Destroying Love

Posted on 03 Aug 2016 @ 1:00am by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D.

2,237 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 11 - Divinum Mundi
Location: USS Galileo - Tuula's Quarters
Timeline: MD 18 - 2120 hrs

[ON]

It was hard to believe anything a nurse had to say, but Olsam was forced to admit that certain portions of Veri's argument made sense. While he was reconstituting the medcart to conform with Starfleet Medical's asinine organizational system, the Bolian had plenty of time to review his past interactions with Dr. Voutilainen. The evidence certainly stacked up in favor of some sort of romantic feelings, but he wasn't the sort of person to listen to evidence. Shouldn't he hear it from the horse's mouth?

A fat blue thumb pressed the door's control panel once, then followed it up with two additional rings. The computer marked each occurrence, flooding Tuula's quarters with three consecutive chimes.

A few moments later, the door opened to reveal Tuula, bleary-eyed and ready for bed. But when she saw who it was at her door, her eyes lit up. "Olsam!" she exclaimed excitedly, looking up at the rotund Bolian who was the object of her affection. "I was just thinking about you! I was reading the most interesting journal article about the Bolian reproductive system, and..." she trailed off and sighed longingly as she looked up into his eyes. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Bajoran fizzypop," Olsam said agreeably, following Tuula into her quarters. "I didn't know you had an interest in urology." As he said so, he happened to catch sight of what appeared to be an ancient catheter bolted to the wall; it caused him to cringe a little bit. "Our system is very caustic, you know. Unaltered Bolian semen can cause moderate to severe damage to the mucosa of non-Bolians. But I guess you already knew that. From your reading, I mean."

"Yes, of course," replied Tuula, enthralled by every word of Olsam's clinical descriptions. Having him in her quarters talking dirty about medical things was like a dream come true. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable while I fetch you those drinks and change into something a little more comfortable myself?"

"Oh. Okay..."

Several minutes later, Tuula emerged from her bedroom, slowly rolling herself towards Olsam, careful not to spill the Bajoran fizzypop and the large glass of red wine which were on a tray balanced across her lap.

Her outfit, a corset made of leather and lace, left little to the imagination. Complete with the garter belt and stockings, ankle-length stiletto boots, and black gloves, everything about it screamed risque. The ensemble was accessorized with a translucent lace shawl draped over her shoulders, and a leather collar with a short chain attached. And here and there, attached to leather cuffs and straps, were various rings and other attachment points.

"Now," she said as she placed the tray on the table next to the two of them, revealing the other item on her lap -- the same riding crop that she had used with Jynn -- "what was it you wanted to discuss?" she added in as sultry of a tone as she could muster.

Olsam sat on the couch immobilized. In fact, he looked like he'd been paralyzed with the only thing left moving being his eyes. And move they did, all around the way, spinning madly and never resting in one spot for more than a second. He gestured in her general direction but it was aimless given his refusal to look at her.

"This. All this... Thisness."

Tuula smirked. She had finally caught Olsam's attention, and now she had him in her quarters. It was like a dream come true.

"Say no more," she said, her voice positively oozing sexuality, as she pushed herself closer. With a smooth motion, she threw her shawl over Olsam's head and pulled him in closer. "I've been waiting for this moment for a long time," she added, aggressively embracing the blue cuddle monster who she had so desired, locking her lips with the Bolian.

Olsam made a whole lot of muffled noises against Tuula's lips and sent the shawl to flapping wildly with his flailing arms. When he managed to disentangle himself and take a step back, the shawl had settled around his bald head to make him look like a precious blue babushka.

"I know!" the Bolian exclaimed, and then balanced on one foot in order to hold the other out block her advance. "That's what I mean. I don't want to have intercourse with you, Tuula!"

Olsam couldn’t have been much clearer than that. But to Tuula, who was swept of her feet in love, it wasn’t what she heard. Grabbing his leg and pulling herself closer, she looked up at him with a sly smirk and leaned forward slightly, giving him a good view of her feminine charms. “Oh, Olsam,” she whispered, grabbing him by the hand and clutching tightly, “I love it when you talk dirty.”

In his hand, something hard and unyielding pressed into her flesh. He'd anticipated she might not see things his way and come prepared. Although, technically, he always came prepared. He'd learned early on you couldn't go wrong with always carrying a hypospray of sedative in your pocket at all occasions. To bed, while brushing your teeth, on duty, at diplomatic functions...

"Don't make me press the button, Tuula. I don't want to have to sedate you and file a sexual assault report, but I'll do it. This... This is not a drill."

“But… but…” As Tuula looked up into Olsam’s eyes, she saw that he was serious. Her lips, covered in dark lipstick, began to quiver and she quickly buried her head in her hands and began sobbing. When she looked up again, there were tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving trails of her dark mascara behind. What she had hoped would be the start of something special turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

"This always happens," she managed to utter between tears. "I try to put myself out there, to make myself available for love, and then end up just embarrassing myself." Trying to brush away the tears, she looked up at Olsam, her makeup all a mess. "I thought we had something, the way you had that Zuwtt guy horribly beaten for me, or when you challenges those Klingons to an eating contest, or the way your hand so gently brushes up against mine during surgery."

Through her tears, she continued. "Why? Why aren’t you attracted to me? Is it…” she paused for a second, looking back down at her legs, “…the chair?”

