It's a Theme
May. 16th, 2006 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowSo, this week's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
farscapefriday challenge is "Spanking the Monkey" because I kept reading about May being masturbation month. And ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fbf wrote me a fabulous little ficlet because I was bored and feeling no love, and I sat down to return the favor, but my brain jumped fandoms instead.
So, in the manner of the Five Kisses trope...
When he was a kid, he had airplane dreams. Fight and flight and pin-up girls with short shorts and long legs and bow mouths. Cameron's always been an old-fashioned kind of guy, starting slow, making long strokes with circled hands, fingers tightening to the thought of the curve of knee, the ridge of collarbone, the smell of Max Factor lipstick and Chanel #5.
As he got older, as flight loomed like possibility and girls started taking a keen interest, it was easy to imagine the scent of sweet skin, the feel of burnished steel, the tightness of g-forces and contracting muscles when he was alone at night. The first time he came from someone else's touch felt remarkably like his first solo flight. He'd be hard pressed to choose which one felt better.
These days, he's seen the stars, seen the bad end of a dogfight, seen a lot of bare thighs and bare sexes, tasted sugar and whiskey kisses, tasted stale water in a hospital bed and the tinny coldness of melted snow in Antarctica. He's tasted alien tongues, flown alien ships, seen the death of an alien girl, seen her resurrected. These days, flight takes a backseat to warm fingers and camaraderie, and if those fingers are his own more often than not, if those fingers are a surprise more often than not riding his own cock like a cockpit joystick, he finds that his fantasies are tinged and tainted with this alien lifestyle he's leading deep underground.
Cameron doesn't need flight to see new worlds, doesn't need strong thighs and a hot, wet sex to bring him off. Just needs a little faith, some of this self-proclaimed boundless enthusiasm, and a false construct, a world where he's not going to be the one ending it with a bang and a whimper.
Here he is, fantasies come to life, goals realized, dreams spinning out like a fractured fairy tale, and he's bringing himself to fruition alone in a narrow bunk. It's an acceptable trade-off. Terrifying, humbling, glorious. He'd never bothered to picture a partner, had only pictured the sky and the stars and his next step in dress blues. He jerks against the standard-issue bedding, works himself with commissary lube, thinks about responsibility and ownership, thinks about being in charge and comes in his hand as he comes back to himself.
*
She strokes herself like she's putting on a show, body arched and angled for maximum viewing pleasure, eyes half-hooded, teeth biting her lip, and he shouldn't be so critical because he's watching, isn't he?
When he opens the door, she lays her fingers – glistening, sticky no doubt, on her pale thigh – gives him a look and a leer, doesn't say anything about his voyeuristic tendencies, about the flush on her cheek or her missing underwear.
He leans against the doorframe, fumbles for what to say, and she picks up the gun at her side, levels it at him casually. "Shouldn't interrupt a girl when she's busy," she says, doesn't wink and he wonders, suddenly, how much was show, and how much was pleasure, release, a moment of privacy that he's just blundered into because she hadn't snicked the door fully shut.
He swallows hard. "I thought… you didn't lock the door."
She arches her eyebrow. "They don't lock from the inside."
The pause beats… one… two… three…
She puts down the gun, watches him with dark eyes, not moving to cover her body. It's more provocative than the most blatant come-on, her long legs, her glistening sex, her straightforward gaze.
He thought he'd come to play, to catch her in the act, embarrass her with her brazenness, give her a taste of her own randy, raunchy innuendo. Now he just wants to leave, wants to lock her in, throw away the key. Wants to cover her up, and maybe hold her hand.
He wonders what she thinks about when she touches her throat, her breasts, the dampness of her sex. She watches him with that closed expression, tongue slipping over her lips. It isn't an invitation.
There isn't anything to say, so he opens up the door, pulls it mostly shut, goes back to his office and tries to think about hieroglyphs instead of coded words.
*
There is ritual, and then there is ritual. The personal and the profane, the sacred and the spiritual.
He is not getting in touch with his inner peace, his inner sanctity, he's getting in touch with his own firm flesh.
But here in this room, surrounded by candles, by quiet, by armies moving mindlessly about their business, Teal'c finds that there's a little bit of the sacred in his profanity.
He strokes, one, two, three, four, pauses and circles, thumb against the tip of his cock, pressing. The oil he uses is scented, a clean smell of musk and mint, faintly tingling on his skin, a heady burn, a reminder.
He strokes again, tugs and pulls, touches his chest, his thighs, puts his palm flat on the surface of the low table, lets his knees and his heels bear his weight.
