarters when she came back, and she found him on the bridge changing the duty roster so that he would work double shifts for a week. Tuvok watched both of them like an attack dog on a short chain.

Janeway retired to her ready room, hoping Chakotay would come in for a conference, but he stayed stubbornly planted in his seat. Finally he left for a meal and she could concentrate on work, but Tom kept looking speculatively at her. Torres came in and whispered something to him, and he turned back to his console and avoided her eyes for the rest of the shift. She got very little sleep that night.

The two of them cornered her at breakfast with stern faces.

“Captain, we have to talk to you.”

She tried her smooth cold captain expression, but they glanced at each other and folded their arms. “We’re serious, Captain. We’re not the only ones who’ve noticed, and...”

Torres broke in. “I had a hoverball date with him last night. I held his feet to the fire until he told me.”

“Whatdid he tell you?”

“That you never remember what goes on between the two of you. It’s breaking his heart...”

“I know...”

“We had an idea,” said Paris. “Something that might help.”

“A medical solution?”

They looked at each other again. “Not exactly,” said Torres.

...Ouch, her back hurt. And her knees. Slightly raw, as if they had scraped on carpet. A sharp tingle down the insides of her thighs. But she lay alone and in her own bed, and it was morning. Still morning? Janeway rolled over and checked the chronometer. Morning of the next day, to be precise. Where had the last twenty-two hours gone? And with whom? She showered and dressed and headed out to the dining hall with trepidation. Tuvok greeted her with a nod.

“Did you have a pleasant evening, Captain?”

“I...I don’t know. Tuvok, what did I do—“

“Good moooorning, Captain!” came a hail from another table. There sat Paris, Torres, and Chakotay, all beaming and chipper, with large breakfast plates and steaming mugs. Her stomach flopped over as they turned to look at her with glorious smiles. Tom sported a purplish mark on his neck, just peeping above the collar. Torres looked dewy and licked her lips with obvious sensuality.

Chakotay’s face burned with adoration. He started to get up and come towards her, but his steps slowed and halted as Janeway stared in horror.

“NO, damn it all to hell!” he said. She fled to Sickbay.

“The whole day. The entire day gone.”

“It was in the evening, about 1830 hours,” said Chakotay to the doctor. “We all went to the holodeck together. Tom had made a program for ‘a dream double-date’, as he put it. Dinner, a boat ride and a secluded island with, um, a lot of soft grass in the glades. We all settled down in one area and, ah, double-dated. Until about 2300. She remembered everything afterwards, and then she told us good night and said she needed a rest...”

“I don’t doubt it,” said the doctor.

“They watched us?” Janeway whispered.

“Their idea. They hadn’t consulted me...it was an experiment, to see if having someone else physically present would break the pattern and restore your memory. And to see if they were affected the way you were—if the problem was something to do with me personally.”

“No one consulted me either,” the doctor huffed. “Deliberately toying with the captain’s brain functions...”

“That’s not all that got toyed with,” said Janeway in a deadly tone. “Commander, I require an explanation. And a full report.”

He looked helpless. “No one forced you into anything. They laid out their idea; you were skeptical. They talked to me later, and I agreed...I was desperate. We all sat down together and worked out what we would do to convince you, and I came to you again. We discussed it for almost an hour, and then you consented to try. You explained everything to Tuvok and he took your shift. Tom said he was going to go for a pleasure-center overload.”

“And I lost my memory of the entire day. Some overload.”

Chakotay actually smiled. “Yes. I could barely walk back to my quarters, and Tom said he’d never seen B’Elanna quite so...ahem.”

“But they didn’t...they didn’t, with us...?”

“What?” He looked puzzled, then smiled again. “Oh. No, nothing like that. Did you really think you might have?”

“I can’t tell any more. That’s the oddest thing about this whole situation. I’ve become so...so...”

“Loving?” His face was a mask. Janeway gulped hard.

“Free of inhibition. As if all the restrictions I’ve placed on myself had vanished, but only during the periods I can’t recall later. I don’t even remember forming the intention to have sex.”

“You asked me to set up the observation experiment,” the doctor pointed out.

“Yes, but I was thinking of it as medical. The moment it started to turn emotional, I blacked out.”

“You seem completely normal when this happens,” said Chakotay softly. “I’ve never noticed anything wrong—you don’t glaze over or seem disconnected. Tom and B’Elanna didn’t see anything wrong either. You seemed happy, and playful—I hadn’t expected that of you in a group situation, but you seemed to enjoy yourself. We had no clue that you weren’t really with us, and believe me, I was checking.”

Had she really not been with them? Or with him? Who had told him with such passion, in the act itself, that she loved him and always had? An alien presence in her body, some creeping malevolence bent on destroying her sanity? But how could such a creature be so convincingly herself?

