~ Explanations ~

As ever, you see so clearly, and yet, what you see is incorrect, molded by your own perceptions. Perhaps that is the nature of sentience, as in the essential physics of the universe, that nothing is ever seen truly objectively. Observation affects the observed. Especially relative to another person. It would seem that, as well as we have known each other, we never truly knew each other at all. No entity could perceive another except through the filter of its own biases. Yet do I not know you well for all that? Are perceptions contaminated by desire nonetheless valid? Because I needed you to be strong, does that make you any weaker? Because I allowed the framework of logic guide me to the conclusion, does that mean I loved you any less?

I digress.

It is illogical to dwell on the past, but it would be foolish to presume that the past does not affect the present. Your past has shaped who you are, and its shadows lie between us still. My past stretches backward beyond my own span, for the entire history of Vulcan has been the forge of who I am today. My father is only the most immediate expression of the forces which made me. If you so object to what I am, you should never have started a relationship between us, for even you must be wise enough to know that another person does not change simply to fit your ideals. Especially you should know that. Accordingly, it is imperative that we understand our pasts and the forces which shaped our perceptions.

You accuse me of ignorance, of failing to know your reasons. Perhaps. Yet we have shared our minds more than once through the years. It would have been discourteous to notice what you did not desire to share, but it would be impossible to ignore what winds through the threads of your life and colors each experience. If I never spoke of these perceptions, it was because I respected your choice of not sharing. And if I was hurt by that lack, I endeavored never to let you bear the brunt of it. I knew that you were running, that you were driven by a fierce need to be free, and I strove ever to restrain myself lest I inadvertently bind you. And I will never believe that you were so driven to achieve all you have out of merely selfish desire, not when I have watched you bleed for all those you failed, for any whose suffering demanded your action. As for that voice of onešs father... As you indicated, I know it well. At the same time, I reject the postulation that my fatheršs opinion was more important to me than the relationship we shared.

You must understand. In you, I found one who could logically claim my admiration for his brilliant strategy, for his daring execution, for his ruthlessness when necessary and compassion when possible, for his ability to take the possibilities and make them real. As my captain, you were all I could wish for. As my friend, you were far more. From the first moment you dared allow me to slake the fire in my blood with the coolness of your touch, I knew that I would never be free of you, nor ever wish to be. If there was shame in that first encounter, it was that I took so much of what you offered so freely, and while I knew you shared the pleasure, I gave so little back, nor could even find words to say how much your gift meant to me.

If there was shame ever after, it was because I could not be content with what you gave.

You also perceived hurt as you spoke of your perceptions of the past. I cannot deny that your allegations perturbed me, but again, the reason is different than you presumed. I am distressed that you bore so many years of your own pain out of misunderstanding my motivations.

The sex was always the best for me, as well, because it was in those moments of unadulterated pleasure that you came the closest to letting your barriers down. Followed closely, or perhaps exceeded, by having you curl into my arms in sleepy contentment, trusting me to hold you safe until morning. I never attempted to deny what was between us, or how completely whole I felt within your arms, not when the whole of my being affirmed it.

Unfortunately, sex was also an experience in absolute terror, not because of the demands you made, or even because of the feelings I could never hide. It was, always, a fight never to completely lose control. I feared the molten fury within me, and its ability to forget how fragile your flesh was before my own strength. The ravening fire could never be slaked by mere submersion in the coolness of your body, no matter how deeply I immersed myself. It appalled me, those mornings when I would wake and trace the evidence of my lack in the bruises on your body. Why did those same contusions not warn you of the danger which with you flirted? Some mornings, I believed it was that trust you could place in me, never believing that I would hurt you, never understanding that the only way for me to avoid doing so was to hold myself back. And in the darkness of some nights, especially those spent apart from you, imagining the sounds from the other side of our mutual bulkhead, I felt it was because you needed me to hurt you to satisfy some demon inside you.

More than that, though, I fought always to restrain myself from taking what you had not offered. I longed to join my mind to yours with an intensity that equaled your most furious lust. To me, joining our bodies without the concurrent melding of our minds was as if I had demanded you have sex without ever once touching your genitals. Do you perhaps recall what you had to say to me on those occasions when I attempted to prove that point to you? It was not shame which made me turn away from you, but fear, and the need for control was to contain myself within, to be satisfied with what you could give.

I left you because I could feel that control slip. Each time you touched me, I lost more. Each time you so casually demanded I meld with you for some specific purpose, I had more difficulty restraining myself to such narrow levels as you allowed. I sought the Kohlinar to regain what you strove to strip from me in the dark of night, yet expected of me to the very depths of your being. Stone by stone, I walked the path of discipline to rebuild the walls of my being, afraid of losing you if I succeeded but far more afraid of driving you away if I did not. And I failed. All the icy calm of logic melted in a ravening fire at the spark of your need, and all I could do was hold myself aloof and hope I could imitate a peace I had never felt.

It was never my intent to steal any of your freedom. Indeed, I wished to free you from the oppression of your own overly demanding nature. For even our perceptions of ourselves are shaped by our prejudice, and I would have had you balance the belief that you could never be good enough with my faith that you were always more perfect than logic allows. True love is not blind to the faults of the other, but sees more clearly the worth of the beloved despite them, or even because of them.

Jim, my soul has ever been yours. Do with it as you will.