Another collaboration between myself (the writing) and 
After what now is referred to as the Prameranian Interstellar Incident was officially complete, I was not, as they say, free to go although the bulk of my duties was complete: a near-Earth high command debriefing was necessary for me as a full fleet admiral. However, Earth and the hometown of fleet headquarters were both home, and I arrived on the eve of my 19th wedding anniversary.
The above is the picture of the elaborate mocktail that tried to cut in on me and my husband on our 19th wedding anniversary. Some alien molluscs -- see the little interloper's tentacles all curled over the left side of the glass? -- have some nerve.
Captain Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr., my husband of now 25 years, is a commercial captain, and so was a day behind me getting home because his best ships top out around Warp 5-6 with Warp 7 as a short-term emergency speed. Nonetheless, the night I arrived, he made the presence of his love felt with the bundles of richly fragrant crystal sheaf lilies placed all through the house to light my way:
He even had a bunch put into the shower so when I got in there, the steam and the aromatherapy took all the tension out of me … then he called and just put me to sleep, banishing all the scenes I had just seen from my mind with his full, rich, and loving voice.
I woke up completely rested and refreshed and went to my debriefing in the morning, the early meeting with the admirals of my staff at Pramerania to discuss our combined report, and the afternoon meeting with the full high command. This meeting had large diplomatic and legal implications, since it was no common or light thing for two member planets – Pramerania and Yhoowhoolic – to have decided upon seditious actions, and no common thing or light thing for the consortium to have displayed how little it would tolerate such actions. We had within two hours destroyed Pramerania's superweapon and Yhoowhoolic's entire attacking fleet.
Pramerania was understandable – a civil war with spillover implications – and less serious now that the true queen of Pramerania had been restored to the throne. Her Majesty had already made contact with the consortium for the purpose of making things right, and the disloyal elements had already been purged from her planet's standing military, so that whole matter was settling itself out nicely.
It was Yhoowhoolic, albeit without its fleet, that was going to be the problem going forward. They remained belligerent, implacable, fierce – “and stupid, which really makes them dangerous,” as Admiral Green said about them. Not that the high command had to deal with why they had been let into the consortium anyway. Our findings just lent credence to the viewpoint that maybe they were not a good fit.
There is not much that is above a full fleet admiral's pay grade, but questions of long-term diplomacy were just above it, so I was done with the entire matter after the debriefing, and off-duty until called for. Many of my colleagues were just going to go to the private Admiral's Lounge at headquarters to unwind, but I demurred that in favor of one of my favorite public places: the Gemtone Lounge. I needed to be surrounded by beautiful things and eat and drink beautiful things, and that was the spot.
“Oh, Admiral – welcome home, and happy anniversary!” said Señora Dolores Cepeda, the proprietor of the Gemtone Lounge. “Captain Kirk must be on his way inbound!”
“He should be here within the hour,” I said, “but it's a beautiful day and I needed to unwind here for a little while.”
“Oh, I have just the thing for you, Admiral!”
The Cepedas had made it their business to offer some of the finest mocktails in the galaxy, and the tea-totaling wing of the admiralty and captaincy (and commodores who could hang out with both off duty) came in all the time to see what was available from the favorite places they had visited.
“It took a long time and steady work, but Admiral, we finally have been able to get the recipe for Mocktopus Prime!”
“Oh, wow, Señora Cepeda. You all have truly outdone yourselves. Muchas gracias!”
I'm not going to get into the details of Mocktopus Prime except to say that because it was non-alcoholic and a mocktail, no octopuses anywhere in the galaxy were harmed and lived to flavor many a drink – these particular species of octopuses supplied salt from their skin while enjoying the beverage along with the humanoid drinker, and afterwards were returned to their comfortable tank to continue to live a well-cared for existence.
So there I was on a fine sunny day in San Francisco's late summer, sitting outside by a gorgeous colored wall of the lounge, with my Mocktopus Prime mocktail, the octopus happily curling its tentacles out of the glass as it and I shared my drink, playing with the stirrer and making my life easy in terms of getting all the flavors of the herbs and spices mixed with its salts, when Mark my husband started sneaking up behind me. He moved in to sneak a kiss just as I picked up my drink again, and was in a passionate lip lock with the suckered tentacle of said octopus until –.
“Uh, Mark, I'm over here, actually.”
He opened his eyes, and in the next instant jumped five feet backwards and fell over into the bushes!
“Mark!” I cried and went to help him, but he was all right.
“What in the whole galaxy of horrors is that?” he said.
“Oh, the Cepedas finally got the recipe for the Mocktopus Prime mocktail.”
“That's what that is? I mean I've heard about it, but – that's it?”
