<\/p>\n
\u00a0 —Rumi<\/p>\n \u201cThe way you make love is the way God will be with you\u2026<\/p>\n — Rumi<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I heard the strike of his boot on the metal ramp.\u00a0 Instinctively I rose, holding myself straight, sensing a formality, an aura of intention, somehow, that was not present with the others.\u00a0 I somehow knew I needed to meet him standing tall, even as I once more had the draping blanket wrapped like a bath towel around me, clutching the precariously tucked edges to my breast.<\/p>\n \u201cDr. McCoy reports everything is functioning as we hoped,\u201d Spock said, as if purely for something to say.\u00a0 The perfunctory small talk fell awkwardly from his lips.<\/p>\n I assured him I was holding up.<\/p>\n He turned without another word, and looked around the space.\u00a0 He moved over to the metal wall, felt for embedded controls with those sensitive fingers of his.\u00a0 A small panel retracted, revealing what I recognized as a replicator.\u00a0 A moment later he turned to offer me\u2026 a cup of water.<\/p>\n Water.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t realized how thirsty I was.\u00a0 What a simple gesture, yet moving in its small thoughtfulness.\u00a0 I drained the cup.\u00a0 It still amazed me how good water tasted in space.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t stored; it was replicated on demand from the molecular formula, and came out fresh every time.<\/p>\n He refilled the cup, and I drank again, leaving half, handing it back.<\/p>\n Spock took it from my hands, met my eyes, and drank from the same cup.<\/p>\n The gesture was not lost on me.<\/p>\n I felt the energy in the space intensifying.<\/p>\n He turned again, still without comment, explored the space, to discover another opening, a narrow door, revealing, not surprisingly, the head, tiny, but fully equipped.\u00a0 He stepped in and seemed to know just how to remove the bowl of the sink, an ingeniously designed thing that, when stoppered, obviously functioned as a multi-purpose bowl.<\/p>\n This he filled with water, set it on the bunk beside us.<\/p>\n Again exploring the storage compartments, with swift, sure movements, he found a small cloth, which he took out, tearing off a length of it.<\/p>\n Now he paused before me and finally spoke again.\u00a0 \u201cThere is a Vulcan ritual for this, if you are agreeable.\u201d<\/p>\n I was mesmerized.\u00a0 It was all I could do to hold in this increasingly dense energetic field.\u00a0 Go deeper, Hani, go deeper<\/i>, the inner voice kept whispering insistently.\u00a0 It took everything I had to concentrate on my breath, to keep grounding myself, to channel the force swelling inside me.\u00a0 It would be all too easy to let this charged energy fry me to a crisp.\u00a0 I breathed in deeply and nodded.<\/p>\n He dipped the smaller cloth in the basin, wrung it out, and brought it to my face.\u00a0 He began to move the cool, wet cloth over my skin:\u00a0 forehead, cheek, neck.\u00a0 His movements were precise, neither lingering nor rushed. It felt as if, even within the urgency of the situation, time simply stretched to allow this\u2026prelude, this washing away of all that clung to me, all I\u2019d done and been.\u00a0 Until now.<\/p>\n The delicacy and deliberation of his touch, in some ways so unremarkable, in another way was so astounding, it brought tears to my eyes, tears that spilled down almost unnoticed.<\/p>\n He wiped those away, too.<\/p>\n And so he continued, putting a hand over mine, to loosen my grip on the blanket that covered me.\u00a0 I let it fall, and with all the courage and commitment I had in me, stood straight and grounded before him, while he washed every inch of me clean.<\/p>\n He completed the act by kneeling, taking one foot at a time in his hands.\u00a0 Then he stood and removed his own clothing with efficient, elegant movements.<\/p>\n I watched his naked body being revealed.<\/p>\n Seemingly with an utter lack of self-consciousness, he once again picked up the cloth, dipped it, wrung it out.\u00a0 As he would have raised it to his own face, I put out a hand to his, not knowing his ways, not knowing the rules, but following my own instincts.<\/p>\n \u201cMy turn?\u201d\u00a0 I asked.<\/p>\n He placed the cloth in my outstretched hands.<\/p>\n With intense concentration, I began to mirror the movements he had made with me, some part of me catching the music, the rhythm, of his own gestures, to touch every inch of his body, so familiar in its maleness, yet so foreign, too, the strong beat of his Vulcan heart, the heat of his skin.<\/p>\n I felt giddy, and willed myself to hold steady in this vibration.\u00a0 I continued to consciously ground myself, to keep myself from flying off into space somewhere as I solemnly, in measured movements, performed this alien but perfect ritual.\u00a0 As he had, I knelt to lift each foot in turn, feeling his hand on my shoulder as I did.\u00a0 I flashed, from some buried place of memory, an image of Mary Magdalene, as she once knelt before Jesus, washing his feet, drying his feet with her hair.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t begin to fathom the mysteries of who was saving whom in this moment.\u00a0 All I could do was surrender to the unexpected grace that had descended on us, and I felt my heart expand almost to the breaking point.<\/p>\n Spock raised me to my feet, then, took the cloth from my hands and set it aside.\u00a0 He held up his hand, forefinger and middle finger extended, and showed me how to do the same.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t need words to understand we were to focus our entire attention on that contact point.\u00a0 With those two fingers he began to explore.\u00a0 Now the arousal was almost unbearable.\u00a0 I was in an agonizing suspense.\u00a0 Where was all this going?\u00a0 My human impatience surged to the surface; how much more could I possibly stand?