Madame President

She’s gorgeous, really, but it doesn’t have so much to do with her looks as her personality; her strength and passion for the survival of her people mingling sweetly with her vulnerability, her fragility born of her illness, and the fact that she has never desired the power of her position. I glimpse her candidly for one moment, shoulders slumped with fatigue, pretending to review the haphazard pile of documents strewn across her desk; but her eyes aren’t moving, they are locked somewhere deep within her subconscious. The loud tramp of marine boots rounding the corner snaps her to attention, and she straightens and draws her glasses from her face with practiced grace. I wish she wouldn’t. They soften her, somehow, add an intangible touch of humanity to the cold expression she’s wearing now. Her delicate hands fold the frames carefully; she lays them delicately and deliberately atop a file folder, gathering herself.

“I was under the impression Admiral Adama was holding her on Galactica until further notice.” Her tones are measured and careful as she addresses the marines with an icy smile. I feel invisible. I wish she would look at me, even with hatred in her heart.

“The Admiral has conceded your right to interview the prisoner, Madame President, though he asks me to reiterate that he can’t guarantee your safety on Colonial One.”

The President’s smile twists bitterly and she lets out a small ironic ‘hmph’. “And yet I’m currently not allowed to set foot on the Galactica, so what choice do I have?” The marines shift uncomfortably, but she is ignoring them, looking at her desk and absentmindedly shifting papers. “Bring her forward.” Her voice is hard, it bites; an involuntary shiver runs through me. I’m not sure if it’s one of fear or excitement.

My captors yank me forward roughly by the arms; a totally unnecessary hostility, but one that I’m quickly becoming used to. They maneuver me into the chair facing the President, bruising my biceps mercilessly as I stumble against my leg restraints. Once I’m settled they step back one carefully measured pace and stand stiffly at attention, hands on their guns.

“Leave us.” She’s writing something now, still not looking up. The marines glance from her to each other, military professionalism lost in indecision.

“Madame President?” One of them ventures uncertainly.

“Did I stutter?” She looks at him now, coldly.

“The Admiral gave us explicit orders-”

“And I am overriding them. My safety is my business, and besides that, she’s fully restrained. I’m not going to ask you again.” She frowns down at her paper, twirls her pen once in thought. A clear dismissal. The soldiers hesitate only a moment longer before slowly backing out the door. It seals shut with a soft hiss of air. And then we’re alone.

She continues filling out whatever menial document is before her, ignoring me. My pulse quickens in anticipation. She has to look at me soon. She has to acknowledge me. Has to.

The page is complete; she sets it carefully aside. I watch her expectantly, heart thumping. She’s wearing her glasses again, and the idle thought runs through my mind that I’m sorry I didn’t see her slide them back onto her face. I’d love to memorize her every gesture, every habit, every mood and emotion. But what I really want to see right now is the color of her eyes, framed by thick black plastic or not. Ever since I first saw this magnificent woman, on the far side of glass and grated metal, all I’ve wanted is for her to notice me. It’s strange what things become important when your life is falling apart.

She pulls her glasses off once more, and lays them on edge of the desk. She folds her hands neatly on the pile of papers, and watches them for a moment. I watch them, too. Elegant and graceful in appearance, but undoubtedly capable of being as ruthless as the rest of her.

Her eyes are green. Green and hard and cold as emeralds, with a flicker of fire behind them that I know is directed at me and is the kind that burns. And I’m drowning in them. I can’t for the life of me summon the dispassionate stoicism that has carried me through all the interrogations on Galactica. My thoughts are all there on my face for her to read, a map with detailed instructions to the way she makes me feel. She knows, she’s known all along. That’s why she had me brought here, never entered my cell on Galactica. It’s why she sent the marines away. She knows, and she’s going to use it to her full advantage. And I’m going to let her.

We stare at each other for a long moment.

“Haley, they tell me you’re called. Haley Pierce.” Somehow, her voice is gentler than when she spoke to the marines, but still sharp as cut glass. Maybe it’s just that it’s quieter. I nod once, and try to hide my nervous swallow. “And you claim to be from Earth.”

I roll my eyes at that, a reflex. Claim. They always use that word, as if determined to make their disbelief apparent at every turn. The President’s lips twitch. I’d like to believe she’s fighting a smile, and so it’s difficult to keep my own mouth in a flat line. I nod again, eventually.

She rises from behind her desk suddenly, sighing. It’s such an abrupt release of tension, a sudden infusion of life into her still and statuesque form that I start, leaning backwards into my chair, and it’s only then that I realize I had been leaning towards her hungrily. The manacles on my body jangle harshly. I don’t appreciate the strident reminder of my helplessness as the President rounds the corner of her desk and is suddenly leaning over me, her weight on her hands, which are in turn on the armrests of my seat.

“I have to tell you, Ms. Pierce, that I absolutely don’t believe you.” She’s so close that I can smell tea on her breath, tea and something else, something earthy and herbal that I’ve never smelled before.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Madame President.” My voice is a little tremulous, but altogether more impressive than I’d hoped for. “But I can assure you that I’m telling you the truth.”