“I’m going to monitor you continuously,” said the doctor, applying a disc to the base of her skull. “The only lead I have is a minor increase in brain- pattern complexity during the blackout period on the recording. That might be due to anything—such as the intense activity you were engaging in at the time. This is a perplexing case—I’ve studied the tape over and over. If I had a human mind instead of storage chips, I’d say I could recite it from memory.”

Both of them looked at him. “Not that I would, of course.” He almost seemed to blush. “It’s rather...moving.” He retreated to his office.

Alone with each other again. Chakotay glanced around with a whiff of fear, backing towards the door. “I’ll go to the bridge, Captain. Are you taking yourself off duty?”

“I suppose I had better do that until I know that I won’t be a danger to the ship. Please send me a report on yesterday’s events—the on-duty events.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll see to it.”

“No, he won’t forget,” said Janeway to herself. His memory at least was a long one.

This had gotten entirely out of hand. Having gone to bed with Chakotay was bad enough, but presiding over a—near-orgy? What next, the entire hoverball team? At least Tom and B’Elanna wouldn’t be too hurt. They didn’t have the same feelings that Chakotay had. How could she be using him like this? If her long chastity had driven her off the deep end—she found that implausible; sex had never been that important to her—then why hadn’t she had the grace to go off the cliff by herself?

The doctor might try to define this as a purely medical condition, but she doubted that. If no one noticed anything wrong with her besides the loss of inhibition, this couldn’t be insanity. She must be in possession of all her faculties while she indulged in forbidden pleasures.

Janeway writhed at the implications of that. She was freely choosing to do what she had done while she was doing it. And then something was snapping shut again and blocking her conscious mind’s recognition of what she had done and thought and felt.

Physical ecstasy, sureness of emotion, utter happiness. These things were strange to her...honestly, they frightened her. They would not stand up to rigorous analysis; they flared and faded without warning or intention, but they could tear a life apart. Would Chakotay ever forgive her for breaking the promises she had freely made? It seemed too late even to tell him how sorry she was.

“I have been a fool,” said the doctor with a heavy sigh. “Take a good look—you won’t often see this expression of utter chagrin on my face.”

“There, there.”

“I should have realized. The logic is impeccable.” He gestured at a screen full of readouts. “You are perfectly lucid throughout this incident. There is no indication of anything wrong, even to someone who knows you well. Then you forget every moment of sexual thought and activity. Then you forget. The effect takes place afterwards, not before. I’ve got to start my analysis over again from scratch.”

Janeway rolled her eyes slightly. “That covers only the amnesia. What I have to know is why I’m doing these things in the first place. Why would I be so...wanton?”

“I have a theory...” said the doctor. “But I don’t know if you are going to like it.”

“I don’t have a lot of choice about whether to like it. Go ahead.”

“Captain...were your previous sexual encounters—ah, were you fully engaged and satisfied with them?”

“Ah...well, I loved my fiance. And Mark.”

“That isn’t what I asked.” Again he almost seemed to blush. “It’s the intensity of the experience I am attempting to gauge.”

“The intensity?”

“I studied all the physiological indicators on the tape. Then I studied the visual recording. Then I listened to the audio, though I had left that off as...a privacy measure. Please forgive me, Captain.”

“It’s your duty to investigate.”

“Thank you. Although I have no basis for comparison...I cannot escape the conclusion that this relationship, such as it is, is highly pleasurable and emotionally satisfying for you. Perhaps in a way you have not encountered before.”

“I really don’t know,” Janeway murmured.

“At any rate, this may have something to do with your amnesia. The intensity of your response may be to blame for the memory lapse. And the repetitious nature of the problem...”

“Yes?”

He seemed reluctant to speak. “It would seem, or might seem, to the theorist...that you have made a decision. About your relationship with Commander Chakotay. You have carried out that decision on several occasions, and have then forgotten about it.”

“You mean...conveniently forgotten about it.” She felt her face heat.

“Possibly. But consider this. You have avoided any sexual contact on principle for your entire tenure as captain in the Delta Quadrant. Then it seems that you simply changed your mind. You invited Commander Chakotay to your quarters and told him...”

“That I loved him. That I wanted him to make love to me. And he did.”

“This experience was so intense that it may have triggered a latent brain condition. It has lain undiscovered all of your life, and it only affects you in your most profound moments of pleasure. The pleasure itself is erased, and some of the time leading up to it. This is only a theory, but...”

His voice faded into the thunder in her ears. Bloody hell and damnation. So that was it.

Her entire life. A litany of frustration, fear, anguish, regret and pain, with so few joys...and this was why. It had robbed her of all her best memories.