<\/p>\n And then I felt some unseen force, some seismic rumbling, rising from some volcanic (Vulcan?) core. \u00a0I felt the tension in him; perceived, through my very pores, the warring forces of control and surrender deep inside, the ultimate battle, for Spock more than most, product as he was of that unlikely conjunction between two worlds, living forever uneasy on the cusp, no matter how dedicated to his Vulcan side he\u2019d always been, and always will be.\u00a0 Sexual urgency colliding with\u2026this<\/i>\u2026 the earthy, expansive expressiveness that I couldn\u2019t help but bring with me, in my arms, in my very being; my all-too-human emotion, the antithesis of everything he\u2019s always chosen to embrace, and believe.<\/p>\n The world circumscribed within our embrace thickened, shook, rattling the very geological foundations that supported and sustained us.\u00a0 I could almost touch the moment that he gave in and let go, it was there in the wild grasp of his hands on my body, pulling me into an embrace that was primitive, driven.\u00a0 All I could do was cling to him with equal intensity.\u00a0 And in this primal rocking tangle, his breath came hot on my neck, his hands moved along my back, pressing me so tight I could hardly breathe, and from deep within came a sound, of release, some haunting, alien sound, half breath, half cry.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t mean to show me this.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t mean to reveal this much.<\/i><\/p>\n I simply knew it, instantly.\u00a0 The moment had carried him beyond his carefully cultivated self, something had slipped through the fissures, something so personal<\/i> that I felt it as a physical shock, even as I went sliding over my own edge, again, clinging madly, not believing I could be taken, here, again, then\u2026 not caring.\u00a0 Again.<\/p>\n Voices.<\/p>\n Spock, some deeper nakedness having spilled out, his unreadable face an igneous mask atop me.\u00a0 The look we exchanged held some obscure, coded message we had neither the wisdom nor courage to decipher.<\/p>\n Or time.\u00a0 Our gasps weren\u2019t even subsided, our bodies still entwined, as a voice, apologetic but urgent, called out sharply from nearby, just outside, \u201cSorry, you two.\u00a0 Gotta go!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I guess they\u2019d been within earshot, Jim and Bones; who knew for how long?\u00a0 What a thought.<\/p>\n Then they were in the pod.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re picking up a scan from some surface source, we\u2019ve got to go now!\u201d Jim was already at the console, tossing me a quick smile as if I weren\u2019t shakily scrambling around for my undergarments.\u00a0 How Spock put himself back together so quickly I\u2019ll never know. He was completely dressed and had taken his place beside Jim at the controls before I even managed to straighten out my dress and pull it over my head.\u00a0 I fumbled my arms into the sleeves, then, my brain in a total fog, I realized I didn\u2019t know where my shoes were.\u00a0 Scrambling on hands and knees, I located one under the bunk, one underfoot where Jim sat at the controls.<\/p>\n \u201cHang on, this is going to get bumpy!\u201d he said, and Bones pulled me back down onto the bunk, the only other seating, where I grabbed onto a rail and Bones\u2019 arm came around my shoulders.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re detonating the Cassandra\u2019s<\/i> power core,\u201d he told me.\u00a0 \u201cThe explosion should be enough to momentarily disrupt the communication grid.\u00a0 If we can get the pod high enough above the shield, Scotty can lock on and beam us back to the ship from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Jim, busy with the controls, added, \u201cThe key is to time it so the blast masks our escape,\u201d and even as he spoke, we were lifting off the ground, hovering.\u00a0 A split second later, there was an explosion, we shot upward; a second, larger explosion and the little pod bucked and spun, and I saw earth out the cockpit window, then sky, darkening as we were flung crazily higher, the blast, hot and percussive, behind us, until we were free, stars in view, and the pod slowed into a peaceful drift.<\/p>\n Bones was still holding me in his protective arms, and I admit I clung to him, a slight sob escaping, not upset, just\u2026stunned.\u00a0 And full, so very full.<\/p>\n I barely had time to run my fingers through my hair, try to comb the bed-head out as best I could, when I heard Scotty\u2019s blessed voice coming through and we were, finally, back aboard the Enterprise<\/i>.\u00a0 Back home.<\/p>\n Scotty himself was in the transport room.\u00a0 He and Jim started talking simultaneously, Scotty for once overriding his commanding officer.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what happened down there, Captain, but I can tell you what\u2019s happening up here.\u00a0 We\u2019ve detected a faint power signature.\u00a0 They\u2019re cloaked, but I can tell you, there are Klingons here, and they\u2019re in direct contact with Ardros.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 next > \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c\u2026.. whenever two are linked in this way, there comes another from the unseen world.\u00a0 It may be through birth, if nothing prevents … Continue reading ![\"300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17\"](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c\u2026.. whenever two are linked in this way, there comes another from the unseen world.\u00a0 It may be through birth,
\nif nothing prevents conception,
\nbut a third does come, when two unite in love,
\nor in hate.\u00a0 The intense qualities born
\nof such joining appear in the spiritual world
\n\u2026\u2026\u2026..
\nBe aware of this.\u00a0 A man and a woman together
\nAlways have a spiritual result\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n