Chapter 8: Barefoot

“Seriously, dad, you have no idea,” Trip snickered. “Not that she was ugly, not by a long shot. But damn, that attitude o’ hers should have come with a warning label. We’re down this swamp and I sent her collecting firewood.”

“Ya sent miss high-and-mighty collecting wood?”

“Yeah, and what does she come back with? A hand full of twigs. And she was pretty peeved, too. Anyways, I was pissed off like all get out.”

“And knowing ya, ya told her about it.”

“Sure thing. She starts berating me about being a mere commoner and stuff and we got into one hell of an argument. Then she wanted to slap me and I caught her arm. We both rolled down that hill and landed in the water.”

“Who woulda thunk it, wrestling princess...” Charles chuckled along.

“She went on yapping at me and I cussed her off and suddenly she kissed the daylights outta me.”

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“No idea, she just did. There wasn’t any hay around, but we took a roll in it anyways.”

“Well, sure makes up for the muggin’ ya got on Risa,” Charles quipped between laughs.

“Then I notice that beeping noise. Turned out to be homing beacon and one of them guys who had kidnapped her in the first place had just locked on to it. We stuffed my uniform with all sorts of junk and placed it as a decoy. Then this goon showed up and I jumped him. Gave him a good punching, but he just stood there. Could as well have scratched my ass, would’ve had the same effect.”

“How’d ya beat him then?”

“I didn’t. He dragged me down to that lake and tried to drown me. That’s when Kaitaama grabbed a big ol’ branch and whacked him over the head. Guy was out cold immediately.”

“Good thing she din’t pull that trick on you,” Charles noted.

“Yeah. He’d lost his weapon, so there’s me in my underwear, she in the skimpiest dress that would just about be legal in half of the galaxy, poking around in the water, when I hear Jon from behind saying, ‘Trip, this a bad time?’” Trip mocked in his best Archer imitation. “Malcolm stood there with him, giving me a shit eating grin and T’Pol shot Kaitaama a death stare.”

“So what happened to her?”

“Don’t know. We delivered her back to her people and, if everything went OK, she should be Queen by now.”

“I could listen ta yer stories all day,” Charles laughed. “But sumthing’s tell me ya did only tell me the funny stuff. Don’t ya think we deserve ta know ‘bout them humdingers too?”

“Another day, dad. Today I just wanted to hear you laugh and I know hearing it made mom’s day, too.”

“Guess I’ll hit the sack. Ya mom’s probably waitin’ already.”

“Indeed, she is,” T’Pol added, coming out on the porch with a hefty manifestation of the ‘Brow Of Enormous Giggle’.

“Night ya two,” Charles said with a mischievous grin and left the pair alone on the porch.

“Hi, darlin’. Talked to mom?”

“I did. She showed me something called a ‘baby book’ - most fascinating.”

“Oh dear,” Trip groaned.

Suddenly T’Pol grabbed him and kissed him, hard and passionate.

“Where did that come from?” he asked, slightly out of breath.

“You have given your mother an invaluable gift. Obviously the sound of your father’s laughter has been one she has been missing for a long time.”

“I know. He suffered badly when Lizzy died.”

“You did well,” she said and unconcealed admiration sparkled in her eyes. “Your mother seemed not to be surprised that you ‘forgot’ to remind me to bring or buy a swimsuit.”

Trip laughed softly. “T’Pol, this has nothing to do with forgetting something. This is our beach. Did you really think I’m gonna wear a swimsuit on my own beach?”

“But your parents...”

“The moment we leave the house, the beach will be off-limits for everybody short of Jesus Christ. Mom would kill dad if he just walks a step too near the beach while we are there.”

“You want to observe me in a disrobed condition,” she said in mock-accusation.

“Guilty as charged. You Vulcans aren’t the only ones who appreciate beauty. And besides, you want to ‘observe’ me too.”

“Guilty as charged,” T’Pol returned in obvious amusement.

“Vulcan bodies have higher body mass proportional to our sizes,” T’Pol complained. “I will sink to the ground.”

“Bullcrap, darlin’. You may have higher mass, but you have two times the lung capacity, at least. That should give you enough buoyancy to float just fine. Try it – I’m going to catch you if you sink.”

“That’s just another excuse to get your hands on my... ‘delicious parts’.”

“Would I need an excuse for that, darlin’?”

“No,” she conceded, seeing her argument deflate as quickly as she had brought it up.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Ok,” Trip explained. “Bend forward ... yes ... now let yourself fall forward ... keep the head up.”

