Chapter 4: Confessions of a Former Armory Officer

Phlox sat in his improvised office feeling morose like never before. How could he have been so careless to forget that the minuscule movements of his patient's fingers could be a sign of a much greater alertness? He had made the biggest mistake a professional could make. He had let himself become emotionally invested in the case of Mr. Tucker and his partners. As a result, his urge to console the women and alleviate their fears had made him forget the brain scan that would have told him that the mind of Mr. Tucker was much more awake than even the most optimistic prognosis had predicted.

Of course he had performed the missed scan by now and had discovered (rather to his relief or disappointment, from a healing perspective) that Mr. Tucker was not after all fully alert. In fact the tears seemed more like the twitching of his fingers – an involuntary reaction of his body – but it had alerted him to the fact that he should take a more neutral position in this case or he would one day be unable to serve as his medic. The unusual situation of the four former officers, who had developed an affection to each other that went far beyond their initial marriages, was potentially explosive and being caught up in the middle of it was not really advisable.

Had they been Denobulan the situation would be positively manageable, as each of the women would only have to deal with two husbands and each male with only two wives; but even then there would have been the complication of obvious sexual attraction between the females and – he guessed – perhaps between the males, too. That would be the most straightforward explanation of how the friendship between two conventionally married couples had developed into a rather complicated four-way maze of interpersonal attraction.

There were of course several complicating factors. The first one was the loss of strength in the mating bond between Captain T'Pol and Mr. Tucker. While T'Pol and the recently deceased matriarch of her clan had dismissed the loss with slightly disturbing easiness, nobody could tell how Mr. Tucker would react to it. The loss of a major cognitive sense, not to mention the brain damage and resulting partial paralysis, were conditions that would be hard enough to accept for a human. The additional loss of such a wonderful connection might be devastating. Phlox, who had been fascinated by the concept for many years, could only guess at what it would be like to have such a connection and then lose it, at least partially.

Another problem would of course be how Mr. Reed would deal with it. The very traditional Brit seemed to have problems in adapting to changing conditions in general. The necessity to accept the developing alternative lifestyle that went against all his traditional beliefs was apparently hard to take. Phlox had tried to counsel the former Captain, but the introverted man had just clamped up. Over the time a peculiar ritual had developed between them.

Unable to overcome his inherent reserve to speak openly about his inner feelings, the Brit had started to talk about them to his unresponsive friend in the biobed, loud enough for Phlox to overhear it and never asking to be left alone. The Denobulan had soon realized that this seemed to be the only way his former shipmate felt able to articulate his emotional situation – it was an indirect plea for help.

He started to recall the many 'conversations' over the last months...

Hi, mate.

The Englishman was back again, in his usual seat beside the bio-bed. He sat hunched over, head bowed, staring at his joined hands where they dangled between his knees.

Hearing the note in the low voice, Phlox was careful not to draw attention to his presence, though he knew that once again Mr Reed was fully aware that he was there.

After a pause, the voice went on, slowly and with many pauses, heavy with shame and confusion.

The clearly distressed human – after a long pause – had continued to report less problematic topics like the difficulties in getting his fledgling company off to a good start, but Phlox had not paid much attention to these additional pieces of information, as they were not important for evaluating the source of Mr. Reed's problems.

What was immediately apparent to the doctor was that Mr. Reed was completely blocking out the emotional side. There was nothing that would lend credibility to the impression that he wanted only to engage in carnal relations to the Vulcan. Had that been the case, he would most likely have done so already; Phlox had realized at the time that over the five months it had taken the Curie to reach Earth, none of them seemed to have engaged in any sexual activity. T'Pol in particular had appeared deeply deprived, and Mr. Reed would not have had a great deal of resistance to overcome had the sole act of access to her body been his only ambition.

He used the wonderful act of lovemaking – employing vulgar slang terms in an attempt to convince himself that the whole affair was as sordid as it was unethical – as a facade for the deeper emotions he had developed for his close friends. The account of his dreams about his male friend were most interesting. First there was the revelation that Mr. Reed had prior experience with sexual relations between males, albeit as part of his former status as an operative; and Phlox was also convinced that his experience of receptive anal intercourse had been a lot more unpleasant than the Brit had let on. Else he would never have reacted with as much disgust to the dreams about actually wishing for a repeat of the act, even though with a distinctly different partner.

