[ussbansheec] Truths
- From: "Moria McEntire" <bansheec@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:22:08 -0400
"Truths"
Beatrice Braddock and Jamul Moorning
Biting her lip, Beatrice stared at the closed door to her bedroom. She'd
sat and listened while Betsy tried to explain why what she'd done was
perhaps poor judgement but she just couldn't see it that way. How could
Jamul have ever manipulated the situation? She'd been the one to initiate
it. Deciding she needed to talk to him, she glanced back at her door as she
started to gather a small overnight bag together. Going out the front was
perhaps not the best option but the other was climbing down the outside and
she was three floors up.
She stared out of her open window and wondered if anyone would notice her
broken body at the bottom of the old oak tree. With a shrug, she started to
climb down, missing her footing a few times and catching her shirt on one of
the branches. With a yelp, she ripped it slightly then slipped, landing in
the mud.
"Bloody wonderful," she sighed, trudging off into the gathering gloom of an
English evening. She mumbled continually as she made her way to their
private transporter terminal at the rear of the house near the garage.
Punching in the coordinates for Jamul's gallery, she sighed at her mud
soaked clothing and let the beam take her.
~~~
Five hours later and several miles walked, Beatrice sighed as she slumped
into one more gallery. Okay so it hadn't helped that she didn't know where
he worked or lived or anything. This was perhaps her dumbest of ideas.
Deciding she was tired of walking, she dropped onto a bench below his
picture of Moria that she liked so much and drew her knees up under her chin
to think and sulk a little.
What had he gotten into? Jamul kept asking himself as he worked in the small
studio the gallery owner was letting him use. Better yet, why was he so
willing to get in deeper? Stepping back from the canvas he's been spray
painting, he sighed. It was a confusion of colors, it looked how he felt.
His storm of inner thoughts and emotions died down long enough for him to
realize he was hungry. After washing up as best he could, and venting the
spray paint smell from the room, he headed out into the empty gallery. He
stopped dead when he saw who was sitting there all alone. "Beatrice?"
Her head snapped up and she wiped hastily at her wet cheeks, trying to
smile. "I, er, came to do some research. You know, looking at the works of
other artists and such," she lied as easily as she could. "Besides, I like
this one. She's pretty and relaxed."
"Your covered in mud." He replied as he pulled a handkerchief from his
pocket and then used it to wipe mud from her face.
"No, am I?" she smirked weakly. "I hadn't noticed. Maybe I'm making a
fashion statement. Maybe mud's the new black."
He smirked. "Or maybe someone fell sneaking out of her aunt's over done
estate."
"This was a bad idea," she muttered, her cheeks going red under their layer
of dirt. Climbing to her feet, she backed away toward the door. "Knew it
was one of my blond moments," she sighed as she slipped out the door and
back onto the street.
Jamul ran after her. "What was a blonde moment?"
"Coming to find you," she said, hunching her shoulders against the cold
wind. "Wanting you."
He caught up to her and swept her up in his arms. "It was a good moment, I'm
glad to see you."
She laid her head on his shoulder and let him hold her a moment. "I'm sorry
for what I said when my aunts found us," she whispered sadly.
"Your sorry you said you loved me?" Jamul asked and he held her back enough
to look at her, yet keep his arms around her.
Nodding solemnly, she couldn't quite meet his eyes. "Not exactly what you
want to hear from a silly teenager, right? Only just met, seduced into bed
then she goes and gets herself all infatuated. Mary Spalding said it was
just about the dumbest thing I could ever have said."
He titled her head up until their eyes finally met. "Did you meant it? Is
that truly how you felt? Feel?"
Pressing her lips into a tight line, she nodded again. Her eyes were
filling with tears as she pushed him away as hard as she could, hugged her
arms around her and started walking toward the nearest transporter station.
"Then it wasn't the dumbest thing you've ever done." Jamul called after her.
"I'm glad you said it."
She shrugged one shoulder but kept going, fixing her eyes on the next
lamp-post then the next and the next. She scrubbed at her eyes, dashing
tears over her face. "Nice to have a young girl doting?" she called back.
"Make you feel good?"
"Actually it makes me feel like shit because I can't explain how you make me
feel." Jamul answered as he slowly began to follow her. "Everything around
me is screaming at me that you're just a young woman just starting out in
life. My heart is screaming back that your beautiful, smart, amazing."