Stroke, and slide, stroke and slide, the rhythm hypnotic, his breath speeding gradually, carefully, lights flickering in the corner of his vision, skin prickling from touch, from the oil, from the re-circulated air pumped throughout the bunker.
He spreads his thighs wider, feels the press of his heels against the muscles in his buttocks, strains against the rising climax, against the end of the ritual, thinks of love and home, of sex and prayer, thinks of firm hands and cool sheets and soft words and clean hair, thinks of the smell of loam and leaves, of the press of bodies against firm soil, of the scent of sweat and semen and sex in the confines of a canvas tent. He sees darkness and stars, sees other worlds, smells incense and comes. His hands catch at his release, the fluid sticky and thin and he it into the muscle of his thigh where it mixes with the oil.
*
These aren't the kind of risks she normally takes.
She's a scientist, and officer, the girl most likely to… succeed, thrive, save the world. Not, she thinks, the girl most likely to get laid, certainly not the most likely to be lying on her belly on a green cot in the midst of an alien forest with her hand buried between her thighs, gun on the ground at the side of her cot.
She can't take off the white cotton underwear, can't actually shuck her uniform and there's something nicely illicit about stroking herself while still covered in those colors. She's spent a lot of time over the years figuring out how to not draw attention, how to couch her release in quiet whimpers and subtle motions. This is a job of great reward, but those rewards rarely take the form of strong hands and soft mouths and when they have manifested themselves thus… bad things have happened. She's not above taking things into her own hands.
That she could get caught is an undeniable thrill, one she uses to hasten her orgasm. She's a scientist, used to testing theories, using what's at her disposal. She's a soldier, a pilot. She's always been turned on by risk. Anyone could hear. But they won't. She's mastered this art, and no one's listening anyway, no one expects her to be the girl with her hand between her own strong, pale legs, seeking a release separate from the thrill of knowledge. She's all about exploration, and sometimes, by necessity, that turns to self-exploration.
She's been a woman in a man's world for a long time, knows the grunts and sighs of men stroking themselves, the way they play it off, play along, play each other, smile nice at the girls, make remarks behind their backs. As a woman, she's never had the luxury of talking dirty talk, talking porn and patience and penetration. She's always needed to make her own fun, and sex was as much a part of that equation as… well, equations.
Vala's presence draws attention further from her. They all expect illicit behavior from the other woman, listen quietly in secret, hoping for evidence to fuel their own fever dreams. Sam has listened herself from time to time, but mostly what she hears is shallow breathing, and something that could be fear, and something else that could be tears, hot and damp on thin pillows. When there are soft, hoarse cries, steady whimpers, they read as false constructs. Vala's no longer the girl with the come-hither stare.
Sam shudders, body at an awkward angle, imagining the bristle of soft hair against her breasts, of discovery, of theories proved and mouths kissed, of not being alone in the night. Finished, she pulls her hand free, wonders if maybe Vala wants some company.
*
All around him, people are having sex. Sure, they're mostly have sex with themselves, but it's sex all the same.
He doesn't have sex anymore. Certainly not often. Certainly not with his own firm grasp. He mostly stopped masturbating after his wife died, had a brief flurry of one night stands then lost himself in his work.
And then it ceased to matter. Sex stopped meaning much, meaning everything, meaning anything.
His body craves touch at odd times, and he tries to answer the need, tries to find a body to warm, to rub against. More often than not, he loses himself in a translation, a problem to solve.
After Jack left, he stopped seeking out touch of any kind. Mostly then, he wanted answers. Then Vala came back, as did Teal'c, and Mitchell tried his best to lead and if Daniel didn't try his best to follow, he could hardly be blamed for that. Mitchell's athletic and vigorous and Daniel guesses that he masturbates regularly, every night like clockwork after brushing his teeth and before turning out the light. A build up wouldn't do. He's never asked Teal'c about self-gratification, but the serene smile on the other man's face can't always been from satisfaction with the universe.
He's seen Vala, with her hooded eyes and long limbs and lack of embarrassment, thinks maybe that Sam can answer her own needs. She's an independent kind of woman.
The last time Daniel touched himself, it was rote, not ribald. A dirty magazine, a naked girl with dark hair and firm breasts and a wet mouth. He stared and thought of alien pornography, ancient love poems, incense and sand, came finally because even his body wasn't immune from simple touch, life, death and rebirth notwithstanding, spattering the paper with ropes of clearish semen. It smelled yeasty and damp, reacting with the chemicals from the printed paper and he slammed shut the magazine, threw it in the trash, cleaned himself with tissues and went back to work.
