Original Stories Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction / Romance Fan Fiction ❯ Separate Rooms? ❯ Vigniette ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Trisha Maypierce and Professor Esmentaur are c. by me Trynia Merin. Do not duplicate/reproduce without the author's permission!

a/n
Just a piece of a longer story to give people an example of the platonic side of the Professor and Trish's relationship. I might post a more steamy bit later. Part of the problem is that some of this is from a self published book. I figure I have to be careful what I post, but this is just a stand alone piece I was going to include but didn't.

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Being invited to someone's house for Christmas was an experience. Especially if you lived in America thousands of miles away, and were being `adopted' by the family of your soon to be significant other.  Because the scientists of the DALTOS research institute had recently gone overseas to the new plant in England, many of the American scientists found themselves unable to travel home for the holidays.

For the next year the Professor, his assistant Jamie, and her boyfriend Jonathan would live in an apartment complex on the local air force base.  One of their major projects was the manufacture of aerospace technologies.

To a temporal anthropologist, such attempts to study the fledgling technologies of a world on the threshold of spaceflight were irresistible.  Not to mention the chance to observe his significant other, namely Trisha Maypierce's native culture.

She was British through and through. Just what that meant was strange and elusive to him. He had adopted the persona of an American scientist, and his assistant Jamie was no more human than he was.  Both had their separate roles when studying Earth culture in the late 20th century.  Specifically the decade they called `the seventies'.  

She was the cultural expert who helped them blend into their respective roles. While he observed the technology of the century by participating as one of its engineers.  He built electronics and computers from transistors.  Just how he fit in without affecting time was an art in itself.  All for the sole purpose of protecting minds that would shape Earth's future in the next century.  Just why they were studying this era and place was for the benefit of several scientists.  Their archenemies, the Djinna, would stop at nothing to shape time for their whims.  Moreover, their agents of dissention took many forms, including human.  They were difficult to unwrap, and it was crucial to not let the native humans know of the dimensional battles just beyond their reach.

This brought the professor to this moment.  He had just eaten dinner with Trisha's parents.  While she was in her late twenties/early thirties, she was still `single'.  Yet he was perceived as her `boyfriend' by her parents, both in their mid fifties.  Such a culture wondered why females and males remained unpaired outside of religious or personal devotion.  In addition, they showed great interest that their daughter had `found someone'.  Yet they insisted on separate sleeping accommodations, all because they wished to protect the `modesty' and virtue of their unmarried daughter.  Still it seemed a token and unnecessary step because it was clear the relationship of any of their children still not married ventured into the sexual realm. Most couples of this era didn't wait.

Why he played this game was for her benefit.  Embarking on intimate relationships with native species you studied was part of fitting in.  Nevertheless, one had to tread carefully lest they create offspring or lasting ties that would bend history to the whim of their enemies.  To protect Trisha, a temporal focal point, he would risk it.

That night he heard a knocking at his door. Until then he'd been reading one of the many books he pulled down from the shelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling.  On three sides of the guest bedroom were tall bookcases crammed with various volumes.  Within this wall of knowledge, he felt strangely calm and quiet.  The ceilings were slanted on the far side, while his bed unfolded from a futon facing the one wall of normal height.  The entire room he classified as slanted at a 45-degree angle with most `usable space' painstakingly filled.
Normally he didn't sleep until well after midnight. Only once every two days did he sleep. It was the old rhythms of his planet kicking in, accustomed to a thirty-six hour day.

Moonlight shone through the window. He was reading by it. There was plenty, for the snow sent back the pearly glow that washed out the crystal stars. Then he sensed whom it was, knocking at this hour. Someone was afraid, like a small child that is frightened of a thunderstorm.

"How can I feel a stranger in my own home?" she asked him, framed in the doorway.

Some moonlight had worked its way into her light bathrobe. Jamie was put in with Trisha in what was the "girl's bedroom". Fairchild and Esmentaur each had a spare bedroom. On the third floor was what had been servant's quarters at the turn of the century. Now Mary-Ellen lived up there with her husband and child. Professor Esmentaur was put up in her spare bedroom, a nice double bed in the "library" which was a foldout sofa. Fairchild was sharing a room with Chas, while Tim's family was in another spare bedroom.

"Do you want to come in for a little while?" he asked her, with no ulterior motives in mind, honestly. He could just make out her features before she stepped into the pool of moonlight. Very softly, he rose and closed the door behind her. Darkness interrupted her path. Until she was there, washed in the distorted squares projected by the window. Hair rippled down around her shoulders, slightly curled.

"Did I wake you?" she whispered. She glanced at him, wearing silken pajamas and a quilted bathrobe, reclining there on the bed.

"Not at all. I was just reading. Your sister has quite a collection of books up here."
"You should see the rest of the house."