She snorts. Highly unladylike, and inexplicably endearing. She pulls back, resting her hip against the desk and stretching her legs subtly in my direction. I take the bait, I can’t help it; I let my eyes wander up the clean line of her white marble thigh to the dark hem of her A-line skirt. Delicious. My gaze jumps guiltily back to her face…

…Just in time to see her hand leaving her cleavage. She reaches down and yanks on the long chain connecting my collar, handcuffs, and ankle cuffs, heedless of my surprised whimper of pain as I jerk involuntarily towards her. She unlocks the longest chain and pulls it up through the other loops; it slithers through like a metallic snake, snapping across my cheek as it leaves the collar socket. I hiss at the cold burning it leaves behind, but I’m more interested in where on earth-or, in space, rather-the President of the Twelve Colonies got a key to my restraints. But as she slips the object discreetly back into her bra, I realize it isn’t a key at all-more like a handmade lock pick, apparently constructed of hair pins and paper clips. I really do admire this woman. Really.

She twirls the supple metal through her fingers for a moment, eyeing the reddening stripe on my face.

“Sorry,” she concedes. “I didn’t mean to do that.” I believe her, but it doesn’t matter, because now she’s reaching out a hand and stroking my cheek softly, running her thumb gently along the wound, and I don’t care if she did it on purpose-in fact, I rather wish she’d do it again, and maybe to more interesting areas.

She leans in once more, and says in a low, throaty voice. “Would you like me to kiss it better?” She doesn’t wait for a response; she doesn’t have to. Her lips replace her finger with tender sweetness, softly tracing the length of the growing welt, moving steadily inward until it’s only natural that they should slide right along to my slightly parted lips. I gasp softly, half a sigh, as her lips brush across mine; feather-light at first, then pressing more deeply against my own. As her tongue darts out to glide along my lower lip my manacled hands rise up of their own accord and grope for her right breast. I barely have time to cup its warm weight against my palms before she stops kissing me and slams me back against the chair. I blink, surprised; she pinches my nipples sharply, cruelly, causing me to flinch away and cover myself protectively. Her face is a mask of anger as she glares down into my face.

“Did I say you could touch me?!”

“N-no,” I breathe, and hate myself because it’s more a breath than a word.

Her anger subsides somewhat, replaced by that frighteningly emotionless mask. My chest heaves faintly, swelling and falling with both the fear that she’ll stop and the terror that I might let her continue. She seems to sense this, to read me as she has thus far, and so with her dark eyes locked to mine she quite deliberately slides one leg over me, then the other, until she’s straddling my pin straight thighs and tugging innocently at her own short skirt. She allows the swell of her chest, revealed through the strategic loosening of a button or two, to subtly offer itself to my gaping mouth. I dizzy at the touch of her skin against mine, and for an agonizing moment don’t have the faintest idea what to do with the ambrosiac gift offered me.

But Madame President Laura Roslin is not one to sit idly, and she immediately guides me to the appropriate action. Her fingers tangle roughly into my long hair and drag my face downward to meet the edge of her cleavage peeking around the stiff collar of her shirt. Without any conscious permission on my part my tongue flicks out across her exposed flesh, and when the President’s head tilts back slightly and her lips part in a silent ‘oh’ I dig into her breasts in earnest. Buttons yield bursting beneath my fingers, and in an instant there is nothing but black lace between me and heaven. I drag one hand up her belly, fingernails and all, while my mouth works to overcome the obstacle of her bra by dipping behind it to her pert nipple. I let my teeth graze lightly over the over-sensitized and erect flesh and receive delectable moans and more minor pains for my trouble.

She seems to be very interested in causing me pain.

For some reason, I’m finding myself increasingly ok with that.

And then suddenly she’s gone again, warm flesh leaving a cool chill in its absence, slow erotic high letting me down as, inevitably, everything and everyone does. I can feel her presence behind me and I’m so, so tired of resisting, so when she whispers in my ear, pausing to nibble on my earlobe, I close my eyes and breathe the absolute truth from my soul to her ears.

“Are you really a child of the Thirteenth Colony? Of Earth?”

“Yes….dear gods, yes….” She stops, stunned; because she believes. In the end, I think it’s the tears streaming a silent testimony down my pallid cheeks. And the broken cadence of my voice. But I don’t care, I really don’t. Because her hands are sliding around my waist from behind, and they’re tentative, unsure, because she actually is beginning to believe in me, and she wants me purely for Want’s sake. I let my head roll back against her shoulder, and sigh more deeply than I think any human being has sighed before; for I am truly letting the weight of a World shift from my shoulders. Her sweet, lovely hands are sliding down my stomach, skin to skin. She believes me. They’re hesitantly snapping the waistband of my panties. Because she believes in me. They’re slipping down, down, into the soft warmth of my folds. Because she believes in me. And they’re penetrating the moist heat of my center…because Laura Roslin believes in me.