Vala lingers in the background of his thoughts, resting there with his wife, with Jack, and Teal'c and Sam. There are moments when he thinks if she put her hand on his arm, if she stayed quiet, if she could allow him some space, some room to breathe, he could sink into her scent and her heat and her body. But she doesn't offer up silence and space, batters him from one side while Mitchell batters him from the other and between the two of them, he stays standing by the force of their gales.
He's got more left to study, to seek out and explore, but for now, those inquiries involve the life of the mind, not the lures of flesh, and he won't seek out any satisfaction that leaves him only hollow and spent.
farscapefriday challenge is "Spanking the Monkey" because I kept reading about May being masturbation month. And fbf wrote me a fabulous little ficlet because I was bored and feeling no love, and I sat down to return the favor, but my brain jumped fandoms instead.So, in the manner of the Five Kisses trope...
When he was a kid, he had airplane dreams. Fight and flight and pin-up girls with short shorts and long legs and bow mouths. Cameron's always been an old-fashioned kind of guy, starting slow, making long strokes with circled hands, fingers tightening to the thought of the curve of knee, the ridge of collarbone, the smell of Max Factor lipstick and Chanel #5.
As he got older, as flight loomed like possibility and girls started taking a keen interest, it was easy to imagine the scent of sweet skin, the feel of burnished steel, the tightness of g-forces and contracting muscles when he was alone at night. The first time he came from someone else's touch felt remarkably like his first solo flight. He'd be hard pressed to choose which one felt better.
These days, he's seen the stars, seen the bad end of a dogfight, seen a lot of bare thighs and bare sexes, tasted sugar and whiskey kisses, tasted stale water in a hospital bed and the tinny coldness of melted snow in Antarctica. He's tasted alien tongues, flown alien ships, seen the death of an alien girl, seen her resurrected. These days, flight takes a backseat to warm fingers and camaraderie, and if those fingers are his own more often than not, if those fingers are a surprise more often than not riding his own cock like a cockpit joystick, he finds that his fantasies are tinged and tainted with this alien lifestyle he's leading deep underground.
Cameron doesn't need flight to see new worlds, doesn't need strong thighs and a hot, wet sex to bring him off. Just needs a little faith, some of this self-proclaimed boundless enthusiasm, and a false construct, a world where he's not going to be the one ending it with a bang and a whimper.
Here he is, fantasies come to life, goals realized, dreams spinning out like a fractured fairy tale, and he's bringing himself to fruition alone in a narrow bunk. It's an acceptable trade-off. Terrifying, humbling, glorious. He'd never bothered to picture a partner, had only pictured the sky and the stars and his next step in dress blues. He jerks against the standard-issue bedding, works himself with commissary lube, thinks about responsibility and ownership, thinks about being in charge and comes in his hand as he comes back to himself.
*
She strokes herself like she's putting on a show, body arched and angled for maximum viewing pleasure, eyes half-hooded, teeth biting her lip, and he shouldn't be so critical because he's watching, isn't he?
When he opens the door, she lays her fingers – glistening, sticky no doubt, on her pale thigh – gives him a look and a leer, doesn't say anything about his voyeuristic tendencies, about the flush on her cheek or her missing underwear.
He leans against the doorframe, fumbles for what to say, and she picks up the gun at her side, levels it at him casually. "Shouldn't interrupt a girl when she's busy," she says, doesn't wink and he wonders, suddenly, how much was show, and how much was pleasure, release, a moment of privacy that he's just blundered into because she hadn't snicked the door fully shut.
He swallows hard. "I thought… you didn't lock the door."
She arches her eyebrow. "They don't lock from the inside."
The pause beats… one… two… three…
She puts down the gun, watches him with dark eyes, not moving to cover her body. It's more provocative than the most blatant come-on, her long legs, her glistening sex, her straightforward gaze.
He thought he'd come to play, to catch her in the act, embarrass her with her brazenness, give her a taste of her own randy, raunchy innuendo. Now he just wants to leave, wants to lock her in, throw away the key. Wants to cover her up, and maybe hold her hand.
He wonders what she thinks about when she touches her throat, her breasts, the dampness of her sex. She watches him with that closed expression, tongue slipping over her lips. It isn't an invitation.
There isn't anything to say, so he opens up the door, pulls it mostly shut, goes back to his office and tries to think about hieroglyphs instead of coded words.
*
There is ritual, and then there is ritual. The personal and the profane, the sacred and the spiritual.