"You mean the Library of Maypierce?" he grinned.

"Father never did like television. In all the time I grew up I can never recall having seen a TV on when he was in the room."

"But you obviously must have watched some," he chuckled.

Her slight giggle resounded, "Mother had one in the kitchen. And at boarding school there was a telly in the common room area."

He sat down on the bed, opposite her. She pulled out a chair from beneath the desk. Sat down on it sideways, resting her arm across its back. "Were you reading in the dark?" she asked. "Without a light?"

"The moon is bright enough," said he, putting his book down on the night table by the lamp. "You are so sad," he blurted out suddenly. "And on such a beautiful night as this."

"It's so unfair of me to drag you into this mess," she said. "I have no right to expect you to fix anything."

"I know. But your family--do you know how fortunate you are to have one that is proud of you as they are?"

"My father doesn't know me," she said. "Doesn't understand my dreams."

"Do you ever really tell him your dreams?" asked the Professor.

"He'd laugh. Say I should get a respectable living."

"Nevertheless, he's proud of you. I know."

"B-but if he knew," she stammered. "H-he laughed at the fact... I'd published a story... in a science-fiction magazine. He laughed at me!"

"Does that mean he loves you any less?"

"Perhaps," she said sadly. "To tell the truth... I'm not sure anymore."

Ever so slowly, he looked up at her. "He still loves you. Very much in fact," he said finally. "Even if he's too stubborn to say it out loud. The fact he let you bring Jamie, and John and me. That in and of itself says something significant."

So many things she was feeling. Should he let her sit there alone? Isolated as the moon itself with no life and all radiant silver silence? When all he wanted to do was hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right? What gave him that right?

"I shouldn't be here," she said, rising from the chair after they'd talked a time. "It's not proper..."

"Don't be silly. I'm not at all tired. Do stay," he urged, extending a hand to her. "I insist. I enjoy talking with you."

She walked over, squares tracing over her form as she stepped softly. Felt the bed shift under him when she sat down on the soft quilt. "Here I am, all grown up," she said. "And all I want to do sometimes is to put my head on my mother's lap and ask her to make everything all right."

"What's wrong with that?" asked the Professor. "It sounds pleasant."

She sighed, "But you can't go home again. It's like the saying goes."

"Because you're a grown-up?" he asked. "Because you've changed and seen the world in your own unique way; apart from your family? Things look different and no longer comfortable."

"How do you always seem to understand what I'm going through?" she muttered, turning away from him. That accent tinged with Yorkshire tried so hard to be adult. How strange of a contradiction this seemed when he saw the frightened child cowering inside.

"Other people... when they go home they enjoy themselves," she complained, balling her hands into small fists. "But when I am home I am out of place. All that feels comfortable to do is to lie in my own bed, and read my old books. Books that I haven't read since I was a little girl."

"Why is that disagreeable?" asked Esmentaur, eyebrows lowered.

"I don't miss my mother or father when I'm around them. When I'm around them I want to scream sometimes."

"Mm. Jamie complains about the same thing when she goes home," he said. Then he frowned. "And don't get out of realizing that you're not strange, by saying 'normal people don't have problems.'"

"You're teasing me, aren't you?"

"Sometimes we grow that way. To laugh at ourselves..."

"I hate to be laughed at," Trisha grumbled.

"I laugh at myself all the time," he admitted. "And believe me, when you're almost one thousand, you have a lot to laugh at."

"How could someone who is alive for several hundred years trouble themselves over someone who only lives a mere fraction of the time?" she demanded.

"Why does a human pick a flower," he asked. Lightly he touched her flannel sleeved shoulder. "Or why does a child keep a pet mouse who will live for only one year when a human lives threescore and ten?" he asked. Taking her small hand in his he kissed it lightly.

"But the space of time here and now," she stammered. "Is so short to you."

"Depends on who you ask..." he trailed off, stroking her cheek.

"I always don't know how to answer," she murmured, looking down at her hand enveloped in his.

"Come here," said he, extending both hands and clutching her arms. With some force, he coaxed her head and shoulder onto his lap. "Lay down."

"What are you doing?" she almost laughed. "You're being silly."

"I'm serious. You were the one who wanted to just lay your head in your mother's lap and have her make everything all right."

"You're hardly my mother."

"That's not the point," he said. Gently he stroked her hair, caressing her scalp. "What I don't understand is this: if you value childhood so much, as a species, why do you try so hard to forget what it is like to be a child?"

"Because... we all have to grow up..." she began.  "Oh, stop this! You're being silly! I feel stupid."

"You do not feel stupid," he protested, softly. "Your hair is so soft!"

"I don't mean it literally. I mean I have the awkward feeling of feeling stupid," she clarified. Then she squirmed.