Swirling around, she glared at him, her face still wet. "Are you thick?"
she yelled. "What's wrong with you? You got the last thing that made me my
Mummy's little girl, you should be over the moon, not feeling like shit.
You should be a cat who got the cream, just like Mary Spalding said. You
should be crowing and cocky and walking away from the silly, needy, stupid
baby."
"I don't see a silly, needy, stupid baby." He replied as he caught up to
her. "And Mary Spalding is starting to get on my nerves." He leaned down and
kissed her deeply.
"Don't," she murmured against his lips as she sighed and rested her
forehead against his. "Go back to your pretty little redheads and your
beautiful paintings."
He smiled as he brushed her cheek and then picked her up and started back
towards the gallery.
Sighing, she rolled her eyes and kicked her feet back and forth. "What are
you doing?"
"Showing you something." He replied as he took her to his studio. He put her
down and then walked over to the largest canvas in the room. When he pulled
the protective tarp off, it left her staring at an sketched outline of a
painting, a painting of her.
She looked from the sketch down to her own body and back. "You've over
exaggerated my breasts," she told him critically. "And added ten years to
my age." Even as she cast a critic's eye over it, inside she was reeling at
how amazing a gesture it was. He really had made her look older, as if he
saw her that way, as if she was a grown-up to him. "Are you going to finish
it or just white wash it and use it for a real painting?" she said acidly,
desperately trying to hide how wonderfully awed she was with his simple
generosity.
He looked hurt. "This is how you look," He picked up her hand and placed it
over his heart, "here."
"Then your heart sees through rose tinted glasses," she said softly, her
cheeks darkening at how rude she'd been. "But you really did get the size
of my breasts wrong." She felt her colour rise as she stepped closer to him
and let her eyes fall to the floor. In a tiny voice, she admitted, "It's
incredibly flattering, Jamul, thank you."
"You underestimate your beauty." He told her as he lifted her head up again.
He kissed her gently this time.
"I'm staggeringly beautiful," she said frankly, reaching up a finger to
trace his cheekbone the play with his eartip. "I make boys trip over their
own tongues, most girls my age want to be me, most boys want to be with me.
I know. I make Mary Spalding sickeningly jealous. She's plain and a little
squint-eyed. But I'm also vain, fatuous and self-obsessed. So what I have
in looks, I lose in personality."
Jamul wrapped his arms around her. "You're bright, talented, with a sharp
wit, a little sheltered, a little closed off, and a brat." He smiled his
wide toothy grin. "I'd think that all makes a pretty damn good personality."
In a small, worried voice she said, "You have too many teeth, did you
know?" She cuddled to him, holding him tightly and burying her face in his
shoulder.
He laughed deeply as he once again swept her up into his arms. He held her
as he kissed her.
She let out a yelp then giggled as she placed her nosetip on his. "What
now, my personal artist?" She suddenly felt all worries lift and a little
childishness crept into her belly. "How would you like me to pose?"
"In my bed." He replied as he sat her on her feet. "If you want to be
there."
"And in the morning? What happens then? Do I leave and not come back? Do
I stay and explain to my Aunts that I decided I wanted to be with a handsome
man all night? Do I even stay all night? What do you expect, Jamul?" she
said nervously.
Reaching out he caressed her face. "I don't expect anything. This is meant
to be, and happens happens. Your life is your's, Beatrice, you make the
choices for it. It is my choice to follow your lead."
"My lead, oh yeah, I can see that happening," she snorted softly. Fixing
her sweet blue eyes on him, she said firmly, "I love you, Jamul. Follow
that lead."
His heart sped up, his head felt foggy, and euphoric. He smiled. "I love
you, Beatrice Braddock."
She blinked, actually speechless for the first time in her life. Gaping at
him, she really couldn't work out what to do or say.
Jamul held out his hand. "Come home with me and we'll worry about tomorrow
when tomorrow gets here."
Taking the hand, she nodded, totally mesmerised by this man. "Wh... where
do you live?"
"A loft not to far from here." He answered as he lead her out of the galley,
pausing only to lock the doors. "It's not as big as the loft I shared in New
York, but it had heat and running water and power."
"Um... aren't those good things?" It quietly appalled her that people could
live without such things in the Federation. "Why didn't you have heat,
power and running water?"
"It wasn't the best part of New York to live in." He explained as they
walked. "We bared pulled off paying the rent, the rest were iffy at best,
and the building was so old things shorted out, sprung leaks, and froze up."
