Lieutenant Commander Vonn Reese hobbled up to his apartment door, leaning on his cane and holding his luggage in the other. Despite offers to carry it for him, he always could remember the words of his late father, Sam, who would say, ‘a man should carry his own bag. If he can’t then he packed too damn much.’ When traveling alone, he always abided by that rule despite his physical infirmity.
Appointment next Tuesday, new legs and new neural motivator, he reminded himself with every step. He knew, though, once beyond the door in front of him, the pain would be forgotten. He will see the most precious and important treasures in this world, his wife Heidi and the kids. They were all the pain medication he needed.
The door made a happy chiming noise upon recognizing a legal occupant of the domicile and slid open. Vonn made his way inside, ready to savor the sight, sound, and smell of everything that he valued in life. There was, however, no one to greet him.
“Heidi? Kids?” he called out venturing inside further and setting his bag down on a comfy chair. It was strangely quiet.
That’s when Heidi slowly rounded the corner from the kitchen. She was a sight that his eyes longed to see. Heidi was, to Vonn, the most beautiful woman in the world… in his world anyway. In truth she had always been a radiant woman, unwittingly inspiring jealousy amongst Vonn’s school mates, even before they finally conceded to fate and revealed the love they shared for each other. There was really no surprise to anyone. They had practically grown up together, and with a few futile attempts at dating other would-be suitors, they seemed inseparable. To Heidi Schenkle there was no one else like Vonn Reese, and conversely to Vonn Reese there was no one else like Heidi Schenkle.
Heidi was the daughter of an Orion mother who grew up anachronistically in Kentucky, and a human father from Bavarian Germany, and she had seemed to win the genetic lottery in inheriting the best of both worlds. Her face and body were strikingly Germanic, but her skin was smooth as silk with a pale green color to it. Every move she made was graceful to a fault, and her voice was smoky, soothing, and disarming, but with a hint of sass when it was needed. Her clear, cinnamon eyes were sultry without effort.
She was his best friend. She was his confidant. She was, like her mom, a force to be reckoned with. He was her rock, but she was the wind beneath his wings as the old 20th century song goes. She was the mother of Vonn’s sons, Jacob and Wilhelm, and expecting number three within the month. Even 8 months pregnant and in the worst of states of working motherhood she maintained a grace and strength about her that the greatest poets would be hard pressed to describe.
Heidi was wearing a bathrobe, fancy heeled sandals that revealed perfectly manicured toes, and she was decorated with ethnically Orion jewelry as well as a glamorous, evening application of makeup, which confused Vonn. He thought for a moment she intended on both of them going out and had yet to finish dressing. They never went out much anymore, and certainly never after he had come home from travel.
She stood in the archway to the dining area smiling at him.
“Hey honey,” she said. “How was your ride home?”
“Eh, ya know, the seats are uncomfortable and the food sucks,” he casually answered, still confused and maintaining distance to decide what he was expected to do. He looked around. “Where are the kids?”
“At your mom’s,” she replied. “They’ll be back Sunday evening. She needed some grandkid time, and… I figured you and I could enjoy a nice weekend with just the two of us for a change.”
He raised his eyebrows. This was different. Something was different. Everything was different. She’s usually a clinging, frazzled mess when he arrives home, and competing for attention with the kids who shower their father with a description of every event from their point of view, no matter how miniscule, that they had experienced in their young lives while he was gone. But here she stood, relaxed, almost what his people in Indiana would call ‘gussied up’ and with a demeanor similar to when they started ‘officially’ dating.
“So we aren’t, uhm… going out to eat or anything, are we?” he asked.
“Oh no, dear,” she replied. “I have dinner cooking right now. Your favorite, chicken tarragon.”
Fear crept slowly into his brain. It was time to be careful here. Something was up. Though he was regretting potentially ruining what could be a great and welcomed situation, he felt it best to come right out and tell her the surrounding conditions by which he was sent out on the trip, just in case that’s what she was waiting for him to confess to. “Look, uhm, Heidi. I need to tell you something about the trip.”
“Vonn, if it’s about my mom asking you to go to the USS Dragon under the guise of doing an inspection, so you can keep someone safe for her that may have been in danger, then she’s already told me. She called this morning.”
“Oh?” Vonn said in surprise mixed with relief. “Well, Heidi, I’m very sorry. I know you didn’t want me to…”
“Honey, honey, honey,” she interrupted him. ”Stop. I’m not angry. I’m not. Really.” she smiled. “Mom said not to blame you and I don’t. She and I talked for like two hours… about things.”
“Two hours?” Vonn said, in shock. This was a mother-daughter combo that could rarely stand to listen to each other breathe for a minute. ”About things? And it didn’t turn into an argument?”
She laughed, “No. Not this time.” Heidi’s face now showed her confusion. “She was very… apologetic. I… I don’t know how to describe it. She said she was sorry for the hell she put me through in childhood, that she wished she could have been a better mother, and I really couldn’t call it hell, though. I mean not like I didn’t know she had work to do. I don’t know, it was like she was feeling… guilty. It was… strangely cathartic too. My headstrong mother, telling me… I became the woman she wished she could have been. It was kinda nice to hear her say that, but also still very strange.”
“Is this the same Captain Tohanna, AKA the Green Hornet, that we are referring to?” Vonn inquired.
“Yep,” Heidi replied. “Unless she was taken over by an Undine or something. I don’t know. She is retiring. She said for once, she felt like she had closure. Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“No, Heidi. I don’t, unless it was something about this case. Hmm.”
“Nonetheless, she did tell me she asked you to keep that little girl safe.”
“Lieutenant Wind-People, Yeah,” he answered. “She’s not a little girl. She’s a woman… or a woman shaped fungal colony I guess.”