She retired to the holodeck and played with her favorite gothic romance, but it had lost its savor a long time ago. So many of the things she had liked as a young woman seemed trivial now. So much of her life meant little to her...her petty childish frustrations, her self-torture, her resistance to every person who had ever challenged her view of herself and her ordained path. Her love affairs almost uniformly disastrous, whether she had recognized them as such or not. So few of her first impressions ever panned out.

She sat in one of the upholstered chairs her holonovel’s decor strewed about the room, and pondered in front of the dim fire. “What is love, anyway?” she asked. “Just another way to forget myself?”

A tiny movement in the heart of the coals, and a shape took form. Small and blackish red, creeping to the hearth. She recognized it at once, though she hadn’t seen it for a long time. Not since soon after she’d met Chakotay. The first time they had really connected...and he had shown her something personal and delicate, something she had not really understood, wrapped in a piece of animal hide. His medicine bundle, his private core.

But she had been able to use that bit of his self to reach into her own psyche and set a tiny consciousness free. It didn’t speak, then or now. It shimmered in the dark for a moment and faded slowly, wriggling as if confined, then cracked open down the back, bucked and writhed, widening a glimpse of bright yellow-white, almost too intense to look at.

Struggling—she longed to help it, but knew the process had to come naturally. She watched in fascination, deep in the fire’s trance. The tiny shape collapsed in exhaustion, minuscule silent pants, the molting halted for the moment, the narrow crack closing except for a thread of fire that shimmered in time with the movements of breath.

The little thing rallied and heaved with all its strength, breaking the shell apart to a blaze of light, then struggled out of the remnants and crawled back into the warmth that had given it birth.

The salamander, which could live in fire and never be consumed. It had left a shriveled wisp of skin behind, shaped like itself but dark and empty. Janeway knelt to pick it up, but it powdered away and vanished between her curious fingers.

“Thank you,” she said aloud, and turned off the program. She felt a burgeoning warmth emerging from hiding. It tickled around the back of her mind and made her want to laugh. It was too serious for laughter, wasn’t it? No, it was too serious not for laughter.

Chakotay moved slowly into the ready room with her, his steps wary. She didn’t blame him. When a woman had been so careful for so long, then had seemed to cast all restrictions aside, a man didn’t have a lot of defenses. He wasn’t thick-shelled himself, though certainly as capable of self-delusion as she was. A man might pray and meditate all his life and never get a glimpse of a woman’s real nature. A few brief flashes, if he was lucky. Even if she meant to deal honestly with him, her own complexity wouldn’t allow her to show more than a few aspects of herself at a time and those would constantly change. The more she contradicted herself, the truer she remained. Poor man.

“I think,” she said carefully, “that I’m beginning to remember.”

“Remember?”

“Do you realize, each time that it happened, I fell in love with you?” He hunched in his seat and passed a hand over his face. “I fell in love with you over and over. I forgot that I had and I did it again. Something’s struggling for expression...and it’s not something that’s wrong with me. There’s no illness to find and cure. I’m not going insane. One might say...I am going sane.” He looked up at her with a bright, tense awe or fear in his eyes. “I don’t know if you will let me prove that to you.”

“...You’ll forget me.”

“I remember...you kissed me back.” She closed her eyes and let the coalescing images emerge from her mind. “You kissed me like you’d never kissed a woman before, and then like you’d never kiss one again. You said, ‘Sorry, Captain. I forgot myself.’ I said, ‘You remember my name.’ You said ‘Kathryn,’ and you kissed me again.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, his face working between delight and tears. “Can you forgive me?”

“Do you think I have a choice?” he said, and smiled.

The clothes came off slowly this time, with the leisurely ease of long-time lovers, or the shyness of virgins. They sat on the sofa in her quarters and tugged each other’s boots off, then unfastened things one by one. He opened the front of her uniform and slid his hand inside, cupping her breasts through her shirt and dropping kisses along her throat, whispering something she couldn’t hear. He kissed every centimeter of flesh along her torso while she worked her shirt away and over her head.

How softly his lips traveled, and how tenderly he tasted her skin. She seemed to feel him everywhere at once, the memories caressing her like living things. His hands wrapped around her waist and he kissed her stomach, but his mouth moved on her lips as well, his hands on her breasts, the discovery of her body’s warmth trembling through them both. He knew her, but she was new.

She raised him up with some idea of leading him to her bed, and pressed against him, fitting the curves and slopes of bone and flesh together. Both of them stood naked, she curving back in his embrace and kissing him, plunging her tongue into the familiar sweetness of his mouth. She knew what he loved to receive from her, but her body tensed with the unbearable high notes of revelation. As if the first time could be as perfectly tuned as the thousandth.

His hands smoothed her sides and flanks, cupped her buttocks. Against her stomach, she felt his sex press in gradual hardening surges. The memory clearing, but dark, as if she had been too shy to turn on the lights.