He is not getting in touch with his inner peace, his inner sanctity, he's getting in touch with his own firm flesh.
But here in this room, surrounded by candles, by quiet, by armies moving mindlessly about their business, Teal'c finds that there's a little bit of the sacred in his profanity.
He strokes, one, two, three, four, pauses and circles, thumb against the tip of his cock, pressing. The oil he uses is scented, a clean smell of musk and mint, faintly tingling on his skin, a heady burn, a reminder.
He strokes again, tugs and pulls, touches his chest, his thighs, puts his palm flat on the surface of the low table, lets his knees and his heels bear his weight.
Stroke, and slide, stroke and slide, the rhythm hypnotic, his breath speeding gradually, carefully, lights flickering in the corner of his vision, skin prickling from touch, from the oil, from the re-circulated air pumped throughout the bunker.
He spreads his thighs wider, feels the press of his heels against the muscles in his buttocks, strains against the rising climax, against the end of the ritual, thinks of love and home, of sex and prayer, thinks of firm hands and cool sheets and soft words and clean hair, thinks of the smell of loam and leaves, of the press of bodies against firm soil, of the scent of sweat and semen and sex in the confines of a canvas tent. He sees darkness and stars, sees other worlds, smells incense and comes. His hands catch at his release, the fluid sticky and thin and he it into the muscle of his thigh where it mixes with the oil.
*
These aren't the kind of risks she normally takes.
She's a scientist, and officer, the girl most likely to… succeed, thrive, save the world. Not, she thinks, the girl most likely to get laid, certainly not the most likely to be lying on her belly on a green cot in the midst of an alien forest with her hand buried between her thighs, gun on the ground at the side of her cot.
She can't take off the white cotton underwear, can't actually shuck her uniform and there's something nicely illicit about stroking herself while still covered in those colors. She's spent a lot of time over the years figuring out how to not draw attention, how to couch her release in quiet whimpers and subtle motions. This is a job of great reward, but those rewards rarely take the form of strong hands and soft mouths and when they have manifested themselves thus… bad things have happened. She's not above taking things into her own hands.
That she could get caught is an undeniable thrill, one she uses to hasten her orgasm. She's a scientist, used to testing theories, using what's at her disposal. She's a soldier, a pilot. She's always been turned on by risk. Anyone could hear. But they won't. She's mastered this art, and no one's listening anyway, no one expects her to be the girl with her hand between her own strong, pale legs, seeking a release separate from the thrill of knowledge. She's all about exploration, and sometimes, by necessity, that turns to self-exploration.
She's been a woman in a man's world for a long time, knows the grunts and sighs of men stroking themselves, the way they play it off, play along, play each other, smile nice at the girls, make remarks behind their backs. As a woman, she's never had the luxury of talking dirty talk, talking porn and patience and penetration. She's always needed to make her own fun, and sex was as much a part of that equation as… well, equations.
Vala's presence draws attention further from her. They all expect illicit behavior from the other woman, listen quietly in secret, hoping for evidence to fuel their own fever dreams. Sam has listened herself from time to time, but mostly what she hears is shallow breathing, and something that could be fear, and something else that could be tears, hot and damp on thin pillows. When there are soft, hoarse cries, steady whimpers, they read as false constructs. Vala's no longer the girl with the come-hither stare.
Sam shudders, body at an awkward angle, imagining the bristle of soft hair against her breasts, of discovery, of theories proved and mouths kissed, of not being alone in the night. Finished, she pulls her hand free, wonders if maybe Vala wants some company.
*
All around him, people are having sex. Sure, they're mostly have sex with themselves, but it's sex all the same.
He doesn't have sex anymore. Certainly not often. Certainly not with his own firm grasp. He mostly stopped masturbating after his wife died, had a brief flurry of one night stands then lost himself in his work.
And then it ceased to matter. Sex stopped meaning much, meaning everything, meaning anything.
His body craves touch at odd times, and he tries to answer the need, tries to find a body to warm, to rub against. More often than not, he loses himself in a translation, a problem to solve.
After Jack left, he stopped seeking out touch of any kind. Mostly then, he wanted answers. Then Vala came back, as did Teal'c, and Mitchell tried his best to lead and if Daniel didn't try his best to follow, he could hardly be blamed for that. Mitchell's athletic and vigorous and Daniel guesses that he masturbates regularly, every night like clockwork after brushing his teeth and before turning out the light. A build up wouldn't do. He's never asked Teal'c about self-gratification, but the serene smile on the other man's face can't always been from satisfaction with the universe.