"Paid the rent?" she asked, it being a totally alien concept to her as most
of everyone she'd ever met was pretty much rich.
Jamul laughed. "Yes, a fee you pay to the owner of a building or land, for
the right to live in said building or on said land. Despite the whole 'money
doesn't make the world go around' mentality of the Federation, the reality
is that it does."
"You actually have to pay?" she gaped at him. "You don't just... live?"
"I pay for the places I rest my head," He corrected as he lead her up their
stairs of his building. "I always just live." The flat was small to him, but
by London standards it was fairly a good size.
"Why don't you just find a really rich benefactor who has a nice Thames view
apartment in Canary Wharf?" she asked as she bopped beside him. "Mary
Spalding said that's what artists are meant to do. And that the benefactors
are normally really old widows who only want an artist so they'll get some
sex."
"I prefer to earn my own way." He answered truthfully as closed the door
behind them. "Working for something makes it mean more."
"So you don't want a really rich benefactor?" she asked idly. "Even a
young, pretty one?"
"No." He said honestly as he pulled her into his arms. "I want a lover, a
friend, a woman I can love. Your money is nice Beatrice, but it really
doesn't mean anything to me." Though once, so many years ago, it would have.
Grinning up at him, she kissed his lips softly. "You've got all of me, what
little there is. Mostly my fortune is under the control of Auntie Betsy
until Daddy comes home or I turn 21 anyway. So for three more years, I'm
just me, nothing else."
"Just you is all I want." He whispered before kissing her.
She sank into the kiss, sighing with satisfaction. As she pulled back, she
smiled at him. "I know so little about you. You're this wonderful,
mysterious man. Tell me about him?"
Jamul lead her to the couch before ducking into the kitchen. If he were
going to tell her the truth, which he needed, wanted to do, he'd better have
a drink ready for her. He came back out with two mis-matched jelly glasses
and a bottle of chilled stoli. He sat them on the makeshift coffee table and
then sat beside her. "I won't lie to you, Beatrice."
"Lie? Why, what did you do, go to prison or something?" she teased,
laughing lightly.
Jamul didn't laugh. "For seven years."
She blinked again, wondering if he liked making her speechless. "You...
What did you do?"
"I assault and robbery." He told her. "When I was seventeen. I was living on
the streets, had this runaway always tagging along, kid was hungry and cold.
Didn't think one of those well to do Fed. Breed babies in town to 'study'
acting would miss a couple credits. Gotta harsher sentence cause Daddy was a
Star Fleet mucky-muck."
"Assault?" she whispered, her face draining of its colour. "If all you did
was steel come credits, how did you get done for assault?"
Opening the stoli, Jamul poured them a drink. "Girl fought back, I smacker
her, it left a bruise. Got my ass kicked by her Klingon boyfriend and
charged with two counts of assault."
"You hit a girl?" She knew she sounded like a vapid fool by repeating
everything he was saying but it was really hard to equate the loving man in
front of her with someone who had been a criminal. "If someone fights back,
you hit them?"
"I do when I'm being thumped with a gym bag." He cracked a small jagged
smile and then shrugged. "I was a stupid kid back then."
"And now you're what?" she asked suddenly, her eyes hardening. "Older and
wiser? More earthed? Like a tiger with his claws and teeth removed?"
It hurt, the hardness in her eyes, but he couldn't blame her. "Less stupid,
older yes, hardly wise. I was a boy then, I am a man now, and the truth is
that it was going to New Zealand that made me a man."
"And if you were in a similar situation? If a girl hit you? If she was so
furious that she threatened to throw her stupid, pointless sculptures at
you? What will you do when I throw one of my tantrums or I get so mad that
I thump you or..." she stared at him, her cheeks colouring as she glared.
"Or I say something nasty or petty?"
"Laugh, duck, and try to figure out what I did to piss you off." He
answered. "I'd never raise a hand to you, Beatrice. I'm not the same stupid,
angry, kid I was back then. I even tacked the girl down and apologized. It's
a small quadrant. Turned out the girl was directly linked to my shrink, a
cousin or family friend or something."
It felt as if the bottom of her world had fallen out, like someone had taken
her perfect dream and put one flaw in it that was slowly unravelling the
whole thing. "You have a criminal record," she said lamely but with such
devastation in her voice. "Oh Jamul, you're a convicted criminal."
He laughed, but it was hollow. He could almost feel her slipping away. "I
prefer the term ex-con." He teased weakly.
Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe and not cry or anything so
childish and silly. "Jamul, I don't... I don't know what to do," she
admitted. "I don't want to stay and you think it's despite your record.
But... but I really don't want to leave. I love you, all of you."
"I can't change my past, Beatrice, I can't even say I'm ashamed of it, but
I've learned from it." He sighed and took her head, kissing the top of it
and each finger tip. "You must do what you in your heart feels is right. I'm
not going anywhere."
"You think I'll be ashamed of it, don't you?" she whispered, pulling her
hand away and folding her arms tightly over her stomach. "I'm just a
snotty, bratty toff to you who plays at being a real person but has no clue
as to what the real world is like."
He sighed and shook his head. "I didn't say that. You have a right to be
bothered by my past, I won't begrudge you that, but I've never thought of
you that way."
"What tosh," she snapped. "I bet that was your first thoughts: spoiled
brat." Her eyes blazed as she met his eyes then grabbed the drink on the
table and downed it in one, hissing slightly with the sting.
"Brat yes, snotty bratty toff, no I don't even know what a toff is." He
downed his own drink. "Plays at being a real person, no, playing games to
protect yourself, yes. Having no clue about the real world, you know the
world in which you live."
"But not the real one, right? The one where people are still on the
breadline even though we're meant to be a utopian society. The one where
gorgeous men have to spend seven years in prison because they wanted to
eat." She snorted as she reached for the bottle and poured them both more.
Downing hers again, she stared at him, her head tilted. "The one where
someone murders someone else just because they're a mutant."
He downed his second drink before turning to look at her. "Would you stop
putting words in my mouth." He grunted and ran his hand through his hair. "I
said you know the world in which you live, that's the real world to you, I
never said it was all bubble gum and fairy queens."
Her head tilted to the other side and she poured them more. The alcohol
burned on its way down but she didn't care as she poured even more into her
glass. "Want to know something about us rich brats? There're more
criminals in the upper classes than there are anywhere else. You realise
one of my ancestors was part of the gunpowder plot? He wanted to help blow
up the British government. Beat that, Mr I'm so hard, I've got a criminal
record," she teased, her eyes dancing as she downed another glass.
Jamul couldn't help but chuckle. She was getting drunk. "You'd better slow
down baby girl. That'll go right to your head if your not use to it."
"Tell ya something else," she grinned, helping herself to more, "most of the
upper classes have alcohol for blood. I was playing drinking games with
Mary Spalding when I was thirteen and could hold more drink at sixteen than
most 200lbs rugby players."
"Well lets slow down anyway." He took the bottle. "When you decided to go
home I don't want you going hung over or drunk. No sense making her aunts
any more upset."
"Like it matters," she snorted. "Auntie Betsy's had to mop me up so many
times. I'm a drunk, a fucked up silly little girl who went off the rails so
hard when..." she shook her head, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "Let's
just say I'm lucky I've got her and Laura."
He smiled as he pulled her into his lap. "They're lucky to have you as well,
as am I."
"What tosh," she laughed. "How come you're forgiving me?"
"There was never anything to forgive." He answered before kissing her
softly. "You've a right to your options, ya just need to learn to listen to
what's said and not hear what you want."
"Mary Spalding says I'm a brat when I put words in other people's mouths,"
she mused, kissing him back a little harder. "She says I'm a totally
annoying idiot sometimes."
He began to make quick work of the buttons on her torn blouse. "Mary
Spalding can go suck a lemon."
"You know, she'd like you," she laughed, pushing him back against the sofa
and straddling his waist as she fumbled with his belt and trousers. "Damn,"
she muttered, her cheeks darkening.
"What?" He asked as he cast her blouse aside, then turning to her own pants.
"I'm not good at this," she huffed, finally managing to get his belt undone
and his fly open. She sighed as her cheeks reddened even more. "Not so
romantic to have to tell me how to do things all the time."
He stood her up so he could help her out of her pants and step out of his
own. "You'll get better at the little things with practice." He teased
before cupping her breast and kissing her lips.
"Lots of practice?" she grinned, wrapping her arms around his neck and using
them to pull herself up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. "Come
now, Master Tutor, teach me how to di it properly."
Jamul captured her lips as he carried her off to his bed. He still couldn't
believe how this woman-child stirred his very soul. He laid her down on the
bed, a mattress and box spring which sat on the floor in the small bedroom,
then simply took her in.