“Yes, sir, that's it.”
“I should have known you would have found your way to the most outlandish thing to be drinking today imaginable!”
“Now you already know that a woman like me, un-husbanded, is likely to be getting into anything and everything – so it's good that you're home!”
“Gee whiz … I can't even imagine what would happen if I had been two days behind you! I can't believe I just kissed an octopus!”
“And, it seems like your new boo enjoyed it – she's turning all pink!”
“Now, don't you start, Vlarian!”
The octopus had turned pink because she was eating her favorite seaweed out of the bottom of the glass.
Señor Cepeda came walking up, on his way back from the store.
“Hey, hola, Capitàn y Almirante Kirk!” he cried happily, and came over and embraced us.
The conversation was going pleasantly, until –
“I see you have discovered our Mocktopus Prime! Let me get a straw for both of you!”
Mark turned pale, but wasn't fast enough to say no because Señora Cepeda had heard her husband and came bustling out.
“Already got it ready – wait until you taste that, Captain!”
And she handed him a straw and grinned, and husband and wife stood there and watched until Mark and I both were sipping along with our little octopus friend.
“Isn't that amazing? Muy delicioso, no?” Señora Cepeda said.
“I can't lie,” Mark said. “Getting slapped in the face by my drink has never tasted so good.”
The Cepedas laughed and laughed, and then got him a Mocktopus Prime of his own, free of charge.
“Feliz Aniversario! they cried. “Happy Anniversary to both of you!”
Ten minutes later, Mark and I returned our glasses and the full and happy little octopuses in them to the Gemstone Lounge with our thanks, and headed for home.
“Well, there's another experience I would never have had if I hadn't met you,” he said.
“And I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed it as much without you,” I said. “Since our lips have both touched octopus today –.”
He broke out laughing.
“Yes, because you know I would have said lips that have touched live octopus of any species from any planet will never touch mine until they have been showered and scrubbed, but, since we're both in the same boat, forget it!”
“Well, you kissed the thing first, Mark. I really should have been the one complaining, the way you were laying into that thing.”
“That wasn't meant for that thing! See here, V.T.!”
And he laid it on me, right there in the park.
“As usual, we had to go through a park, the odd couple way,” Mark said, “but, happy anniversary, Vlarian!”
And he plucked out from behind a bush what he had left there to surprise me – a massive bouquet of rare flowers for me to enjoy all the way home, for we took our time like the very first day in the park, four hours going, just wandering around and enjoying our day and reminiscing.
Our main residence at this point had been Ohio for years, but I still had my house in San Francisco and we stayed there whenever we were in town, and once again, I got kissed at the door like it was on the first evening of our love.
“You know,” I said, “that first night it was my duty to keep you outside, and now it is my duty to do what I wanted to do that first night: pull you in and not let you go until I get what I desperately need from you.”
“I wanted to take care of that the very first night, and, even knowing better, would not have been able to resist – I was too far gone,” he said. “But you see I did what I had to do to make sure this day could come.”
“And I've loved you for it, ever since,” I said, and wrapped myself around him with my full quarter-Vulcan woman strength for a second kiss, and a third, and a fourth, until I lost count in the intense celebration our bodies were insisting on having for the occasion.
Later that evening, Mark took me to dinner, and I wore the big wrap I had worn the day we met at the party … more walking in the park and playing in and out of the fog coming in on the way home.
“I'm just glad that in year 19,” he said, “my business affords me enough income so that I can take you to the kind of places that you deserve to be taken to, and that I'm old enough now to look like I belong there with you, Admiral!”
“Milestones!” I said. “Meanwhile, I've always felt that I belonged anywhere that I could be with you, so, I just keep getting to be happier and happier, everywhere.”
He kissed my cheek gently.
“I still wake up sometimes like I'm 24 and in the memory of trying to figure out how in the world I was going to make this all work,” he said, “but you've never made it hard for me, and never let me have to figure it all out myself. I never imagined that someone would want life with me as much as I wanted it with her, and although we've had our ups and downs, I've never had to doubt that, Vlarian, and I thank you for that. I don't think I could have become the businessman I have if I ever had to worry – I fussed a lot about the jet-setting men always around you, but that never was serious because I knew you were loyal and that I just had to get past being insecure.”
“And you did, Mark,” I said. “You worked on getting past that, and took that away from being a killer of our love and marriage, and here we are past it.”
“On to year 20!” he cried. “Of course, next year I will look over what you are holding before trying to sneak a kiss!”
“Please,” I said. “Imagine if it had been rosebushes or blackberries you had fallen into!”
“Let's not imagine that!” he said, and we laughed all the way home.