He's seen Vala, with her hooded eyes and long limbs and lack of embarrassment, thinks maybe that Sam can answer her own needs. She's an independent kind of woman.
The last time Daniel touched himself, it was rote, not ribald. A dirty magazine, a naked girl with dark hair and firm breasts and a wet mouth. He stared and thought of alien pornography, ancient love poems, incense and sand, came finally because even his body wasn't immune from simple touch, life, death and rebirth notwithstanding, spattering the paper with ropes of clearish semen. It smelled yeasty and damp, reacting with the chemicals from the printed paper and he slammed shut the magazine, threw it in the trash, cleaned himself with tissues and went back to work.
Vala lingers in the background of his thoughts, resting there with his wife, with Jack, and Teal'c and Sam. There are moments when he thinks if she put her hand on his arm, if she stayed quiet, if she could allow him some space, some room to breathe, he could sink into her scent and her heat and her body. But she doesn't offer up silence and space, batters him from one side while Mitchell batters him from the other and between the two of them, he stays standing by the force of their gales.
He's got more left to study, to seek out and explore, but for now, those inquiries involve the life of the mind, not the lures of flesh, and he won't seek out any satisfaction that leaves him only hollow and spent.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-16 11:36 pm (UTC)and this is very fine: "There isn't anything to say, so he opens up the door, pulls it mostly shut, goes back to his office and tries to think about hieroglyphs instead of coded words."
teal'c thinking of "love and home, of sex and prayer" feels very true to him. and sam taking risks..also very sam. wonderful how she understands how vala has changed.
so much revealed about all three of them in this sentence: "But she doesn't offer up silence and space, batters him from one side while Mitchell batters him from the other and between the two of them, he stays standing by the force of their gales."
very fine.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-16 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 12:09 am (UTC)the theme worked beautifully.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 11:34 am (UTC)(and now I'm thinking of how one comes to accept the things that can not be changed, surrenders to life one finds ones self in, and stops fighting everything, just because. It's not just a military thing, I think - one is also forced into a relationship with one's siblings, one's parents, to the people your childern become, to one's coworkers, one's neighbors. Different kinds of relationships, different levels of intimacy, different degrees of choice.)
Anyway. Not my kinda thing, but oh, lovely lovely writing, and what a cool idea.
- hg
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 04:48 pm (UTC)and now I'm thinking of how one comes to accept the things that can not be changed, surrenders to life one finds ones self in, and stops fighting everything, just because.
I love the moment in a story where it becomes a choice to accept it (less so the moment when it's a resignation). A choice to say, "This is what I have, what can I do with this."
It's not just a military thing, I think - one is also forced into a relationship with one's siblings, one's parents, to the people your childern become, to one's coworkers, one's neighbors. Different kinds of relationships, different levels of intimacy, different degrees of choice.) Exactly. There is a forced intimacy to all of that and it twines into our perceptions and we have to deal with it to achieve any degree of happiness.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 12:05 am (UTC)Along with the nice little detail of mint oil tingling against Teal'c's skin. Ritual has become his most constant religion, and I like that anything one does with regularity can become ritual and tradition. His mingling the oil with semen resonated in a very sensory way with Daniel coming over the glossy pages of a magazine and being faintly disgusted by the chemical smell.
There is more and more beauty the farther I look. Marvelous.
p.s. Did you really mean 'commissary lube' for Cam? Because if so? I have no idea what he's filched.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 12:33 am (UTC)Marvelous job, Thea. I did think it was interesting that you wrote them all from an internal POV except for Vala. How come? It seemed a little odd to get two hits of Daniel... I like this Sam, by the way--she's very straightforward and self-possessed.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 07:10 am (UTC)On edit, I might be tempted to take the Daniel section out, because it is odd to have Vala's section be the only one from an outside POV. I'd like to shift the POV, yet, I really like the idea of Daniel looking at her. Still, I'm not sure how much the Daniel section offers...
I like this version of Sam a lot:) Like the idea of the geeky straightforward blond taking the risk of masturbating in the field:) She's got such nice confidence and I'm willing to bet that she's had to work hard to be taken seriously and I'm curious as to what trade offs she's made and what she's been unwilling to give up.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 07:06 am (UTC)And hee - there is an arc here, though it's ultra subtle:) I'm so glad you liked it. But yeah, I meant commissary lube. Standard issue, something he picked up at the PX, although maybe the phrasing was too obscure (or completely wrong:) That's entirely possible)!
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