The problem seemed two-fold. First of all, although sexual relations between members of the same gender were now widely accepted on Earth – much unlike only one and a half centuries ago – Mr. Reed seemed to have some underlying homophobic attitudes. Those were most likely a result of the upbringing of the introverted human. Hoshi had only rarely spoken about it, but what Phlox had gathered over the years made it apparent that Mr. Reed had endured a catastrophic childhood with an upbringing that was at least two centuries out of place.

What seemed to be a minor detail, but most emphatically wasn't, was the fact that he wished to be taken anally 'until I beg for mercy', emphasizing an underlying wish to be punished. Even in the unlikely case that such an encounter would ever take place, Phlox knew that Mr. Tucker would never employ methods painful enough to require being asked for mercy. Mr. Reed was wishing to be punished for the attraction he had developed to T'Pol and to a degree to Mr. Tucker, as he found himself unable and unwilling to accept it.

The fact that he had found from somewhere the courage to 'open up' thus far, even in this cautious and oblique manner, was encouraging.

Helping him find the self-acceptance he so desperately needed, however, might be singularly difficult.

It had been a telling monologue, Phlox remembered. It was significant that Mr. Reed's voice broke only once – when he described the plight of T'Pol. It was the first time he had failed to hide just how deep his attachment to the Vulcan had become. For five minutes of temporary relief of the pain for both women he was willing to endure the misery of knowing that his wife was being intimate with someone else when he no longer dared lay a finger on her.

The Denobulan smiled sadly as he realized that Mr. Reed would most likely not be miserable. He would make himself miserable as a misplaced punishment for his own emotions, and most likely he would even contrive a reason to blame himself. His self-reproaching comment at the end told Phlox that he was probably reaching the point where he couldn't deal with his suppressed emotions any longer.

It was a monologue that had become stuck in Phlox's mind for several reasons. First and foremost, it had been the first time that Malcolm Reed had spoken openly about his emotions and had even used words like 'love'. He had even openly admitted that this affection concerned both females.

It seemed a long process, but Mr. Reed seemed to have started opening up, and surprisingly all by himself. Phlox had never broached the subject of his confessions to a comatose friend. Maybe this unusual style of self-therapy was what the man needed. It was also the second time that he had openly spoken about intimate thoughts concerning his ailing friend.

On Denobula that wouldn't even be worth contemplating. Sexual contact between wives was a common occurrence and – while rarer because the fellow males of his species were much less 'lively' than the females – sexual encounters between husbands were far from unheard of, too. This usually did not indicate homosexual tendencies as the wish for such contact was usually strictly directed at one or two partners.

By the impression he got from his four charges, humans were apparently able to develop similar feelings, as he severely doubted that Mr. Reed had any desire to become intimately acquainted with any male other than Mr. Tucker – especially considering the prior encounter in his time as an operative, which Phlox still suspected to have been rather traumatic. It was, however, much more remarkable that T'Pol had engaged in sexual relations with Hoshi, as even this very restrictive type of bisexual tendency was almost unheard of on her planet. The number of bisexual or homosexual individuals he had encountered were represented by single digit numbers, and he had spent a decade on Vulcan as part of the Interspecies Medical Exchange.

The devotion of all three uninjured members of what the Denobulan too had become to consider a true quad was moving, but he could also see worrying signs that all three were increasingly ignoring their own wellbeing. He was adamant that he should not involve himself in their private matters, but it would become necessary if one of them started showing signs of serious self-neglect. After all, all three of them would probably be needed when Mr. Tucker regained full consciousness.

When Malcolm Reed walked into the infirmary, Phlox knew immediately that something was different. He had spent the last hour recalling the different monologues of the introverted Brit over the last three months, but was interrupted when the man gave him a pat on the shoulder and greeted him with a elated "Evening, doctor!"

Before he could even answer the unexpectedly lively greeting the human had already disappeared around the privacy screens that shielded Mr. Tucker's bed from inquisitive looks.

Phlox stood up and, as surreptitiously as he could, peeked around the privacy screen. Mr. Reed was practically bubbling with excitement and to Phlox's surprise, he was gently holding the patient's hand. Quickly he restored Malcolm's privacy again.

"Why ... Mal ... Why ... not ... care ... better?"