Olsam shifted his weight from one foot to the other as she cried. He reasoned it was probably safe to put up the hypospray of sedative and did so. He hated to see her in such a pitiable state, but he reminded himself that it was better for her in the long term to have her heart completely eviscerated in order to reinforce his position.

"What chair? Oh, that? No. No, it's not that. That's just a personal assistance device. I don't care about that. I'm not attracted to you because I don't experience a flood of hormonal activity related to external stimuli when I'm around you. There is not an attending uptick in the production of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin when we are around each other."

The Bolian cleared his throat and reached down to firmly pat her shoulder. He took the shawl from around her and offered it as a sort of handkerchief so she could dry her eyes.

"Which is not to say that I don't enjoy your company or appreciate your professional competence. You are a good friend, an interesting human, a very competent doctor, and I'm sure someday someone will want to press their genitalia together with yours within a romantic context. Just not me."

Tuula ignored the shawl and grabbed Olsam's arm tightly, using his sleeve to dry off the mixture of tears and mascara running down her face. All that medical terminology might have been a bunch of gobbledegook to anyone else, but to her it was as clear as could be.

For several moments, she couldn't even look up at the big blue Bolian whose shirt she was using to wipe away her tears. Eventually, she worked up the courage to look up at him again, but only for an instant before burying her head in his sleeve again. "But... I'm attracted to you..." she said, her voice muffled by her tears and Olsam's sleeve.

Olsam looked deeply sympathetic, which clashed somewhat with his reply. "I understand. Perhaps we can develop a compound to help neutralize the effect of my pheromones or otherwise suppress the attraction. Love is just a chemical reaction, Tuula. And using science, together, we can destroy it."

"No," she said, finally wiping away the tears and looking up at Olsam. For a moment she was tempted, if it could make the pain go away. A faint smile appeared on her lips but disappeared just as fast. "You know, pretending to be married to you was the happiest I've been in a long time. I just wish it could have lasted longer..." She sighed and took a deep breath. "Can you do me a favour?" she asked, looking up at Olsam, pleading with her eyes. "One last kiss goodbye?"

"Of course," Olsam said sympathetically. He leaned down looking for all the world like he was zeroing in on her lips but took a last minute swerve to the side to kiss her right cheek. "We'll always have the marriage, Tuula."

Anticipating that a germophobe like Olsam might avoid a kiss right on the lips, Tuula wrapped her arms around him as he leaned down and pressed her lips against his once more.

It was a moment that she wanted to last forever, even as Olsam struggled against her grasp. But it, like her sexual fantasies about him, the kiss had to come to an end at some point.

"And this kiss," she replied, releasing Olsam from her grip, trying not to start crying again as she looked up at him.

To his credit, Olsam did try not to do it, but he couldn't help himself. He reached up and wiped his mouth clean with the sleeve of his shirt, though he at least made a half-hearted effort to make it seem like he was coughing into the crook of his arm. Swapping bodily fluids seemed to unclean; between two doctors, it seemed sacrilegious.

"Mm-hmm, yes, and this kiss," Olsam repeated, trying again for another comforting pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Tuula, we'll find you another more suitable romantic and sexual partner. There are many eligible men on the ship. I'll make a spreadsheet of their suitability cross-checked against their medical histories and forward it to you."

"That would be a misuse of personnel files and an invasion of crew members' privacy," replied Tuula. But her concern about procedures melted as she looked up into Olsam's eyes and tried to hold back more tears.

A lot of people had described Dr. Olsam Mott in many ways. Oblivious, uncourteous, impolite, and yes, even stupid. But Tuula had seen through his flabby blue exterior and saw the other side to Olsam Mott. He may tend to blunder through life like a bull in a china shop or a Bolian at an all you can eat seafood buffet, but somewhere inside there was a man who genuinely cared about his friends and colleagues. A man who would go to great lengths -- be it invading others' privacy, having an abusive ex-boyfriend brutally beaten by a gang of forty-something Bolians, or eating nineteen pounds of gagh in less than an hour -- to protect his friends and colleagues.

"And you would do that for me," Tuula said in a soft voice, a faint smile beginning to form on her lips. "That's so thoughtful..."

Olsam's eyes widened just a bit, and he gave her another pat on the shoulder. "Yes. I am a thoughtful friend. Generally. I mean, as you know. People often think I'm thoughtless. I just get caught up in thinking something, you know? So it's not that I'm thoughtless. I'm actually very thought filled. Just not always thoughtful." He cleared his throat. "So, uh, yes. We will find a suitable paramour for you, somehow, in a perfectly ethical manner."

"That would be nice," she replied, looking up at him and trying to hold back tears. The word friend cut her deeply as she wanted so much more, but it was clear that that was all they had together. "So... any surgeries tomorrow?" she asked, trying to change the subject as her left hand began tugging slightly on one of the metal rings on her leather collar.

"Yes," exclaimed Olsam as he headed for the door, relieved at the change of subject. "We have a boil to lance first thing in the morning; I'll let you do the honours." He paused for a moment in the doorway of the quarters, just long enough for one last look at his friend and colleague. "Good night, Tuula."

With that, Olsam was gone. As the doors closed behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief. But as he paused to straighten his uniform, he thought he heard a faint sobbing.

--

LT Olsam Mott
Asst. Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Tuula Voutilainen
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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