He was staring at her and she blushed scarlet all the way from her toes to
the end of her hair. "What?" she asked self-consciously.
"You take my breath away Beatrice Braddock." He replied as he lowered
himself on top of her.
"I do?" She bit her lip as she reached for him. "Did... did the others?
Did your redhead?"
Jamul shook his head. "Each in their own way inspired me as a muse, but only
you make me breathless and cause my heart to pound painfully in my chest."
"Oh," came the shy response. "You... you really love me?"
"I won't have said so if I didn't." He replied, hesitating before moving
further incase she wished him not to.
"Then why're you holding back?" she asked softly, frowning and shivering.
"Are you mad because I got scared?"
He brushed hair away from her face as he shook his head. "I'm not mad at you
baby girl, I just didn't want to do something you didn't want to do. I won't
ever push you."
"I keep making the advances and you think you're pushing me," she said,
frowning harder. "Are you thick or trying to be a gentleman?"
He laughed his deep rumbling laugh and he flipped them over, sitting her so
she straddled his waist so he could play with her breasts. "Both."
She let out a squeal and giggled, leaning down to kiss his nose and each
pointed eartip. "If you're thick does that mean you can't teach me
anything?"
"There are lots of things I can teach you." She was so soft, her skin warm
and silkily, yet there was strength beneath that milk white silk. "And there
are things you can teach me as well."
"Now that I don't believe," she giggled. She brushed her fingers over his
chest, teasing his nipples and drawing light patterns. "What could I have
to offer you?"
"You." He said simply as he caressed her body. "All of you, inside and out."
"I'd be all squidgy and messy if you turned me inside out, love," she
teased, trying desperately not to giggle like a teenager again.
He pulled her down to kiss her deeply before smirking. "If we aren't careful
I may be the one turned inside out. You mothers have a thing for sharp
objects."
She shrugged one shoulder as she slid down his body, laying little nips and
kisses where she could. "Laura can't help it, she was made that way. Betsy
just likes katanas." With that, she kissed down to his stomach, running her
tongue over his abdomen.
He filed away his questions. He wanted to know everything there was to know
about this amazing creature. "My beautiful Beatrice."
Sitting back, she smiled up at him, looking up his gorgeous form. "All
yours for forever if you want me."
Jamul pulled her back up his body so he could hold her. "That takes on a new
meaning with someone of Vulcan heritage, baby girl."
"Um... you mean the whole not getting old thing?" she asked as she snuggled
against him.
"We get old, we just do it more slowly." He chuckled. "My grandmother is
still as stunning as she was when she severed on the Enterprise. But that
isn't what I meant. When Vulcan's take a mate, a spouse, they're bonded to
that person telepathically."
"Like Betsy and Laura?" she asked, frowning a little. "Auntie Betsy's a
telepath."
He had to think about it. He didn't know anything about Human telepaths,
only that they were rare. "You don't necessarily have to be a telepath,
though most Vulcans are to a degree. I'm very very low on the scale because
my parents were half vulcan/human and fully human. The bond is a telepathic
link between two people, it's intimate, it's unbreakable."
"That's... a little intense," she whispered as she frowned harder. "Isn't
there some kind of testing period so you know the other person isn't just a
brain-dead bimbo or something? If you bonded with me, you'd be all
disappointed because not a lot goes on inside my head most of the time."
"We can take all the time we wish." He replied. "And you shouldn't cut
yourself so short. I don't buy the dumb bimbo routine."
She snorted at him as she felt a dare coming on. "Oh really? Think there's
a rocket scientist hiding under this rather dim exterior." Then she
blinked, a look of mock-horror on her face as she put her hands over her
mouth, gasped and said, "Why Mr Moorning, you've got no clothes on!"
Jamul rolled his eyes and tickled her ribs. "Don't play dumb with me,
Beatrice, there's no need too."
"My word, Mr Moorning, what are you doing!" she teased as she squirmed away
from his tickling fingers. "Anyone would think you're trying to take
advantage. Such an innocent girl as myself should avert her eyes." But
instead she let them roam over him, enjoying the sight of his naked form.
He laughed as he once again flipped them so now he was once again hovering
over her. "Silly woman." He chuckled behind kissed her deeply."
"What is a girl to do," she murmured faintly. Lifting one hand, she brushed
from his thigh all the way up his body to rest on his cheek. "Except love
you."
"I love you too," He replied as he began to make love to her, "and that is
all that matters."
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