She pushed him back and looked down. He laughed silently but gratefully and pushed his hips forward to draw the head of his stiff penis across the soft skin of her belly. It nudged into her navel, and they both laughed. Curling her hand around his shaft, she began to work the loose skin back and forth, alternately watching his dreamy face and the slow ooze of droplets from the tip of his penis. The salty taste of them recalled itself in her mouth. Her memories seemed embedded in her nerves and flesh, bypassing her mind entirely.

Chakotay dropped his face to her shoulder and kissed the side of her neck, circling his hands on her hips while she caressed him. His penis felt wonderful, even only in her hands—thick enough to fill her palm, hard but giving, twitching when she pressed at the base and stroked his balls.

Such a vulnerable thing, a man and his love, no matter how sturdy they might seem. Reject the offering too many times, and it would shrivel and vanish. His strength depended on hers, his courage on hers, and she could not disappoint him again. Her pelvis felt full and empty at the same time, swelling with warmth and blood and waiting to welcome him.

He slid one hand between her legs and cupped her vulva. He knew just where to press and circle, just how to tilt her hips and open her, test her moisture and encourage it out with his fingers.

Janeway moved and gasped, her eyes closing. Hands seemed to caress her all over, his lips seemed to find every sensitive spot, nibbling her lips and her nipples, tasting her navel and the aching knot between her legs. Chakotay’s fingers slipped deep and stroked back and forth while she echoed his rhythm with her own hands on his sex. Her every movement set off new radiations of stored feeling, new recollections that blended with the present...his body taking hers, plunging deep and hard, pinning her hands so she could pull against him, pretending to escape when all she wanted was here.

His tongue darting in soft torment while he held her ankles wide apart, his head nestled between her thighs... He had loved her so well. She couldn’t wait to feel him inside her; she was in no hurry to stop what they were doing.

Their moans harmonized together, their mouths met and they kissed deeply. She shook with hunger, darting her hips back and forth, and felt the urgency descend through her body. Down through mouth and throat and breasts, swirling in her stomach and groin, round and round. His fingers moved gently, urging and persisting, speeding up with light strokes and slowing with firm circles around her clitoris. So wet, the friction was gone. She seized his wrist and tried to help him build the tension. The brink...so close...but she couldn’t take the leap.

“Not yet,” she whispered against his mouth. “I want all of you.”

He bent and lifted one of her knees, settled her back against the wall, put the other hand under her bottom, and thrust. He was deep inside her...

Janeway wrapped one leg around his waist and hoisted herself up with her arms around his neck. A little awkward, but the effort only enhanced her desire, kept her longing teetering on the edge while he swayed back and forth, gently making love to her against the wall. At first he kept control, smiling open-mouthed at her cries and breathing hard. His hands clutched her buttocks and urged her back and forth along his erection, her muscles gripping his penis in involuntary clenches, her hands slipping in the sweat that sprang out on his broad back.

Chakotay’s expression darkened; his features twitched in time with his ragged breaths until he began to exhale in deep groans, his sex swelling further within her, so hard and thick and slippery with her aroused juices that she screamed in joy to feel him fill her again and again.

“Kath...Kathryn...I—I can’t—“ She interrupted him with her own moaning of his name and with her lips on his.

Something was gathering in her mind, something she had forgotten and which teased on the verge of recollection, tantalizing her mentally and physically alike. It was coming...it was coming, and she knew it would be incredible, like nothing she had ever done, or at least remembered doing. Fear was part of it. But she opened her eyes wide and took a deep breath, then another, willing herself to feel everything. Everything.

She focused on Chakotay’s face and his tight-shut eyes, feeling his rapid movements and the sudden spurt of heat within her as he climaxed. And she came, and came, every memory she had lost tumbling over her at once in an ecstatic jumble.

The sensation nearly tore her apart, twisting and screaming in Chakotay’s arms, but it was pure intense bliss even when he lost his footing and they hit the floor in a trembling, sweating, panting heap. She didn’t care, the knocks didn’t register. She had forgotten everything but love.

Several hours later, she sat up in bed and pulled her robe around her, sleepily pressing the viewscreen button. “Captain here.”

“Voila!” said the doctor in smug triumph. “I have pinpointed the exact change in blood-flow patterns and determined how that affects your neuro- peptides during these episodes. I can give you a combination of drugs to counteract the effect, and surgery might be in order—I have been doing groundbreaking research on cranial nerve systems. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.” He beamed at her. “It was, as we say, a tough nut to crack”—he tapped his skull and chortled—“but I knew that my matchless skill and experience would prevail in the end. Well, Captain, shall we schedule your procedure?”

Chakotay broke off in the middle of a snore, rolled over and looked at her.

“Aahhh...forget it,” said Janeway.

END