Chapter 7: A New Life
The view from the sixtieth floor was a pristine, silent panorama of San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge stood in the distance, a postcard image behind electrochromic glass that adjusted to the sun’s glare. The condo was all minimalist surfaces and cold edges, everything in shades of white, grey, and steel. It smelled of recycled air and the faint, antiseptic fragrance that followed Seven like a shadow. There were no personal effects. No piled-up padds, no forgotten coffee mugs, no frayed copies of Buck Rogers pulp novels. Everything had a designated place, a purpose, or it was removed.
Tom stood at the window, wearing simple grey trousers and a black shirt. He didn’t look at the view. He watched the reflection of the room behind him. He looked older. The lines around his eyes had settled in, no longer just the marks of smiles earned in a pilot’s seat, but something deeper, carved by a different kind of tension.
His resignation from Starfleet had been a single-line data transmission. He’d left Voyager with a single duffel, walking behind Seven through the shuttlebay doors without looking back. There had been no ceremony, no farewells. Captain Janeway’s face, a mask of stricken comprehension, was the last thing he saw from that life. He had traded a universe of stars for this sterile acre of carpet.
The soft hum of the environmental systems was the only sound. Then, her voice.
“Tom.”
He turned. Seven was seated on the long, bone-white sofa. She was naked. The afternoon light from the window painted her body in sharp relief—the parabolic curve of a breast, the stark line of her hip, the soft, dark thatch of hair between her thighs. She was not posing. She was simply present, as a tool laid out for use is present.
“Come here,” she said. Her tone was not a request. It was a calibration.
He crossed the room, the plush carpet muffling his steps. The air felt cooler near her. He knelt on the floor before the sofa, the posture instinctive now. The clean, mineral scent of her skin filled his senses.
“You are preoccupied,” she stated, her hands resting on her thighs. “The city distracts you. It is inefficient.”
“I’m not distracted,” he said, his voice low. His eyes were fixed on the junction of her legs. He could see the faint, dewy gleam there.
“Prove it.” The same words, the same cold trigger. But then something shifted. Her head tilted slightly. The Borg-implanted metal along her jaw caught the light. “I have… come to rather enjoy how you please me.”
The admission, delivered in her measured alto, was more shocking than any command. It wasn’t warmth, not as a human would understand it. It was a data point, verified and reported. But it was for him.
A thick, heavy current moved in his gut. He leaned forward, his hands settling on her knees. He spread her legs wider, and she allowed it, watching him with analytic curiosity. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to her inner thigh. Her skin was impossibly smooth, cool. He licked a slow path upward, tasting salt and that unique, clean musk that was purely her.
He reached her center and didn’t hesitate. He sealed his mouth over her entrance, his tongue finding the hard nub of her clit. She was already wet, her folds slick and swollen. He tasted her—a sharp, electric flavor—and a low, soft sigh escaped her. It wasn’t a moan. It was a release of data, an indicator of correct procedure.
He worked her with a devotion that was religious in its intensity. He licked and sucked, his tongue plunging into her opening, then circling back to her clit. He used his hands to pull her open wider, to give himself deeper access. The wet, intimate sounds were loud in the silent, vast room. Her hips made tiny, minute adjustments, pressing against his mouth. Her breath began to come in controlled, sharp exhalations.
“Yes,” she whispered, and her organic hand came down to rest on the back of his head. Her fingers didn’t tangle in his hair; they applied precise pressure, guiding him. “There. That pressure variance is optimal.”
He redoubled his efforts, drunk on her taste, on her approval. He could feel the tension coiling in her muscles, the subtle tremble in her thighs. Her inner muscles fluttered against his probing tongue.
“Now, Tom,” she said, her voice tightening. “Now.”
Her climax was a silent, powerful quake. Her back arched off the sofa, a rigid bow of tension. Her pussy convulsed around his tongue, a series of rhythmic, gripping pulses. A hot rush of her juices flooded his mouth, and he swallowed it all, a bitter, perfect communion. She held the peak for a long moment, then gradually stilled.
He rested his forehead against her thigh, breathing heavily. Her taste was all over his lips, his chin.
Her hand left his head. “Satisfactory,” she breathed. Then, after a beat: “More than satisfactory.”
She shifted on the sofa. “Now come. I will take care of your pleasure.”
She rose, a pale statue coming to life, and took his hand. Her grip was firm. She led him from the vast living area into the bedroom, a chamber just as sterile, dominated by a large, low platform bed with white linens. The Bay view was here, too, a constant reminder of the world they ignored.
She pushed him onto the bed. He lay back, his erection straining against his trousers. She stood over him and removed them, her movements methodical. When he was naked, she climbed over him, straddling his hips. She was still wet from his mouth, her folds glistening.
She took his cock in her hand, stroked him once, twice—a functional priming—then positioned him. She sank down onto him in one smooth, engulfing motion. The familiar, breathtaking tightness surrounded him, but it was different now. Slick with her own arousal, with his saliva. Hotter.
She began to move, not with the punishing, analytical rhythm of before, but with a rolling, deep grind. She leaned forward, placing her hands on his chest, her blonde hair falling around her face. She watched him as she rode him, her blue eyes focused.
“You left everything,” she said, her voice almost conversational, though her body was working his. “For this. For my body. For my instruction. Do you regret this variable?”
“No,” he gasped. His hands found her hips, clinging. The sight of her above him, using him, claiming him, was all he wanted.
“Your dedication is… noted.” She increased her pace, rising and falling with a wet, slapping rhythm that filled the room. “It will be rewarded.”
Her own breath started to hitch. A flush bloomed across her chest. She was chasing another climax, and taking him with her. The feel of her inner muscles beginning to rhythmically squeeze and release around his length was unbearable. It was a perfect, mechanical friction.
“Fuck, Seven,” he grunted, his hips bucking up to meet her drives.
“You are mine,” she stated, the words syncopated with her movements. “Completely. Your pleasure is mine to administer.”
She reached between them, her Borg-enhanced fingers finding her clit. She rubbed tight, quick circles as she fucked him, her motions becoming erratic, sharper. Her composure shattered. A raw, ragged cry tore from her throat—a human sound, ripped from the heart of the machine. Her cunt clenched around him like a fist, a series of violent, milking spasms that tipped him over the edge.
His orgasm ripped through him, a mindless, shouting surrender. He emptied himself into her in deep, pulsing jets, his vision whiting out at the edges, his body arching beneath hers. She rode him through every last shudder, until he was spent, a hollow vessel.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, a rare moment of weight and stillness. Her sweat cooled between them. The only sound was their ragged breathing. Outside, the city lights began to twinkle against the deepening twilight.
After a long time, she shifted off him, lying beside him on the sterile sheets. She stared at the ceiling.
Tom turned onto his side, facing her. He felt scraped clean. The ghosts of San Francisco, of Starfleet, of a different life, were silent. There was only her, and the space she allowed him to occupy.
He reached out, daring to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. She didn’t flinch.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice rough, spent, “for making me yours, Seven.”
She turned her head. Her eyes met his. There was no smile, no tenderness. But there was a possession so absolute it felt, in its own terrible way, like a kind of peace.
“It is logical,” she said simply, and turned her gaze back to the ceiling, to the empty, waiting night.