textfiles/sex/EROTICA/N/nightvis.txt

NIGHT VISION

A story which never happened

By Kate Orman, January 1995

For Steven, who beat me to it. :-)

"Come in," said Geordi.

Data came in. Geordi sat at the table, half a dozen roses 
clutched in one fist, hot red petals dipping to touch the glass.

"Am I interrupting something?" said the android.

Geordi laughed quietly, shook his head. "There's nothing to 
interrupt. It just isn't going to happen. I'm never going to work up 
the courage to speak to her."

Data sat down opposite him. "You mean Miss Henshaw." Geordi 
nodded. "You have not found Lieutenant Worf's advice useful, then."

"Worf's idea of romance is having someone throw furniture at 
his head."

Data nodded. "He has stated that he does not wish to initiate 
relationships with human women. He fears he might - damage them."

"Great," said Geordi. He let go of the flowers, got up, pulled off 
his uniform jacket and threw it into the corner of his bedroom. "It 
doesn't exactly make him an expert in the field, does it?" he called 
out.

Data stood in the doorway of the bedroom while Geordi 
splashed water on his face and arms. "I, too, have experienced 
problems with establishing relationships with human beings," he 
said. "It was not until I came aboard the Enterprise that I began to 
have what could accurately be described as friends."

Geordi's reflection smiled at him. "Believe me, Data, you weren't 
the only one who had a rough time at the Academy. I think I had 
about two dates the whole time I was there. They were both 
disasters."

Data nodded. "You have mentioned this before. In both cases, 
you felt unable to continue the relationship."

Geordi sat down on the edge of his bed. "I just - I don't know. 
We would get to the point where something was going to happen, 
and I would just back out." He spread his hands. "It was as though I 
was terrified that someone might actually-"

"Touch you?"

Geordi nodded, folding his arms across his bare chest.

"At the Academy," said Data, "I had several encounters in 
which it was made clear that someone else feared being touched by 
me."

"Data, that's terrible."

Data sat down on the bed beside him. "It did make completing 
some assignments difficult."

"It's not as though I'm really afraid, up here-" Geordi tapped 
his forehead. "It's more as though something inside me just freezes 
up. I mean, what if we - what if-" He glanced sideways at Data, who 
was looking right at him. "It's what might happen that stops me."

"Do you believe that how well you know a person is a factor?"

"What makes you say that, Data?" said Geordi, staring at the 
wall.

"I found that once people got to know me, they were less 
reluctant about establishing social relationship with me. Including 
touching."

"I guess... I guess that's part of it. If I knew someone really 
well..."

Geordi turned to look at Data.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Trust me," said Data.

Geordi nodded.

Data put his hands on either side of Geordi's face. The human 
was trembling softly. Carefully, Data unclipped his VISOR.

Geordi closed his eyes. He heard Data putting the VISOR down 
on the bedside table.

Then something brushed very gently across the back of his 
neck. A moment later he realised it was lips, soft and warm as 
human skin, moving back and forth.

The tiny touches became kisses, on the side of his neck, on his 
shoulders, amongst the short hairs at the base of his skull. Data was 
sitting behind him, breath hot and electric, sliding his arms under 
Geordi's to fold both hands on his chest, fingertips touching the fine 
hair there. Embracing him softly.

Data waited until Geordi stopped shaking, let him relax, just 
holding him. "I will only continue if you wish it."

Geordi turned, the woollen texture of Data's uniform brushing 
across his chest as his arms wrapped around Data's slender torso and 
their mouths met.

Data was lowering him onto the bed, and their mouths were 
still locked together, and Geordi's hands were finding the zipper at 
the back of the android's uniform, and Data's tongue was in his 
mouth, fizzing like sherbet.

That tingling mouth moved lower, touching his throat, his chest, 
and when the kisses reached his navel he felt the fire in the small of 
his back and his hips rose.

And then Data's jacket went "Bing!" and said, "Mr Data, please 
report to the bridge."

They froze in position.

Geordi surprised himself by laughing. Data put a finger on his 
lips. He heard the android say, "On my way, sir."

Geordi pulled on his VISOR as Data pulled on his jacket. He 
hesitated in the doorway, glancing at Geordi.

"Later, Data," he said, lying back on the bed and folding his 
arms behind his head.

***

Data's eyes traced a line from Geordi, sitting alone at the chess table, 
to Miss Henshaw, sitting alone at the bar. He waited a moment. Then 
he sat down and began setting the pieces up.

Geordi startled, a little, eyes flicking to Christy and back again. 
"I gather your relationship with Miss Henshaw has not progressed," 
Data was saying.

"I still can't think of what to say." Geordi shrugged with his 
hands, almost knocking over his drink. "I mean, I hardly know her..."

"You appear to be caught in a vicious circle."

"What do you mean, Data?"

"If you do not know her, you cannot speak to her. But if you do 
not speak to her, you may never come to know her."

Geordi sighed. Data had put the last piece in its place.

The engineer looked up. Guinan was watching them from 
behind the bar, smiling like the Mona Lisa.