T’Pol floated on top of the water, Trips arms below her stomach kept her up. With the perfect efficiency of a Vulcan, she executed the arm and leg movements that Trip instructed her to perform. Engrossed in the unfamiliar activity, she never noticed, how Trip retracted his arms.

“See, it works,” he said, swimming alongside. Momentarily startled, she stopped her movement and her head dipped below the water. In a quick catching movement, Trip had her above the water line again. “Try again.”

She swam effortlessly after just about twenty minutes of training. There was something to be said for the superior Vulcan sense of coordination and balance.

“The water is fairly cold,” she remarked with a slight shiver. While it was fairly warm by human standards, it was quite chilly for a Vulcan, so the time for splashing around was limited.

“Let’s get back to the beach; I’ve got an idea how to warm you up again.”

“I am interested to find out what it may be.”

As they walked towards the beach, each taking pleasure in admiring their respective mate’s naked form, Trip noticed an amused eyebrow.

“What’s so funny, darlin’?”

“Since our stay here would technically constitute an away mission, I cannot fail to notice that you are still remarkably undamaged, except for the cut on the sole of your foot. It appears my accompanying you makes excursions from the ship noticeably safer.”

“Funny, darlin’, very funny. First of all, I got the cut because I stepped on a shell, but what fun would the beach be if you don’t go barefoot, and second, don’t get used to babysitting me on away missions. Malcolm is a stickler for rules, so how often do you think you’ll get away from the ship?”

“I shall find a way to deal with Malcolm.”

“Let’s get you dry then and warmed up,” Trip said with a greedy grin, gently toweling her petite frame. Once done he drew her into a passionate embrace, dragging her down onto the beach blanket.

Vulcans did not initiate sexual encounters, or so they wanted the universe to believe. As soon as they were lying on the blanket, T’Pol apparently lost all her worries about his parents catching them. With the practiced ease of recent ‘intimate encounters’ she gently gulped down his manhood to prepare him for the task of satisfying her desires.

The technique itself was definitely not common practice for Vulcans to initiate touch-telepathic contact, but as Trip had learned two days ago, those girl-talks with Hoshi were more than just scientific exchanges about the linguistic intricacies of the Chief Engineer’s vernacular. They apparently had also exchanged information about more practical topics, now that they were both in committed relationships.

The mental image of Hoshi using a vibrator to demonstrate what a blowjob was had hung with him for a while. And damn was she good at it. As he looked down at the spectacle of T’Pol administering gentle oral stimulation of his manhood, he thought it was time to find out if Vulcan females were receptive to having the favor returned.

With a quick motion he guided her into the sixty-nine position, while T’Pol gently continued her task at hand, and quite expertly so.

From what he had gathered about her anatomy, Vulcan females didn’t have a clitoris, so the tried and tested method of just finding the pleasure spot and going to town on it was somewhat pointless. For Vulcans it was all about neuropressure points. Finding and stimulating them could elicit calm, excitement or even be used to render someone unconscious.

As a standing challenge, T’Pol refused to tell him were the neural nodes for the erotic stuff were, tasking him with finding them on his own. He suspected that was because she simply didn’t know them herself. He doubted a species that considered their age intimate information would have any literature or an equivalent of ‘the talk’ with their parents about where their erogenous hot spots were.

The few rolls in the hay they had had so far had usually been a bit on the vanilla side, with the exception of recently added oral stimulation. He had soon found that his success in making her cum had heavily depended on the angle of attack, so to speak, so he was sure there was one neuropressure node deep inside the folds of her, and one quite close to the entrance.

After a few gentle licks along the length of her womanhood, he snaked his tongue inside and gently probed where her suspected pleasure spot was, and he didn’t have to wait long for feedback. T’Pol let out a long guttural moan that transmitted as vibrations to his shaft, which was still in her mouth. Inspired by his ministrations T’Pol bobbed her head up and down with more urgency, bringing him close to climax himself.

He continued his gentle oral neuropressure session and gently rubbed his thumb along her perineum. With the practice of many neuropressure seasons, albeit in other regions of her body, he pushed down his thumb. That turned out to be pushing fast-forward on T’Pol and turning up her volume to eleven.

She was now blowing him enthusiastically. Feeling his release coming through their connection, she gulped him down as far as she could and Trip growled as he emptied himself down her throat. With a final push of the thumb he pushed her over the edge as well and T’Pol let out a wail of relief that sounded quite out of place, coming from such a small person.