“Right. So, you helped keep her safe,” she said, with a smile developing. “Honey, have you read the news? She was reunited with her species. That’s just… that’s so wonderful, Vonn.”
“Yeah, well, Not like I did much. I found out on the way home too, after reading about it like you and everyone else did, then put the other pieces together. Your mom didn’t tell me anything. She just said keep her busy and on the ship. That’s it. Even said, you’re not a bodyguard, just a distraction.”
“Oh Vonn, even my mom knows that if that Lieutenant Wind-People had needed help you would have helped her,” she said with raised eyebrows. “I know you, honey, and mom knows you too. We’ve both known you all your life. You’re a hero, just like your dad. A white knight, and if you could you’d save the entire galaxy.”
“I don’t know about that, Heidi, “ he began feeling somewhat embarrassed by that proclamation from Heidi, “I’m happy, just doing my part now. It was fun being on a ship again, I guess I could say ‘in the field,’ but I mean, what I do now is important and I’m happy with that.”
“No you’re not, Vonn.”
“Heidi, I get to come home to you and the kids and…”
“Vonn,” she urged, “Please. Every time you called while you were on that ship, you had a spark in your eyes I haven’t seen since you were injured. You were gushing about that ship, about its features which you memorized quickly… probably quicker than it took for you to memorize our wedding vows, and you told me how exciting it was to back the bridge of a ship when you sat in on a console and directed repair efforts… like you did when you were on the Huxton or the Gankar or the Firesong… or any ship you got a mission on, at least the ones I knew about. You were… alive, honey.”
“Yeah, but, Heidi, you and the kids are more important to me.”
“I know that Vonn, and I have faith we always will be, but I need to come to grips with the fact that my husband is a hero.” she sauntered up to him and gently touched the side of his face as a warm smile formed on her burgundy colored lips. “I’ve… I’ve kept you caged, shackled, Earthbound, and I need to stop being so selfish. Vonn, you said there was an opening on that ship, right? Why don’t you go ahead and put in an application for it? They could use someone like you.”
“Heidi, but what about you and the kids? I can’t just leave you all here.”
“We will follow you wherever you have to go. I mean, seriously, you know Jake is gonna love being on a space station, seeing all the spaceships come and go, and I’m sure I can get a job, I mean they gotta need nurses, even civilian ones.”
“Well, honey…”
“And, Vonn, I know it’s not going to be like it was in SI. This time, you’ll go out, which in most cases we’ll know ahead of time because we’ll have a schedule, and we’ll know when you come home, and we’ll be there ready and waiting for you.” She looked deep into his eyes with an expression of love. “Just do it, Vonn. You know deep down inside, that’s what you want to do.”
He sighed and smiled, then nodded. He pulled Heidi in and conformed to her pregnant belly holding her tight as he kissed her. He then pulled back sniffing lightly and giving her the side eye with a sly smile.
“Heidi, you aren’t wearing the pheromone blocker, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” she said coyly.
“Why?” he asked slowly with raised eyebrows. She backed away from him a few paces and then untied her robe, dropping it to the floor, showing him the very revealing Orion outfit she had on underneath. It was barely an outfit at all covering a minimal amount of flesh, leaving little to the imagination, and mainly serving to frame the wearer’s assets for perfect display in an effort to sell those goods. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped.
“Aye chihuahua,” he said.
“You like?” Heidi asked.
“I like,” Vonn replied, nodding vigorously.
“Good,” she said, slinking up to him seductively and turning at the last moment to place her back to him. “Because I think my hero husband deserves to have a weekend with his very own Orion slave girl.” She sank into him, raising her right arm to stroke his face while taking his left hand and putting it on her low hip.
“Where did you get this?” Vonn asked, playing along which was not much of a stretch.
“Uhm, replicator, silly,” she said, closing her eyes, biting her lower lip, and giving his hand a guided tour of her torso to show the outfit’s features by feel as she spoke. “Actually, my grandmother still had some of her old outfits so I asked her to scan them and send me the images, and I replicated them… well, I had to make alterations, because your very own Orion slave girl is half beefy Germanic stock with good childbearing hips, and in her third trimester.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “So, what you see is what you get.”
“Well that’s good,” Vonn replied, immersing himself into this long missed situation, “because I like what I see.”
“Think you can handle it, sailor?” she asked, returning to a state of closed-eye undulation.
Vonn nuzzled into the space between her neck and her shoulder tenderly. “Damn sure gonna try.”
In a teasing maneuver, she pulled away mischievously and turned to face him. “Well, you better pace yourself then. Now, while I finish getting dinner ready, why don’t you go to the bedroom, take off this stuffy, uncomfortable, albeit handsome uniform, take a shower, and go put on the things I have laid out for you on the bed.”
His eyes lit up as he flashed a huge smile. Grabbing his cane and his bag off the chair, he paused and said, “I love you, Heidi.”
“I love you, too, Vonn. Now go, get ready.” she replied doing a quick shooing motion with her hands. He disappeared into the hallway by the front door heading for the bedroom.
She looked at the spot where he had been for a moment and smiled. Heidi then picked up her robe and upon straightening up caught a glimpse of herself in a tall mirror. She turned a bit and admired the view.
“Oooo,” she purred, eyeing the reflection with admiration. ”Well hello sexy mama.” She adjusted herself and then put her hands on her hips. “I do look good in this." She rotated her quite pregnant body back and forth slowly and watched the diaphanous fabric barely covering the front and rear of her pelvic area teasingly follow the motion as it was intended to do while the wearer danced. It was the first time Heidi had ever worn one of the racy outfits from her Orion heritage and she thought the effect was truly stunning. “I really should wear stuff like this more often.” She stuck her butt out slightly, slapped the uncovered skin while making a kissing pout with her dark red painted lips then laughed and sashayed confidently into the kitchen.