"Would you care to play?" said Data.

***

The holodeck program was a recreation of a valley where Geordi had 
once spent a solitary weekend of shore leave, hiking and camping. 
Getting comfortable with himself, he said, letting the constant 
technical babble in his mind slow into silence.

They walked through the landscape, alongside a stream hidden 
by deep green trees. The slope of the hill was gentle, levelling out to 
an even plain, thickly carpeted with grass and flowers.

Data followed Geordi silently, waiting until his friend felt ready 
to stop. At last Geordi unrolled the blanket and sat down on it, facing 
towards the stream.

Data put down the picnic basket and sat down beside him. 
Geordi was trembling again.

"We don't really need the blanket," the engineer had said as the 
heavy doors hissed closed behind them. "I've edited out the insects 
and the prickly weeds. We don't need the basket, really, either."

"Nonetheless," Data had said, "they comprise a useful pretext."

Geordi had looked at him sharply, meeting that impenetrable 
gaze, and wondered how much more Data understood about humans 
than he seemed to.

Now he said, "I feel like we have this backwards. Usually it's 
me trying to explain things, show you something human..."

"You are showing me - something human," said the android. "I 
have very seldom achieved physical intimacy with another person. 
In fact - you are only the second." Geordi glanced at him. "I am 
grateful to you."

"Hey," said Geordi, and his voice matched his body's tremor. 
"I'm the one who ought to be grateful to you."

Data reached out a hand, almost hesitantly, and put it on 
Geordi's shoulder. Once again the human felt the contrast between 
android strength, android gentleness. Data had thrown him across a 
room with one hand, once. Now the hand gripped softly, forming a 
bridge between them.

"Did you lock the door?" breathed Geordi. Data nodded.

He began to stroke Geordi's cheek, tracing spirals through his 
close-cropped hair, the fine stubble on his chin, touching the corner 
of his mouth.
When the tear touched his finger, he took his hand away. 
Geordi's head was bowed, tears trickling from behind his VISOR.

"I am sorry," said Data. "Computer-"

Geordi's fingers brushed against his mouth. "You," he 
whispered, "you're - this is the first - " Data nodded, seriously.

Geordi took off his VISOR, felt the edge of the basket, put it 
carefully inside. And now Data took his hands, long fingers 
intertwining with his, warm fingertips against the cold sweat of his 
palms.

Data kissed the tears from his cheeks. This time the trembling 
stopped, was forgotten, dissolved in the rain of kisses, on his 
fluttering eyelids, on his earlobes, his throat as his breathing 
quickened, and finally on his mouth, those powerful hands moving to 
the back of his neck.

And he would never remember how or when Data took off his 
uniform, or if he took it off himself, but there didn't seem to be any 
part of his body where those fingertips were not touching, swirling, 
tracing.

He had seen those fingers repair the finest circuitry, seen them 
tear metal. Now they were igniting the fire in his spine, the heat in 
his face and hands. He imagined vanilla skin against his own 
darkness.

"How-" he gasped, "how do I make you feel this-"

Data kissed him into silence. And then he was lying naked and 
alone, only the cool breeze touching his naked body.

"Data?"

But the android was still there, a shifting weight on the 
blanket. "Geordi," his voice was soft, just louder than the breeze. "I-"

Geordi reached out a hand, found his friend's arm. "Just go 
ahead, Data."

Data kissed his throat, moved lower to kiss his chest. Geordi 
found himself holding the back of Data's head, fingers tangling in 
synthetic hair as that tingling tongue moved lower, lips brushing his 
stomach, navel, sweeping up again beneath his arms, to his nipples, 
lower again to his stomach, the tight hair beneath it -

Oh, God -

His hands became fists in Data's hair. A great flower of ecstasy 
came to life inside him, between his lungs, in his throat, between his 
hips -

Data's hands slid beneath the small of his back, supporting him 
as his body began to move involuntarily. His voice seemed to have 
been knocked loose from him, making sounds of its own volition. Soft 
cries and deeper sounds, startling him.

And he had never been more aware of the depth of the 
blackness, its colours, the patterns that danced in his invisible field 
of vision, intensifying with the rhythm of the flower in his belly.

That rhythm changed, slowed, holding him in place, every clock 
shuddered to a halt. He felt more than blind, unable to hear anything 
but the flower, unable to feel the heat of skin on skin or the 
roughness of the blanket or the coolness of the breeze, and it could 
be anyone with him in the darkness, anyone.

But nothing could hold those clocks still. The flower was 
growing, becoming more insistent, until he lost every sensation but 
the -

"God!"
The rhythm changed again, suddenly, and he -

"Oh God!"

- his body was panicking, going wild, going mad -

"Ohgodyou'resobeautifulOHGODYOU'RESO!"

The flower blossomed.

***

And later, when he woke up, there were flowers strewn on his chest. 
He held them to his face, breathing, just breathing, eyes closed.

And he bathed in the stream, and pulled on his uniform, and 
went to find Christy and tell her how beautiful she was.