Charles Tucker Jr entered the kitchen, chuckling.

“What’s so funny, Charles? You haven’t been peeking at ‘em, have you?” Cathryn asked sternly.

“Do I look crazy, woman? I like to sleep indoors! But we shoulda told ‘em that even when no one can see ‘em down there, one sure as hell can hear ‘em, especially when T’Pol makes such a hell of a racket.”

Cathryn laughed. “Oh dear – young love. Just think back to what our first weeks of marriage were like. No wonder Davey arrived almost exactly nine months later.”

“We were an active team, that’s fer sure. I had muscles bein’ sore like hell I din’ even know I had ‘fore. Where’s the beer, honey? I got a hunch that ‘em lovebirds will be back any minute.”

“Dinner’s ready anyways. Beer is in the stasis unit.”

“Well, here they come. If they keep glowin’ like that, we ain’t gonna need no lamp on the porch tonight,” Charles chuckled, but stopped himself, before the two came into earshot.

The meal went in relative silence, mainly because the elder Tuckers were very busy fighting their grins and Trip and T’Pol were fighting their blushes.

As the sun started to set, the four sat on the porch. Trip and his father had made sure that a sufficient supply of beer was at hand and even T’Pol tried the strange beverage, seeing that Cathryn had also grabbed a bottle. This could potentially meant this was a family ritual.

T’Pol made a bland face, after her first taste of beer. All human eyes were on her, waiting for the verdict.

“Obviously an acquired taste...”

“Yep, and every Tucker man acquires it at age sixteen,” Charles drawled.

“It might take me a while to fully admire the taste.”

“Yep, exactly five bottles, darlin’, then it’s the greatest stuff in the universe,” Trip explained with a chuckle.

“I did not plan to inebriate myself,” T’Pol admonished him softly.

“It was only a joke, darlin’.”

“So kids, now ya both didn’t talk much about the fight with the Xindi and how ya got together. I can imagine that it wasn’t a walk in the park. Judgin’ from Trip’s transmissions it was quite an up-’n-down, until ya finally got the clue that ya love each other.”

“Was quite the ride,” Trip started. “But actually it was really hard on Jon, too. You know him, all those ideals, dreaming of being an explorer, and there he was commanding a damn warship, looking for a bunch of people of which be knew nothing but the name. He had to make some ugly decisions - torturing people, stranding others, and giving a helluva lot eulogies.”

“Trip was in no better condition,” T’Pol continued. “He went into denial concerning his sister’s death. He tried to work himself to complete exhaustion, but could not sleep, because disturbing images came to him in his sleep. So finally Doctor Phlox asked me to help him using Vulcan neuropressure.”

“Neuropressure?”

“First I thought, it’s like a glorified backrub, but I soon found out that it’s probably the most intimate thing ya can do, without getting completely naked,” Trip explained.

“That’s surprising,” Cathryn said. “Considering how Vulcans are so cautious with anything intimate, you must have gone quite out of your way for that.”

“It was not that surprising,” T’Pol explained. “Although none of us would have admitted it at that time, we were already quite attracted to each other at that point. For me, it was a welcome excuse to spend time with Trip without having to admit to any desire to do so. Unfortunately, it took me fairly long to see that denying one’s attraction was foolish.”

“Well, I wasn’t any better, it took T’Pol quite some twisting to get me to admit that I hat the hots for her and that was months later,” Trip added, amazed how open and straight-forward she talked about such intimate things in front of her future in-laws. But that was probably just an extension of T’Pol’s logic concerning Mal and Hoshi: his parents were family, so not too much censoring was required.

“So, how did ya deal with Lizzie’s death, boy?”

“At that time, not at all. I was still in denial. First came Sim,” Trip trailed off.

“Sim was a clone of Trip,” T’pol took over. “Trip had been gravely injured and the only thing that could save his life was a transplant from a compatible donor. Phlox created a clone who would grow to maturity in less than two weeks.”

“So there’s a second Trip out there?” Cathryn asked, horrified.

“No, Sim died during the transplantation. It was expected that he would not survive the procedure. It was an instance of what Trip called ‘ugly decisions’. Both Jonathan and Trip are still deeply disturbed by the memory.”

“You shoulda seen it,” Trip continued in a breaking voice. “I was standing there, looking at the casket and it was me in there – dead. And he had been created, just to die, so I could live. That’s some guilt-trip I don’t wish on anybody.”

The Tucker elders watched them both with interest, but also in shock, realizing that both of them had gone through some disturbing events in the Expanse.