"Weren't you the one who told me to relax?" he countered. Continuing to knead her scalp rhythmically, he imbued her with his soothing touch. Deliberately he worked his way down to the back of her neck.

"Ohh... how in heaven do you do that so well?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Please... don't..."

He drew away, confused. "I'm sorry... if I've offended you. I was merely trying to help you to feel better. If you don't want to proceed... please tell me!"

"But it's not right," she whispered.

"I don't understand. You're a friend in need.  More specifically my 'girl friend' I thought that such a simple gesture would comfort you.  Isn't this expected of two people 'seeing each other' to do?"

"I don't want to be comforted. I want to face this..."

"Who says that you have to suffer so!" he asked. "What is wrong with wanting to be happy? To feel safe when you're scared?"

"What I mean is that people, on Earth, cannot expect to always feel safe," she explained. "We need to move beyond what is comfortable to explore the unknown. Only then can we grow. I should know that especially well, being a scientist. It is my duty to make new discoveries. To push aside the misconceptions of the past, and move beyond what is already known."

"Does that mean isolating yourself from relying on a friend to comfort you? To avoid being comforted and protected once in a while?"

"Of course not! What I mean is that we all must take risks... oh!"

Trisha felt herself wrapped in his arms. Close and warm. She yawned, and felt tears of fatigue in her eyes. She found herself wanting to sleep here and now. However, she dare not. If Mother and Father found her here--with him--what would they think?

"What I mean to say... is what is wrong from wanting to be loved?" he asked her. "To be able to trust someone that a friendship will endure."

"Because change is the only constant thing in the universe."

"You sound like a broken record," he snorted.

"I can't help it!" she sighed. "Things and people change. You fall in love... you fall out of it. All you can do is move onto the next, and hope it won't leave. Moreover, it does. One cannot get too comfortable."

"However, you still have the memories of what was. Don't you humans value memories?"

"Oh, yes. But the pain of not having that thing--that was good--now is threatening!"
"Yet you love and live anyway. For what can one do but try to live, instead of hide."

She sat there, looking out at the moon and then the stars. Remembering. Serenely she rested her head in the curve of his shoulder, feeling silk and flannel as she rested there. The quilt underneath her, she marveled in the sensation caused by the Professor's hands in her hair.

"Y'know, this is going to sound silly," she laughed softly.

"No it won't." he assured her.

"Are you reading my mind again?"

"No." he insisted. "I only see the pattern of you mind. All those thoughts flickering and whispering through the telepathic babble."

"What do my thoughts look like?" she wondered.

"It's not like I can see them with my eyes," he explained. "To elucidate the means by which I perceive minds is difficult. Let's just say that my mind is aware of them, and catches the light of their beauty, as a radio receiver catches electromagnetic pulses."

"Are my thoughts different from others?"

"They are bright and beautiful." he said.

"Would you mind... terribly... if I lay here next to you?" she asked, silver painting her profile out against the dark shadows.

"I'm surprised you waited so long.  I understand there's hesitancy before initiating a more... intimate relationship.  One that you've voiced often enough...  and I respect it..."

"I appreciate you wanting to wait to... do it with me," she whispered.  "I am sorry to disappoint you, seeking something..."

"Platonic comfort?  But even that makes you choke, as if you're asking for something forbidden," the Professor said quietly. "What is wrong? I can see the dimness in your question."

"I have this urge--and the devil with what Mother and Father think--to just lay down here. Let them think what they like."

"Huh?"

"I just need to know someone is there. Just to sleep next to someone. Like I'd climb into bed with my sister-- or my Mum and Dad--when it was raining."

He pulled back the covers, and slid underneath, still wearing his bathrobe overtop his pajamas. She lay with her back to him, on her side, and snuggled against him. Gently he covered them both with the sheets and quilt. Laying his arm over her, he tucked his other under her neck. Flannel pajamas brushed against a silk nightgown.  Warmly against her ear pulsed his breath, causing her to relax. The Professor reveled in the warmth of her, so soft and curled up. Like a little kitten lying next to a dog, he wrapped himself around her protectively.

"Are you okay?" he whispered.

"Quite," she yawned. She grasped his hand that he extended over her shoulder.

"Good night, my dear. Sleep well."

"Dream good dreams," he told her, giving her hand a little squeeze.  Softly her lips found his, and he returned the press of them.  For a time their mouths ghosted over one another, and her fingers slid under his robe.  He reciprocated, until he realized with regret that she had fallen asleep.

Humans were so confusing.  She desired physical interaction of a platonic nature, but yearned for sex.  He wished to meet both needs, yet was learning the complex dance of when to pursue and when not to.  Perhaps she would change her mind. Either way, he would protect her.
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