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SHE’S ONLY HUMAN

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This is more a vignette than an actual story.

 

 

“Garak, what’s it like?” she asked him timidly.

“Do you mean, what’s it like to torture someone, or to be tortured?”

“The latter, I guess. I could never, never be the one to…do it…to someone else.”

With a playful smile, he offered, “I can show you, if you like.” His eyes twinkled at her, anticipating all too well her reaction.

“Oh no no no no!!!” She recoiled. “It’s just…I’m the worst coward you’ll ever find; I have so many phobias, I can’t keep track of them all! So, …you have such an odd effect on me.”

“How so?” He was clearly intrigued.

“In the manner of a severe approach-avoidance conflict. I suppose I’m …awestruck by you. Part of me is terrified and wants to run away screaming and hide. But another part of me finds you so extraordinary: first, because you’re such an intellectual; it’s not often that I can find someone with whom to discuss literature and philosophy and cultural differences, and such.”

His eyes widened in interest.

“Second, I find you physically attractive, with an intensity that’s almost sexual.”

“Almost?” Garak teased.

She relented. “Okay, it is sexual in nature.”

He suggested helpfully, “So, naturally, since my cruel profession is also physically oriented, you can’t help but feel curious about it as well. In fact, it seems to have you rather ‘fired-up,’ as if the two were entwined.”

“Well, if not exactly ‘entwined,’ certainly at least rudimentarily related.”

“Granted.”

“Both have you paying extreme attention to me and me alone, focusing upon me, putting me at least temporarily in the center of your universe!”

“Oh yes! I tolerate no distractions whatsoever from the helpless waif before me.”

“What sorts of things do you do??” She regarded him with fearful eyes, as if she dreaded the answer, but felt compelled to ask all the same. As Garak hesitated, she drew back from him slightly.

            Then he said, “Do you mean, to my victims?”

She managed only a small nod.

“Wouldn’t it upset you to know?”

“Yes…. But wondering upsets me, too.”

“You poor dear,” he teased her gently. “Then, you are in a predicament.” He relented. “Let’s get back to that ‘approach’ part of your internal conflict.” Garak extended a slow, careful hand, and let his fingers tickle tantalizingly along one side of her neck.

Her eyes rolled slightly upward, and a disproportionate gasp was forced from her. “Your touch is electric! Just knowing that you could caress…or …hurt…!” Her expression crumpled. “Oh, please don’t hurt me!! I’m afraid of you!” she cried in a hushed voice, as her eyes searched his desperately, back and forth. “Is what you’re doing right now simply a normal kindness, or a diabolical prelude to…I can’t imagine what atrocity???” But before he could react, she marveled, “Why does it turn me on to beg you??”

“I don’t know. Perhaps you’re a masochist.”

“But I don’t want to be hurt!”

“There are all sorts of masochists.” He took her into his arms, touching gently all the while. For a time, she grew quiet and eventually seemed almost to relax. Then, gradually he began to caress her intimately. Only then, did she tense again.

“Do you hurt women there??” The terror was back in her eyes.

“In a torture chamber? Yes.” After a beat, he added, “You don’t want to know.”

“You’re not tempted, are you???”  She sounded truly alarmed.

“To do it to you? No.” He continued to caress her softly.

Unexpectedly, Dukat and Damar entered.

She looked to Garak urgently. “Protect me!!!” But then, obviously fearful of offending the new arrivals, she addressed them very meekly, “Hello, sirs.”

Dukat appeared pleased. “Well, there’s a pleasant change: a human who doesn’t swagger and act confrontational.”

Timidly, she explained, “They’re only trying to pretend that you can’t intimidate them. I won’t bother to waste your time in such a silly bluff.”

Damar grinned. “Bluffing, are they?”

“I think so, yes. Like a little bantam rooster trying to fake that it can stand up to powerful bulls.”

The two newcomers stood over her perilously closely, perhaps enjoying their evident prowess and mesmerizing effect on her.

Automatically, she implored, “Please don’t hurt me!! You’re not going to, are you???” She eyed Garak in a desperate plea for aid.

Magnanimously, and clearly enjoying his magnanimity, Dukat said expansively, “Why no, of course not.”

Just a bit suspiciously, and probably also having fun teasing her, Damar inquired, “Is there any reason why we should?”

“No, I hope not!!” she responded fervently, inspiring gentle laughter from all three.

A bit later, alone again with Garak, she admitted to him that she feared Dukat and Damar, too, even more than him.

“Even more?” He was surprised, probably because unlike them, he was the professional.

She explained, “In the school of learning compassion, Damar’s in elementary: he finally knows it exists, but he’s not always sure that he wants the added complication of employing it.”

Garak chuckled softly.

“Dukat’s in high school: he’s fully aware of its uses and particulars, and ruthlessly chooses when he has the best strategic advantage to make use of it.”

“And I?” Garak asked quietly.

“Graduate school-plus. Half of your subconscious is a ‘subconscience,’ as it were: the constant inner presence of Mila reminding you to respect Tain, but not to emulate him.”

He smiled at her appreciatively.